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On Senator Grassley's 'Moderation'
It has been widely reported that the Obama administration has delegated the job of healthcare reform to the top three Democrats and Republicans in the Senate Finance Committee. Not to Senator Ted Kennedy's Health, Education, and Labor Committee. Not to the committees of Charles Rangel, George Miller, or Henry Waxman in the House of Representatives. And certainly not to the nation's leading advocates of a single-payer healthcare system, as Ralph Nader recently wrote: "The White House door is [thus] closed to the likes of Dr. Quentin Young—a founder of the Physicians for a National Health Program and an old Chicago friend of Obama's; Dr. Sidney Wolfe, who heads Public Citizen's Health Research Group, Drs. Marcia Angell, Stephanie Woolhandler, and David Himmelstein, who are nationally known and accomplished single payer advocates or Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the fast-growing California Nurses Association."[1]
Instead, for some reason, the major players on healthcare reform are six members of the Finance Committee: Max Baucus (D-Montana), the committee's chair; Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), its ranking minority member; and Kent Conrad (D-North Dakota); Jeff Bingaman (D-New Mexico); Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), and Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming). The problem is there is little suggestion of reform in the legislative records on a range of issues of five of the gang's six members that might portend any progressive (or even moderate) improvement in our healthcare system.
On July 22, the five—Baucus, Grassley, Conrad, Snowe, and Enzi—voted to allow citizens who have concealed-firearm permits from the state in which they reside to carry concealed firearms in another state that grants concealed carry permits. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which characterized the legislation as "outrageous," reported that it "would have forced states to allow dangerous individuals to carry loaded guns in public."[2] Although 58 senators voted for the legislation (including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid), it required 60 votes to pass.[3]
Less than a month later, beginning on August 11, armed right-wing protestors began showing up with openly carried firearms at Democratic town meetings on healthcare, underscoring the "outrageous" absence of gun sanity in the United States. That five of six members of the "Gang of Six" would support an expansion of concealed-gun laws due to NRA lobbying-arguably even worse than open-carry laws-suggests the extent to which these legislators would be susceptible to lobbying by health insurance companies and related healthcare industries.
Take Max Baucus. In October 2008, the National Rifle Association endorsed Baucus' reelection to the senate in November 2008.[4] The endorsement was presumably based in part on Baucus' votes in 1998 against requiring gun dealers to sell guns with trigger locks, in 1999 against requiring background checks on firearm sales at gun shows, in 2004 against criminal background checks at gun shows where at least 75 guns are sold, and in 2005 against making gun manufacturers and dealers civilly liable for damages due to the misuse of their products.[5] Baucus' vote in July 2009 for a federal law that would relax concealed-gun laws in several states continued his pattern of supporting reckless gun legislation.
Take also Senator Charles Grassley. In addition to voting to loosen gun-concealment laws last July, Grassley (like Baucus) also voted against background checks at gun shows. Grassley, the "moderate" Republican who is being heavily courted by President Obama on healthcare issues, has a rating of 0 (zero) from the American Public Health Association, "indicating an anti-public health voting record." Grassley is also rated 0 by the League of Conservation Voters, "indicating anti-environment votes."[6]
Snowe and Enzi also voted in 1999 against background checks at gun shows. Like Grassley, Enzi is rated 0 by both the American Public Health Association and the League of Conservation Voters.[7]
In October 2002, Baucus, Grassley, Snowe, and Enzi—four of six members of the Gang of Six—voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq. In November 2005, Grassley, Snowe, and Enzi also voted against investigating military contract awards in Iraq and Afghanistan. In June 2006, the same three senators voted against redeploying U.S. troops out of Iraq by July 2007. And in March 2007, they voted against redeploying U.S. troops out of Iraq by March 2008.[8]
In May 2007, Baucus, Grassley, Conrad, and Enzi voted against factoring global warming into federal project planning.
In December 2005, Grassley, Snowe, and Enzi voted to extend the Patriot Act's wiretap provisions. In August 2007, Grassley, Snowe, Enzi, and Conrad voted to remove the need for FISA warrants for wiretapping abroad. In February 2008, Grassley, Snowe, and Enzi voted against requiring FISA court warrants to monitor U.S.-to-foreign calls.
In September 2006, Grassley and Enzi voted against preserving habeas corpus for Guantanamo detainees. That same month, Grassley and Enzi voted against requiring the CIA to submit reports to Congress on the CIA's detainees and interrogation methods.
Even while excluding discussion of the influence of the substantial campaign contributions from insurance and healthcare-related industries to the two leaders of the Gang of Six—$1.5 million to Baucus (2005-2010) and $690,000 to Grassley (2005-2010)[9]—there is little historical evidence, especially with respect to Grassley, of an inclination toward progressive or moderate reform on contentious but important issues.
It seems that Obama identified the "moderates" at the Senate Finance Committee as his preferred congressional venue for healthcare reform, not to facilitate any actual reform, but to position the looming insurance and drug industries windfall as moderate reform.[10] This is consistent with Obama's insistence on consulting with Grassley on healthcare reform, and depicting him wrongly as a moderate senator.
[1] Ralph Nader, "Now Make Me Do It," Common Dreams, August 15, 2009.
[2] Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, at http://www.bradycampaign.org/.
[3] Ibid. (See "Click Here for U.S. Senate Roll Call Vote on 1618")
[4] "NRA Endorses Max Baucus," October 24, 2008, at http://www.maxbaucus2008.com/
[5] Max Baucus page at OnTheIssues at http://www.ontheissues.org/ [6] Charles Grassley page at OnTheIssues at http://www.ontheissues.org/ [7] Olympia Snowe page at OnTheIssues at http://www.ontheissues.org/ [8] See the Baucus, Grassley, Snowe, and Enzi pages, cited above, at OnTheIssues. Subsequent references to the voting records of these senators is to their pages at OnTheIssues. [9] See "Max Baucus" at Center for Responsive Politics at http://www.opensecrets.org/ and "Chuck Grassley" at Center for Responsive Politics at http://www.opensecrets.org/ [10] Chad Terhune and Keith Epstein, "The Health Insurers Have Already Won," Business Week, August 5, 2009; Chris Hedges, "This Isn't Reform, It's Robbery," TruthDig.com, August 24, 2009.
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Show AllWhile Obama has excluded from "the table" those advocates of genuine health care reform cited by Nader, he has welcomed to the golf course one of the most notorious of opponents of medical care addressed to the needy part of the population. Joining Obama and Robert Wolf, CEO of UBS, the off-shore banking criminal, at a Martha's Vineyard golf course is Dr. Eric Whitaker of the University of Chicago Medical Center, a personal friend from a hospital that furnished lucrative employment for his wife and a close personal advisor in the person of Valerie Jarrett. Whitaker became "notorious" when he defended UCMC's policy of removing emergency health care services for residents of ghetto areas, on the rationale that the bottom lines of these hospitals depended on their focus on medical care for those able to pay more money for their medical services. See:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/14/dr-eric-whitaker-obama-fr_n_186699.html
Great company, indeed, in which our President can "relax" away from the pressures of a "tough" campaign in Congress for a "reform" bill that would likely promote the Whitaker agenda of redistributing medical benefits away from the most needy; a nice complement to Obama's other sports buddy, Arne Duncan, with whom he can shoot a few hoops and discuss the same re-distributive agenda of a "race to the top" in education that "leaves behind" the children of people in dire economic circumstances. How's that for "moderation," Senator Grassley?
Obama is carrying on the Chicago tradition of staying close to the organized criminals that own him.
Laugh out loud, Obama is apparently a gangsta in a suit.
Judging from the movies, in the old days, most of the top gangstas wore suits. That's understandable because for one thing, back then, neither hip hop music nor hip hop clothing was yet thought of.
Maybe we need progressive gangstas to capture hearts and minds in the US culture?
For example, we need progressive doctors to set aside 10-20% of their time for providing care for the struggling masses on a sliding scale based on income, down to $10 per hour for the poorest. A doctor would be a bona fide progressive gangsta if he did that, laugh out loud.
tremaine: Well, we do have some medical progressive gangstas of a sort like the Remote Areas Medical group, founded to give free medical care in "remote areas" of the Third World but who set up shop in Inglewood CA in August and were inundated with people from America's own third world of south Los Angeles. This and other spectacular "free clinics" have done yoeman work, in my opinion. While their efforts are of the "drop in the bucket" variety in relation to the overall medical needs of the country, they do dramatize for Americans just how desperate are people for medical care. And they do get publicity: I saw a feature story on the Inglewood clinic two or three times on ABC News. And you are right to suggest that the same could be done on a smaller scale by any medical practitioners in any community who wanted to brave the condemnation of their professional peers and open up free clinics "right here in River City." (And there are still a few local TV stations and newspapers that would report them.)
And again I ask, why 3 and 3? It's 13-10 on the committee.
The Republicans would never have given up a majority.
Both parties intentionally erected barriers to reform.
Until we remove private money from the electoral process, we will NEVER get anyone but those scum like Baucus and Grassley. A worthy pair for a wood chipper if there ever was one.
This is why I am not a democrat, and why I would NEVER be a republican. It's way too easy for democrats to really BE republicans and for republicans to be completely insane. NEITHER has anything to do with representing ME.
I do NOT live for the furtherance of corporate profits. In fact, I consider corporate profits to be the LAST thing I give much of a damn about. And anyone who kisses corporate ass like congress in BOTH parties does is NOT anyone who would represent me. I consider human life to be FAR more important than corporate profits or even corporate survival. If we could take care of human needs without corporations at all I would be all for it.
Those who sell out their countrymen for money deserve as violent a response as we can come up with. They certainly don't need to be rewarded for their treason with cushy jobs, bonuses, pensions and lifetime health care for free.
Time to remove private money from the political process ENTIRELY. Without removing the bribery, nothing will ever be allowed to change, and you will never get a real candidate who gives a damn about YOU and your life to vote for. All we will ever get is more Baucuses and Grassleys. Just what we need, more bought and paid for "representatives" and senators.
Grassley is a member of "The Family"... The fascist Prayer Breakfast group that was recently busted for running prostitution in the C street house where Hillsry Clinton and many others go to "Pray"...
Don't expect this "John" to exhibit any decency as he is a whore to the Insurance "industry"...
The word 'TREASON' comes to mind, against the citizens of this country.
Okay, here's the plan:
Gutsy libs and progs - glue on a beard, don a turban and Dishdasha, sling an Armalite A-10 across your back, and head on over to any political event, rally, whatever where there's an 'open-carry' law.
Let's test the gun-nuts commitment to their interpretation of the 2nd A.
Note to gutsy libs and progs: prepared to be gunned down within minutes of arriving at the event...
You know, it's, er, funny - in Maryland, (and most other states with 'open carry' laws,) it's legal to openly carry loaded firearms in public, but if you're caught with a bottle of beer in public God forbid, you're going to the pokie...
How do you spell America upside-down?
I don't know, but you can spell CRIME between the two A's...
The USA's national motto, now "New and Improved and Up To The Minute":
"E Pluribus Unum" was eventually replaced by "Fuck You". And now that is replaced by "America - A Fistful of Dollars". Barack Obama, The Man With No Name, No Ideas, No Conscience, No Courage, No Nothing.
Friel sez: "Take Max Baucus."
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Please.
Chuck Grassley isn't a moderate. He extreme, extremely phony. He jumps up and down screaming against the very "socialized medicine' for his constituents that he gets all the time as a congress member. He ought to take his thirty pieces of silver and go straight to hell!
AD
Chuck Grassley isn't a moderate. He extreme, extremely phony. He jumps up and down screaming against the very "socialized medicine' for his constituents that he gets all the time as a congress member. He ought to take his thirty pieces of silver and go straight to hell!
AD
For me, this is a very important article that condenses a whole bunch of information on very important issues and, unlike most CD articles, it is annotated, which satisfies my academic bent to a great extent.
I had been led to believe until the past couple of weeks that Grassley was a "moderate" Republican, but then this past weekend I heard his rant on "death panels" and realized how CRASS this aging Big Ag, Big Pharma sleazeball really is.
Now I read much of his record in the Howard Friel article above, together with others in the so-called Gang of Six running the Senate Finance Committee, and realize that I have been thoroughly misled by the MSM and that THE INMATES ARE IN CHARGE OF THE ASYLUM, but this isn't "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." They aren't anybody's Merry Pranksters.
These people are enemies of civilization.
As for where I share the views of the Second Amenders and their fears about Big Guvment takin over their lives, I feel their pain and their sense of helplessness. Never before in my life have I become so increasingly angry over so long a time over any other issue than this "health reform" sell-out. A false-flag war against The Other (Afghanistan and Iraq) is one thing. A BETRAYAL of the Common Weal is quite another. This is the Death of the Social Contract.
May Sen. Grassley and Sen. Baucus suddenly become so senile that the smell of their shitting their own pants and pissing on their own hands as they try a taxpayer-financed Viagra masturbation emanate throughout the Halls of Congress and seep into their respective states. They are beyond Epiphany. Like the late Sen. McCarthy of Wisconsin, they have no shame. We are ruled by sociopaths and this MUST STOP.
We need a March on Washington of the medically MAIMED, willing to call it a day, self-immolate in the Public Square, and start a New American Revolution. More protein is to be had by eating a Senator than by consuming a Big Mac. In fact, they are so well preserved that no refrigeration is necessary: just hang 'em out to dry... They have been cannabalizing this country for decades. (Not mentioned in the article is the relation between Grassley and Baucus and Monsanto, but I'd bet my life that they are all eating our seed corn...) It is time to turn the tables. As the Dixie Chicks said, Earl had to die...
Meanwhile, what about the status of the other 17 on the Senate Finance Committee? Why no reports on where they stand? Is Ted Kennedy's debilitation from brain cancer their political salvation? Are they locked behind the fences of the so-called Free Speech Zones? Or is this Gang of Six merely a journalistic convenience of oversimplification? Or is this something else?
Revolt! Fight, fight against the dying of the Light.
Love your anger here. Make it an obsession. Stroke it like you would were you Andy in Andy & the Lion after you have pulled out the pain.
We face not merely an old idea of fascism but a new form of evil, never before known to humanity. They own the latest technology and they use it against everyone else, includng you. They control the money supply and impoverish you. Obama has just renominated Bernanke as Federal Reserve chief, saying he has saved us from economic disaster when he has put us all in some $13 TRILLION in debt, unpayable, insurmountable, unimaginable. Slavery.
I consider myself a well-read leftist radical while I share the fears of the right-wing militias; what we call our government cares not a rat's ass for our well-being and it is that simple. Eat the State. Work locally to support a quiet revolt against this New Fascism. The Massachusetts Mitt Romney model of "health care reform" that is coming out of the Congress would force nearly everyone to pay for private health INSURANCE (Exceptions, SO FAR, being those on Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, and VA, all semi-viable "socialism"...). This is a racket. It should be hard to get sick.
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I have just heard that Ted Kennedy has died, so now we will be diverted once again from the central issues. He would not have wanted this. He inherited tragedy as few others have. We do not need more assassinations in this country. Enough.
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