BEWARE THE CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN PIRATES!

"AAARRRGGGHHH! I'M A
CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN,
AND I HATE ALL DEMOCRATS, PROGRESSIVES, LIBERALS,
AND ESPECIALLY OBAMA!"

------------------


Ahoy, mateys! If you thought the only pirates left in the world today were those harassing ships off the coast of Somalia, you're dead wrong. There are a whole boatload of them operating alongside and within today's pathetic, far-right, conservative Republican Party.

You know the type. They noisily force their way on board the ships of progressive legislation and good governance, and then they hijack the truth, carving it up and turning it into distorted lies to suit their own purpose. You've seen them in action numerous times: Pirate Queen Sarah Palin spitting out lies about how President Obama's national health care reform agenda would create "death panels"; Cap'n Rush Limbaugh and his bumbling parrot, First Mate Glenn Beck, spewing venomous lies about President Obama being a fascist racist and his health care plan being "socialized medicine"; and other ships' mates like Senator Charles Grassley and health insurance lobbyists making irresponsibly false, rabblerousing statements about how a public option for health care would "pull the plug on grandma." Yet other reckless sword swingers like Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor, Jon Kyl, and John Boehner have put their "NO!" Oars into the water in an effort to stall the vessels of progressive legislation and good governance altogether, so as to drive them into a Sargasso Sea of big money dominance, where allied corporate, special interest pirates can sink the vessels completely. Yeah, these conservative Republican pirates are all baddies, but they're not the worst of the lot. The worst pirates are those shadowy, far-right front groups which are set up and funded by secretive ultra-conservative multimillionaires and who create misleading ad campaigns to confuse and scare the public into rejecting the progressive agenda completely.

I saw a print media ad a couple of days ago from one of these sinister pirate groups called "U.S. Citizens Association." This is another in a long list of far-right front organizations set up by lobbyists, corporations, and wealthy ultra-conservatives to look as though it is composed of average, everyday Americans who oppose progressive legislation, and somehow sprung up out of nowhere to voice their concerns. Nothing could be further from the truth. The persons behind this group are deceitful liars. It turns out that their predecessor organization was called "Better Government Association." This was a direct name rip-off of the Chicago-based Better Government Association, Inc., a reputable nonpartisan watchdog group which has been targeting government corruption since 1923. This REAL Better Government Association filed suit in Federal Court against these rip-offs and the Courts sided with the authentic, original group, forcing these new conservative phonies to adopt their name change. The new "U.S. Citizens Association" which resulted is now actively engaged in fundraising, as was evidenced in the ad I saw. It purports to be a nonpartisan group of regular citizens, but a visit to its website reveals no information about its financial backers, officers, or founders, and it obviously has enough money to publish ads in suburban newspapers all over the country and defend itself in court. No loose-knit group of average citizens could possibly be THAT well funded---smells VERY fishy to me!

The ad in question is titled "Barack Obama and the Democrats did not inherit the bad economy; they caused it and made it worse." (Of course, only uniformed idiots would buy this junk. After all, the economy tanked in December, 2007, 13 months BEFORE Obama took office, and, as a result of his stimulus effort begun this spring, unemployment is now starting to ease its rate of climb, housing starts and home sales are up, and the stock market is rising). The subheading goes on to say "They now want to bankrupt the nation with socialized medicine and socialized energy taxes." As if that weren't enough, these charlatans then have another subheading stating, "This will greatly increase your income taxes, property taxes, utility bills and you will be denied health care." (Obvious bull, because the President has constantly pledged to NOT raise taxes on those earning less than $250,000 per year, and the aim of his health care plan is to ensure that EVERYONE has access to affordable, quality health care. The only ones denying anyone health care are these conservative Republican pirates and their bankrollers, the health insurance industry)! Then, as if in a wanted poster, they picture Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Janet Reno, Franklin Raines, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, and Barack Obama under a headline reading "These are the leading culprits who actually caused the subprime mortgage collapse which then caused the worldwide deep recession." The ad, which is formatted to look like a legitimate news article, is a twisted lie from start to finish.

No mention at all is made of the huge role played over the past 11 years by former Texas Senator Phil Gramm and other congressional ReRepublicans to greatly reduce regulations on banks and energy speculators, and how this set the stage for years of sloppy lending practices and $4 per gallon gasoline. (Conservative Republicans were in total control of Congress and the White House for the overwhelming majority of that time. If they were such great gatekeepers of the economy, how then did this irresponsible economic tampering come about, and how, then, are Democrats responsible)? No mention at all is made of Republican-instigated efforts to enact unrestricted free trade deals that have caused millions of jobs to go overseas, depressing wage scales and job levels here at home. (They reveled in the booty they got for keeping the minimum wage frozen for ten full years, too)! Not a word is uttered, either, about how Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush all but destroyed labor unions in this country, and how that has further depressed wages here and lowered our standard of living. And no mention is made at all about how gigantic tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, initiated and passed by conservative Republicans, has all but bankrupted our government. Nor is mention made that it was the Bush, and not the Obama White House, which overspent wildly in Iraq on a war that did not need to be fought, or that it was Bush, and not Obama, who instigated the first gigantic corporate bailouts. Instead, all these dishonest pirates do is blame Democrats and "liberal socialists." Their selective and jaded memory is disgusting.

The body of their ad contains one crazy far-right allegation after another: that Obama and the Democrats are on the verge of changing the U.S. from a capitalist country to a socialist one "more like Cuba and North Korea"; "during the past 8 years, the Democratic party political action group ACORN pressured banks to give mortgages to people who could not afford them"; under a public option health care plan "senior citizens especially will be denied healthcare, including those on Medicare"; "the United Kingdom and Canada, both of which have socialized medicine, are overwhelmed with cases of people dying waiting for treatment"; "the Obamas throw lavish parties on a regular basis at the White House for their socialist friends", "in capitalist countries only 10% of the people temporarily live in poverty. In socialist countries, 99% of the people live in poverty permanently."

None of these allegations are footnoted or referenced with verifiable fact, and ALL of them are patently absurd.

I don't see Obama shutting down newspapers and TV networks or setting up camps for political prisoners, or redistributing land and putting everyone in the country on a government payroll like what has occurred in Cuba or North Korea, do you? Of course not. ACORN, a group devoted to registering poor and minority citizens to vote, has no influence whatsoever over banks and is NOT an organ of the Democratic Party; senior citizens will NOT lose medical coverage under a public option; Canadians, Britons, Danes, Swedes, Dutchmen, the French, Australians, and New Zealanders are NOT dropping dead on the streets of their cities due to delayed medical care under their "socialized medicine" systems; the Obamas' parties are no more lavish than were the Bushes' (either of them), the Clintons', the Reagans', the Fords', the Johnsons', or any other of their predecessurs' parties; the U.S. Census official poverty rate was 12.5% in 2007 and rose to 12.7% in 2008, so that esposes another of this ad's blatant lies. And many of those people in that unfortunate category are NOT there "temporarily" but permanently. And I'd love the U.S. Citizens Association to tell the citizens of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, or France that 99% of them live in poverty. The USCA would be laughed at hysterically and met with deserved catcalls, for none of those countries has income extremes or abject poverty levels anywhere remotely approaching ours, and the USCA would certainly consider them to be socialist economies. The U.S. Citizens Association, like nearly all of its far-right counterparts, is simply long on allegation, innuendo, and hyperbole, but fatally short on fact. They are full of excrement.


You won't ever see the full truth presented in any of these far-right, conservative Republican pirate ads. These thieves repeatedly steal from all of us, blatantly siphoning money from the poor and middle class, and then funneling it up to the very wealthy in a sordid form of reverse income redistribution. They scream "class warfare" when the government lowers taxes on the middle class and poor but raises them even slightly on the piggish ultra-rich. Then they lie about, and blame somebody else, for the vast income shift from bottom to top that has occurred in this country for the past 30 years. Liars like this U.S. Citizens Association ought to be made to walk the plank at knifepoint for the myths they've perpetrated and the people they've scared and brainwashed. So be sure to warn all your friends and fellow seafarers to watch out for this filthy little deceitful bunch of scalawags. Meanwhile, I again call out to everybody everywhere from my perch in this crow's nest...

BEWARE THE CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN PIRATES!

BENEFICIARIES OF PRIVATE HEALTH CARE (Part II)

"TAX THE VERY WEALTHY TO MAKE EVERYONE HEALTHY!"
- VIGILANTE, SOZADEE, CA -






TOP, L TO R: Allen Wise; Ronald A. Williams
BOTTOM: Karen Ignagni; Michael McCalister


This is my second consecutive inlstallment on the true beneficiaries of private health care. They are the persons shown here, NOT YOU. If you're insured, they benefit with immense salaries YOU pay for through your premiums. They are the ones who directly or indirectly cause you to pay ever-higher premiums, deductibles, and co-pays. They are the ones who directly or indirectly have your coverage stop if it gets too expensive for their liking. They are the ones who directly or indirectly decide how long your hospital stay will be, and whether or not you will get the type of treatment, or the dosage of medication your doctor prescribes for you. They. too, are the ones who are attempting to prevent the passage of a universal or public option health care reform bill in Congress. If you're NOT insured, remember that they are the ones who have, directly or indirectly, excluded you or have made premiums so ungodly high you can no longer afford their "coverage". THEY ARE ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE. These are the Chief Executive Officers of some of America's largest health insurance companies. Three are an unholy trinity of profiteers who view their first priority as maximizing and increasing already gigantically huge profits for their companies, and their second priority as providing necessary health care for you. An additional CEO here is an aider, abettor, and parasite of these companies: she is the CEO of a very powerful Washington, D.C. firm raking in the cash lobbying for the big insurance companies against health care reform, especially against a public option. I will introduce this batch of profiteers to you now, and, as I did in part I of this installment, will provide details on their own exorbitant personal incomes, which you, the insured, are paying for. I hope you will remember these people next time you make an insurance premium payment, see a doctor, or go to the hospital. THEY ARE YOUR ENEMIES!


KAREN IGNAGNI
CEO, America's Health Insurance Plans (a lobbying firm).
Annual salary: figures unavailable for current salary or profits, but her 2005 salary was $ 1,236,422 according to CNNMoney, of February 15, 2006. You can bet your grundies that her salary has risen tremendously as the demand for her "services" has exponentially increased with the advent of Obama's push for health care reform, and she is one of the key health care lobbyists!
She opposes a windfall profits tax on health care insurers (naturally)!
------------
Some of her revealing quotes:
"It [an across the board cut in health care spending] doesn't have to happen right away, but having a commission, having a mechanism would give every stockholder group an incentive to create more productivity, to reduce unit costs and to create more efficiency."
(AHHH - SO STOCKHOLDERS AND CORPORATIONS ARE THE MAIN CONCERN HERE? WHAT ABOUT THE MILLIONS OF UNINSURED AND UNDERINSURED? AREN'T THEY IMPORTANT TOO? WHERE IS THEIR INSURANCE COVERAGE UNDER THIS DELAY YOU ARE RECOMMENDING, KAREN? SOUNDS LIKE THE OLD BUSHONOMICS ARGUMENT OF "LEAVE THE MARKET ALONE AND IT WILL POLICE AND FIX ITSELF." WE ALL KNOW WHAT A CROCK OF BULL THAT WAS)!
"It is hard to envision any kind of publicly sponsored option...that wouldn't rely on administered pricing...we are kidding ourselves if we think underpaying providers means cost-containment."
(WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR PRECIOUS HEALTH INSURANCE HOSTS ARE DOING RIGHT NOW WHEN THEY DICTATE TO DOCTORS AND HOSPITALS WHAT THEY WILL PAY, KAREN)?
"It would be irresponsible to [have the insurance industry cut premiums by a set amount] unless we knew that cost would be cut by [that same] amount because premiums are driven by cost."
(PARROTING THE OLD INSURANCE COMPANY INFERENCE THAT DOCTORS AND NURSES ARE THE REASON FOR HIGH MEDICAL COSTS, EH, KAREN? WHAT ABOUT THE EXCESSIVE SALARIES OF INSURANCE COMPANY BOARDS, OR OF PARASITIC BLOODSUCKERS LIKE YOU LOBBYISTS, KAREN? ALL OF YOU MAKE MORE MONEY THAN MOST DOCTORS)!

ALLEN WISE
CEO, Coventry from 1996-2004, and again since January, 2009
2004 salary: $ 13,052,799
2004-2006 sales of stock: $ 73,695,702
2004-2006 stock options exercised: $ 14,402,564
Value of Hilton Head, SC home: $ 3,275,500

RONALD A. WILLIAMS
CEO, AETNA
2007-2008 salary totals: $ 47,300,112
Value of unexercised stock options: $ 194,496,797
In the top 10 of Forbes' $ 100,000,000 Club

MICHAEL McCALISTER
CEO, Humana
2004-2008 salary totals: $ 150,982,708
2006 stock options exercised: $ 22,294,710
Unexercised stock options: $ 60,865,194
Value of Park City, UT home: $ 6,978,380


It isn't just due to lobbyists that health care reform is having such a tough time getting through Congress. Oh no. William H.T. Bush, George W. Bush's uncle, and Susan Bayh, wife of blue dog Indiana Democratic Senator Evan Bayh, BOTH sit on the Board of WellPoint (whose profits last year totaled $ 2,491,000,000 - that's $ 2.491 BILLION - last year)!


There you have it, folks. THESE are the primary beneficiaries of our unjust and profit-driven private health "care" system, NOT YOU. There is no excuse for the excesses it contains, or for the fact that it now excludes 1 out of every 6.5 of us. It is rife with exploitation. The next time you encounter someone shouting out against a not-for-profit public option for health care in this country, or who wants to disrupt a Democratic Town Hall discussion on health care, direct them to this blog and this post and my previous one. Ask them, "is your health care better, or cheaper, or covers more for the same money than it did 5 or 10 years ago?" Ask them,"do you like paying multimillion dollar board member salaries every year so their salaries and profits can shoot through the roof while your own premiums, deductibles, and co-payments rise and your own wages stay the same or go down?" THEN have them tell me, as Republican Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona has said, that "health insurance doesn't need any more regulation" and that we do not need any health care reform.

This current corrupt system we have MUST be drastically changed! It is a profit maintenance system, not a health care system! Flood your elected representatives with letters, phone calls, and emails, and let them know you want this unjust and exclusionary practice of excessively profiteering off of people's illnesses to STOP! Do it NOW! Do it TMORROW! Do it NEXT WEEK! And DON'T GIVE UP THE FIGHT!

SUBVERSIVE SABOTAGE!

"Tax the very wealthy to make everyone healthy."
- Vigilante, Sozadee, CA -





The men shown here are all enemies of the people. They are but a tiny handful of conservative Republicans who are attempting to stall and defeat legislation designed to aid everyday working people, the middle class, and the poor. Like desperate soldiers in battlefield retreat, they are attempting to destroy all that may aid the President in their path. Their aim is to delay passage of any bill not beneficial to corporate America, or any bill desired by a progressive President or Congress. As such, they are not acting as spokespersons for or representatives of the majority of their countrymen. They are, instead, acting as spokespersons for and representatives of special interests, i.e. corporate America (namely, the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries) in the current heated debate over health care reform.

Soundly defeated in last November's elections, the now extremely conservative Republican Party's far right agenda of cutting taxes for the wealthy and big business (trickle-down economics) has been thoroughly rejected by the majority of voters. So has their modern tenet of using preemptive military action against foreign countries. So has their penchant for deregulation. And so has their preference for preservation of the status quo, particularly as regards job losses and wage stagnation for workers, and, especially, the unfairness and rising costs found in our badly-flawed health care system. But the conservative Republicans are not making any attempt to change their approach to more readily conform to the mood of today's public. Egged on by extremist media figures like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and the rest of the Fox "News" network, they have instead allowed themselves to become lulled into a strange complacency. In spite of all logic to the contrary, and with their national numbers shrinking and becoming more regional than national, these fools actually believe they will once again gain control of Congress and the White House by staying exactly as they are today. Their tactic? A deliberately ongoing, insidious attack on President Obama and his agenda. Their arsenal of weapons includes outright lies, utter non-cooperation, disinformation, manufactured rallies, and constant questioning and verbal attack. They are attempting to slam to an absolute halt the progressive elements of Obama's agenda, hoping that discrediting him or making him become ineffectual will guarantee their future electoral success. This is not a patriotic approach to solving the grave problems facing our nation today. Governance by constant inaction and total opposition accomplishes nothing. More than at any other time in their history, insanity reigns supreme in today's far-right, far-from-mainstream Republican Party.

Recent polls have shown overwhelming support (72%) for the adoption of a public option, universal health care plan administered by the government. 57% have even expressed willingness to pay higher taxes to support such a system. Yet conservatives and Republicans nationwide are fighting this idea tooth and nail, in a most determined scorched-earth manner. Just as they did on the President's Economic Stimulus Plan, (which is now showing signs of actually working, something they claimed would never happen),Republicans are loudly voicing opposition and are using a variety of weapons to kill the public option altogether. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has expressed nothing but contempt for everything the President has proposed since day one, and you can see it in the snide expression on his face and hear it in his constant negative comments. Weeks ago, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell boldly and prematurely claimed the public option to be dead. Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) even made the outlandish statement this past week that health insurerance industry does not need any more regulation, even as they are raising prices at will and are paying exorbitant executive salaries while excluding millions of people from coverage! This unified Republican attack has not been limited to domestic issues, either. Just this week, Liz Cheney came out with the wholly nonproductive and inflammatory comment that our country needs "a commander in chief, not a global community organizer." The GOP have become so extreme in their approach that theirs can no longer be dismissed merely as strong opposition. Their modus operandi for such opposition has taken a far darker and more sinister approach which is now akin to outright subversion and sabotage.

The website Think Progress.org recently obtained a 3 page memo from a far-right group called Right Principles encouraging outside conservatives to flood Democratic congresspersons' Town Hall meetings this month and shout down any discussion of health care reform. It gave specifics on how to disrupt these meetings. Other shadowy groups have been actively busing in conservatives from all over the country to attend and disrupt Town Halls. This, of course, is preventing an honest discussion on a major relevant national issue, and, as such, could be considered a subversive action of deliberate sabotage. It is attempting to create for TV cameras, newspapers, and Congresspersons to see and note the illusion of a non-existant huge majority of voters opposed to health care reform. Like the phony Teabagger taxpayer protest non-event of a few months back, this, too, is a manufactured series of actions designed to distort public opinion and influence government policy. This Right Principles health care memo was authored by one Bob McGuffie, a member of the Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm called Freedom Works, which is run by the very conservative former Republican Congressman Dick Armey. Now, encouraging outside agitators to crash political discussions between Congresspersons and their constituents is not my idea of acting responsibly in a republic like ours. It is instead a seamy act of subversion.

Conservative media figures like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, to name but two, are acting as a sort of fifth column disinformation ring when they lie and distort information on public policy initiatives as they do nearly every day. Their aim is to sew distrust and skepticism of the President among viewers, not to truthfully inform or stimulate intelligent discussion. They are therefore also guilty of subversive actions, and their activity greatly undermines the functioning of our democratic system. Their irresponsibility leads only to polarization, not unity, and it serves only their interests, not the nation's needs.

But conservative Republican Congresspersons and Senators and corporate America take the cake when it comes to sabotaging legislation through distortion, delay, and hair-splitting. Their aim is to stall health care debate long enough to enable special interest groups like health insurance and pharmaceutical corporations plenty of time to launch a massive campaign of fear and misinformation to completely defeat health care reform. PBS has reported that the industry is spending a whopping $1.4 million PER DAY on lobbyists and ads designed to kill the public option. The lie about how the public option plan will force seniors to undergo euthanasia was hatched by a board member of Cantel Medical Corporation, a medical device manufacturer. But the industry isn't spending millions only on lobbyists and advertising. Mitch McConnell has received $3.1 million in campaign contributions from the medical/industrial complex over the years, according to the Center for Responsible Politics. No wonder he has come out so strongly in opposition to a public option! Even moderate "Blue Dog" Democratic Congresspersons have received generous contributions from the medical/industrial complex which is apparently heavily influencing their stances. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), for example, has received $414,000 from hospitals, $667,000 from insurance companies, and nearly $1 million from pharmaceutical companies. The Republican Party itself, always an ally to big business, has even committed to spending $1 million this month on anti-public option ads. Now THAT'S not a party truly dedicated to the overall public good!

It is clear to see that influence-peddling by lobbyists for the benefit of the medical/industrial complex has been paying big dividends for that complex. Their willingness to spend $1.4 million per day to defeat the public option is highly indicative of the massive profits they make with the system just as it is. It is easy to understand why they wish to preserve such a system, which allows them to exclude millions of people, end medical coverage for others at will, and constantly raise prices when they wish. But that is also indicative of tremendous injustice and proof of why such a system must not be allowed to stand any longer.

The attempts by corporate America, their lobbyists, their bought-out Congresspersons, as well as fearful and ignorant conservatives who aid and abet all of those fools in subverting and sabotaging our system of government borders on treason. These people have the right to express their opinion, to be sure, but not to interfere with OUR rights to hear and speak as well, nor to undermine our democratic process. It may seem as though they have the upper hand at the moment. Yet there are counter-measures we progressives can take to nullify and even overturn these conservative actions. First, tell everyone you know about the misinformation and subversive strategy they are employing. Let's make these corrupt, corporatist conservatives the focus here rather than the lies they are spreading. Second, let's give obstructionists like Boehner, McConnell, and Kyl a little lesson in democracy and throw those bastards out of office next time they are up for re-election. They have been ignoring we taxpayers in favor of corporate America long enough. Third, let's all attend our Congresspersons' Town Halls this month and shout down the phony, bused-in protestors who don't belong there in the first place. Let's continue barraging them with letters and phone calls in support of a public option. Above all, let's keep pushing for real health care reform with universal coverage and a public option---MEDICARE FOR ALL!