Politics Blog

Category: The Palin Chronicles

Debt Drives The Day?

A quick follow-up on the resignation, only days after a SarahPAC deadline to raise funds for her massive legal bills. Apparently, it cost $500,000 or more for legal bills for Troopergate, and cost $300,000 for the state. According to the ADN, only $100k was currently raised up to a final June push for SarahPAC.

Her announcement comes a few days after the PAC deadline, and it is a Friday news conference before the biggest holiday of America. Forgetting the politics, after all, the Palins are still regular folk, what were they thinking with the lawyer fees? Something definitely isn't right. Mako out.

Category: The Palin Chronicles

Palin's sudden resignation

Sarah Palin shocked the media out their Michael Jackson fixation today with the unexpected announcement of her resignation as governor. I'm going to wait until this story shakes out a bit before speculating on what it all means. Her popularity in Alaska has dropped significantly since she returned from the campaign trail but is still at a bit over 50% and investigations into her ethical breaches have been growing but up until a few days ago, she was still looking very much like someone who had every intention of running for president in 2012. Difficult to see how this move would advance that plan. In any event, here's the video of her resignation speech.



And here's the full text of her remarks at the press conference. All I am going to say about it right now is I have a feeling there's much more to this story than we know at the moment.

Category: The Palin Chronicles

Palin Resigns.

Well, for one thing, she'll have a great Fourth of July Weekend, but moreso, I actually feel bad. No one doubts her popularity, and she was (sorta) getting that learning curve up on actual foreign policy, etc. But, politicians who forget that spending 300 of 512 nights at home doesn't wash for needing more time with the fam. But hey, that's just me... NBC News suggests that the Thrilla from Wasilla is out for good. Maybe it is a good thing to tuck it in, and take care of the family. I just turned off Fox News, because that spell RB for Neil Cavuto just wouldn't stop saying, "But she speaks from the heart! She speaks from the heart!" And anyone who disagreed, well...She speaks from the heart! Don't you see? You can't criticize her because she speaks from the heart!

Anyone considering her running for president in 2012, I don't doubt the popularity, but this is definitely a gold mine of attacks especially with the immediate and unforseen resignation. Resigning from the only state that closes half the year isn't going to post well. For her and her family, though, if that is what will make it work, sno-cats forever. Actually makes Gov. Mark Sanford look better, maybe I'll rescind my call for him to resign. Mako out.

Category: California Dreaming

California State IOUs (And we pay credit card fees?)

Despite the idea already a failure in light of the May 19th budget referendums, California is about to issue IOUs for BILLIONS of dollars to avoid a severe shutdown to their state budget, with a GDP larger than Spain or Canada (the 7th largest in the world).

Can California go bankrupt? After all, the projected deficit has now climbed to $27 BILLION (27x Michigan).

With the IOUs, one should wonder how far the spread of this economic collapse will stretch as states continue to ignore reality by acting like their budget deficits are going to be resolved with spending cuts. California is an egregious example, and a fair warning.

Here is a great play-by-play of budget increases, published back in February 2009, when people still ignored the real threat of the ripple effect. Now, $27 BILLION short, everyone's to blame, including fiscal conservatives who allowed the Governator to spend.

Irony, I would guess here, is that banks are taking the IOUs to the tune of BILLIONS, and guess where they're going to make their cash flow back? (Hint, it ain't state governments) Mako out.

Category: Health care

What's in it for WalMart

Well, I've found an answer to my suspicions about WalMart's motives in supporting employer mandated health coverage. The Libertarian think tank, CATO, is appalled at WalMart's reversal and posts a possible answer that makes perfect sense.

But it all became clear when the lobbyist explained the reason for Wal-Mart’s position: “Target’s health-benefits costs are lower.” [...]

I have no idea what Target’s or Wal-Mart’s health-benefits costs are. Let’s say that Target spends $5,000 per worker on health benefits and Wal-Mart spends $10,000. An employer mandate that requires both retail giants to spend $9,000 per worker would have no effect on Wal-Mart. But it would cripple one of Wal-Mart’s chief competitors.

CATO calls it rent-seeking and accuses WalMart of betraying captialism. I call it just more of the usual cut-throat business tactics that the chain is famous for. Either way, although I'm not at all convinced that maintaining the employer based model for providing insurance is the way to go, as opposed to a single payer model that wouldn't be job dependent, it's surely better than no reform at all. How ironic that for a change, what's good for WalMart is likely to be good for America.

Category: Health care

Latest health care reform bill - less cost, more coverage

The latest Democratic health care reform bill was submitted to the CBO and received a vastly improved rating.

The plan carries a 10-year price tag of slightly over $600 billion, and would lead toward an estimated 97 percent of all Americans having coverage.

So why did this proposal do so much better than the previous bare outline that was submitted a few weeks ago?

The letter indicated the cost and coverage improvements resulted from two changes. The first calls for a government-run health insurance option to compete with private coverage plans, an option that has drawn intense opposition from Republicans. [...]

Additionally, the revised proposal calls for a $750 annual fee on employers for each full-time worker not offered coverage through their job. The fee would be set at $375 for part-time workers. Companies with fewer than 25 employees would be exempt. The fee was forecast to generate $52 billion over 10 years, money the government would use to help provide subsidies to those who cannot afford insurance.

The same provision is also estimated to greatly reduce the number of workers whose employers would drop coverage, thus addressing a major concern noted by CBO when it reviewed the earlier proposals.

In other words, all that scaremongering from the GOP and other anti-reformists about the cost deliberately ignored that the public option was not included in the earlier assessment. When you add the public option, it costs less and covers nearly everyone. The only thing that makes reform expensive is protecting the health industry corporations from competition. In comparison, protecting Americans' health is cheap and I don't believe that even factors in the long range benefits of a healthier population that will need to use expensive critical care facilities less, as they have access to more preventive care.

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Category: The Economy

Rural America needs help as much as banks

President Obama's cabinet plans a listening tour of rural America. That's a quarter of the country gets little attention, with the Left and Right Coasts dominating.

The depth of the poverty in Appalachia, for example, rivals any woeful spot on earth. But little effort is made to bail them out. Imagine if a sector of the region got a $700 billion bailout like the financial system got. It could help.

But no, bailout money goes to help friends of the Bush and Obama administrations -- friends who drove their companies into the ground. There's something to the notion that if a company is too big to allow failure, then it's too big to exist.

Here for Michael Jackson. Enough already.

And here for the new road trip.

Category: Health care

Walmart wants employer mandates

I have to admit I'm suspicious about their motives, but in a major break from the US Chamber of Commerce and other big business lobby groups, WalMart publicly stated its support for employer mandated health coverage.

"As a company, we believe the present health-care system is unsustainable and making the country's businesses less competitive in the global economy," said Mr. Dach, who delivered the letter Tuesday to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Mr. Dach is a former adviser to Democratic politicians.

In a meeting with officials behind the letter, Mr. Emanuel said, "Cost control and employer mandate are heads and tails of the same coin.".

Whatever their reasons, having an employer as large as WalMart step up to support the White House position is undeniably a game changer in the debate. Anything that horrifies the big movers behind the anti-reform efforts can't be all bad.

Category: Health care

The underinsured of America

In the debate about health care, what's often left out is the plight of the underinsured. These are people who are paying for health insurance but find out that their illnesses aren't covered after they get sick.

"One of them is Lawrence Yurdin, a 64-year-old computer security specialist. Although the brochure on his Aetna policy seemed to indicate it covered up to $150,000 a year in hospital care, the fine print excluded nearly all of the treatment he received at an Austin, Tex., hospital.

He and his wife, Claire, filed for bankruptcy last December, as his unpaid medical bills approached $200,000."

In fact, "an estimated three-quarters of people who are pushed into personal bankruptcy by medical problems actually had insurance when they got sick or were injured." But there are health care success stories. This guy didn't have any insurance.

"I walked out of the clinic with a diagnosis and treatment within twenty-five minutes of entering, without paying a dime. There was no wait, no paperwork, and no questions about my ability to pay, my nationality, or whether, as a foreigner, I was entitled to free comprehensive health care. There was no monetary value connected with my physical well-being; the care I received was not contingent upon my ability to pay. I was treated with dignity, respect, and compassion, my illness was cured..."

Unfortunately, this happened in Venezula where they have that evil thing called "socialized medicine." Aren't you glad our politicians took that off the table?

Category: Democrats

Senator Al Franken

The Minnesota Supreme Court finally confirmed what has been obvious for the last seven and a half months. Al Franken won the election and is entitled to be seated as a Senator. I have to admit that I'm surprised Coleman conceded. I fully expected him to take it all the way to SCOTUS.

Of course, this gives the Democratic Party that magic number of 60, but it's not the big deal that the usual pundits will no doubt make of it. As long as the Blue Dogs are still in office, and Reid is in "control," the corporate interests will still be well protected.