Nepotism Everywhere in this Meritorious USA? Waaaaahhh!!!

It's being argued seriously that the "wingnut" mobs are providing cover for the Blue Dog Democrats and their allies to defeat the health care reform bill.

You be the judge.

On the edge of your seat about Sibel Edmonds' video deposition and transcript? Me too. (It's been released!!!) (Emphasis marks added - Ed.)

The deposition included criminal allegations against specifically named members of Congress. Among those named by Edmonds as part of a broad criminal conspiracy: Reps. Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Dan Burton (R-IN), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Bob Livingston (R-LA), Stephen Solarz (D-NY), Tom Lantos (D-CA), as well as an unnamed, still-serving Congresswoman (D) said to have been secretly videotaped, for blackmail purposes, during a lesbian affair.

High-ranking officials from the Bush Administration named in her testimony, as part of the criminal conspiracy on behalf of agents of the Government of Turkey, include Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Marc Grossman, and others.

During the deposition - which we are still going through ourselves - Edmonds discusses covert "activities" by Turkish entities "that would involve trying to obtain very sensitive, classified, highly classified U.S. intelligence information, weapons technology information, classified Congressional records . . . recruiting key U.S. individuals with access to highly sensitive information, blackmailing, bribery."

I hear the military is looking for "A Few Good Kids" nowadays (h/t to Quaker Agitator!).

In the essay from Glenn Greenwald that you will access if you click on the title link, you will see the nepotistic ties between the players and their connected kindred that he wrote about in 2008.

It's much worse now.

Here's a current example of the rule by "divine right of kings" theory (which, evidently, most people still dig). (Emphasis marks added - Ed.)

Brenton Williams - a Professor of American Constitutional & Legal History at DePaul University - details one of the most egregiously undemocratic cases of nepotistic succession:

Democratic Blue Dog Rep. Dan Lipinski

His father, Bill, the long-time incumbent ran for the Democratic nomination in 2004 and won easily. A few weeks before the general election he withdrew and the Illinois Democratic Committee met with him for 15 minutes, late at night, behind closed doors before emerging with their new nominee, his son, then residing in central Tennessee where he was an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee . . . .

Still worse, a family friend [Ryan Chlada] with no funding ran as the Republican in 2004 to help insure that Dan faced no more than token resistance.

As Professor Williams notes, the Lipinski son, ever since, has been vigorously supported by the Democratic establishment, particularly Rahm Emanuel, in order to defeat progressive (and meritocratic) primary challengers. He was simply handed the seat by his dad.

Up to date financial info on our media (and other) bosses!

Peter Chernin . . . In February, Chernin announced that he was going to leave his longtime position as Rupert Murdoch’s number two at News Corp. instead of struggling to right the media giant in the midst of a recession. Chernin will get a cushy production deal with Fox Studios; News Corp. insiders will get the chance to diminish his accomplishments in Hollywood and argue that it was his fault that the News Corp.-owned MySpace site sputtered after a strong start. Among Chernin’s recent executive poachings: Nicholas Weinstock (from Judd Apatow’s production company), Lauren Stein and Katherine Pope (from NBC Universal), and Mike Larocca (from Spyglass).

Henry Kravis . . . The chickens from a cheap-money-fueled buying binge came home to roost in 2008, as KKR reported a $1.2 billion loss for the year — only the second decline in its 33-year history. Worse, the economy is pummeling its highly leveraged portfolio companies, investor interest is scant, public opinion could hardly be worse, and President Obama is still very likely to eliminate some favorable tax loopholes as soon as he has time to get around to it. Still, as of June 30, KKR had $50.8 billion in assets under management, up $3.5 billion from three months before.

Steve Schwarzman . . . In an era when excessive executive pay attracts public ridicule and government regulators, the Blackstone chief still managed to take home a whopping $702 million last year — on top of the $684 million he banked when the company went public in 2007. Meanwhile, shares of his private-equity behemoth — the company manages more than $90 billion in assets — are trading at a steep discount compared with its public-offering price. No matter. The company appears to have weathered the financial storm intact: second-quarter earnings topped $170 million this year.

Suzan _____________________

Why We Cannot Get A Decent Health Care Bill Out of Congress

Want to understand why so few in the Congress want to give us decent healthcare? Paul Krugman does and he points out the fallacy and cynicism of what's passing for debate in the hallowed halls of Congress here.

Right now the fate of health care reform seems to rest in the hands of relatively conservative Democrats — mainly members of the Blue Dog Coalition, created in 1995. And you might be tempted to say that President Obama needs to give those Democrats what they want. But he can’t — because the Blue Dogs aren’t making sense. To grasp the problem, you need to understand the outline of the proposed reform (all of the Democratic plans on the table agree on the essentials.) Reform, if it happens, will rest on four main pillars: regulation, mandates, subsidies and competition. By regulation I mean the nationwide imposition of rules that would prevent insurance companies from denying coverage based on your medical history, or dropping your coverage when you get sick. This would stop insurers from gaming the system by covering only healthy people. On the other side, individuals would also be prevented from gaming the system: Americans would be required to buy insurance even if they’re currently healthy, rather than signing up only when they need care. And all but the smallest businesses would be required either to provide their employees with insurance, or to pay fees that help cover the cost of subsidies — subsidies that would make insurance affordable for lower-income American families. Finally, there would be a public option: a government-run insurance plan competing with private insurers, which would help hold down costs. The subsidy portion of health reform would cost around a trillion dollars over the next decade. In all the plans currently on the table, this expense would be offset with a combination of cost savings elsewhere and additional taxes, so that there would be no overall effect on the federal deficit. So what are the objections of the Blue Dogs? Well, they talk a lot about fiscal responsibility, which basically boils down to worrying about the cost of those subsidies. And it’s tempting to stop right there, and cry foul. After all, where were those concerns about fiscal responsibility back in 2001, when most conservative Democrats voted enthusiastically for that year’s big Bush tax cut — a tax cut that added $1.35 trillion to the deficit? But it’s actually much worse than that — because even as they complain about the plan’s cost, the Blue Dogs are making demands that would greatly increase that cost. There has been a lot of publicity about Blue Dog opposition to the public option, and rightly so: a plan without a public option to hold down insurance premiums would cost taxpayers more than a plan with such an option. But Blue Dogs have also been complaining about the employer mandate, which is even more at odds with their supposed concern about spending. The Congressional Budget Office has already weighed in on this issue: without an employer mandate, health care reform would be undermined as many companies dropped their existing insurance plans, forcing workers to seek federal aid — and causing the cost of subsidies to balloon. It makes no sense at all to complain about the cost of subsidies and at the same time oppose an employer mandate. So what do the Blue Dogs want? Maybe they’re just being complete hypocrites. It’s worth remembering the history of one of the Blue Dog Coalition’s founders: former Representative Billy Tauzin of Louisiana. Mr. Tauzin switched to the Republicans soon after the group’s creation; eight years later he pushed through the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act, a deeply irresponsible bill that included huge giveaways to drug and insurance companies.

And then he left Congress to become, yes, the lavishly paid president of PhRMA,the pharmaceutical industry lobby. One interpretation, then, is that the Blue Dogs are basically following in Mr. Tauzin’s footsteps: if their position is incoherent, it’s because they’re nothing but corporate tools, defending special interests. And as the Center for Responsive Politics pointed out in a recent report, drug and insurance companies have lately been pouring money into Blue Dog coffers. But I guess I’m not quite that cynical. After all, today’s Blue Dogs are politicians who didn’t go the Tauzin route — they didn’t switch parties even when the G.O.P. seemed to hold all the cards and pundits were declaring the Republican majority permanent. So these are Democrats who, despite their relative conservatism, have shown some commitment to their party and its values. Now, however, they face their moment of truth. For they can’t extract major concessions on the shape of health care reform without dooming the whole project: knock away any of the four main pillars of reform, and the whole thing will collapse — and probably take the Obama presidency down with it. Is that what the Blue Dogs really want to see happen? We’ll soon find out.

Our precious blogtopia professor, Badtux, the Healthcare Economics Penguin, has a few graphs that will clear up some of the mud being tossed by the wingnuts (and their assorted friends) in the debate about whether increasing the efficiency of the U.S. healthcare system will cause healthcare R&D to decline.

So will increasing the efficiency of the U.S. healthcare system cause healthcare R&D to decline? Let's take a look, first of all, at pharmaceuticals R&D, which accounts for roughly half of all healthcare R&D (see graph here). As you can see, the U.S. may be a huge player because of the sheer size of its economy - roughly the same size as the entire European Union combined - but as a percentage of national income (GDP), the United States is an also-ran in pharmaceuticals research. So now what happens when we add non-pharma healthcare R&D into the picture (see graph here)? The blue is government health R&D spending, the white is private R&D spending. Still, even with the better US showing in non-pharma R&D, the picture is clear. The United States does not spend a large percentage of its gross national income on health R&D compared to other OECD nations - only 0.45%, as vs. 0.68% for Sweden, for example. So, now let's consider the notion that reducing health care expenditures via increased efficiencies (as vs. rationing) will somehow reduce these R&D expenditures.

First, note that over half of these R&D expenditures are government expenditures. The notion that governments will reduce their R&D spending because of removal of waste from the health care system is ludicrous. Secondly, the U.S. currently spends 17% of national income on health care. The notion that the 0.25% of GDP necessary for private R&D to continue cannot be funded at that spending level is ludicrous. In short: If you look at the sheer scale of health care spending, compared to the much smaller scale of R&D spending, you'll note that private R&D accounts for less than 1.5% of current healthcare spending. The notion that capping expenditures at the current rate and forcing increased efficiencies upon the system will somehow drive private healthcare R&D out of the market is less than compelling given just how small the percentage of healthcare spending devoted to R&D really is.

Think this will straighten them out?

Naaaahhh.

Suzan ________________________