"We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it."

Keith Olbermann doesn’t like it.

from politico.com article:
"We worked very hard to put together these events on a moment’s notice and do absolutely everything to a ‘t’ to make it look perfect on television for her and for her campaign," said the employee. "Sen. Clinton talks about helping working families, people in unions and small businesses. But when it comes down to actually doing something that shows that she can back up her words with action, she fails."

"[The Clinton campaign] is giving legal advice to some voters who are mounting challenges and is having volunteer lawyers closely watch the proceedings", said Clinton state chairman Garry Mauro: from the El Paso Times

The problem with this usually democratic process (when you are relying on superdelegates to save you from voters/caucusers you aren’t being democratic — and when you say that delegates pledged from voting aren’t bound to that pledge and if they vote for you instead that is ok you are even less democratic) is "the potential for anger is more pronounced — and the consequences more dire — than in most campaigns because this contest is being waged along the fault lines of gender and race, with the would-be first female president versus the would-be first black president.

That was starkly evident Saturday at one convention in Houston, where mostly white Clinton supporters repeatedly challenged the credentials of black Obama backers in a heavily black district that had voted overwhelmingly for Obama.": from the LA Times (flasbacks of Florida anyone else?)

O’course the other problem for Clinton is that besides the actions themselves being undemocratic (nothing says facist like disenfranchising black voters in America with white lawyers) it is also so undemocratic to try to game races for yourself by eliminating the parts that don’t favor you in the first place.  But forget that quibble Hillary, and when lawyers don’t work and you can’t seem to spin the whole thing as a contest you are winning (because you are behind in delegates from both primaries and caucuses, and even superdelegates), why not try appealing to delegates and superdelegate to go against voters?

And if getting your lawyers to challenge the legitimacy of Obama supporters and caucus tallies isn’t enough, setting up spin isn’t enough, and appealing to delegates to ignore voters isn’t enough, how about rigging the contests instead?

She is the new George W.

DailyKos take on it

Jed Report video

It’s all so ugly and undemocratic.

This kind of thing hurts the whole cause.

But then, forcing folks to buy health care isn’t really universal health care as most people think of it anyway, now is it?  And since when can we force Americans to do anything?  How many don’t have car insurance though it is the law (or pay taxes even)?  And how would this be enforced, health insurance card checkpoints?  She has said "automatic enrollments or some measure through the tax system" might be used to simply cover those who don’t buy privately but it isn’t clear how this would work, seeing as how, though there is a public insurer program available in the plan it is unclear how enrollment in private firms would be audited and whether auto-enrollment in the public provider would be a general or individual tax, or maybe simply a bill for services like any other.  This is all very complex and not spelled out in the plan.  It is also suspect that a plan would make it through Congress that stipulates automatic enrollments and tax based coverage.  These parts of the plan would certainly come under fire.  This is especially true considering that right at the top of her plan it says "with no overall increase in health spending or taxes", and I don’t see how that jives with "automatic enrollments or some measure through the tax system".  One thing is certain, mandating that everyone buy health insurance will not mean that everyone does, and then we are back to non-universal coverage.

In fact the ‘93 plan (and today’s plan too) is unsurprisingly substantially like plans Repubs were considering themselves.  It sounds more like a program designed to fatten up insurers’ wallets than provide anything to citizens.  You still have to buy insurance just like before if you want coverage, and now a law mandates you have to buy it even if you don’t want it (more customers for insurers).

Now why would she do that, and how would it help us?  To save hospitals in trouble (who legally must treat uninsured patients in their emergency rooms and are going hopelessly into the red because of it)?  Not likely.  Like I said, just mandating that everyone buys coverage doesn’t mean they will, and there are much easier actual solutions to that problem (like simply subsidizing hospitals for this expense).  And, to point out the obvious:  People don’t have health insurance mostly because they can’t afford it.  Forcing them to buy it doesn’t change the fact that they don’t have the money.  Then what, fine them for not having it?  Hillary has avoided this question for the most part, but has said that "she was open to the possibility of garnishing wages" (and magic auto-enrollment as was mentioned above).  Fines or garnishing won’t help anything.  Those who don’t have insurance mostly also don’t have extra money (and may not even have a job).  Also auto-enrollment, taxation for public coverage, and garnishing wages aren’t provisions written into her plan, simply ideas briefly stated at points, so don’t expect this to hold.

For version 1.0 of HillaryCare (’93) the plan was formed based on what seems like a mixture of simple lobbyist influence, what her team of 500+ Dems wanted, and the misguided notion that enforced purchasing was all that could fly (single-payer was just not something that would pass in her mind though there was a Democrat congressional majority and a Democrat president).

And if all this is so why did the insurance lobbies then fight her on this way back when.  Weren’t they getting their way?  Some were, others (HIAA and NFIB mostly) fought in ‘93 because the way the "managed competition" plan shook out small to medium sized health insurers would be ruined and small businesses could be hobbled trying to pay 80% of employee insurance costs (according to them at least).  If she had had businesses properly represented on her panel, and listened, she would have understood how hard they would fight against her plan.

After her plan was destroyed in ‘93 and ‘94 by lobbyists and their ad agencies she got the message, and the money, and it convinced her that ignoring the various lobbies will not work, and now parrots their talking points with her new plan.  For her "new" health care plan (also just mandating we or employers buy insurance) could it be that the revisions (tax breaks for employers or individuals paying the costs and allowing totally unrestrictedly privatized insurers) are her husband’s and her campaign donors’ wishes?  If you notice, her plan does not actually make health care cheaper for anyone.  It just gives you a tax break at the end of the year (or a subsidy, but she has been very evasive about saying who would qualify for those and how much they might be — assuming this is like any other federal grants program or subsidy most folks would not be eligible for these subsidies — and the subsidies aren’t mentioned at all in her plan so don’t count on those existing in a law that would see the light of day).  I am not sure how a tax break makes it easier for me or a small business to pay the premium in the mean time.  In fact, if she legislates that no one can be denied by any company (or their rates raised because of a condition) that almost certainly means premiums go way up for everyone (they have to compensate for the cancer patients somehow), and that will actually make fewer people able to afford coverage.

Mix into that the overhead costs of tracking folks enrollment/cancellation in the thousands of private health insurance providers, and the new costs of providing for anyone who wants membership in the newly public congressional health insurance plans and medicare, and the costs of maintaining a fining/garnishing system for the uninsured, and what you have is the understanding that even if her plan gets in there and makes a bunch of savings by cleaning up the current infrastructure (which is granting her plan a lot — assume the $110 billion savings she claims is accurate) you get huge new costs with all of this new infrastructure.  Her plan will end up costing MUCH more than currently, for the government and so also the public, while not saving us in premiums.  Turning back the clock on tax breaks for the rich is probably not enough to cover this (would maybe get us back $69 billion), and that is even if you could get these rollbacks through Congress.

There are a couple other things to consider too.  Her plan has the language: "[Insurers] will have to offer and renew coverage to anyone who applies and pays their premium. And like other things that you buy, they will have to compete for your business based on quality and price. Families will have the security of knowing that if they become ill or lose their jobs, they won’t lose their coverage. "  I am not clear on how her plan is guaranteed coverage throughout an illness and job loss.  I can see when someone gets sick they might not be able to work anymore, and so might not be eligible for whatever employee insurance payment was occurring, but in her plan are guaranteed they can continue that plan independently.  I just don’t see where that money comes from for an unemployed person, and according to that language if you stop paying the premium you lose the coverage.  I don’t see how this is substantially better than the current thrown to the wolves system we have.  I get that similar rates for all is great (provided all rates don’t skyrocket), and that not being able to be denied or dropped based on medical condition is great, but then I don’t see how that helps me if not being able to afford the premiums means I don’t get or can lose coverage.  And what is to prevent insurance companies from all increasing rates universally?  This often happens in free market competition when new costs of business become necessary (see gas prices).

Also, I’m looking for the language about employers covering part-time employees or contractors and just not seeing it.  So, I assume we will be in the same boat we are now, with her friends Wal-Mart employing everyone at 39 hours a week and insuring no one, and when they do insure someone offering their one approved provider option, and that provider denying any medical expense they can as "medically unnecessary" to save themselves and Wal-Mart money.  I don’t see any language about the kind of insurance businesses must subsidize by 80%, or about what kinds of procedures all insurers must cover, or what kinds of coverage they must provide (deductibles, percentages of medical costs covered).  Businesses could offer a plan that covers virtually nothing, and the things the plan does cover it only covers at some partial percent, and insurers can continue to exclude any and all procedures that are too expensive for their tastes.  Fantastic.

– Barack is a guy who was president of the Harvard Law Review. Hillary failed the D.C. bar exam.

– Barack’s experience in world relations is not light like Hillary claims all the time.

He is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and during his time on the committee he has accomplished a lot: usa today article. He did a lot as an Illinois state Senator too: washington post article

All of the really lame Clinton campaign claims of Obama ineptitude and Clinton expertise have been destroyed by factcheck.org: selected factcheck content on Obama’s site

– What has Hillary done?

• Been a Wal-Mart board member, and during that time ignored worker mistreatment.
• Failed at health care reform in an effort that cost millions in public funds (1993 Task Force on National Health Care Reform) and was doomed mostly by her own stupidity/pride: carpet bagger report.  Read more about this and her new terrible plan…

• Been married to the president/governor (and during that time did a lot of traveling around that she now touts as foreign relations experience…must be nice…I don’t think speaking to foreign dignitaries in a president’s wife capacity is at all the same as dealing with them politically).
• Defended a guilty rapist (blood and semen evidence) at Rose Law Firm at the expense of a 12yr old girl, fighting against any good she might have done at the Children’s Defense Fund.
• Voted twice for the Patriot Act and voted for the Iraq war resolution.
• Pushed to protect us from the evils of the video game GTA.
• Voted to give Bush carte blanche with the Iranian Republican Guard, classing them as a terrorist organization. This stupidity amounts to an authorization of war with Iran no matter what Hillary says to the contrary now that everyone is criticizing her for her vote, because it reclasses the Iranian Republican Guard, and Iran by extension, as a terrorist organization.  It means that we can act militarily to maintain the peace, attacking the Guard, without Congressional authorization, and without provocation/preemptively.  And there is cause to think we might do it.
• Refuses to release her tax records, and Bill refuses to release foundation donor names.

Mostly what she has done is sling mud, trying to tear down one of the best viable candidates in years: hillary attacks

All of it is the worst kind of stuff: kindergarten essay as evidence he is a liar, fear mongering ("3am" call ad where she accuses Obama of having less governing experience though he actually has more), sitting with lots of generals and saying things like all Barack has done is make one speech: la times video, appealing to racism /xenophobia (releasing pictures of Obama in Somali garb), the tired drug use refrain: talking points post, trying to hold him accountable for what a staff member said, or was misquoted about (NAFTA plans and Canada), while at the same time having her staffers throw out anything horrible they can think of and then saying she had nothing to do with it if it comes back on them (as well as the hypocrisy that not only did a staffer of hers say something that was maybe construed/misconstrued as for NAFTA she herself until right up the campaign was for NAFTA, and helped push for NAFTA acceptance initially…and wait, maybe it was Hillary’s camp who actually cooed the reassuring words to Canada about NAFTA), trying to smear Obama with Tony Rezko association when she complained previously, bitterly, of the injustice of her and Bill being tied to Whitewater/McDougal scandal…

And this is while Obama is simply running the nicest cleanest campaign anyone has witnessed.

Now that she is behind she changes her mind and wants Florida and Michigan counted, as long as they are not caucuses (which don’t tend to favor her), and she threatens to sue Texas to change it’s system…and the whining about media bias…she never complained when they loved her…

She is just the worst. It’s so Republican to be on the Wal-Mart board and make speeches about how horrible things are for the workers…wink wink, to focus on saving our children/society from pornography in video games with your Senatorial power while folks starve in your district (never mind if you are trampling civil liberties to "protect" us, you are fine with the Patriot Act), to vote for war against nations that have done nothing to us and then try to claim you were voting for diplomacy, to staunchly support NAFTA and push to make it law and then later when the winds change talk about how bad it is.

I am not sure why the Obama campaign isn’t having amazing success just using her own actions against her, her words speak volumes against hope and belief, and she’s obviously whatever you want her to be to get your vote (no matter how bad, no matter that it contradicts what she said yesterday somewhere else), not at all an agent of change, and just more of the same compromised dirty politics.

It’s just so sad that she is not going to overcome his delegate total w/o the help of superdelegates, even with Florida and Michigan reincluded (where Barack didn’t even campaign), and yet she still pushes on, throwing dirt at him all the way.  Cutting out after a string of 12 losses, once realizing that there is no way she will win the popular vote, delegate count, or even, most likely, the superdelegate count, would have been the best for the Democratic party, and the most honorably selfless.  Now she is just a drowning woman grabbing at the hope that she can convince superdelegates to go against the votes of the people.  Just this alone in an ideal world would be enough to turn off remaining voters and superdelegates.

And just in case you missed the interview of the Obama supporter linked in one of the threads above, this is what an informed Obama supporter looks like, something that will never air on Fox: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kica8hmSdAM