Glenn: "The administration has substantial leverage ... on those issues ... actually important to them"

glenn greenwald has been engaged in a lengthy online and highly public debate with other so-called liberals and progressives (i would call them obama "apologists") who insist that obama isn't or can't fulfill much of his promised agenda because he is crippled by the essential powerlessness of the presidency... i happen to be in complete agreement with glenn... talkin' the talk without walkin' the walk is bad enough but when you're doing neither, it's inexcusable...

from time immemorial, people have been able to deduce one's real intentions and motivations from the behavior the person displays... as glenn so rightly points out, what are we hearing about closing guantánamo, about a genuine effort to restore human rights to detainees, about accountability for 4th amendment constitutional violations, about REAL - as opposed to cosmetic - financial reform, about the serious development of alternative energy resources, about a dedicated effort to get our country back from the corporations...? damn little... and what does that tell you...? it can only be one thing... the obama administration has chosen not to exert any effort in those directions whether or not they could be successful in influencing them...

The administration has substantial leverage to influence what Congress does, but they use it only on those issues that are actually important to them. And in those White House actions, one finds their actual priorities. The White House applied vast pressure on Congress to get what it wanted by having a war-funding bill enacted without conditions, demanding progressive provisions be stripped out of the financial reform bill, preventing drug re-importation from being enacted in order to please the pharmaceutical industry, negotiating the public option away with industry interests, and (to their credit) blocking funding for obsolete fighter jets. They exerted great influence over Congress because those were important priorities for Obama. By contrast, they do nothing on a whole slew of issues which they claim they support and which were at heart of the Obama campaign -- such as closing Guantanamo -- thus conveying to Democrats in Congress that they do not really care about such measures (or even oppose them) despite their public assurances to their base that they continue to support them.

at this point, as far as i'm concerned, there is no defense anyone can mount on behalf of the obama administration... actions have always spoken louder than words... much, MUCH louder, in fact, and i've re-learned a lesson i've re-learned so many times in my life as to be downright embarrassing: only pay attention to what a person says when and if it's backed up by congruent action...

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What about that swine flu...

no one would ever consider it was just a bogus scam to enrich big pharma... oh, no-o-o-o-ooo...!

Although it is too early to write the obituary for swine flu, medical experts, already assessing how the first pandemic in 40 years has been handled, have found that while luck played a part, a series of rapid but conservative decisions by federal officials worked out better than many had dared hope.

The outbreak highlighted many national weaknesses: old, slow vaccine technology; too much reliance on foreign vaccine factories; some major hospitals pushed to their limits by a relatively mild epidemic.

But even given those drawbacks, “we did a lot of things right,” concluded Dr. Andrew T. Pavia, chairman of the pandemic flu task force of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

Federal officials deserve “at least a B-plus,” said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University’s medical school.

Even Dr. Peter Palese, a leading virologist at Mount Sinai Medical School, who can be a harsh critic of public policies he disagrees with, called the government’s overall response “excellent.”

i don't chase after conspiracy theories, believe me... i've got too much to do dealing with the real world...

nonetheless, it simply amazes me that we can just sit back and soak in our belief that all these super-greedy, power-hungry folks who call all the shots for us peasants always act in the interest of the common good and take the spin of an article like this without even a shrug of skepticism...

yeah, i know... SOME of our esteemed leaders really do try to work on behalf of the common good, but i think they're the rare exception and their efforts invariably get neutered by those who are all to willing to leave them by the side of the road as just so much discarded street pizza...

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Greedy big pharma bastards

like they aren't already hauling in money fast enough...

Even as drug makers promise to support Washington’s health care overhaul by shaving $8 billion a year off the nation’s drug costs after the legislation takes effect, the industry has been raising its prices at the fastest rate in years.

In the last year, the industry has raised the wholesale prices of brand-name prescription drugs by about 9 percent, according to industry analysts. That will add more than $10 billion to the nation’s drug bill, which is on track to exceed $300 billion this year. By at least one analysis, it is the highest annual rate of inflation for drug prices since 1992.

The drug trend is distinctly at odds with the direction of the Consumer Price Index, which has fallen by 1.3 percent in the last year.

check out this load of crap...

[D]rug companies say they are having to raise prices to maintain the profits necessary to invest in research and development of new drugs as the patents on many of their most popular drugs are set to expire over the next few years.

ya know what...? there's no longer even a graceful ATTEMPT to disguise naked greed... sure, the drug companies will put out the obligatory totally bullshit statement about WHY they're having to raise prices but it's all eyewash... they might just as well drop all pretense and give you and me the famous one-finger salute because THAT'S what they're really communicating...

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Get longer eyelashes but beware the four-hour erection

i've rarely watched tv in the u.s., preferring to catch my favorite u.s. programs in argentina where they play in english with spanish subtitles... i find that commercials in argentina are ever so much more tolerable than the u.s. where the ads seem to get right in your face... argentine commercials are much more fluffy-bunny, mom-dad-kids, and tend to be kind of sweet overall...

now that i've been back in the u.s. for a while, i'm gravitating to my favorite shows and have been not just a tad bit appalled at the commercials i'm seeing, particularly the ceaseless pitches for prescription pharmaceuticals for everything under the sun from sexual dysfunction to mesothelioma to bone loss to longer eyelashes... it's positively disgusting not only how many there, but then to listen to the obligatory side-effects warnings, they become a real horror show: "reports of suicidal thoughts have occurred in an extremely small percentage of users"... great caesar's ghost...! if suicidal thoughts have been a factor with ANY users, it's too many...

maybe something will come of this - or not...

[P]oliticians are taking aim at the 60-second spots that have made viewers familiar with maladies like male urinary urgency and deficient eyelashes — not to mention side effects like four-hour erections.

Representative James P. Moran, Democrat of Virginia, is sponsoring a House bill that would ban ads for prescription sexual aids like Viagra and Levitra from prime-time television, on decency grounds. Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, has said he favors empowering the Food and Drug Administration to bar consumer advertisements for new drugs for an initial period after the F.D.A. approves them — until there has been more real-world experience with the medications.

Meanwhile, Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, has introduced a bill called the Say No to Drug Ads Act. It would amend the federal tax code to prevent pharmaceutical companies from deducting the cost of direct-to-consumer drug advertisements as a business expense.

“You should not be going to a doctor saying, ‘I have restless leg syndrome’ — whatever the hell that is — or going to a doctor saying, ‘I have the mumps,’ ” Mr. Nadler said in an interview. “You should not be diagnosed by some pitchman on TV who doesn’t know you whatsoever.”

i'm sure big pharma will pull out all the stops and deploy every lobbyist they can lay their hands on to stop this in its tracks...

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