Looting our money and redistributing it to large corporations is now the one ongoing function of the Federal Government.

My God, the health care debacle enrages me. It was clear a while ago that the entire "debate" has been, in essence, staged. The public option was never going to be in the final bill. Obama knew it. The Senate Democrats knew it. The Republicans knew it. The only people left flat footed appear to be the House Democrats who - whether they like it or not - no one with real power cares about because, frankly, they don't matter.

I wrote in December that the Left wing of the Democratic party would be thrown under the bus by Obama. The clearest evidence we have yet of this has occurred in the last two weeks as Obama has backed away from the public option. Glenn Greenwald makes mince meat of the "liberal" journalists here, who are - let's be brutally frank - Obama's pimps. Jonathan Alter gets the prize for being the most brazenly whorish. He is an amoral scumbag who trashed Clinton through out 2008 and has openly flip flopped along with Obama on the public option. The man has no principles, no morality, and probably no soul.

The final health care bill will almost certainly be nothing more than a forced transfer of wealth from the middle class to large insurance companies. Buy their product or you are breaking the law.

Looting our money and redistributing it to large corporations is now the one ongoing function of the Federal Government.

Irony alert: The Healthcare bill without the public option is statism at its rawest. This is fascism if we define it in the traditional sense as the marriage of the state and corporations. So yes, the townhall screamers got it right for the wrong reasons. The Federal government has colluded to make it illegal for most of us to avoid buying health insurance. Further it has colluded to ensure that pharmaceuticals can set any price they like for drugs. This will be law by year's end. The hope and change Presidency is an unmitigated catastrophe for anyone who still holds the quaint notion that we, the people, matter.

Since 2001 our tax dollars have gone to:

The airline industry.
Pharmaceutical giants (Tamiflu)
Haliburton
The auto industry.
The banking sector.
AIG
Add your own - I'm sure I've missed some. The government is now a subsidiary of a few corporations. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum this fact ought to enrage you as well. Why do we pay taxes? To bailout corporations. That's why. This is not capitalism.

The perennial debate in this country - what role should the government play in our lives - is now dead. Now the only debate is which multinational corporations get to rape us.

Every "crisis" is another opportunity to transfer wealth from the middle to the richest. Under the guise of heath care "reform" we are about to see the most successful looting of the middle class yet.

Oh, and yes, you'll have no other option. Of this you can be sure.

Brand Obama

Barry - you turned yourself into a product. Don't get touchy about it now.

White House lawyers are working on a plan to limit the use of Obama's image in the sale of products. I, for one, am listing and avoiding all products that are leaching off the delusions of millions to make a buck. But the leaches have a right to use an elected public figure's image.

Currently, the belief is that Obama is popular (This is much more tenuous than polls would indicate.) - so this seems like an attempt to protect the Presidency. Be suspicious of what the White House lawyers are up to. Obama will be unpopular soon enough. Yes We Pecan Ice Cream may morph into We Told You So Sorbet by year's end - and guess what - Obama should not be allowed to control this either.

The hypocrisy here is mind boggling. We have never had a politician so willfully brand himself as a saviour and as a "lifestyle" like Obama. HE DID THIS TO HIMSELF. He hocked his brand for a solid year. It worked. The attempt to control the outcome now is dangerous and cult like.

Side note: The dolls created in the image of the 1st daughters are out of line. They are minors and there is no first amendment right to exploit children.