Follow on TwitterU.S. Press Corps Not Buying White House Spin On Israeli Intransigence
The Huffington Post is reporting that, in clear violation of both U.S. demands and international law:
The Jerusalem city government moved toward the construction of 900 additional housing units in a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim for the capital of their future state.
This comes right after the Obama Administration recently softened its demands that Israel cease all settlement expansion in the occupied territories after Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu essentially told Obama to ‘fuck off’. Palestinians interpreted this sudden shift in U.S. policy as proof that peace negotiations were dead.
When asked about Israel’s additional 900 housing units, Obama Spokesman Robert Gibbs responded:
“We are dismayed,” and he criticized the Israelis as making “it more difficult for our efforts (toward peacemaking) to succeed.”
Dismayed? More difficult for your efforts? Robert, you guys are beginning to look like Netanyahu’s lap dogs. Show some spine, already! Americans don’t like to see their leaders getting their noses rubbed in fecal matter, to then try and spin the residue, “it’s just chocolate. Yum!” It’s not gonna fly… you look weak and are embarrassing our country!
Members of the press corps aren’t backing down this time. They are pressing the State Department on their embarrassing failure to get Israel to cooperate on ending the settlement expansions, and on the Administration’s weak response to this latest news of Israeli intransigence. As transcribed from Mondoweiss:
QUESTION: How long is the U.S. going to continue to tolerate Israel’s violation of international law? I mean, soon it’s not even going to be possible – there’s not going to be any land left for the Palestinians to establish an independent state.
MR. KELLY: Well, again, this is a – we understand the Israeli point of view about Jerusalem. But we think that all sides right now, at this time when we’re expending such intense efforts to try and get the two sides to sit down, that we should refrain from these actions, like this decision to move forward on an approval process for more housing units in East Jerusalem.
QUESTION: But should U.S. inaction, or in response to Israel’s actions, then be interpreted as some sort of about-face in policy – the President turning his back on the promises he’s made to the Palestinians?
MR. KELLY: You’re – okay, you’re using language that I wouldn’t use. I mean, again, our focus is to get these negotiations started. We’re calling on both parties to refrain from actions, from – and from rhetoric that would impede this process. It’s a challenging time, and we just need to focus on what’s important here, and that’s –
The back and forth between Kelly and the reporters at the State Department continues here, at Mondoweiss. You gotta check it out. He’s got the video clip over there as well. This will absolutely get buried by the main stream media.
NY Times: Congress Should Abandon Obama’s Deal With Pharmaceutical Industry
It’s been long reported now how President Obama — who had promised total transparency in all health care negotiations during his campaign (stating he would have them all televised on C-Span) — proceeded to cut a secret backroom deal with the pharmaceutical industry as far back as summertime. The terms of their deal violated several additional promises he’d made during the campaign — terms he explained at the time which had long kept meaningful health care reform from ever being realized. As candidate Obama he vowed that he would do it differently, yet once elected he quickly abandoned his ‘change’ agenda and embraced the much easier ‘status quo.’
The terms of his pharmaceutical deal assured the industry that they would give up no more than $80 billion over the next ten years (an insignificant fraction — 2.6% — of the $3 trillion Americans are predicted to spend on drugs over that same time period). This was EXACTLY the kind of deal Obama criticized during his campaign — the types that were written by industry lobbyists and only benefited them. For that $80 billion, Obama promised them that Congress wouldn’t use its bargaining power to lower prescription drug costs, and that Americans would be prohibited from importing cheaper drugs from Canada. And the pharms agreed they’d throw in $150 million to pay for his ‘health reform’ advertising, and not attempt to block his efforts.
Today’s NY Times Editorial blasted the deal yet again, on the recent revelation:
Now come the price increases. As Duff Wilson reported in The Times on Monday, the industry has raised the wholesale prices of prescription drugs by about 9 percent in the past year. That appears to be the highest annual increase since 1992.
Duff Wilson/NY Times earlier reported:
[This] will add more than $10 billion to the nation’s drug bill, which is on track to exceed $300 billion this year. [...]
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.
The Times contends that the drug companies are trying to establish a higher price base, before any legislation tries to reign them down — thereby negating any real price reductions. Sort of like the old retail trick of raising prices thirty per-cent, to then offer customers a 30% off sale.
The Times states that:
The industry’s maneuver suggests that the Senate’s deal with the industry should be abandoned in favor of the much tougher demands in the reform bill passed by the House. The House bill requires rebates and discounts from drug makers that may save the government about $150 billion over 10 years, according to the chief actuary for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The House bill also authorizes the secretary of health and human services to negotiate with the companies to obtain lower prices for drugs sold to Medicare beneficiaries and to a new public plan if one is approved.
The government needs every penny it can get to help cover the uninsured. Given the industry’s last-minute price increases, it seems prudent to ignore the supposed deal and demand a greater contribution.
I couldn’t agree more.
The thing Obama seems to forget is that pushing ANY OLE deal through (regardless of its merit) for the sake of being able to claim he achieved ‘health care reform’ will only harm him, the left, and the American people down the road. Because by appeasing the pharmaceutical and insurance industries — i.e. protecting their profits — he’s foregoing any real savings to the American taxpayer and public. And, as a result, his plan will end up costing both the tax payer and the consumer even more than they’re paying now — all of which will be used by the GOP (in their talking points) four years down the road as PROOF that this entire government intervention into the corrupt health care industry was a fiscal calamity — which will set back any hopes for real reform for decades.
When will Obama learn that he will NEVER achieve meaningful change, if his primary concern is to keep every special interest group happy with him?
Organizing For America Targets GOP On Health Care: Why Not Blue Dogs?
We’re starting to see an iota of pressure — at least symbolic pressure — exerted by President Obama’s powerful and popular campaign arm, ‘Organizing for America,’ on the health care reform front. Now housed within the Democratic National Committee, the group hopes to mobilize their once-energized members.
The Times reports that yesterday the group emailed 13 million who registered in support of Obama’s Presidential campaign, urging them “to descend on the offices of the 32 Republican House members who represent districts that voted for Mr. Obama in 2008, but who also voted against health care legislation in the House on Saturday”:
In the e-mail, Mitch Stewart, the director of Organizing for America, encourages Obama supporters to tell these Republicans to get with the health care program or they may be booted out of office.
The Republican representatives, the message says, “must understand that caving to the well-heeled lobbyists in D.C. has consequences at the ballot box back home.” [...]
“This is not about confrontation,” the e-mail message reassures recipients. “It’s simply about expressing your opinion and being heard. Democracy is not a spectator sport,” the message concludes. “And right now, we need you in the game.”
My problem with their public pressure campaign is this: why is this getting emailed only to those Obama supporters who reside within the 32 districts that have Republican representatives? Why not target the districts of obstructionist Democrats who are subservient to the Health Insurance Industry — the Blue Dogs? Obviously, this latter group would be much more susceptible to pressure exerted from Obama supporters than Republicans. Obama supporters are not going to turn Republican Congressmen against their own party’s barking orders. It appears the Blue Dogs have been intentionally immunized from this public pressure campaign.
This just exemplifies how parties will always put their own political interests ahead of the public interest. They’ll jeopardize their own legislative agenda — legislation which could save 45,000 American lives a year — before they’ll apply pressure against a single member of their own party; even if targeting their own party members would likely yield better results.
Breaking News: President Obama Rejects All Military Options For Afghanistan
The Associated Press reports from an undisclosed Administration official that President Barack Obama has rejected all four military options for Afghanistan. The source revealed that the President is looking for a way to make clear that the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan is not open ended: WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama does not plan to accept [...]
Hillary Clinton’s Pandering To Israel Destroys U.S. Credibility On Middle East Peace
U.S. Middle East policy has effectively come full-circle again, as it has done repeatedly for the past forty-plus years. Every blue moon we get a U.S. President who dares to challenge Israel on its ethnic cleansing — as demonstrated by continued Palestinian home demolitions and Jewish-ONLY settlement expansion within the occupied territories (all interconnected by [...]
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One thing has become crystal clear over these last nine months — the Democrats do not give a rat’s ass about the core concerns of the Progressive movement. On the campaign trail ‘candidate’ Obama said all the right things and with eloquence; with passion. He articulated a whole host of issues important to us, and [...]
Why Obama’s Policies Put Wall Street’s Interests Ahead Of Main Street’s
Dan Froomkin at Huffington Post connects the dots: Many of [Obama's] chief financial advisers have pocketed extraordinary amount of money from banks and Wall Street, and presumably intend to do so again. They are part of the banker class, and their loyalties have been bought and paid for. Examples? Obama’s top economic adviser, Larry Summers: [...]
George W. Bush’s Cover-Up Is Now Obama’s Cover-Up
The New York Times Editorial blasted President Obama yesterday for breaking his campaign promise to end George W. Bush’s “abuses of power, denials of justice to the victims of wayward government policies, and the shielding of officials from accountability.” The Times outlines how Obama has aggressively — from the get-go — taken George W’s torch [...]
U.S. Efforts To Undermine Goldstone Report Diminishes Its Own Standing In World
Richard Goldstone, a Jewish South African and a champion for human rights, gave a speech in 2000 at Jerusalem’s Yakar in Israel where he revealed that his motivations for bringing war criminals to justice stemmed from the lessons he’d learned of the Holocaust: Goldstone said the Holocaust has shaped legal protocol on war, adding that [...]
Nancy Pelosi: The Lone Democratic Leader Fighting For Health Care Reform
New estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office showed a healthcare overhaul drafted by Democrats would reduce the U.S. budget deficit over 10 years and cost less than $900 billion. Reuters reports that: [Pelosi] asked CBO to provide estimates on three versions of the [public] option — one based on reimbursement rates paid to healthcare [...]
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