It has been reported now that Obama officially received over $20 million from health insurance industry in 2008 campaign: Obama pockets $20 milllion from the enemy
While, I’m sure this surprises no one, all that money has been well spent on getting Obama to totally betray the public interest.
The tragedy is that Obama is all too willing and happy to do this.
Here’s the money quote:
Historian and media critic Norman Solomon, who was also an Obama delegate to the Democratic National Convention, called the president’s transformation on healthcare since taking office “shameful.”
“Overall it’s been a very corporate friendly healthcare approach from Obama as president,” Solomon said in an interview with Raw Story. “Corporate friendly in a way that I believe is injurious to public health.”
He underscored the subtle but substantive change in healthcare language used by Obama and the White House.
“We don’t hear so much now about ‘healthcare reform,'” Solomon said. “We’re hearing a lot more about ‘health insurance reform.’ And that is absolutely in large measure driven by the White House.”
“The funding from the healthcare industry to the Obama campaign, in retrospect, was not misplaced,” Solomon said. “It appears, based on policy, that those funders are getting what they would’ve hoped for.”
“Let me put it this way,” he added. “Single-payer advocates literally couldn’t get into the White House. And you have [chief pharmaceutical industry lobbyist and former Republican congressman] Billy Tauzin and Big Pharma and all of these in-depth strategy meetings in the White House in mid-2009 cutting deals. And I think it’s shameful.”
Mounting a Democratic Primary challenge against Obama in 2011-2012 would be easy. He has clearly sold out and betrayed the public interest, and made a mockery of his slogan to bring about “change you can believe in“. On Foreign Policy, he has just continued George W. Bush 3rd-term, and rewarded Robert Gates with 8 more years of Warmongering. He wants to give the corrupt Federal Reserve Monopoly even more power, and more secrecy (rather than audit their corruption), and he has exploded the budget deficit with unconstituional multibillion dollar bailouts (using our money) to Goldman Sachs, Citibank, and Wall Street swindlers — which does absolutely nothing to benefit Main street. On civil liberties, his record is disgraceful and shameful as he continues the tyrannical practises of Secret Renditions, Indefinite Detentions, Human Torture (Bagram, Gitmo), Military Tribunals, Government Wiretapping and other “Patriot Act” abuses.
The only thing that is hard about challenging Obama, is that he will be bankrolled to the hilt. But I can’t see how too many actual voters will fall for Obama’s phony rhetoric a second time around. He’s not going to have one single progressive accomplishment that he can point to.
A Primary campaign would be an easy case to make.
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because he has a (D) after his name.
You weren’t aware of this?
(snark)
in smaller donations so if it’s true that he’s going in the insurance companies’ direction because of their donations, then it’s at the risk of all of those $50, $100, $1000 donations from the voters. And that would make it a really dumb decision.
Wasn’t the total for the campaign something close to a billion? $20mil is not very much compared to the overall total. Why throw away all those smaller personal dollars?
I dunno. I can’t see the $20mil as a motivation for him. I suspect one of two things. Either our President always felt this way and was saying what we wanted to hear in the campaign or he’s been told he’ll be killed if he does anything other than what he’s doing now. It’s happened before, you know.
salesman of the century award. He sold us a bill of goods and now we have to pay for it. He used his motivational speaker persona to win the presidency, and then pats himself on the back for a job well done. He’s now one of the big boys and, as such, must be just like them. He is like a light weight balloon, and all the elite players are just batting him around the room and having just a great time. And I guess he’s having the time of his life.
Still shameful — but posted in the interests of accuracy.