Tag: ek Politics

Waiting for slaughter.

Today I’m going to pick on the National Council for La Raza which you may remember fondly as a Hispanic empowerment group on the forefront of Immigration Reform.

Having completely and totally failed at changing the Obama Administration’s worse than George W. Bush deportation policy (MSNBC, not exactly a hotbed of rumor and innuendo), La Raza has now attempted to gather the shreds of credibility that remain to sell out once again in defense of the Obama Bankster Bailout: Robo Signing Edition.

This did not escape my notice over at The Great Orange Satan-

Attorneys General: It’s Time to Close the Deal

by NCLR

Mon Jan 30, 2012 at 11:58 AM PST

Details of a $25 billion robosigning settlement have begun to emerge and if the reported details are accurate, there is much to celebrate.

…

Clearly, $25 billion is not enough to repair all of the damage done to our homes and the economy, but that is why the robosigning settlement is only part of the solution. One of the most important deals struck in the negotiation is on the releasing of future legal claims. This means that the AGs and the Department of Justice can continue to pursue civil rights, origination, and securitization claims. In fact, the financial crimes task force, investigations underway by AGs in California, Nevada, and Massachusetts, and the Department of Justice’s landmark settlement with Countrywide give us every reason to believe that the march toward accountability is off to a good start. The robosigning settlement should be the next step. It is time to deliver the first installment of relief for homeowners that have not a moment to lose.

Is this the policy of La Raza?

If so it’s remarkably short sighted nor does it seem to match the policy goals of your organization.

This is a ridiculously small amount of money to cover over $700 Billion in lost value and most of it comes not from banks, but from the same taxpayers that bailed them out.

This is a horrible settlement on every level.  Supporters should be ashamed.

by ek hornbeck on Mon Jan 30, 2012 at 01:50:53 PM PST

NCLR Policy on AG Settlement

NCLR’s policy goal is to maximize relief for families in the timeliest fashion possible.  As we noted in the blog post, we agree that $25 billion is will not meet demand or atone for all the harms caused by the financial crisis. However, it is an important first step at a time when we really need momentum. The deals preserves the ability of the Department of Justice and the state Attorneys General to continue pursuing financial criminals and holding them accountable.  It would be short-sighted, and quite frankly irresponsible, to walk away from $25 billion and drag out negotiations for another six months or a year, while millions of families continue to slip toward foreclosure.  The settlement is not perfect and advocates will have to remain vigilant.  NCLR will continue our drumbeat for justice and meaningful relief for the millions of Americans who have been victimized by improper lending practices.

by NCLR on Tue Jan 31, 2012 at 07:50:06 AM PST

Oddly enough it’s the very same Janis Bowdler that Yves Smith cites today-

(S)ome core constituencies aren’t buying what the Administration is selling:

Aides to President Barack Obama have in recent weeks courted civil rights groups and borrower advocacy organisations, scheduling meetings and calls in an attempt to gain support for the expected settlement and muffle criticism from key political allies… The meetings have occasionally served as a “gripe session”, as one participant called them, because many of Mr Obama’s most ardent supporters have criticised the pending deal’s terms for the degree of relief provided and the extent of the release from legal claims it provides for banks desperate to minimise mortgage-related liability… Janis Bowdler, a housing expert at the National Council of La Raza, the largest US Hispanic civil rights group, said the settlement would be a good start for the White House as it seeks to prove it is doing all it can for homeowners. “Wrapping up the settlement now is the right thing to do, but it’s only going to be a win for them politically if they follow up with the financial crimes task force,” Ms Bowdler said…”Otherwise, if this is it, and they’re satisfied with just $25bn, I don’t think that will be enough to convince voters that they were doing all they could to fix the housing market.”

Oh, they plan to do more: put some small and maybe even mid sized players in stocks in the town square, the closer to the elections, the better. As we know all too well, the Administration only wants to appease voters, not fix the problem. What it seems to fail to recognize is the the housing market is in such distress that token measures and gimmickry are unlikely to do the trick.

La Raza.  A sold out failure on every level.  Exactly as influential as Planned Parenthood.

DHinMI called me dangerous and edgy.  Well, I am.

Norton Anti-Virus is itself a virus that makes it impossible to maintain your computer without paying a yearly rent to Symantec and has only middling effectiveness at its purported purpose.

Don’t pay?  Your computer crashes and you have to wipe it and re-install the operating system.

pcAnywhere is malware that allows remote users to hijack your machine.

It was Symantec and their police handlers who introduced money into the equation.

I encourage you to download a torrent today and leave it to seed.  Free Download Manager is not only free, but superior.  It also offers a BitTorrent client that you can selectively turn off and on and resumable downloads and error correction.

Anonymous: Symantec Offered $50K for Stolen Code, Plus a Lie

By Mark Hachman, PC World

February 6, 2012 08:36pm EST

Members of the Anonymous network released an email thread on Monday that claims that Symantec offered $50,000 in return for the guaranteed destruction of code tied to its pcAnywhere and Norton Antivirus tools.

…

The group said later that the code would be released. Separately, Anonymous released emails from the legal team who represented Frank Wuterich, the staff sergeant who led an assault on the Iraqi city of Haditha that left 24 unarmed civilians dead.

According to the email chain, Sam Thomas, an employee of Symantec, began negotiations with “Yamatough,” a member of the Lords of Dharmaraja group using a Venezuelan email address, on or about Jan. 18. According to the emails, Symantec asked Yamatough and the group to lie about having accomplished an earlier 2006 hack, which obtained the code.

Hackers sought $50,000 from Symantec for anti-virus blueprint

By Frank Jack Daniel, Reuters

Tue Feb 7, 2012 3:46am EST

An email exchange released by the hacker, who is known as YamaTough and claims to be based in Mumbai, India, shows drawn-out negotiations with a purported Symantec employee starting on January 18.

…

“In exchange, you will make a public statement on behalf of your group that you lied about the hack.”

The hacker said he never intended to take the money and warned he would soon release the blueprints for Symantec’s pcAnywhere and Norton antivirus products.

“We tricked them into offering us a bribe so we could humiliate them,” YamaTough told Reuters.

Listen up you elitist cheese-eating surrender monkeys.  Chuck Murray (so much less elitist than Charles) of Bell Curve uhh… fame? has a quiz to determine if you are a real ‘murikan or not.

For the record I scored a dismal 59.  Questions in bold.  Scoring in plain type.  My feeble excuses in italic.

Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Heh.  National Occupy Leaders?

There aren’t any.

Quan says she’ll call national Occupy leaders

Will Kane,Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writers, San Francisco Chronicle

January 30, 2012 01:55 PM

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said today that she is going to call national leaders of the Occupy Wall Street movement and implore them to disown Oakland’s protest movement.

“I plan to call some of the national leadership of Occupy this week to say that the Oakland group is not nonviolent and has not agreed to be nonviolent,” Quan said in an interview on KCBS. “The national Occupy movement has said they are nonviolent.”

…

Rachel Lederman, a civil rights lawyer based in San Francisco who is working with the Occupy movement, said police have overreacted and have used excessive force, creating “an increasing level of confrontation with Occupy Oakland over the past several months” and that officers on Saturday had boxed in peaceful protesters.

She said some protesters had carried shields with them because “these young people have felt the need to protect themselves when they’re likely to be shot with so-called less-than-lethal projectiles.”

…

“What they are doing against the city economically is not nonviolent either,” she (Quan) continued on KCBS. “Every Saturday they are doing demonstrations and in my city that is my night of highest police need. They are taking away resources from my city and creating a situation that is making it more difficult for me to keep the city safer.”

…

“Well you guys used tear gas and batons too,” Quan said, referring to San Francisco. “I think it is a different time, I think it is how the media plays it. There is also probably a little misogyny and a little racism, when I looked at what happened in terms of how the national media portrayed it, and how Occupy’s internal media portrayed it.”

Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Title Law goes back over 5000 years and is literally the foundation of Law and the concept of Property and Ownership itself.  It’s highly ironic that Banksters and their excuse making apologists are so willing to dispense with it, otherwise how do you assert any privilege over those Communist Occupier types?

I mean, if anyone can forge a scrap of paper and foreclose on you…

Robosigning = Smoking Gun

By: Cynthia Kouril, Firedog Lake

Tuesday January 31, 2012 9:53 am

There are a few voices emerging suggesting that the current iteration of the %) AG settlement is somehow wonderful, or at least OK, because it only immunizes robosigning. “Only”, as if robosigning was some benign peccadillo, instead of a massive conspiracy to commit forgery and perjury that is systematically driving our population into homelessness AND continuing to drive down the value of our homes.

Peter Henning writing for NYTimes Dealbook thinks… that most of the bad guys will get off for lack of evidence.

…

(T)here certainly is a smoking gun, thousands of them, actually. They are the robo signed documents forged after the fact to try to create the false impression that the mortgages and notes were transferred to MERS and into REMICs in a timely fashion. Add to that the formation documents for MERS and the Pooling and Servicing agreements for the REMICs and you have a case that is VERY easy for a judge and jury to understand.

Even the normally laser visioned Matt Taibbi doesn’t get it. He thinks that robosigning immunization will only hurt the homeowners trying to stave off foreclosure from an entity that has no standing to foreclose, as if that wasn’t enough all by itself.

…

What both Henning and Taibbi are missing is that the easiest way for the pension funds and the hedge funds to win in court is to have a narrative that the jury can understand. Critical to that narrative is that the robosigned documents are of no legal effect; just like a forged dollar bill is of no legal effect and has no value once you realize that it’s counterfeit.

If this horrendous settlement is allowed to go through and sprinkle magic pixie dust on these forgeries and perjuries and by some alchemy that eludes me turn them into documents that can be used to “prove” what’s contained in them (thereby turning everything I ever knew about the rules of evidence inside out) then the pension funds and other purchasers of MBS will not be able to prove the truth, namely, that the REMICs they bought were empty or largely empty and that they are entitle to rescind that purchase.

If robosigning is immunized you screw millions of homeowners, but you also screw the very banks and hedge funds and pension plans that the 1% are so interested in protecting.

The deal sabotages everything because the robosigning is the smoking gun. No one resorts to creating fabricated documents unless they are desperate and know they have no other hope of winning. It’s the legal strategy equivalent of a Hail Mary Pass. Had the robosigning never been exposed, they might have gotten away with winning through perjury, but now that it is exposed, the idea of immunizing it is preposterous.

Each and every robo signed document is a crime.  A FORGERY!  There is no need to investigate, the document is right there in front of you.

Any Sort of Robo Signing Immunity Is a National Tragedy

By: Cynthia Kouril, Firedog Lake

Tuesday January 31, 2012 3:21 am

I am a HUGE fan of Matt Taibbi’s. HUGE. So it pains me to write this:

WTF is he calling giving a pass to massive -and easy to prove- fraud like robosiging a/k/a FORGERY, a “Victory” for the public? I think the man has lost his mind.

Look, the securitization frauds are important, no doubt about it. However, the entities harmed by the securitizations, other banks, big pension funds, etc. all have armies of very competent lawyers to protect them in civil suits. In contrast, homeowners trying to stop a bank that doesn’t even have the paper work to show it has a right to throw them out of their houses have very few resources with which to fight.  They also often face state court judges who are disinclined to believe the homeowners. Without both civil AND CRIMINAL cases proving the robo signing, they will continue to be swindled out of their homes.

It’s not like robo signing is a thing of the past, it’s still going on. I’ve seen examples of robo signing executed within the last few months. The document mills have not closed down; what do you think all those people do all day long?

If Schneiderman signs on to this then the question of who rolled whom with this second mortgage task force is answered and all Americans will know that the last roadblock to banksters getting away with the biggest heist in history has been removed. We will also know that foreclosures will take off at breakneck speed and more homeowners than you can imagine, and their children, will be homeless.

That’s not my idea of a victory for anyone, except the 1%. No, Matt, immunity for robosigning will be a Tragedy For The Public.

Not even for the 1% Cynthia.  That’s my Rolex motherfucker.  Hand it over.

Sigh, by the lateness and brevity you can see my general level of interest.  Polls just closed in the eastern part of the State, but they won’t report results until the panhandle closes at 8 pm ET.

Many outlets are releasing their exit polling and all I have to say about the whole fiasco is this- Gingrich, win or lose, is doing far, far better than the high priced pundits predicted before South Carolina.

They’re idiots.  They don’t know anything.

Elite my ass.  You’re objectively less informed and dumber if you watch them so why do you do it?

If you want to kill brain cells my best advice is to get really drunk.  Power drill lobotomies also work.

(Note: Easily imitable acts are satire and intended to be interpreted sarcastically, not seriously.  I do not advocate home brain surgery.)

BASIC CABLE, NY – After a decades-long battle that spanned nearly two weeks, Stephen Colbert has wrested control of Colbert Super PAC from the clutches of his arch-nemesis and dear friend, Jon Stewart. Colbert then showed his deep commitment to transparency by disclosing the Super PAC’s financial information several hours before being legally required to.

“Colbert Super PAC has brought in a staggering $1,023,121.24, which my accountant explains to me that is a number far above ‘one,’ ‘two,’ ‘five,’ or even ‘many'” said Stephen Colbert, President and Returning Champion of Colbert Super PAC. “We raised it on my show and used it to materially influence the elections – in full accordance with the law. It’s the way our founding fathers would have wanted it, if they had founded corporations instead of just a country.”

Colbert Super PAC sent their forms to the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday at 12:01 AM, making them the first to file on the last filing day. Copies of the form can be found on the internet by Asking Jeeves, or simply clicking here.

Colbert Super PAC, temporarily known as The Definitely Not Coordinating With Stephen Colbert Super PAC, is officially registered as Americans For A Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and is considering changing it again to John Colbert Cougar Super MellenPAC.

Stenography- the fundamental principle of modern journalism.

Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

"Mortgage Fraud is a Top Priority for This Administration"

By Matt Stoller, Naked Capitalism

Friday, January 27, 2012

Department of Justice official Tony West, July 2009

Mortgage fraud is a top priority for this Administration, especially when public dollars are at stake.

US Attorney Lawrence Brown, Oct, 2009

The vigorous pursuit of real estate professionals who perpetrated mortgage fraud is a top priority for federal authorities in this region.

Department of Justice official Tony West, Jan 2010

Mortgage fraud is a top priority for this administration. We will aggressively pursue both individuals and corporations who defraud federal mortgage insurance programs, which are so important to this economy.

US Attorney Dennis Burke, March, 2010

Mortgage fraud is a top priority for the U.S. Justice Department in the District ofArizona, where it has destroyed property values, lending institutions, and entire neighborhoods in our community. No question, complex fraud schemes – a prime example, here – played a role in crashing our real estate market. Culprits like these defendants will be tracked down, prosecuted and convicted. I congratulate the FBI for their thorough investigation that led to this significant sentence.

U.S. Attorney David Gaouette April, 2010

The prosecution of those who commit mortgage fraud is a top priority of the Department of Justice and this U.S. Attorney’s Office. Those who commit such crimes seriously erode the confidence of financial institutions to lend money which is a key element of the future strength of our economy.

US Attorney Wilfredo Ferrer, Southern District of Florida, May, 2010

There is rampant fraud in South Florida. I think that’s unfortunate. It is embarrassing that we are known in some circles as the fraud capital of the country. I don’t like that title.

US Attorney John Walsh, Jan 2011

The investigation and prosecution of mortgage fraud is a top priority of the Justice Department and this office. Prosecuting these cases helps protect the integrity of the housing market.

Promises Made, and Remade, by Firms in S.E.C. Fraud Cases

By EDWARD WYATT, The New York Times

Published: November 7, 2011

Nearly all of the biggest financial companies, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America among them, have settled fraud cases by promising the S.E.C. that they would never again violate an antifraud law, only to do it again in another case a few years later.

A New York Times analysis of enforcement actions during the last 15 years found at least 51 cases in which 19 Wall Street firms had broken antifraud laws they had agreed never to breach.

…

S.E.C. officials say they allow these kinds of settlements because it is far less costly than taking deep-pocketed Wall Street firms to court and risking losing the case. By law, the commission can bring only civil cases. It has to turn to the Justice Department for criminal prosecutions.

FCIC Referred Criminal Securities Fraud Violations to Justice Deparment a Year Ago

By: David Dayen, Firedog Lake

Monday January 30, 2012 11:39 am

I remember confirming with the Justice Department that they received those referrals of potential violations of law from the FCIC. As it turns out, that happened a year ago Saturday. And we’ve heard nothing arising out of those criminal referrals from the existing Financial Fraud Task Force.

In addition, we knew at the time that those criminal referrals related to violations of secruties law, in other words precisely what the new RMBS working group would want to investigate.

…

The Justice Department has had this information, contained in depositions and official testimony, for a little over a year. They’ve done nothing. The Securities and Commodities Fraud working group would have been the natural arm of the Financial Fraud Task Force to which to refer those FCIC findings. The co-chairs of that group included Lanny Breuer and Robert Khuzami, who are also co-chairs of the RMBS working group that Schneiderman co-chairs.

Even those excited about this working group would have to admit that the same people at the federal level had the same access to the same violations of law and sat on their hands for the entire tenure of the Obama Administration. That’s why some people are skeptical that this new working group will lead to anything real. I recognize the claims that the dynamic around financial fraud and making Wall Street pay has changed generally, and that the Administration’s political people know they have a problem with coziness toward Wall Street, and so they may let the rope out a little bit. Plus there are prosecutors in DoJ at a lower level who may be dying to get their hands on some of this material and work with the new mandate to make some real noise. I understand that perspective. Time will tell if that will resolve in any different manner than the FCIC criminal referrals did.

Angelides closes by saying that “I look forward to President Obama’s newly appointed task force righting the financial wrongs that were committed, including the matters identified by the FCIC and referred to the Department of Justice.” So do I.

Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

The Baltic Dry Index–

tracks worldwide international shipping prices of various dry bulk cargoes.

The index provides “an assessment of the price of moving the major raw materials by sea. Taking in 26 shipping routes measured on a timecharter and voyage basis, the index covers Handymax, Panamax, and Capesize dry bulk carriers carrying a range of commodities including coal, iron ore and grain.”

Since 1744.  Because Cargo Ships take a long time to build and are very expensive, capacity is relatively stable and rises and falls in the price are a leading indicator of Economic Demand for Raw Materials.

Handymax is the smaller sizes, Panamax is the largest size that will fit through the Panama Canal, Capesize are so large they have to sail around Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope.

Unlike stock and bond markets, the BDI “is totally devoid of speculative content,” says Howard Simons, an economist and columnist at TheStreet.com. “People don’t book freighters unless they have cargo to move.”

The companion index is the HARPEX which doesn’t have it’s own Wikipedia entry, but which measures shipments of cargo packaged in containers.  Some raw materials yes, but mostly manufactured items being transported for assembly and sale.  Your Foxconn iPhone came from China in one.

Last week Louis Basenese of Wall Street Daily (not Journal) published this piece that made some Economists nervous.

The Most Alarming Chart I’ve Seen All Week

Louis Basenese, Wall Street Daily

Published Fri, Jan 20th, 2012  

While (almost) everyone finally agrees that the United States has avoided a nasty double-dip recession, a slowdown’s brewing elsewhere in the world.

How can I be so sure? All I have to do is look at the latest chart for the Baltic Dry Index.

…

(T)he Index is down 48.4% in the last month. And it’s down 54.4% in the last three months.

The culprit? Why, Europe, of course.

…

On Wednesday, the World Bank cut its world economic growth forecast explicitly because of Europe’s never-ending debt crisis. Meanwhile, as Europe’s debt crisis persists, Bloomberg reports that the IMF plans to cut its global growth forecasts, too.

…

A recession is afoot, if not already underway.

And thus it has come to pass, exactly as predicted.

U.K. Teeters on Brink of Recession as King Signals More Stimulus: Economy

By Scott Hamilton and Jennifer Ryan, Bloomberg News

Jan 25, 2012 7:38 AM ET

The U.K. economy shrank more than economists forecast in the fourth quarter as manufacturers cut output and services stagnated, leaving Britain on the brink of another recession

Gross domestic product fell 0.2 percent from the third quarter, when it increased 0.6 percent, the Office for National Statistics said in London today. The median forecast of 33 forecasts in a Bloomberg survey was for a drop of 0.1 percent. Public-sector strikes over pensions on Nov. 30 had “some impact” on GDP in the quarter, the statistics office said.

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said yesterday that policy makers can increase stimulus again if needed to guard against a “renewed severe downturn.” The U.K., the first Group of Seven nation to report fourth-quarter data, may not be the last to report a contraction. Germany’s statistics office estimated GDP fell about 0.25 percent in the period and the International Monetary Fund has forecast a euro-area recession.

That would be Mervyn King, Bank of England Governor.  Elizabeth Mountbatten is still preparing for her Diamond Jubilee and Prime Minister David Cameron’s idea of economic stimulus is to give her a $2 or $3 Billion Yacht she doesn’t need and says she doesn’t want.

Now the Wall Street Bull Shill Artists don’t like bad news getting in the way of their Ponzi schemes so there’s been some push back-

The Blame Game: Revisiting "The Most Alarming Chart I’ve Seen All Week"

Louis Basenese, Wall Street Daily

Published Fri, Jan 27th, 2012

Readers responded that I unfairly pegged the three-month, 54.4% drop in the Baltic Dry Index on Europe’s never-ending debt crisis. Instead, readers said I should have also pointed a finger at China.

Well, readers, I admit it: You’re right.

As I noted on Wednesday, China’s economy is decelerating. And as the biggest consumer of raw materials, it’s definitely having an impact on the Baltic Dry Index and global economic activity. In fact, the IMF cut its global GDP forecast this week from 4% to 3.3%.

Shame on me for not blaming China, too. Can you ever forgive me?

But wait!  It’s all about the Supply Side!

The supply of bulk ships only increased 8.9% over the last year and 2.8% in the last three months. Do you really think a 2.8% increase in supply is entirely responsible for a 54.4% drop in the Baltic Dry Index over the same time period?

Even if we look at the increase in capacity – which is up 12.7% in the last year and 3.9% in the last three months – there’s no way it’s the only factor sinking the Baltic Dry Index.

And how about that HARPEX?

In the last six months, the number of container ships only increased 0.3% and capacity only increased by 1.9%. Meanwhile, the HARPEX Index is down 46.9% over the same period.

Louis is not the only one noticing this.

Chart of the Day: The Baltic Dry Index

Sebastian Walsh, Financial News

25 Jan 2012

According to (Nick) Bullman (managing partner at risk consultant Check Risks), its initial collapse in October was driven primarily by a fall-off in demand from China, where declining housing prices pushed purchasing managers to cut back on orders for the raw materials whose transport the Baltic Dry Index reflects.

He said: “This collapse looks similar to the falls we saw in the Baltic Dry ahead of the recessions of the late 1970s and early 1990s – but this drop is actually steeper.”

…

“US unemployment is in high double digits at moment, not 9% – the way the US government collates the data means the long-term unemployed just fall out of the numbers.”

…

Bullman said that shipping companies have also been deliberately slowing down their journeys to save fuel, with trips from China to the US going now taking around 50% longer than they were early in 2011.

…

(H)e said he was surprised by how long the Baltic Dry took to fall.

…

“What this is signalling is that the world economy is slowing down much more quickly than people have been thinking.”

Even if the problem is over capacity, this is not good news.

Business Insider quoted Basil Karatzas, the chief executive of Karatzas Marine Advisors, as saying European banks could face nearly $100 billion in losses to restructure the $500 billion in shipping loans on their books.

(h/t Lambert Strether @ Naked Capitalism)

Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

First thing- it doesn’t have anything to do with “Health Care” nor is it “Reform”.  It’s about Mandated Insurance Coverage, taking money from your pocket and forcing you to give it to ghouls.

Health Care All But Ignored in the State of the Union

By: Jon Walker, Firedog Lake

Wednesday January 25, 2012 7:46 am

If you look at President Obama’s State of the Union address as primarily a political speech to kick off his re-election effort, you get a strong sense of what the Obama campaign thinks are his strengths and weaknesses.

…

(I)n the entire 7,000 word speech, there are only two lines, one of which ignores the proposed large expansion of government Medicaid, sandwiched between other unrelated talking points.

I take this as a strong sign that the Obama campaign is basically admitting they simply can’t win the politics on Obamacare. It’s a sign they believe their best political approach is just to ignore the issue as much as possible in the campaign. The law was unpopular when it passed and is still unpopular to this day. There is no reason to believe it will get any more popular by November.

It’s not working-

Number of Uninsured Americans Steadily Increasing

By: Jon Walker, Firedog Lake

Tuesday January 24, 2012 8:58 am

Since President Obama took office the percentage of uninsured people in America has been steadily raising and has now reached a new high.

…

I simply don’t know how the Administration can successfully campaign on passing a law to expand coverage, when the level of uninsured has increased significantly during Obama’s tenure. It is tough for people to see such a law is any form of a real accomplishment when over a year after its passage it hasn’t even begun to accomplish its main promises and the exact opposite is taking place in people’s lives.

Instead of campaigning on delivering for the American people with his signature legislation, Obama will be forced to explain that even though the insurance situation has gotten worse, voters need to trust his claims that his signature law will eventually improve things in the future.

“Eventual change in the future I hope you believe me about” just doesn’t have that nice campaign ring to it.

The decision to delay the start date of the primary expansion in the Affordable Care Act until 2014 should be remembered as one of the most idiotic political and policy decisions ever made. I would argue that if Obama narrowly loses in 2012, it could be the single decision that is most responsible.

…

Almost no one will remember the bill’s official CBO score come November 2012, but plenty of people will remember they haven’t seen any tangle benefits from the law Obama spent a year working on in the middle of an economic and unemployment crisis.

It’s deeply, deeply unpopular-

American People Still Really Hate the Individual Mandate

By: Jon Walker, Firedog Lake

Thursday January 26, 2012 8:48 am

Even after almost two years since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the individual mandate continues to be as unpopular as always. An overwhelming 2/3rds of the county holds an unfavorable view of the mandate and the majority thinks the Supreme Court should strike it down.

…

The individual mandate was clearly politically toxic long before the Democrats voted for the law and it has remained politically toxic ever since. The Democrats had both ample warning and ample time to replace it with a less controversial and unquestionably constitutional alternative to encourage individuals to get insurance. Such a modest correction would have been easy to make right before passage to increase support for the law.

I don’t know if I can think of another policy that was ever viewed so unfavorably by the electorate yet was still very publicly pushed forward by one party. The disdain this move showed toward public opinion played an important role in driving the conservative energy that allowed the GOP to win a historic victory in the House. The fact that Democrats could have easily avoided this political problem yet actively choose not to makes it one of the greatest unforced political errors in American politics.

Given how many people actually expect the Supreme Court to strike down the mandate, it is hard to guess whether a favorable ruling for the administration would be a political positive or negative for Obama.

…

They currently don’t think they need a Republican to win the Presidency for the highly unpopular mandate to go away. If the Court doesn’t get rid of it as these people expect, that could give many a new incentive to help elect Republicans in order for the GOP to get rid of the mandate with legislation.

Remember, it’s all about electoral victory!

I hate repeating myself.

This is an Open Thread.