Letter to Obama from 4th Grade Teacher

[Big Daddy]

Maybe I have given up. I voted for Obama. I even called people for him and gave rides to people that couldn't get to the polls. When I first listened to Obamas speeches and the things he was going to do, I said to myself. Lots of great ideas. Can't do it by yourself buddy. You need a Congressional stamp for that stuff. So he got elected. About 20% of the people that voted for him would have voted Republican except that the Republicans weren't doing such a hot job. So those same people put a bunch of Blue Dog Dems in to Senate and House seats too. The night of the election I was so elated. I thought we might actually get some change. Get out of Iraq, get a decent health plan , education for all, not just wealthy or those who are willing to have a mortgage sized payment without a house. We even managed to get a god sized majority in the house and a majority in the senate. It's no excuses time.

So what's happening. Bush gets a 780 billion dollar bail out for wall street with no strings attached. Obama says we'll be sure it gets distributed properly. Well it got used for a lot of stuff. Thanks to the media hype everybody thinks it was thrown away. The banks seem to be doing better. Then comes the stimulus. 783 billion dollars. Has a lot of good programs. It is stimulating the economy but what happens when it runs out. Will the economy be up enough to run on it's own. Once again the media is hyping it as a total waste of money. The American public doesn't know one way or the other. Then comes the 1st thing that was actually on the list of reasons he was elected. The health bill. It should be a slam dunk. Obama should have all the votes he needs in both the Senate and the House. No, not quite so fast. Those blue dog dems come from states that are more conservative. They had to act like they were conservative dems to get elected. So the lobbyist are hitting all of them hard. They can't make up their mind, do whats right or go for another 2 or 6 years. Meanwhile the right wing is running a smear campaign the likes of which has never been seen with billions of corporate dollars from health insurance and big pharmacy behind it. the right wing leaders don't care what the issue is as long as it's a strike against Obama.

I'm sorry. The forces are all out there. Big money is in charge. I'm not seeing a real good future at this point. I think Ronnys vision will come true. A truly 2 class society. Rich and poor.

 

[davaroo]

Maybe I have given up. I voted for Obama. I even called people for him and gave rides to people that couldn't get to the polls. When I first listened to Obamas speeches and the things he was going to do, I said to myself. Lots of great ideas. Can't do it by yourself buddy. You need a Congressional stamp for that stuff. So he got elected. About 20% of the people that voted for him would have voted Republican except that the Republicans weren't doing such a hot job. So those same people put a bunch of Blue Dog Dems in to Senate and House seats too. The night of the election I was so elated. I thought we might actually get some change. Get out of Iraq, get a decent health plan , education for all, not just wealthy or those who are willing to have a mortgage sized payment without a house. We even managed to get a god sized majority in the house and a majority in the senate. It's no excuses time.

So what's happening. Bush gets a 780 billion dollar bail out for wall street with no strings attached. Obama says we'll be sure it gets distributed properly. Well it got used for a lot of stuff. Thanks to the media hype everybody thinks it was thrown away. The banks seem to be doing better. Then comes the stimulus. 783 billion dollars. Has a lot of good programs. It is stimulating the economy but what happens when it runs out. Will the economy be up enough to run on it's own. Once again the media is hyping it as a total waste of money. The American public doesn't know one way or the other. Then comes the 1st thing that was actually on the list of reasons he was elected. The health bill. It should be a slam dunk. Obama should have all the votes he needs in both the Senate and the House. No, not quite so fast. Those blue dog dems come from states that are more conservative. They had to act like they were conservative dems to get elected. So the lobbyist are hitting all of them hard. They can't make up their mind, do whats right or go for another 2 or 6 years. Meanwhile the right wing is running a smear campaign the likes of which has never been seen with billions of corporate dollars from health insurance and big pharmacy behind it. the right wing leaders don't care what the issue is as long as it's a strike against Obama.

I'm sorry. The forces are all out there. Big money is in charge. I'm not seeing a real good future at this point. I think Ronnys vision will come true. A truly 2 class society. Rich and poor.

You and I see eye to eye, for different reasons. In the end we are in the same place.

The middle class we are so proud of is an unnatural occurrence. It has had its shot and proves in the end to only be sustainable if someone works to sustain it. It is bound to falter when either someone from without deems it useless, or those within it deem it to not be working for them.
We are fast heading towards both. The two class system, as you put it.

You may not like the term socialism, and there are other descriptives you can use: social democracy, centralism, managed collectivism... take your pick.
The name doesn't matter. What Mr Churchill was saying is that where people are free to excel, some will - and some will be left behind at the station.
Conversely, where people are controlled by "even" distribution of outcome, everyone shares in the same medicrity.

 

[Big Daddy]

I concur. What I said earlier about Sweden. They are a very happy society. Nobody lives in the street unless they want to. Everybody has a purpose in life. It may not be extravagant but it is a living. The better educated hold positions that pay more, but nobody earns an excessive amount of wealth. Mediocre by some standards. Very nice by others. Since only 2% of Americans achieve greater than the average level of living in Sweden I would be inclined to think that many Americans would be happy in the mediocre existence. Of course I guess some people would consider it better for 2% to be wealthy with the remaining 98% poor. If that is the eventual outcome of capitalism then capitalism is domed to failure. Eventually the 98% will revolt against the 2%.

JM

 

[dacjohns]

Something's a bit odd right now, dacjohns. The entire thread on Obama's broadcast to students next week completely disappeared! Maybe that's where you first posted the missing comment?

Maybe. I don't recall anything bad in the thread. Maybe it went south after I last looked at it.

 

[FarmerChick]

White House shifts on public health care option
With officials latest comments, bottom line remains unclear


updated 1 hour, 51 minutes ago


WASHINGTON - The Obama administration's bottom line on a government health insurance option blurred Sunday as White House officials stressed support but stopped of short of calling it a must-have part of an overhaul.

As President Barack Obama prepares for a Wednesday night speech to Congress in a risky bid to salvage his top domestic priority, no other issue is so highly charged. Obama's liberal supporters consider the proposal for a public plan to compete with private insurers do-or-die. Republicans say it's unacceptable. It's doubtful the public plan can pass the Senate.

White House political adviser David Axelrod said Obama is "not walking away" from a public plan. But asked if the president would veto a bill that came to him without the option, Axelrod declined to answer.


The president "believes it should be in the plan, and he expects to be in the plan, and that's our position," Axelrod told The Associated Press.

Asked if that means a public plan has to be in the bill for Obama to sign it, Axelrod responded: "I'm not going to deal in hypotheticals. ... He believes it's important."

The president "believes the public option is a good tool," said Axelrod. "It shouldn't define the whole health care debate, however."

The biggest challenge Obama faces in his prime-time address is to take ownership of health care legislation that until now has been shaped by political conflicts in Congress. Lawmakers return this week from a summer break that saw eroding public support for an overhaul and contentious town hall meetings in their districts.

The idea of a public plan has become a symbol for the reach of government in a revamped health care system. Supporters say it would give workers and their families similarly secure benefits as older people now get through Medicare, while leaving medical decisions up to doctors and patients. The plan would be offered alongside private coverage through a new kind of purchasing pool called an insurance exchange. At least initially, the exchange would be open to small employers and people buying coverage on their own.

Insurers say they could never compete against the price-setting power of government. Employer groups warn it would undermine the system of job-based coverage.

A public option or government plan has come to mean different things to different people. Some say it could be a public trust and independent of the government: nonprofit co-ops could serve as a check on insurance companies. In its original form, supporters envisioned a Medicare-like plan in which the government pays the bills. But it would be financed through premiums paid by beneficiaries, not taxpayer dollars.

While there's strong support for a public plan among House Democrats, the votes appear to be lacking in the Senate.

Only as a fail-safe backstop
Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, a swing vote on health care legislation, said the only way a public plan should be included is as a last resort. The government option would only be rolled out if after a few years, private insurers have failed to increase competition and restrain costs.

"If somehow the private market doesn't respond the way it's supposed to, then it would trigger a public option, or a government-run option," Nelson said on "State of the Union" on CNN. "But only as a fail-safe backstop."

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, who joined Axelrod in a one-two administration punch on the Sunday talk shows, said the president believes a government plan would be "a valuable tool." But Gibbs danced around the question of whether it has to be in the final legislation.

Asked if Obama would sign legislation that lacked a government plan, Gibbs responded: "We're not going to prejudge what the process will be when we sign a bill, which the president expects to do this year."

Asked if Obama would say in his speech that he'd veto a bill without a government plan, Gibbs responded: "Well, I doubt that we're going to get into heavy veto threats on Wednesday."

Continued uncertainty
The uncertainty over the administration's position isn't new. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said last month that a government alternative to private insurance is "not the essential element" in revamping the system to guarantee coverage for all and try to curb unsustainable costs.

Liberals many of whom want to do away with the private health insurance industry and replace it with Medicare for all were furious. At the time, White House officials said Sebelius' remarks were being misinterpreted. Left unclear was Obama's bottom line.


On a call with prominent liberal House members Friday, Obama refused to be pinned down on the issue, a participant told The Associated Press. "It was unclear as to whether the public option is on or off the table," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Independents who helped propel Obama to the presidency are increasingly skeptical about his direction on health care. Unsubstantiated allegations that the legislation would promote euthanasia grabbed headlines last month. But beneath such controversies, voters appear most concerned about the scope and costs of the bill around $1 trillion over 10 years. Obama has said he won't sign a bill unless it is fully paid for and doesn't add to the deficit.

Gibbs said Obama will refocus the debate on the benefits of overhauling the system: more security and lower costs for the majority of people who have health insurance, and new ways to help self-employed people and small businesses get coverage.

"People will leave that speech knowing where he stands," said Gibbs. He said Obama is considering offering his own health care legislation, instead of letting Congress sort out all the details.



____________________WITH THIS ARTICLe---Who didn't see this coming?

You know I have to tip my hat to former President Bush. Were this his primary domestic policy he would have dragged the country along. His position was "You guys elected us to lead. Now we're going to do what we think is right and your opinion be damned." It's what Dick Cheney essentially said. When told "The American public doesn't support the war in Iraq" his response was "So?" President Obama has compromised in the name of bi-partisanship to such an extent any real progressive movement on Health Care is essentially dead in the water. Now, even with Democrats in control of the government, this thing isn't going to happen in a meaningful way. Rather than saying "We were elected and we're doing this thing" the message is "Well, let's find the least common denominator and go with that since 1/64 a loaf of bread is better than absolutely no loaf at all." It's ridiculous. It is just one more sign that progressives aren't represented in this country by a major political party. The democrats are center right and the Republicans are just right off the deep end leaving the sane majority to just hope for the best anticipating (constantly) the worst.

 

[davaroo]

Since only 2% of Americans achieve greater than the average level of living in Sweden I would be inclined to think that many Americans would be happy in the mediocre existence.

JM

People can get used to anything, as proven in Sweden. Sweden is also... "a constitutional monarchy, based on a parliamentary democracy. The affairs of the government of Sweden are directed by a cabinet of ministers, which is led by the Prime Minister. The cabinet and the Prime Minister are responsible for their actions to the Riksdag, which is the parliament."

Note there is no "for the people, by the people and of the people" in there. It is a land that has had thousands of years of rule by a king or queen, backed by selected appointees and ministers. I've been to Sweden, and while the Swedes are decent, moderate people, their rulers are not elected or freely chosen - they are appointees.
Very different perspective.

It is always tempting to hold up the European methods as better than ours, some saying it is the true stamp of the so-called progressive to do so.

Whether you profess to be that or not, is not what matters. I'm a conservative independent, which again, is worth about nothing.

What does matter, though, is this: it is the height of arrogance to assume that what exists in Sweden (or any other country) is best for people here, and should be imposed for our own good.

 

[me&thegals]

Your e-mail to Senator Greedy McWeenie doesn't stand a chance against the lobbyist from Pfizer that's offering 200 million in 2010 plus a lifetime supply of Viagra.

Glad I wasn't drinking tea when I read this one!!

 

[FarmerChick]

Pfizer whistleblower's ordeal reaps big rewards

Wed Sep 2, 2009 5:04pm EDT

By Bill Berkrot

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Taking on corporate giants can feel like tilting at windmills, but John Kopchinski's six-year legal battle against Pfizer Inc just made him a rich man.

The Gulf War veteran and former Pfizer sales representative will earn more than $51.5 million as a result of his whistleblower lawsuit against the world's biggest drugmaker and the record penalty the company must pay the U.S. government for its massive marketing transgressions.

The unassuming Texas resident celebrated his windfall by having a family portrait photograph taken Wednesday morning.

"We're going to be staying right here in San Antonio in the same house, and my wife tells me when we go to the movies we're still getting one tub of popcorn -- the large tub," Kopchinski said in a telephone interview.

Kopchinski, appalled by Pfizer's tactics in selling the pain drug Bextra, filed a "qui tam" lawsuit in 2003, sparking federal and state probes that led to Wednesday's agreement by the company to pay $2.3 billion in civil and criminal penalties and plead guilty to a felony charge for promoting Bextra and 12 other drugs for unapproved uses and doses.

"In the Army I was expected to protect people at all costs," Kopchinski said in a statement. "At Pfizer I was expected to increase profits at all costs, even when sales meant endangering lives.

"I couldn't do that," added Kopchinski, 45, who was fired by Pfizer in March of 2003, two years before the company pulled Bextra from the market over concerns it raised the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

At the time of his dismissal after raising his concerns with the company, Kopchinski had a baby son and his wife was pregnant with twins. He went from earning about $125,000 a year to living off his retirement fund before landing a job with an insurance company for $40,000 a year.

"It was a lot of stress on the family. I pretty much depleted my entire 401(k)," he said.

"The last six years have been pretty hard, so going forward it's going to be pretty much easier," said Kopchinski, noting that college for his young children "is taken care of."

Erika Kelton, Kopchinski's lead attorney from the firm of Phillips & Cohen LLP, said large rewards are justified because of what whistleblowers must endure, often for many years, after complaints within the company go unheeded.

"Particularly in pharma, it's no secret that it's an industry that can blackball former employees," Kelton said, "so the reward is important both to encourage people to step forward and to recognize that their contributions are huge."

Kopchinski and five other whistleblowers will earn more than $102 million in payments from the U.S. government under the False Claims Act through which individuals can reap rewards for exposing corporate wrongdoing.

"The use of whistleblowers has really opened up the keys to the kingdom in terms of what's going on in these companies," said Dean Zerbe, senior counsel for the National Whistleblower Center and a partner at the law firm of Zerbe, Fingeret, Frank and Jadav in Washington.

"You'd never find out what's happening without this kind of reward structure," Zerbe said.

Kopchinski was hired by former Pfizer CEO Edward Pratt in 1992 after carrying out a correspondence with him while serving as a platoon leader in a military police company on the Saudi Arabia-Kuwait border during the Gulf War.

Under a later Pfizer regime, he was selling the epilepsy drug Neurontin when a previous whistleblower suit was filed against the company over similar illegal promotion tactics that led to stiff penalties and a form of corporate probation.

At the time he was told by managers that the Neurontin suit would be in the news and any physicians who asked questions should be told it was just complaints from a disgruntled former employee, Kopchinski said. Ironically, after filing the Bextra suit, "I was the disgruntled former employee," he said.

"What you see here is a company which essentially had a culture of corruption," said Patrick Burns, a spokesman for Taxpayers Against Fraud, a U.S. nonprofit organization that helps connect whistleblowers with attorneys on False Claims Act cases. He called the $2.3 billion settlement "a jaw-dropping amount of money."

The size of the whistleblower rewards announced Wednesday are already having an impact.

"I'm seeing it first-hand myself. I've gotten phone calls this morning," said Zerbe, who was approached by an employee of a hospital who claimed that it was overbilling the government, including charging for products it had received for free.

Despite the potential for huge rewards, however, life can be hellish for whistleblowers.

"If this was so easy everyone would be a millionaire," Burns said


______________________
THIS PERSON ACTUALLY SACRIFICED alot of his life to blow the whistle. The huge settlement shows that ONE PERSON made a huge difference.
Could you imagine what more than one could do. At least this person tried, gave up some comforts, and fought the system. And won!!

Only sad part is that money must be a factor in whether to fight a big corp. Without money as an end result for many years of hardship....most people would never come forward. Imagine if people would come forward and take the chance without a payment at the end. ???probably wouldn't happen as much I guess???

 

[Big Daddy]

essential element" in revamping the system to guarantee coverage for all and try to curb unsustainable costs.

Liberals many of whom want to do away with the private health insurance industry and replace it with Medicare for all were furious. At the time, White House officials said Sebelius' remarks were being misinterpreted. Left unclear was Obama's bottom line.




____________________WITH THIS ARTICLe---Who didn't see this coming?

You know I have to tip my hat to former President Bush. Were this his primary domestic policy he would have dragged the country along. His position was "You guys elected us to lead. Now we're going to do what we think is right and your opinion be damned." It's what Dick Cheney essentially said. When told "The American public doesn't support the war in Iraq" his response was "So?" President Obama has compromised in the name of bi-partisanship to such an extent any real progressive movement on Health Care is essentially dead in the water. Now, even with Democrats in control of the government, this thing isn't going to happen in a meaningful way. Rather than saying "We were elected and we're doing this thing" the message is "Well, let's find the least common denominator and go with that since 1/64 a loaf of bread is better than absolutely no loaf at all." It's ridiculous. It is just one more sign that progressives aren't represented in this country by a major political party. The democrats are center right and the Republicans are just right off the deep end leaving the sane majority to just hope for the best anticipating (constantly) the worst.

That sums it up in a nutshell. Obama can't get his Democratic majority to cooperate so he is willing to take a pittance. I'm afraid that the only aspect of this whole plan that will get passed is that everyone will be required to be insured. That way both sides can be happy. The dems because they got something. The pubs because it means more money for big business. Another 50 million people paying in probably at the same rates or higher. The same mess that Mass has. After watching the way things are going Obama is beginning to look more and more like a conservative as far as corporations go.

 

[reinbeau]

Has nothing to do with Socialism. Socialism is a good word to pull out when you want to scare ignorant people though.

So is calling out 'racism' because people don't like what Obama is doing. It is entirely possible to dislike his policies and not even notice the color of his skin. If he were pink with blue spots I feel the exact same way about him.

ETA The guy who helped bring down Madoff is an accountant from the next town over from me. It may take years, but one man can make enough noise to affect change. I haven't given up, I see a groundswell of change happening - and it isn't the way Obama envisioned it