Big Surprise. Not . . . .

Huffpo reports:

Rahm Emanuel Personally Pressed Reid To Cut Deal With Lieberman: Sources

Updated: 12-14-09 07:24 PM

Rahm Emanuel visited Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in his Capitol office on Sunday evening and personally urged him to cut a deal with recalcitrant Sen. Joe Lieberman, two Democratic sources familiar with the situation told the Huffington Post.

Emanuel, President Obama's chief of staff, has long been identified as leading a faction of White House advisers who have been pushing the Senate simply to pass any health care bill, no matter how weak.

His direct message to Reid (D-Nev.), according to a source close to the negotiations: "Get it done. Just get it done."

Politico reported Monday morning that the White House had pressed Reid to cut the deal after Lieberman (I-Conn) insisted the Senate drop a provision, which Lieberman himself has long favored, to allow those 55-64 to buy in to Medicare. Lieberman is threatening to join a Republican filibuster of the bill if the provision isn't dropped.

The White House denied the report. "The report is inaccurate. The White House is not pushing Senator Reid in any direction. We are working hand in hand with the Senate Leadership to work through the various issues and pass health reform as soon as possible," White House spokesman Dan Pfeiffer wrote in an e-mail to the Plum Line.

The report, however, according to the two sources, was entirely accurate. "We're long past time for these kinds of games," one source said.

It would be easy to put all the blame for this on the sleaze-bag emanuel, but remember who hired his a_s.

No bill would be a better than the watered-down version they're heading toward. All they have now is a forced payment to insurance companies with nothing in return.

$ win over people once again . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Moyers on Health Care . . . .

Once again, Bill Moyers of PBS puts current events in their respective places.

His essay this week was on the winners and losers in the debate over US health care "reform."

If anyone has doubts that there will be substantial "reform" I'm with 'ya. There is WAY too much $$ involved on the corporate side to allow it. That $$ funnelled to elected "representative's" political campaign funds was and is not $$ wasted. Politicians know it, lobbyists know it, political "talking heads" know it and the for-profit health industry knows it.

So why does the MSM continue to report the story like there is actually a snowball's chance in hell of "reform"? Probably the same reason they:

Insisted there were meaningful debates during the presidential campaign;
Had wall to wall coverage of Michael Jackson's death;
Cover Britney Spears' lastest breakdown ad nauseum;
Convince everyone to run for cover from swine flu H1N1;
Warn that professional sports is coming to an end due to steroid use by the athletes;
Blah, blah, blah, blah blah.*

It all boils down to ratings/commercial ad rates which - as is the case with the for-profit health industy - means profit$.

They're all playin' for the same team.

Wanna know who the losers are gonna be in this "debate"?

Look around. Unless you're in the corporate boardroom, you are . . . .


*(As a side note, can you imagine Walter Crokite reporting on MJ's funeral or BS' breakdowns in any way, shape or form? Nah, me neither . . . . )

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

If you are lobbying, you're a lobbyist

And that means, in British Columbia, you have to register with the government. If you have been a Member of the Legislative Assembly, office holder with the government or Minister of the Crown in the province of BC, you are forbidden to engage in lobbying-type of activities for a period of two years.

Apparently, Graham Bruce missed that memo. A former labour minister with the Campbell government until 2005, Bruce has been working as a lobbyist for the Cowichan first nations and collecting fees in 2006. That would be a violation of "conflict of interest" legislation in which Bruce would have been prevented from engaging in lobbying activities until 2007.

Bruce's activities may have raised other concerns as well. Somena Media is all over it and that's where to get the whole story.

There is a little whiff of something in the air. There usually is with politics in BC.