Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Glenn Beck Confronts CT Attorney General



When someone asks a legitimate question, why is it the people being asked work so hard to NOT answer the question?

Republicans Are Wall Street is a..Myth??

How did Republicans get saddled with Wall Street? Obama just got the biggest campaign haul from Wall Street in world history, and Republicans still can't shake the public perception that they are tied at the hip to Wall Street bankers who hate them.

It's as if National Rifle Association members conspired with Republicans to bankrupt the country and everyone blamed the Democrats for being shills of the NRA.

Maybe if the financial capital of the nation were located in Salt Lake City, rather than Manhattan, the financial community would support Republicans. But Wall Street is a street located in New York City.

No one in the top echelons of the financial industry who has a weekend place in the Hamptons is a Republican.

No, there is one. Teddy Forstmann. He has to throw his own parties and fly guests in. Otherwise, if they want to go to any half-decent parties, bankers must be Democrats. At their income bracket, multimillionaires will trade a little extra tax money for good cocktail parties.

Even the "Republicans" on Wall Street don't care about national defense or social issues. They just want to trade with China and hire illegal aliens.

Last September, The New York Times reported that individuals associated with the securities and investment industry had given $9.9 million to the Obama campaign, $7.4 million to the Hillary Clinton campaign and only $6.9 million to the McCain campaign. Either they're all Democrats or some commodity named "hope" was going through the roof last year.

Employees of Lehman Bros. alone gave Obama $370,000, compared to about $117,000 to McCain. (No wonder Bush let them go under.)

According to an analysis of Federal Election Commission records by the Center for Responsive Politics, the top three corporate employers of donors to Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Rahm Emanuel were Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JPMorgan. Six other financial giants were in the top 30 donors to the White House Dream Team: UBS AG, Lehman Bros., Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse Group.

Since 1998, the financial sector has given a total of $37.6 million to Obama, compared to $32.1 million to McCain. But Obama ran for his first national office only in 2004. So McCain got less from the financial industry in a decade that included two runs for president than Obama did in four years.

As we've seen in recent weeks, Wall Street gets what it pays for. Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd included language in the stimulus bill allowing executives of the bailed-out banks to collect million-dollar bonuses.

And yet the Democrats' endless favors for their Wall Street friends never sticks to them because everyone treats Democrats' shilling for their own contributors as if it's a Nixon-goes-to-China moment.

On the March 23 edition of MSNBC's "Hardball," The Nation's David Corn said: "Remember -- What was it? A year or two back when there was talk about taxing hedge fund managers at the rate that the rest of us pay? Who intervened in that? Chuck Schumer."

But Corn then quickly added that this "got a lot of Democrats really mad. Here was a Democrat, you know, getting in the way of a populist issue at a time when the economy was already heading in the wrong direction."

Which Democrats got "really mad"? Chris Dodd? George Soros? Warren Buffett? Jon Corzine? Tim Geithner? Roger Altman? Bob Rubin? Jamie Dimon? Lloyd Blankfein?

Corn's formulation was wonderfully subtle: Admit that a Democrat preserved a sweetheart deal for hedge fund managers -- but then claim that his fellow Democrats were furious with him.

People are more likely to believe something if they think they came to it themselves. Hearing a liberal muse on TV that it was an aberration for Chuck Schumer to intervene to protect hedge fund managers -- risking the wrath of other Democrats -- the average person thinks: So Democrats must be the party of the people. I always thought George Soros was a Democrat, but he must be a Republican.

Democrats take care of the financial industry -- and the financial industry takes care of Democrats. After honing his financial skills as the bagman for Bill Clinton's White House, Rahm Emanuel was hired by the investment bank Wasserstein Perella, where he worked for 2 1/2 years.

For that, Emanuel was paid more than $18 million. (Maybe Rahm Emanuel was the Democrat livid at Schumer for preserving a sweet tax deal for hedge fund managers!)

Democrats have a beautiful system: They're showered with Wall Street money, but they also get to pillory Republicans for being the party of "Wall Street." The bankers don't care if Democrats attack them. They still get their bailout money.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

What is America?

Maybe the real question is who, but I'll go with what anyways. I hope to convey my message as it is in my head, despite my lack of truly expressive literary skills. To begin to see how America came about, I think we need to go back, way back, in history.

Many centuries ago Rome was considered the light of the world, shining out over the dark and barbarian lands that surrounded one of the greatest and most powerful empires that ever existed in the history of man. Rome was not a monumentous machine of war, nor was it the embodiment of politics.

Rome was more aptly, an idea. An idea that was strong, yet so fragile.

While maintaining a monarch-like head, Rome was a place where the people who lived there ran their government as they ran their lives. They sent forth people to represent them in the Senate. The Senate was the link between the common people and the Emperor. The job of the Emperor and the Senate was to see to the needs of the Empire, while providing a place suitable to the peoples' wishes, without interfering with their ability to produce value to their society.

It was within this construct that Rome grew in its perceived greatness. Some surrounding areas willingly joined the Roman territories to be a part of its unique "center of the world" status. Others on the other hand chose either to defend themselves from Rome's influence, or to outright attack Rome for what they found offensive about this civilization.

As with any major civilization, greater power led to expansion through military means. The need to control the known world, and press into the unknown seems to be inherent trait of ours throughout history. Power abroad was not only thirsted for by the government as a whole, but by individuals within the government over domestic affairs. Favortism, greed, and corruption of all sorts became the name of the game. Once ruled by statesmen, Rome found itself under control of mere politicians, jockeying for more personal power at every turn. To be sure, there were members of the Senate with a more pure heart, and a desire to provide the leadership for all of Rome and her people. But as time went on, the number of good men dwindled in comparison to that of the politicians. And eventually, after peaking as power of the world, Rome began its descent, eventually crumbling. Rome remained physically, but the idea that is Rome, and what made her truly great could only be heard in faint whispers.

Many centuries later, well after the fall of Rome, the American Colonies rebirthed themselves from British control to become The United States of America, a new and sovereign nation unto itself. Freedom to operate under their own authority, to accept responsibility directly for themselves, instead of from some King 3000 miles away, was the main objective. For all the complications that society, much less a new society, bears, the former colonies now had the opportunity to start fresh. A central government was started for minimist purposes of national defense and foreign policy was created, however most power was conferred to each state to attend to its own need as they saw fit.

Like Rome, and the Greek States before them, The United States placed its representative power with the people. For the people to elect leaders from amongst its own populace, they could all be assured a voice in the process which would make America a great and desirable society. Some of these representatives were mere politicians, seeking to either maintain or expand their power, but in the beginning, Statesmen were the order of the day. Seeing to the construction of a new country, with the Constitution as its base, America held great promise for all who lived there, as well as those who should wish to join the American experiment from lands abroad.

One can argue the politics throughout the decades and centuries of our existence as a country, but one thing I do not think can be argued: America has spent her history becoming less and less free. We still have the opportunities to go from a nobody to a wealthy somebody. We still have the opportunity to travel across this great land of ours without restriction, and put down our roots where we see fit. But something has changed since the days of our forefathers. Lawmakers in Congress have increasingly found themselves justifying their positions. Law after law becomes enacted. Some with pure intention, others with more restrictive malicious intentions. We have enacted laws that are redundant to each other many times over, with selective enforcement. We have enacted laws that merely serve to provide more of the citizens' money to governmental purposes, with no real value to be seen, other than satisfy one group's opinion on how the rest of society should act.

To be sure we have enacted more laws than scenarios requiring them than could even possibly exist, at least in my mind.

Everyone has their own version of their America. For some it is the simple desire to live in their house, earn their own living and to be left alone. For others, it is to see that all Americans are taken care of, be it with healthcare, or for more mundane services we take for granted, like satisfactory water and sewage processing systems, or access to education, housing, food, or whatever one's needs might be.

For me, I blend my personal rights with community needs. I wish to live where I want to, and the choice to determine how I make my money. I believe that the harder I work, the more I should be rewarded. I should not be punished for my productive values. I believe in helping those around me that are in need, by my own volition, not by government mandate. I find local, more personal options to seeing my neighbors do well enough as a good thing. For if my neighbors do well, surely so will I. All that contribute to a better society around them, should share int he rewards such harmony may bring. All those who choose to harm it, shall keep the consequences for themselves. I believe in some regulation, but only enough to keep us from harming each other, and it must be applied equally to all parties.

For being the most free country on Earth, it often seems that in other lands as mentioned by Scott, practice what we call a more socialized government operation (despite having less far reaching regulations over every little thing), that the people there are more free than we are here in America.

I know the world is not black and white, and our ideas of perfection will most likely never be attained, and/or they may change as we grow through experience. I know that in my heart, I am an idealist of sorts, which will aways leave me wanting. But what we live in today, is not the America is was taught to believe in as I grew up.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

AIG Executive Resigns.....with good cause

The following is a letter sent on Tuesday by Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of the American International Group’s financial products unit, to Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G.


DEAR Mr. Liddy,

It is with deep regret that I submit my notice of resignation from A.I.G. Financial Products. I hope you take the time to read this entire letter. Before describing the details of my decision, I want to offer some context:

I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in — or responsible for — the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G. Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage.

After 12 months of hard work dismantling the company — during which A.I.G. reassured us many times we would be rewarded in March 2009 — we in the financial products unit have been betrayed by A.I.G. and are being unfairly persecuted by elected officials. In response to this, I will now leave the company and donate my entire post-tax retention payment to those suffering from the global economic downturn. My intent is to keep none of the money myself.

I take this action after 11 years of dedicated, honorable service to A.I.G. I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.

You and I have never met or spoken to each other, so I’d like to tell you about myself. I was raised by schoolteachers working multiple jobs in a world of closing steel mills. My hard work earned me acceptance to M.I.T., and the institute’s generous financial aid enabled me to attend. I had fulfilled my American dream.

I started at this company in 1998 as an equity trader, became the head of equity and commodity trading and, a couple of years before A.I.G.’s meltdown last September, was named the head of business development for commodities. Over this period the equity and commodity units were consistently profitable — in most years generating net profits of well over $100 million. Most recently, during the dismantling of A.I.G.-F.P., I was an integral player in the pending sale of its well-regarded commodity index business to UBS. As you know, business unit sales like this are crucial to A.I.G.’s effort to repay the American taxpayer.

The profitability of the businesses with which I was associated clearly supported my compensation. I never received any pay resulting from the credit default swaps that are now losing so much money. I did, however, like many others here, lose a significant portion of my life savings in the form of deferred compensation invested in the capital of A.I.G.-F.P. because of those losses. In this way I have personally suffered from this controversial activity — directly as well as indirectly with the rest of the taxpayers.

I have the utmost respect for the civic duty that you are now performing at A.I.G. You are as blameless for these credit default swap losses as I am. You answered your country’s call and you are taking a tremendous beating for it.

But you also are aware that most of the employees of your financial products unit had nothing to do with the large losses. And I am disappointed and frustrated over your lack of support for us. I and many others in the unit feel betrayed that you failed to stand up for us in the face of untrue and unfair accusations from certain members of Congress last Wednesday and from the press over our retention payments, and that you didn’t defend us against the baseless and reckless comments made by the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut.

My guess is that in October, when you learned of these retention contracts, you realized that the employees of the financial products unit needed some incentive to stay and that the contracts, being both ethical and useful, should be left to stand. That’s probably why A.I.G. management assured us on three occasions during that month that the company would “live up to its commitment” to honor the contract guarantees.

That may be why you decided to accelerate by three months more than a quarter of the amounts due under the contracts. That action signified to us your support, and was hardly something that one would do if he truly found the contracts “distasteful.”

That may also be why you authorized the balance of the payments on March 13.

At no time during the past six months that you have been leading A.I.G. did you ask us to revise, renegotiate or break these contracts — until several hours before your appearance last week before Congress.

I think your initial decision to honor the contracts was both ethical and financially astute, but it seems to have been politically unwise. It’s now apparent that you either misunderstood the agreements that you had made — tacit or otherwise — with the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, various members of Congress and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo of New York, or were not strong enough to withstand the shifting political winds.

You’ve now asked the current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. to repay these earnings. As you can imagine, there has been a tremendous amount of serious thought and heated discussion about how we should respond to this breach of trust.

As most of us have done nothing wrong, guilt is not a motivation to surrender our earnings. We have worked 12 long months under these contracts and now deserve to be paid as promised. None of us should be cheated of our payments any more than a plumber should be cheated after he has fixed the pipes but a careless electrician causes a fire that burns down the house.

Many of the employees have, in the past six months, turned down job offers from more stable employers, based on A.I.G.’s assurances that the contracts would be honored. They are now angry about having been misled by A.I.G.’s promises and are not inclined to return the money as a favor to you.

The only real motivation that anyone at A.I.G.-F.P. now has is fear. Mr. Cuomo has threatened to “name and shame,” and his counterpart in Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, has made similar threats — even though attorneys general are supposed to stand for due process, to conduct trials in courts and not the press.

So what am I to do? There’s no easy answer. I know that because of hard work I have benefited more than most during the economic boom and have saved enough that my family is unlikely to suffer devastating losses during the current bust. Some might argue that members of my profession have been overpaid, and I wouldn’t disagree.

That is why I have decided to donate 100 percent of the effective after-tax proceeds of my retention payment directly to organizations that are helping people who are suffering from the global downturn. This is not a tax-deduction gimmick; I simply believe that I at least deserve to dictate how my earnings are spent, and do not want to see them disappear back into the obscurity of A.I.G.’s or the federal government’s budget. Our earnings have caused such a distraction for so many from the more pressing issues our country faces, and I would like to see my share of it benefit those truly in need.

On March 16 I received a payment from A.I.G. amounting to $742,006.40, after taxes. In light of the uncertainty over the ultimate taxation and legal status of this payment, the actual amount I donate may be less — in fact, it may end up being far less if the recent House bill raising the tax on the retention payments to 90 percent stands. Once all the money is donated, you will immediately receive a list of all recipients.

This choice is right for me. I wish others at A.I.G.-F.P. luck finding peace with their difficult decision, and only hope their judgment is not clouded by fear.

Mr. Liddy, I wish you success in your commitment to return the money extended by the American government, and luck with the continued unwinding of the company’s diverse businesses — especially those remaining credit default swaps. I’ll continue over the short term to help make sure no balls are dropped, but after what’s happened this past week I can’t remain much longer — there is too much bad blood. I’m not sure how you will greet my resignation, but at least Attorney General Blumenthal should be relieved that I’ll leave under my own power and will not need to be “shoved out the door.”

Sincerely,

Jake DeSantis

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Cooties and the Mass Female Gender Problems Associated Therein

By Dr James I (my alias), Senior Advisor of Life Sciences (made up title), James Medical Institute (Grand illusion of my mentalities medical research school)

Description: A short summary of the results concluded from my seminal (can't say I've ever been able to use this word in any of my writings before) work on Cooties research (my specialty).

Body:

Cooties is an inherent trait of the Human race, genetically passed on to each generation ensuring influence over certain biologies and psychologies of 100% of the human race.

I have identified that while all humans are carriers of this disease, full blown cooties infestations only affect a certain percentage of the human race. For those of you playing at home, take out a piece of scratch paper and take note. Draw out the male chromosomal representation as Xy. Now, take that same symbol, and on the lower right side, extend the short line of the 'y' to make an 'x'. You will notice this extra 'tail' is where the cooties gene lies. You will also notice that when you do this you make "XX" or the chromosomal representation of a female.

Clearly this is indicative that why all humans are carriers of the Cooties gene, that only females seemt o be infected, with some exceptions. In certain chromosomal anomalies such as XXY, there may be certain biological differences in anatomical structure. But this person would be truly infected with Cooties. Now some may argue that the XYY would merely be a carrier. But we here at the James Medical Institute disagree. In order for the body to maintain this chromosomal imbalance the second would have to be stacked on top of the other Y and flipped upside-down, thus making an alternate form of X, thereby showing definite signs of cooties infection.

Cooties, while thought to be a made up disease by young children, is in fact real. You can know this by simply looking up the word in the dictionary. And yes, you will see it is a body louse, according to definition. However, unlike most louse, who appear on the surface of the human body, this one is bloodborne and thrives on the internal body structure for its life.

This parasite, obviously affecting anatomical structure noted by the physical differences between males and females, is not the only havoc it wreaks upon humanity. As noted, certain psychologies are affected, and most differences associated with gender, from an early age on up through adulthood for the entirety of life can be in fact attributed to The Cooties Factor.

Scenarios and Causal Determinations:

- Hatred of getting dirty by girls: Cooties
- Avoiding P.E. Class in High School to avoid getting sweaty by girls: Cooties
- Inability to comprehend that male counterparts can indeed be thinking nothing: Cooties
- Emotional outbursts for no apparent reason: Cooties
- Necessity of mass amounts of pillows on a bed when not in use: Cooties
- PMS: Cootie
- Inability to comprehend basic logic and its use to solve everything: Cooties
- Anorexia and Bulimia: Cooties
- Need for expensive things, and Compulsive Shoppers' Disorder : Cooties
- Need for being held and emotional verbiage from the men in their lives: COOTIES!
- Getting pelted in the mouth by a snowball by a hysterically laughing young boy of the same age: Cooties

These are just a few mere examples of the many thousands we have uncovered in our decade of research that are linked directly to the infestation of full blown cooties. Scientifically speaking, men who later develop the ability to speak girly stuff like their emotions out in the open, or those who wish to be a woman, and SOME homosexual men have been identified in our research as having moved from simple carrier to having been fully infected by cooties.

Cures for Cooties:
None. However, Cooties vaccines are being developed as this is written. so far, they are only good for 6 months. We are hoping soon to break through to the once a year cooties shot, and eventually to a permanent vaccine which can be injected into the fetus in order to hopefully eradicating cooties altogether. Of course, careful measures will have to be taken to avoid eliminatng girls from the human race in the process. Sooner or later those girls turn into women. And all non-cooties-infected men love women.

Result of this study's official publishment: Possible death to the author from a certain someone he knows that is obviously riddled with cooties.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Government and/or Insurance Companies Directly Driving Costs Of Healthcare UP?!?!

Below is an interview done by Glenn Beck from his show on Tuesday, March 17, 2009
It really is an interesting case. Is it the case just there in New York, everywhere, limited places, or where? I'd be rather interested in who is behind the decision of the State of New York to say how the doctor operates his private practice when it comes to how he charges his fees for his work. Is it just the state being power hungry, or maybe an insurance lobbyist who saw what was ging on and made the push to keep the insurance industry from losing some of its relevance, power, and all that GLORIOUS MONEY? Read below, and let me know what you think!




GLENN: When it comes to healthcare, do they want to fix the problem? Dr. Muney is a doctor here in the New York area. John Muney is his name. You are originally from Turkey, aren't you, Doctor?


DR. MUNEY: Yes, I'm from Turkey.


GLENN: How long have you lived here in the United States?


DR. MUNEY: Since 1975.


GLENN: Since 1975, you've been a doctor here since 1975?


DR. MUNEY: Yes.


GLENN: And you have a regular practice, and it's a thriving practice.


DR. MUNEY: Yes.


GLENN: How many patients do you have?


DR. MUNEY: Well, in our practice now we have about 7,000 to 8,000 patients.


GLENN: Okay, 7,000 to 8,000 patients, and you decided that there's too much waste, it cost too much money, just in your overhead. Tell me a little about the frustration of being a doctor in America today.


DR. MUNEY: Well, the system, it's the wrong system. That's what we have here. It really is mostly to paperwork, waste, bureaucracy, fraud, abuse and that's why we're paying about 50% increase in our healthcare premiums.


GLENN: Say that again. What do you mean we're paying 50% in healthcare premiums?


DR. MUNEY: I mean, the system, the way it's set up, it lends itself to abuse, waste, bureaucracy. And if we were paying $2.4 trillion in healthcare, I think $1.2 trillion is waste. It can be reduced. It can be eliminated.


GLENN: And how is that?


DR. MUNEY: Well, I mean, you know, the way the system's set up, the patient/doctor relationship is broken. People are trying to make as much as possible the way -- for example, the doctors are seeing the patients as a cash cow now, some of them. So they try to do as much, as many tests as possible, as many surgeries as possible. The hospital bills are enormous. $100,000, $200,000, $300,000 bills are common now. And this goes on and on.


GLENN: Okay. How come they can do this?


DR. MUNEY: Well, the regulations, the system itself allows them to do it.


GLENN: In what way? The insurance companies because it's a third party payor?


DR. MUNEY: The insurance company, it's a third party system and, you know, they are trying to do some job but because of the -- it takes certain amount of money to run the system and plus, the patients come to you, they say, "Doc, I have this insurance, do as many tests as possible." And the doctor said, "Well, okay, I'll do it because I'm getting paid. And the hospital does the same thing. And the cost keeps escalating.


GLENN: So in other words, this is -- and I've had this happen a million times. The doctor will say, "Does your insurance cover X, Y, and Z?" You'll say no. Then they will sit there and think for about 30 seconds and they will say, okay, we'll use this instead. That's where the waste comes in. They don't have to do some of the things that they --


DR. MUNEY: No, they don't have to.


GLENN: And would you include some of that waste in the paperwork, you know, to guard against litigation, et cetera, et cetera, and the insurance for the doctors on litigation?


DR. MUNEY: Oh, definitely, there's no question about it. I think in my estimation is the cost of our practice to our healthcare system's about 10% minimum.


GLENN: Okay. So you're talking now about 60% of what we all pay for healthcare is between waste and guarding against litigation?


DR. MUNEY: That's true. I strongly believe it. I believe that we can reduce our healthcare costs by 2/3 easily.


GLENN: Okay. Now so you know, America, I'm just talking -- this is just one man's opinion. He's just a doctor here in New York.


DR. MUNEY: Yes.


GLENN: But he got sick of it and he decided that he was going to charge all of his patients $79. You weren't going to take any more healthcare, you weren't going to do -- no insurance. Just $79 every month and you can go see him -- you can go -- your patients can come see you as many times in that month as they needed.


DR. MUNEY: That's true. They can come, for $79 there's unlimited preventive checkups and includes the bloodwork, sonogram, x-ray, whatever they need at that time.


GLENN: And if somebody gets sick and they need to see you five times in a month, they only would have paid you $79 and there was no, there was no office pay or anything like that. It was just $79 and you can come as many times as you want.


DR. MUNEY: Yes, that's true. As long as they are coming for preventive checkups, yes.


GLENN: What does that mean?


DR. MUNEY: Well, my original idea was to charge $79 flat rate every month for unlimited visits but unfortunately the state stepped in saying that if I do this, I'm doing insurance business.


GLENN: Okay.


DR. MUNEY: So they --


GLENN: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. But what I want to go to originally is you said anything for $79 a month, they could see you for anything. That was your original idea?


DR. MUNEY: That was my original idea.


GLENN: Then the state came in and said, "No, that makes you an insurance company and so you can't do that."


DR. MUNEY: That's true.


GLENN: And then the state sent you a letter saying that you couldn't do that.


DR. MUNEY: Yes.


GLENN: And then you came on my program.


DR. MUNEY: Yes.


GLENN: And then they said, "Okay, you can do that; however, you can't charge the $79, it can only be for preventative medicine."


DR. MUNEY: Yes.


GLENN: A checkup, which kind of defeats the purpose. And then you also have to charge them, what is it, $33?


DR. MUNEY: Yes, $33 for sick visit only. If they come in for sick visits, I must charge them $33 because, to cover my overhead costs. That's the law.


DR. MUNEY: Why -- yeah, I know. It's convenient, isn't it?


DR. MUNEY: Yes.


GLENN: How does that help people getting healthcare, who don't have healthcare, how is that helping to have $79 for preventative and if you get sick, you can also pay $33 when the doctor himself says "I don't need to charge the $33"?


DR. MUNEY: That's true.


GLENN: How is that helping?


DR. MUNEY: I mean, it really makes it more difficult for us to charge $33 because then it will increase or administrative costs as well. But I think $79 will cover my costs. That's what I believe, and I wanted to do this but unfortunately in order for me to salvage the program, I still believe it's a good deal, no question about it in my mind. But I had to agree to some kind of compromise.


GLENN: Okay. Have you asked them if, that let's say you go to a restaurant and it's all you can eat for $9.99 if that $9.99 is an insurance program? Have you asked them if that $9.99 for an all you can eat, if you also wanted dessert if they would have to charge an extra $33 for dessert if that would be fair? Have you asked them how do they explain gym membership?


DR. MUNEY: Lawyers, retainers fees, it works on the same principle.


GLENN: What is their response to that?


DR. MUNEY: Well, I haven't -- I never talked face to face with them. We've been only communicating through letters, and my lawyer has contacted them several times and so this is a compromise we chose. I'm hoping that hopefully some legislator will sponsor a bill to change the law and take the primary care out of the insurance business.


GLENN: You know, Texas, South Carolina.


DR. MUNEY: Washington. Washington, the primary care is not under insurance law. They can do it and they are doing it.


GLENN: And is it working out fine for them?


DR. MUNEY: Yes, exactly. I communicated with a couple of doctors from Washington State.


GLENN: Be careful when they get all this stimulus money. I wonder what kind of strings are attached in that. Dr. Muney, I appreciate you very much, sir.


DR. MUNEY: All right. Bye-bye.


GLENN: This is why -- just don't believe them when they say, oh, we're just trying to help out. No, they're not. No, they're not. They're looking for their own power. That's all they're looking for. When they say that they're against giving bonuses to the AIG executives, ask them, do they have a contract? Yes. Is it valid? Yes. In your bailout did you not say that all contracts signed before this date are valid and must be withheld -- must be upheld? Yes. Did you guys in congress write that law? Yes. So it's a valid contract? Yes. You said that if it was signed before a certain date that it was valid? Yes. It would be honored? Yes. You don't believe we can break the union contracts, right? Of course not, no. But this contract with AIG that makes you popular to fight, you can break that one? Yes. So that's like we enforce the law sometimes on the border and sometimes we don't. That means that sometimes this drug law we need to go ahead and enforce but sometimes we don't. That means that sometimes you'll pay a tax penalty if you don't pay your taxes and sometimes you'll be made secretary of the treasury? Yes. Okay, I just want to make sure I understand the rules, which basically means there are no rules... unless you're important or powerful, which is weird because I think that's the way communist Russia used to work. But call me crazy.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Superhero Fails to Subdue Mookie

When I was growing up, you had comic books, cartoons and action figures to revere the superheroes. Kid's were given an animated snese of right and wrong, good and evil. There were the Superheroes, and then there were the villains.

Yesterday I was viciously and unprovokingly attacked by Superman. Apparently my local notoriety of being quite the Super Rent-A-Cop (the term "super" here is self-aggrandizing, yes, but its my story, and thusly my reality. Deal with it!) has offended this special class of superheroes I looked up to as a young boy.

Or maybe it was the fact that Superman, having had his likeness super-imposed on a pair of underwear for a 5 year old offended him. Maybe the thought of baing plastered to the butt of Buggy, and then haphazardly discarded onto the floor about 2feet from the pile of dirty laundry, instead of being prized and coveted (much like my GI JOE with the kung fu grip) has caused Superman to make the decision to leap into action.

While walking innocently from my bedroom to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee for my wife and I, Superman nefariously placed himself right under my foot. My big toe caught itself in the elastic waistband. As I continued to step forward, my rear foot came down on the backside of the dragging superhero underwear. In what can only be described as an amazing sense of balance and athletic prowess by yours truly, I narrowly avoided sling-shotting my face into the living room carpet. I'm not sure of the mechanics, but then again, I can only pretend to understand the capabilities of an underwear adorned superhero.

With the quick ninja-like reactions I was born with, I saved myself from a very embarrasing self face planting. I quickly throttled the slightly dirty Superman underwear and gave him his very own sling-shot ride into the dirty laundry pile in retribution for his grave error in tangling with The Mookie.

Once again, I saved my own day!!