The Obamanation

[TheMercenary]

They did good with that one.

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

They did good with that one.

Okay, who hacked Merc's account?

Take off that mask and show us who you really are!

[TheMercenary]

Business as usual in D.C.

Firms with Obama ties profit from health push

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's push for a national health care overhaul is providing a financial windfall in the election offseason to Democratic consulting firms that are closely connected to the president and two top advisers.

Coalitions of interest groups running at least $24 million in pro-overhaul ads hired GMMB, which worked for Obama's 2008 campaign and whose partners include a top Obama campaign strategist. They also hired AKPD Message and Media, which was founded by David Axelrod, a top adviser to Obama's campaign and now to the White House. AKPD did work for Obama's campaign, and Axelrod's son Michael and Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe work there.

The firms were hired by Americans for Stable Quality Care and its predecessor, Healthy Economy Now. Each was formed by a coalition of interests with big stakes in health care policy, including the drug maker lobby PhRMA, the American Medical Association, the Service Employees International Union and Families USA, which calls itself "The Voice for Health Care Consumers."

Their ads press for changes in health care policy. Healthy Economy Now made one of the same arguments that Obama does: that health care costs are delaying the country's economic recovery and that changes are needed if the economy is to rebound.

There is no evidence that Axelrod directly profited from the group's ads. Axelrod took steps to separate himself from AKPD when he joined Obama's White House. AKPD owes him $2 million from his stock sale and will make preset payments over four years, starting with $350,000 on Dec. 31, according to Axelrod's personal financial disclosure report.

A larger issue is a network of relationships and overlapping interests that resembles some seen in past administrations and could prove a problem as Obama tries to win the public over on health care and fulfill his promise to change the way Washington works, said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a government watchdog group.

"Even if these are obvious bedfellows and kind of standard PR maneuvers, it still stands to undercut Obama's credibility," Krumholz said. "The potential takeaway from the public is 'friends in cahoots to engineer a grass roots result.'"

White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said that Axelrod has had no communications with Healthy Economy Now or with Americans for Stable Quality Care, and his payments aren't affected by the ad contracts. Axelrod's son, a salaried AKPD employee, doesn't work with either coalition "or stand to benefit from that work," LaBolt said.

"David Axelrod has fully complied with the toughest-ever ethics rules for administration officials, including divesting from AKPD before the administration began," LaBolt said.

Ken Johnson, a PhRMA senior vice president, said GMMB and AKPD were the only two firms working on the $24 million in ads. He declined to reveal how much each was paid beyond saying that each received a small percentage of the total. The coalition's campaign team decided to hire the two firms, he said.

"In a perfect world, it's a distraction we don't need right now, but these are very gifted consultants who have done very good work," Johnson said. "And it's also important to remember that at the end of the day, the coalition partners determine the message."

Healthy Economy Now spokesman Jeremy Van Ess said the two firms were hired because "they are the best at what they do. Period." The coalition didn't seek approval or direction on any of its activities from the White House, said Van Ess, a partner in a consulting firm that has worked on Democratic Senate election activities and a former speechwriter for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

AKPD and GMMB both proudly proclaim their connections to Obama on their Web sites.

AKPD has a full page on Axelrod that includes pictures of Obama. In one photo, Obama hugs Plouffe on election night.

"We are deeply honored to have been part of Barack Obama's historic campaign to change America and the world," GMMB says on its Web site. GMMB's partners include Jim Margolis, a senior strategist for Obama's presidential campaign.

Both GMMB and AKPD also have worked for Democrats this year. The Democratic National Committee paid AKPD at least $106,000 for polling, media production, communication consulting and travel costs from February through April. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee paid GMMB roughly $75,000 from February through June for ads. And GMMB took in at least $9,000 this year from Senate leader Reid's political action committee for communications consulting.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090819/...re_consultants

[Happy Monkey]

Hmm... an article about how nothing bad was done, but it could look bad if somebody wrote an article about how it could look bad, while taking care to point out that nothing bad was done. How meta.

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Hmm... an article about how nothing bad was done, but it could look bad if somebody wrote an article about how it could look bad, while taking care to point out that nothing bad was done. How meta.

Bwaaahaaahaaaa!

And really, how could we ever get enough of these kinds of articles? I was just saying to myself today, "Self, how could you get your hands on hundreds of irrelevant articles on a daily basis?" There just aren't enough pointless meandering partisan articles around these parts.

[TheMercenary]

Yea, I agree, sort of like when the VP left a company that he was on the board of directors and that company directly profited from their government contract.

[Shawnee123]

Really, that's old news. Shouldn't we forgive Cheney for Halliburton by now?

[Shawnee123]

http://www.nasfaa.org/publications/2...ida082009.html

[TheMercenary]

Well Obama is doing a live interview with some conservative radio talkshow host in the White House. Pretty impressive. I would give Obama two thumbs up on that one.

[TheMercenary]

Pretty funny.

Ben Smith

August 19, 2009

'We are God's partners in matters of life and death'

A reader points out that President Obama's call with the rabbis today — as recorded in Rabbi Jack Moline's and other clerics' Twitter feeds — freights health care reform with a great deal of religious meaning, and veers into the blend of policy and faith that outraged liberals in the last administration.

"We are God's partners in matters of life and death," Obama said, according to Moline (paging Sarah Palin...), quoting from the Rosh Hashanah prayer that says that in the holiday period, it is decided "who shall live and who shall die."

The president ended the call by wishing the rabbis "shanah tovah," or happy new year — in reference to the High Holidays a month from now.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmi...h.html?showall

The sound of silence.

[Griff]

I'd say he is making room in the middle for religious moderates. The GOP used the right edge effectively to get their crusade in the Middle East. Obama is trying to make the middle comfortable for people who think religion is useful for something other than getting people amped up to kill. There are a lot of spiritual people in this country who've turned away from organized religion in part because of its marriage to the GOP regardless of the other policies it promotes based solely on an expressed opposition to abortion. Obama is doing a very smart thing. It may be cynical but at least his motive is in line with the beliefs of the target audience. Bushes hijacking of the nation's pulpits was brilliantly done. Franco would have been proud.

[TheMercenary]

The move of the population away from organized religion began long before Bush came on the scene. Maybe more people moved away when the GOP expressed their overwhelming belief in faith based programs to assist in the issues of the charity. I can't recall anything other than a few sound bites that proclaimed faith to pursue the WOT. But given that many people were religious it sounds like a logical thing to do when you are about to go into armed conflict. I never heard any of the rally cries when I was on active duty at that time which ever invoked some kind of use of organized religion to "amp up" the troops. Maybe you had a different experience when you were serving at the time, or someone in your family, or even a close friend. I never heard it. The problem people have with organized religion in this country has very little to do with some fantasy that it was highjacked by the GOP. Seems to me that Obama and his reverend’s sound bite of “GOD DAMM AMERICA” Wright did more to move people away from organized religion than Bush did in 8 years.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

The move of the population away from organized religion began long before Bush came on the scene.

Definitely.

Maybe more people moved away when the GOP expressed their overwhelming belief in faith based programs to assist in the issues of the charity.

I think the outrage there was more out of the Democrats anti-religion corner but subsidizing religious organizations regardless of mission is going to be controversial. Since the opposition was so loud Obama probably needs to reposition his party as less anti-religion.

I can't recall anything other than a few sound bites that proclaimed faith to pursue the WOT. But given that many people were religious it sounds like a logical thing to do when you are about to go into armed conflict. I never heard any of the rally cries when I was on active duty at that time which ever invoked some kind of use of organized religion to "amp up" the troops. Maybe you had a different experience when you were serving at the time, or someone in your family, or even a close friend. I never heard it.

I meant amp up the civilian population to support a war of choice. ..."this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile."

The problem people have with organized religion in this country has very little to do with some fantasy that it was highjacked by the GOP.

Everyone who has left a church has their own reasons. Mine had to due mostly with perceived close-mindedness, sharp movement away from Vatican II, adherence to dogma over reason, covering up clergy abuse, putting the Church before ethics, denial of the legitimacy of other religions, and miss-use of the pulpit to organize for the GOP. My Catholic diocese is fully in the pocket of the Republican Party with the bishop forcing the priests to read his political tracts and threatened denial of communion to Biden.

Seems to me that Obama and his reverend’s sound bite of “GOD DAMM AMERICA” Wright did more to move people away from organized religion than Bush did in 8 years.

I never saw that having an impact but then I never attended his particular church or denomination.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Griff

Definitely. I think the outrage there was more out of the Democrats anti-religion corner but subsidizing religious organizations regardless of mission is going to be controversial. Since the opposition was so loud Obama probably needs to reposition his party as less anti-religion.

Definately. But it does not explain the silence on the part of those who are memebers of their "anti-religion corner". The outcry of those radical elements was huge. It just sounds like ANOTHER example of the double standard and pass given to Obama.

I meant amp up the civilian population to support a war of choice. ..."this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile."

Possible. I never saw it that way, but like you (if I read your comments correctly) I am not all that connected to organized religion in any way. I just don't ever recall large groups of people invoking religion in the same way that Bush stated it. He said it. I never heard it repeated.

Everyone who has left a church has their own reasons. Mine had to due mostly with perceived close-mindedness, sharp movement away from Vatican II, adherence to dogma over reason, covering up clergy abuse, putting the Church before ethics, denial of the legitimacy of other religions, and miss-use of the pulpit to organize for the GOP.

I agree 100%.

My Catholic diocese is fully in the pocket of the Republican Party with the bishop forcing the priests to read his political tracts and threatened denial of communion to Biden.

I couldn't respond, I haven't been but to a few weddings and funerals in the last 20 years.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

.., I haven't been but to a few weddings and funerals in the last 20 years.

That is my plan for the next twenty.