Obama Administration

Slowly but surely, Obamacare has transformed from the most admired law of the land to the most loathed and despised. What is truly outrageous, or perhaps hilarious, is that this transformation has not been lost on the Obama administration itself. And now, engaged in unprecedented damage control, the former Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, on Wednesday suggested a simple fix to the “bad brand” of Obamacare: change the name. As Politico reports, “I think we may need to call it something in the future different"...

Sometimes I wish I could just passively accept what my government monarchs and their mainstream media mouthpieces feed me on a daily basis. Why do I have to question everything I’m told? Life would be much simpler and I could concentrate on more important things like the size of Kim Kardashian’s ass... The willfully ignorant masses, dumbed down by government education, lured into obesity by corporate toxic packaged sludge disguised as food products, manipulated, controlled and molded by an unseen governing class of rich men, and kept docile through never ending corporate media propaganda, are nothing but pawns to the arrogant sociopathic pricks pulling the wires in this corporate fascist empire of debt.

The game is rigged, and “we the people” keep getting dealt the same losing hand. Even so, we stay in the game, against all odds, trusting that our luck will change. The problem, of course, is that luck will not save us. The people dealing the cards—the politicians, the corporations, the judges, the prosecutors, the police, the bureaucrats, the military, the media, etc.—have only one prevailing concern, and that is to maintain their power and control over the country and us. It’s time to change the rules of the game. For that matter, it’s time to change the game.

While there will be much debate over the economic pros and cons to tumbling oil prices (there is no debate if the plunge is confirmed to be the result of a global collapse in demand: that would scream global recession) with a definitive answer unlikely to be forthcoming for at least several quarters, when it comes to corporate profitability the outcome is already known, because between plunging oil prices and the soaring dollar, what is most likely next in store for the US economy may or may not be a full-blown economic recession, but a profit recession seems virtually inevitable.

.Gov Tortured and Killed Innocent People for the Specific Purpose of Producing False Propaganda (U.S. Used C-O-M-M-U-N-I-S-T Techniques Specifically Designed to Produce F-A-L-S-E Confessions)

Curious what to expect out of today's 600-page mega dump by the Senate Intelligence Committee revealing US torture techniques and practices, aka the "torture report"? The the following explainer by the Intercept's Glenn Greenwald should provide some useful pointers.

Today at 9:30am Eastern, the two key people behind Obamacare will testify under oath before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. One of them is Marilyn Tavenner, the CMS Administrator and the person who was tasked with managing the implementation of Obamacare: a process that was a complete disaster as those who tried to sign up on the healthcare.gov website in late 2013 will recall (and whose overhaul cost over $2 billion).  On the other hand, Jonathan Gruber has recently gained notoriety after a series of videos with him were leaked, in which he bragged that deception and “the stupidity of the American voter” allowed Obama to ram his pet healthcare program into law.

One of the perks of being a president: having your own personal, taxpayer-funded chef. And in the case of Barack Obama, this means an instrumental player in the development of Michelle Obama's controversial "school lunch program", one who also happens to be "Executive Director of the First Lady’s Let’s Move! initiative, the first-ever White House Senior Policy Advisor on Nutrition, and personal chef to the First Family." He name is, or rather his name was Sam Kass, because alongside pretty much everyone else close to Obama in recent few years, Chef Kass is done feeding the First Stomach and is also getting the hell out of Dodge the White House.

With Ebola off the front-pages of every media outlet, President Obama appears to finding it tough to get his $6 billion funding request to fight the deadly disease... time for some hope (things are good in America, Spain delcared Ebola-free) and fearmongery (5,987 deaths and 16,889 cases currently) as The White House increases Ebola response units in the US and sends more military and civilians into Africa...

Total U.S. national debt hit a new record high overnight at over $18 trillion as the Obama administration continues to pile debt onto the back of the U.S. taxpayer at a rate that would have made George W. Bush look prudent.

With the apparent goal of 'protecting civilians' from ISIS and Syria's al-Assad, the US and Turkey appear to be close to agreeing on the creation of a no-fly-zone along a portion of the Syrian border. As WSJ reports, U.S. and Turkish officials have narrowed their differences over a joint military mission in Syria that would give the U.S. and its coalition partners permission to use Turkish air bases to launch strike operations against Islamic State targets across northern Syria. The no-fly-zone would provide sanctuary to Western-backed opposition forces and refugees. As Bloomberg notes, this is a significant reversal of Obama's earlier policy (fearing it would be a significant strain on the U.S. Air Force and put fliers in mortal danger) pushing US closer to outright proxy war with Russia via direct confrontation with al-Assad's airforce.

Was it a conspiracy or was it incompetence?  Those appear to be the only two alternatives that we are left with after this week's violent protests arcoss the country...

The executive actions on immigration announced last week look likely to have only a modest economic effect, because, as Goldman Sachs explains, most of the individuals eligible for the programs are already in the US and, in most cases, are likely already working. That said, Goldman estimates that the changes should increase the labor force by about 300k over the next couple of years and that possible wage gains among those gaining work authorization would increase average wages by less than 0.1%.

• National Guard, police curb Ferguson unrest as protests swell across U.S. (Reuters)
• Ferguson Reaction Across U.S. Shows Complex Racial Split (BBG)
• Democratic senator Schumer: Democrats Screwed Up By Passing Obamacare In 2010 (TPM)
• Veto threat derails Reid tax deal (Hill)
• Justice Department Investigating Possible HSBC Leak to Hedge Fund (WSJ)
• Merkel hits diplomatic dead-end with Putin (Reuters), and yet...
• Merkel Said to Reject Ukraine NATO Bid as Rousing Tension (BBG)
• HSBC, Goldman Rigged Metals’ Prices for Years, Suit Says (BBG)

A lot of Americans have an impression that drone strikes are less damaging to civilian populations than conventional airstrikes. This would be false..."A new analysis of the data available to the public about drone strikes, conducted by the human-rights group Reprieve, indicates that even when operators target specific individuals – the most focused effort of what Barack Obama calls “targeted killing” – they kill vastly more people than their targets, often needing to strike multiple times. Attempts to kill 41 men resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,147 people, as of 24 November." We strongly believe that the reason so many Americans blindly support the widespread use of drones is due to the mistaken belief that they are precise and result in few civilian casualties. It’s important to get some of the facts out to the public in order to have a more informed debate on the matter.