Matt Taibbi's Last Appearance on Morning Joe...Also, Did Congress Sabotage Any Chance at a Public Option?

As reported by blogger D-Day, the fireworks were bright over in Starbucks-land this morning.

"Excuse me, but if America is so bad, why is it that if I got sick or one of my loved one's got sick, well America is the best....?" best, best, best?
That was Maria Bartiromo on Morning Joe, arguing with Matt Tiabbi about the health insurance issue. What she didn't say is that she has great health insurance as an anchor at CNBC and so has everything that American medicine can offer available to her. And, its worth mentioning, as she spews out verbatim talking points, that she also is married to the very rich son of an investor, CEO of an investment services company, known as the "reinventor of the index fund," a company that specializes in exchange traded funds; (... supposedly a vehicle which holds certain stock and bonds, much like a bundled mass of crap, but what do I know? Supposedly these ETF's have the value of whats inside, but then so does everything have an underlying value and a possible value depending on the market...isnt it all gambling on what the value will or won't be?) which he designed himself, and Ms. maria never really has to worry or work a day in her life. Its easy to have total confidence in the American system when you are a have.

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The fact that Bartiromo has such a glaring conflict in her financial reporting is something that I have never heard stated on NBC, and I'm an avid NBC viewer. Now that I've looked at the research, I have to say that I cant imagine why NBC would allow this to go on without constant disclosures, considering her stock holdings and lack of transparency while interviewing the titans of industry. She sure has a big opinion, even if it was written by the wingnuttia out there who float the talking points these days. When faced with actual figures she is comfortable stating that she just doesn't buy them because they include illegal aliens. Huh?...there are so many things I could say to that but maybe its best to just let it swelter, like a fine wine...

The great part always in all of this muck is that Taibbi has so many clear facts that he didn't need to pull the conflict of interest card, the talking points card, or the screeching over the other person card; he is unflappable, and just keeps coming with those facts. I think that's why the wingnuts are in such a ruffle over him and how he is merely a "hack." The truth, apparently, hurts.

Tweeted thusly by Morning Joe hisself:

Video: Taibbi: Health care 'can't be fixed': Aug. 20: Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi joins Morning Joe to discuss h.. http://bit.ly/3lJNUsabout 4 hours ago from twitterfeed"

To which Bob Cesca awesomely stated:

Maria Bartiromo isn't a very smart person. She just tried to tell Matt Taibbi on Morning Joe that America has the best healthcare system in the world because people from other nations come here for procedures.

I feel like someone went to the mat for me and all I got was this lousy tweet! Hah!

According to Heather at Crooks and Liars:

Taibbi thinks a deal was cut from the beginning between the White House and the insurance and pharmaceutical industries and that they never intended to have a public option.

And without that the dems are not going to vote for it at all.

h/t Crooks and Liars and D-Day for Maddow video

According Taibbi in Rolling Stone and on their special web only special video page for Americans who don't or cant read,

Taibbi breaks down the five steps Congress took to be sure no bill would pass — aiming low, gutting the public option, packing it with loopholes, providing no leadership and blowing the math — in his story, which is available on stands now. In a series of video interviews for RollingStone.com, Taibbi explores one of our system’s most severe flaws, explains how the government wedged itself into an awkwardly damning position, and looks at how the proposed bill would change the ordinary American’s life

Even a child could understand Taibbi, in these videos, explaining the situation and the obviously sensible solution. Unfortunately, the government here is run by the Insurance Industry, and the lobbyists have an army of armed, disgruntled, fringe whack-jobs out there to make sure that we don't even discuss our options. We seem to need total collapse of any particular system before we seriously look at any reality...and even then...the light of truth is just a little bright for most Americans, clutching their remote controls and chips.

Meanwhile, back here on the ground, Maria can get all the healthcare she wants or needs, so can Morning Joe and the CEO of Starbucks...but millions of Americans remain uninsured or underinsured, and its unclear what the answer will be for the rest of us in the free market; Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose....
Just go here and watch the videos...and buy the new Rolling Stone! Its one of the few magazines worth having in your hands these days!

c/p Brilliant at Breakfast

Taibbi Again: Hank Paulson is a Prick Who Took Down the Economy...

Ah the dulcet tones of truth...There is something about digging to the bottom of this shit hole, unraveling the lies, and getting to the horrible truth, that gets me all tingly like Tweety. If he didn't remind me so much of a certain kid in high school who had way too much gangly, explosive energy, I might be in love with this guy, (Taibbi, not Paulson!) But here we are again; Alternet, June 9th:

"Hank Paulson is a national hero. I said it last October and I'm sticking by it. And now, there's actual evidence to back me up. The TARP bailout worked. The Wall Street crisis is over." -- by Evan Newmark from "Mean Street: It's Time to Enshrine Hank Paulson as National Hero" -- Wall Street Journal.

So here's the letter I wrote to the Wall Street Journal after reading Evan Newmark's paean to Hank Paulson last week:

Dear WSJ,

Just out of curiosity -- did Evan Newmark ever work for Goldman, Sachs? And if the answer to the question is yes, don't you think that might have been a good fact to disclose before he fellated Hank Paulson in his "Mean Street" column?

Sincerely,
Matt Taibbi

Can you imagine what a craven, bumlicking ass-goblin you'd have to be to get a job working for the Wall Street Journal, not mention up front that you used to be a Goldman, Sachs managing director, and then write a lengthy article calling your former boss a "national hero" -- in the middle of a sweeping financial crisis, one in which half the world is in a panic and the unemployment rate just hit a 25-year high? Behavior like this, you usually don't see it outside prison trusties who spend their evenings shining the guards' boots. I can't even think of a political press secretary who would sink that low. Hank Paulson, a hero? Are you fucking kidding us?

I wonder if the WSJ is gonna print that little missive?
Im not saying that Taibbi is just the the kind of angry crank that I like, because you know that there is a certain type of angry crank that gets me all weak in the knees; I'm saying that he knows whereof he speaks, and as much as I disagree with him on certain issues, (Elliot Spitzer, for one, and I almost cried when he said that on Maher a few weeks ago...as if anyone could understand the ins and outs of complex economics and crime!...we cant all be YOU, Matt!) But seriously, I cant say enough about his depth of knowledge about this thing and how, again, his Rolling Stone article, The Big Takeover, is a must-read, if you read nothing else about what went into the financial crisis that we're right now suffering through.

Its just too bad that Ive got to run, because I've got more to say on this. But, Taibbi sums it all up pretty nicely in his succinct way:

Even if it weren't about five years too early to make any kind of judgment at all about whether or not TARP helped, the notion that Henry Paulson is a hero is complete and utter madness because TARP would never have been necessary if someone, anyone who wasn't a greed-addled incompetent like Paulson had actually been regulating the economy in the last years of the Bush administration. If anyone besides Paulson had been running Goldman Sachs earlier in this decade -- if a person with a serious brain injury had been in his place, for instance, or a horse, or a head of lettuce -- we'd all be better off today, because there wouldn't be so many toxic Goldman-underwritten mortgage-backed CDOs on the market.

Fuck, yeah! Now, can we start investigating these assholes and maybe even put some of them in jail?

c/p Brilliant at Breakfast