Keith Olbermann: Bush Did Not Try to Fight Terrorism Before 911

While most of the media remains cautious, Keith Olbermann continues to speak out against the Bush Administration and their Orwellian attempts to rewrite history to blame Bill Clinton for 9/11 and whitewash Bush’s gross incompetence. Olbermann spoke out in defense of Bill Clinton following his interview yesterday on Fox News Sunday. The full transcript is below the fold and the video is here and here.
Related Story: “The Path to 9/11″ Reminds Us of Condi’s Lie

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Donut Hole Hits Repubicans At Wrong Time

The Bush Administration is generally does a good job of considering the political implications of their policies. When they wanted to give huge tax breaks to their supporters, they gave into demands for a middle class tax cut and timed it so the tax cuts were increasingly favorable to the top 1% in future years. They manage to keep embarassing reports on Iraq delayed until after election. When they wanted to give huge benefits to the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, they hid them in a proposal billed as a prescription drug benefit. It looks like they goofed with that donut hole. An increasing number of beneficiaries have reached the point where they are still paying the monthly premium but are shocked to learn that they have to pay for their prescriptions out of their own pocket until they spend $3,600.

While I’ve had some patients reach the donut hole earlier in the year, an increasing number are doing so just prior to the midterm elections. Coverage such as seen in today’s Washington Post won’t help the Republicans this fall. If the program hadn’t been designed to maximize payments to the pharmaceutical companies, such as by prohibiting Medicare from negotiating for better prices, then the donut hole would not have been necessary. It is sure strange that Medicare discounts their payments for other services, such as payments to physicians and hospitals, but does not allow discounts in what they pay the pharmaceutical companies.

The Religious Right vs. Corporate America

The religious right is now angry with Corporate America, which may cause problems with their alliance with Republicans. The Republican Party is a fully owned subsidiary of Corporate America, and while they will often give lip service to the goals of the religious right, and they have been throwing them more bones than usual under Bush, ultimately serving Corporate America is the GOP’s prime directive.

Americans for Truth, an organization which, if nothing else, proves Orwell was right about language, is protesting a report from the more honestly named Human Rights Campaign. The HTC’s report begins:

The Human Rights Campaign today released a report showing that a record number of the largest U.S. companies are increasingly competing to expand benefits and protections for their gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees and consumers. This year’s report, the Human Rights Campaign’s fifth annual Corporate Equality Index, showed an unprecedented 138 major U.S. companies earned the top rating of 100 percent. That number is up from 101 in 2005, and has grown tenfold in four years.

To the religious extremists in Americans for Truth, this is bad. They argue, “The battle to restore corporate neutrality on the homosexual issue will be a long and tough one, but it must be fought.” To them, tolerance and treating everyone equal regardless of sexual orientation is not “neutrality.” Again, Orwell is proven to be right. When Americans for Truth advocate neutrality, they are really advocating discrimination.
(Hat tip to Ed Brayton.)