Drug Companies' Strangle Hold Of California

Looks like Pharmaceutical companies have a tight grip on California's Governor.

"After months of public input and consultation with experts, the state's pharmacy board appeared to be poised to adopt strict new requirements for prescription drug labels last month.

But that changed when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger placed a drugstore industry executive on the board a day before the vote.

CVS/Pharmacy official Deborah Veale provided the vote that killed a plan to require large type on drug labels and instructions and to make oral translation of them available for all non-English speakers. "

Nothing is more frustrating that seeing good legislation that protects consumers and helps people lose to big corporations. Schwarzenegger comes out for the stimulus winning props from dems and then goes and sides with big pharma. This man is all over the place.

Pelosi Not Taking Anymore Republican Crap

Nancy Pelosi is taking the fight directly to the repubs. It seems that there has been some "hypocrisy" on the part of repubs. It turns out that repubs, who voted no on the stimulus bill, are taking credit for the money going back to their districts coming from the stimulus.

"In a rare rebuke from the speaker, Pelosi is taking direct aim at individual Republicans, hinting at hypocrisy in their opposition to the stimulus package the saying it provided hundreds of thousands of their constituents tax cuts."

Well, it's about time. The dems message has been horrible and they need to find something to chip away at the repubs message of the bill being a waste of money. The repubs have been united and the dems fragmented on how to get things done. Repubs obstruct and dems legislate. Does the public know this? No. That is the problem. The message has been hijacked and the dems are to blame. Take the fight to the doorstep of every republican hypocrite.

Dems Should Do What They Want

A new poll out suggests that the dems should do whatever they damn well please.

"The poll's top-line finds 37% of Americans saying they definitely will not vote Democratic for Congress this fall, 34% will definitely vote for the Dems, and the remainder are up for grabs. The poll shows that 50% oppose the health care bill, with 39% for it -- thanks to a 94%-1% opposition among the people who won't vote Democratic."

What does all this mean? People who don't support the health care won't vote dem anyway. So, who cares. The way it looks, the dems are going to lose at least 5 senate seats. They won't have this majority again for quite some time. Dems need to just pass the public option in reconciliation. They need to get some testicles and do what they think is right. People respond to it. It will be better for dems come november.

Stimulus Bill ASuccess

The first major piece of legislation under the Obama admin seems to have been a success.

The stimulus bill "has added 1.6 million to 1.8 million jobs so far and that its ultimate impact will be roughly 2.5 million jobs. The Congressional Budget Office, an independent agency, considers these estimates to be conservative."

Do you realize the biggest problem with the stimulus bill. The repubs were able to frame the message about the stimulus bill. More people think the bill was a failure when it did exactly what dems/economists said it would do.

Dems still have really learned the power of framing the message.

Democrats Are Freaking Out

This quote from First Read: Found it at Politico:

"If we told you that Democrats were favored to lose about eight Senate seats (six of which are in states Obama carried in '08), lose some 30 to 40 in the House, and see their top domestic issue -- health care -- stalled in Congress, you'd guess that President Obama's approval rating was, what, 35%? Maybe 40%? But as any close follower of American politics knows, Obama's approval is at or near 50% (even at 53% in the always-volatile Gallup daily track). Yet Democrats, including what we saw and heard from Evan Bayh yesterday, are behaving like Obama is at 35%. This is particularly ironic when we're just a year-plus removed from a president whose approval was 25% to 30%. There is no doubt that this is a TOUGH political environment for Democrats, but are they making it tougher by running for the hills when things might not be as bad for them as was the GOP's situation from 2006-2008? And what does it say about the Democrats and their ability to govern when they're acting like this when their president is at 50%? Republicans rallied around their president in '04, when he was hovering around 50%."

Evan Bayh To Retire

Adding to Dems' senate woes. Indiana Senator Evan Bayh will not seek reelection. If you are the DSCC you are pulling your hair out right about now.