Not all they're screwing

Click image for full Bruce Plante/Tulsa World cartoon.

Someday, son

Click image for full Bruce Beattie/Daytona Beach News-Journal cartoon.

Untouchable

A health insurer in California just raised rates on individual purchasers 30 to 39% and promised more hikes, oh, whenever they damn well please. Not our fault, says Anthem Blue Cross:

"We understand and strongly share our members' concerns over the rising cost of healthcare services and the corresponding adverse impact on insurance premiums," the company said in a statement.

"Unfortunately, the individual market premiums are merely the symptoms of a larger underlying problem in California's individual market -- rising healthcare costs."

Here's what they edited out of their PR:

Our industry's lobbyists and advertising, not to mention the subscribers we suckered into helping, beat back any reform at all. We don't think we have to worry in the least about the government helping you sick people.

Anthem is probably ticked that their profit is capped at 30% of revenue.

Update (2/13): h/t MoveOn

Wiener dawgs unite!

Click image for full Joel Pett/Lexington Herald-Leader cartoon.

Back out into the lobby

K Street lobbyists are irate:

K Street sources describe a process they say was completely opaque and undertaken without their input. Several lobbyists who sit on the panels said they were not consulted and don’t know of anyone who was. Indeed, some sources on the panels contacted just before the Sept. 23 announcement said they were either unaware of the new policy or had heard little more than rumors.

“This was done in a vacuum,” said another business lobbyist who sits on one of the panels. “The decision was made in a room of the White House without consultation.”

Imagine the nerve of the White House to exclude these paid interest representatives from making policy without consulting them! It almost sounds like democracy.

Tom Delay would never have treated the sort of instant conflict of interest where lobbyists make policy as something to avoid.

Upside down

Click image for full Peter Dunlap-Shohl cartoon.

Evidence of political perversion

Bank lobbyists don't automatically have a vote in Congress, yet the expectation of media - rational to be sure - is a contest between those lobbyists and the overwhelming majority party. The New York Times headline over a Reuters story:

Dems Vow Fight With Banks on Consumer Agency

Democrats need to man up and tell the bank lobbyists to shut up and go away. It's all they have to do.

How can this not be a walkover? How can it even be controversial to protect consumers and taxpayers from the rape and pillage of financial abuses?

Principled conservatives

Convictions for sale! We rationalize ideology for money!

No media outlet should ever again accept an opinion piece from the American Conservative Union or David Keene.

But they happily will.

(h/t Atrios)

Too late for a shredder

The AP awakens from its slumber long enough for Matt Apuzzo to slap down the Bushist deregulators and their favored lobbyists at the root of the mortgage crisis:

The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown...

Careful there, you might commit journalism!

(h/t R. Neal at KnoxViews)

Routine unbelievable Republican gall

There is no bullshit that a Republican spokesman will shy from. Here's a late example of up-is-down:

RNC spokesman Alex Conant called Hunter Biden's letter "another example of Obama's words not matching his actions."

Hunter Biden has stopped lobbying - like one or two but not even close to a majority of McCain's cronies. What the son of Joe Biden has done on Obama's behalf is exactly what Conant says Obama has not done.

If only one Republican anywhere would match his - or her - actions to words, now, that would be news.

CNN, a bum rap?

Lobbyists, we report, you decide. Poor lobbyists! They're people, too. They have feelings. And some of them (a very small proportion) look thanklessly after the public interest instead of the usual run of special pleadings for moneyed interests. Those moneyed interests are not in the business of bribery; their business is to fall just short of bribery.

Of course, blood 'n' guts McCain gets a prominent mention as a reformer of lobbying. Ha! At least CNN notices that he's on both side of this, too - strongly worded statements in bed with the very behavior they decry.

Then:

Watchdog groups say lobbying gets a bad rap because success in the profession is often heavily influenced by wealth and who wields it.

Duh!

Set for life

... unless you write a candid book.

Click image for full G.B. Trudeau cartoon.

Street cred

"With me, honey, you're maxed out at $2300."


For full David Horsey cartoon from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, click the image.

Full of Mitt

So, Mitt Romney makes a big deal that "lobbyists aren't running his campaign," but, when challenged by a reporter who names a particular lobbyist who's a senior advisor to Mitt, he gets bent out of shape and repeats his narrow parsing formula over and over again.

Let's get this out in the open: No lobbyist manages campaigns. They're disjoint sets.

Mitt changes his positions with the political wind and his need to tack into it. Mitt claims to be places he wasn't with civil rights pioneers he never met. Mitt makes substance-free statements intended to be misinterpreted. There's nothing that comes out of his mouth you can trust.

It's all bullshit. He's playing to the Republican base.