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(Welcome to California!)

With the current state of eternal/ongoing financial crisis in California, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit the day where things went south. On June 8, 1978; the day after the election and the "voters revolt", California was poised to go from budget surplus to bankruptcy in a very short time.

Gov. Brown: “The message is, that the Property Tax must be sharply curtailed and that government spending, wherever it is, must be held in check. We must look forward to lean and frugal budgets.”

Lots of people forget just how this thing got started, since it was 31 years ago - time has a tendency to cloud things over, particularly events that seemed like a good idea at the time, but over the long haul just spelled disaster.

So in case you were wondering . . .

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Rachel Maddow talks to whistleblower Wendell Potter about the health care industry's rising profits while more and more Americans lose their health care insurance.

MADDOW: Are you by any chance a health insurance company executive? No? Me neither. And you and I, therefore, even though I know nothing else about you, you and I have one thing in common for sure. We are both in the wrong line of work.

SEC filings show that between the year 2000 and the year 2007, profit of the country‘s 10 largest health insurance companies rose 428 percent. In 2000, they had $2.4 billion in profit. By 2007, it was $12.9 billion.

Now, of course, this is America, we are capital C “Capitalists,” nobody begrudges anyone a ginormous profit, particularly if they‘re serving an important national need, like providing health insurance to the American people.

So, while the 10 biggest health insurance companies were seeing their profits rise over 400 percent between 2000 and 2007, how were they doing at serving that important national need? How were they doing at the whole providing health insurance to the American people thing? Eww! Apparently, while they quadrupled their profits between 2000 and 2007, the number of Americans without health insurance grew by 19 percent.

That seems bad. But not for everyone - also by 2007, the CEOs of the 10 largest health insurance companies were taking home an average compensation of $11.9 million each every year, while the number of Americans without health insurance for whom a burst appendix can mean bankruptcy has gone through the roof.

It was the insurance industry that bankrolled efforts to kill the last effort of health care reform in Bill Clinton‘s first term. And now, the industry says they‘re OK with reform of a sort. They just want to make sure that they don‘t get any competition from a non-profit government-run insurance plan that patients could opt into if they didn‘t like what the private sector was dishing out. You know, if I was a health insurance company executive, I‘m sure I would want that, too.

Joining us now is a former health insurance executive-turned-whistle blower, his name is Wendell Potter, and he was the head of public relations for CIGNA, one of the nation‘s largest insurers. He‘s now a senior fellow on health care at the Center for Media and Democracy.

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June 02, 2009 C-SPAN

Ted Poe is apparently undeterred by Nate Silver's reporting.

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(before it went very far south )

With the GM bankruptcy forging ahead, and news of plant and dealership closings and sales of companies formerly part of the GM family (can't say the loss of Hummer is any sort of tragedy) pending, I got to thinking about the impression GM made on me as a kid - growing up and getting my first car (it was, in all honesty a 1956 Plymouth, but that's another story) and how the American auto industry, the whole car culture in fact was such an integral part of our lives. How commercials were as much of our culture as the cars themselves and how indelible some of those commercials were to our place in time. I've assembled a montage of some of the memorable ones, not all of them - but enough to make the events of the past few weeks just a bit sad.

A group calling themselves "Answers in Genesis" recently took out a billboard in Texas depicting a young boy holding a gun.

Here’s how Answers in Genesis describes themselves:

An apologetics (i.e., Christianity-defending) ministry, dedicated to enabling Christians to defend their faith and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ effectively…we also desire to train others to develop a biblical worldview, and seek to expose the bankruptcy of evolutionary ideas, and its bedfellow, a “millions of years old” earth (and even older universe).

[..]Personally, I can’t believe they are implying that non-believers, or to whom God “doesn’t matter,” are going to take a gun and shoot someone in the face.

Striking yes; thoughtful, absolutely not.

Although supposedly their beef is with evolution, I don’t see how that point is conveyed with this picture. So, according to them, believing what Darwin had to say means a person is lawless and will go on a killing rampage?

They were so enamored of this image, they used it in a TV ad as well:

Given the rising violence we're seeing lately, I hope that Answers in Genesis remove the ad and rethink the campaign altogether, before someone interprets it as a way to prove their faith.

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I just wonder why Obama's approach is so very different with the automakers than it is with the banking industry:

General Motors filed for bankruptcy on Monday morning, submitting its reorganization papers to a federal clerk in Lower Manhattan.

G.M. said it had $82.3 billion in assets and $172.8 billion in debts. Its largest creditors were the Wilmington Trust Company, representing a group of bondholders holding $22.8 billion in debts, and affiliates of the United Auto Workers union, representing nearly $20.6 billion in employee obligations.

The filing itself seemed anticlimactic. It was a simple procedure done thousands of times each day across the country, by individuals and business alike. But not usually, as in this case, by companies like G.M. that have woven themselves into the fabric of America culture.

The company was forced into the filing by President Obama, who is betting that by temporarily nationalizing the onetime icon of American capitalism, he can save at least a diminished automaker that is competitive.

[...] The bankruptcy of General Motors culminates a remarkable four months of confrontation between Washington and Detroit that is expected to result in a drastic downsizing of the company. It also places the government in uncharted territory as a business owner, as it takes a majority ownership stake in the company during its restructuring.

Why aren't we forcing the "too big to fail" banks to downsize?

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(Jerry Brown: Post-Reagan - Pre-Jarvis - hair and optimism in abundance)

Since today is an election day in California, and since California is teetering on an abyss yet again, I ran across an old Meet The Press from October 15, 1975 featuring an interview with Governor Jerry Brown.

In 1975 California had a $300 million surplus. But then, the average household income was $13K a year (hard to imagine . . .not really). New York City was the problem child at the time, plunging hip-deep in bankruptcy and asking for bailout money from the government. To a lot of people it seemed an abstract concept, the U.S. Government actually bailing a city out, and the Ford Administration were loath to offer any help at first. But that was New York City - it could never happen in California.

Famous last words.

So here is Jerry Brown in his first year as Governor in 1975. Loaded with optimism and new ideas and all was sailing along before that little thing called Prop 13 and the Howard Jarvis Tax initiative blew into Sacramento in 1978. And 34 years later we're casting our eyes to Washington with hopes of a bailout.

I've included commercials for one of the sponsors of Meet The Press - Exxon. Seems the issue of clean coal just can't get off the ground.

Like I always say, some things just never change.

The Baseline Scenario:  Bankruptcy cramdowns defeated in the Senate...zero Republican support, natch.  This had nothing to do with what would be best for the country as a whole, but everything to do with what the banks wanted.

OurFuture: The Far Right's First 100 Days. Old message: NO!, New message: BOO!

No More Mister Nice Blog: Is avoiding travel and crowds really such a ridiculous suggestion?  And speaking of ridiculous...

Prairie Weather: The Department of Justice has nailed another of those infamous Bush appointees who do beeg, beeg favors to friends on the right.

Teablogging: TCOT (Teabagger Catfight On Twitter)

No Animals Were Harmed In The Posting Of This Link

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Dick Durbin talks to Ed Schultz about the power of the banking lobby over the Senate and the trouble he's having getting some bankruptcy reform passed.

ginandtacos: The difference between the GOP and a monkey is that the latter can learn from its mistakes.

MojoPost: Black woman struggles to make ends meet

Mock, Paper, Scissors: Compare and contrast Specter - McCain AIPAC donations

Colorado Independent: Lying Republican bigot (Dept. of Redundancy Dept.) calls Matthew Shepard murder a "hoax" in hate-crimes debate

Calculated Risk: Chrysler deal collapses, bankruptcy all but certain

BAGnewsNotes: Refusing to move for Darfur

Via Brave New Films:

Joan Adams is living out of a Motel 6 in the suburbs of Orange County, California. She lost her home to foreclosure. There's no one out there to help, Joan says: "Billions of dollars to all the banks for bailouts for something they caused, and yet we're the ones that are homeless."

On Tuesday, Congress will vote on whether or not to level the playing field between the banks and struggling homeowners. Representative John Conyers has introduced legislation in the House that authorizes judges in bankruptcy proceedings to require banks to reevaluate mortgages of homeowners in distress.

Sign the petition to let Congress know that you support Conyers bill, H.R. 1106. Then, call your Congressional Representative and ask him or her to vote for it.

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Find your Congressional Representative here.

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Republican Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina gives the party line on the virtues of letting the Big Three go bankrupt to MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell:

Sanford: We have examples before where businesses have gone into Chapter 11 and have come out stronger as a result. If you look at United Airlines back in 2002, it went into Chapter 11 and yet people got on planes every day and, quote, risked their lives if they took a United flight. And it worked out -- United is still up and going.

If you look just recently, Circuit City filed Chapter 11, people are still going in during the holiday season and shopping for cameras and videos and all the other things that one shops for. Circ -- I mean, Chapter 11 is simply a way to reorganize a business, and to make decisions that you oftentimes cannot make without those bankruptcy law protections.

So what I would humbly suggest to the Big Three is, given the fact that certain things are clearly not in order with regard to their finances, use that tool as opposed to taxpayers, which is the easier course for them, but the much harder course for the rest of us as taxpayers, as the bailout mechanism.

Notice anything missing? What Sanford conveniently neglects to tell the MSNBC audience is what some of those "decisions you cannot make without those bankruptcy law protections" include, to wit:

-- The company can tear up any existing union contract it likes. Say goodbye, UAW.

-- It can wipe out all its existing pension plans.

Sanford touts the United Airlines example, but neglects to mention that one of the really pernicious effects of that bankruptcy was how it utterly destroyed the company's pension system. There was a huge human toll paid, with 9/11 widows among the victims.

There will be a similarly monstrous human toll paid if we follow Sanford's plan. But then, for Republicans like him, that's a negligible cost to begin with.