United States News Digest

Rangel Scolds Obama for Interfering in New York State Race

July 3 (EIRNS)—Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) defended Rep. Carolyn Maloney's right to take on State Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in the race for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat previously held by Hillary Clinton, and lashed out anew at President Obama for butting into New York's Democratic primary. According to the Daily News, Rangel said, "I really cannot say anything negative about a senior member who wants to run and whose polls, at this point in time, appear to be in her favor. Nobody can challenge that she's not a hardworking member of Congress. She is certainly one of our most active members."

In May, Obama phoned Rep. Steve Israel, who is from Long Island, to nudge him away from a challenge to Gillibrand, a move that also prompted Rangel to criticize the President. Last month, Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, said publicly that Obama favored Gillibrand. "I really don't understand why President Obama got involved in our primary," Rangel said. "I don't want to use the word wrong, but it doesn't seem like the astute political thing to do." Former President Bill Clinton said yesterday that he would not take sides. Clinton appeared at a fundraiser for Gillibrand earlier this year, and is scheduled to appear at a fundraiser for Maloney on July 20.

Sources in the Democratic Party leadership have reported that the White House is out to bust up any strong party grouping, even the Daley machine in Chicago and the Cuomo apparatus in New York, as a way of securing loyalty to Narcissist in Chief Obama.

Obama: Pass Nazi Health Bills Now—Nevermind the Details

July 3 (EIRNS)—President Obama conducted a conference call with the top Democrats in Congress yesterday, insisting that both houses of Congress pass health-care legislation this month, Politico reports.

Reflecting the White House fear that any discussion of details of the plans will kill any hopes of passage, one source stated: "Obama made a very firm pitch that they need to get the bills out of the House and Senate and we'll worry about the details in September." "No one else on the White House side spoke," said another source. "This was an Obama phone call."

Obama is demanding suppression of advertising from organizations that are critical of his program, and he indicated that he is already working to curtail them, a source told Politico.

On the call were Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer, and key committee chairmen Max Baucus and Chris Dodd from the Senate, and Henry Waxman, Charles Rangel, and George Miller from the House.

Continuation of Bush Policies Disquiets Obama's Liberal Supporters

July 2 (EIRNS)—Among the people happiest to be liberated from the Bush Administration, were liberal activists who had fought that Administration's creeping police state, in the courts and in their writings. With the advent of the Obama Administration, they thought, there would surely be a change in that arena. However, since shortly after Obama's inauguration, a series of policy positions, perhaps beginning with Obama's decision not to examine, let alone prosecute, the national security actions of the Bush Administration, has led many of these liberals to suspect a case of "old wine in new bottles."

The New York Times reported today that "To critics, Obama's terror policy looks a lot like Bush's." Obama officials cited in the article point out that the difference is, that Bush operated on the basis of an expanded notion of his authority, while Obama relies on Congressional statutes. Critics say this is a legalistic dodge, and both approaches trample on individual rights.

A central matter causing concern is Obama's May 21 speech at the National Archives, while asserting the importance of American values not being jettisoned in the pursuit of security, nevertheless laid out the possibility of "indefinite detention" of Guantanamo prisoners who cannot be given a trial (notably because evidence against them was unconstitutionally obtained), but are too dangerous to be released, because they would likely return to battle against the U.S.

Causing further disquiet, is that the Executive Orders issued by Obama on Inauguration Day concern only the Guantanamo detainees and one "al-Qaeda affiliate" held inside the United States. A second major "war on terror" detention facility, the U.S. base at Bagram in Afghanistan, remains untouched, along with lesser-known such facilities; the Administration has endorsed the Bush position that those detainees have no rights. (It took a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court during the Bush Administration, for Guantanamo detainees to obtain the constitutional right of habeas corpus, for court hearings on whether their detention was proper.)

UnitedHealth Group Report: How To Kill Seniors

June 30 (EIRNS)—Today in Washington, D.C., at the offices of one of the world's largest HMOs, UnitedHealth Group, a report was issued on how to kill off selected segments of Americans. The author is Simon Stevens, vice president for elderly "managed care" at UnitedHealth, and formerly British Prime Minister Tony Blair's top health advisor (1997-2004). Under Blair and Stevens, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) was set up in Britain (1999), to decree Hitler-type rules on who would get medical treatment and who would die.

EIR reporter Carl Osgood was refused entrance at today's "for the media" event. EIR, its contributing editor Lyndon LaRouche, and his political action committee, LaRouchePAC, have exposed the Nazi "useless eaters" pedigree of NICE and the Tony Blair crowd. The exclusion of EIR reflects how fierce the battleground in Washington, D.C. is at this time.

UnitedHealth is well positioned to enforce care cuts and death for seniors and the poor. It acts as the "supplemental" insurer for one of every five Medicare enrollees. It is the largest Medicare health plan in the United States, thanks to a public/private partnership between Medicare and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), the biggest voluntary member organization in the world (40 million). UnitedHealth is also the largest Medicaid health plan (for the poor), operating in 22 states and the District of Columbia.

The new report is titled, "Health Care Cost Containment How Technology Can Cut Red Tape and Simplify Health Care Administration." It lists 12 "Options," by which it states that $332 billion can be cut out of U.S. health expenditures on "administration," over 2010-19. The list includes proposals based on having a nationwide Big Brother "Electric Data Interchange," combined with automated cards for the patient, so that "at the point of service," medical treatment or diagnostic procedures can be easily approved or denied. The List of Options calls for "new system-wide standards and processes," to determine how much hospitals, doctors, and others will or won't be paid, based on how they obey new rules of treatment.

This report is the second after Stevens delivered one on May 27 on cost cutting, published by the UnitedHealth Center for Health Reform & Modernization, which Stevens heads (and founded in January 2009), to lead the charge in the United States for the British "kill 'em off" campaign.