Wall of Shame

for

POLITICIANS


Yes, ladies, under a Newt Gingrich presidency,
your children would have a promising future
--- as janitors ... on the moon.

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! Note !
More politicians to be added,
if I ever take time from other projects to update this page.

Introduction :

This page gives a list of 'objects' deserving of scorn and derision --- and, in many cases, deserving of criminal prosecution. The 'objects' may be politicians ... or lobbyists paying off the politicians (and writing laws for the politicians to sponsor) --- or lobby organizations --- or political organizations, such as PAC's.

The 'objects' are listed on this page in alphabetical order --- by the person's last name --- or by the organization name.

How to navigate this page

You can use an option like 'Find in This Page ...' of your web browser to search for key words, such as 'gingrich' or 'romney' or 'baucus' or 'reid' or 'cantor' or 'boehner'.

Or you can simply scroll down this page to find people of interest.

Baucus, Max (Senator from Montana)

Max Baucus was a major player, along with Harry Reid, in crafting the 'Affordable Care Act' --- along with Republicans, such as Mitch McConnell, with whom they compromised (on pharmaceutical company and insurance company issues) to get passage.

The 'Affordable Care Act' is anything but that.

That act is yet another give-away to the pharmaceutical companies and the medical insurance companies.

Baucus and Reid talked like closing the 'donut hole' is a good thing. The donut hole was already a give-away to the pharmaceutical companies. The drug companies were afraid that if there were an 'up front' deductible, many people would not start on their (expensive) medication prescriptions.

The 'donut hole' offered Medicare drug coverage of an initial amount of a drug prescription --- followed by an 'interval' of no coverage (the hole) --- and then a resumption of coverage after a certain dollar amount is spent by the 'patient' on the continued drug prescription.

Closing the donut hole just made the give-away a TOTAL give-away to the drug companies. Now even the 'hole' is paid by Medicare. There is no 'deductible' at all.

Now the patient has no skin in the game. They have no motivation to shop around or to report abuses that they see on their Medicare/Medicaid insurance statements.

And as for the give-away to the medical insurance companies (requiring everyone to pay for 'comprehensive' medical insurance) --- these politicians seem to think that people without medical insurance cannot pay for ANY of their care. Most could pay for the minor situations --- say, a few hundred dollars per year.

All that most of us really need is dependable 'catastrophic care insurance' --- for everyone.

    What we, the citizens, would like is simply not affordable. There is no such thing as 'free medical care' --- which Michael Moore constantly talks about. Medical care is one of the most expensive things in our lives. Just look at what a large percentage it is of the U.S. economy --- 17.9 percent of GDP in the USA in 2011 (and climbing), where the GDP is about 18 trillion dollars --- so about 3 trillion dollars per year for health care.

Requiring EVERYONE to purchase 'comprehensive coverage' insurance is surely unconstitutional. Besides, how are they (the Congress, say) going to make homeless people buy medical insurance.

Requiring catastrophic care insurance coverage --- if you are not homeless or below a given poverty line, and thus unable to pay even a small amount for catastrophic care insurance --- would be a moderate, more taxpayer-affordable way to go.

There are many ways to skin this medical insurance cat. There are better laws that could be enacted. For example, this mix of government and private medical insurance is a nightmare, as anyone knows who has received statements from both their government and private insurance providers.

The current (circa 2010-2017) mix of government and private medical insurance is one of the biggest inefficiencies of the U.S. medical system. It's a payments nightmare for both doctors and patients.

Let's face it, a government insurance program is the only way to get dependable insurance in a reasonably efficient system. (Especially if adequate funding is provided to keep the greedy from scamming the system.)

It IS possible for SOME government programs to function reasonably well. Social Security is well-run and gets high marks in most reviews --- contrary to what Republicans would have you believe.

    (I, a retiree, have been pleasantly surprised at how trouble-free Social Security has been --- with simply a mailing or two per year from the SSA --- indicating a relatively low amount of red tape --- certainly low compared to public-private-mixture Medicare.)

The Republicans, to a man/woman, keep saying that the government can't do anything right. What do they say to the Armed Forces Chiefs of Staff? --- that they can't do anything right?

    Whoops. That changed around 2017, with the advent of the Tweeter-in-Chief --- Donald Trump.

    In any case, I would say that Social Security is an example of something the government is doing quite well. And there are other government agencies doing a reasonably good job, considering budget restrictions, such as police and fire departments --- and highway construction and maintenance management --- and management of the space program --- and weather data gathering.

Baucus and Reid put up a front like their give-away to the pharmaceutical companies and the medical insurance companies is the only way to go. And they act like the insurance companies cannot function without another 40 million clients.

This indicates a failure of the actuaries of the insurance companies. With about 100 million citizens insured already, that should give them plenty of people on which to base medical statistics for estimating costs and determining policy premiums to cover those costs. They DO NOT need another 40 million people in order to make those determinations.

Baucus and Reid, and all the Republican Senators who lined up behind them in supporting this bill, are surely feeding at the trough of the pharmaceutical and medical insurance lobbies.

'Obama-care' is a misnomer. It should be called 'Baucus-care'.

    All the above said, it must be admitted that it was a major advance to have at least SOME attempt at a decent health care system implemented. It is just unfortunate that this system is so full of flaws --- and, unlike the promise suggested by the name 'Affordable Care', this system is NOT affordable. In its present form, the system will eventually be too expensive to be maintained by taxpayer contributions --- and the system will have to be drastically revised.

Boehner, John (House of Representatives)

The 'orange man' hates the American worker so much, he wants essentially all jobs --- with the definite exception of CEO jobs --- and Congressional jobs --- to be exported abroad.

Even when Obama, in a State of the Union address to Congress, suggested the passage of laws giving companies tax breaks for re-patriating jobs to the United States, Boehner (and most other Republicans) refrained from applauding. (Obama, when he noticed no applause from Republicans, even paused reading his speech to comment that he really thought the Republicans would support that.)

You would think Boehner (and colleagues) would 'perk up' at the sound of tax breaks. But Boehner's antipathy toward the American worker (especially factory workers) is so great that he cannot bring himself to support tax breaks to create factory jobs. No such legislation was forthcoming from Boehner and friends.

Boehner does not confine his antipathies to factory workers --- he has also referred to police and teachers as 'special interests' --- in particular, when they band together to lobby for better job benefits.

This reminds me of how Republicans keep referring to Social Security as 'entitlements' --- and yet they do not refer to corporate tax breaks, such as the 'oil depletion allowance' for oil companies, as an 'entitlement'.

Republicans do not refer to CEO's or the top-one-percent as 'special interests' or 'activists' --- using those phrases as 'dirty words'.

Cantor, Eric (House of Representatives)

Like Boehner, Cantor hates the American worker so much, he wants essentially all jobs --- except CEO jobs --- and Congressional jobs --- to be exported abroad.

Gingrich, Newt (ex-Speaker-of-the-House)

One of Newt Gingrich's funnier moves was to promise to colonize the moon --- as he was campaigning in Florida in the 2011-2012 Republican presidential primaries. (He didn't make that promise while he was campaigning in other states. I wonder why?)

An ex-astronaut was reported to say that Newt was welcome to be one of the colonists, but the astronaut did not want to go. It was pointed out that the expense of maintaining such a colony --- on a big rock with no water or oxygen --- would be astronomical (pun intended).

On another Gingrich talking point:
Gingrich proposed having the children of parents too poor to completely fund their child's education work their way through school --- for example, as janitors. I'm sure the (poor) mothers of America are re-assured that he wants their children to spend their days in school as janitors instead of getting a proper education.

Is Gingrich such a good time-manager that he could be a janitor in the House of Representatives while he carried out his duties as Speaker of the House? Show us how it's done, Newt.

Reid, Harry (Senator from Nevada)

Harry Reid is just another panderer to the pharmaceutical lobbyists and the medical insurance lobbyists --- like so many of his Republican colleagues --- and like his Democratic colleague Max Baucus. See Baucus, above, for details.

Romney, Mitt (ex-Governor of Massachusetts)

Mitt Romney is king of flip-flop statements and master of the awkward comment.

His plan for bankrupting General Motors puts his business credentials in a 10-ton hydraulic press.

More politicians may be added --- if I take time away from other projects.

There are certainly plenty of deserving-of-shame candidates for this page, such as :

Names of some of the 'surrogates' of Donald Trump may be seen on a 'Wall of Shame - Media' page.

Some Web Searches to Try :

Here are some links to Google searches that can provide 'new' instances --- and more information on 'known-to-you' instances --- of shameful activities by politicians and lobbyists.

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Wall of Shame - Politicians page.

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Page was first posted 2012 Mar 31.

Page was changed 2017 Jun 17. (Added many 'WEB SEARCH' links. Also added some text to several sections.)

Page was changed 2018 Oct 17. (Added css and javascript to try to handle text-size for smartphones, esp. in portrait orientation.)