KUDLOW, KERNEN, BARTIROMO AT CNBC - NO PITY FOR AMERICANS WITHOUT HEALTH INSURANCE

I have a suggestion regarding the constant put-down on CNBC of the public option for health care reform. Take away the health insurance of Larry Kudlow, Joe Kernen, Maria Bartiromo, Michelle Cabruso Cabrera and Dennis Kneale. Have I forgotten any of the CNBC Republican zealots and ideologues?

Then let's see their reaction if and when they get sick. Let's see how Kudlow deals with his doctor when he is asked about insurance. Let's observe what Bartiromo does when she needs to be admitted to the hospital. Let's watch at Dennis Kneale if he needs prescriptions filled at his local pharmacy but he does not have insurance. All these CNBC smart guys and ladies without insurance will surely change their stingy argument against the public option and universal health care.

Joe Kernen is especially obnoxious in his denunciations of the Democratic bill for health care reform. Kernen says the country "cannot afford it." Take away his insurance and see what he does and how he behaves and whether he then thinks that the U.S. can afford universal coverage.

There are some forty million + Americans without health insurance who hope and pray that they never become sick. When some do, they are forced to demean themselves and become beggars at their local hospital's emergency room. No one should have to endure the humiliation and the debasement entailed.

We need a public option and we need universal health care. The meanies like Cabruso and Kneale at CNBC huff and puff right now against the plan because they have CNBC's health coverage. But this might not last, their jobs may disappear, they may become unemployed and thus uncovered by any plan. But don't feel sorry for them, they feel no pity for their fellow citizens who live from day to day right now without insurance.

KUDLOW ET AL ON CNBC HATE OBAMA'S HEALTH CARE REFORM EVEN THOUG 40+ MILLION HAVE NO HEALTH INSURANCE

When I hear people on CNBC like Joe Kernen, Larry Kudlow, Dennis Kneale and Michellle Cabruso Cabrera rail against Obama's health plan, I wonder if they have any idea of what it is like to exist without any health insurance. They seem to think everything is rosy and bright. Sure, the Republicans in Congress and their supporters on CNBC already have health insurance provided by their employers.

Obama talks about empathy. No wonder it drives these Republicans bonkers as this is one quality lacking to their psyches. They have no sympathy whatsoever for people less forturnate financially than themselves.

FRANK RICH IN TODAY'S NYT ON CNBC'S ANIMUS FOR OBAMA

I have posted here about the evident bias of many CNBC hosts and reporters against Obama and his plans for the economy, taxes and health care. Here is a link to my post several days ago.

On the same topic, here is Frank Rich writing in today's The New York Times about the meanies on CNBC railing against Obama's plans for health care reform, banking regulation and cutting tax deductions for the wealthy:

"Last week Jon Stewart whipped up a well-earned frenzy with an eight-minute “Daily Show” takedown of the stars of CNBC, the business network that venerated our financial gods, plugged their stocks and hyped the bubble’s reckless delusions. (Just as it had in the dot-com bubble.) Stewart’s horrifying clip reel featured Jim Cramer reassuring viewers that Bear Stearns was “not in trouble” just six days before its March 2008 collapse; Charlie Gasparino lip-syncing A.I.G.’s claim that its subprime losses were “very manageable” in December 2007; and Larry Kudlow declaring last April that “the worst of this subprime business is over.” The coup de grâce was a CNBC interviewer fawning over the lordly Robert Allen Stanford. Stewart spoke for many when he concluded, “Between the two of them I can’t decide which one of those guys I’d rather see in jail.”

"Led by Cramer and Kudlow, the CNBC carnival barkers are now, without any irony whatsoever, assailing the president as a radical saboteur of capitalism. It’s particularly rich to hear Cramer tar Obama (or anyone else) for “wealth destruction” when he followed up his bum steer to viewers on Bear Stearns with oleaginous on-camera salesmanship for Wachovia and its brilliant chief executive, a Cramer friend and former boss, just two weeks before it, too, collapsed. What should really terrify the White House is that Cramer last month gave a big thumbs-up to Timothy Geithner’s bank-rescue plan.

"In one way, though, the remaining vestiges of the past decade’s excesses, whether they live on in the shouted sophistry of CNBC or in the ashes of Stanford’s castle, are useful. Seen in the cold light of our long hangover, they remind us that it was the America of the bubble that was aberrant and perverse, creating a new normal that wasn’t normal at all."

Frank Rich is right on about the sophistry yelled and screamed at viewers by CNBC market "gurus." I don't know who is the worst on CNBC, they are all pretty bad. Rich did not name others exhibiting symptoms of equal irrational Obama animus. How about mean Michelle Cabruso Cabrera who asks why her tax dollars should help Detroit as if Detroit caused its own demise by being mostly black. Or Maria Bartiromo who condemns Obama for wanting to make the tax code fairer because it will raise taxes on those who make more than 250K, which certainly includes herself and her multi-millionaire spouse. Or Joe Kernen who believes government should stay out of the free market place unless his own 401k is on the line, in which case, he's all for government bailout.

To be fair, there are several CNBC hosts who come across in favor of fairness and rationality, such as John Harwood and Steve Liesman. But these guys are in the minority. Most of the others on CNBC seem to be bitten by the Republican sourness bug and so suffer from the "what's in it for me" syndrome.

With all this anti-Obama Republican venom spewed on CNBC, I find myself watching less and less.

CNBC'S HOSTS - NICE GUYS & THE MEANIES

The stock market seems to have no bottom, with stock prices going down several hundred points per day. Today was no exception. The DJIA fell over 400 points. Thus this might be an appropriate time to describe some of the people who populate CNBC's market coverage.

1. Pete Najarian, a panelist on Fast Money - a loud-mouth who believes his points are stronger when he yells them. Pete always tries to recommend options. Of course, he and his brother John Najarian own and operate a retail options firm. Nice tie-in, right?

2. Joe Kernen, one of the hosts of Squawk on The Street - not too nice a person. Always takes the side against labor unions, Democrats, and against government intervention except when that intervention will safeguard the value of his own 401(k), as in the 700 billion+ bailout of Wall Street banks.

3. Michelle Cabruso Cabrera - a tough girl from NYC. She smiles too much. Her politics are suspect - she always seems to side with the Republican shills like CNBC's reporter Charlie Gasparino, The Wall Street Journal's Steve Moore and CNBC's house idiot Larry Kudlow.

4. Jim Cramer, host of Mad Money - about the only bright spot in today's blog lineup. Cramer frequently gets his stock picks bashed after he recommends them, but this might be the result of his enemies on the street shorting precisely those stocks he selects. But Cramer has been right on the general direction of this market - DOWN. Cramer has been urging his viewers over the past year to lighten up on their stock portfolios. And Cramer has been right to stress that without assistance for besieged homeowners in danger of foreclosure, the market will tank and everyone's 401(k) will be decimated.

More in later posts.

CNBC THINKS EVERY INVESTOR IS A MEAN REPUBLICAN

I have complained on numerous occasions to CNBC about some of its hosts and guests and their false statements about Obama, especially about his tax proposal. I strongly object to statements made by Maria Bartiromo that Obama is going to raise taxes. Bartiromo fails to qualify that statement with Obama's desire to lower taxes for people earning less than 250K.

Additionally, I recognize undercurrents of pro-Republican bias, sometimes quite blatant, in Michelle Cabruso Cabrera and Charlie Gasparino.

Of course, Larry Kudlow is a Republican shill who takes every opportunity to bash Democrats. The same for Joe Kernen.

About the only ones who seem to be fair are Mark Haynes, Steve Liesman, Melissa Francis and Jim Cramer and maybe one or two others.

I am a stock and bond investor. Not every investor is a mean pro-Republican. But the majority of actors on CNBC seem to think the opposite.

CNBC'S MICHELLE CABRUSO CABRERA NO BETTER THAN MEAN LARRY KUDLOW OR JOE KERNEN

I watch CNBC for market information, but I don't appreciate political comments of some of their on-the-air personalities that presume all of their listeners are mean Republicans.

In previous posts, I have mentioned Larry Kudlow and Joe Kernen as being Republican shills, and how they seem to have morphed into pro-government interventionists when their jobs or their 401(k)s are in trouble.

I need to mention another Republican ideologue - Michelle Cabruso Cabrera. Tonight on Larry Kudlow's hour, she indicated that Barack Obama could not raise taxes given the dire shape of the economy and the decline in stock values.

Hey, wait a minute. Barack Obama wants to lower taxes for anyone earning less than $250,000.

So what is Cabruso Cabrera talking about? She wants to convey that Obama wants to raise taxes? This is just plain false for anyone making less than $250K, or 99% of all taxpayers.

Michelle Cabruso Cabrera is just another shill for the Republicans, in the mold of Lary Kudlow and Joe Kernen.

INCONSISTENT RABID NEO-CONS NOW DEMAND GOVERNMENT BAILOUT

The say that truth is stranger than fiction. Here's the latest example. All those Republicans who for years have been saying that government can't be trusted, that America is the home of free and unfettered capitalism, that the markets are best left free and unrestricted, . . . these very same people now are crying for government intervention in the credit and equity markets.

Take Larry Kudlow, the host of CNBC's Kudlow and Company. This guy has been a Republican and neo-con shill for the last 30 years. He calls himself a true believer in American capitalism and free markets. He says he is a "great American patriot." He decries government intervention in, say, rescuing those people who face imminent foreclosures on the basis that the marketplace punishes those who overreach or misuse credit. He believes in deregulation and cutting of taxes.

Yet this same Larry Kudlow has been in the forefront of those who say that the Fed and the Treasury need to help out the big banks and brokerages. What then do we see here? Kudlow is all for government regulation and intervention when his livelihood is at stake, but against it when the little guy but not himself is at risk.

You couldn't make his stuff up. One of the most vociferous mouths against government intervention in the "free markets" suddenly has a conversion and becomes a most vocal proponent of using taxpayer funds to take a stake in the biggest banks and brokers. Kudlow, the great American patriot in favor of unrestricted capitalism, now supports Bush's socialistic move to have the U.S. government own a piece of private businesses.

And Kudlow is not the only one. How about Joe Kernen, one of the hosts of Squawk on the Street on CNBC? Kernen was always against government regulation of any kind. I assume he meant he was against stuff like SEC regulation of the markets. Well Kernen got his wish. The SEC decided not to regulate collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs) and other made-up securities. Because of this deregulation, we are now in the mess we find ourselves. Yet Kernen, like Kudlow, now calls for government intervention.

You think these guys would recognize the illogical and contradictory positions they now take, vis-a-vis their former government-keep-away meme. Sorry to say, they don't and they refuse to concede the ridiculousness of their positions.