Archive for August, 2009

Wing-Nut Mobs Provide Cover for Obama/Baucus Health Care Betrayal

OPS:  Nader doing what he does best.

Wing-Nut Mobs Provide Cover for Obama/Baucus Health Care Betrayal - The BRAD BLOG :

Must-see video of Ralph Nader’s spot-on analysis…

by Ernest A. Canning

In the final analysis, the ideological differences between Republicans and the corporate/controlling sector of the Democratic party are relatively narrow and insignificant as compared to the bi-partisan link to corporate wealth and power — a link both share with the corporate-owned, mainstream media.

In 2008 it was the insanity that was the Bush/Cheney flirtation with fascism. Today, it’s imaginary “death panels” and the undereducated, easily manipulated wing-nut mobs sent to shut down one of the oldest forms of American democracy — the town hall meeting.

These provide the perfect cover. They permit the more gifted corporate Democrats, for example Barack Obama, to seduce the great masses of working stiffs who make up the American electorate with soaring, but ultimately deceptive, rhetoric; producing brief euphoria on the eve of the last election, followed by no real substantive change.

As the corporate media misdirects focus on brown shirt-like disruptions at the town halls, the real “death panels” — the corporate profiteers and their bought-and-paid-for politicians — hammered out a pseudo-reform package that will perpetuate a corrupt, dysfunctional and deadly health care system which kills more than 18,000 Americans each year simply because they can’t afford coverage and countless more when carriers refuse to authorize vital, life-saving procedures…

via The BRAD BLOG : Wing-Nut Mobs Provide Cover for Obama/Baucus Health Care Betrayal.

South Carolina First Lady’s Family Wants Their Money Back

First Lady’s Family Wants Their Money Back -  :: FITSNews

In the latest example of the dismantling of one of the Palmetto State’s legendary political partnerships, the family of S.C. First Lady Jenny Sanford is reportedly asking S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford for its money back.

The Sullivan Family – which is heir to the Skil Corporation fortune – has contributed substantially to both of the governor’s successful statewide campaigns, and like the First Lady, its members (including Jenny’s parents) initially seemed willing to forgive Sanford for his affair with Argentinean lover Maria Belen Chapur.

In fact, during his meandering confessional earlier this summer, Sanford referenced his father-in-law as having been “incredibly gentlemanly” when the governor informed him of his infidelity.

Recent revelations, however, have prompted a change of heart – and reportedly prompted requests from the Sullivans for the governor to return their campaign contributions.

via First Lady’s Family Wants Their Money Back :: FITSNews.

Mexican Army takes over customs on US border

Mexican Army takes over customs on US border – AFP:

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — Mexico’s Army took control of customs Sunday on the busy US border, as federal authorities pulled agents off the job in a massive anti-corruption shakeup, officials told AFP.

An Interior Ministry official said the dismissals were being carried out at all Mexican border facilities, and that the customs agents were being replaced.

Customs agents were sacked after some were found to be linked to contraband operations, according to sources at the ministry.

Agents in Nuevo Laredo, on the border with the southern US state of Texas, were called in Saturday to be told they were fired, and to hand in their badges and weapons. A total of 1,100 agents were sacked, Mexican media said.

Army troops took over customs border posts temporarily on Sunday.

via AFP: Mexican Army takes over customs on US border.

Winston Churchill was a Bolshevik

Winston Churchill was a Bolshevik -  | Salon

Guess who helped launch socialized healthcare in the U.K.? The ultimate conservative icon — and he was proud of it

By Joe Conason

Long before many of today’s frothing right-wing demagogues were born, American conservatives came to idolize Winston Churchill, the late Tory prime minister whose wartime leadership of the British people transformed into the living symbol of democracy armed. That reputation was cemented by his legendary Missouri speech in 1946 warning of the “Iron Curtain” drawn by the Soviet Communists across Eastern Europe. Indeed, journalists and bloggers on the right admire the old warhorse so much that he has even outpolled Ronald Reagan as their “Man of the Century.”

Yet by the standards of the present moment, as these same conservatives mobilize against health care reform to “stop socialism,” that same great man was actually a raving Bolshevik. For among his most enduring legacies was the founding and sustenance of the system that became the National Health Service. Arguably as much as any other British politician, it was Churchill who established “socialized medicine.”

Perhaps it is a forlorn hope that facts and history can make any impression on the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Chuck Grassley, or Bill Kristol, but let’s try anyway — because it is worth understanding that despite the low quality of our own so-called conservatives, there was once another kind.

via Winston Churchill was a Bolshevik | Salon.

Enormous Shark’s Secret Hideout Finally Discovered

Enormous Shark’s Secret Hideout Finally Discovered

After half a century of searching, scientists have finally discovered what happens to the world’s second largest shark every winter: It has a Caribbean hideout.

Basking sharks, which can grow up to 33 feet long and weigh more than a Hummer H1, spend the late spring, summer and early fall in the temperate regions of the world’s oceans. But then they pull their great disappearing act, eluding scientists throughout the winter months.

“It’s been a big mystery for the past fifty years,” said Greg Skomal, an aquatic biologist at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and lead author of the study in Current Biology May 7. “For a while people thought they were hibernating on the sea floor, even though hibernating is not really something sharks do.”

Skomal tagged the giant fish off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts and tracked them by satellite, piecing together their mysterious winter wanderings. He discovered the beasts were absconding to the depths of the Caribbean, some voyaging as far as the Brazilian coast, though the attraction of these destinations poses yet another mystery. The findings have implications for conserving the sharks, whose fins are much-desired delicacies in Chinese cuisine.

The basking shark is a benign behemoth. It swims at about three miles per hour with its four-foot-wide mouth gaping open, filtering through almost 500,000 gallons of water every hour for its plankton sustenance.

Linkive | linkview toolbar | http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/baskingshark/.

Asia facing unprecedented food shortage, UN report says

Asia facing unprecedented food shortage, UN report says -  | The Guardian

Major investment in irrigation systems needed to feed population expected to grow by 1.5 billion over next 40 years

Asia faces an unprecedented food crisis and huge social unrest unless hundreds of billions of dollars are invested in better irrigation systems to grow crops for its burgeoning population, according to a UN report published today.

India, China, Pakistan and other large countries avoided famines in the 1970s and 1980s only because they built giant state-sponsored irrigation systems and introduced better seeds and fertilisers. But the extra 1.5 billion people expected to live on the continent by 2050 will double Asia’s demand for food, says the report from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Bank-funded International Water Management Institute (IWMI).

A combination of very little new land left for cultivation, an increasingly unpredictable climate and water supplies stretched to the limit means the only realistic option to feed people in the future will be better management of existing water supplies, according to the report.

via Asia facing unprecedented food shortage, UN report says | World news | The Guardian.

DEVELOPMENT: Soaring Population May Swamp Anti-Poverty Goals

DEVELOPMENT: Soaring Population May Swamp Anti-Poverty Goals - – IPS ipsnews.net

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 17 (IPS) – The U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), already undermined by the global financial crisis, are expected to take another hit – this time from rising population growth.

The goal of halving the number of people living in extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 could be jeopardised by soaring population growth, mostly in the developing world.

World population is expected to reach seven billion by 2011, a year earlier than expected, according to the latest figures released by the Population Research Bureau last week.

“The population will hit seven billion in the second half of 2011,” predicts Jose Miguel Guzman, chief of the Population and Development Branch at the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA).

Since 1975, he said, world population has been increasing by about a billion every 12 years.

“Given that the six billion mark was reached in 1999, the attainment of seven billion seems to be more or less on track,” Guzman told IPS.

Of the growth between 1999 and 2011, he said, 95 percent is in the developing world.

Asked how the rise in population growth will impact on developing nations reaching their MDGs by 2015, Guzman said that many developing, and particularly the least developed countries (LDCs), will face a continuous increase in the demand for services, specifically in education and health.

via DEVELOPMENT: Soaring Population May Swamp Anti-Poverty Goals – IPS ipsnews.net.

Five activists walk straight into Faslane nuclear weapons base

Five activists walk straight into Faslane nuclear weapons base – *breaking news* – UK Indymedia -

This afternoon five peace activists from nonviolent direct action group Trident Ploughshares walked unchallenged straight into Faslane naval base in Scotland, the home of Britain ’s nuclear-armed Trident submarines, making a mockery of security for Britain’s “strategic nuclear deterrent.” The five are currently still inside the base.

The activists, one man and four women, released the following statement:

“We invite others to follow us through this gate to restore humanitarian law.”

Further information to follow.

Notes to editor:

Trident Ploughshares is a campaign initiated in 1998 to disarm Britain ’s Trident nuclear weapons system in a non-violent, peaceful, safe, open and accountable manner

via UK Indymedia – Five activists walk straight into Faslane nuclear weapons base – *breaking news*.

Wanted for Murder: Antonin Scalia

Wanted for Murder: Antonin Scalia -  | BuzzFlash.org

BUZZFLASH EDITOR’S BLOG – By Mark Karlin

Antonin Scalia is guilty of initiating the theft of the 2000 election from Al Gore through a stay he issued forcing the stop of the State Court ordered recount in Florida, and his subsequent coordination a 5-4 majority to annoint George W. Bush as President.

But as of just yesterday, August 17th, he also added state sanctioned murder to his list of crimes.

Scalia was one of just two written dissenters (along with his puppet, Clarence Thomas), who ferociously challenged the notion that the Supreme Court should ensure that an innocent man not be put to death. That’s right, Scalia — in common sense terms and not the legal mumble jumble that he dazzles the likes of Harry Reid with (BuzzFlash once wrote an editorial about how Harry Reid thought Scalia so brilliant he might consider voting for him for Chief Justice at the time — such is the sad mindset of our Democratic Majority Leader) — asserts that there is nothing in the Constitution that prevents an innocent person from being executed.

via Wanted for Murder: Antonin Scalia | BuzzFlash.org.

Overburdened doctors are shunning all types of insurance

Overburdened doctors are shunning all types of insurance

Doctors are shunning insurance. It’s too expensive to deal with. Doctors and patients get it, but Congre$$ doesn’t.

By Parija B. Kavilanz, CNNMoney.com

Like a lot of their patients, doctors are sick of long waits in the waiting room and dealing with insurance companies.

That’s why a growing number of primary care physicians are adopting a direct fee-for-service or “retainer-based” model of care that minimizes acceptance of insurance. Except for lab tests and other special services, your insurance plan is no good with them.

In a retainer practice, doctors charge patients an annual fee ranging from $1,500 to as high as over $10,000 for round-the-clock access to physicians, sometimes including house calls.

Other services included in the membership are annual physicals, preventive care programs and hospital visits.

Doctors argue that this model cuts down their patient load, allows them to spend more time per patient and help save the system money.

However, some industry groups caution that these emerging trends are a consequence of a health care system badly in need of reform.

via Overburdened doctors are shunning all types of insurance – Yahoo! Finance.

Obama, Biden to raise money for Specter

OPS: Disgusting.

Obama, Biden to raise money for Specter - TheHill.com -

Sen. Arlen Specter (D) will welcome President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden to Pennsylvania in the coming months as he looks to build his financial lead in his race for reelection.

The president will attend a Sept. 15 fundraiser for Specter at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, while the vice president will join the new Democrat for an event in Western Pennsylvania later this fall.

Fundraisers for Specter’s campaign hope to raise $2.5 million during the event in Philadelphia, according to an e-mail invitation obtained by the Philadelphia Daily News. The event has already raised $600,000, and backers have committed another $700,000 to organizers, wrote David Cohen, executive vice president of Comcast and a major Specter donor.

via TheHill.com – Obama, Biden to raise money for Specter.

Weiner: Senate healthcare deal could cost 100 House votes

Weiner: Senate healthcare deal could cost 100 House votes

A healthcare reform deal abandoning a public (or “government-run”) option for consumers could cost as many as 100 Democratic votes in the House, one House Democratic lawmaker warned Monday.

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) asserted that rumored compromises on a Senate bill to win centrist votes would torpedo healthcare reform’s prospects with liberal members of the House.

“If the president thinks he’s cutting a deal to get Senate votes, he’s probably losing House votes,” Weiner warned during an interview on CNBC this morning.

The liberal New York Democrat said that healthcare reform would be essentially meaningless without having a public option made available for consumers.

via The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room » Weiner: Senate healthcare deal could cost 100 House votes.

Poll: Few people trust Fox News other than whites, southerners, and Republicans.

Poll: Few people trust Fox News other than whites, southerners, and Republicans.  - Think Progress »

Daily Kos/Research 2000 has released a new poll of Americans on which of the three major cable news channels they watch and trust. Kos points out that the poll finds “Republicans watch Fox News and nothing else, Democrats split between MSNBC and CNN, and Independents watch nothing.” The Washington Independent’s Dave Weigel notes that “non-white viewers really don’t like Fox”:

The biggest swing region in the poll? The South. In Southern states, 46 percent of viewers say that Fox News is “extremely reliable” or “reliable.” Only 6 percent of them say that of MSNBC, compared to 26 percent who say it of CNN, a huge shift from the days when CNN was derided as the “Communist/Clinton News Network.” And non-white viewers really don’t like Fox. Only 5 percent of African-Americans, 11 percent of Hispanics, and 8 percent of other minorities consider the network reliable, while a majority of every one of those groups trusts CNN and sizable pluralities trust MSNBC.

via Think Progress » Poll: Few people trust Fox News other than whites, southerners, and Republicans..

Obama Addresses Veterans — A Constituency That Benefits From A Public Health Insurance Plan

Obama Addresses Veterans — A Constituency That Benefits From A Public Health Insurance Plan

vfwToday, President Obama addressed the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Phoenix, AZ. In his speech, Obama reassured veterans about his health care plan: “One thing that reform won’t change is veterans health care. No one is going to take away your benefits.” Still, many veterans are reportedly wary of health reform. But ironically, one of the key pillars of reform — a public plan — is currently benefiting millions of veterans who rely on the government-provided care of the Veterans Health Administration.

Outside Obama’s speech, conservative groups including Americans for Prosperity were protesting and rallying against greater government involvement in the health care system. But like Medicare recipients who oppose government interference in the health care system, opponents of a public option should be weary of denouncing “government care” in front of veterans who can vouch for the effectiveness of government-run care.

The VA “outpaces other systems in delivering patient care,” consistently delivering higher quality health care more efficiently. A recent study by the RAND corporation found that “VA patients were more likely to receive recommended care” and “received consistently better care across the board, including screening, diagnosis, treatment and follow up”:

via Think Progress » Obama Addresses Veterans — A Constituency That Benefits From A Public Health Insurance Plan.

Our Last Chance to Preserve Life On Earth Is Slipping Away

Our Last Chance to Preserve Life On Earth Is Slipping Away - By Larry Schweiger,

Shallow news coverage causes most Americans to underestimate the urgency of the threat of global warming.

This excerpt was reprinted from the book Last Chance: Preserving Life on Earth by Larry J. Schweiger with permission from Fulcrum Publishing.

In the Absence of Light

A few years ago, we invited a group of low-income children from urban Pittsburgh to visit a distant natural area in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, for an owl watch. As night fell, the children became startled as they got their first glimpse of the myriad bright stars set in a clear, black sky. These kids had never seen a night sky in the absence of ambient light. Urban haze and light pollution had completely blocked their view of the heavens and dimmed their sense of the magnitude of creation.

Shallow news coverage causes most Americans to underestimate the urgency of the threat of global warming. Television’s failure to adequately cover the climate threat, along with the deliberate opacity created by massive oil and coal advertising, masks the vivid realities of the situation, much like the haze and light pollution blocked out the reality of the night sky for those urban kids.

via Our Last Chance to Preserve Life On Earth Is Slipping Away | Environment | AlterNet.

11 Dirty Little Secrets Your Grocery Store Is Hiding

11 Dirty Little Secrets Your Grocery Store Is Hiding – By Tina McCarthy, EcoSalon.

How can you beat them at their own game? Here’s what you need to know.

True or false? Your local grocer employs a scheming team of experts who work behind the scenes to orchestrate every little detail in a devious effort to squeeze every cent they can out of you.

It’s true. Even your favorite organic food stores are guilty of this. So, how can you beat them at their own game? Here’s what you need to know:

Baked Goods – Not So Fresh

via 11 Dirty Little Secrets Your Grocery Store Is Hiding | Health and Wellness | AlterNet.

Rachel Maddow Slams Dick Armey for Stirring Up Hate in Town Halls

Rachel Maddow Slams Dick Armey for Stirring Up Hate in Town Hall. – By Staff , MSNBC.

On Sunday’s Meet the Press, Rachel Maddow took on Dick Armey for his role in the violent town hall protests.

David Gregory: This morning, a special hour-long discussion making sense of health care.  What are the issues at the center of the debate?  How would reform affect your health care?  Separating fact from fiction in the fight. And what does it mean politically for President Obama?  With us:  former House majority leader Republican Dick Armey, now the head of FreedomWorks, a major organizer of protesters at town hall meetings; Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, a medical doctor and member of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; former Senate majority leader Democrat Tom Daschle, an informal adviser to the White House and author of “Critical:  What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis”; and Rachel Maddow, host of MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.” Plus, additional perspectives from around the country:  the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Charlie Rangel of New York; Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the Chamber of Commerce; and Democratic Governor Bill Ritter of Colorado.

But first, making sense of healthcare reform, for the entire hour.  And welcome to our panel here.  You know, the president wrote on the op-ed page of The New York Times today that this is the great debate for America right now. And I think what the public also wants is a civil and informative debate, which is what I think we’re going to have this morning.  I want to talk in just a few minutes about three major areas of contention in this healthcare debate.  But first I do want to talk about the anger, the emotion and the fear that is out there.

And, Senator Daschle, let me begin with you.  All of these town halls, have they altered or derailed the chance for reform this year?

via Rachel Maddow Slams Dick Armey for Stirring Up Hate in Town Halls | Media and Technology | AlterNet.

DEET can be harmful to humans

DEET can be harmful to humans

Vincent Corbel of the Institut de Recherche pour le Dveloppement in Montpellier and Bruno Lapied of the University of Angers in France has determined that DEET slows or halts the action of the enzyme acetylcholinesterase in people, animals, as well as it does in insects.

Acetylcholinesterase breaks down the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, producing choline and an acetate group. Failure of the enzyme system can cause paralysis. The paralysis is reversible.

Misinterpretation of this finding is inevitable.

The researchers state that overexposure to DEET can cause health problems particularly if the person is exposed to pesticides repeatedly.

via DEET can be harmful to humans.

Are Democrats too scared of losing to win?

Are Democrats too scared of losing to win?  -  | BuzzFlash.org

By Steven C. Day

According to the generally dependable Nate Silver, Democrats have a lot to worry about in 2010. Not only does he predict that the party will lose seats in Congress, he sees some risk, small but not trivial, that the GOP could actually win back the House. But what’s particularly interesting is the reason for Silver’s pessimism: it seems that there’s an enthusiasm gap between the two parties — one that favors the Republicans. Right now, Republican voters are much more motivated than Democratic voters.

So, what is the Democrats’ response? Will they, at long last, start playing to the base a little? Perhaps even start aggressively pushing liberal priorities in an effort to fire up the troops? Or at a very minimum, will they at least start feeding the base a little red meat by raising holy hell over GOP lies and obstructionism?

That would be a no.

Quite to the contrary, it would seem that Obama & Co. have chosen this very moment to declare war on the Democratic Party’s progressive base by abandoning their support for a public option in the healthcare reform bill. Yeah, that’s the ticket: continue to suck up to a fraud such as Chuck Grassley, who, not satisfied with merely endorsing the “death panels” lie, has also taken to hawking books for ultra-nut Glenn Beck. Or how about throwing the entire progressive base under the bus so as to please Kent Conrad as he continues to undercut efforts at real reform?

via Are Democrats too scared of losing to win? | BuzzFlash.org.

Obama Administration Redacts Contract Details for Recovery.gov

Obama Administration Redacts Contract Details for Recovery.gov -  – ProPublica

Back in July, a software company named Smartronix [1] landed an $18 million contract to build a Web site where taxpayers could easily track billions in federal stimulus money. It was just another part of the Obama administration’s ongoing effort to bring transparency to stimulus spending, we were told.

But it seems the drive for transparency doesn’t cover the contract itself.

After weeks of prodding by ProPublica and other organizations, the General Services Administration released copies of the contract and related documents that are so heavily blacked out they are virtually worthless.

Don’t believe us? Take a look. [2]

ProPublica sought the contract under the Freedom of Information Act to find out what kind of site Smartronix planned to build and to assess whether it justified the cost, which Republican critics of the stimulus plan called “unreal.”

via Obama Administration Redacts Contract Details for Recovery.gov – ProPublica.

Cost of credit card debt soaring

Cost of credit card debt soaring – :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Terry Savage

THE SAVAGE TRUTH | Issuers raising rates, planning more fees as first consumer protections kick in this week

Being in debt is about to get a lot more expensive for millions of Americans. Credit card issuers have been rushing to raise rates in advance of this Thursday, when the first provisions of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act (CARD) will go into effect, with other protections starting in February 2010.

Starting this week, card issuers need to give you more time to pay your bills. Now, instead of mailing bills 14 days before the due date, issuers must send bills 21 days in advance of the payment date. That will mean fewer people will get hit with late fees because of postal delays.

via Cost of credit card debt soaring :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Terry Savage.

Dear President Obama: A Modest Medicare Proposal

Dear President Obama: A Modest Medicare Proposal -  | CommonDreams.org

by Thom Hartmann

Dear President Obama,

I understand you’re thinking of dumping your “public option” because of all the demagoguery by Sarah Palin and Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich and their crowd on right-wing radio and Fox. Fine. Good idea, in fact.

Instead, let’s make it simple. Please let us buy into Medicare.

It would be so easy. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel with this so-called “public option” that’s a whole new program from the ground up. Medicare already exists. It works. Some people will like it, others won’t – just like the Post Office versus FedEx analogy you’re so comfortable with.

Just pass a simple bill – it could probably be just a few lines, like when Medicare was expanded to include disabled people – that says that any American citizen can buy into the program at a rate to be set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) which reflects the actual cost for us to buy into it.

So it’s revenue neutral!

via Dear President Obama: A Modest Medicare Proposal | CommonDreams.org.

New study: Up to 90 percent of U.S. paper money contains traces of cocaine

OPS:  …and we’re winning the war on Drugs?

New study: Up to 90 percent of U.S. paper money contains traces of cocaine

WASHINGTON, Aug. 16, 2009 — You probably have cocaine in your wallet, purse, or pocket. Sound unlikely or outrageous? Think again! In what researchers describe as the largest, most comprehensive analysis to date of cocaine contamination in banknotes, scientists are reporting that cocaine is present in up to 90 percent of paper money in the United States, particularly in large cities such as Baltimore, Boston, and Detroit. The scientists found traces of cocaine in 95 percent of the banknotes analyzed from Washington, D.C., alone.

Presented here today at the 238^th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, the new study suggests that cocaine abuse is still widespread and may be on the rise in some areas. It could help raise public awareness about cocaine use and lead to greater emphasis on curbing its abuse, the researchers say.

The scientists tested banknotes from more than 30 cities in five countries, including the U.S., Canada, Brazil, China, and Japan, and found “alarming” evidence of cocaine use in many areas. The U.S. and Canada had the highest levels, with an average contamination rate of between 85 and 90 percent, while China and Japan had the lowest, between 12 and 20 percent contamination. The study is the first report about cocaine contamination in Chinese and Japanese currencies, they say.

“To my surprise, we’re finding more and more cocaine in banknotes,” said study leader Yuegang Zuo, Ph.D., of the University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth.

via New study: Up to 90 percent of U.S. paper money contains traces of cocaine.

Liars, Crooks and Idiots: Who Wants Obama to Fail and Why

Liars, Crooks and Idiots: Who Wants Obama to Fail and Why - by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

In the wake of Bush’s utter failures, lies, and crimes, the left-wing, by rights, should be tucking tail and seeking cover! Not so –Rush Limbaugh, to be expected of a crooked idiot, has said he hopes Obama fails. Others have picked up the mantra!

It has been my experience in life, journalism and politics that two things among all others makes on miserable: 1) just wanting to stay alive, and 2) wishing failure or hardship upon someone else upon one’s on evil, vile motives. My response: the GOP does not deserve to survive as a party, and, secondly, the GOP rose upon the backs of all those people for whom the GOP wished and, in fact, inflicted hardships.

The GOP shares this much with Nazis and other parties totalitarian inclined: the GOP cannot tell the truth and the truth is that it does not represent the electorate but a shrinking elite which amounts –last time I checked –to some 1 percent of the entire population and shrinking. They make up the rest by lying about their real intentions. Even then, they are a minority of about 30 to 40 percent hardcore who share two characteristics:

via The Existentialist Cowboy: Liars, Crooks and Idiots: Who Wants Obama to Fail and Why.

GMAC Financial Services has “ceased advertising on the Glenn Beck program”

GMAC Financial Services has “ceased advertising on the Glenn Beck program” -  | Media Matters for America

That’s the word this morning from spokesperson Sue Mallino, who confirmed to Media Matters that the company recently pulled its ads off the Fox News program. Mallino would not comment on whether the move was made in response to Beck’s claim that President Obama is a “racist,” an allegation that sparked a grassroots campaign by ColorofChange.org to get advertisers to stop supporting Beck’s program.

Mallino said only that the company has final say over which programs are “not appropriate” to advertise on, and that GMAC Financial Services will continue to advertise on Fox News. But she reiterated the company “has ceased advertising on the Glenn Beck program.”

GMAC Financial Services joins a growing list of advertisers who have recently abandoned Beck’s television show, including ConAgra, Roche, Sanofi-Aventis, RadioShack, Men’s Wearhouse, State Farm Sargento, LexisNexis-owned Lawyers.com, Procter & Gamble, and Progressive Insurance.

via GMAC Financial Services has “ceased advertising on the Glenn Beck program” | Media Matters for America.

The Swiss Menace

The Swiss Menace – - NYTimes.com

It was the blooper heard round the world. In an editorial denouncing Democratic health reform plans, Investor’s Business Daily tried to frighten its readers by declaring that in Britain, where the government runs health care, the handicapped physicist Stephen Hawking “wouldn’t have a chance,” because the National Health Service would consider his life “essentially worthless.”

Professor Hawking, who was born in Britain, has lived there all his life, and has been well cared for by the National Health Service, was not amused.

Besides being vile and stupid, however, the editorial was beside the point. Investor’s Business Daily would like you to believe that Obamacare would turn America into Britain — or, rather, a dystopian fantasy version of Britain. The screamers on talk radio and Fox News would have you believe that the plan is to turn America into the Soviet Union. But the truth is that the plans on the table would, roughly speaking, turn America into Switzerland — which may be occupied by lederhosen-wearing holey-cheese eaters, but wasn’t a socialist hellhole the last time I looked.

Let’s talk about health care around the advanced world.

via Op-Ed Columnist – The Swiss Menace – NYTimes.com.

DEET can be harmful to humans

DEET can be harmful to humans

Vincent Corbel of the Institut de Recherche pour le Dveloppement in Montpellier and Bruno Lapied of the University of Angers in France has determined that DEET slows or halts the action of the enzyme acetylcholinesterase in people, animals, as well as it does in insects.

Acetylcholinesterase breaks down the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, producing choline and an acetate group. Failure of the enzyme system can cause paralysis. The paralysis is reversible.

Misinterpretation of this finding is inevitable.

The researchers state that overexposure to DEET can cause health problems particularly if the person is exposed to pesticides repeatedly.

via DEET can be harmful to humans.

GM Plans a Compact for $4,000

GM Plans a Compact for $4,000 -  – WSJ.com

- General Motors Co. is targeting the emerging ultra-low-cost car market with plans for a compact for around $4,000, possibly producing it in Asia.

The segment is attracting increasing attention from manufacturers eager to keep sales momentum in developing markets following the sharp slide in car sales in North America and Western Europe.

“When Tata Motors in India came out with their $2,500 Nano vehicle it put a lot of auto makers on …

via GM Plans a Compact for $4,000 – WSJ.com.

Oil lobby to fund campaign against Obama’s climate change strategy

Oil lobby to fund campaign against Obama’s climate change strategy – |  | guardian.co.uk

Email from American Petroleum Institute outlines plan to create appearance of public opposition to Obama’s climate and energy reform

The US oil and gas lobby are planning to stage public events to give the appearance of a groundswell of public opinion against legislation that is key to Barack Obama’s climate change strategy, according to campaigners.

A key lobbying group will bankroll and organise 20 ”energy citizen” rallies in 20 states. In an email obtained by Greenpeace, Jack Gerard, the president of the American Petroleum Institute (API), outlined what he called a “sensitive” plan to stage events during the August congressional recess to put a “human face” on opposition to climate and energy reform.

After the clamour over healthcare, the memo raises the possibility of a new round of protests against a key Obama issue.

via Oil lobby to fund campaign against Obama’s climate change strategy | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic: Obama Revives Bush-Era Militarized Quarantine Regulations

H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic: Obama Revives Bush-Era Militarized Quarantine Regulations

by Tom Burghardt

While the American far-right rants against alleged “Obama death panels” and other Freddy Krueger-like scarecrows to frighten–and divert–the kiddies, our capitalist masters, as they are wont to do, gaze at the spectacle, laugh, and then tighten the screws.

Health care for all derailed? Mission accomplished!

Meanwhile, despite alarm amongst civil liberties groups, public health researchers and other “reality-based” evil-doers who haven’t slaked their thirst with “birther” kool-aid, the Obama administration “is quietly dusting off an effort to impose new federal quarantine regulations” to “contain” the H1N1 flu virus, Politico revealed.

“While any discussion of quarantine may stoke public fears of barbed wire camps filled with infected Americans or closures of international borders” Politico reports, “public health experts said that sort of approach to H1N1 flu would not be effective.”

While White House officials aren’t talking, Wendy Mariner, a professor of law and public health at Boston University told the publication, “it’s not really going to help.

via H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic: Obama Revives Bush-Era Militarized Quarantine Regulations.

Why the American right make me sick

Why the American right make me sick  -  | The Guardian

There are few tribes more loathsome than the American right, and their vicious use of the shortcomings in the NHS to attack Barack Obama’s attempts at health reform are a useful reminder.

I was thinking of this during a visit to my 91-year-old dad who is still in an NHS hospital after three weeks, recovering from a broken hip. He has had fantastic care, including a new metal hip, blood transfusions, different antibiotics to match every aspect of his condition; all administered by nurses who remain cheerful even when asked to perform tasks on men – the lethal combination of pain and old age makes some in the ward exceedingly grumpy – that I would not want to do for £1,000 a time. If he was in an American hospital he’d be using up half his life savings to get that standard of care, and few ordinary Americans could afford the insurance that would provide it. (This is because health insurers spend a large part of their income on PR against the “socialised medicine” and on sending pro forma letters explaining why your policy doesn’t cover actual illness.) All over the US there are people whose lives are being destroyed for lack of proper health care provision, and there is no sight more odious than the rich, powerful and arrogant trying to keep it that way.

via Simon Hoggart’s week: Why the American right make me sick | From the Guardian | The Guardian.

Rachel Maddow Battles Dick Armey On “Meet The Press”

YouTube – Rachel Maddow Battles Dick Armey On “Meet The Press”.

Rep. Meek: There are members of Congress telling health insurers, ‘We have your back.’

Rep. Meek: There are members of Congress telling health insurers, ‘We have your back.’ - Think Progress »

In an interview with ThinkProgress yesterday, Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-FL) — who is now running for Senate — warned that special interests’ influence over Congress has impeded efforts at health care reform. Insurance companies are now promising to cover individuals with preexisting conditions. Meek told us, “That’s major. That could have happened 10 years ago, but because of the special interests and the protection of some of these individuals that are in Congress now that are saying, ‘We have your back,’ they didn’t have to worry about that.” Meek went on to explain that health insurers have a strong “arsenal of communication and also of political influence” among members of Congress “in keeping the status quo.” Watch it:

via Think Progress » Rep. Meek: There are members of Congress telling health insurers, ‘We have your back.’.

“You Do Not Cut Deals with the System that Has to Be Replaced”: Ralph Nader on Secret White House Agreements with the Drug Industry

Audio, Video, MP3 download, Transcript

“You Do Not Cut Deals with the System that Has to Be Replaced”: Ralph Nader on Secret White House Agreements with the Drug Industry

Democracy Now

The Obama administration admitted last week it promised to oppose proposals to let the government negotiate drug prices and extract additional savings from drug companies. In return, drug companies reportedly pledged to reduce costs by up to $80 billion. The White House has tried to back off the reported agreements, but the drug industry says it expects the White House to uphold its pledge. We speak to former presidential candidate and longtime consumer advocate Ralph Nader. [includes rush transcript]

via “You Do Not Cut Deals with the System that Has to Be Replaced”: Ralph Nader on Secret White House Agreements with the Drug Industry.

White House appears ready to drop ‘public option’

White House appears ready to drop ‘public option’

Bowing to Republican pressure and an uneasy public, President Barack Obama‘s administration signaled Sunday it is ready to abandon the idea of giving Americans the option of government-run insurance as part of a new health care system.

Facing mounting opposition to the overhaul, administration officials left open the chance for a compromise with Republicans that would include health insurance cooperatives instead of a government-run plan. Such a concession probably would enrage Obama’s liberal supporters but could deliver a much-needed victory on a top domestic priority opposed by GOP lawmakers.

Officials from both political parties reached across the aisle in an effort to find compromises on proposals they left behind when they returned to their districts for an August recess. Obama had wanted the government to run a health insurance organization to help cover the nation’s almost 50 million uninsured, but didn’t include it as one of his three core principles of reform.

via White House appears ready to drop ‘public option’ – Yahoo! News.

Heritage Wrote Obama’s Insurance Plan

Heritage Wrote Obama’s Insurance Plan – | Mother Jones

During his New Hampshire town hall meeting on health care reform in mid-August, Obama explained that under his plan, people who lack health insurance would be able to purchase it in a new exchange that offered a similar “menu of options that I used to have as a member of Congress.” Obama said that by creating a big pool of potential customers, the exchange would allow the uninsured and even small businesses to shop around, easily compare various private health care plans and get a better deal than they could on their own.

Most of the health care reform bills circulating in Congress contain some form of this concept. The exchange, in fact, is now the centerpiece of proposed plans drafted mainly by Democrats. It’s a curious development, because the concept was largely popularized by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank best known in recent years for advocating Social Security privatization during the Bush administration. Its track record ought to make Americans more wary of Obama’s proposals than any talk of “socialized medicine.”

via Heritage Wrote Obama’s Insurance Plan | Mother Jones.

The Power Behind the Throne: The Legalization of Corporate Personhood

The Power Behind the Throne: The Legalization of Corporate Personhood

BUZZFLASH EDITOR’S BLOG  By Mark Karlin

Of course, there is no simple analysis to understanding the forces lurking beneath the surface of political conflict in America today.

But a good place to start would be with the legal enshrinement in the late 1800s of a concept called “corporate personhood.” In essence, this means a business institution has the same — indeed, currently enhanced — legal rights as individual American citizens.

Thom Hartmann outlined this brilliantly in his under-appreciated book of a few years back, “Unequal Protection.”

As noted in a description of “Unequal Protection”:

Hartmann then describes the history of the Fourteenth Amendment–created at the end of the Civil War to grant basic rights to freed slaves–and how it has been used by lawyers representing corporate interests to extend additional rights to businesses far more frequently than to freed slaves. Prior to 1886, corporations were referred to in U.S. law as “artificial persons.” but in 1886, after a series of cases brought by lawyers representing the expanding railroad interests, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations were “persons” and entitled to the same rights granted to people under the Bill of Rights. Since this ruling, America has lost the legal structures that allowed for people to control corporate behavior.

via The Power Behind the Throne: The Legalization of Corporate Personhood | BuzzFlash.org.

No Matter What Lies the Right Wing Screams, the Brits Love Their Health Care System

No Matter What Lies the Right Wing Screams, the Brits Love Their Health Care System – By Denis Campbell, The Guardian.

Republicans and right-wing pundits in the US have tried to scare us about Britain’s public health system — because it works.

The claim

Ted Kennedy, 77, would not be treated for his brain tumor if he was in Britain because he is too old – Charles Grassley, Republican senator from Iowa.

The response

Untrue, says the Department of Health. “There is no ban on anyone of any age receiving any treatment, ” said a spokesman. “Whether to prescribe drugs or recommend surgery is rightly a clinical decision taken on a case by case basis.”

The claim

Government health officials in England have decided that $22,750 (£14,000) is what six months’ life is worth. Under their socialised system, if a medical treatment costs more, you’re out of luck – Club for Growth

The response

The National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) decides whether new drugs represent value for money for the NHS in England and Wales. It replied: “This is a gross misrepresentation of how Nice applies health economics to try and address the central issue: how to allocate healthcare rationally within the context of limited healthcare resources. Nice assesses the cost of a treatment in terms of a cost-utility analysis which takes account of the quality adjusted life year – the amount and quality of extended life it is hoped the patient will gain. The current ceiling is £30,000 but exceptions are made.”

via No Matter What Lies the Right Wing Screams, the Brits Love Their Health Care System | Health and Wellness | AlterNet.

Lou Dobbs Tours Single-Payer Systems Abroad and Realizes, Holy Crap They’re Good

Lou Dobbs Tours Single-Payer Systems Abroad and Realizes, Holy Crap They’re Good -  By Leslie Savan, The Nation.

Has CNN’s government-out-of-my-face bloviator actually had a change of heart when it comes to Obama’s health plan?

Lou Dobbs is a strange man. One day he’s railing against “Obamacare,” stoking the birther and deather paranoia that an illegitimate president’s health care plan will mandate euthanasia. Next day he’s practically singing the praises of single-payer healthcare systems ’round the world.

It’s kind of French of him, but last week, CNN’s government-out-of-my-face bloviator began a monthlong, nation-a-night series to “learn from other countries’ health care plans.” He’s already toured the single-payer systems of Denmark, Canada, and England, and the heavily regulated, public/private plans of Germany, France, Holland, and Switzerland. And, as if he were channeling Michael Moore or something, he’s been rattling off stats showing that most of these universally covered foreigners are spending less on healthcare but living longer than we do.

Oh, sure, he’ll occasionally exaggerate any weakness he can find–Lou’s particularly eager to tsk-tsk over England’s long lines. But overall, the series (reported mostly by CNN’s Kitty Pilgrim), has been straightforward, like this look at Denmark, which could almost inspire a townhall mob to chant “Mandate, baby, mandate!”

via Lou Dobbs Tours Single-Payer Systems Abroad and Realizes, Holy Crap They’re Good | Health and Wellness | AlterNet.

Why the Right’s ‘Astroturfing’ Propaganda Is Textbook Psychopathic

Why the Right’s ‘Astroturfing’ Propaganda Is Textbook Psychopathi – By Byard Duncan, AlterNet.

Faux grassroots firms are exhibiting all the tell-tale signs.

Here’s a quick test, a sort of free-association game: What do egocentrism, deceitfulness and aggressive criminality have in common?

If you guessed that they are characteristics of disturbed behavior, you’re half right. They are in fact features of the Psychopathy Checklist Revised, a template for diagnosing psychopaths, designed by Canadian psychologist Robert D. Hare.

But what’s more interesting about this triumvirate is the fact that it’s being employed in the recent slew of corporate-backed, faux grassroots outbursts (also known as “astroturfing” campaigns) across the country.

via Why the Right’s ‘Astroturfing’ Propaganda Is Textbook Psychopathic | Politics | AlterNet.

15 Horrifying Reasons to Never Let Anyone You Love Near a McDonald’s

15 Horrifying Reasons to Never Let Anyone You Love Near a McDonald’s -  By Sarah Irani, EcoSalon

Erectile dysfunction, the truth behind the “special sauce,” and a burger from 1996. Keep reading if you dare.

The Golden Arches: the ultimate American icon. Super Size Me taught us that fast food culture brings obesity, heart disease, hypertension and a whole slew of other problems. How bad do you really want that Big Mac? Here are 15 reasons you’ll never let anyone you love get near those Golden Arches.

1. Real food is perishable. With time, it begins to decay. It’s a natural process, it just happens. Beef will rot, bread will mold. But what about a McDonald’s burger? Karen Hanrahan saved a McDonald’s burger from 1996 and, oddly enough, it looks just as “appetizing” and “fresh” as a burger you might buy today. Is this real food?

via 15 Horrifying Reasons to Never Let Anyone You Love Near a McDonald’s | Health and Wellness | AlterNet.

Grim early Indications for Wall Street reform

Grim early Indications for Wall Street reform – Salon.com |

The banks want to stay huge and indulgent, and the administration may not be willing or able to stare them down

By Robert Reich

Citigroup — the giant Wall Street bank still on life-support courtesy of $45 billion from American taxpayers — wants to pay its twenty-five top executives an average of $10 million each this year, and award its best trader $100 million. Whaaat?

Second only to healthcare reform as a test of Obama’s toughness and resolve is reform of Wall Street. And like the healthcare industry, Wall Street has platoons of lobbyists and an almost unlimited war chest to protect its interests and prevent change. So what can we learn by what’s going on now, regarding pay for the top brass at big “too big to fail” banks?

After the bonus plan for AIG executives blew up last year, a law enacted last February requires that any “too big to fail” institution that’s received bailouts get Treasury’s approval on pay for their top earners. Companies are supposed to file their pay proposals no later than today. So far, most are seeking around $7 million each for their top twenty-five.

As you can expect, Citi and the rest argue that $7 to $10 million is necessary in order to keep and attract “talent.”

Tragically, Treasury has already given in on this one. In judging whether a proposed pay package is appropriate, Treasury has decided to be guided by “comparable” pay packages in the industry. This means Ken Feinberg, appointed as special master to decide on a case-by-case basis, will be the flak-catcher. He’ll take the heat when he approves pay packages that, while perhaps not as ridiculously exhorbitant as the ones the banks seek, are still bonkers because they’re roughly “comparable” to the wild pay on the rest of the Street — thereby protecting Geithner and Geithner’s boss from the public’s outrage about bailing out these bankers and then having them earn princely sums at a time when most peoples’ jobs are at risk and their earnings are shrinking.

via Salon.com | Grim early Indications for Wall Street reform.

The Freedom of No Choice

The Freedom of No Choice -  | ePluribus Media

Back in the dark ages, when I was young and a voter for the first time, I was a registered Independent.  That was partly due to the fact that I’d not enough insight or experience to know my own leanings much less to have tested them against party platforms.

What I call myself now is a lower-case “P” progressive and, like anyone stuck in the bipolar power struggle that disallows new entrants, I consistently aim to choose lesser evil.

On rare occasion, I’ve considered “R” but that’s become an impossible choice in the last ten years, or so.  Now, there’s no choice in light of documents establishing that Republicans have been the proxies of a racketeering operation.

Max Baucus is a capital “D” example of why I can’t be a knee-jerk Dem, though there are several I respect on that side of the aisle.

As I’ve considered the disappointment delivered by the full-house Democratic majority, I’ve come to a few tentative conclusions as to what’s going wrong.

via The Freedom of No Choice | ePluribus Media.

Tax dodgers scramble to come clean amid crackdown

Tax dodgers scramble to come clean amid crackdown

A deal with Switzerland settling U.S. demands for the names of suspected tax dodgers from a Swiss bank has a lot of wealthy Americans with offshore accounts nervously running to their tax advisers — and the Internal Revenue Service.

“They are very frightened,” said Richard Boggs, chief executive of Nationwide Tax Relief, a Los-Angeles-based tax firm that specializes in clients with tax debts exceeding $100,000. “You have the super rich who are not used to being pushed around and they are finding themselves in unfamiliar territory.”

The U.S. and Swiss governments announced a court settlement last week in efforts by the IRS to force Zurich-based UBS AG to turn over the names of some 52,000 Americans believed to be hiding nearly $15 billion in assets in secret accounts.

Justice Department and UBS lawyers told a federal judge in Miami in a brief conference call Wednesday they had initialed a final deal. But they did not disclose any details, such as how many of the 52,000 names sought by the IRS will be revealed.

via Tax dodgers scramble to come clean amid crackdown – Yahoo! News.

How Social Security Works « Counter Economics

How Social Security Works

Wall Street’s plan to boost their bonuses now that all of their mortgage backed securities have crashed is to steal old people’s money. George Bush, The Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation think this is a great idea. We have a different word for it. We prefer the word “disgusting.” But perhaps its a matter of opinion. To stop this from happening its imperative that we all understand how Social Security works, becuase most things said about it are false.

The Correct Explanation

There is a massive amount of misinformation out there, mostly promulgated by slimy elitists who hate any benefit that goes to the working person, and would in fact deny workers the benefits of their own labor. Michael Hudson has written in Harpers how Wall Street would like to “liberate” the roughly $4.7 trillion (2005) figure from retirees in order to create a new stock bubble, which will end up leaving many retirees destitute after it pops. All of Hudson’s Harper articles can bee read at this link.

via How Social Security Works « Counter Economics.

Pundits Trying to Help Cheney Avoid Jail

Pundits Trying to Help Cheney Avoid Jail -  | CommonDreams.org

by Ray McGovern

The stenographers of the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) are missing the most obvious explanation for former Vice President Dick Cheney’s widely reported “disappointment” with former President George W. Bush on the issue of pardons – self-interest.

Barton Gellman of the Washington Post has now joined feature writers from Time in aping Cheney’s hagiographer in chief, Stephen Hayes of The Weekly Standard. They all choose to dote on Cheney’s loyalty to his former chief of staff, Irv Lewis “Scooter” Libby, while ignoring reasons why Cheney might have hoped for a presidential pardon himself.

Gellman is a talented journalist with a tainted record. He wrote a truly shameless article for the Post when it was competing with The New York Times for cheerleading laurels prior to the war on Iraq.

via Pundits Trying to Help Cheney Avoid Jail | CommonDreams.org.

Gates Foundation Sells Off Most Health-Care, Pharmaceutical Holdings

Gates Foundation Sells Off Most Health-Care, Pharmaceutical Holdings – - WSJ.com

SAN FRANCISCO — The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest private philanthropy fund, sold off almost all of its pharmaceutical, biotechnology and health-care investments in the quarter ended June 30, according to a regulatory filing published Friday.

The Seattle-based charity endowment, set up by Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and his wife, sold its total holding of 2.5 million shares in health-care giant Johnson & Johnson in the quarter, according to the filing.

The foundation also sold millions of shares in major drug makers, including 14.9 million shares in Schering-Plough Corp., almost 1 million shares in Eli Lilly & Co., 8.1 million shares in Merck & Co. and 3.7 million shares in Wyeth, over the same time period. The foundation no longer holds shares in any of those companies.

Among the other health and life sciences-related investments the foundation liquidated are Allos Therapeutics Inc., InterMune Inc., Auxilium Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc.

The only life science-related holding the foundation retains is a 3 million-share stake in Seattle Genetics Inc.

via Gates Foundation Sells Off Most Health-Care, Pharmaceutical Holdings – WSJ.com.

The Pentagon Wants Authority to Post Almost 400,000 Military Personnel in U.S.

OPS: So then all they need is a “another pearl harbor”

The Pentagon Wants Authority to Post Almost 400,000 Military Personnel in U.S. – | The Progressive

The Pentagon has approached Congress to grant the Secretary of Defense the authority to post almost 400,000 military personnel throughout the United States in times of emergency or a major disaster.

This request has already occasioned a dispute with the nation’s governors. And it raises the prospect of U.S. military personnel patrolling the streets of the United States, in conflict with the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.

In June, the U.S. Northern Command distributed a “Congressional Fact Sheet” entitled “Legislative Proposal for Activation of Federal Reserve Forces for Disasters.” That proposal would amend current law, thereby “authorizing the Secretary of Defense to order any unit or member of the Army Reserve, Air Force Reserve, Navy Reserve, and the Marine Corps Reserve, to active duty for a major disaster or emergency.”

Taken together, these reserve units would amount to “more than 379,000 military personnel in thousands of communities across the United States,” explained

via The Pentagon Wants Authority to Post Almost 400,000 Military Personnel in U.S. | The Progressive.

Kucinich Predicts Retreat On Health Care Reform

Kucinich Predicts Retreat On Health Care Reform -  WCPN.org

Ohio Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich says he doubts the health care bill taking shape in Congress will succeed. He spoke with WVIZ’s Dick Feagler. Ideastream’s Bill Rice reports.

Much of the controversy surrounding health care reform has swirled around the so-called public option – a government insurance plan that would compete with private insurers.  Congressman Kucinich wants the public plan to be the ONLY option; in other words, a single payer government system for everyone.  Kucinich has for years been pushing such a plan.  He says the problem with the U.S. system is the layer of bureaucracy imposed by insurance companies.  Cut the private health insurers out of the mix, he says, and affordable, universal coverage is within easy reach.

Kucinich:  “One out of every three dollar goes to the activities of the for-profit system.  They cream it right off the top for corporate profits, stock options, executive salaries, advertising, the cost of paperwork.  If you took that 800 billion dollars a year, which is what that represents, and put it into care for people you’d have enough to cover everyone, doctor of choice, vision care, dental health, mental health care, long term care, prescription drugs – we’d all be covered.”

via Kucinich Predicts Retreat On Health Care Reform / WCPN.org.

Progressives Should be Shutting Down These So-Called ‘Health Care Town Meetings’ Too

Progressives Should be Shutting Down These So-Called ‘Health Care Town Meetings’ Too

For the most part, the health care “town meetings” staged by members of Congress are shams designed to deceive and disinform the public on the possibilities and progress of health care reform.  Despite being shaky on the facts, right wingers may be quite correct in treating them as opportunities for street theatre.  Maybe, suggests Dave Lindorff, we ought to do the same.

By Dave Lindorff

“Many progressives are getting all bent out of shape over the “brown shirt” rabble organized by health industry PR firms to disrupt the so-called “town meetings” being organized all over the country by Democratic members of Congress.

What they are conveniently forgetting is that these are not really “town meetings” at all, at least in the sense of the town meetings I grew up with, and started out covering as a young journalist in Connecticut–that is, meetings called and run democratically, with leaders elected from the floor, open to all residents of a community.

via CYRANO’S JOURNAL ONLINE | The Zombies are right, but for the wrong reasons.

Swine flu jab link to killer nerve disease: Leaked letter reveals concern of neurologists over 25 deaths in America

Swine flu jab link to killer nerve disease: Leaked letter reveals concern of neurologists over 25 deaths in America – | Mail Online 

A warning that the new swine flu jab is linked to a deadly nerve disease has been sent by the Government to senior neurologists in a confidential letter.

The letter from the Health Protection Agency, the official body that oversees public health, has been leaked to The Mail on Sunday, leading to demands to know why the information has not been given to the public before the vaccination of millions of people, including children, begins.

It tells the neurologists that they must be alert for an increase in a brain disorder called Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), which could be triggered by the vaccine.

GBS attacks the lining of the nerves, causing paralysis and inability to breathe, and can be fatal.

The letter, sent to about 600 neurologists on July 29, is the first sign that there is concern at the highest levels that the vaccine itself could cause serious complications.

It refers to the use of a similar swine flu vaccine in the United States in 1976 when:

• More people died from the vaccination than from swine flu.
• 500 cases of GBS were detected.
• The vaccine may have increased the risk of contracting GBS by eight times.
• The vaccine was withdrawn after just ten weeks when the link with GBS became clear.
• The US Government was forced to pay out millions of dollars to those affected.

via Swine flu jab link to killer nerve disease: Leaked letter reveals concern of neurologists over 25 deaths in America | Mail Online.

California board votes to drop healthcare coverage for 60,000 children

California board votes to drop healthcare coverage for 60,000 children  - — latimes.com

As a result of state budget cuts, the Healthy Families program will have to begin terminating coverage for more than 60,000 children on Oct. 1. Nearly 670,000 children could be dropped by June 30.

Reporting from Sacramento – The announcement by state officials that California has enough cash to stop paying bills with IOUs did little to take the sting out of other budget news Thursday: Tens of thousands of poor children are about to lose their healthcare coverage.

A state board voted Thursday to begin terminating health insurance for more than 60,000 children Oct. 1 as a result of the budget amendments signed into law recently by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Those children would be up for an annual review of their coverage next month, but instead they may be dropped from the California Healthy Families program under the action by the state Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board.

via California board votes to drop healthcare coverage for 60,000 children — latimes.com.

US troops will deploy to Colombia

US troops will deploy to Colombia

Chavez: ‘The winds of war [are] beginning to blow’

Some American troops will soon find themselves stationed at military bases scattered across the South American nation of Colombia with a mission to use advanced Predator drone technology to aid in fighting the drug trade and to combat terrorism, according to published reports Saturday.

But Colombia’s neighbors certainly do not see it that way.

In Venezuela, officials bristled. President Hugo Chavez warned, “the winds of war [are] beginning to blow.”

via ccokzsblog: US troops will deploy to Colombia.

The brutal truth about America’s healthcare

The brutal truth about America’s healthcare -   The Independent

An extraordinary report from Guy Adams in Los Angeles at the music arena that has been turned into a makeshift medical centre

They came in their thousands, queuing through the night to secure one of the coveted wristbands offering entry into a strange parallel universe where medical care is a free and basic right and not an expensive luxury. Some of these Americans had walked miles simply to have their blood pressure checked, some had slept in their cars in the hope of getting an eye-test or a mammogram, others had brought their children for immunisations that could end up saving their life.

In the week that Britain’s National Health Service was held aloft by Republicans as an “evil and Orwellian” example of everything that is wrong with free healthcare, these extraordinary scenes in Inglewood, California yesterday provided a sobering reminder of exactly why President Barack Obama is trying to reform the US system.

The LA Forum, the arena that once hosted sell-out Madonna concerts, has been transformed – for eight days only – into a vast field hospital. In America, the offer of free healthcare is so rare, that news of the magical medical kingdom spread rapidly and long lines of prospective patients snaked around the venue for the chance of getting everyday treatments that many British people take for granted.

via The brutal truth about America’s healthcare – Americas, World – The Independent.

The Ink Tank:

The Ink Tank: Editorial cartoon roundup – Boston.com.

Hard to Believe!

Hard to Believe! – - NYTimes.com – Bob Herbert

It was strange to find in this economically stressed, rural region of Vermont, not far from the state capital of Montpelier, a good news story about health care.

Those who live in the area, no matter what their income, can get high-quality primary care, dental care, prescription drug services and mental health assistance at a price they can afford. All they have to do is call or stop by the Health Center at Plainfield, which is part of a national network of centers that are officially (and clumsily) known as Federally Qualified Health Centers.

I was somewhat skeptical when Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, told me that these centers (there are 39 sites of various size in the state) had “essentially solved the problem of primary care” for local residents. Politicians are in the business of making big claims. Most of the time you don’t hold it against them. But you don’t take the claims as gospel, either.

via Op-Ed Columnist – Hard to Believe! – NYTimes.com.

Note to MSNBC: Please Give Lawrence O’Donnell His Own Show

OPS:  We could not agree more!  And while you’re at it David Schuster should have his own show too

Note to MSNBC: Please Give Lawrence O’Donnell His Own Show – Pensito Review »

Substituting for Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s “Hardball” yesterday, Lawrence O’Donnell was at the top of his game during an interview about Republican opposition to health-care reform with Rep. John Culbertson (R-Texas). O’Donnell exposed the Republicans’ hypocritical opposition to the government option because it is “socialism” while insisting they support the equally socialist Medicare program. He also called Culbertson on his party’s lies over “death panels” and the rest. It was a joy to watch:

O’Donnell repeatedly pushed the conservative Congressman to give a straight answer about what federal entitlements he would cut. Culberson refused to give a response for several minutes before finally admitting that he would have voted for Social Security and Medicare despite the fact that they are government-run health-care systems.

O’Donnell kept pressing Culberson to explain how he can defend Medicare and Social Security since they’re government-run health care programs, otherwise known as “socialism.”

Culberson, who calls himself a “Jeffersonian Republican,” said he supports Medicare and Social Security but denied that they’re socialistic.

via Pensito Review » Note to MSNBC: Please Give Lawrence O’Donnell His Own Show.

Mexico nabs gas thieves; US refineries implicated

Mexico nabs gas thieves; US refineries implicated

They bleed the fuel lines just about anywhere, drug cartel members and other criminals, sucking millions of dollars of Mexican petroleum from makeshift taps hidden in sheds or on remote desert stretches, with thousands of gallons ending up in U.S. refineries.

Mexican police busted gas thieves twice this week, said Carlos Ramirez, spokesman at Mexico’s state oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex.

In a colonial village a few hours west of the capital, police caught nine people Thursday who had siphoned more than 17,000 gallons (64,350 liters) of fuel from a pipeline into waiting tanker trucks. On Wednesday, just one hour south of the California border near the popular beaches of Rosarito, police plugged three different taps, including one that was operating inside a small, wooden shack.

via Mexico nabs gas thieves; US refineries implicated – Yahoo! News.

Source Climate Model Data Lost or Destroyed

“The World’s Source for Global Temperature Record Admits It’s Lost or Destroyed All the Original Data That Would Allow a Third Party to” Model Climate”

According to the Register:

The world’s source for global temperature record admits it’s lost or destroyed all the original data that would allow a third party to construct a global temperature record. The destruction (or loss) of the data comes at a convenient time for the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in East Anglia – permitting it to snub FoIA requests to see the data.

The CRU has refused to release the raw weather station data and its processing methods for inspection – except to hand-picked academics – for several years. Instead, it releases a processed version, in gridded form. NASA maintains its own (GISSTEMP), but the CRU Global Climate Dataset, is the most cited surface temperature record by the UN IPCC. So any errors in CRU cascade around the world, and become part of “the science”.

Professor Phil Jones, the activist-scientist who maintains the data set, has cited various reasons for refusing to release the raw data. Most famously, Jones told an Australian climate scientist in 2004:

Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.

Washington’s Blog.

10 Awesome Things That Would Happen If Health Reform Passes

10 Awesome Things That Would Happen If Health Reform Passes – By Joshua Holland, AlterNet.

Forget the fearmongering scare tactics of the right, here’s how your life will actually be better.

Unable to win the debate on the merits of their arguments, opponents of health care reform have resorted to a dizzying array of outright falsehoods to terrify Americans into opposing a process that might deliver real benefits to their families.

They’ve falsely claimed that the government would “take over” the health system, put private insurers out of business and let pasty bureaucrats decide what treatment Americans would receive.

They’ve spun wild tales of federal agents coming into Americans’ homes for lifestyle checks and faceless government officials making end-of-life decisions for patients.

They’ve falsely claimed that the legislation being considered by Congress would cover undocumented immigrants, and they sent around elaborate-but-wholly-fake “analyses” of the supposed bill, with references to made-up page numbers and all.

via 10 Awesome Things That Would Happen If Health Reform Passes | Health and Wellness | AlterNet.

Pulling the plug on Republicans

Pulling the plug on Republicans.

Market News Live: Video: Stimulus funds target geothermal energy

Video: Stimulus funds target geothermal energy

‘The Geysers’ – a 40-square-mile steam field just north of San Francisco produces a portion of energy for California’s residents. It’s a small operation, but one that illustrates the potential of geothermal energy.

Watch now:

via Market News Live: Video: Stimulus funds target geothermal energy.

Federal Employees Health Benefits Program

Federal Employees Health Benefits Program

The Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program can help you and your family meet your health care needs. Federal employees, retirees and their survivors enjoy the widest selection of health plans in the country. You can choose from among Consumer-Driven and High Deductible plans that offer catastrophic risk protection with higher deductibles, health savings/reimbursable accounts and lower premiums, or Fee-for-Service (FFS) plans, and their Preferred Provider Organizations (PPO), or Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO) if you live (or sometimes if you work) within the area serviced by the plan.

Use this site to compare the costs, benefits, and features of different plans. We chose the different benefit categories based on enrollee requests, differences among plans, and simplicity. However, we urge you to consider the total benefit package, in addition to service and cost, and provider availability when choosing a health plan.

The plan brochures show you what services and supplies are covered and the level of coverage. Review the brochures carefully. The brochures are formatted to ensure they are all organized alike. You can get brochures from the health plans or your human resource office. When it comes to your health care, the best surprise is no surprise.

via OPM-Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan Home Page.

Rachel Maddow To Make First “Meet The Press” Appearance

Rachel Maddow To Make First “Meet The Press” Appearance

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow will make her first appearance on “Meet the Press” Sunday when she joins the panel for a discussion on health care.

Maddow will join former House Majority Leader Rep. Dick Armey (R-TX), Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) for an in-depth look at the health care debate. Daschle now serves as an informal adviser to the White House, while Armey now runs FreedomWorks, which has been organizing protesters at the health care town halls.

“Joining me for a special hour Sunday on the health care debate is @maddow. I’mlooking foward to it,” moderator David Gregory tweeted.

via Rachel Maddow To Make First “Meet The Press” Appearance.

For Media, ‘Class War’ Has Wealthy Victims

For Media, ‘Class War’ Has Wealthy Victims - Fair.org – By Radley Glasser and Steve Rendall

Rich getting richer seldom labeled as belligerents

During an ABC Nightline interview on May 21, 2003, host Ted Koppel suggested that his guest was engaging in “class warfare” by arguing that the wealthy should pay increased taxes. While the exchange was not unusual—Koppel’s use of the term “class war” to characterize bottom-up or populist economic rhetoric is the norm—what was unusual was that his guest was the second-richest man in the world, Warren Buffett. The interview is worth remembering primarily for Buffett’s commonsense response: “Well, I’ll tell you, if it’s class warfare, my class is winning.”

The brief comment serves as one of the very few prominent admissions that the class war can go both ways: top-down as well as bottom-up. And the current degree of economic inequality in the United States backs up Buffett’s claim. In his 2007 book Categorically Unequal, Princeton sociologist Douglas Massey showed that of all advanced industrial nations, the U.S. ranks highest in inequality of both income and wealth distribution. Massey explained (Media Matters, 8/27/07):

Since the mid-1970s, mechanisms in the American political economy that were enacted in the 1930s to limit stratification and promote equality have been dismantled and replaced with new mechanisms that institutionalize exploitation.…The rules of the American political economy were rewritten to favor the rich at the expense of the middle and lower classes. Unions were weakened, entry- level wages reduced, access to social protections curtailed, anti-poverty spending cut back, and taxes on lower-income families were raised while those on upper-income families were reduced, yielding a sharp reduction in the size of the welfare state

via For Media, ‘Class War’ Has Wealthy Victims.

Army on track to surpass 2008 suicide numbers

Army on track to surpass 2008 suicide numbers - By Michelle Tan – - Army Times

As many as 12 soldiers killed themselves in July, the Army announced today, and the service remains on course to setting a record for suicides in a single year.

Of the 12 deaths, eight were active-duty soldiers and four were National Guard or Army Reserve soldiers who were not on active duty at the time of their deaths.

All 12 deaths are possible suicides and remain under investigation.

Typically, about 90 percent of these investigations are ruled suicides, Army officials have said.

In June, there were 13 confirmed or possible suicides; nine were active-duty soldiers and four were soldiers who were not on active duty. As of Aug. 13, four of those 13 deaths had been confirmed as suicides.

Between Jan. 1 and July 31, there have been 96 reported active-duty suicides. Of those, 62 have been confirmed as suicides and 34 are still under investigation.

via Army on track to surpass 2008 suicide numbers – Army News, news from Iraq, – Army Times.

Why we need Health Care Reform

NewScientist.com

NewScientist.com Article Page Player.

Toxic Loans Topping 5% May Push 150 Banks to Point of No Return

Toxic Loans Topping 5% May Push 150 Banks to Point of No Return -  – Bloomberg.com

Toxic Loans Put 150 Banks At Risk

Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) — More than 150 publicly traded U.S. lenders own nonperforming loans that equal 5 percent or more of their holdings, a level that former regulators say can wipe out a bank’s equity and threaten its survival.

The number of banks exceeding the threshold more than doubled in the year through June, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, as real estate and credit-card defaults surged. Almost 300 reported 3 percent or more of their loans were nonperforming, a term for commercial and consumer debt that has stopped collecting interest or will no longer be paid in full.

The biggest banks with nonperforming loans of at least 5 percent include Wisconsin’s Marshall & Ilsley Corp. and Georgia’s Synovus Financial Corp., according to Bloomberg data. Among those exceeding 10 percent, the biggest in the 50 U.S. states was Michigan’s Flagstar Bancorp. All said in second- quarter filings they’re “well-capitalized” by regulatory standards, which means they’re considered financially sound.

via Toxic Loans Topping 5% May Push 150 Banks to Point of No Return – Bloomberg.com.

Obama Considers Raising Fees on Large Financial Firms

Obama Considers Raising Fees on Large Financial Firms – Bloomberg.com

President Barack Obama’s administration is considering raising fees on larger financial firms to help cover costs of new regulation by an agency set up to safeguard consumer financial products.

The proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency “will be funded by fees, appropriations, and other transfers,” Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams said yesterday. Firms with assets of more than $10 billion “will pay more for prudential and consumer supervision, while community banks will not pay any more for supervision than they do today. Non-banks will be assessed for the first time.”

The plan marks a further burden on banks such as Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. that may be subjected to more government fees, aimed at shielding consumers and buffering taxpayers from excessive risk taking. The proposal follows Obama’s plan to ensure systemically important financial institutions pay for costs of additional supervision.

via Obama Considers Raising Fees on Large Financial Firms (Update1) – Bloomberg.com.

Grassley Voted For So-Called “Death Panel” In 2003

OPS:  Textbook Hypocrisy and a lying sack of shit

Grassley Voted For So-Called “Death Panel” In 2003

Time Magazine’s Amy Sullivan pointed out last night that, for all of his ardent demagoguery on the so-called “death panels,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) voted for just such a provision in 2003.

Remember the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill, the one that passed with the votes of 204 GOP House members and 42 GOP Senators? Anyone want to guess what it provided funding for? Did you say counseling for end-of-life issues and care? Ding ding ding!!
So either Republicans were for death panels in 2003 before turning against them now–or they’re lying about end-of-life counseling in order to frighten the bejeezus out of their fellow citizens and defeat health reform by any means necessary. Which is it, Mr. Grassley (“Yea,” 2003)?

via Grassley Voted For So-Called “Death Panel” In 2003.

Report: Obama’s life at risk in health care battle

Report: Obama’s life at risk in health care battle - The Raw Story »

White House officials are “privately admitting concern” for President Barack Obama’s safety as incidents of attempted or threatened violence against the president skyrocket in the midst of the country’s heated health care debate.

That’s the word from an ABC News report that says racist groups are thriving on the backlash in some corners of the United States to a black president who is working overtime to overhaul the country’s social safety system.

“Experts say a sharp growth in so-called militia groups that helped spawn a wave of domestic terrorism in the 1990s—and are now using YouTube, rock music and the Internet to recruit members and spread hate and fear—shouldn’t be ignored,” the report says.

Brad Garrett, a former FBI agent who now consults for ABC News, told the network that the Secret Service “cannot afford to pass on anyone” because “they really do fear that something could happen to [Obama].

“It’s certainly a scary time,” he said.

From ABC News:

via The Raw Story » Report: Obama’s life at risk in health care battle.

Canadians back ‘public solutions’ to improve care, poll finds – The Globe and Mail

Canadians back ‘public solutions’ to improve care, poll finds

An overwhelming 86 per cent of Canadians favour “public solutions” for bolstering medicare, according to a new poll.

The survey, commissioned by the Canadian Health Coalition, is being released Wednesday as a pre-emptive strike.

That is because the Canadian Medical Association, at its coming general council meeting, plans to stage a high-profile discussion about transforming medicare, and it will release its own poll on support for privately delivered care.

Michael McBane, national co-ordinator of the Canadian Health Coalition, said he has no doubt that poll will show strong support for “privatization schemes” but the “language used in the CMA survey was so vague and misleading that its results cannot possible be interpreted as support for more for-profit medicine.”

He said that the outgoing CMA president, Robert Ouellet, operates private medical imaging clinics and is promoting a personal agenda that is out of step with Canadian values.

via Canadians back ‘public solutions’ to improve care, poll finds – The Globe and Mail.

GOP Supported End-of-Life Counseling in 2003 Medicare Bill

Oh, Those Death Panels

You would think that if Republicans wanted to totally mischaracterize a health care provision and demagogue it like nobody’s business, they would at least pick something that the vast majority of them hadn’t already voted for just a few years earlier. Because that’s not just shameless, it’s stupid.

Yes, that’s right. Remember the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill, the one that passed with the votes of 204 GOP House members and 42 GOP Senators? Anyone want to guess what it provided funding for? Did you say counseling for end-of-life issues and care? Ding ding ding!!

via GOP Supported End-of-Life Counseling in 2003 Medicare Bill – Swampland – TIME.com.

Turning over a new (Nissan) LEAF

Turning over a new (Nissan) LEAF  – — Autoblog Green

Had lunch the other day with Nissan North America Product Planning Vice President Larry Dominique. He is the point man for communicating Nissan’s green-vehicle vision, beginning with its soon-to-come LEAF battery electric car. A few minutes earlier, he had presented exactly that to a large roomful of automaker and supplier representatives, industry analysts, consultants and media.

The occasion was the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) Management Briefing Seminars, an important industry conference that has been a 44-year annual tradition. He and Nissan Midwest PR manager Brian Brockman had invited a small group of journalists to join them for lunch so we could ask burning questions about the car and the plan. Which we did. Find out what the answers were after the jump.

We learned that, among other things, there will be similarities between Nissan’s LEAF BEV roll-out beginning next year and GM’s EV1 launch 13 years earlier. For starters, they will begin with leases and expand later to private sales, and they will pre-qualify prospects to ensure they understand the car’s operating parameters, range limitations, charge times, etc.

LEAF customers will need their own garages, at least at first, and 220V power sources for EVSE (Electric Vehicle Service Equipment) home charge units. And roadside assistance will be part of the deal to rescue any who encounter problems or run out of volts on the road.

via At Witz’ End: Turning over a new (Nissan) LEAF — Autoblog Green.

Number of starving sea lions decreases a bit; cause of food shortage unclear

Number of starving sea lions decreases a bit; cause of food shortage unclear – - Santa Cruz Sentinel

Starving California sea lions continue to languish and perish along the coast, swamping rescuers and saddening onlookers, though to a lesser extent than last month.

Researchers say it will be several months before they know what caused an apparent lack of sea lion food.

“We are at an all-time record this year with over 1,100 rescues since Jan. 1,” said Jim Oswald, a spokesman for the Marine Mammal Center. “It’s not as full force as in June, but we are certainly still seeing those animals come in. Their food sources have just not been there.”

So far this year, the Sausalito-based center has treated more than 800 sea lions rescued along the coast between San Luis Obispo and Mendocino County, the majority from Monterey Bay. Most were malnourished yearlings born last May or June, Oswald said.

A typical year would see 600 rescues in 12 months, he added.

via Number of starving sea lions decreases a bit; cause of food shortage unclear – Santa Cruz Sentinel.

Seven Falsehoods About Health Care Reform

Seven Falsehoods About Health Care Reform  | Newsweek.com

Summary

So much for a slow news month. August feels like campaign season, with claims on health care coming at us daily. Does the House bill call for mandatory counseling on how to end seniors’ lives sooner? Absolutely not. Will the government be dictating to doctors how to treat their patients? No. Do the bills propose cutting Medicare benefit levels? No on that one, too.

But on the other hand, has Congress figured out how to pay for this overhaul? Not yet. Or will it really save families $2,500 a year as the president keeps claiming? Good luck on that one, too.

In this article we offer a run-down of seven falsehoods we’ve taken on recently, with some additional updating and research thrown in.

Analysis

False: Government Will Decide What Care I Get (a.k.a. they won’t give grandma a hip replacement)

This untrue claim has its roots in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the stimulus bill), which called for the creation of a Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research. The council is charged with supporting and coordinating research that the government has been funding for years into which treatments work best, and in some cases, are most cost-effective. Supporters of this type of research say it can provide valuable information to doctors, improving care and also lowering cost.

Betsy McCaughey, a former Republican lieute

via Seven Falsehoods About Health Care Reform | Newsweek Politics | Newsweek.com.

The Mess That Greenspan Made: The Federal Reserve is Immoral

The Federal Reserve is Immoral

via The Mess That Greenspan Made: The Federal Reserve is Immoral.

Utah Paper Rejects Same-Sex Wedding Announcement

The Spectrum: Utah Paper Rejects Same-Sex Wedding Announcement

SALT LAKE CITY — A southern Utah newspaper has rejected a gay California couple’s wedding announcement, saying its policy is to publish announcements only for marriages legal under Utah law.

The Spectrum in St. George initially accepted a paid wedding announcement for Tyler Barrick and Spencer Jones last week, but then changed course, Jones said. The San Francisco couple were legally married June 17, 2008. They wanted the announcement printed in Jones’ hometown paper ahead of a family party next week.

via The Spectrum: Utah Paper Rejects Same-Sex Wedding Announcement.

Exxon Hit with $600K Fine for Dead Birds

Exposure to Gas Well Pits and Waste Water Sites Killed Migratory Birds in Western U.S.  -  - CBS News

Exxon Mobil Corp. will pay about $7,000 each for dozens of birds killed at various company properties.

ExxonMobil pleaded guilty to causing the deaths of approximately 85 protected migratory birds, most of whom died after exposure to natural gas well reserve pits and waste water storage facilities. Birds died in Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas between 2004 and 2009.

The firm will pay a fine of $600,000 and has also agreed to make changes to prevent such bird deaths in the future. The company says it has already spent $2.5 million in the effort.

Justice Department officials are discussing the case following a guilty plea by the corporation in federal court in Denver, Colorado.

Exxon Hit with $600K Fine for Dead Birds – CBS News.

Colombia deal suggests unchanged U.S. policy to keep mammoth global military presence_

Colombia deal suggests unchanged U.S. policy to keep mammoth global military presence

WASHINGTON, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) — Despite protests and warnings from many Latin American countries, the United States is poised to sign an agreement with Colombia to expand military presence in that country.

Colombian officials said Wednesday that negotiations on the new pact could conclude as soon as this weekend.

The move has raised ire in Latin America region where memories of U.S. military interventions are still fresh and seems to undermine the Obama administration’s latest efforts to forge warmer ties with the region.

However, the implications of the controversy may go beyond the region and seems to suggest an unchanged U.S. policy to keep mammoth global military presence despite the change of government, analysts said.

BASE WITHOUT FORMAL TITLE

via Colombia deal suggests unchanged U.S. policy to keep mammoth global military presence_English_Xinhua.

US defends plan to use Colombian military bases

US defends plan to use Colombian military bases – By IAN JAMES (AP) – The Associated Press:

CARACAS, Venezuela — U.S. military officials on Thursday defended a proposed agreement to use seven Colombia bases, saying the deal would not change U.S. missions in Colombia nor increase the allowed number of troops.

Negotiations to give the U.S. access to the bases for 10 years are expected to be completed by the end of the month, senior U.S. military official Frank Mora told The Associated Press.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez calls the plan a serious threat to the region, and other South American nations from Brazil to Bolivia have also expressed concern.

“It does not envision any larger military presence,” said Mora, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Western Hemisphere. “It formalizes what we’re already doing.”

U.S. officials say American troops will continue to be involved in helping Colombia in counter-drug operations and in supporting its fight against leftist rebels.

via The Associated Press: US defends plan to use Colombian military bases.

Ford to boost production of Focus, Escape

Ford to boost production of Focus, Escape - By KIMBERLY S. JOHNSON -  The Associated Press

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Ford said Thursday it will build more of its popular Focus and Escape models and boost total vehicle production later this year to help dealers restock depleted showrooms.

The automaker needs to keep up with demand for its Focus compact car and Escape crossover, both ranked as top sellers under the federal government’s Cash for Clunkers program. The company also wants to roll out a reasonable amount of cars and trucks following earlier production cuts. That way, dealers won’t run short on hot models in the final months of this year.

Cash for Clunkers, which kicked off last month and has revived industry sales for the moment, uses rebates of up to $4,500 to entice drivers to trade in older, gas guzzlers for more fuel-efficient vehicles. To be eligible, vehicles must have combined city/highway mileage of 18 mpg or less when they were new.

via News from The Associated Press.

RBS uber-bear issues fresh alert on global stock markets

RBS uber-bear issues fresh alert on global stock markets – - Telegraph

Three-month slide could hit record lows, Royal Bank of Scotland chief credit strategist Bob Janjuah predicts

Britain’s Uber-bear is growling again. After predicting a torrid “relief rally” over the early summer, Bob Janjuah at Royal Bank of Scotland is advising clients to take profits in global equity and commodity markets and prepare for another storm as winter nears.

“We are now in the middle of a parabolic spike up,” he said in his latest confidential note to clients.

“I expect this risk rally to continue into – and maybe through – a large part of August. What happens after that? The next ugly leg of the bear market begins as we get into the July through September ‘tipping zone’, driven by the failure of the data to validate the V (shaped recovery) that is now fully priced into markets.”

via RBS uber-bear issues fresh alert on global stock markets – Telegraph.

Healthcare We Can Believe In

Healthcare We Can Believe In - By Katha Pollitt – The Nation

Subject to Debate

I am not a wonk. Usually this is not a problem. But when it comes to healthcare reform, it matters. You see, I long to dash forward, flaming sword in hand, to champion President Obama’s healthcare plan. Every day I get e-mails from Health Care for America Now, Organizing for America, MoveOn.org and similar groups urging me to write my Congressman, attend a town-hall meeting, host a gathering. But how can I speak knowledgeably about a plan that does not yet exist and in which the parameters keep shifting?

I’d like to tell people, Obama’s plan is great–for example, it has a public option that will insure those who can’t afford private coverage, help rein in the insurance companies by competing with them for members and drive down drug prices through forceful negotiation. But maybe the final bill won’t allow the government to negotiate drug prices, because that’s the price of Big Pharma’s support, which apparently the Obama administration negotiated for in secrecy. Maybe it won’t even have a public plan; it will have insurance co-ops instead. And then, maybe, I should say those will be just as good, as Rahm Emanuel’s brother, Ezekiel Emanuel, the MD/PhD bioethicist, says.

via Healthcare We Can Believe In.

US economic myths bite the dust

US economic myths bite the dust – | Mark Weisbrot  guardian.co.uk

America is not the internationally competitive land of small businesses that politicians love to tout

The Great Recession is allowing some widely held beliefs about the US economy – which were the source of much evangelism over the last few decades – to run up against a reality check. This is to be expected, since the United States has been the epicentre of the storm of policy blunders that caused the world recession.

This month my CEPR colleagues John Schmitt and Nathan Lane showed that the United States is not the nation of small businesses that it is regularly dressed up to be for electoral campaign speeches and editorials. If we look at what percentage of our overall labour force is self-employed, or what percentage of manufacturing workers or high-tech workers are employed in small businesses – well, the US ranks at or near the bottom among high-income countries.

As economist Paul Krugman noted after reading the study: “One more American myth bites the dust.” Indeed it has. And as both the authors of the paper and Krugman note, there is a plausible explanation for the US’s low score in the small business contest: our lack of national health insurance. There are enough risks associated with choosing to start a business over being an employee, but the Europeans don’t have to worry that they will go bankrupt for lack of health insurance.

via US economic myths bite the dust | Mark Weisbrot | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Democratic lawmaker: Obama willing to be a one-termer

Democratic lawmaker: Obama willing to be a one-termer – Raw Story »

Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-IA) says President Barack Obama is so focused on health care reform that he’s willing to stake his presidency on it.

After a town hall meeting yesterday in Iowa, the Democratic lawmaker quoted Obama to reporters (audio clip at bottom):

The president (said), ‘I’m not going to kick the can down the road.’ And he said that and I said, ‘Well, that’s something I’m kind of used to from southern Iowa, you know. I know about kicking the can down the road.’ And he said, ‘No, if it makes me a one-term president, I’m going to, we’re going to take it on because the country is in need of us taking this on.’ I respected that very much.”

Boswell said the president made his remarks during a recent meeting with the centrist “Blue Dog” Democrats, of which Boswell is a member.

The moderate Blue Dogs have found (some would argue, placed) themselves at the center of the battle over health care reform, as proponents and opponents duke it out on Capitol Hill.

Meanwhile, town hall meetings across the country continue to be the scene of raucous, vocal disenchantment, particularly when hosted by Democratic lawmakers speaking to their constituencies.

via Raw Story » Democratic lawmaker: Obama willing to be a one-termer.

Republican Congressman ‘leaning’ towards backing House health care legislation.

Republican Congressman ‘leaning’ towards backing House health care legislation. - Think Progress »

Yesterday Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA), who represents a heavily Democratic district, held a health care town hall meeting with his constituents. The Times-Picayune reports that Cao told constituents that he is “leaning” towards supporting the House health care bill:

In a public forum defined as much by passionate declarations on abortion as by statements about health care policy intricacies, U.S. Rep. Ahn “Joseph” Cao, R-New Orleans, said Thursday that he “leans” toward supporting the House Democrats’ vision of a medical system overhaul provided it won’t pay for procedures to end pregnancy.

via Think Progress » Republican Congressman ‘leaning’ towards backing House health care legislation..

Why Aren’t Progressives Disrupting ObamaCare Town Halls?

Why Aren’t Progressives Disrupting ObamaCare Town Halls? – by Dave Lindorff

Many progressives are getting all bent out of shape over the “brown shirt” rabble organized by health industry PR firms to disrupt the so-called “town meetings” being organized all over the country by Democratic members of Congress.

What they are conveniently forgetting is that these are not really “town meetings” at all, at least in the sense of the town meetings I grew up with, and started out covering as a young journalist in Connecticut–that is, meetings called and run democratically, with leaders elected from the floor, open to all residents of a community.

These “town meetings” are really nothing but propaganda sessions run by members of Congress who are trying to burnish their fraudulent credentials as public servants, and trying to perpetrate a huge fraud of a health care bill that purports to be a progressive “reform” of the US health care system, but that actually further entrenches the control of that system by the insurance industry, and to a lesser extent, the hospital and drug industry.

ObamaCare is to health reform what bank bailouts are to financial system reform, which is to say it is the opposite of what its name implies.

The right-wing nuts who cry that ObamaCare is introducing euthanasia for the elderly and infirm, or that it is socialism, are ignorant wackos, to be sure, but they are right about one thing: Americans are about to be royally screwed on health care reform by the president and the Democratic Congress, just as they’ve been screwed by them on financial system “reform.”

via Why Aren’t Progressives Disrupting ObamaCare Town Halls?.

The Economy is in Deep, Deep Trouble…

The Economy is in Deep, Deep Trouble…   – by Mike Whitney

Question for Bernanke: “Do you have the cojones to raise rates?”

Booyah. It’s morning in America. The jobless numbers are stabilizing, the stock market is sizzling, quarterly earnings came in better than expected, traders have turned bullish, housing is showing signs of life, and clunker-swaps have given Detroit a well-needed boost of adrenalin. Even Cassandra economists –like Paul Krugman and Nouriel Roubini–have been uncharacteristically optimistic. Is is true; did we avoid a Second Great Depression? Is the worst really behind us?

Maybe. But there is only one way to find out for sure. Raise rates.

Bernanke should welcome the opportunity to show everyone how he’s pulled the world’s biggest economy back from the brink of disaster. All he needs to do is stop giving away free money, shut down a few of his so-called lending facilities, and stop manipulating interest rates by purchasing mortgage-backed securities (MBS) from Fannie and Freddie. How hard is that? The S&P 500 has skyrocketed 48 percent since March 9. What’s Bernanke waiting for; a 75 percent increase; a 100 percent increase??? How high do stocks have to go to convince Bernanke that the economy can stand on its own two feet without the torrent of cheap liquidity issuing from the Fed?

Bernanke can prove to his critics that the US economy doesn’t need the Fed’s monetization programs and price fixing; that it doesn’t need the liquidity injections and the buying up of junk mortgages. ($80 billion last month alone) After all, as Bernanke opines, “The fundamentals of our economy are strong!”

Right. Now prove it.

via The Economy is in Deep, Deep Trouble….

DEVELOPMENT: Should Water Be Legislated as a Human Right?

OPS:  Yes. Before it’s too late.

DEVELOPMENT: Should Water Be Legislated as a Human Right? - By Thalif Deen -  – IPS ipsnews.net

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 13 (IPS) – The growing commercialisation of water – and the widespread influence of the bottling industry worldwide – is triggering a rising demand for the legal classification of one of the basic necessities of life as a human right.

“We definitely need a covenant or [an international] treaty on the right to water so as to establish once and for all that no one on earth must be denied water because of inability to pay,” says Maude Barlow, a senior adviser to the President of the U.N. General Assembly, on water issues.

“We’ve got to protect water as a human right,” she said, pointing out that the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva would be the most likely venue to propose such a covenant.

But it would be best, she added, if it were ratified by the 192-member General Assembly, currently presided over by Fr. Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, a former Foreign Minister of Nicaragua.

“We need at the United Nations more than a human rights remedy,” Barlow told IPS. “We need a plan of action for the General Assembly.”

The U.N. says that close to 880 million people – mostly in the developing world – lack adequate access to clean water. By 2030, close to 4 billion people could be living in areas suffering severe water stress, mostly in South Asia and China.

A study commissioned by the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), released in March, said the global market for water supply, sanitation and water efficiency is worth over 250 billion dollars – and is likely to grow to nearly 660 billion dollars by 2020.

via DEVELOPMENT: Should Water Be Legislated as a Human Right? – IPS ipsnews.net.

Caption This: Town Hall Protesters Have No Idea What They’re Talking About

Caption This: Town Hall Protesters Have No Idea What They’re Talking About – | BuzzFlash.org

The divisive screaming and hatred that has enveloped the healthcare debate is enough to make you want to curl up in the fetal position. But when our pal GottaLaff at the highly-recommended blog Political Carnival sent us this picture yesterday afternoon, it made our day.

It also made us wonder: Who is this courageous soul willing to brave the rage of the town hall deathers? Is he a singularly self-aware conservative who sees the error in his party’s increasingly crazy ways? Or is he a progressive so fed up with the vitriol that he decided to call the angry mob out for their utter ignorance?

Let us know what you think. Caption this photo by commenting below.

CAPTION THIS

via Caption This: Town Hall Protesters Have No Idea What They’re Talking About | BuzzFlash.org.

Cameron joins Brown in defence of NHS

Cameron joins Brown in defence of NHS - FT.com -  Jim Pickard,

David Cameron, Tory leader, on Friday added his voice to that of Gordon Brown, prime minister, in defending the National Health Service from US criticism, describing it as one of Britian’s ”great national institutions”.

Mr Cameron told Sky news that the NHS was ”our number one priority” and that once in power, the Conservative party would defend and expand the service.

In an email to Conservative Party workers published on his blog, Mr Cameron said millions of people, including his own family, were grateful for care they had received from the NHS. ”Just look at all the support which the NHS has received on Twitter over the last couple of days. It is a reminder – if one were needed – of how proud we in Britain are of the NHS,” wrote Mr Cameron.

His comments came in the wake of a campaign of attacks on Britain’s health service from the American right, which has used the NHS as an example of the potential pitfalls facing Barack Obama as the US president tries to push through a healthcare reform bill.

via FT.com / UK / Politics & policy – Cameron joins Brown in defence of NHS.

Wall St jittery on deflation concerns

OPS:  FYI – ‘deflation’ is code for Depression

Wall St jittery on deflation concerns  – FT.com – By Kiran Stacey

US stocks dropped on Friday morning, leaving equities heading for their first weekly loss in five weeks as investors moved into defensive assets after deflation was shown still to be a risk for the US markets.

Consumer price data showed inflation remained flat from June to July, as expected, but fell more steeply on an annual basis than it has in any other month since 1949.

This helped trigger a rotation among investors away from inflation-sensitive stocks, with materials and industrial companies doing badly, and towards more defensive sectors, with healthcare stocks, consumer staples and utilities proving most resilient.

via FT.com / Markets – Wall St jittery on deflation concerns.

Income Inequality Is At An All-Time High: STUDY

Income Inequality Is At An All-Time High: STUDY

EVEN MORE GILDED – Latest Inequality Numbers “Truly Amazing”

Income inequality in the United States is at an all-time high, surpassing even levels seen during the Great Depression, according to a recently updated paper by University of California, Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez. The paper, which covers data through 2007, points to a staggering, unprecedented disparity in American incomes. On his blog, Nobel prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called the numbers “truly amazing.”

Though income inequality has been growing for some time, the paper paints a stark, disturbing portrait of wealth distribution in America. Saez calculates that in 2007 the top .001 percent of American earners took home 6 percent of total U.S. wages, a figure that has nearly doubled since 2000.

As of 2007, the top decile of American earners, Saez writes, pulled in 49.7 percent of total wages, a level that’s “higher than any other year since 1917 and even surpasses 1928, the peak of stock market bubble in the ‘roaring” 1920s.’”

via Income Inequality Is At An All-Time High: STUDY.

The Awful, Filthy Truth About The Latest Beef Recall

Cargill, the National School Lunch Program, and antibiotic-resistant salmonella - Grist

Standard j-school-style journalism takes a lot of lumps these days—and justifiably so. To maintain an illusion of “objectivity,” traditional reporters write like above-the-fray observers merely recording “the facts”—as if choosing which facts to record weren’t itself subjective. (In reality, of course, a reporter is a thinking human being trying to figure out what’s going on and tell a story.)

Yet sometimes, j-school style articles have a delicious subtlety. And if you know enough about the topic in question to provide context and connect the dots (both frowned upon by j-school types), they can deliver rich information.

I’m thinking of this fantastic Associated Press article by Garance Burke on the ongoing food-poisoning outbreak associated with agribusiness giant Cargill.

As I reported last week, a large-scale California beef-packing plant owned by Cargill churned out, packaged up, and distributed widely some 830,000 pounds of ground beef tainted with antibiotic-resistant salmonella. At least 28 people in three states have been laid low by the pathogen. For salmonella, the CDC reckons that for every confirmed illness, 38 people have actually fallen ill. Thus we can assume that around 1000 people have caught the bug.

via Cargill, the National School Lunch Program, and antibiotic-resistant salmonella | Grist.

Living Without Abundant Tomatoes

Living Without Abundant Tomatoes -  -  NYTimes.com 

(Do not miss the chef Peter Hoffman’s concluding point about organic versus . . . not. –MB)

Customers keep going into Applewood, a restaurant in Park Slope, and asking for a tomato martini. The drink, made with onion-infused vodka, muddled tomatoes, basil and olive juice, has always been a summer favorite. But not this year. There just aren’t enough good tomatoes, said chef and co-owner David Shea.

This season, locally grown tomatoes have been hit with late blight, the same disease that caused the Irish potato famine in the 19th century. The contagious fungus has killed tomatoes across the Northeast, yielding almost no organic tomatoes and conventional ones of lesser quality. And as tomatoes have become less available, chefs have been forced to come up with new and creative ways to deal with their loss.

Mr. Shea is taking advantage of the summer’s plentiful peach harvest, and entreating his customers to try a peach-rosemary smash, made with rosemary-infused bourbon, fresh peach syrup, lime juice and Patron Citronge.

via Living Without Abundant Tomatoes – Bitten Blog – NYTimes.com.

‘Many hurricanes’ in modern times

‘Many hurricanes’ in modern times - BBC NEWS

Hurricanes in the Atlantic are more frequent than at any time in the last 1,000 years, according to research just published in the journal Nature.

Scientists examined sediments left by hurricanes that crossed the coast in North America and the Caribbean.

The record suggests modern hurricane activity is unusual – though it might have been even higher 1,000 years ago.

The possible influence of climate change on hurricanes has been a controversial topic for several years.

Study leader Michael Mann from Penn State University believes that while not providing a definitive answer, this work does add a useful piece to the puzzle.

via BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | ‘Many hurricanes’ in modern times.

Loophole in government program to buy toxic securities could cost taxpayers

Loophole in government program to buy toxic securities could cost taxpayers -  — latimes.com

Without safeguards, traders in the $40-billion program could use inside information to profit — and any losses would be largely borne by taxpayers.

Reporting from Washington – A controversial $40-billion government program to buy toxic securities from ailing banks has a flaw that law enforcement and financial experts say could allow traders to illegally profit from inside information.

Critics of the program say that without adequate safeguards, traders could use the tens of billions of dollars provided by the government to manipulate prices and exploit the price swings in other trades.

Because the government is providing 75% of the program’s money — $30 billion — the manipulations could lead to significant losses by taxpayers.

“It is a conflict by design,” said Neal Barofsky, the special inspector general for the banking rescue program who has urged tighter controls on the nine trading firms selected to participate.

The Treasury Department, which is in charge of the program, says it intends to closely monitor trading activity to prevent illegal insider trading and profiteering at the expense of the public interest.

But Barofsky said the government probably stands little chance of beating Wall Street at its own game.

via Loophole in government program to buy toxic securities could cost taxpayers — latimes.com.

Gibbs Won’t Say What White House Gave Drugmakers To Gain Their Support

OPS:  Our mantra for 2010. If I’m going to be sold out, I rather it be by someone I did not support.

Gibbs Won’t Say What White House Gave Drugmakers To Gain Their Support

What did the White House offer drugmakers to get their support for health care legislation?

NBC’s Chuck Todd put the question directly to Robert Gibbs after the White House spokesman denied that a deal outlined in a memo obtained by the Huffington Post was accurate.

“Stepping back a minute on the PhRMA deal, are we to believe that PhRMA didn’t get anything for their agreement on the $80 billion; that they did not get anything in return from the White House, any pledges, promises, winks, nods, whatever? Are we to believe nothing was promised to them?” he asked.

“Well, again, I’m simply — was responding to what the question was about a memo that I think both sides…” Gibbs responded, before Todd cut him off.

via Gibbs Won’t Say What White House Gave Drugmakers To Gain Their Support.

Comcast favors Fox News, charges $204 more for MSNBC package. ACTION NEEDED

Comcast favors Fox News, charges $204 more for MSNBC package. ACTION NEEDED

A fellow progressive alerted me today about a highly discriminatory new practice being implemented by Comcast. I told him I would post something on Kos since he is not currently active here. From what I can tell, this applies to all Comcast customers, not just those in my (quite red) area of Jacksonville, Florida.

As of 8.12.09, Comcast has moved MSNBC from its Digital Starter Package to its Digital Classic Lineup while leaving Fox News on the Starter package. What this means is that one now has to pay an additional $17 per month ($204 per year) to view anything progressive enough to even remotely balance out FNC’s right wing extremism (although, let’s be honest, MSNBC could install Castro himself in Tweety’s time slot and still not provide sufficient balance for the far-right insanity that is Beck/Billo/Hannity).

So they are calling this a “channel realignment,” which I guess is like the broadcasting equivalent of gerrymandering. Apparently it’s done with electronic switching from the Comcast HQ. The neighbor who alerted me to the situation is an attorney, and he thinks this appears to be to be an FCC/Fairness Doctrine violation. He has suggested to our Senator, Bill Nelson, that congress should enforce a “Menu Based” or “Cafeteria Style” subscription contract on the cable industry since it costs them nothing to make the switches.

via OpEdNews – Comcast favors Fox News, charges $204 more for MSNBC package. ACTION NEEDED.