Archive for August, 2009
Drug ‘attacks cancer stem cells’
OPS: Gee, and it’s happening in UK, which has a “Socialist” Health System
Drug ‘attacks cancer stem cells’ - BBC NEWS 
This is one of the biggest advances we have seen this year in this area of research -Dr John Stingl
Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute
A compound that appears to target the master cells which help breast cancers grow and spread has been discovered by US scientists.
In tests in mice, salinomycin killed breast cancer stem cells far more effectively than some existing drugs, and slowed tumour growth.
The drug, a farm antibiotic, has yet to be tested in humans, the journal Cell reports.
But UK experts warned a human version could be some years away.
via BBC NEWS | Health | Drug ‘attacks cancer stem cells’.
U.S. Builds Crime Cases Against 150 UBS Clients
U.S. Builds Crime Cases on Clients of UBS - - NYTimes.com 
Federal prosecutors are building criminal cases against 150 wealthy American clients of the Swiss banking giant UBS as part of a continuing investigation into tax evasion, a person briefed on the matter said Thursday.
Many of the inquiries, which are being handled by dozens of prosecutors around the country, will result in criminal complaints, said this person, who was not authorized to speak publicly. While it is not clear where the government got the 150 names, federal investigators received 285 names from UBS in February as part of a settlement, as well as names from other sources. In February, UBS agreed to pay $780 million to settle charges that it had helped American clients evade taxes on nearly $20 billion hidden in offshore accounts.
A day later, the Justice Department filed a civil suit seeking to require UBS to disclose the names of 52,000 clients. Of the names on the agency’s original list, prosecutors are focusing on several thousand Americans with offshore accounts containing tens to hundreds of millions of dollars, the person said.
via U.S. Builds Crime Cases Against 150 UBS Clients – NYTimes.com.
National Guard drill at high school to prepare for possible H1N1 riot
National Guard drill at high school to prepare for possible H1N1 riot - | Sun Journal
Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School will be the site of a National Guard riot control drill Thursday morning to prepare in the event of a panic over distribution of serum to treat the swine flu.
The school on Route 26 at the Paris-Norway town line has been designated by state officials as a distribution site for the H1N1 flu vaccine. The drill is to prepare for a worst-case scenario should the serum have to be transported from Augusta and people rush to get it.
On Thursday morning, four or five National Guard Humvees will travel from Augusta to Paris with vials of fake serum. The National Guardsmen will take on the roles of panicked citizens and military police and practice what they would do, such as using tear gas, in the case of a riot.
“This is just a component of moving the stuff from point A to B,” said Oxford County Emergency Management Agency Director Scott Parker. The plan will be put into place only if needed, he said.
via National Guard drill at high school to prepare for possible H1N1 riot | Sun Journal.
In MI., Blue Cross raising individual, group rates 22 pct.
OPS: …but 22% was just fine?!
In MI., Blue Cross raising individual, group rates 22 pct – Raw Story »
Insurer originally sought 56 percent rate hike, but regulators refused
Michigan insurance regulators have approved a 22 percent increase for group and individual Blue Cross Blue Shield health policies in the state, according to reports published Thursday.
“Blue Cross officials have said they need rate increases to help cover $133 million in financial losses in 2008 on its individual health insurance policies,” reported Crain’s Detroit Business.
Blue Cross originally sought to raise individual rates by 56 percent and group rates by 41 percent. Its proposed rate increases were initially rejected by the state’s Office of Financial and Insurance Regulation, which negotiated the still-significant hikes.
The new rates, set to take effect October 1, will affect 163,000 policies.
Blue Cross is also awaiting a September 14 hearing on its proposed 33 percent rate hike for senior citizens, according to Detroit Free Press.
via Raw Story » In MI., Blue Cross raising individual, group rates 22 pct..
Report: Six health care lobbyists for every member of Congress
Report: Six health care lobbyists for every member of Congress – Raw Story » By Diana Sweet 
It seems everyone wants their opinions on health care reform to be heard, judging by the crowds of people attending town hall forums across the country, but will the investment of money and manpower that lobbying firms are devoting to making themselves heard by Congress drown out the general public?
For every lawmaker on Capitol Hill, there are about six lobbyists pushing their health care priorities, according to a Bloomberg News investigation published today. That’s about 3,300 registered health care lobbyists working Congress, clamoring for face time with each of 100 senators and 435 Representatives.
Bloomberg also examined new lobbyist registrations since July 1, 2009 and found that approximately three lobbying organizations per day, many headquartered on Washington, D.C.’s K Street, are lining up to lobby Congress on health reform.
“I don’t have a single client who has hired me to kill health care reform,” John Jonas, a partner with the lobbying firm Patton Boggs LLP, a firm representing 33 health care clients, told Bloomberg. “Quite the opposite, they assume health care reform is going to happen and they want to be protected.”
via Raw Story » Report: Six health care lobbyists for every member of Congress.
GOP Rep Hands Out ‘Inflammatory’ Flier Saying Health Reform ‘Might Encourage’ Seniors To ‘Give Up’
GOP Rep Hands Out ‘Inflammatory’ Flier Saying Health Reform ‘Might Encourage’ Seniors To ‘Give Up’ – Think Progress »
Speaking after a panel discussion at the Naperville Chamber of Commerce panel yesterday, Rep. Judy Biggert (R-IL) denounced the disruptions at congressional town halls over the August recess. “What bothers me the most about this is we do have some people that out there want to make political games out of this or make a circus and destroy some of these meetings,” said Biggert. Watch it:
Leaked memo: Big Oil manufacturing ‘Energy Citizen’ rallies to oppose clean energy reform.
Leaked memo: Big Oil manufacturing ‘Energy Citizen’ rallies to oppose clean energy reform. - Think Progress »
The American oil industry, working with a coalition of business interests, plans to manufacture rallies in opposition to clean energy reform, an internal document reveals. According to the plan acquired by Greenpeace, the American Petroleum Institute (API) will “coordinate transportation” for oil industry employees to “Energy Citizen” rallies targeting U.S. Senators in 21 states. The document’s author, API president Leo Gerard, discusses how it is “important that our views” supplant “constituents’ views”:
The objective of these rallies is to put a human face on the impacts of unsound energy policy and to aim a loud message at those states’ U.S. Senators to avoid the mistakes embodied in the House climate bill and the Obama Administration’s tax increases on our industry. Senate Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid reportedly has pushed back consideration of climate legislation to late September to allow Senators time to get their constituents’ views during the August recess. It’s important that our views be heard.
U.S. WTO Victory May be Defeat
U.S. WTO Victory May be Defeat - Dustin Ensinger – economyincisis.org
The International Intellectual Property Alliance estimates the Chinese piracy costs at approximately $3.7 billion in lost sales each year.
The U.S. scored what appears to be a trade victory against China on Wednesday as the World Trade Organization ruled that Chinese restrictions on the import and distribution of American books, films and music was a violation of its obligations under international trade rules.
A WTO settlement dispute panel found that by blocking foreign-owned companies from importing and freely distributing copyrighted entertainment products without using state-owned distribution companies, the Chinese government is effectively imposing an unfair trade barrier which is illegal under WTO rules.
If the ruling is successful in knocking down Chinese import controls it may go a long way toward ending the piracy of copyrighted American entertainment products in China. The International Intellectual Property Alliance estimates the Chinese piracy costs at approximately $3.7 billion in lost sales each year.
However, some trade experts are skeptical, pointing out that the ruling was not completely in the U.S.’s favor and that China may simply decide not to comply with the international trade body’s findings
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
America Cannot Regain its Economic Footing
America Cannot Regain its Economic Footing - Craig Harrington -economyincisis.org
Initial jobless claims in the U.S. also rose unexpectedly to 558,000 last week.
The Commerce Department released news Thursday which showed a drop in retail sales from June to July. Reuters conducted its own survey and expected to see an increase in sales by 0.7 percent. The actual figure revealed a 0.1 percent decline in sales numbers.
Excluding the significant economic boost provided by “Cash for Clunkers,” sales figures declined by 0.6 percent in July – after having risen 0.5 percent in June.
Consumption was not the only economic sector to take a big hit in July. Home foreclosures escalated last month at a record pace. Not only were July foreclosures 7 percent higher than June foreclosures, but July 2009 was 32 percent worse than July 2008, according to RealtyTrac.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Clash of Realities
Clash of Realities - by Dr. Michael P Byron
America, more than any other nation, was founded on an ideal of exceptionalism. Limits were for the “Old World.” Here in the New World, as the saying went, “the sky is the limit.” For nearly 300 years–from Jamestown in 1607, until the disappearance of the frontier at the end of the 19th century–the country expanded physically.
The Civil War of the 1860′s made the nation an industrial power. The expansion of railroads across all of North American, in conjunction with the defeat of the South’s agrarian economy, gave the nation a continental scale economy. By the 1880′s the US had become the largest industrial power on the planet.
For the next hundred years its industrial economy continued to expand. By the middle of the 20th century the “American Dream” of mass middle class prosperity, centered upon suburban home and car ownership, an endless supply of consumer goods, along with plentiful, cheap food, had arrived.
However by late in the century–the 1970′s and “80′s–the American economic engine began to falter. This was due to foreign competition from the skilled and disciplined workforces of nations such as Germany and Japan, producing quality goods from ultra modern new factories built upon the bombed out rubble of WWII. It was also due to the ever accelerating outsourcing of American industry and jobs overseas where through labor arbitrage, goods could be produced more profitably. And so America’s once vast manufacturing economy hollowed out into a “McJobs” service economy.
via OpEdNews – Clash of Realities.
Pay Czar Put to the Test
Pay Czar Put to the Test - Dustin Ensinger – economyincisis.org
The White House handcuffed Pay Czar Kenneth Feinberg by only allowing him to oversee compensation packages at companies that have received more than one federal bailout.
Executive pay czar Kenneth Feinberg will face his first true test this week as seven companies that received extraordinary government bailouts are required to present their compensation plans for their top 25 executives.
Officials from American International Group, Chrysler, Citigroup, Chrysler Financial, Bank of America, General Motors and GMAC had to submit their reports Thursday and every indication is that the threat of a financial czar regulating pay did very little to curb the excesses of Wall Street.
One such example is Andrew Hall, Citigroup’s energy trader who is set to make a handsome $100 million this year despite the fact that his company has received $45 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program funds. His compensation package is out of the reach of Feinberg because his contract was signed before the legislation was enacted to provide the pay czar with the authority to regulate pay packages.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
An Evolutionary Biologist Visits the “Creationism Museum”
An Evolutionary Biologist Visits the “Creationism Museum” - by PZ Myers, Pharyngula
Where guards are ready with tasers to suppress criticism of the museum’s loony ideas.
We visited the Creation “Museum” last Friday.
I’m careful to put the title in quotes, because it is not a museum in any respectable sense of the word. I knew this ahead of time; I had no expectation of any kind of credible presentation in this place, but what impressed me most is how far it failed to meet even my low hopes. They clearly want to ape a real museum, but they can’t — their mission is the antithesis of open inquiry.
The guards are a clear example. Real museums have guards, of course: they’re there to protect valuable exhibits from theft and vandalism. But real museums want their guards to be discreet and not interfere with the attendees appreciation of the exhibits. At the Creation “Museum”, one of the jobs of the guards is to suppress criticism. They hover about in rather conspicuous uniforms, armed with tasers, and some use police dogs to check out the visitors. They don’t want dissent expressed in their building, and they admit it themselves.
via An Evolutionary Biologist Visits the “Creationism Museum” | PEEK | AlterNet.
Why You Should Boycott Whole Foods
Boycott Whole Foods
The company’s CEO has just launched a major campaign to defeat a single payer national health insurance system. 
By RUSSELL MOKHIBER
John Mackey is a right wing libertarian.
He’s a union buster.
He believes that corporations should not be criminally prosecuted for their crimes.
He has just launched a campaign to defeat a single payer national health insurance system.
And he’s the CEO of Whole Foods.
Primo hangout of liberal Democratic yuppies.
“We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health,” Mackey wrote yesterday in the Wall Street Journal. “We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.”
Yes it will, John Mackey.
Yes it will.
I do take that responsibility very seriously.
I try to eat well.
And exercise regularly.
I also take my responsibility as a citizen seriously.
via Russell Mokhiber: Boycott Whole Foods.
SPLC Report: Return of the Militias
SPLC Report: Return of the Militias – Larry Keller, Southern Poverty Law Center
The 1990s saw the rise and fall of the virulently antigovernment “Patriot” movement, made up of paramilitary militias, tax defiers and so-called “sovereign citizens.” Sparked by a combination of anger at the federal government and the deaths of political dissenters at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas, the movement took off in the middle of the decade and continued to grow even after 168 people were left dead by the 1995 bombing of Oklahoma City’s federal building — an attack, the deadliest ever by domestic U.S. terrorists, carried out by men steeped in the rhetoric and conspiracy theories of the militias. In the years that followed, a truly remarkable number of criminal plots came out of the movement. But by early this century, the Patriots had largely faded, weakened by systematic prosecutions, aversion to growing violence, and a new, highly conservative president.
They’re back. Almost a decade after largely disappearing from public view, right-wing militias, ideologically driven tax defiers and sovereign citizens are appearing in large numbers around the country. “Paper terrorism” — the use of property liens and citizens’ “courts” to harass enemies — is on the rise. And once-popular militia conspiracy theories are making the rounds again, this time accompanied by nativist theories about secret Mexican plans to “reconquer” the American Southwest. One law enforcement agency has found 50 new militia training groups — one of them made up of present and former police officers and soldiers. Authorities around the country are reporting a worrying uptick in Patriot activities and propaganda. “This is the most significant growth we’ve seen in 10 to 12 years,” says one. “All it’s lacking is a spark. I think it’s only a matter of time before you see threats and violence.”
A key difference this time is that the federal government — the entity that almost the entire radical right views as its primary enemy — is headed by a black man. That, coupled with high levels of non-white immigration and a decline in the percentage of whites overall in America, has helped to racialize the Patriot movement, which in the past was not primarily motivated by race hate. One result has been a remarkable rash of domestic terror incidents since the presidential campaign, most of them related to anger over the election of Barack Obama. At the same time, ostensibly mainstream politicians and media pundits have helped to spread Patriot and related propaganda, from conspiracy theories about a secret network of U.S. concentration camps to wholly unsubstantiated claims about the president’s country of birth.
via SPLCenter.org: SPLC Report: Return of the Militias.
Blackwater = Murder, Inc.?
Blackwater = Murder, Inc.? – The BRAD BLOG :
Almost all of nation’s leading newspapers fail to cover explosive new allegations from two company employees…
by Ernest A. Canning
The Nation magazine headline was sensational: Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder. The article, written by Jeremy Scahill, an investigative journalist and author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army
The two men claim Blackwater’s owner, Erik Prince,* may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. One also alleges that Prince, quote, “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that Prince’s companies, “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.”
The significance was underscored in Scahill’s Aug. 4 remarks on MSNBC’s Countdown:
via The BRAD BLOG : Blackwater = Murder, Inc.?.
Ill. man faces 6 months in jail for yawning
JOLIET, Ill. – Drowsy spectators in one suburban Chicago courtroom might want to stifle their yawns from now on. Clifton Williams, 33, of Richton Park, is facing six months in jail for making what court documents call a yawn-like sound in Will County Judge Daniel Rozak’s court last month. The yawn happened as Williams’ cousin, Jason Mayfield, was being sentenced for a drug charge on July 23.
Rozak found Williams in contempt of court and sentenced him to six months in jail. However, Rozak could free Williams after a status hearing Thursday, if Williams apologizes and the judge accepts. By then, Williams will have served 21 days.
Witnesses disagree about whether Williams’ yawn was out of line.
Republican Death Trip
Republican Death Trip – - NYTimes.com
“This Opposition Cannot Be Appeased”
Paul Krugman
“I am in this race because I don’t want to see us spend the next year re-fighting the Washington battles of the 1990s. I don’t want to pit Blue America against Red America; I want to lead a United States of America.” So declared Barack Obama in November 2007, making the case that Democrats should nominate him, rather than one of his rivals, because he could free the nation from the bitter partisanship of the past.
Some of us were skeptical. A couple of months after Mr. Obama gave that speech, I warned that his vision of a “different kind of politics” was a vain hope, that any Democrat who made it to the White House would face “an unending procession of wild charges and fake scandals, dutifully given credence by major media organizations that somehow can’t bring themselves to declare the accusations unequivocally false.”
So, how’s it going?
via Op-Ed Columnist – Republican Death Trip – NYTimes.com.
World Exclusive: Sarah Palin’s Shattered Marriage
World Exclusive: Sarah Palin’s Shattered Marriage
Sarah Palin‘s husband Todd smiled happily and stood lovingly by his wife’s side last year during her vice presidential campaign. But behind the scenes, their marriage was in turmoil — and now they’re on the brink of a shocking divorce!
In the Aug. 24 issue of Star, on sale today, we have world exclusive details about Alaska’s former first couple and their disintegrating union: They’re sleeping apart, arguing non-stop and losing control of their party-loving daughters!
“Sarah and Todd are fighting all the time,” Mercede Johnston — sister of Levi Johnston, ex-boyfriend of Sarah’s eldest daughter, Bristol — tells Star in an exclusive interview. “When they do, Todd often ends up sleeping on the couch at their home in Wasilla. Bristol used to tell Levi that her parents would argue and bicker over the littlest things, like who was supposed to take out the trash or wash the dishes.”
Levi, the father of Bristol’s 7-month-old son, Tripp, recently told RadarOnline.com that Sarah and Todd have had marital trouble “from day one,” and that he believed their escalating problems were the reason behind her mysterious decision to resign as governor of Alaska last month with more than a year left in her term.
via Star Magazine | News | World Exclusive: Sarah Palin’s Shattered Marriage.
Ernestine for CaliforniaOneCare.org
California OneCare found Ernestine! She’s a perfect symbol of what’s wrong with our health care system. Find out how we can fix it at CaliforniaOneCare.org.
via YouTube – Ernestine for CaliforniaOneCare.org.
Wealth Inequality Destroys US Ideals
Wealth Inequality Destroys US Ideals – by Don Monkerud
Since the national rise of Ronald Reagan three decades ago, the United States has been on a deadly course for a Republic, with wealth rapidly concentrating at the top and average Americans sinking or struggling to stay afloat.
In June 2009, the U.S. economy saw its second steepest decline in 27 years. New jobless claims increased, business inventories fell and exports plunged as bad economic news persisted.
Will the once high-flying American wealth machine continue to produce the vast inequalities of the past?
Only two years ago, Steve Forbes, CEO of Forbes magazine, declared 2007 “the richest year ever in human history.” During eight years of the Bush Administration, the 400 richest Americans, who now own more than the bottom 150 million Americans, increased their net worth by $700 billion.
In 2005, the top one percent claimed 22 percent of the national income, while the top ten percent took half of the total income, the largest share since 1928.
In June 2009, the Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Report estimated the number of the world’s wealthiest people declined by 15 percent, the steepest decline in the report’s 13-year history. The number of millionaires in the U.S. fell by 19 percent to 2.5 million people.
Analysts tell us the economy is being restructured, but how will the disparities in wealth between the rich and the poor play out?
via Wealth Inequality Destroys US Ideals.
What killed the auto industry?
What killed the auto industry? – by Linda Averill
Hint: It wasn’t the workers
To hear pundits talk, the U.S. economy will rebound after the stock and credit markets heal. Consumers will then regain “confidence.”
But the bankruptcy of General Motors (GM) and Chrysler — icons of U.S. industrial might — are a sign that the nation’s problems go deeper than cash-strapped banks or fickle shoppers. The real economy is seriously sick — and it’s going to take more than bailouts and tax credits to set things right.
Car and truck sales are down 40 percent from two years ago and inventories are piling up. Just one example is that five months worth of Dodge Rams sit unsold. Gluts like this are why GM and Chrysler closed 16 plants and shed tens of thousands of jobs in recent years. As both companies “recover” from bankruptcy, more downsizing will follow.
While Ford barely avoided bankruptcy, it has lost money on auto sales for years.
The damage doesn’t end there. The collapse of the two titans is devastating other businesses. Hundreds of Chrysler and GM dealerships are closing shop. Parts suppliers such as Delphi are barely hanging on, as are thousands of other companies, from metal stamp¬ing outfits to restaurants, all dependent on auto’s well-being. The human toll of this disaster shows starkly in Detroit, which suffers one of the highest home foreclosure rates in the nation.
via What killed the auto industry?.
Collapse in the Wake of the Fed’s Wall Street Bubble?
Collapse in the Wake of the Fed’s Wall Street Bubble? - by Bob Chapman
Market Review
The Fed’s Wall Street bubble, as we forecast in January, will need at least $2 trillion more in 2010, if the economy is to just stay on an even keel. The massive debt liquidation particularly in banking, Wall Street and in insurance demands many more trillions of dollars. $23.4 trillion is not going to be enough. Presently the Fed is in the process of monetizing $2 trillion in Treasuries, Agency paper, such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and collateralized debt obligations held by lenders. It is a secret what the Fed is paying for this almost worthless paper. Is it any wonder the public has lost trust and confidence in these players and our government?
In order to escape from this global expansion of debt from government, corporations, banking, Wall Street and even state indebtedness, the bubble has to be maintained. The longer it lasts the worse will be the collapse when it bursts. Does anyone really believe that this can continue indefinitely?
People talk about robust inflationary environments in China, Asia and emerging markets In America the Fed’s game of lowering interest rates and increasing money and credit and monetizing paper will end over the next two years, maybe three. What is already in the system guarantees inflation.
Many believe American re-flation boosts real estate values. Not a chance. The recovery is not going anywhere. Americans are starting to save and pay down debt, and that means eventually consumption, as a percentage of GDP will fall to the long-term mean of 64.5%.
via Collapse in the Wake of the Fed’s Wall Street Bubble?.
US new jobless claims show surprise increase
US new jobless claims show surprise increase
WASHINGTON — New US jobless claims rose by 4,000 in the past week to 558,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday in a weaker-than-expected snapshot of current labor conditions.
The survey for the week to August 8 showed a rise from last week’s revised total of 554,000, and was worse than the consensus analyst estimate of 545,000.
The four-week moving average, which smooths out week-to-week volatility, was 565,000, an increase of 8,500 from the previous week.
But some other figures in the survey appeared to confirm the stabilization in the job market, a key to any sustainable recovery from the long recession.
via AFP: US new jobless claims show surprise increase.
Secret Service questions man over ‘Death to Obama’ sign
OPS: Questioned? That’s it?
Secret Service questions man over ‘Death to Obama’ sign - The Raw Story »
‘Death to Obama’ sign holder in Md. detained
Officers detain man with ‘Death to Obama’ sign near health care town hall meeting in Maryland
The Secret Service is investigating a man who authorities said held a sign reading “Death to Obama” outside a town hall meeting on health-care reform in western Maryland.
The sign also read, “Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids,” referring to the first name of President Barack Obama’s wife, said Washington County Sheriff’s Capt. Peter Lazich.
via The Raw Story » Secret Service questions man over ‘Death to Obama’ sign.
If U.S. health care’s so good, why do other people live longer?
If U.S. health care’s so good, why do other people live longer? – | McClatchy
Ask around for the healthiest country in the world, and the United States won’t come close to topping the list.
People live longer in just about every industrialized nation, from Canada to our north, throughout much of Europe, and around the Pacific in Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
New mothers and their babies also face a rockier start here, with U.S. infant and maternal death rates double some of our industrialized peers.
As debate swirls in Washington and at town halls nationwide over health care reform, there is also a more fundamental question — what about health?
via If U.S. health care’s so good, why do other people live longer? | McClatchy.
The Truth Will Not Out, on Its Own
The Truth Will Not Out, on Its Own
By Robert Parry
The right-wing fury at town hall meetings over health care and the Republican obstruction of any serious reform in Washington are not just symptoms of a complex debate on an issue packed with powerful special interests; it is a test of whether reality matters in the United States.
When a supposedly “moderate” Republican like Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa endorses the crazed view of the “deathers” who claim that President Barack Obama’s health-care plan would promote euthanasia, it is clear that the nation’s problem is bigger than any one legislative battle, even one as big as health reform.
The overriding question has become whether the United States – as a representative democracy – is on the verge of losing its sanity.
And this is not the first time this question has arisen recently. Only seven years ago, much of the American population was persuaded that Iraq was some lethal threat to the United States.
Then, there was fear-mongering about Iraq somehow sending small remote-controlled airplanes across the Atlantic Ocean and over the United States to spray chemical and biological weapons on the American people. There were wildly exaggerated (indeed, false) alarms about Iraq developing a nuclear bomb that would be given to al-Qaeda.
via Consortiumnews.com.
Bankruptcy Filings Up 35 Percent Over Previous Year
Bankruptcy Filings Up 35 Percent Over Previous Year – The BLT:
Individuals and businesses filed 1.3 million bankruptcy cases in the year ended June 30, an increase of 35 percent over the previous year, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said today.
It is the third consecutive annual increase, as the recession has forced thousands of businesses to close shop and as job losses and rising debt have caused individuals to seek protection from creditors. Business filings increased 63 percent, while individual filings were up 34 percent.
“This is reflective of the overall state of the economy,” said Carey Ebert, president of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys.
Ebert, name partner at Ebert Law Offices in Hurst, Texas, said she’s seen the increase accelerate locally just in the last few months, as unemployment and home foreclosures hit areas of the country that previously fared better. “I don’t see it getting better any time soon,” she said.
via The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times : Bankruptcy Filings Up 35 Percent Over Previous Year.
Sens. Drop End-of-Life Provision from Bill
OPS: Cowards. Between this and the revelations today that Obama made secret deals with Pharma to sell us out (after lying and saying he didn’t) this bill has become an abortion. Stick a fork in it….
Republican Chuck Grassley Says Controversial Provision Has Been Dropped from Bipartisan Negotiation in the Senate
Key senators are excluding a provision on end-of-life care from health overhaul legislation after language in a House bill caused a furor.
Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement Thursday that the provision had been dropped from consideration because it could be misinterpreted or implemented incorrectly.
A health care bill passed by three House committees allows Medicare to reimburse doctors for voluntary counseling sessions about end-of-life decisions. But critics have claimed the provision could lead to death panels and euthanasia for seniors.
The Senate Finance Committee is still working to complete a bill
Sens. Drop End-of-Life Provision from Bill – CBS News.
Record number of foreclosure filings posted in July
Foreclosure plague: No cure yet
The housing market is still sick, with a record number of foreclosure filings posted in July.
ormer Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean fired one of the clearest warning shots at hesitant Democratic lawmakers on Thursday, insisting that if the party was unable to produce a health care bill with a public plan, there would be electoral consequences.
“I do think there will be primaries as the result of all this, if the bill doesn’t pass with a public option,” Dean said, in a phone interview with the Huffington Post.
The former Vermont governor added the caveat that he thought “cooler heads” would ultimately prevail and that a government run option for insurance coverage would be passed. But his remarks are some of the most threatening yet to be directed at Democrats from within the party.
Dean, who is a keynote speaker at the Netroots Nation conference at Pittsburgh this week, said he was “in favor” of holding recalcitrant senators and congressman accountable on health care related issues.
via Foreclosure plague: No cure yet – Aug. 13, 2009.
Dean: “There Will Be Primaries” For Dems Who Vote Against Public Option
Dean: “There Will Be Primaries” For Dems Who Vote Against Public Option
Former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean fired one of the clearest warning shots at hesitant Democratic lawmakers on Thursday, insisting that if the party was unable to produce a health care bill with a public plan, there would be electoral consequences.
“I do think there will be primaries as the result of all this, if the bill doesn’t pass with a public option,” Dean said, in a phone interview with the Huffington Post.
The former Vermont governor added the caveat that he thought “cooler heads” would ultimately prevail and that a government run option for insurance coverage would be passed. But his remarks are some of the most threatening yet to be directed at Democrats from within the party.
Dean, who is a keynote speaker at the Netroots Nation conference at Pittsburgh this week, said he was “in favor” of holding recalcitrant senators and congressman accountable on health care related issues.
via Dean: “There Will Be Primaries” For Dems Who Vote Against Public Option.
Orange County Choppers Unveils Green Bike (VIDEO)
Orange County Choppers Unveils Green Bike (VIDEO)
It’s big, it’s loud, it’s… green?
Paul Teutul Sr., founder of Orange County Choppers and star of American Chopper, was in Columbus Circle Wednesday showing off his new electric motorcycle.
Made as a joint effort between OCC and Siemens, an energy company, the “Smart Chopper” can go about 60 miles after a five-hour charge, whereas the New York Daily News reports a “gas-powered chopper costs about $10 to fill at a pump and can get 120 miles on a full tank.”
via Orange County Choppers Unveils Green Bike (VIDEO).
Stimulus Transparency Watchdogs Keep Contract Details a Secret
Stimulus Transparency Watchdogs Keep Contract Details a Secret – - 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.
via Stimulus Transparency Watchdogs Keep Contract Details a Secret – ProPublica.
Rove Attacks Obama For ‘Divisive’ ‘Permanent Campaign’ Tactics That He Used While In Bush’s White House
Rove Attacks Obama For ‘Divisive’ ‘Permanent Campaign’ Tactics That He Used While In Bush’s White House -Think Progress »
Today, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “Obama and the Permanent Campaign,” former Bush advisor Karl Rove claims that the Obama Administration is suffering from “Extended Campaign Syndrome” and is overly-politicizing the White House:
Team Obama is suffering from Extended Campaign Syndrome. In an election, campaign staffers are often just trying to survive until the next week or the next primary. They cut corners because they are fatigued or under pressure. They can be purposely combative and even portray critics as enemies. [...]
Mr. Obama’s exaggerations, misdirection and efforts to divide Americans are becoming more obvious. What worked in the Obama campaign will often backfire on the Obama presidency. But old habits are hard to leave on the trail.
Mad as Hell
Mad as Hell
You CAN handle the Truth
There’s no nice way to say it. The financial cost of health care is killing our citizens, hobbling our economy, crushing small business, and threatening the solvency of our government. In the meantime, the Health Care Industry is spending almost two million dollars a day lobbying Congress and manipulating public opinion to accept “reform” legislation that leaves a vicious, for-profit system intact. The “public option” is a trap. We need real reform that finds immediate savings, controls costs, and accomplishes the moral imperative of true Universal Access. A Single Payer plan is the only real path to a Health Care System that is socially, ethically and fiscally responsible. And yet, our elected officials refuse to even discuss the possibility of a Single Payer plan!
If that doesn’t make you mad, we recommend checking your pulse.
The “public option” is doomed.
First: we will still have a dysfunctional health care system designed around insurance companies. Second: it will be impossible to cover everyone without raising taxes. The Obama administration is already saying it is acceptable to leave out 15 million people. Which 15 million? Will you be one of them? Who gets to decide? Third: in a “post-option” environment you can bet that the health insurance industry will manipulate the rules so that the sickest, most expensive patients will gravitate toward the public plan, which will cause it to fail. When it does, the opponents of real reform will point to the “public option” and scream: “See! Single Payer won’t work!”
There is a time for compromise – this isn’t one of them.
We are a small group of Oregon-Based doctors who care. We believe there is only one way to control costs, one way to remove profiteering from the system, one way to reclaim the care of our patients, and one way to be sure everyone is covered: we must replace our current pay-or-die system and with a comprehensive, publicly financed, privately delivered, Single Payer system that puts people first. Our moment to take a stand for Single Payer is NOW. We may not have another opportunity like this in our lifetime. Please support this unprecedented road trip to real health care reform.
Get Mad. Stay Mad.
Make History.
What is a Single Payer System?
Dr. Samuel Metz – What is SIngle Payer?
What is a Single Payer System?
Let’s be clear. Health insurance companies don’t pay formedical care. You do. You pay through taxes, through your insurance premiums, and through your out-of-pocket expenses. As your physician, I also get paidfrom multiple sources: Medicare, Medicaid, for-profit private insurancecompanies, direct pay from patients, and a few other oddball places. If this sounds complex, you understand the situation.
In a Single Payer System , your taxes go toward a government regulated, not-for-profitagency administered by medical personnel You pay nothing else – not out-of-pocket, not to for-profit insurance companies(unless you really like giving your money away). When you see a physician, or goto the hospital, or buy medications, the physician, hospital, or pharmacy ispaid by this agency. This agency is the Single Payer.
It sounds simple. It is.
A Century-Old Principle – Keep Corporate Money Out of Elections
A Century-Old Principle: Keep Corporate Money Out of Elections – - NYTimes.com
The founders were wary of corporate influence on politics — and their rhetoric sometimes got pretty heated. In an 1816 letter, Thomas Jefferson declared his hope to “crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
This skepticism was enshrined in law in the early 20th century when the nation adopted strict rules banning corporations from contributing to political campaigns. Today that ban is in danger from the Supreme Court, which hears arguments next month in a little-noticed case that could open the floodgates to corporate money in politics.
The court has gone to extraordinary lengths to hear the case. And there are worrying signs that there may well be five votes to rule that the ban on corporate contributions violates the First Amendment.
via Editorial Observer – A Century-Old Principle – Keep Corporate Money Out of Elections – NYTimes.com.
France and Germany return to growth
OPS: But the US is still falling. They must be doing something correct in Europe
France and Germany return to growth - FT.com
Eurozone on the brink of recovery
An unexpected rebound in French and German growth helped push the eurozone to the brink of economic recovery in the second quarter, delivering a further signal that the worst of the global crisis may be coming to an end in Europe.
Gross domestic product in the 16-nation currency bloc fell 0.1 per cent in April, May and June, the European statistics office said on Thursday, cheering economists who had expected a decline of 0.5 per cent after a drop of 2.5 per cent in the first quarter of the year.
via FT.com / Europe – France and Germany return to growth.
GOP STILL Plans to Steal Your Social Security
GOP STILL Plans to Steal Your Social Security - by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy
The ascension (apotheosis?) of every GOP ‘President’ is inevitably accompanied by much GOP salivating over the prospects of getting their greedy, crooked mitts on your Social Security. Thus it was just over eight years ago when George W. Bush assumed (and I do mean ‘assumed’) the highest office in the land. Rest assured, despite the financial implosions of late, the GOP still plots to rob you blind, screw you silly and leave you a worthless slug on the night stand!
The GOP licked its greedy chops chops as the stupidest man, the grossest idiot since Warren Harding raised his hand and dared to swear on a holy book! The same gang of mendacious robber barons who made fortunes short-selling stocks on 911, profited from mass murder, and, later, plunged this nation into a new ‘Great Depression’ saw in the rise of George W. Bush another opportunity to steal your Social Security and buy Baltic Avenue with it!
It was not sufficient that GOP policies had enriched only the very, very rich. As a result, just one percent of the nation now owns more than some 95 percent of the rest of us combined! But the greedy bastards wanted to own all of it! They wanted your your retirement! They wanted the monies you paid into Social Security over the course of your lifetime! Joe the Plumber recently called Social Security a joke –not because he understands why it is coveted by the GOP. He is merely the recipient of the ‘memo’. Stealing your Social Security is still very high on the GOPs list of great things it wants to fuck up permanently! We should take Joe and Palin seriously. The world is endangered by its idiots.
via The Existentialist Cowboy: GOP STILL Plans to Steal Your Social Security.
Internal Memo Confirms Big Giveaways In White House Deal With Big Pharma
Internal Memo Confirms Big Giveaways In White House Deal With Big Pharma
A memo obtained by the Huffington Post confirms that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly agreed to precisely the sort of wide-ranging deal that both parties have been denying over the past week.
The memo, which according to a knowledgeable health care lobbyist was prepared by a person directly involved in the negotiations, lists exactly what the White House gave up, and what it got in return.
It says the White House agreed to oppose any congressional efforts to use the government’s leverage to bargain for lower drug prices or import drugs from Canada — and also agreed not to pursue Medicare rebates or shift some drugs from Medicare Part B to Medicare Part D, which would cost Big Pharma billions in reduced reimbursements.
via Internal Memo Confirms Big Giveaways In White House Deal With Big Pharma.
Stem cells may offer promise for damaged hearts
Stem cells may offer promise for damaged hearts
In a field largely still in its infancy, scientists are making headway toward using stem cells to treat heart ailments. – - CNN.com
The major focus of stem cell research in cardiology is promoting regeneration of the heart or preventing scar formation, said Jeffrey Karp, who runs a stem cell biology lab at Harvard University.
One study reporting successful results in humans involves harvesting patients’ own stem cells, purifying them, and injecting them directly into the heart muscle. The stem cells have a surface marker called CD34, which means they are capable of growing new blood vessels.
The study, sponsored by Baxter Inc., is the largest adult stem cell study for heart disease in the U.S., said Dr. Douglas Losordo, cardiologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, who is leading the trial. The researchers will present their one-year findings from Phase II of the trial in September, Losordo said.
“It’s important to point out that this is a use of a patient’s own body’s repair capabilities,” Losordo said.
via Stem cells may offer promise for damaged hearts – CNN.com.
Completely Insane Beck Cries While Comparing Democrats to Nazis
Beck’s insanity hits a new level
YouTube – Completely Insane Beck Cries While Comparing Democrats to Nazis.
Election 2010: Pennsylvania Senate Election
Election 2010: Pennsylvania Senate Election - – Rasmussen Reports™
Pennsylvania Senate: Toomey 48%, Specter 36%
Uncomfortable town hall meetings are just the tip of the iceberg for Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter
. He now trails Republican Pat Toomey by double digits in his bid for reelection next year and is viewed unfavorably by a majority of the state’s voters.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Pennsylvania voters shows 48% would vote for Toomey if the election were held today. Just 36% would vote for Specter while four percent (4%) prefer a third option, and 12% are not sure.
These figures reflect a dramatic reversal since June. At that time, before the public health care debate began, Specter led Toomey by eleven.
Just 43% now have a favorable opinion of Specter while 54% offer an unfavorable assessment of the longtime GOP senator who became a Democrat rather than face Toomey in a party primary. Those numbers have reversed since June when 53% had a favorable opinion of him.
via Election 2010: Pennsylvania Senate Election – Rasmussen Reports™.
I’ve Got Facts On My Side & You’ve Got Glenn Beck On Your Side! Rep Rick Larsen Town Hall
I’ve Got Facts On My Side & You’ve Got Glenn Beck On Your Side! Rep Rick Larsen Town Hall
via YouTube – I’ve Got Facts On My Side & You’ve Got Glenn Beck On Your Side! Rep Rick Larsen Town Hall.
Huff TV: Arianna to White House: “Welcome to Reality” (VIDEO)
Arianna to White House: “Welcome to Reality” (VIDEO)
Arianna appeared on MSNBC’s “Countdown” Wednesday to discuss the lack of bipartisanship in the health care reform debate and the resilience of rumors about a government “death panel.” She argued that President Obama needs to give up his delusion that both parties and industry interests can all come together to achieve real health care reform. She said the president needs to realize that “there is a whole industry here working against reform and the president needs to stop acting as though everybody’s interests are aligned.” Arianna added that to accomplish meaningful reform with a public option and the ability to negotiate for lower drug prices, Obama should be saying: “If you are with us, come on board. If you are not, get out of the way.”
She also said that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should call for a vote of censure against Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) for his endorsement of the “death panel” falsehood.
via Huff TV: Arianna to White House: “Welcome to Reality” (VIDEO).
Airlines to Begin Asking Passengers for More Information
Airlines Set to Ask More of Passengers - – washingtonpost.com
Government Says Extra Information Will Prevent Watch-List Mismatches
U.S. airlines on Saturday will begin asking travelers to provide their birth date and sex for the first time under a new aviation security requirement, federal officials said Wednesday.
The change comes as the Department of Homeland Security takes over responsibility for checking airline passenger names against government watch lists. The additional personal information, which airlines will forward to the Transportation Security Administration, is expected to cut down on cases of mistaken identity, in which people with names similar to those on terrorist watch lists are erroneously barred or delayed from flights.
U.S. airlines on May 15 started asking passengers for their full name as it appears on a government-issued identification card, a change intended to allow companies to upgrade their reservation and information systems. Starting Saturday, airlines will be required to get both the name and the additional information, although TSA is working with individual airlines to phase in compliance, TSA spokesman Greg Soule said.
via Airlines to Begin Asking Passengers for More Information – washingtonpost.com.
After Promises From White House, Health Industry Leaders “Not Worried”
OPS: Then obviously the rest of us have to be worried
Obama Is Taking an Active Role in Health Care Negotiations – NYTimes.com
In pursuing his proposed overhaul of the health care system, President Obama has consistently presented himself as aloof from the legislative fray, merely offering broad principles. Prominent among them is the creation of a strong, government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers and press for lower costs.
Behind the scenes, however, Mr. Obama and his advisers have been quite active, sometimes negotiating deals with a degree of cold-eyed political realism potentially at odds with the president’s rhetoric.
Last month, for example, hospital officials were poised to appear at the White House to announce a deal limiting their industry’s share of the costs of the overhaul proposal when a wave of jitters swept through the group. Senator Max Baucus, the Finance Committee chairman and a party to the deal, had abruptly pulled out of the event. Was he backing away from his end of the deal?
via Obama Is Taking an Active Role in Health Care Negotiations – NYTimes.com.
47 percent of South Florida homeowners underwater on mortgages
47 percent of South Florida homeowners underwater on mortgages – — MiamiHerald.com
As home values continue to show declines compared to a year ago, the percentage of South Florida homeowners underwater in their mortgages grew between the first and second quarter of the year, figures from Zillow.com show.
Forty-seven percent of all single-family homeowners with mortgages in Miami-Dade and Broward were in a negative equity position at the end of the second quarter, meaning they owed more on their mortgages than their homes would likely fetch on the market.
That’s up from 44 percent at the end of the first quarter, according to the Web-based real estate services firm. The firm does not do a similar analysis for condo owners.
Negative equity has become one of the chief reasons homeowners enter foreclosure. Discouraged by falling home prices and the prospect of making hefty payments on an impaired asset, many decide to walk away from the debt.
via 47 percent of South Florida homeowners underwater on mortgages – Breaking News – MiamiHerald.com.
Canadian firm gets patent win over Microsoft
Microsoft ordered to stop selling Word
Canadian firm gets patent win over Microsoft – - The Globe and Mail
Judge rules software giant must pay $290-million (U.S.) to Toronto-based i4i, stop selling Word
A tiny Toronto firm that took on Microsoft Corp. (MSFT-Q23.52-0.01-0.04%) has succeeded in winning an injunction against sales of the technology giant’s flagship word-processing software.
A U.S. judge, agreeing with an earlier jury verdict that Microsoft had willfully infringed a patent belonging to i4i LP, gave the software giant 60 days to comply with the injunction and awarded the Canadian company about $290-million (U.S.).
The injunction bans U.S. sales of Word 2003, Word 2007 and future versions of the software that use i4i’s technology without a licence. Microsoft said it would appeal.
via Canadian firm gets patent win over Microsoft – The Globe and Mail.
Gaza white flag deaths probe call
Gaza white flag deaths probe call - BBC NEWS
Smoke rises from Gaza City during Israeli operation, 13 Jan 2009
Israel says it followed international law in Gaza
Israel must investigate the “unlawful” killing of 11 civilians carrying white flags during its Gaza operation earlier in 2009, Human Rights Watch has said.
Five women and four children were among those killed in seven incidents detailed by the US-based rights group.
Researchers said the soldiers at best failed to protect civilians, and at worst deliberately shot at them.
Israel has launched investigations into five “white flag” incidents, but says Hamas exploited civilians with flags.
via BBC NEWS | Middle East | Gaza white flag deaths probe call.
World population projected to reach 7 billion in 2011
OPS: This is, of course, unsustainable for the Planet. 
World population projected to reach 7 billion in 2011 - - CNN.com
- The world’s population is forecast to hit 7 billion in 2011, the vast majority of its growth coming in developing and, in many cases, the poorest nations, a report released Wednesday said.
A staggering 97 percent of global growth over the next 40 years will happen in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the Population Reference Bureau’s 2009 World Population Data Sheet.
“The great bulk of today’s 1.2 billion youth — nearly 90 percent — are in developing countries,” said Carl Haub, a co-author of the report. Eight in 10 of those youth live in Africa and Asia.
“During the next few decades, these young people will most likely continue the current trend of moving from rural areas to cities in search of education and training opportunities, gainful employment, and adequate health care,” Haub continued, calling it one of the major social questions of the next few decades.
In the developed world, the United States and Canada will account for most of the growth — half from immigration and half from a natural increase in the population — births minus deaths, according to the report.
via World population projected to reach 7 billion in 2011 – CNN.com.
In emails, California councilman joked about assassinating Obama
OPS: Shouldn’t this guy be in jail by now? The Secret Service adn teh Democratic “leadership” has to start making examples of these people. BEFORE something happens
In emails, California councilman joked about assassinating Obama – The Raw Story »
A city councilman in Atwater, California, who got into hot water last month after racist emails he sent to city officials and council colleagues were made public is in trouble again.
The Merced Sun-Star says it has obtained 200 more emails sent by City Councilman Gary Frago, in which the elected official jokes about violence against black and Latino people, and even envisions a scenario in which the man who attempted to kill Ronald Reagan is enticed to assassinate President Barack Obama.
From the Merced Sun-Star:
One of the most troubling of the new Frago e-mails, forwarded in January, joked that Nokia had designed a new cell phone for “nervous white people” who want to make calls in a series of cities known for their large black populations, such as Oakland and New Orleans. The phone was a gun.
via The Raw Story » In emails, California councilman joked about assassinating Obama.
Right-wing pundits tear into 11-year-old girl for asking Obama a question
Right-wing pundits tear into 11-year-old girl for asking Obama a question – Raw Story »
Julia Hall may be the most hated 11-year-old among conservative pundits in America today.
Ever since the sixth-grade resident of Malden, Massachusetts, asked President Barack Obama a question at his town hall on health care Tuesday, the conservative punditocracy has unleashed a torrent of criticism against the girl, accusing her of being an Obama plant.
“As I was walking in, I saw a lot of signs outside saying mean things about reforming health care,” Hall asked the president when the microphone was handed to her. “How do kids know what is true, and why do people want a new system that can — that help more of us?”
via Raw Story » Right-wing pundits tear into 11-year-old girl for asking Obama a question.
Chocolate ‘cuts death rate’ in heart attack survivors
Chocolate ‘cuts death rate’ in heart attack survivors – By Agence France-Presse – Raw Story »
PARIS (AFP) – Heart attack survivors who eat chocolate two or more times per week cut their risk of dying from heart disease about threefold compared to those who never touch the stuff, scientists have reported.
Smaller quantities confer less protection, but are still better than none, according to the study, which appears in the September issue of the Journal of Internal Medicine.
Earlier research had established a strong link between cocoa-based confections and lowered blood pressure or improvement in blood flow.
It had also shown that chocolate cuts the rate of heart-related mortality in healthy older men, along with post-menopausal women.
via Raw Story » Chocolate ‘cuts death rate’ in heart attack survivors.
Sarah Palin doubles down on ‘death panels’
Sarah Palin doubles down on ‘death panels’
Former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin defended her claim that the Democratic health care proposal would create “death panels” in a statement Wednesday night slamming President Barack Obama.
“Yesterday President Obama responded to my statement that Democratic health care proposals would lead to rationed care; that the sick, the elderly, and the disabled would suffer the most under such rationing; and that under such a system these ‘unproductive’ members of society could face the prospect of government bureaucrats determining whether they deserve health care,” Palin wrote in a note on her Facebook page.
“The provision that President Obama refers to is Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled ‘Advance Care Planning Consultation.’ With all due respect, it’s misleading for the president to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients,” she continued.
via Sarah Palin doubles down on ‘death panels’ – Andy Barr – POLITICO.com.
British Health System Hits Back At U.S. Critics
British Health System Hits Back At U.S. Critics
Britain’s health care service says it is sick of being lied about.
Pilloried by right-wing critics of President Barack Obama’s health care plan, Britain’s National Health Service, known here as the NHS, is fighting back.
“People have been saying some untruths in the States,” a spokesman for Britain Department of Health said in a telephone interview. “There’s been all these ridiculous claims made by the American health lobby about Obama’s health care plan … and they’ve used the NHS as an example. A lot of it has been untrue.”
He spoke anonymously in line with department policy.
via British Health System Hits Back At U.S. Critics.
What is the Likelihood of Full Economic Recovery, Really?
What is the Likelihood of Full Economic Recovery, Really? – OpEdNews - by Richard Clark
The economy is now balanced on the rickety scaffolding of the dollar. As the Obama stimulus wears off, the rot in the economy will become more apparent.
First, some excerpts from Mike Whitney’s excellent article at http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23214.htm click click here
The Fed has complete control over monetary policy and, thus, the country’s economic future. Bernanke doesn’t even pretend to defer to Congress anymore. The $13 trillion the Fed has committed to the financial system since the beginning of the crisis — via loans and outright purchases of mortgage-backed garbage and US sovereign debt — was never authorized by Congress. In fact, the Fed stubbornly refuses to even identify which institutions got the “loans,” how much the loans were worth, what kind of collateral was accepted for the loans, or when the loans have to be repaid.
In truth, the loans are not loans at all, but gifts to the industry to keep asset prices artificially high. Asset prices are kept artificially high so that the entire financial system does not come crashing down.
In an analysis written by economist Gary Gorton for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s 2009 Financial Markets Conference, he states:
via OpEdNews – What is the Likelihood of Full Economic Recovery, Really?.
Paying for National Health Care
Paying for National Health Care - Craig Harrington – economyincisis.org
M. Brian O’Shaughnessy, writing for The Buffalo News recommends instituting a border adjustment tax on imported goods, and using the revenue it generates to fund the national health care system.
The health care reform movement promised during the Obama presidential campaign seems to have gotten bogged down by Washington politics. But beyond of the town hall shouters and insurance industry lobbyists, there is a very real concern about costs.
How will the United States pay for a system built to serve the world’s third largest workforce?
One method would be to integrate fiscally responsible trade policy with fiscally responsible health care reform. M. Brian O’Shaughnessy, writing for The Buffalo News recommends instituting a border adjustment tax on imported goods, and using the revenue it generates to fund the national health care system.
In 2008 the United States imported $2.5 trillion worth of goods. At the same time it exported just $1.8 trillion worth of goods; representing a net loss of almost $695 billion via the trade deficit. A border adjustment tax – what would in this case be called a “value-added tax” – would raise revenue from foreign producers, rather than shouldering the American people with extra tax burdens.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
GOP Congressman: There are ‘death counselors’ authorized in the health care bill.
OPS: Why are Pelosi and Reid not sanctioning the members that Lie? Where are the ‘ethics’ committees?
GOP Congressman: There are ‘death counselors’ authorized in the health care bill. – Think Progress »
Rep. John Mica (R-FL) told a Florida radio station today that the health care legislation being considered by the House of Representatives will authorize the creation of “death counselors“:
“They create a whole new category,” Mica, a Winter Park Republican, said on WDBO. “There are death counselors. There is authorization for reimbursement for those counselors for Medicare. You have a whole new cottage industry.
Mica joins several other conservatives in promoting the conspiracy theory that health reform legislation is secretly designed to kill old people. (HT: TPM)
via Think Progress » GOP Congressman: There are ‘death counselors’ authorized in the health care bill..
Report: Fox News gives opponents of health care reform a 6-to-1 advantage.
Report: Fox News gives opponents of health care reform a 6-to-1 advantage. - Think Progress »
As ThinkProgress has previously noted, Fox News regularly attacks efforts to reform the health care system. Now, a new report by Media Matters shows that “opponents of health care reform outnumber supporters by 6-to-1 margin” on Fox News. The report examined the coverage on August 11 and 12:
Opponents of reform outnumber supporters on Fox News
Mediaite’s Steve Krakauer noted yesterday that Fox’s coverage of congressional town halls during the August recess has been “clearly unfair.” Krakauer writes that Fox’s coverage “is entirely one-sided and has been during this entire summer.”
via Think Progress » Report: Fox News gives opponents of health care reform a 6-to-1 advantage..
Is Obama’s Plan for Tackling Hunger Just Another Chance for Big Ag and Biotech to Cash In?
Is Obama’s Plan for Tackling Hunger Just Another Chance for Big Ag and Biotech to Cash In? – By Jill Richardson, AlterNet.
There’s good reason to fear that Obama’s new global food security effort may do more harm than good for the world’s hungry.
When Barack Obama’s recently announced that he and other G8 nations will commit to funding a brand new global food security effort, who could really argue with his intentions? In his speech in Ghana, he described his plan, saying “our $3.5 billion food security initiative is focused on new methods and technologies for farmers — not simply sending American producers or goods to Africa. Aid is not an end in itself. The purpose of foreign assistance must be creating the conditions where it is no longer needed.” Yet, despite the altruistic intent of this promise, some wonder if it may do more harm than good. Will it really help to slash the number of hungry people or is this really a puppet policy with big agricultural interests pulling the strings to ensure greater profits?
One reason to question America’s efforts toward global food security is its rejection of something known as the IAASTD report, which focuses on using agricultural technology to meet the world’s food needs. The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development, a global report commissioned by the World Bank and the UN, is described by one of its lead authors, Jack Heinemann, as “the single largest research effort on this topic in all of human history,” and “the most authoritative statement on current knowledge.” The report was written by an intergovernmental body that involved over 400 scientists and 30 governments. When it was released last year, the United States, under the George W. Bush administration, was one of only three nations that did not approve it. (The other two were Canada and Australia). The U.S. rejection came as a result of fears that the report’s conclusions were “protectionist,” thus running counter to America’s free-trade-at-all-costs agenda. Furthermore, the U.S. did not like the report’s rejection of modern biotechnology as the key to solving the world’s agricultural problems.
In Illinois, Another Workers’ Rebellion Flares Up Against ‘Banksters’ Greed
In Illinois, Another Workers’ Rebellion Flares Up Against ‘Banksters’ Greed - By Kari Lydersen, AlterNet.
In Illinois, a dozen union members blocked a road outside Wells Fargo’s local headquarters — the latest in a wave of direct actions by workers.
Nine months have passed since workers at Republic Windows and Doors occupied their Chicago factory, demanded the severance and vacation pay owed them and ultimately pursuaded Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase to put up the funds.
It was heralded as a potential watershed in modern U.S. labor relations, and now is a natural time to ask what fruits that struggle has yielded.
There has not been an onslaught of factory occupations or worker uprisings. But there is at least one ongoing campaign that is inspired by, and in many ways parallel to, the Republic Windows action — a campaign that’s more wide-ranging and ambitious to boot.
If Right-Wingers Get Their Way, 22,000 Americans Will Continue to Be Killed by Lack of Health Care Each Year
If Right-Wingers Get Their Way, 22,000 Americans Will Continue to Be Killed by Lack of Health Care Each Year - By Mark Ames, AlterNet.
This is a battle against people who want to protect a system that has killed more Americans than WW II — not a debate tournament.
he right-wing anti-Obama-care movement is OK with killing off tens of thousands of Americans each year.
That’s what this is all about: The right-wingers and their corporate sponsors are protecting a medieval and violent health care system that kills more Americans each year than all the Americans who have died in the war on terror since 2001, including the 3,000 victims of 9/11, and the 5,000-plus U.S. service members who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Every two months, the American health care industry is party to the slaughter of more Americans than al-Qaida managed to kill. Osama bin Laden must look at the Tea Baggers, FreedomWorks, health-industry billionaires like Rick Scott and the rest, and think, “If only I could kill as many Americans as they do! These guys are pros!”
With a Billion People Living on Less Than $1 a Day, Is Buying Luxury Shoes Ethical?
With a Billion People Living on Less Than $1 a Day, Is Buying Luxury Shoes Ethical? - By Astra Taylor, The New Press.
Ethicist Peter Singer argues that it’s pretty black and white when it comes to making choices about where you spend your money.
More often than not, filmmakers adapt movies from books. Examined Life: Excursions With Contemporary Thinkers is an exception to the rule.
A feature documentary about contemporary philosophy, Examined Life is a series of unique excursions with contemporary philosophers. Playing off philosophy’s peripatetic roots – think Socrates wandering around the Athenian agora or Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Reveries of a Solitary Walker – I took eight world-renowned thinkers to the streets, asking them to reflect on the theme of ethics while moving through spaces that hold special resonance for them and their ideas.
That’s how I found myself cruising around Manhattan during rush hour with Cornel West; taking a walk through Tompkins Square Park with Avital Ronell; sauntering past Fifth Avenue’s posh shops with Peter Singer; touring an international airport with Kwame Anthony Appiah; strolling down Lake Michigan’s Chicago shore with Martha Nussbaum; rowing across a pond with Michael Hardt; enjoying a London garbage depot with Slavoj Zizek; and rambling around San Francisco with Judith Butler and my sister, the artist and disability activist Sunaura Taylor.
Fascist America II: The Last Turnoff
Fascist America II: The Last Turnoff - | OurFuture.org – Sara Robinson
7 Ways We Can Fight Back Against the Rising Fascist Threat. Why the right-wing extremism must be stopped in its tracks or else we face the threat of outright violence and goon rule.
Writing about fascism for an American audience is always a fraught business. Invariably, a third of the readers will dismiss the topic (and your faithful blogger’s basic sanity) out of hand. Either they’ve got their own definition of fascism and whatever’s going on doesn’t seem to fit it; or else they’re firm believers in a variant of Godwin’s Law, which says (with some justification) that anyone who invokes the F-word is a de facto alarmist of questionable credibility. I get letters, most of which say something to the effect of, “Calm down. You’re overreacting. We’re nowhere near there yet.”
Another third will pepper me with missives that are every bit as dismissive — for exactly the opposite reason. To them, anyone who’s been paying the barest amount of attention should realize that America has been a fascist state since (choose one:) 1) 9/11; 2) Reagan; 3) McCarthy; 4) The Civil War; 5) July 4, 1776. For them, my careful analysis and worried warnings are dangerously naive — clear evidence that I’m simply not seeing the full horror of America as it truly is, and always has been, at least since (insert date here).
Given this general crankiness, I probably wouldn’t bother with the subject at all — except for that final third who keep me going. From them, I’ve gotten a blizzard of anecdotes, questions, meditations, ideas, suggestions, manifestos, and love letters (including lots of link love). The piece sparked a lot of conversation all across Left Blogistan about what fascism is and what it ain’t and what we need to be watching for. And that kind of thoughtful discussion is exactly what I hoped for. I wanted people to start paying attention.
via Fascist America II: The Last Turnoff | OurFuture.org.
Scientists explore how the humble leaf could power the planet
Scientists explore how the humble leaf could power the planet - | Environment | The Guardian
Researchers at Imperial College London embark on ‘artificial leaf’ project to produce power by mimicking photosynthesis
It is one of evolution’s crowning achievements – a mini green power station and organic factory combined and the source of almost all of the energy that fuels every living thing on the planet.
Now scientists developing the next generation of clean power sources are working out how to copy, and ultimately improve upon, the humble leaf. The intricate chemistry involved in photosynthesis, the process where plants use sunlight to convert water and carbon dioxide into sugar, is the most effective solar energy conversion process on Earth. And researchers believe that mimicking parts of it could be the ticket to a limitless supply of clean power.
The untapped potential for using the sun’s rays is huge. All human activity for a whole year could be powered by the energy contained in the sunlight hitting the Earth in just one hour. Harnessing even a small amount of this to make electricity or useful fuels could satisfy the world’s increasing need for energy, predicted to double by 2050, without further endangering the climate.
via Scientists explore how the humble leaf could power the planet | Environment | The Guardian.
Why newspaper failure is only an American phenomenon
Why newspaper failure is only an American phenomenon – timestranscript.com –
Can Rupert Murdoch save the newspaper industry by making people pay to read the news online?
Probably not, though his reputation as a financial wizard (he is many times a billionaire) has bewitched a lot of people into believing that he can.
More importantly, does the newspaper industry as a whole need to be saved, or is this largely an American problem?
The ‘Dirty Digger’ declared last week that he would start charging for the online content of all his newspapers, including the New York Post and both The Times and The Sun in London before next June.
In the United States, where many if not most big-city dailies are in a financial ‘death-spiral,’ the whole industry prayed Murdoch is right.
His reputation as a master of the media universe is so high that even his competitors hope that he can make it work.
Obama on Drugs: 98% Cheney?
Obama on Drugs: 98% Cheney?
by Greg Palast
Eighty billion dollars of WHAT?
I searched all over the newspapers and TV transcripts and no one asked the President what is probably the most important question of what passes for debate on the issue of health care reform: $80 billion of WHAT?
On June 22, President Obama said he’d reached agreement with big drug companies to cut the price of medicine by $80 billion. He extended his gratitude to Big Pharma for the deal that would, “reduce the punishing inflation in health care costs.”
Hey, in my neighborhood, people think $80 billion is a lot of money. But is it?
I checked out the government’s health stats (at HHS.gov), put fresh batteries in my calculator and toted up US spending on prescription drugs projected by the government for the next ten years. It added up to $3.6 trillion.
In other words, Obama’s big deal with Big Pharma saves $80 billion out of a total $3.6 trillion. That’s 2%.
Hey thanks, Barack! You really stuck it to the big boys. You saved America from these drug lords robbing us blind. Two percent. Cool!
via Greg Palast » Obama on Drugs: 98% Cheney?.
No Nitrogen fertilizers from MSU and Bio Soil Enhancers
No Nitrogen fertilizers from MSU and Bio Soil Enhancers
MSU researchers and Bio Soil Enhancers have developed two non-nitrogen totally organic fertilizers that are naturally occurring microbial in composition.
The production increase as a result of this fertilizer is 25 to 90 percent depending on the product cultivated.
The advantages of this formulation are allowing plants to fix atmospheric nitrogen, green house gas reduction, and improved disease resistance. The growth increase is the result of better phosphorous uptake and utilization that produces growth hormones.
The organic fertilizers cost less than nitrogen fertilizers.
http://www.biosoilenhancers.com
via No Nitrogen fertilizers from MSU and Bio Soil Enhancers.
The Radicalization Of America By GOP Operatives And America’s Future, Part 1
The Radicalization Of America By GOP Operatives And America’s Future, Part 1 – | Justanothercoverup.com
Today, I received a link to my site from Hope2012, a website that points out the many infractions of our constitutional rights and the ongoing spying on Americans by our own government. Now, the Obama administration wants to install tracking cookies on government websites. I have always been a strong critic of the government spying on American citizens, however, today I am engaging in an abrupt about face – and I’ll explain my rationale for supporting limited spying on American citizens.
In these times of internal upheaval, which is escalating by the day, GOP operatives are infiltrating Town Hall meetings and advising their followers to carry concealed weapons. We have people like Glenn Beck begging his followers not to incite violence, however, if we read between the lines of his shrill lies and spinning of the truth, and other inflammatory statements he has made – that’s exactly what he wants his followers to do. We have Sarah Palin spouting downright lies, and as Keith Olbermann pointed out, Sarah Palin is a “Clear and Present Danger” in regard spreading her inflammatory rhetoric which is meant to inflame the radical Republicans that hate President Obama and his policies, and rather than protesting in a democratic fashion, it’s clear that they prefer violence over peaceful protests. A Gun toting nut was caught on camera at President Obama’s recent Town Hall Meeting in New Hampshire, and O’Riley and Fox News continue to spew disinformation to their radical followers in spite of White House assurances that nothing of the sort is contained within the Bill. I received this email from the White House, as did other Americans, and it’s clear that right-wing protesters are distorting the truth and are actively attempting to destabilize any meaningful Town Hall Meetings that would help to educate the American people on this much needed Bill:
Throw Grassley from the train!
Throw Grassley from the train! – - Joan Walsh – Salon.com
I’ve said this before: It’s getting past time for President Obama to spell out specifics about which healthcare reform plan he supports, given the five House and Senate bills and umpteen other proposals circling Washington. And unfortunately for Obama’s dreams of bipartisanism, it’s way past time for him to give up his hopes that he can bring “sensible” Republicans on board with a smart, fair bill.
I’ve suspected that was true for a while, but today is the day to, well, pull the plug on that project. Unbelievably, one GOP senator who’s been held up as a paragon of reason and bipartisan comity, Iowa’s Chuck Grassley — one of three Republicans negotiating with three Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee — trashed Obama’s plan today in terms that went beyond Sarah Palin’s ignorant rant. (I debated Tony Blankley about this on “Hardball”; video at the end of this post.)
“There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end-of-life,” Grassley told a town hall crowd. “And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear. You shouldn’t have counseling at the end of life. You ought to have counseling 20 years before you’re going to die. You ought to plan these things out. And I don’t have any problem with things like living wills. But they ought to be done within the family. We should not have a government program that determines if you’re going to pull the plug on grandma.”
via Throw Grassley from the train! – Joan Walsh – Salon.com.
Recession starts to threaten home life
Recession starts to threaten home life - - Times Online
Britain faces a surge in drug addiction, alcoholism and domestic violence as the second wave of the recession and rising unemployment take a grip, the leading public sector watchdog warns today.
Councils are not doing enough to prepare their communities for the fallout as the impact of more business failures, bankruptcies and the soaring jobless toll leads to deepening social and human problems, the Audit Commission reports. The watchdog, which monitors the performance of local councils and services, says that most authorities already face extra demands for benefits, welfare and debt counselling. One in three has extra pressure on social and mental health services, and on state school places from parents who can no longer afford to educate their children privately.
Official figures today are expected to show unemployment among young people breaking the million mark. Some 30 per cent of 16 and 17-year-old school-leavers are unemployed, the highest level since records began in 1992. Overall unemployment is expected to have hit a 14-year high of 2.5 million in the three months to June.
via Recession starts to threaten home life – Times Online.
Obama On Health Care: A Comprehensive Betrayal – Where Do We Go From Here?
Black Agenda Report
The shrunken and eviscerated public option in the Obama health care plan may now be discarded in favor of something called a health co-op. The mounting toll of concessions to drug companies and bailouts of private insurers contained in the Obama plan have transformed it, according to Rep. John Conyers, into “crap,” and threaten to make Obama a one-term president. Republicans, all the while, are fighting Obamacare every bit as resolutely as if it were Medicare For All, drumming up disinformed protesters for health care town meetings. And the embargo of single payer media coverage continues, despite its being the majority sentiment of Americans. This is the year of health care reform. Or not
Obama On Health Care: A Comprehensive Betrayal – Where Do We Go From Here?
By Black Agenda Report managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
At some point in last year’s presidential election campaign, Barack Obama went on Bill O’Reilly’s show to concede that maybe the war in Iraq, and Bush’s murderous escalation of that war, the so-called surge, were not such bad ideas after all. Obama met with the admirals and generals and came away declaring that withdrawal from Iraq really meant withdrawal to secure bases inside Iraq. A US troop pullout would not happen until well into his second term, if then, with the accent on the “if.”
Casting the wishes of most Americans and the overwhelming majority of his own party under the bus, Democratic leaders and the corporate media told us all, was the wise, the realistic, the pragmatic thing to do. The election, they said, would be waged on domestic policy, on health care. Barack Obama has again and again doubled down on that set of promises, declaring that his first term should be judged on whether he manages to deliver comprehensive, affordable health care to everybody, including the nation’s fifty million uninsured.
Seven months into his administration, Barack Obama has never been the antiwar president. He was the first president in American history to keep a Secretary of Defense appointed by the other party. Obama is not the anti-warrantless wiretapping president, or the anti-torture president or the anti-NAFTA president, or the pro-public education president, either. He bought GM but refused to use it as a lever to create a new passenger rail industry or green jobs, instead crushing the auto workers and forsaking his promises to make it easier to organize unions. Obama has transferred, as Glen Ford points out, $12 trillion dollars to fraudulent Wall Street banksters, more than all previous presidents combined. Beyond the lovely wife and family, and the novelty of a black president who speaks full sentences in correct English, not much is left of the man or the cause tens of millions thought they voted for.
via Obama On Health Care: A Comprehensive Betrayal – Where Do We Go From Here? | Black Agenda Report.
Newt Gingrich Changes What’s Left of his Mind on End-of-life Care
Newt Gingrich Changes What’s Left of his Mind on End-of-life Care – - True/Slant
Matt Taibbi
More than 20 percent of all Medicare spending occurs in the last two months of life. Gundersen Lutheran Health System in La Crosse, Wisconsin has developed a successful end-of-life, best practice that combines: 1) community-wide advance care planning, where 90 percent of patients have advance directives; 2) hospice and palliative care; and 3) coordination of services through an electronic medical record. The Gundersen approach empowers patients and families to control and direct their care. The Dartmouth Health Atlas has documented that Gundersen delivers care at a 30 percent lower rate than the national average ($18,359 versus $25,860). If Gundersen’s approach was used to care for the approximately 4.5 million Medicare beneficiaries who die every year, Medicare could save more than $33 billion a year.
via Health Care Rx: Across the Country, Some Systems Are Getting It Right – Newt Gingrich.
That was Newt Gingrich just a few months ago praising the “Advance Directives” practiced by a hospital in Wisconsin. Advance Directives are another word for the end-of-life consultations that the teabggers have been flipping out over of late. Gingrich loved them a few months ago. This is Gingrich a few months before that, responding to a PBS query:
Let me give you an example that I find fascinating. In LaCrosse, Wisc., the Gundersen Lutheran Hospital system is, according to the Dartmouth [Atlas of Health Care], the least expensive place in America for the last two years of life. They have an advanced directive program, and over 90 percent of their patients have an advanced directive. They have electronic health records, so everybody on the staff knows what the advanced directive is. They have a very strong palliative care program for using drugs to manage pain. They have a hospice program.
The result is today, the last two years of your life in costs are about $13,600. The last two years of your life at UCLA are $58,000. Now, why should Medicare pay $58,000 for the same outcome if it could pay $13,600? You can say, well, Los Angeles is more expensive; they do a couple of more complicated things. So fine. So let’s say it ought to be $20,000 at UCLA. That’s still [$38,000] less than it currently is. …
Cheney Uncloaks His Frustration With Bush
Cheney Uncloaks His Frustration With Bush - - washingtonpost.com - By Barton Gellman
‘Statute of Limitations Has Expired’ on Many Secrets, Former Vice President Says
In his first few months after leaving office, former vice president Richard B. Cheney threw himself into public combat against the “far left” agenda of the new commander in chief. More private reflections, as his memoir takes shape in slashing longhand on legal pads, have opened a second front against Cheney’s White House partner of eight years, George W. Bush.
Cheney’s disappointment with the former president surfaced recently in one of the informal conversations he is holding to discuss the book with authors, diplomats, policy experts and past colleagues. By habit, he listens more than he talks, but Cheney broke form when asked about his regrets.
“In the second term, he felt Bush was moving away from him,” said a participant in the recent gathering, describing Cheney’s reply. “He said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took. Bush was more malleable to that. The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney’s advice. He’d showed an independence that Cheney didn’t see coming. It was clear that Cheney’s doctrine was cast-iron strength at all times — never apologize, never explain — and Bush moved toward the conciliatory.”
via Cheney Uncloaks His Frustration With Bush – washingtonpost.com.
Why Food Sovereignty Is the New Food Security
Why Food Sovereignty Is the New Food Security
Most of us would agree that there is a serious problem vis-a-vis access to food in the developing world. According to the UN food agency, there are now more than one billion undernourished people worldwide. The need to do something about the broken food system is especially apparent in Haiti, where I have been on a working assignment with Grassroots International for the past few weeks.
Last year, before the financial crisis spun out of control, the global food crisis was front and center in the media in Haiti and around the world. Hungry rioters took to the streets of Port-au-Prince demanding fair prices for rice and grain. Some Haitians even built a micro-industry selling patties made from mud, oil, and sugar — an ancient remedy to help alleviate hunger pangs.
Just because the financial crisis is getting all the attention these days doesn’t mean that the food crisis is any less severe. Actually, the two have much in common, arising from 30 years of failed economic and agricultural policy.
via Salena Tramel: Why Food Sovereignty Is the New Food Security.
Taxing Wealth for the Common Good
Taxing Wealth for the Common Good
When members of Congress proposed paying for expanded health care with a tax surcharge on America’s wealthiest citizens, the attack was swift but predictable. Taxing the top was labeled “class war,” an attack on the successful, and bad for business and the economy.
So it was refreshing when the high-income members of a new network –Wealth for the Common Good (WFCG) –stepped forward to essentially say “Sure, raise our taxes.” Why? Because it’s fair, and because they can afford it.
“In hard times it is important for Americans to come together and unite over the idea that medical care ought to be a basic right of citizenship,” said former investment banker Eric Schoenberg, a member of the organization. “It’s only fair for those of us who have benefited the most from this system to contribute the most.”
Over the last 30 years, our economic policies have slowly changed to disproportionately benefit our nation’s top-earners and concentrate wealth into the hands of a few. The members of Wealth for the Common Good, a network of business leaders, entrepreneurs, professionals, and other high-income individuals, are among those who have benefited from such policies. Their goal now is to help shape policy so that it benefits people of all income levels
via Taxing Wealth for the Common Good.
Steele: It was ‘proper’ for Sarah Palin to fearmonger about ‘death panels.’
Steele: It was ‘proper’ for Sarah Palin to fearmonger about ‘death panels.’ - Think Progress »
On Fox News today, RNC Chairman Michael Steele became the latest right-wing figure to endorse former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s ludicrously false claim that health care reform will contain “death panels.” “I think that’s perfectly appropriate,” said Steele:
CAVUTO: Now obviously in this environment a lot of vitriol comes forth. Michael, I just wanted to get your reaction to some of your co-party members, former Alaska governor Palin, who calls these panels that are essentially going to be dispensing care or deciding it, death panels. That sort of thing — is that proper? Is that right?
STEELE: Well, I think it’s, I think it’s proper because its within the context of what people are seeing in some of the legislation that’s floating around out there. When you’re talking about panels that are going to be imposed, that will be making life and death decisions, that will be making decisions about whether or not you get health care or don’t receive health care. I think that’s perfectly appropriate.
Watch it:
via Think Progress » Steele: It was ‘proper’ for Sarah Palin to fearmonger about ‘death panels.’.
Bankruptcy Judges, Justice Dept. Rip Mortgage Companies
Bankruptcy Judges, Justice Dept. Rip Mortgage Companies - – ProPublica
“Systemic abuse [1].” “Extraordinary incompetence [2].” “Reckless [3].” In a growing body of legal cases, judges and the Justice Department are breaking from legal jargon to starkly chastise mortgage companies.
As mortgage delinquencies rise, more and more homeowners are learning the central role that mortgage servicers play in their lives. The legal cases show that role can be distressing. Judges have found that major mortgages servicers regularly mess up basic accounting, improperly credit payments and charge unwarranted fees. They’ve “not done a very good job of keeping the records,” said Judge Samuel Bufford of California.
Mortgage servicers — typically either bank subsidiaries or independent companies — handle the day-to-day work with homeowners, ranging from collecting monthly payments to determining when to modify or foreclose. Problems with servicing often, but not always, occur once homeowners start having trouble making payments.
via Bankruptcy Judges, Justice Dept. Rip Mortgage Companies – ProPublica.
US, Swiss Cement Deal On Secret UBS Bank Accounts
US, Swiss Cement Deal On Secret UBS Bank Accounts
The Swiss and U.S. governments announced a deal Wednesday to settle American demands for the identities of suspected tax dodgers, despite Switzerland’s vaunted bank secrecy. But they kept all details under wraps, including how many of the 52,000 names sought by the IRS from banking giant UBS AG will be revealed.
Depending on the scale of the deal, it could be a new blow to Switzerland’s reputation as a safe place to hide assets from the tax man back home.
Switzerland has long been under pressure from European neighbors and the U.S. to open its bank records for foreign tax authorities. The IRS case against UBS has been partly credited with pushing the Swiss government to agree in March to comply with tax investigation rules from the 30-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. UBS earlier this year named about 300 American clients in a separate case.
via US, Swiss Cement Deal On Secret UBS Bank Accounts.
NASA Spacecraft Reveals Mysterious Object Punching Through One Of Saturn’s Rings
NASA Spacecraft Reveals Mysterious Object Punching Through One Of Saturn’s Rings
What is going on with Saturn’s rings? It appears that recent images from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft reveal what seems to be a small object that has ripped through one of the planet’s otherwise flat rings. The purpose of the NASA mission, the BBC explains, was to observe “an equinox on Saturn, in a bid to learn more about the gas giant’s ring system.”
Discover Magazine’s take on it:
via NASA Spacecraft Reveals Mysterious Object Punching Through One Of Saturn’s Rings.
Newfound Planet Orbits Backward
Newfound Planet Orbits Backward - SPACE.com – By Jeanna Bryner and Robert Roy Britt
Planets orbit stars in the same direction that the stars rotate. They all do. Except one.
A newfound planet orbits the wrong way, backward compared to the rotation of its host star. Its discoverers think a near-collision may have created the retrograde orbit, as it is called.
The star and its planet, WASP-17, are about 1,000 light-years away. The setup was found by the UK’s Wide Area Search for Planets (WASP) project in collaboration with Geneva Observatory. The discovery was announced today but has not yet been published in a journal.
“I would have to say this is one of the strangest planets we know about,” said Sara Seager, an astrophysicist at MIT who was not involved in the discovery.
via SPACE.com — Newfound Planet Orbits Backward.
How To Fight Heathcare Fearmongers and Demagogues
How To Fight Heathcare Fearmongers and Demagogues
Robert Reich
My friend, Keith, from New Orleans, just emailed to say he attended a local “town meeting” on health care and tried to get a word in favor but was almost hounded out of the room.
Why are these meetings brimming with so much anger? Because Republican Astroturfers have joined the same old right-wing broadcast demagogues that have been spewing hate and fear for years, to create a tempest.
But why are they getting away with it? Why aren’t progressives — indeed, why aren’t ordinary citizens — taking the meetings back?
Mainly because there’s still no healthcare plan. All we have are some initial markups from several congressional committees, which differ from one another in significant ways. The White House is waiting to see what emerges from the House and Senate before insisting on what it wants, maybe in conference committee.
NY fines health insurer for ‘misleading’ TV ads
NY fines health insurer for ‘misleading’ TV ads – - Crain’s
New York officials accused The American Medical and Life Insurance Co. of misleading consumers with TV ads that promised “peace of mind” for just $5 a day.
A health insurer whose TV commercials promised “peace of mind” for just $5 a day must stop running the national ads and pay a fine of $700,000 after New York officials accused it of leaving patients only with huge hospital bills.
The American Medical and Life Insurance Co., advertising through an intermediary called Cinergy, marketed health insurance as a lower cost option for the uninsured and underinsured. It was pitched as costing just $5 a day, or the cost of a hamburger or pack of cigarettes.
In one ad, the narrator said the insurance is available “regardless of any pre-existing conditions,” while the print on the screen stated “most pre-existing conditions accepted” and the fine print stated there is a six-month waiting period.
via NY fines health insurer for ‘misleading’ TV ads – Crain’s New York Business.
Conyers surprises Rove…releases documents
Conyers surprises Rove…releases documents - at-Largely:
So, there was a little agreement with the House Judiciary Committee and Karl Rove in exchange for the latter’s testimony. The agreement made the entire testimony process secret in a way I had never before seen. Karl Rove decided to violate that agreement in his tale to the press. I was wondering what – if anything – Rep John Conyers (D-MI) would do. Looks like Conyers pretty much just bitch slapped Rove by a surprise release of nearly 6000 pages of documents:
“After all the delay and despite all the obfuscation, lies and spin, this basic truth can no longer be denied: Karl Rove and his cohorts at the Bush White House were the driving force behind several of these firings, which were done for improper reasons,” Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) said in a statement.
Conyers said he has sent the material to a special prosecutor, who is investigating the firings on behalf of the Justice Department.
via at-Largely: Conyers surprises Rove…releases documents.
Grassley: Government shouldn’t ‘decide when to pull the plug on grandma’
The Comments below the original article [at link] are interesting. It seems that most people who commented realized that Grassley was lying. Iowans can apparently smell bullshit when it’s this close to them.
Grassley: Government shouldn’t ‘decide when to pull the plug on grandma’ – « Iowa Independent
Americans should be scared of provisions in a health care bill currently in the U.S. House because it will allow the government to have a say in end-of-life decisions, Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley told a crowd of more than 300 Wednesday morning.
“In the House bill, there is counseling for end of life,” Grassley said. “You have every right to fear. You shouldn’t have counseling at the end of life, you should have done that 20 years before. Should not have a government run plan to decide when to pull the plug on grandma”
The conspiracy theory of the government deciding who lives and dies has been making the rounds of late, gaining momentum after former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin posted a message on her Facebook saying President Obama’s health care plan might kill her child who was born with Down Syndrome.
via Grassley: Government shouldn’t ‘decide when to pull the plug on grandma’ « Iowa Independent.
Robert Greenwald on MSNBC for Sick For Profit
Robert Greenwald appears on MSNBC to talk about Sick For Profit, a Brave New Films campaign to expose the greed of big health insurance companies. Aug. 10 2009.
via YouTube – Robert Greenwald on MSNBC for Sick For Profit: Aug. 10, 2009.
Record home-price fall last quarter
Home prices fall a record 15.6%
Year-over-year prices may have fallen at a record pace, but there are signs of improvement.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Median home prices fell a record 15.6% during the three months ended June 30, compared to the same period in 2008, according to an industry report.
There is good news though: The survey from the National Association of Realtors reported the median home price rose 4% compared to the first quarter of 2009 — to $174,100 from $167,300.
The increase in median price was not a surprise, representing, as it did, the traditionally strong spring selling season. But the jump did offer the prospect that the worst of the price declines may be behind us.
via Record home-price fall last quarter – Aug. 12, 2009.
Obama Reverses Campaign Pledge to Renegotiate NAFTA.
President Obama has wrapped up a two-day visit to Mexico for talks with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The three leaders met in Guadalajara to discuss issues including immigration reform, trade, Mexicos drug war, the crisis in Honduras, and the swine flu outbreak. It was Obamas first official summit under the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. On the campaign trail, Obama had promised to open up NAFTA to renegotiations. But hes backed off that pledge since taking office, blaming the global economic meltdown.
via YouTube – Obama Reverses Campaign Pledge to Renegotiate NAFTA. Democracy Now 8/11/09 1 of 2.
Deconstructing the Right Wing Lies on Health Care Bill – Part III
Even Newer! Deconstructing the Right Wing Lies on Health Care Bill – Part III – Please Cut the Crap!:
(I have compiled everything into one page for easier consumption. Click the link at the top right of this blog and you’ll be taken to it…)
(For those of you who missed me on the radio last night, you can GO HERE and listen to me take apart the Right Wing Fart Machine on Air America’s Nicole Sandler Show…)
To remind you, The Liberty Counsel is a lobbying group that describes itself as “a nationwide public interest religious civil liberties law firm,” according to the memo, which is conveniently located on their web site. The Liberty Counsel’s web site tells more…
I also urge you to read through the actual bill, so that you know what’s in there. In this part, we’ll start on page 734. (And do NOT be intimidated by the 1017 pages. If the margins, line spacing and text size were “normal,” this would be a couple of hundred pages, at most.)
• Sec. 1651, Pg. 734, Lines 16-25 – Proposes, for law enforcement sake, that the Secretary of HHS will give Attorney General access to ALL medical data.
As usual, this is ridiculous. For one thing, this section of the bill actually extends regulations in the Social Security Act that have guided Medicare for years to the new public insurance system. Now, I’m unaware of the Department of Justice combine the files of elderly patients looking for reasons to arrest them.
The section in question is entitled:
Subtitle D—Access to Information Needed To Prevent Fraud, Waste, and Abuse
SEC. 1651. ACCESS TO INFORMATION NECESSARY TO IDENTIFY FRAUD, WASTE, AND ABUSE.
The section they identify is as follows:
via Please Cut the Crap!: Even Newer! Deconstructing the Right Wing Lies on Health Care Bill – Part III.
Leaked Email: CNBC Went To Tea Partiers Looking for Angry Protests
OPS: Just another Media Circus – for ratings
Leaked Email: CNBC Went To Tea Partiers Looking for Angry Protests | TPMMuckraker
CNBC approached Tea Party activists, looking for angry protest events that would make good television, according to a leaked email from a Tea Party discussion group. And one Tea Bagger responded by flagging an upcoming event that, he said, “should be a riot … literally.”
Yesterday, Tea Party Patriots national coordinator Jenny Beth Martin sent an email, obtained by TPMmuckraker, to a Tea Party google group. Martin told the group: “We have a media request for an event this week that will have lots of energy and lots of anger. This is for CNBC.”
She then asked: “So, where are the big events this week and where can TPP best be represented on the news?”
via Leaked Email: CNBC Went To Tea Partiers Looking for Angry Protests | TPMMuckraker.
Report: NASA can’t keep up with killer asteroids
Report: NASA can’t keep up with killer asteroids
– NASA is charged with seeking out nearly all the asteroids that threaten Earth but doesn’t have the money to do the job, a federal report says.
That’s because even though Congress assigned the space agency this mission four years ago, it never gave NASA money to build the necessary telescopes, the new National Academy of Sciences report says. Specifically, NASA has been ordered to spot 90 percent of the potentially deadly rocks hurtling through space by 2020.
Even so, NASA says it’s completed about one-third of its assignment with its current telescope system.
NASA estimates that there are about 20,000 asteroids and comets in our solar system that are potential threats to Earth. They are larger than 460 feet in diameter — slightly smaller than the Superdome in New Orleans. So far, scientists know where about 6,000 of these objects are.
via Report: NASA can’t keep up with killer asteroids – Yahoo! News.
NHS branded ‘evil’ and ‘Orwellian’ by high-level US politicians
‘I wouldn’t be here if not for the NHS’: Stephen Hawking defends UK’s ‘Orwellian’ healthcare after attack by U.S. politicians – | Mail Online
Professor Stephen Hawking has spoken out in defence of the NHS after high-level U.S. politicians have branded the National Health Service ‘evil’ and ‘Orwellian’.
The British professor, who has suffered from Lou Gehrig’s disease for 40 years, insisted that he ‘would not be here’ were it not for the NHS.
He spoke after an editorial in Investor’s Business Daily, a national financial newspaper in the U.S. that also runs articles by columnists on the Left and the Right, launched a misinformed attack on the NHS.
via NHS branded ‘evil’ and ‘Orwellian’ by high-level US politicians | Mail Online.
White House using social media to debunk ‘myths’ about healthcare reform
White House using social media to debunk ‘myths’ about healthcare reform - Los Angeles Times
As right-wing pundits blanket the airwaves, relentlessly poking holes into every soft and squishy part of the Obama administration’s healthcare reform program, the White House is picking up a different megaphone — the Internet. And it’s doing a bang-up job of getting that message out.
The administration has launched a Web page called Health Insurance Reform: Reality Check that disputes popular criticisms of the new policies. The media-rich, well-designed site contains video testimony from advisers and experts.
The White House blasted links to the package out to more than 300,000 fans on Facebook and more than 900,000 on Twitter today. It also sent an e-mail acknowledging “scare tactics” being used to bash the programs. A few hours later, users of the social news site Digg voted Reality Check to the site’s homepage. That potentially exposes Reality Check to millions of eyeballs.
The Digg post carries a rather audacious headline — “Real facts about health care reform from WhiteHouse.gov.” We had to look twice to make sure this wasn’t one of those newfangled “sponsored posts” that the company has been talking about. Nope, it’s apparently a legitimate submission by a former Navy submarine sailor named Robert Schumacher.
Study say marijuana no gateway drug
Study say marijuana no gateway drug | Science Blog
Marijuana is not a “gateway” drug that predicts or eventually leads to substance abuse, suggests a 12-year University of Pittsburgh study. Moreover, the study’s findings call into question the long-held belief that has shaped prevention efforts and governmental policy for six decades and caused many a parent to panic upon discovering a bag of pot in their child’s bedroom.
The Pitt researchers tracked 214 boys beginning at ages 10-12, all of whom eventually used either legal or illegal drugs. When the boys reached age 22, they were categorized into three groups: those who used only alcohol or tobacco, those who started with alcohol and tobacco and then used marijuana (gateway sequence) and those who used marijuana prior to alcohol or tobacco (reverse sequence).
Nearly a quarter of the study population who used both legal and illegal drugs at some point – 28 boys – exhibited the reverse pattern of using marijuana prior to alcohol or tobacco, and those individuals were no more likely to develop a substance use disorder than those who followed the traditional succession of alcohol and tobacco before illegal drugs, according to the study, which appears in this month’s issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.
via Study say marijuana no gateway drug | Science Blog.
Would You Trust the Phone Company With Healthcare?
OPS: …or COMCAST, or ENRON, or World Com, or Haliburton…..
Would You Trust the Phone Company With Healthcare? - All Spin Zone »
Why trust private industry with our national healthcare system when we surely can’t trust them with phones or our privacy or even with delivering quality air travel? Why is it, then, that the argument to trust them with our healthcare over the government is such a powerful argument?
Commentary By: Steven Reynolds
Kevin Drum is right. In a syndicated column today Mr. Drum details his recent experiences getting a new phone at Verizon. He starts by saying he stormed the halls of corporate America and got his butt kicked. I’m thinking he didn’t really storm any halls. He merely responded tried to replace his phone, and found that the replacement wasn’t free, as advertised, but would cost a whole lot more because of the Verizon’s reconfiguration of the product line.
I’ve encountered similar problems with Verizon in the past week, where replacing my phone with a “free upgrade” cost me a new two year contract, and alsmost cost me $480 over two years in order to keep the same model phone. Essentially I got a downgrade in phone because I didn’t want to sign up for more services. They’ll not call it a price increase, but that’s what any sane person would call it, and increases in copays and decreases in coverage by health insurance companies seem to work much the same way.
via All Spin Zone » Would You Trust the Phone Company With Healthcare?.
Who was that gun-toting anti-Obama protester?
Who was that gun-toting anti-Obama protester? – - Joan Walsh – Salon.com
One of Tuesday’s big mysteries was the motivation behind anti-Obama protester William Kostric, the man who brought a loaded gun to the town hall meeting and carried a sign referencing Thomas Jefferson’s famous credo, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots.”
On Tuesday afternoon MSNBC’s Chris Matthews asked Kostric why he carried “a God-damned gun” to a meeting with the president, “given the violent history of this country with regard to presidents and assassinations,” and whether he supported the Birther movement. Kostric insisted his intentions were peaceful, and that he’s not affiliated with Birther groups.
But at least one of those statements doesn’t seem to be true. A right-wing activist named “William Kostric,” who’s left a lot of footprints around the Web, is listed as a “team member” of the Arizona chapter of We the People, the far-right group best known for joining a lawsuit challenging Obama’s right to be president based on his not being a U.S. citizen. Kostric told MSNBC he recently moved from Arizona to New Hampshire. (Kostric did not reply to Salon’s e-mail request for an interview.)
via Who was that gun-toting anti-Obama protester? – Joan Walsh – Salon.com.
States cut aid to college students as demand booms
States cut aid to college students as demand booms
Struggling with budget shortfalls that reach into the billions, several states are making deep cuts in college financial aid programs, including those that provide a vital source of cash for students who most need the money.
At least a dozen states are reducing award sizes, eliminating grants and tightening eligibility guidelines because of a lack of money. At the same time, the number of students seeking aid is rising sharply as more people seek a college education and need help paying the tuition bill because they or their parents lost jobs and savings during the recession.
Many of the affected programs are need-based grants that provide money that complements financial aid offered by schools and the federal government. Without that cash, some students may be forced to drop out, transfer to cheaper schools or simply have less money available for rent and groceries. Experts fear others will take on too much debt or spend even more time working as they pursue a degree.
via States cut aid to college students as demand booms – Yahoo! News.
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Republicans Don't Care about Voter Fraud....owa Republicans are trying to dismiss claims that the vote count in Tuesday's Iowa Caucus was wrong. An Iowa voter told a local TV station yesterday that he noticed a 20-vote discrepancy in the count - and that Rick Santorum was the real winner of the Caucuses. Republican Party officials, though, are sticking to their first count - showing Mitt Romney as the winner by 8-votes - and there will be no recount.The Republican Party has launched a war on voters around the nation this year with strict new laws that will disenfranchise over 5 million Americans. They claim these laws are necessary to combat so-called voter fraud. Yet in Iowa - where there are no such laws - and where a very, very close and questionable election was just held - Republicans don't seem to care at all about getting it right.Clearly - the war on voters isn't about making sure the people's voices are represented accurately - it's about making sure poor people, young people, and minorities who tend to vote for Democrats - can't vote at all.-Thom(Who do you think won? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
