Take The Red Pill

2009-11-24T09:19:00.000-08:00

TODAY'S TOPICS: Privatizing the Commons, California Crumbling, 2/3's Rule, Health Care, Deficit Fearmongering, Tort Reform Lies

Republicans and the Privatization of Everything...

I so wish I had time to really delve into this topic, because we are, sadly, at another one of those "teachable moments". I speak in particular of the crumbling state known as California.

As I have said time and time again here, our looming fiscal catastrophe is not by accident. It is the intended product of a longterm Republican-led privatization scheme...the "starve the beast" strategy that began with the Reagan revolution, and has continued for three decades now.

This agenda seeks to destroy government, replacing its public functions - health, education, safety - with a privatized, for profit system. In California, this agenda greatly aided by the fact that we are the only state where a 2/3 majority approval is required on all revenue and budget legislation. This leaves all the power to stop ANYTHING in the hands of 33% + 1 of the Legislature.

As a result, we have an economic and ecological disaster facing us, each due to the same cause: namely, short-term greed combined with a lack of an understanding of systemic risk, of how systems work both in ecology and in the economy. You know, the whole "you need revenue to properly take care of the needs of the people".

Bill Moyers nailed this hard-right agenda as a movement that is "systematically stripping government of its capacity...to do little more than reward the rich and wage war."

The combination of lost revenue and the collapse of the dot-com bubble as well as the Republican-aided scamming of the state's energy market produced what was then a record California budget deficit. Add in Prop 13 and mindless tax cuts like the elimination of the vehicle license fee, and Walaa: we're left with a perpetually bankrupt state with dwindling resources to invest in OURSELVES AND OUR PEOPLE.

My god, have you seen what is happening on college campuses? Once again, student rebellions may be teaching us all a little lesson about how you fight the establishment (but that's for another post). Suffice it to say, our PUBLIC education system is now too becoming a place where only the wealthy will be able to afford.

The absurdity of our budget predicament prompted Ronald M. George, Chief Justice of the CA Supreme Court and a moderate Republican, to conclude that the 2/3 rule had placed elected officials inside "a fiscal straitjacket."

So when you hear Republicans say we must "live within its means", don't believe it. What that phrase suggests is that government can only spend what it takes in - if tax receipts collapse by over 40% as they have since 2007, we have to cut spending by over 40% to match. It also suggests that we have been living beyond our means - overspending, having too many government programs - before the crisis, which is simply INCORRECT.

As Robert Cruickshank wrote on Calitics, "California never really recovered from the cuts of the 2002-03 era, and the spending increases since were either to pay for Arnold's vehicle license fee cut or to keep up with a growing and aging population. The better, and more accurate, frame is that California needs enough resources to meet the needs of its people. Especially in a severe recession such as this. We need to expand, not contract, educational services. We need to guarantee everyone has the health care services they need, not take it away from those who need it.

We need to reorient our economy, land use, and transportation systems away from the failed models of the 20th century and toward a more sustainable and prosperous 21st century model as a way to create the jobs that are desperately needed,

California has more than enough resources to do this. We have a lot of wealth sitting off the table in the form of high-end property values, corporate property value, corporate profits, and rents. If we framed the budget crisis as a matter of getting those resources into play in order to meet the needs of our people, than the structural problems Skelton does describe, including the lack of majority vote, become seen as obstacles to progress ather than guardians of the people against a rapacious state government.

Repealing the 2/3’s Rule

Absent another expensive recall, California will be stuck with Schwarzenegger until January 2011. But it does not have to remain hostage to the insanity of the privatization agenda. Professor George Lakoff has recently submitted the California Democracy Act, a proposed ballot measure which reads: “All legislative action on revenue and budget must be determined by a majority vote.”

As he stated on Democracy Now: You can raise revenue without raising a tax rate at all, say, by plugging loopholes. If you say 'raise taxes,' most people think it means raise taxes on them significantly. But if the majority runs the state, then the majority can decide whether or not taxes should be raised on them, or whether taxes should be raised at all, or lowered, or whether loopholes should be plugged to raise revenue, or whether revenue should be raised by selling oil to oil companies rather than just giving it away.

Watch him interviewed on Democracy Now by Amy Goodman

A Public Option That Isn’t…and the Senate Corporatists

It goes without saying that watching the health care legislation get weakened day by day, week by week, has been like one prolonged visit to the dentist. Just as with the stimulus bill, the lives of Americans and the quality of our laws, have been hijacked by a small group of corporatist centrists that are doing the bidding of their insurance and big pharma pay masters.

Yet, as is ALWAYS THE CASE, we progressives are the ones that are being asked to be "more reasonable" (somehow reasonable has been code for fucking the people), and give up the public option to get those 4 extra votes to end a filibuster, even as over 80% of Democrats WANT a public option, as do about 53-54 of the Senate Democrats! And let's remember, we don't NEED 60 votes, if the Democrats would just use reconciliation, as the Republicans always did when in power.

But back to "being reasonable" and compromising more...let's look at who has been compromising since day one. First we gave up on Medicare for all 300 million of us. So the compromise was to give all Americans the option of buying into a "Medicare-like plan" (public option) that competed with private insurers. Fully 70 percent of Americans polled supported the idea. Open to all Americans, such a plan would have the scale and authority to negotiate low prices with drug companies and other providers, and force private insurers to provide better service at lower costs.

But private insurers and Big Pharma wouldn't hear of it, and Republicans and "centrists" thought it would end up too much like what they have up in Canada...as in, a good system that puts peoples' lives above corporate profit (GOD FORBID!!!). So the compromise was to give the public option only to Americans who wouldn't be covered either by their employers or by Medicaid. And give them coverage pegged to Medicare rates.

But private insurers are not accepting this either...even as they profit off our death and suffering. So the compromise that ended up in the House bill is to have a mere public option, open only to the 6 million Americans not otherwise covered. The Congressional Budget Office warns this shrunken public option will have no real bargaining leverage and would attract mainly people who need lots of medical care to begin with.

So it will actually cost more than it saves. As Robert Reich notes, But even the House's shrunken and costly little public option is too much for private insurers, Big Pharma, Republicans, and "centrists" in the Senate. So Harry Reid has proposed an even tinier public option, which states can decide not to offer their citizens. According to the CBO, it would attract no more than 4 million Americans. Our private, for-profit health insurance system, designed to fatten the profits of private health insurers and Big Pharma, is about to be turned over to ... our private, for-profit health care system. Except that now private health insurers and Big Pharma will be getting some 30 million additional customers, paid for by the rest of us.

Most of us will remain stuck with little or no choice -- dependent on private insurers who care only about the bottom line, who deny our claims, who charge us more and more for co-payments and deductibles, who bury us in forms, who don't take our calls. I want every Senator who's not in the pocket of the private insurers or Big Pharma to introduce and vote for a "Ted Kennedy Medicare for All" amendment to whatever bill Reid takes to the floor. And if this fails, a "Ted Kennedy Real Public Option for All" amendment. Let every Senate Democratic who doesn't have the guts to vote for either of them be known and counted.

VIDEO SECTION

During the Senate floor debate on the health care bill, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse calls out Republican hypocrisy on their feigned concern for deficits and spending. As you may have gathered from what I wrote today, this is going to be one of the major Red Herrings used by the Republicans through the next two elections…we need to “live within our means” and the “deficit is the greatest threat”…in other words, blah, blah, lie, lie, ad infinitum. In fact, as Whitehouse notes, the public option REDUCES THE COST of the health care bill…and the deficit!!

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/whitehouse-irony-department-republican-par

MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan talks to Rep. Alan Grayson about the amendment passed by the House Financial Services Committee to allow an independent audit of the Federal Reserve. If Alan Greenspan is not happy about it, I take that as a good sign they did the right thing….

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/grayson-auditing-fed-were-about-see-man-be

An Obama the idea versus Obama the reality cartoon by Tom Tomorrow…sad but true…and pretty funny:

http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2009/10/13/tomo/index.html

Olbermann's Worst Persons...with winner Catherina Wojtowicz. Runners up Glenn Beck, and Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/countdowns-worst-persons-nov-23-2009

Howard Dean tells it like it is again: Dems will regret not using reconciliation to pass this health care bill. As a result, the entire thing is being written for the Liebermans, Nelson’s, Landrieu’s, and Lincoln’s. What a shame and tragedy…but kind of expected with the Democrats. The Republicans on the other hand, used reconciliation numerous times to pass their agenda, including Bush’s disastrous tax cuts for the rich.

From C&L: It's always the liberals who need to compromise their positions to the conventional wisdom of the Villagers. The Gang of Four are all righteous and virtuous while liberals are out-of-control hippies who act like barking dogs. How dare they want to produce a real reform measure that could eventually provide true competition for the health care industry and that will help lower overall health care costs? Outrageous!

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/howard-dean-democrats-are-going-rue-day-th

Ana Marie Cox and Naomi Klein point out that Sarah Palin seems to be campaigning for President. But President of what? Klein thinks she's running for President of nothing. Cox thinks she shooting for President of Facebook. What do you think?

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/144077/sarah_palin_running_for_president_..._of_facebook/

SNL’S Sarah Palin parody: 2012 disaster movie…

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/snl-palin-2012-disaster-movie-parody

ARTICLE SECTION

The Budget Crisis: The Blame Is Bipartisan, By Dean Baker

This is a critical issue to understand: The Deficit IS NOT THE PROBLEM!!! This will be the key argument used by Republicans over the next two election cycles. Everything will be about cutting spending, cutting programs, so we can deal with the deficit. This of course not only will hurt the lives of tens of millions of Americans who are more dependent on government services than ever before, but will also send us right back into another, perhaps even deeper recession. We NEED SPENDING right now...hasn't history taught us anything (think New Deal)?

A few clips:

The country is being bombarded with stories claiming that record budget deficits threaten our children's future and jeopardize the credibility of the dollar. These stories are a serious problem - they have hugely confused the public about the nature of the country's economic crisis. And both parties share the blame.

Starting with the reality behind the scare stories - trillion-dollar deficits are really huge relative to the money that any of us will ever see in our lifetime. But this is an absurd measure. The United States is a country with more than 300 million people. It doesn't matter than a trillion dollars is a huge amount to any of us individually. What matters is the size of the deficit and the debt relative to the size of the economy.

SNIP

But Republicans don't have a monopoly on demagoging the deficit. During the Bush years, many Democrats spoke of the Bush deficits in cataclysmic terms. This was absurd. The deficits were larger than was desirable during part of the Bush administration (large deficits in 2002 and 2003 were helpful in boosting the economy), but they were not hugely out of line. There is certainly no story that can pass the laugh test in which these deficits are responsible for the collapse of the housing bubble and subsequent recession.

There were plenty of grounds to attack President Bush for the economy's performance under his watch. Most importantly, he let an $8 trillion-dollar housing bubble grow unchecked, and giving big tax cuts to the wealthy is not the way to create an educated workforce and a modern infrastructure.

http://www.truthout.org/1123094

Tort Reform Lies...Another Coming Repub Campaign Issue to Understand

Everything, they say, is bigger in the Texas. So it is with the failure of the health care system. Leading the nation with a jaw-dropping 25% of its residents uninsured, Texas ranked 46th in the Commonwealth Fund's 2009 scorecard of state health care performance. All of which makes Friday's op-ed by Newt Gingrich and Governor Rick Perry touting the mess in Texas all the more puzzling.

Just two days after the CBO dismissed a House Republican plan that would barely dent the rolls of the uninsured, Perry and Gingrich blasted Democratic health care reform in a Washington Post screed titled, "Let States Lead the Way." Besides dredging up Newt's worn out 1990's vintage talking points on unfunded mandates, the duo insist it is the Lone Star State which should be at the front of that vanguard:

Texas, for example, has adopted approaches to controlling health-care costs while improving choice, advancing quality of care and expanding coverage. Consider the successful 2003 tort reform. Fewer frivolous lawsuits have attracted record numbers of doctors to the state as medical malpractice insurance premiums dropped by half. Christus Health, a large Catholic nonprofit system with a significant presence in Texas, spent about $100 million on liability defense payments in 2003. Last year, Christus spent $2.3 million on such payments. Much of that savings has gone into expanding health-care services in low-income neighborhoods.

As the Post's Erza Klein asks, "how's that working out?"

The answer, of course, is quite poorly. While from 2007 to 2009 Texas nudged its way from a horrific 48th to a merely miserable 46th in the Commonwealth Fund rankings, the health care system there remains an ongoing calamity for its residents. Among the poster children for the failure of red state health care, Perry's state brought up the rear across the five indicators measured. When it comes to health care access and equity, Texas is dead last. (See table above.)

While it is predictable that Republicans Gingrich and Perry cite Texas' draconian tort reform law as an example for the nation, the data is far from clear as to its benefits in actually reducing malpractice premiums, lowering costs and attracting physicians to the underserved state.

New Poverty Data SHOCKING!!! When is Enough Enoug?

(thanks to Center for American Progress for this data...their solutions at the end are a small start, but much more is needed...and that too is for another post)

A record 49 million Americans had trouble finding enough to eat in 2008. The USDA's annual food security report, released last week, showed that the number of people who "lacked consistent access to adequate food" soared to the highest level since the study began 14 years ago. About a third of these people were forced to "skip meals, cut portions or otherwise forgo food at some point in the year" while the other two-thirds generally had enough to eat, but only by eating "cheaper or less varied foods" or by "relying on government aid." Even more disturbingly, nearly one in four children -- almost 17 million -- lived in households in which food was at times scarce. President Obama called the data "unsettling" and restated his commitment to end child hunger by 2015.

HOLES IN THE SAFETY NET: Food banks across the country, from Long Beach, CA to Tulsa, OK to Atlanta, GA are reporting an increase in demand for their services of 40 to 50 percent. In Fort Worth, TX, Catholic Charities has seen a 104 percent increase in "people calling for help" in the third quarter of 2009. But charities are also reporting a drop in revenue from both donations and investments. The Mississippi Food Network saw a 25 percent drop in corporate donations, while an Atlanta foundation saw a 35 percent decrease in overall giving. The charity running the Houston dinner has had "more than a dozen" corporate sponsors completely pull out while 60 percent of the remaining donors have scaled back their donations.

REPAIRING THE SAFETY NET: Charities alone cannot address the demand, meaning the government must step in to assist. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has already done much to help needy families, keeping six million people out of poverty and helping local food banks with direct contributions. Millions of children and their families are also fed through programs like the Child and Adult Care Food Program and the WIC (Women, Infants and Children) program created by the Child Nutrition Act, but this will need to be reauthorized next year. Vilsack called the reauthorization of the the Child Nutrition Programs "an opportunity to in one stroke confront both the challenges of obesity and hunger -- with the prospect of better health and well-being in the years to come." Obama is urging Congress to increase funding for these programs by $1 billion. But perhaps the best way to fight hunger is to fight poverty by providing greater economic opportunity. As the Center for American Progress Action Fund's Half in Ten project notes, expanding unemployment insurance, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Child Tax Credit, while creating living-wage jobs will both help end hunger and stimulate the economy.

2009-11-20T09:24:00.000-08:00

TODAY'S TOPICS: Chickenhawks, The Constitution, Hunger in America, Health Care, The Fed, Dodd, Sheer, Colbert

To All the Anti-Constitutional Chickenhawk Cowards

Trial by jury is "the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."

-- Thomas Jefferson's warning, in a 1789 letter to Thomas Paine

“An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”

-- Thomas Paine thought about such matters, as expressed in the final paragraph of his 1790 Dissertations on First Principles of Government

Republicans Actually BELIEVE ACORN Stole the 2008 Presidential Election!!!

A recent poll from Public Policy Polling which found that 52% of Republicans think ACORN stole the 2008 Presidential Election for President Obama.

Do I EVER, EVER need to make the case that Republicans are delusional to anyone again? I mean, this all the evidence anyone should ever need in determining that these people are fucking insane. Period. Dot. I am speechless…and that’s hard to do…

Dems Following up On Big Pharma Extortion!

Since I featured this on Wednesday I figured I should follow up with this bit of good news (though I doubt it will go anywhere…which is a sad statement)

Congressional Democrats are calling for two inquiries after the New York Times reported earlier this week that drug companies were jacking up their prices, negating savings they promised for healthcare reform:

Responding to news reports of unusually high wholesale price increases in brand-name prescription drugs, four House leaders and one senator asked for government reviews of the pricing practices. “Recent studies have indicated that the industry may be artificially raising prices for certain pharmaceutical products in expectation of new reforms,” the House Democrats wrote in a letter to the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress. “Any price gouging is unacceptable, but anticipatory price gouging is especially offensive,” the letter added, asking the G.A.O. to conduct an expedited review of the price increases.

Hunger and Poverty in America – My Banana Republic Prediction Coming to Fruition…another thing I wish I was wrong about…

For the first time in humanity, over 1 billion people are chronically hungry, and in the next 60 seconds, 10 children will die of hunger. But it gets worse, because a new study has found that hunger in AMERICA is skyrocketing too…so here’s the new data that should drive home the larger points I’m trying to get across: we don’t live in a democracy and we don’t live in a true capitalist system, but a predatory one that has left large populations of our country to suffer third world like conditions, and that’s the fact Jack:

One in seven American households had a hard time putting enough food on the table last year, that from a new report released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture -- 14.6 percent of U.S. households, nearly 50 million Americans, found themselves in need during 2008, an increase of 13 million people from the year before. The new figure is the highest since data collection began in 1995.

Inside those numbers, a more dire toll: One-third of those in need said they have been forced to skip meals, cut portions significantly, or go without food altogether. Nationwide, the report said, 17 million children did not have enough to eat last year. And the Agriculture Department predicted the numbers for this year are likely to be worse still.

Economist Raj Patel, author of "Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World's Food System: "The reason that we have this huge increase in hunger in the United States, as around the world, isn't because there isn't enough food around. Actually, we produced a pretty reliable solid crop last year...The reason people go hungry is because of poverty."

Worse, a couple handful of mega food corporations control nearly all the worlds sustenance…and that means if you’re poor, you die…because we all know, its more important for a corporation to make billions in profits than for human beings, including children, to be able to eat. I mean, c’mon, you some kind of pansy ass communist or something?

Seriously, that’s how far we’ve detoured from the Golden Rule. Wealth and profit over food and compassion. In fact, I bet me just writing that would produce scoffs in every Republican in this country and quite a few Democrats too.

VIDEO SECTION

Giant corporate interests that use front groups to hide their agenda, thus making it appear as if there's a real "debate". This is becoming - literally - an epidemic in this country. All the battles I fight at CFC and on enviro issues before that, be it against the chemical industry, the banks, big oil, big pharma, and so on, use these fake organizations...so I never actually take on a corporation in name. It is groups like these where so many Borg like Republicans in this country get so much of their information...

Rachel Maddow really breaks a lot of it down and I think it might help clarify a lot. These types of groups also start a lot of those ridiculous forwarding emails that make all kinds of outlandish claims that Americans believe (illegal immigrants are going to get social security benefits!), organize fake protests, and get people afraid, scared, hateful and ignorant. And worse, the media acts as if they're legitimate groups...and this is one way that people become so ignorant and confused:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/rachel-maddow-show-affront-groups

And look at this, watch Robert Sheer - one of my all time MOST POSTED authors on this blog – get interviewed by the great Amy Goodman. Nice to hear him, not just read him. Here he discusses the difficulty of covering Wall Street, even as it records massive profits and bonuses while the economy for most Americans continues to deteriorate.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/robert-sheer-it-more-difficult-cover-wall

Get the details on the intrigue going on in the House yesterday with efforts to finally audit the Federal Reserve and find out where all those trillions of dollars are going…special thanks to Grayson, Kucinich, and Paul. Watch Grayson!

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/alan-grayson-today-was-waterloo-fed-secrecy

Fox has truly become a parody of a Joseph Goerbels like fascist network, all propaganda all the time: Republican propaganda outlet uses Palin footage from 2008 campaign to illustrate 'huge crowds' for 2009 book tour...Just last week Sean Hannity of Fox "News" was forced to offer an apology of sorts for "inadvertently" using falsified footage to make a recent tea bagger protest look larger than it was. And now, Fox "News" has been busted doing a very similar thing in promotion of Sarah Palin's book tour…

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7530

Daily Show on Palin…what more need I say?

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/daily-show-rogue-warrior

Keith talks to Wendell Potter about the health care bill that came out of the Senate and how the insurance and pharmaceutical companies fared. Jon Walker has more over at FDL and expressed some similar concerns to those of Potter's with the bill-- Pretty Bad So Far: Eight Things Wrong With The Senate Health Bill.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/wendell-potter-senate-health-bill-would-be

Countdown's Worst Person's with winner Glenn Beck. Runners up Rupert Murdoch and Rep. Louis Gohmert…you just got to see this…

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/countdowns-worst-person-lonesome-rhodes-be

More brilliance from Naomi Klein on Dylan Ratigan’s show (he’s getting better and better and having more and more progressive guests on too…because he’s realizing who is bullshitting him and who knows what they’re talking about) on why we need to audit the Federal Reserve…she flips a new phrase which I especially like, not “zombie” banks, but vampire banks (because they say if we shine the light on them they will die…nice):

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/we-used-call-them-zombie-banks-theyre

PBS reports on the heart wrenching new data on poverty and hunger in America:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/pbs-newshour-hunger-america

Ed Schultz interviews another great progressive - Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) – who says Obama is not being served well by his economic advisers (AMEN!!!!) and that there is a growing consensus from the Congressional Progressive Caucus that the president needs to dump Tim Geithner and Larry Summers. DeFazio added that "We may have to sacrifice just two more jobs to get millions back for Americans." Classic!!!

I hope everyone remembers my laments and sorrow (and everyone kept telling me “you’re overreacting, he’s not even President yet, he’ll make the decisions and they will follow…blah, blah, blah…) when Obama chose those rancid corporatists to fill his cabinet just after being elected. I knew from the moment he started picking his Administration this is what we’d get…and boy did we…

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/pete-defazio-we-need-new-economic-team-car

Colbert report reviews intellectually challenged sociopath Sarah Palin’s new book “Going Rogue”: “It’s a steaming pile of shit’:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/colbert-going-rogue-steaming-pile-sht

Senate Republicans blocked Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodds (D-CT) attempt to pass legislation to stop credit card interest rate hikes…the mind reels at how low these scum bags will stoop. How on earth can you defend what the credit card industry is doing?

We just BAILED THEM OUT…and in response they jack up our interest rates and refuse to loosen up lending…all the while using the money we gave them to lobby against attempts to protect us against them!!! God I just want to go a few rounds in the Octagon with each and every Republican man in Congress…but that would be wrong, I know…

For all those that saw Michael Moore’s latest film you may be going “wait, isn’t Dodd the one Moore targets for the sums of money he gets from the financial services industry and didn’t he allegedly get a sweetheart deal on a home?” Well, yes. But that’s not the whole story. The other part of the story is that Dodd has also done a lot of good stuff on these issues, including supporting the cramdown legislation, which would have saved millions of homes. Also, and no one can be sure of this, but Dodd has gotten even stronger SINCE the film…and perhaps that is not by accident. Regardless, this, and other bills he’s pushing, is well worth supporting, and that he deserves serious credit for proposing them.

Watch him go off on the Senate floor…as yet ANOTHER attempt to take on the banks is stymied by Republicans and a handful of Dems…sickening…Republicans are actually blocking freezes on credit card rate hikes as the holidays approach us…how Christ like…

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/republicans-block-dodd%E2%80%99s-effort-immediatel

Rep. Marcy Kaptur continues to shine…watch her on the House Floor…talk Iraq invasion and the recent revelations about…wait for it…US oil companies taking over the fields there…gee…what a shock. But, have you heard a peep about this in the media? Of course not, that would only prove what a pathetic job they did covering the build up to the invasion and the occupation since:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/civilized-people-should-demand-more-fi

Senator Al Franken: The US Has 5% Of The World's Population And 25% Of The World's Prisoners!

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/us-has-5-worlds-population-and-25-worl

ARTICLE SECTION

Who Are You and What Have You Done With the Community Organizer We Elected President?, Robert Scheer

A few clips:

What's up with Barack Obama? The candidate for change once promised to take on the powerful banking interests but is now doing their bidding. Finally, a leading Democrat, in this case Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, has a good idea for monitoring the Wall Street fat cats who all but destroyed the American economy, and the Obama administration condemns it. Dodd wants to take supervisory power from the Federal Reserve, which is controlled by the banks it pretends to monitor, and put it in the hands of a new independent agency.

That makes sense given the Fed's abject failure to properly monitor the financial sector over the past decade as that industry got drunk on greed. As Dodd's spokeswoman Kirstin Brost put it: "The Federal Reserve flat out failed at supervising the largest, most complex firms." But White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee frets that taking power from the Fed would cause financial industry "nervousness." Isn't that the whole point of government regulation-to make the bandits look over their shoulders before they launch their next destructive scam?

SNIP

Wolin, Geithner and Summers were all protégés of Robert Rubin, who, as Clinton's treasury secretary, was the grand author of the strategy of freeing Wall Street firms from their Depression-era constraints. It was Wolin who, at Rubin's behest, became a key force in drafting the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which ended the barrier between investment and commercial banks and insurance companies, thus permitting the new financial behemoths to become too big to fail. Two stunning examples of such giants that had to be rescued with public funds are Citigroup bank, where Rubin went to "earn" $120 million after leaving the Clinton White House, and the Hartford Insurance Co., where Wolin landed after he left Treasury.

Both Citigroup and Hartford would not have gotten into trouble were it not for the enabling legislation that the three Clinton officials pushed through while they were in power. But even with that law, had Geithner been on the case protecting the public interest while head of the New York Fed much of the damage could have been avoided.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/18-2

The Weekly Standard's ACLU Smear Indicts Only Itself, Glenn Greenwald

A few clips…a MUST READ…best expose of right wing chickenhawk hypocrisy that you’ll read anywhere:

Joscelyn (of the Weekly Standard) insists that -- even though they've never been charged with, let alone convicted of, anything -- these men are guilty, evil Terrorists. To make his case against them, he relies on Bush-era documents containing unproven, untested, and uncharged allegations. But what he dishonestly -- though understandably -- fails to note is that each of these individuals are available to appear in the ACLU video because they were released from Guantanamo by the Bush administration [Moazzam Begg (released 2005); Omar Deghayes (released 2007); Bisher al-Rawi (released 2007); Ruhal Ahmed (released 2004); Shafiq Rasul (released 2004)].

If, as Joscelyn claims, the ACLU are Al Qaeda's "useful idiots" for producing a video containing interviews with these individuals, what are Bush officials who released them onto the streets? He also fails to note that time and again, government allegations against Guantanamo detainees -- the source on which he principally relies -- have failed to withstand even the most minimal judicial scrutiny to which the 2008 Supreme Court ruled detainees are constitutionally entitled. The Government has now lost roughly 28 out of 33 habeas corpus hearings brought by detainees since the Supreme Court's ruling, often before some of the most right-wing, executive-branch-deferring judges in the country, who have found there is no credible evidence to support the government's accusations.

SNIP

The ACLU (with which I consult) not only defends the most elemental American liberties (e.g., the State cannot imprison people without charging and convicting them of a crime), but also renders Al Qaeda's demonization-dependent recruitment efforts against the West far less effective. By stark contast, the Constitution-hating, warmongering and tyrannical template embraced by The Weekly Standard is precisely what Al Qaeda needs -- and desires -- in order to thrive. The more the U.S. is represented by the warmongering and anti-due process face of Bill Kristol, the better it is for Al Qaeda; the more it adheres to the liberties and rights guaranteed by the Constitution and defended by the ACLU, the weaker Al Qaeda becomes. Kristolian neocons want and need a strong Al Qaeda in order to justify the array of wars and civil liberties erosions they crave, and everything they advocate is designed to achieve that goal -- or, at the very least, guarantees that outcome.

The greatest irony of the last decade is that the very people who most despise core American principles and do more than anyone to fuel Islamic extremism have anointed themselves the arbiters of American patriotism and protectors of American security. The reality is that it is this very movement which simultaneously advances definitively un-American political values and strengthens anti-American Islamic radicals -- both by design and by effect. The Weekly Standard's due-process-hating manifesto this morning is a vivid exhibit for how that has worked.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/18-12

2009-11-18T10:44:00.000-08:00

TODAY'S TOPICS: Big Pharma, Red State Reality, The Afghanistan Decision, Job Creation Ideas, Stewart v. Giuliani, Colbert, Maddow

Big Pharma Stabs us in the Back (and Obama)

I hate to say I told you so, but there's a reason I went so ballistic on the deal cut by Obama and the biggest drug syndicate in the world, the Pharmaceutical industry. I sit back sometimes in awe at their cunning, power and outright criminal nature.

It was only weeks ago that President Obama was hailing a White House deal with drugmakers to "save" the nation $8 billion a year in prescription drug costs. Of course, in return he promised we wouldn't allow the government to negotiate drug prices as in every other nation in the world, we wouldn't import cheaper drugs from Canada...and in return Big Pharma wouldn't spend money attacking his health care proposal. This is also known as extortion in the mafia world...but in politics its known as "centrism".

Now it turns out that Big Pharma has been quietly hiking wholesale prices of prescription drugs: Industry analysts say that the 9 percent increase this year will increase taxpayers' prescription drug bill by $10 billion.

No wonder the pharmaceutical industry has offered to launch a $150 million ad campaign for health care reform. It'll still come out way ahead.

Red State Reality: Unhealthiest Residents, Worst Health Care, Least Educated, Most Dependent and Biggest User of Government Services, AND Most Opposed to Others Receiving Them…wow…

FROM C&L: Throughout their all-out campaign to stop health care reform, Republican leaders have relied on questionable forecasts from the Lewin Group, a subsidiary of insurer UnitedHealth Group. Now, another study funded by UnitedHealth has some unwelcome news for the GOP braintrust: the red states they represent are the unhealthiest in the nation. Following on the heels of the Commonwealth Fund's 2009 Scorecard of state health care system performance, the United Health Foundation's report is just the latest confirmation that health care is worst where Republicans poll best.

As Forbes noted:

The annual ranking looks at 22 indicators of health, including everything from how many children receive recommended vaccinations, to obesity and smoking rates, to cancer deaths.

The diagnosis isn't pretty for Republicans committed to denying the health care their constituents need most of all. The 2009 rankings (above) reveal that nine of the top 10 healthiest states voted for Barack Obama in 2008. Conversely, 9 of the 10 cellar dwellers backed John McCain in 2008; four years earlier, the 15 unhealthiest states voted for George W. Bush for President.

So let’s review the current reality (versus the Matrix they claim to be true) of today’s right wing: States that vote Republican are OVERWHELMINGLY more unhealthy, receive far MORE SERVICES for the dollars they contribute in taxes than do blue states (talk about welfare “queens”), have far worse health care systems (yet oppose health care reform) than do blue, Democratic states, are far less educated (consider that in the past two Presidential elections, both Kerry and Obama won EVERY SINGLE BIG CITY in the country…regardless of the state it was in…because that’s where the educated people and university’s are found), yet, and this is where the mind starts to melt, they are the MOST OPPOSED to funding the very services that they both depend on, and that are falling apart at the hinges in their communities!!

Orwell could not dream of a more intellectually controlled, and mind numbingly ignorant population than those that vote for Republicans. What a tragedy for them…and sadly, for us all.

VIDEO SECTION

Too good! Jon Stewart found footage of Rudy going on TV in 2006 praising the concept of trials for terrorist suspects to all the cable networks. Then he sliced in Giuliani's many Sunday show spots attacking Obama for the NY trials now.

http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/jon-stewart-busts-rudy-giulianis-flip-f

Colbert on the latest GOP abomination: Rhode Island Governor Carcieri vetoes a piece of legislation that would have allowed for funeral arrangements among same-sex couples…sickening bigotry:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/colbert-rakes-rhode-islands-govenor-over-co

One of my new favorite lawmakers – Rep. Anthony Weiner – tells one of the most vile, hypocrites in the House (Rep. Shadegg) to apologize and shut up. I know what you’re thinking, “But that’s not very nice”…yeah, but have you seen what these scum bags have been saying about the trials in New York!!!???

I’ve never heard such ludicrous and inane fearmongering in my life…and the media reports it as if it’s actually a debate, and what they’re saying are actually valid concerns. At some point the media must come to realize that the news universe can’t be held hostage by the right wing echo chamber…its distorting reality to such a degree it’s turning our country into a bunch of intellectually challenged cowards. Watch:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/congressman-weiner-demands-congressman

I know its like shooting fish in a barrel, but watch Olbermann fact check the latest claims made by intellectually challenged, former half term Alaskan Governor, and sociopath, Sarah Palin:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/countdown-palinocchio

How awesome is this!? Rachel Maddow on the residents of the C Street Christian fellowship house no longer benefiting from a loophole that had allowed the house's owners to avoid paying property taxes. This is that Christian cult largely made up of high level Republican politicians (and a few Dems) that's connected to all kinds of sick and twisted things...more revelations sure to come too:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/rachel-maddow-show-c-street-loses-its-tax

Ed Schultz interviews Byron Dorgan ten years after the repeal of The Glass-Steagall Act and the need to bring it back. Dorgan talked about splitting up these big investment banks and said too big to fail is too big to exist…and Dorgan was one of only 7 Senators at the time that voted AGAINST its repeal, and in fact warned about what exactly happened: a Wall Street meltdown:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/byron-dorgan-lets-revisit-glass-steagall

Rich Stockwell, senior producer at MSNBC's "Countdown", writes about his experiences at the free clinic funded by viewer contributions…and Olbermann reads it on air…great stuff:

It happened as I watched a 50-something woman walk out, after spending several hours being attended to by volunteer doctors. "She's decided against treatment. A reasonable decision under the circumstances," the doctor tells us as she heads for the next patient. The president of the board of the National Association of Free Health Clinics tells me why: "It's stage four breast cancer, her body is filled with tumors." I don't know when that woman last saw a doctor. But I do know that if she had health insurance, the odds she would have seen a doctor long ago are much higher, and her chances for an earlier diagnosis and treatment would have been far greater.

After watching for hours as the patients moved through the clinic, it was hard to believe that I was in America. Eighty-three percent of the patients they see are employed, they are not accepting other government help on a large scale, not "welfare queens" as some would like to have us believe. They are tax-paying, good, upstanding citizens who are trying to make it and give their kids a better life just like you and me.

It's about fairness and justice in a system that knows none. I'd defy even the most hardened capitalist-loving-conservative to do what I did on Saturday and continue to pretend that the system in place right now is working.

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/countdown-goes-free-clinic-held-new-o

Rep. Lynn Woolsey - co-chair of the progressive caucus - on the Afghanistan war and the need to get out…

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/anybody-accuses-capt-hoh-being-long-ha

Countdown's Worst Persons segment for Nov. 16, 2009 with winner Bill Kristol, for arguing that we should just skip Nidal Hasan's trial and just go right to the execution. Runners-up Steve Doocy and Glenn Beck.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/countdowns-worst-person-bloody-bill-kristo

Sixteen workers are killed a day in the United States because of reckless negligence on the part of their employers…watch the video:

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/144003

Rachel reports on the latest round of attacks coming from the religious right against President Obama, this time with the use of Psalm 109:8 as reported by the Christian Science Monitor, and then talks with Frank Schaeffer, who once was a leader in the religious nut job, hate mongering movement. Yes, we are at war, but it is with the right wing movement from within:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/frank-schaeffer-warns-against-latest-threa

ARTICLE SECTION

Pitt on the biggest decision of Obama’s presidency to date…let’s hope he’s listening to the base (like the California Democratic Party now!), to his heart, to his common sense and keen mind, and to all those experts and the history that backs them up who say “we need to get out of Afghanistan!”

A few clips:

The decision looming largest over president Obama at present does not concern health care reform or the economy. He has a call to make soon regarding our present and future role in Afghanistan. What to do about an eight-year war that has accomplished little? This is the largest, and worst, Hobson's Choice Obama has faced, for there are no bloodless and peril-free decisions in this one, no matter how many generals and advisers and pundits pitch in with their opinions. It is going to be an anguished, agonizing and costly choice no matter what he decides. A family in Massachusetts mourning their son, who died in Afghanistan trying to save another soldier is the distilled essence of this truth.

SNIP

The decision to stay and try to fight the war to some reasonable or meaningful conclusion is, however, fraught with peril. The region is already exploding with violence, which has been bleeding across the border into an unstable, nuclear-armed Pakistan for some time. The Taliban has been making strong inroads in both countries, winning over large swaths of the populace, who have grown weary and furious with the occupying NATO/US forces that have been there for most of a decade now. This has been the bloodiest year for coalition troops in Afghanistan - 288 American soldiers killed out of 468 NATO soldiers killed, with more than 1,800 Americans wounded - a trend that will only continue and increase with the introduction of thousands of more troops.

Finally, there is little actual evidence to suggest an increase in troop presence will make any appreciable difference. We have been there for eight years, and matters have remained the same only in the areas where they have not gotten appreciably worse. Afghanistan is, and has always been, the eater of armies. No amount of technology or troop superiority can overcome the natural advantages held by those who know the ground, and who already know how to defeat a superpower, something many of those fighting us there have already done in their lifetime. We could stay there for another eight years and find ourselves in exactly the same position, or even worse off than before.

http://www.truthout.org/1116094

A Wake Up Call on Jobs, by Robert Kuttner

Now to my section on jobs…and what kinds of smart, progressive policies would actually…wait for it…CREATE THEM!!

A few clips from the great economist Bob Kuttner:

We need larger deficits now, in order to get a real recovery going, so that a healthy economy will allow us to pay down public debt later. Specifically, we need to focus on three big things:

State and Local Fiscal Relief. You often hear that outlays on public infrastructure are not a good source of stimulus because they take too long to plan. But emergency revenue sharing to states and localities takes effect almost instantly because it prevents cuts in existing programs and layoffs of existing workers. Today, states and localities are not only cutting back outlays because their constitutions require balanced budgets; they are raising taxes, usually regressive taxes. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the three year state fiscal gap 2010-2012, will be at least $470 billion. So more than half of the federal stimulus is undermined by state and local belt tightening.

SNIP

Wage Subsidies. It is fashionable among American conservatives to make fun of the "rigidity" of European labor markets. But Germany today has a flexible and creative program of wage subsidies. The result is that the German unemployment rate has pealed at around 8 percent while ours has crashed through 10 percent. German companies suffering a downturn because of recession can get wage subsidies for their workers. Workers can also be put on reduced working time (kurzarbeit) and the German unemployment office will make up most of the loss in their take-home pay. According to the German government, a worker cut to 40 percent of his or her normal hours will end up with about 85 percent of usual take-home pay. Today, some 1.4 million German workers have been able to keep their jobs and most of their earnings thanks to the kurzarbeit plan. German firms keep their workers connected to the company, workers hold on to their jobs, and there are also incentives for workers on reduced time to use their spare hours to get additional training.

All told, we need additional federal spending in the range of at least $500 billion. But won't this increase the deficit? Yes it will, and that is the whole point. We are in a classic downward spiral of reduced household income and wealth, and a weakened financial sector. Many businesses face reduced consumer demand, compounded by a reluctance of banks to advance to any but the most blue chip borrowers. In this climate, GDP growth can turn positive but companies are reluctant to hire. Full recovery will not resume spontaneously based on household or business demand, and the only source of increased demand to break the cycle is the government.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/16-7

Why Won't Obama Give You a Job? By Joshua Holland, AlterNet

A whole bunch more on our job crisis…and REAL solutions to it…but will the Democratic Congress and President do anything remotely like the New Deal in creating them? Sadly, I’m bracing for deep disappointment, as I have been on every single other issue.

A few clips:

With an ever-expanding workforce, the economy needs to generate new jobs. The employment report last week revealed a noteworthy pattern: the number of workers being cut by employers has dropped dramatically since the worst of the crisis, but almost no new jobs are being added to the labor market. A variety of unprecedented interventions may have stopped firms from shedding jobs left and right as they were a few months ago, but with growth in the near future looking tepid at best, employers aren’t expanding and new positions aren’t being created.

So most people who have gigs are keeping them right now -- and real wages have even started to inch up again -- but those without work face daunting job prospects. And more than one in six Americans in the workforce -- a stunning 17 percent -- are now out of work or under-employed (forced to work part-time or in temporary positions because they can’t find a steady job). It’s not just that those people are screwed, even though that’s enough to justify some action on the issue.

While employment is often called a “lagging indicator” of recovery, it’s important to understand that the economic crisis in which we find ourselves is not just a function of a shaky financial system but of a crash in consumption that’s come along with the evaporation of $14 trillion worth of the wealth of American families -- wealth, and spending power, that vanished as home prices crashed and 401(K) balances were devastated. Until recently, the number one cause of home foreclosures was low-introductory-rate mortgages resetting to higher payments; in recent months that’s changed, and now unemployment has surged to the top of the list of reasons people can’t make their payments.

SNIP

Experts at the Economic Policy Institute proposed just such a program as part of a “five step plan to end the jobs crisis,” calling for $40 billion -- about the price of four months of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan -- in the first year to pay people to spruce up their communities:

The kind of work that can be done is as varied as the nation’s hundreds of thousands of communities and their needs. Environmental clean-up, stream restoration, community policing, before- and after-school care of children, demolition or boarding up of abandoned houses and buildings, parks improvements, home health care, and preservation of historic buildings are just a few examples.

SNIP

Pay people lower-than-market wages, maybe $8 an hour, and reserve the jobs for those who really can't find better work. Instead of extending unemployment benefits over and over, the government would help people develop job skills and would get something in return. He estimates the cost of 1 million jobs (including supervisors) at $30 million, or about $30,000 for each job created, compared with the $92,000 per job that the White House estimates its approach is costing.

http://www.alternet.org/politics/143952/why_won%27t_obama_give_you_a_job

2009-11-16T15:11:00.001-08:00

TODAY'S TOPICS: NY Trials, Justice Hypocrisy, Health Care, Out of Afghanistan, CA Budget Crisis, Colbert/Dobbs

"The only way Republicans will read the Health Care Bill is to rest it on the back of the hooker they're banging down at C Street House!"

-- Wanda Sykes

Putting ALLEGED “Terrorists” on Trial is Right Decision (But why only some?)

It seems reasonable enough, if somebody murders Americans in America they should be prosecuted here…god knows we're in trouble if we aren't even capable of prosecuting terrorism cases in the city they occurred!

I think what’s especially sad here however, is that, as constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley notes, the Obama Administration’s arbitrary uses of trials for some (the ones they know they can convict), military tribunals for others (ones they’re not as sure of), and indefinite detention without trial for others (those they apparently fear they can’t convict even in a phony military tribunal), in a sense is like "snatching hypocrisy out of the jaws of victory" (victory being the correct decision to hold the NY trial).

Yes, its fantastic Obama has chosen to hold the trial of the 9/11 suspects in New York and in front of an honest to goodness jury, but its abhorrent to set up a rigged justice system for prisoners at Guantanamo that we have been holding for years – torturing too – without access to a trial or a defense.

As for those right wingers that are so afraid to even have a trial in America for suspected terrorists, such arguments and paranoia amount to nothing less than "Constitutional Defamation" (also a phrase coined by Turley).

I mean seriously, are we such a pathetic fraud of a democracy now that we can’t even hold trials? Shouldn't we have the courage to match our laws and values against terrorists? Are we so afraid, so cowardly, that we fear an open discussion of such topics, or that our prisons and courts can't "handle these guys"? Upholding the rule of law is precisely the way we WILL WIN any battle against extremism, not lose it.

As noted by Glenn Greenwald:

This is literally true: the Right's reaction to yesterday's announcement -- we're too afraid to allow trials and due process in our country -- is the textbook definition of "surrendering to terrorists." It's the same fear [5] they've been spewing for years. As always, the Right's tough-guy leaders wallow in a combination of pitiful fear and cynical manipulation of the fear of their followers. Indeed, it's hard to find any group of people on the globe who exude this sort of weakness and fear more than the American Right.

People in capitals all over the world have hosted trials of high-level terrorist suspects using their normal justice system. They didn't allow fear to drive them to build island-prisons or create special commissions to depart from their rules of justice. Spain held an open trial in Madrid [6] for the individuals accused of that country's 2004 train bombings. The British put those accused of perpetrating the London subway bombings [7] on trial right in their normal courthouse in London. Indonesia gave public trials [8] using standard court procedures to the individuals who bombed a nightclub in Bali. India used a Mumbai courtroom [9] to try the sole surviving terrorist who participated in the 2008 massacre of hundreds of residents. In Argentina, the Israelis captured Adolf Eichmann, one of the most notorious Nazi war criminals, and brought him to Jerusalem [10] to stand trial for his crimes.

It's only America's Right that is too scared of the Terrorists -- or which exploits the fears of their followers -- to insist that no regular trials can be held and that "the safety and security of the American people" mean that we cannot even have them in our country to give them trials. As usual, it's the weakest and most frightened among us who rely on the most flamboyant [11], theatrical [12] displays of "strength" and "courage" to hide what they really are. Then again, this is the same political movement whose "leaders" -- people like John Cornyn [13] and Pat Roberts [14] -- cowardly insisted that we must ignore the Constitution in order to stay alive: the exact antithesis of the core value on which the nation was founded.

Given that, it's hardly surprising that they exude a level of fear of Terrorists that is unmatched virtually anywhere in the world. It is, however, noteworthy that the position they advocate -- it's too scary to have normal trials in our country of Terrorists -- is as pure a surrender to the Terrorists as it gets.

California’s (and other States) Ongoing Budget Crises…and the 2/3’s Budget Rule (take a guess whether there’s a connection)

The Pew Center on the States released a study this week, concluding that ten states – Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin – will face near-term budget crises, necessitating either major spending cuts or tax hikes. Iris Lav, a fiscal policy expert at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, warned that state budget cuts could cost the economy 900,000 jobs in 2010.

“The problem is coming to a head now,” Ms. Lav said. “State tax receipts are plummeting.” In her view, another round of federal aid to states is needed to fill a portion of their ongoing budget hole. States were major aid recipients under President Obama’s stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. That money will essentially run out at the end of next year, and states are already grappling with how to balance their budgets for the 2011 fiscal year, which covers the 12 months starting July 2010.

Notably, in five of the ten states – Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada and Oregon – constitutional statutes or state ballot measures have limited the ability of legislatures to raise taxes or cut certain types of spending. That fiscal straitjacket makes finding solutions in the absence of federal aid almost impossible.

VIDEO SECTION

Bernie Sanders on a Medicare for All system - the only true way to truly solve our health care crisis…it's so obvious...and proven:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adoS6ebsBiM

Listen to Turley break down the mind numbing and inane “debate” as to whether we should continue to follow the rule of law in or whether we should embrace some kind of warped gulag system of justice:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/countdown-terror-trials

A 9/11 widow also advocates for actual trials, as we will have, hits the nail on the head…

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/911-widow-kristen-breitweiser-911-terr

More great stuff from investigative journalist extraordinaire, Seymor Hersh while addressing the International Center For Journalist 25TH Anniversary Dinner…saying, “we all just fell in line after 9./11”:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/seymour-hersh-after-september-11th-we

Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong discuss the American Medical Association's reversal on Medical Marijuana on Fox News.

For those that don't know, the American Medical Assn. has urged the federal government (FANTASTIC NEWS!!) to reconsider its classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use, a significant shift that puts the prestigious group behind calls for more research.

The nation's largest physicians organization, with about 250,000 member doctors, the AMA has maintained since 1997 that marijuana should remain a Schedule I controlled substance, the most restrictive category, which also includes heroin and LSD. In changing its policy, the group said its goal was to clear the way to conduct clinical research, develop cannabis-based medicines and devise alternative ways to deliver the drug.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/cheech-chong-vs-ann-coulter

Morbidly obese coward, drug addict, bigot, and liar, Rush Limbaugh, actually had the gall to attack admiral and counter-terrorism specialist, Rep. Joe Sestak as a "dangerous left wing radical ideologue" (Sestak is the guy we want to defeat “Democrat” Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania Senate primaries ). The good news is that Sestak struck back…watch here:

http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/joe-sestak-responds-rush-limbaughs-at

From The Colbert Report: In punditry, like in "Highlander," there can be only one Lou Dobbs, so Stephen claims his audience after he quits CNN.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/stephen-claims-lou-dobbs-audience

Dylan Ratigan pushes his "Space Agenda"…funny, because finding water on the moon has literally been the best news I’ve heard in a long, long time. How sad is that?

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/lets-go-space-itll-be-more-fun-idiotic

ARTICLE SECTION

Biggest State Party to Obama: Get Out of Afghanistan, by Norman Solomon

Great news here…the California Democratic Party voted in support of a resolution urging the President to get out of Afghanistan…among other important requests. Look, we know there are fewer than 100 Qaeda operatives can still be found in Afghanistan. We also know that the Taliban, which are currently estimated to number in the tens of thousands, can't be eliminated.

As Frank Rich notes, In a week of horrific news, it was good to hear at the end of it that Obama is dissatisfied with the four Afghanistan options he has been weighing so far. The more time he deliberates, the more he is learning that he's on a fool's errand with no exit. After Karzai was spared a runoff last month and declared the winner of the fraud-infested August "election," Obama demanded that he address his government's corruption as a price for American support. Only days later the Afghan president mocked the American president by parading his most tainted cronies on camera and granting an interview to PBS's "NewsHour" devoted to spewing his contempt for his American benefactors.

A few clips from Solomon:

The resolution supports "a timetable for withdrawal of our military personnel" and calls for "an end to the use of mercenary contractors as well as an end to air strikes that cause heavy civilian casualties." Advocating multiparty talks inside Afghanistan, the resolution also urges Obama "to oversee a redirection of our funding and resources to include an increase in humanitarian and developmental aid."

While Obama weighs Afghanistan policy options, the California Democratic Party's adoption of the resolution is the most tangible indicator yet that escalation of the U.S. war effort can only fuel opposition within the president's own party -- opposition that has already begun to erode his political base.

SNIP

From their own vantage points, many of the California Democratic Party leaders who voted to approve the out-of-Afghanistan resolution on Nov. 15 have gone through a similar process. They've come to see the touted reasons for the U.S. war effort as specious, the mission as Sisyphean and the consequences as profoundly unacceptable. Sometime in the next few days, President Obama is likely to learn that the California Democratic Party has approved an official resolution titled "End the U.S. Occupation and Air War in Afghanistan." But will he really get the message?

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/16-1

Where Are the Real Deficit Hawks?, David Sirota

Some great stuff from Sirota on an issue I harp on all the time: the rank hypocrisy of pro war, pro tax cuts for millionaire “Deficit Hawks” (as if there can even be such people) that oppose health reform and other programs that actually HELP PEOPLE because...wait for it...it WILL INCREASE THE DEFICIT!

A few clips:

When the House considered a health care expansion proposal that the CBO says will reduce the deficit by $11 billion a year, tea party protestors and Congress' self-described "fiscal conservatives" opposed it on cost grounds. At the same time, almost none of them objected when Congress passed a White House-backed bill to spend $636 billion on defense in 2010. The hypocrisy is stunning -- lots of "budget hawk" complaints about health legislation reducing the deficit and few îbudget hawkî complaints about defense initiatives

SNIP

In our militaristic culture, we are taught to prioritize Pentagon spending over everything else. Another less obvious answer is ignorance sown by skewed reporting. The health bill's expenditures are typically described by reporters in 10-year, $1 trillion terms while defense spending is described -- if at all -- as a one-year, $636 billion outlay. That can lead citizens to think the health care bill will cost more than defense -- when, in fact, the 10-year comparison pits a $1 trillion health care bill against $6.3 trillion in projected defense spending.

But even that's not apples to apples. Political headlines of late have all been some version of Dow Jones newswire's recent screamer: "CBO Puts Health Bill Cost At $1 Trillion." That's as true as an Enron press release touting only one side of the company's ledger. Though the bill's expenditures do total $1 trillion, the CBO confirms its other provisions recover more than that, meaning headlines should read "CBO Says Health Bill Saves $110 Billion."

http://www.truthout.org/topstories/111409vh04

An Open Letter to Harry Reid on Controlling Health Care Costs, By Robert Reich

Nice to see Robert Reich make the same points to Harry Reid as I’ve been making ad infinitum on this blog. Basically, this is what its come down to, including what’s still needed to salvage this bill and how it can be achieved (some new info from Reich on the “how to get the votes” strategy that I have not yet discussed as much …).

A few clips:

…you really need to take on future health-care costs. The House bill fails to do this. The public option in the House bill is open only to people without employer-provided health insurance. That will be too small a number to have bargaining clout to get good deals from drug companies and medical providers. And it will mainly attract people who have more expensive medical needs, which is why the Congressional Budget Office decided it would cost more than it would save.

You also know a public insurance option that's open to everyone would cut future health costs dramatically by imposing real competition on private for-profit insurance plans. That's why the private insurers hate the idea. Even if states were allowed to opt out of this robust public option, the big states would almost certainly opt in, giving it the scale needed to negotiate great deals from drug companies and medical providers. This would put pressure on any state that opted out because their citizens would soon discover they're paying far more.

SNIP

So what do you do? First, try for the "reconciliation" process, which requires only 51 votes. Every one of the reforms I mention above would fit under the Byrd rule.

If that doesn't work, wrap these reforms together -- a public option open to everyone (allow states to opt out of this if they dare), Medicare-negotiated drug benefits, no 12-year monopoly for new drugs, and a major squeeze on Medicare reimbursements for doctors -- and have CBO score the savings. I guarantee you, the number will be large. Then you should dare anyone, Democrat or Republican, to vote against saving Americans so much money in years ahead. How is Ben Nelson going to face voters in Nebraska who would have to pay, say, 20 percent more for health care in the future if Nelson refuses to go along?

If neither of these tactics work, then take whatever bill you must to the Senate floor. But then introduce this reform package as the very first amendment to the bill. Call it the "Ted Kennedy Amendment for Helping Middle Class Families Afford Health Care," and whip the hell out of the Democrats. Get the President to help you. Surely Joe Biden will. If you can't get 51 votes out of Dems for this, publish the list of Dems who vote against it, strip them of their committee chairs or sub-chairs, and make sure the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee gives them zilch when they're up for re-election.

http://www.truthout.org/1114094

2009-11-13T10:14:00.000-08:00

Today's Topics: My Dread and Disappearance, Stupak Amendment, Kucinich, Sanders, Daily Show, Colber, Dobbs Gone, CA Idiots

After watching the past couple of weeks unfold all I can think of is that line “The Matrix has us”:

We’ve got a Republican Party that has completely purged itself of anyone (and all human decency) that isn't a mouthpiece for the corporate elite and southern, racist, Christian fundamentalist lunatics (and will filibuster even the most basic of efforts to help people), a Democratic Party that has been infiltrated by corporate whores and cowards (probably about a 1/4 of party still relatively progressive, a half corporatist centrists and easily intimidated, and a 1/4 blue dog excrement), a media that serves to perpetuate war, stupidity, and the corporate agenda, a right wing echo chamber that has become all pervasive and deeply damaging to our nation's intellectual integrity, a public that is so outrageously ignorant that I have begun to feel not only will we not survive as a nation, but we may not deserve to, a degenerating and disintegrating "culture" more interested in Jon and Kate than the rampant poverty, educational decay, and Wall Street theft (among others) that surrounds us, and a military industrial complex that sucks the life out of our economy and quality of life while polluting and destroying our souls and our planet.

I could go on of course, but I'm still left with the question: So this is it? This is what we can accomplish with Democrats in control and all the evidence in the world as to what needs to be done? Granted, God forbid if the Republicans were in control right now…I’d be on the first plane ride out of here.

But the larger issue is this: based on the depth and severity of the crises we face (i.e. health care, climate change, income disparity, poverty, education, and on and on), combined with our now obvious lack of capacity to take on the corporate status quo in even the most rudimentary of ways (no real public option, no real wall street regulation...instead a $17 trillion bailout, no real jobs program, more troops sent to war, no negotiating with Big Pharma, etc.), I am finding it more and more difficult to come up with a scenario in which we turn this sinking ship around…and how I can make any difference or contribute in any way to doing so...

Anyway, that's just a taste of the dread I am currently experiencing. 30 Rock is funny though :)

And with all that, my job has suddenly gone from something I enjoyed to something I don't. Since I’m behind an entire 8 days now (an all time record for not posting) on this blog, and I still don’t have the energy or hope to write much, I’m going to at least put up some of what others have written, and a lot of videos...because there is a lot going on.

Oh, one bright spot: Lou Dobbs has been fired by CNN!

And, just so you know I'm going to be okay and can still laugh...watch this Colbert clip on the dangerous socialist threat that is Sesame Street!

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/colbert-report-grover-hill

And watch these Daily Show segments, one on its busting of Fox's Hannity's attempt to inflate the apparent attendance for a recent D.C. Tea Bagger rally by using old footage from two months ago (forcing him to offer an "apology" of sorts on his show) and the other a farewell to racist, xenophobe Lou Dobbs:

http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/jon-stewart-explores-true-costs-havi

Californians Remain Idiotic

It's astounding to me, that California voters still remain so uninformed (or indifferent) about the root causes of the state's yearly fiscal crisis. I just don't get it. A Blue State that SUPPORTS the ability of a teabagger minority to hijack the budget EVERY SINGLE YEAR (2/3's budget rule...one of only 3 states with such a rule), and a teabagger tax policy (Prop 13) that ENSURES we are insolvent EVERY SINGLE YEAR. Worse, these laws are still supported by California voters after everything that has transpired!! Of all the depressing shit I've come across in the past few dismal, soul stomping weeks, this might be the worst news of all.

Here's the Poll: Voters skeptical of state reform proposals -- Of those surveyed, 54% want to keep the two-thirds majority required to pass a budget and 62% oppose changing Prop. 13's property-tax restrictions.

Major segments of the electorate see the state's problems as the product of unrestrained lawmakers driven by special interests to waste taxpayer money, and reject arguments that structural issues with the state's Constitution and government institutions are to blame. My head reels...

They don't want the Constitution changed to allow a simple majority of lawmakers to push a budget onto the governor's desk, as nearly all other states allow. And they don't want the state to touch Proposition 13 property tax restrictions, even if residential property taxes would remain strictly limited.

I really thought that after all that has happened in California this past year that more people would get it. In fact, there are ballot measures circulating to take these two issues on that I was going to be involved in, but these numbers are incredibly discouraging. I'm left to wonder what it will take for people to even grasp the most basic of public policy principles.

A Weak Health Care Bill Gets Weaker: Unprecedented Assault on Women's Rights

64 Democrats decided to sell out women's health with this horrid vote. Final vote tally 240-194. Stupak argued that the amendment would garner more support from conservative Democrats for the overall bill. But of the 64 that voted for his measure, just over 20 ended up voting for bill. Despite Stupak's amendment, the bill contains added benefits for women such as ending discriminatory pre-existing condition clauses -- measures which House Republicans indicated this weekend that they "object."

Why does someone's personal religious beliefs get to infringe on mine or anyone else's rights? Abortion is legal, in case anyone forgot. As USAToday noted: Nearly 90% of private health insurance policies now offer abortion coverage, and almost half of women with private insurance have it. But women covered under the new system would have to find supplemental insurance or pay out of pocket for an unanticipated procedure that can cost from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on complexity. For anyone unable to afford it, this would amount to a de facto ban.

But here's the catch: The bill makes it so financially unattractive for insurance companies to offer abortion coverage - even if you pay for the insurance yourself - that they're likely to stop offering it except to the largest groups. Got it? This is not a minor amendment. And unless it's rejected by the Senate or in conference, women have once again been stripped of the ability to get abortions.

"With a single amendment, Congress is making a legal medical procedure potentially unattainable for a huge number of American women," said MSNBC's Rachel Maddow last night. "One in three women will have an abortion in their lifetime," Arons adds. "Eighty-seven percent of employer plans offer abortion coverage. None of that will matter if the Senate takes its cues from the House. In every other way, this bill will expand access to health care. But for millions of women, they are about to lose coverage they currently have and often need," she said.

To make yourself feel a little better about this abomination, watch Dylan Ratigan do what I always wish reporters would do more of: call a liar a liar on tv to the person's face...here he does so to the representative from the Family Research Council as she parrots the, well, lies of the right wing:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/dylan-ratigan-calls-out-family-research-co

GOP GONE WILD: On the sidelines of the Stupak amendment debate, Republicans offered their own rhetorical restriction on women's rights on the House floor on Saturday, shouting down members of the Democratic Women's Caucus who were giving statements in support of how the House health care bill would offer added benefits for women.

Indeed, one key measure in the House bill provides that insurers in the individual market would no longer treat domestic violence and other issues affecting women as a pre-existing conditions. The Republicans -- led by Rep. Tom Price (GA) -- repeatedly talked over them, screamed, and shouted, "I object, I object, I object, I object, I object!" The moves amounted to "the Republicans' back-of-the-hand treatment to women," Wasserman Schultz said of the GOP's obstructions. Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (OH), one of the Democrats on the receiving end of the GOP's stall tactics, told The Progress Report that their actions were "sexist."

"You heard recently comments -- from the Republican side of the aisle, some of my Republican colleagues over there -- saying Speaker Pelosi should be put in her place, and I think that's what they thought they were doing with the Democratic women. And it's simply outrageous to me to have women being treated like that on the floor of the House," she said. And they don't even want us to discuss it. Those white men of the GOP don't want women to insert their remarks into the record.

Watch in horror… http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/07/gop-gone-wild/

Now Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) says she has collected "more than 40 signatures from House Democrats vowing to oppose any final bill that includes the amendment -- enough to block passage."

The drama had built for months, pitting a group of Democrats against the Catholic Church. Priests and bishops were calling members to lobby for stricter language to limit abortion coverage, members and aides said last week. “The real goal of abortion opponents isn't to maintain the status quo. It's to extend federal prohibitions into private pocketbooks.

It means that women who find they have cancer while they are pregnant won't get the choice of how to proceed, but those choices will instead be made by politicians in Washington, DC whose lives aren't the ones who are being destroyed. The idea that we would throw women under the bus in the process of doing health care reform is completely unacceptable. Watch Rep. Louise Slaughter's impassioned speech in defense of a woman's right to choose on the floor:

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/stupak-amendment-written-because-cath

The Progressives Dilemma (and single payer efforts)

Dennis Kucinich votes No (but at least for good reasons): This health care bill continues the redistribution of wealth to Wall Street at the expense of America's manufacturing and service economies which suffer from costs other countries do not have to bear," Kucinich notes in his statement, "especially the cost of health care. America continues to stand out among all industrialized nations for its privatized health care system. As a result, we are less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care."

In a statement issued following passage of the bill, the progressive Democrat describes it as "a bailout under a blue cross", given that it "would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care [by] requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers."

He also notes that the "'robust public option' which would have offered a modicum of competition to a monopolistic industry was whittled down from an initial potential enrollment of 129 million Americans to 6 million." The final house bill stripped Kucinich's amendment --- passed in committee by a 27 to 19 vote, including 13 Republicans --- which would have allowed states to create their own single-payer health care plan if they had wished. There was nary a peep about dropping that important attempt at state's rights from any of the Republicans as far as I know, and Kucinich says it was done "at the request of the Administration."

Progressive Democrats of America on next steps:

But this legislative battle is not yet over. Our focus can now turn to two remaining efforts for single-payer healthcare in this Congress. Sen. Bernie Sanders will introduce S 703 in coming weeks, and we understand that he is considering editing it to be more like HR 676. We will have the opportunity again to see the first ever vote on single-payer healthcare in this Congress.

In addition, Rep. Kucinich’s amendment to allow states to more easily implement a single-payer system may be reinserted into the bill during the conference committee between the House and Senate. All of these efforts are crucial to building the movement for the only solution to our health care crisis--single-payer national healthcare.

If this Congress passes inadequate legislation, there will no doubt be emboldened state movements in the coming years. We welcome them. But let us not forget the movement to push our federal legislators to meet the demands of the people, not roll that responsibility onto the states.

The Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care remains committed to a national, single-payer solution to the health care crisis. Comprehensive, quality health care is a right that should be extended to every U.S. resident.

VIDEO SECTION

C&L: The Daily Show: The House of Representatives finally passes health care reform after the exciting pre-game festivities.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/daily-show-men-who-stare-votes

C&L: Ed Schultz asks Bernie Sanders to respond to this report from The Hill: Another Independent could be a spoiler as Reid moves forward on healthcare. Gotta' love The Hill calling support for the public option a "far-left" position. It's not "far-left" when the majority of the public supports it. Sen. Sanders was again noncommital on whether he would be willing to go so far as to filibuster the health care bill during this interview, but said he is going to fight to make sure that the bill is not just a giveaway to the insurance industries.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/bernie-sanders-could-filibuster-health-car

C&L: Frank Schaeffer has a new book now, Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism), and in it he takes on both the “incipient fascism” of the religious right and what he called “proselytizing” atheism of Richard Dawkins and others. He joins Laura on GRITtv for a fascinating interview about his own journey, and how people, religious or irreligious, are all looking for answers to the same questions.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/grittv-frank-schaeffer-fears-fundamentalis

C&L: The Republican record defies their rhetoric. Remember their so-called Prescription Drug Benefit for Seniors passed in the dark of the night? No one read the bill, didn’t know what was in it. Cost 700 billion dollars ‘cause that was subsidizing the pharmaceutical and insurance industry. But now, they’re worried about costs. It gave the seniors a donut hole.

http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/rep-defazio-gop-plan-if-youve-got-pro

C&L: Rachel Maddow runs down the list for us of C-Street family members who also voted for Bart Stupak’s anti-abortion amendment yesterday. Nothing like having what amounts to a secretive religious cult making health care policy for women in the United States.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/rachel-maddow-show-bart-stupaks-c-street-g

Bernie Sanders on health care:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/bernie-sanders-could-filibuster-health-carBernie

Bernie Sanders on the Wall Street mafia and the need to break up the banks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJP_EXQ2Am8

C&L: Cartman is chosen to read the morning announcements at South Park Elementary, but he turns the forum into a bully pulpit to unleash criticism of the student-body president.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/south-park-mocks-glenn-beck

C&L: Rachel Maddow wins my semi-famous "Don't Sugarcoat It" award for her talented muckraking in this segment. It's becoming abundantly clear to everyone in the left-wing activist community that without loophole-free campaign finance reform we are unlikely to change anything in Washington lobby/legislator love-fest.

With an assist from blogger David Sirota, Maddow exposes the business lobby that would attempt to hide their desire to continue to import products made from child, slave, and prison labor. Given the American public's unending appetite for cheap plastic junk, it's easy to see why those profiting from that hunger would want their gravy train to continue. Sadly, Maddow must remind us, all of us, that, um, slavery is wrong, even when it occurs across the oceans.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/bluegal/maddow-big-business-and-child-labor-endors

C&L: Colbert on Karim Sadjadpour - a math superstar's unprecedented act of challenging Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/colbert-report-iraniversary-karim-sadjadpo

C&L: Following the news that President Obama has rejected all four of the proposed policies on Afghanistan from his military consultants, Seymour Hersh joined Rachel to discuss his latest article at The New Yorker, Defending the Arsenal.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/rachel-maddow-show-seymour-hersh-pakistans

C&L: Robert Greenwald and Ed Schultz discuss the new cover story of The Nation Magazine "How The US Funds The Taliban"

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/us-taxpayer-dollars-funding-taliban

C&L: Dylan Ratigan calls our the Family Research Council's anti-woman shill for celebrating the Stupac Amendment as a victory for women...nice:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/dylan-ratigan-calls-out-family-research-co

2009-11-05T15:08:00.000-08:00

TODAY'S TOPICS: My Health Care Op-Ed, Kucinich Amendment, Weiner Bill, End of Facts, The Right's Delusions, Colbert, Maddow

What to Watch for on Big Health Care Vote: Weiner Bill, Kucinich Amendment

Aside from the House voting on its health care legislation Friday (probably today for most of you reading this…and it will pass), Pelosi will also decide whether to allow a vote on Rep. Weiner’s single payer, Medicare for All bill and whether to include Dennis Kucinich's Amendment that would allow states to institute single payer systems on their own (legal issues prevent this right now). Let's just say I'm not optimistic that either will happen...and that about says it all.

And let’s be honest for a second, Medicare for All is the ONLY credible, rational, humane health care reform that exists, and we need to know which elected officials are truly with us, and not with the corporate status quo and their big money contributors.

As Progressive Democrats of America note, “They need to vote for the plan that most American people—nurses, physicians, and patients—want and so desperately need: Medicare for All.”

At CFC we have vigorously supported single payer legislation here in California for the past few years, and it even reached Governor Schwarzenegger’s desk (and he vetoed it)! So don’t believe the Big Lie that this can’t be done...which is why the Kucinich Amendment is so critical: The States is where we can get Medicare for All systems into place not in Congress.

Here's My op-ed from 2007 in support of a single payer bill sponsored by the former great State Senator Sheila Kuehl

(currently the legislation is Leno's SB 810...and it will be voted on this coming legislative year):

SB 840 (Kuehl) is a landmark bill that insures health care for all Californians. The private insurance system is collapsing. Forty seven million Americans are uninsured—most live in a household with a working adult.

Skyrocketing health insurance costs are a huge burden to consumers and businesses alike. Health insurance premiums rose 87 percent from 2000 to 2005, nearly five times the rate of inflation and four times the rate of wages.

More and more businesses are shifting costs to workers, or simply eliminating coverage. Workers are now paying $1,094 more in premiums annually for family coverage than they did in 2000.

Consider where all this money is going:

• Four HMOs regulated by the Department of Managed Health Care have transferred $3.2 billion in profit out of California since 2002 – enough money to provide full coverage to 1 million Californians for an entire year.

• According to Weiss Ratings, between 2001 and 2005, HMOs and health insurers have increased their profits by 170% (this has changed since I wrote this to 360%).

• Kaiser has $10 billion in reserves in the bank – ten times the state’s requirement – all funded with consumer premiums.

Health care is a right, not a privilege—and every Californian deserves access to high quality, affordable health coverage. Forcing the uninsured to pay unaffordable insurance premiums with high deductibles for inadequate health coverage isn’t the answer.

Individual mandates and Health Savings Accounts would force more Californians to pay most of their actual health care bills from their own pockets, rather than by their insurance coverage. Health care should be guaranteed and insured by government.

SB 840 would provide every California resident medical, dental, vision, hospitalization and prescription drug benefits. Putting an emphasis on prevention and primary health care, SB 840 invests in modern technologies and infrastructure that help improve care and reduce costs.

The plan also reduces administrative waste and utilizes California’s purchasing power to realize savings on prescriptions and medical equipment. For all these reasons, the Consumer Federation of California urges an AYE on SB 840.

Studies Uncovering How Right Wing Can Believe Demonstrably False Claims

(just as I have been claiming here: we can't reason with these people, so its a waste of time to try to...and, democracy itself is threatened by this phenomenon of viewing facts, science, and academic study as irrelevant)

Sociologists at the University of North Carolina and Northwestern University examined an earlier case of deep commitment to the inaccurate: the belief, among many conservatives who voted for George W. Bush in 2004, that Saddam Hussein was at least partly responsible for the attacks on 9/11.

Of 49 people included in the study who believed in such a connection, only one shed the certainty when presented with prevailing evidence that it wasn't true.The rest came up with an array of justifications for ignoring, discounting or simply disagreeing with contrary evidence — even when it came from President Bush himself.

Subjects were presented during one-on-one interviews with a newspaper clip of this Bush quote: "This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al-Qaeda."

The Sept. 11 Commission, too, found no such link, the subjects were told.

"Well, I bet they say that the commission didn't have any proof of it," one subject responded, "but I guess we still can have our opinions and feel that way even though they say that."

Reasoned another: "Saddam, I can't judge if he did what he's being accused of, but if Bush thinks he did it, then he did it."

Others declined to engage the information at all. Most curious to the researchers were the respondents who reasoned that Saddam must have been connected to Sept. 11, because why else would the Bush Administration have gone to war in Iraq?

That some people might not do that even in the face of accurate information, the authors suggest in their article, presents "a serious challenge to democratic theory and practice."

"The implications for how democracy works are quite profound, there's no question in my mind about that," Perrin said. "What it means is that we have to think about the emotional states in which citizens find themselves that then lead them to reason and deliberate in particular ways."

Evidence suggests people are more likely to pay attention to facts within certain emotional states and social situations. Some may never change their minds. For others, policy-makers could better identify those states, for example minimizing the fear that often clouds a person's ability to assess facts and that has characterized the current health care debate.

-- Emily Badger is a freelance writer living in the Washington, D.C. area who has contributed to The New York Times, International Herald Tribune and Christian Science Monitor.

Glen Beck a Prime Example of this Phenomenon:

No discerning person would conclude from Ms. Dunn's dimwitted remark that she is a Maoist. That would require more evidence-and that's what makes Mr. Beck's pantomime fear and trembling so odious: He doesn't appear to be interested in further evidence, or really any evidence that doesn't serve his shtick.

Consider a few of the other grand assertions tossed out by the panic-peddling host last week: that the cause of last year's financial crisis was pressure exerted by Acorn and "the people in Washington" on otherwise-reluctant mortgage lenders; that the cause of the inflation of the 1970s was President Jimmy Carter's quest for a "socialist utopia."

These are postulates that it is only possible to believe after you have utterly closed yourself off to conventional ways of knowing, after you have decided that the reporting and analysis and scholarship on these subjects are not worth reading, and that you will choose ideological fairy tales over reality until the day a magical phone call comes from on high.

What Mr. Beck's silent phone really symbolizes is a new kind of ignorance, a coming high-tech dark age in which people can choose to blow off professional standards of inquiry; in which they can wall themselves off with cable TV and friendly Web sites, dismiss what displeases as liberal bias, and demand that any contrary view be transmitted to them via telephone call from the president himself.

Why not let Mr. Beck and his viewers have their fun? Because ideas have consequences. Maybe, as many believe, Glenn Beck is indeed the future of the conservative movement. From tea parties to town-hall meetings, thousands are signing up and fitting themselves out with their very own hotline to nowhere.

- Thomas Frank is the author of The Wrecking Crew, What's the Matter with Kansas? and One Market Under God.

VIDEO SECTION

Jon Stewart does a Glenn Beck impression for the ages...

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/113-project

This sounds like me! Watch Bill Maher on Letterman say he wishes Obama would punch someone in the face...

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/id-see-obama-punch-someone-john-boehne

Colbert analyzes the election results...classic:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/colbert-report-09-year-semi-presidential-e

Rachel’s appears to agree with my post election analysis as she breaks through some of the spin from last night. C&L: Unlike most of the pundits in the “mainstream” media who have been doing their best to paint what happened in New Jersey and Virginia as some sort of shift by the electorate back to the Republican Party, Rachel does a very nice job keeping the results in perspective. As Rachel also notes, the Tea Baggers are gearing up for more conservative challengers in 2010 and for some more Astroturf protests on Capitol Hill, undeterred by the loss in NY-23.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/rachel-maddow-breaks-down-nov-2009-electio

Colbert on the privatization of our prison system…is our judicial system next? This is brilliant, sobering, and funny stuff:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/colbert-report-word-green-mile

Rep. Alan Grayson: "I Think We're Witnessing The Disintegration Of A Major Political Party!

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/congressman-grayson-i-think-were-witne

Air America’s Rhandi Rhodes visits Joy Behar to analyze the election results…almost exactly in line with the one I wrote just after the results….

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/randi-rhodes-palin-limbaugh-couldnt-ge

From The Newshour with Jim Lehrer--TV, Radio Talkers Shaping Political Discourse in U.S. This is what I have been writing about for a long time...how right wing nuts on radio and tv drive the debate in this country and keep the public dumb, confused, and afraid. Thom Hartmann (my favorite radio host) and Media Matters' Eric Burns are featured in this segment.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/pbs-newshour-tv-radio-talkers-shaping-poli

Congressman Anthony Weiner joins Lawrence O'Donnell on Countdown to discuss "whites of their eyes" Michele Bachmann and "You Lie!" Joe Wilson's latest stunts to stall the health care bill being passed.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/countdown-anthony-weiner-gops-obstruction

ARTICLE SECTION

The Next Phase of Healthcare Apartheid, by Norman Solomon

Granted, this is a dark and bleak view of the health care legislation we are on the verge of seeing pass Congress. And yes, Norm is right about everything he says here, as I have made these points numerous times on this blog as well. Its also true that he does not mention all the positive things the bill does.

But, the general conclusion reached here I concur with: This legislation represents a dismal failure by any measurement and while it will alleviate some of our systems most glaring problems, others will continue, and some new ones will even be created. He's also correct in his assertion that we must move the fight for single payer to the states.

The big question that still remains for progressives in Congress: how do they vote on these bills? I will be writing about that impossible hard question in comprehensive detail as the weeks go by and the final form of the legislation becomes known.

A few clips:

At its best, "the public option" was a weak remedy for the disastrous ailments of the healthcare system in the United States. But whatever virtues the public option may have offered were stripped from the bill en route to the House floor.

What remains is a Rube Goldberg contraption that will launch this country into a new phase of healthcare apartheid. People who scrape together enough money to buy health insurance will discover that they're riding in the back of the nation's healthcare bus. The most "affordable" policies will be the ones with the highest deductibles and the worst coverage.

SNIP

In effect, the individual-mandate requirement tells people that obtaining health coverage is ultimately their own responsibility -- and the quality of the coverage is beside the point. In essence, when it comes to guaranteeing quality healthcare for all, the gist of the policy is: "Let's not, and say we did."

The predictable result is reinforcement of vast -- and often deadly -- inequities in access to healthcare. With Washington making such a corporate mess of "healthcare reform," the best way to get what we need -- healthcare for all as a human right -- will be to enact single-payer healthcare in one state after another.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/05

Want to Save Our Economy from Almighty Greed? Here Are 10 Crucial Fights and Key Fighters to Watch, By Zach Carter, AlterNet.

I'm sorry to say, but the Obama Administration and Congress's efforts to regulate the Wall Street syndicate and restore some kind of security and economic justice to our financial system is looking even more pathetic than on health care. I don't think its an exaggeration to say that our country is dangerously close to becoming unworkable, and completely and totally run by corporate interests...and easily able to prevent any attempt to challenge the status quo.

Here then are the key Wall Street reforms we need most, and how far we are from achieving them (and yet they are so obvious),

A few clips:

1. A New Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Subprime mortgages. Abusive and arbitrary rate hikes on your credit card. Payday loans. If you're wondering who lets banks get away with this crap, there are more people at it than you think. There are no less than four federal regulators responsible for overseeing consumer protection in finance, and all of them are terrible…The obvious solution is to give these consumer-protection responsibilities to a single regulator with no such conflicts and with the power to enforce uniform standards across the entire industry. That's what President Barack Obama proposed in June, and it was by far the most significant reform on his Wall Street agenda.

Unfortunately, the bank lobby has seriously watered down the bill in Congress… exempting 8,000 of the nation's 8,200 banks from the CFPA's oversight.

SNIP

2. Too big to fail. Here's an idea: Let's give a handful of firms on Wall Street so much economic power that if they ever fail, the entire economy will collapse with them. Sound good? Of course not. But sadly, that's what Wall Street looks like today, and the problem has actually gotten worse since the financial crisis began because troubled firms have been eaten up in a flurry of mergers with stronger behemoths to stave off catastrophe.

The solution? Break up the banks to a size where failure does not destroy the economy, and ban banks from participating in the capital markets casino. Similarly, companies that engage in speculative, risky securities trading would be banned from doing the boring, economically essential banking activities such as accepting deposits and making loans…With the two types of banking separated, we have a useful banking sector to support the economy even if the Wild West finance hits the skids. Obama and his inner circle of advisers have no interest in breaking up the banks or ending too-big-to-fail.

SNIP

3. Derivatives. When people say "derivatives," they mean the crazy financial weapons of mass destruction that brought down AIG. But they also mean hundreds of trillions of dollars of other crazy shit. Derivatives are one of the key ways banks make themselves too big to fail. Since derivatives can tie a bank to almost anything, from the financial health of other companies to the value of the dollar, firms that buy and sell derivatives can encapsulate themselves in a massive, interconnected web of risk that regulators have trouble deciphering…

The best way to deal with the derivatives mess is to require that they be traded on an exchange, just like ordinary stocks. Exchange trading lets everybody know what everyone else is up to, and it requires a disinterested third party to sign off on the transaction. E.g., if a hedge fund wants to use derivatives to make a crazy bet on subprime mortgages with AIG, and the exchange knows AIG doesn't have the money to cover the bet, the exchange won't let the trade go through. Unfortunately, Obama didn't push hard for this…What's worse, Congress has watered down even the weak tea Obama offered.

SNIP

5. Executive compensation. You're pissed off about the $26 billion Goldman Sachs plans to pay in bonuses this year, and you're right to be. Not only is this an obscene gesture in the face of 10 percent unemployment and an affront to the very taxpayers who saved every single job at Goldman Sachs last year, it actively harms the economy. Ridiculous paychecks tied to short-term profits strongly encourage executives to behave recklessly: If the risk pays off, they make a lot of money for their shareholders. The average chief financial officer spends three years on the job. If they don't get rich quick, they don't get rich. If the risk backfires, hey, they already made their millions.

http://www.alternet.org/politics/143737/want_to_save_our_economy_from_almighty_greed_here_are_10_crucial_fights_and_key_fighters_to_watch?page=1

2009-11-04T13:15:00.000-08:00

TODAY'S TOPICS: Health Care, The Election, The Media's False Narrative, Pitt on Lieberman, Teabaggers Sunk, Gay Marriage

Quick Note on Health Care (then my election analysis)

Finally we're getting down to the nitty gritty policy details that will determine just what kind of reforms we're going to get after six months of mind numbing "debate". Thankfully, I am highly versed in the wonky complexities of health care policy so you don’t have to be…because let’s face it, this stuff could put a crack head to sleep (though strangely I find it fascinating).

Today I’m featuring the most comprehensive and thoughtful “explanation” of the competing health plans you’ll read anywhere (by Joshua Holland of Alternet) in my “Article Section” .

In it you’ll get a plain spoken (i.e. not politician speak) breakdown of how the House and Senate plans differ, which plan is superior, why, and in what ways, what the likelihood of final passage will be, and what we reformers should be taking into account when concluding whether we are on the verge of taking a significant step towards an improved system in which all Americans have access to decent health care without going bankrupt or is it all just a futile attempt to keep a unsustainable system on life support (and even if that's all it is, is it still worth it because of the lives it will save and improve?)?

Being that all those details will be covered by Holland (and I’m happy to say it will sound VERY familiar to those that have been reading my detailed breakdowns of this debate over the past 6 months), I will just give a few broad brush points that might help crystallize where we are in this debate and how it could effect your life.

Most notably, yes, we are on the verge of expanding health care coverage by tens of millions of Americans (and this will save 1000’s of lives a year...but cost too much for too little). We are also about to finally ban a host of predatory, murderous insurance industry practices that not only shouldn’t have ever been allowed in a civil society, but deserve prosecution.

That’s one side of the health care equation: access to coverage. The other; and this is where it gets depressing and complicated, is cost control. As I have been predicting for months (actually years), that without price regulation or a ROBUST public option, we’re left with an insurance industry that will gouge American taxpayers while skimming 30% off the top of everything we give them just for being, well, useless middle men.

And this then is where the Individual Mandate and all those subsidies we'll be giving to people so they can afford overpriced health insurance becomes such a huge problem.
Yesterday’s Congressional Budget Office report showing that even with government help, the individual mandate in all health care legislation could be expensive for a lot of people.

A family of four making $66,000 could have to shell out $10,000, or 10 percent of their income, under the House bill, even after the government picks up 58 percent of their premium.

Such figures underline the imperative to control medical costs, one that as I have said, is not adequately being addressed. Consider: Both public options are only available to a few percent of the population – a population that will likely be sicker than their private insurance counterparts (i.e. because most were without insurance before because of pre-existing conditions). Thus, this coverage will cost a lot more than it should, meaning it won't adequately compete with the insurance industry, and that will result in premiums continuing to rise for everyone (and people will have to buy insurance and we will have to subsidize it).

We must then watch for 1. How big the subsidies will be for the uninsured to purchase this expensive coverage, 2. How “robust” will the public option be…and whether there’s an opt-in (unacceptable), opt-out (we may have to accept), a trigger (unacceptable), or will it start within 3 years (i.e. and especially what will the rate negotiation levels be and who can access it?), 3. Will we pay for this by taxing millionaires or mostly union members, 4. How soon will the exchanges be open to the public and who will be eligible? 5. How strong will the employer mandate be, 6. And finally, how much will we expand access to Medicaid (125% or 150% of poverty level?)?

I hope I didn't bore you to death...and Holland’s article will delve into all these critically important details in a more thorough way.

Quick Election Analysis: Not a GOP “Victory” (Dems GAINED seats!), Mixed Results for Gay Rights, a Teabagger Goes Down, and the House adds a Progressive

The Media's False Narrative: "Republican Resurgence"

Wow…when the media has a narrative they want to run with (i.e. Republican resurgence and/or referendum on Obama's first year), almost nothing, no facts, no context, and no amount of common sense will deter them! So, regardless of the spin you hear coming out of the bobble heads littering our airwaves, print and television screens, a couple GOP Governor race victories against two really weak Democratic candidates says next to nothing about Obama, and absolutely nothing about a Republican resurrection.

I am disappointed that Corzine lost in New Jersey, as on policy, he’s pretty liberal, and certainly is not to blame for the state’s dire situation – it was broken when he took over. But again, this has nothing to do with Obama, and has a lot more to do with Corzine being charisma deficient and a former Goldman Sachs CEO. Virginia was a similar deal, but a much more incompetent candidate running in a far more conservative state, and he ran AWAY from Obama and the Democrats agenda.

In addition, Corzine was down 15 points BEFORE he brought Obama in, and cut that margin to a few points by election day. It is true, a lot of Obama voters did not turn out, and if anything, that is in part due to his move to the right since becoming President, and the feeling all that talk of change was mostly that, talk. This has simultaneously hurt him among the progressive base as well as Independents.

In other words, there are a lot of competing factors at work that explain these two results, and ironically enough, two that do not apply happen to be the most popular hypotheses being proffered in and by the media: "is this a backlash against Obama for being too liberal?" and "does this represent a resurgent GOP". Uhh, no and no!

I guarantee, that behind closed doors, the race the GOP was really monitoring was the NY’s 23rd District – a consistent and longtime Republican seat and now a Democratic pick–up. Worse for the right wing, the GOP candidate was a teabagger endorsed by every nut job from Beck to Limbaugh to Palin...and that the Republican moderate candidate they forced out would have won! And this is going to continue next election too! How great is that?

We progressives have a little something else to celebrate: we’ve got a new progressive in the House, and his name is John Garamendi (he was my first choice for Governor if he had chosen to run)! Better, he’s replacing a Blue Dog – Ellen Tauscher (who now serves in the Obama Administration). As he said in a victory interview, “One big difference with me is I don’t support war. It will be a hard sell to get me to vote for wars.” Nice! And, he’s a FANTASTIC single payer advocate, tough corporate regulator, and a very smart guy.

Look, it goes without saying that the Democrats have some big problems, from the economy to the Blue Dogs to a disenchanted progressive base (which I am one of), but this is offset by the absolute Clown Car like Comedy that is today's racist, corporatist, christian fundamentalist, and generally out of step on every issue with the American people GOP.

We're talking about a party at war with itself, yet have no ideas that address our nation's problems (in fact they are the reason for them...more deregulation and tax cuts, really?), no intellectual depth or credibility, socially and spiritually corrupt, and are being led literally by a gaggle of intellectually challenged sociopaths.

Better for us, the GOP's response to a disastrous 8 years of extreme right wing governing, which was overwhelmingly rejected by voters in the past two elections, is to double down and move FURTHER to the right and purge all those in the Party that oppose this strategy (i.e. deny climate change, fight health care reform, oppose stimulus funding, defend Haliburton gang rapists, and fight for, above all else, the corporation and rich elite...thanks teabaggers! thanks Limbaugh! thanks Beck! thanks Palin!)

Only 18% of Americans now even consider themselves to be Republicans anymore for Christ's sakes! And somehow, two weak ass Democratic Governors losing races to Republicans indicates the Party's resurgence and the failure of Obama's policies? And these "experts" get paid big bucks for this drivel...

Gay Marriage Heart Breaker...and two bright spots

The real, truly painful defeat last night was the gay marriage initiative in Maine. And by the way, where were the Democrats? Where was Obama for that matter? Not a word was said or a trip taken to Maine to advocate on the behalf of equal rights. I find that sad...and I don't give a shit about "but polls say Americans oppose gay marriage" so they were "playing it smart." Fuck that! This is the civil rights fight of our time, and history will look poorly on all those that did nothing because of a poll.

I just don’t have the time or energy today to write an impassioned plea for equal rights and justice for our gay brothers and sisters. Suffice it to say, our country still has a long way to go…and this kind of bigotry pains and sickens me…

So, Maine gays, we're sorry, you still don’t qualify as human…yet.

But, Maine voters also decided to expand the state’s 10-year-old medical marijuana law, approving a ballot question to allow state-regulated dispensaries to grow the drug and sell it to patients. Maine will be the third state, after New Mexico and Rhode Island, to allow tightly regulated, nonprofit marijuana dispensaries.

Also barely reported, is the state of Washington approved a measure to grant gay couples all the same rights as heterosexual couples (though stopping short of calling it marriage…which isn’t sufficient, but a step nonetheless).

Here's another race which may become of some interest nationally: Annise Parker (D) finished first in her run for Mayor in Houston with 30.5% of the vote, and will face off next month against Gene Locke who had 25.9%....and thus could become the first openly gay mayor of a major American city.

That this may happen in Houston, Texas of all places makes it especially revealing…by winning the first ballot she’s already done something unprecedented.

VIDEO SECTION

Olbermann interviews Rep. Grayson…always fun to watch:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/countdown-alan-grayson-confident-house-bil

Matthew Hoh – the State Dept Official Who Resigned Over Afghanistan Policy – drops more knowledge about our insane occupation and slaughter of a nation’s people:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/matthew-hoh-state-dept-official-who-re

God I love Dennis Kucinich!! Israel’s war crimes once again are being covered up by the United States of Hypocrisy. Watch him on the floor of the House during debate of Congressional Resolution in Opposition To United Nations Gaza War Crimes Report.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/dennis-kucinich-almost-serious-committ

Moyers interviews economist James Galbraith…highly recommended:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/finance/index.html

From C&L: From Lou Dobbs Tonight, the Face Off Segment with The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill, the Council on Foreign Relations’ neoconservative Max Boot and the World Policy Institute’s Patrica DeGennaro. The topic was our troop levels in Afghanistan. Scahill did a great job when he was allowed to talk, which Dobbs made sure to keep to a minimum.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/lou-dobbs-tonight-jeremy-scahill-vs-max-bo

Alternet: Few Republican congressional members have served as a greater fount for hyperbolic and uninformed ranting about health care reform as has Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC). As ThinkProgress previously documented, Foxx has claimed Democratic reforms would mean seniors are “put to death by their government,” that health reform is a “distraction,” and that “there are no Americans who don’t have health care.” She was at it again today on the House floor, arguing that health reform is a greater threat to our country than “any terrorist right now in any country”:

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/143671/gop_loon_goes_off_the_rails%3A_health_reform_greater_threat_than_terrorism/

From Think Progress-- Rape Victim Confronts Vitter Over His Vote Against Franken’s Amendment Holding Contractors Accountable:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/david-vitter-confronted-rape-victim-town-h

ARTICLE SECTION

Decent Health Care or an Insurance Industry Bailout? 5 Defining Battles in the Final Stretch for Reform, By Joshua Holland, AlterNet

A few clips:

In the final push, it will be the energy of activists -- or lack thereof -- that helps determine the shape of reform. Yet, most progressive reformers have long favored a national single-payer health care system. Throughout the legislative process, they have faced a choice: either jump on a moment of rare opportunity and support a proposal that while compromised, and perhaps deeply so, would bring significant new regulation to the out-of-control health insurance market and, more importantly, extend affordable coverage to millions who now lack it, or they could hope for a better day for reform in the future and oppose the final product, leaving a disastrous status quo to stand untouched.

So as the legislation is completed, the question is: How much should champions of substantive reform concede to the Blue Dogs -- or the odd moderate Republican like Maine's Olympia Snowe -- to get a bill passed that does some real-world good in the midst of a serious crisis?

SNIP

The goals of health reform are twofold. The first is to bring relief to tens of millions of Americans who lack access to all but emergency care and the millions more who are driven to, or risk, bankruptcy as a result of sky-high costs or who stay in deadbeat jobs and loveless relationships to keep their coverages. The second is throwing a lasso around out-of-control health care costs that squeeze down all working Americans' wages and threatens our companies' competitive edge.

The significance of this moment in time is that the reforms likely to end up being reconciled by Congress go a very long way toward the first goal. In terms of access and affordability, the approach would fall short of the mark, but within a decade it would provide decent, portable, relatively comprehensive health care at an affordable price for millions of Americans who would otherwise lack it. It would impose new regulations reining in the worst of the insurance industry's abuses, sharply limit the number of medical bankruptcies and force all employers to take at least partial responsibility for their workers' health care.

That would be no small victory and is why many veteran reform activists are hailing this moment as the opportunity of a lifetime -- the best chance at substantially expanding coverage to a portion of the population that needs it since Medicare and Medicaid were established in the 1960s.

But, in order to appease industry-friendly Blue Dog Democrats -- and in an appeal for bipartisan support from moderate Republicans that now appears to have been futile -- congressional leaders have let the insurance industry and its allies in effect kill off the potential for reaching the other goal of reform: cost control.

A final product that falls short of its promise -- that doesn't change the way the insurance industry does business and fails to bend the health care cost curve downward -- will discredit progressive health care reform in the future and leave us with little in the way of "change," other than a relatively small population of Americans with subsidized coverage. This is why other health care activists, especially those who have strived for a single-payer system, are less sanguine about the Democrats' current approach.

SNIP

But because the public option is, well, public, it won't want to do the unpopular things that insurers do to save money, like manage care or aggressively review treatments. It also, presumably, won't try to drive out the sick or the unhealthy. That means the public option will spend more, and could, over time, develop a reputation as a good home for bad health risks, which would mean its average premium will increase because its average member will cost more.

The public option will be a good deal for these relatively sick people, but the presence of sick people will make it look like a bad deal to everyone else, which could in turn make it a bad deal for everyone else. The nightmare scenario, then, is that private insurers cotton onto this and accelerate the process, implicitly or explicitly guiding bad risks to the public option.

SNIP

And so begins a final series of legislative fights, first a battle royale to get a bill with some form of public option passed in the Senate, and then later in conference, when it is combined with a much more substantial set of reforms expected to be passed by the House. It's here, after all the loud invective of the summer of 2009, where the rubber will ultimately meet the road.

If in the end this Congress is able to get a bill to Obama's desk, the outcome of these battles will determine whether the legislation represents the first small step toward a system where all Americans have access to decent care without breaking the bank or is so watered down that it represents little more than a trillion dollars in life support for a terminally ill health care system.

http://www.alternet.org/politics/143688/decent_health_care_or_an_insurance_industry_bailout_5_defining_battles_in_the_final_stretch_for_reform

Enjoy Will Pitt’s destruction of Joe Lieberman:

Why this man is tolerated by the Democratic caucus in the Senate is an enduring mystery, frankly, and not just because Lieberman is a publicity-hogging fraud, although that is most definitely the case. All he lacks is a big red nose, big red floppy shoes and big red tufts of hair sticking up from his head to complete his image as a clown, but anyone familiar with his record over the last several years doesn't need the props to complete the picture. He made Dick Cheney look like Socrates in the 2000 vice presidential debate.

He ran one of the most ridiculous presidential campaigns in modern political history in 2004, failing to win a single primary and eventually finishing seventh behind Kerry, Edwards, Dean, Kucinich, Clark and the Reverend Al Sharpton. He lost his own state in 2006 and bailed on the Democrats, managing to win back his seat only by sucking up huge sums of GOP campaign donations, which he paid back by campaigning for Republican Senator John McCain in the 2008 presidential election and by bashing the Democrats while speaking at the 2008 GOP convention.

The mess he helped create on the economic front is only the tip of the iceberg. He supported the Bush administration's call for offshore oil drilling despite the damage such a program would do to the environment and tourism. He opposed lifting the ruinous Bush administration tax cuts. He supports the privatization of Social Security. He voted to confirm, and later publicly praised, former Bush administration Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

He defended Pastor John Hagee, who called Catholicism "The Great Whore" and said Hitler was a Hunter sent by God to get the Jews to Israel, and later compared Hagee to Moses when he spoke at Hagee's Washington-Israel summit last July. He sponsored the Senate version of the Iraq War Resolution, and supported that catastrophic conflict all the way down the line.

The list goes on, and on, and on, and on.

Enough of this clown. He should be stripped of his Senate chairmanship and sent across the aisle to his boon companions on the right. He should be ignored out of hand on the matter of health care reform, and anything else he decides to address. He has raised being wrong, craven, untrustworthy and useless to the level of high art. Anyone with a full understanding of his record and reputation would know better than to trust him with a job as a crossing guard, and never mind as any kind of a leader on issues of major national and international import. The man is a living, breathing train wreck, and he has no business whatsoever being allowed in the same postal code as the decisions to come that will shape our lives.

-- Will Pitt, Little Joe

2009-11-02T16:06:00.000-08:00

TODAY'S TOPICS: House v. Senate Bills, Kucinich, Moyers/Greenwald, State Secrets Privilege, Teabagger's Revolt

"Is this the best we can do? Forcing people to buy private health insurance, guaranteeing at least $50 billion in new business for the insurance companies?

Is this the best we can do? Government negotiates rates which will drive up insurance costs, but the government won't negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies which will drive up pharmaceutical costs.

Is this the best we can do? Only 3 percent of Americans will go to a new public plan, while currently 33 percent of Americans are either uninsured or underinsured?

Is this the best we can do? Eliminating the state single payer option, while forcing most people to buy private insurance.

If this is the best we can do, then our best isn't good enough and we have to ask some hard questions about our political system: such as Health Care or Insurance Care? Government of the people or a government of the corporations."

-- Rep. Dennis Kucinich

House v. Senate Health Care Bills

This is largely taken from a Center for American Progress analysis...and I'm real short on time today (as was i yesterday) so this will have to suffice for now. Bottom line is the House bill is superior to that of the Senate's in a number of ways. We should all be watching - and of course I will be - which direction the final bill goes (assuming we get to that point). I can say that if it goes the way of the Senate, we're all in for some big disappointments.

A couple really imporant positive reforms that final legislation will likely include are allowing insurance portability for those losing a job, extending the age in which a child can keep the insurance policy of his parents to 27 (very important considering how tough the job market is out there for a lot of young people), a myriad of improvements in preventive care, and a cap on the amount the insurance industry can charge someone for a catastrophic illness (in hopes of reducing bankrupcties and basic life destroying injustice).

I point all these out because I don't want to get caught in a "one sided" argument in which all I (or we) focus on is what's wrong with these bills (granted, its a lot...most notably the perpetuation of a broken and immoral FOR PROFIT system). Here's more:

Critical House Bill Components: Democrats successfully lowered the price tag of the original House legislation from $1.04 trillion by expanding the Medicaid program to Americans with incomes 150 percent of the federal poverty line and removing the fix to physicians'' Medicare reimbursements from the bill. (That measure will be introduced separately.)

The House bill will also "strip the health insurance industry of a long-standing exemption (but, as I will show, this is a largely aesthetic reform) from antitrust laws covering market allocation, price fixing and bid rigging" and "give the Federal Trade Commission authority to look into the health insurance industry at its own initiative."

The bill allows the Secretary of Health and Human Services "to negotiate drug prices for Medicare" and "requires pharmaceutical companies to rebate the government for drug overcharges that arose after 2003 when low-income elderly people who got their drugs through Medicaid" were enrolled in Medicare Part D. Debate in the House is expected to begin this week, "and the Senate will soon take up its version."

Indeed, the legislation includes a national public plan that independently negotiates reimbursement rates with providers, higher subsidies and cost sharing protections, and requires large firms to offer coverage.

Eighty-six percent of firms (companies with payrolls of less than $500,000) are exempt from the requirement, but large employers would have to "pay 72.5 percent of the costs of benefits for employees who are single, and 65 percent for employees with families.

It would exact penalties for non-compliance (also critical if we are to pay for it) on a sliding scale depending on the size of a company's payroll, going up to 8 percent for those with a payroll over $750,000." Like the Senate measure, the House bill is financed through a series of improvements in the Medicare and Medicaid programs and taxes on the health industry.

Senate Legislation: But while "the Senate is expected to propose a series of annual fees on the health-care industry and a 40 percent tax on high-cost insurance policies (attack on unions); the House would raise the bulk of its new revenue -- $460 billion over the next decade -- through a 5.4 percent surtax on the richest 0.3 percent of tax filers." (MUCH BETTER WAY)

Unlike the House legislation, the Senate bill will not require employers to provide coverage, but requires "companies with more than 50 employees that do not offer insurance to pay a fine for each of its workers who gets a government subsidy to buy health insurance." The bill, in effect, "could encourage employers to hire people who already make enough to afford health insurance or to dump low-wage workers who would qualify for the subsidy," the New York Times concludes.

More "Democrats" Determined to Stop Any Reform: In the House, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) and 40 pro-life Democrats are potentially "considering teaming up with Republicans to block House health reform legislation unless Democratic leaders allow a floor vote on an amendment that would add new restrictions on the use of federal funding for health plans that cover abortion with private dollars."

VIDEO SECTION

Colbert joins artist effort to close Gitmo!

https://secure.newsecurityaction.org/page/contribute/colbert

Watch Bill Moyers interview Glenn Greenwald - my most reliable source of analysis, insight, and expertise on all kinds of critical issues - most notably those related to privacy and the Constitution. Last Friday he discusses government war propaganda, preventive detention, the freedom of information act, the states secret privilege and much more:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10302009/profile3.html

This is very important...Fareed Zakaria talks to former Foreign Service officer Matthew Hoh who recently resigned as a Political Officer in Afghanistan.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/matthew-hoh-there-no-winning-afghanistan

Watching the right wing attack Obama for the casket of the soldier being shown with him paying respects borders on the insane…Maddow dissects all the lies jam packed in one minute of an interview with Liz Cheney (a truly evil family if there ever was one):

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/rachel-maddow-show-liz-dick-cheney-truth-opt

And better, Lawrence O’Donnell takes Liz and Dick Cheney to school on the military and hypocrisy…a must see!

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/lawrence-odonnell-rips-liz-cheney-dover-af

A Bill Moyers editorial on bringing back the draft…an excellent way of bringing home the fact that the same people that continue to send Americans to war are the same people that will never, nor will their family ever (almost never) have to serve themselves…and nor does the wealthy…

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/bill-moyers-bring-back-draft

ARTICLE SECTION

The G.O.P. Stalinists Invade Upstate New York, by Frank Rich

Isn't it fun to watch the GOP implode on itself? It's like watching the "far right" take on the 3rd Reich. If not for the teabag movement and their increasing confidence that somehow they represent a majority of Americans the Democrats would be finished.

The race in New York is a bad sign for the GOP. A few clips from Frank Rich:

A few clips:

"Moderate" Republican Dede Scozzafava, the party's nominee in Tuesday's special election for an open New York congressional seat, has suspended her campaign. And with that move, the new "new right" -- which Viguerie describes as "Tea Party activists, town hall protesters, and conservatives across the country" -- can claim a clear victory in its struggle to define the GOP as a far more extreme party than anything envisioned by Bush, Cheney or Gingrich.

SNIP

The battle for upstate New York confirms just how swiftly the right has devolved into a wacky, paranoid cult that is as eager to eat its own as it is to destroy Obama. The movement’s undisputed leaders, Palin and Beck, neither of whom has what Palin once called the “actual responsibilities” of public office, would gladly see the Republican Party die on the cross of right-wing ideological purity. Over the short term, at least, their wish could come true.

The New York fracas was ignited by the routine decision of 11 local Republican county chairmen to anoint an assemblywoman, Dede Scozzafava, as their party’s nominee for the vacant seat. The 23rd is in safe Republican territory that hasn’t sent a Democrat to Congress in decades. And Scozzafava is a mainstream conservative by New York standards; one statistical measure found her voting record slightly to the right of her fellow Republicans in the Assembly. But she has occasionally strayed from orthodoxy on social issues (abortion, same-sex marriage) and endorsed the Obama stimulus package. To the right’s Jacobins, that’s cause to send her to the guillotine.

SNIP

The right’s embrace of Hoffman is a double-barreled suicide for the G.O.P. On Saturday, the battered Scozzafava suspended her campaign, further scrambling the race. It’s still conceivable that the Democratic candidate could capture a seat the Republicans should own. But it’s even better for Democrats if Hoffman wins. Punch-drunk with this triumph, the right will redouble its support of primary challengers to 2010 G.O.P. candidates they regard as impure. That’s bad news for even a Republican as conservative as Kay Bailey Hutchison, whose primary opponent in the Texas governor’s race, the incumbent Rick Perry, floated the possibility of secession at a teabagger rally in April and hastily endorsed Hoffman on Thursday.

The more rightists who win G.O.P. primaries, the greater the Democrats’ prospects next year. But the electoral math is less interesting than the pathology of this movement. Its antecedent can be found in the early 1960s, when radical-right hysteria carried some of the same traits we’re seeing now: seething rage, fear of minorities, maniacal contempt for government, and a Freudian tendency to mimic the excesses of political foes.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/01-2

Obama's Latest Use of 'Secrecy' to Shield Presidential Lawbreaking, Glenn Greenwald

Another Glenn Greenwald classic! This is what I wrote in my Privacy Revolt Blog:

The Administration's recent, and radical interpretation and use of the "state secrets" privilege to block courts from ruling on the legality of the government's domestic surveillance activities only serves to reinforce this feeling of betrayal. Let's consider the context too: it was just six weeks ago that the DOJ announced voluntary new internal guidelines which, it insisted, would prevent abuses of the state secrets privilege.

Yet here we are with the DOJ embracing Bush "state secrets" theories for the sole purpose - in this particular case - of protecting those that committed crimes that the President vehemently criticized as a Senator and promised to address as a candidate.Worse, if the Administration is successful in broadening the scope of this "privilege", the Executive Branch will become even more powerful and unaccountable than it already is - serving to validate and reinforce Vice President Cheney's "unitary executive" theory that gained such traction during the Bush years.

Do we really want our Presidents shielded from judicial review or accountability when he/she is accused of breaking the law? Should entire cases be thrown out simply because the Executive Branch claims that there is something in some document that is so secret it will threaten our national security?

A few clips:

The Obama administration has, yet again, asserted the broadest and most radical version of the "state secrets" privilege -- which previously caused so much controversy and turmoil among loyal Democrats (when used by Bush/Cheney) -- to attempt to block courts from ruling on the legality of the government's domestic surveillance activities. Obama did so again this past Friday -- just six weeks after the DOJ announced voluntary new internal guidelines which, it insisted, would prevent abuses of the state secrets privilege. Instead -- as predicted -- the DOJ continues to embrace the very same "state secrets" theories of the Bush administration -- which Democrats generally and Barack Obama specifically once vehemently condemned -- and is doing so in order literally to shield the President from judicial review or accountability when he is accused of breaking the law.

SNIP

What makes this most recent episode particularly appalling is that the program which Obama is seeking to protect here -- the illegal Bush/Cheney NSA surveillance scheme -- was once depicted as a grave threat to the Constitution and the ultimate expression of lawlessness. Yet now, Obama insists that the very same program is such an important "state secret" that no court can even adjudicate whether the law was broken. When Democrats voted to immunize lawbreaking telecoms last year, they repeatedly justified that by stressing that Bush officials themselves were not immunized and would therefore remain accountable under the law…

Yet here is Obama doing exactly the opposite of those claims and assurances: namely, he's now (a) seeking to immunize not only telecoms, but also Bush officials, from judicial review; (b) demanding that courts be barred from considering the legality of NSA surveillance programs under any circumstances; and (c) attempting to institutionalize the broadest claims of presidential immunity imaginable via radically broad secrecy claims.

To do so, he's violating virtually everything he ever said about such matters when he was Senator Obama and Candidate Obama. And he's relying on the very same theories of executive immunity and secrecy that -- under a Republican President -- sparked so much purported outrage. If nothing else, this latest episode underscores the ongoing need for Congressional Democrats to proceed with proposed legislation to impose meaningful limits and oversight on the President's ability to use this power, as this President, just like the last one, has left no doubt about his willingness to abuse it for ignoble ends.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/01-2

Mike Hiltzik: Anti-Trust Protection of Insurance Industry NOT Key Factor

I've got three great articles debunking various health care myths, from the anti-trust exemption to the public option to requiring proof of citizenship to receive medical services (the Joe Wilson "you lie" issue). Due to time have to just quote from them:

Hiltzik: Health economist James Robinson found in 2003 that three large firms controlled more than 50% of enrollment in almost every state -- and that was before the biggest insurers launched a huge effort to snarf up their chief competitors, a trend exemplified by the 2004 mega-merger of WellPoint Health Networks Inc. and Anthem Inc.

By 2008, according to the American Medical Assn., in nearly 90% of the metropolitan areas of the country, a single insurer controlled 30% or more of the market. Is it merely a coincidence that health premiums have soared over the last decade -- up by 131% for family coverage from 1999 to 2009, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation?

SNIP

The real culprits are federal antitrust authorities, whose approach to health insurance mergers can best be described as supine. In other words, the truly effective antitrust immunity the industry has received has come not from lawmakers but from federal regulators. As David Balto, an antitrust attorney working for the liberal Center for American Progress, told Congress in 2008, over the previous 10 years there had been more than 400 health insurance mergers.

Only two drew challenges from antitrust regulators at the Department of Justice. Federal officials had also failed to bring cases alleging other anti-competitive behavior by health insurers, Balto said.

My comment: In other words, be wary of claims by politicians that ending the anti-trust exemption will somehow change the dynamic for consumers...or truly represent a courageous stand against the insurance industry (I support it of course, but we must be aware of efforts to oversell reforms).

David Lazurus: Why Big CEO'S Oppose the Public Option

The CEOs' main worry is that millions of people would flock to a public health plan because it could cost less than coverage offered by private insurers. Many of these people may be the younger workers prized by private insurers because they pay regular premiums but seldom make claims.

This, the CEOs say, would only make coverage more expensive as private insurers face smaller and less-healthy risk pools, and cope with greater demands for compensation from doctors and hospitals.

SNIP

And there's your nightmare scenario: More employers abandon their role as providers of health insurance, thus driving more people into the arms of a government plan, which would inexorably lead to -- gasp! -- socialized medicine.

This is, of course, nonsense. No one's talking about the government taking over hospitals or medical clinics, or in any way telling healthcare providers how to practice medicine.

SNIP

According to Forbes, the country's 500 largest public companies have laid off more than 611,000 workers since the beginning of the year. Some laid-off workers may have already found work, and health coverage, elsewhere. But most, judging from the nation's steadily rising unemployment rate (9.5% as of September), are still without jobs.

Meanwhile, most leading employers have increased premiums, co-pays and deductibles for workers remaining on the payroll, making health coverage less affordable with each passing year. Listening to business leaders sputter and whine about a public option is about as convincing as listening to the insurance industry serve up repeated predictions of medical doom, all the while salivating over a government requirement that nearly all Americans buy their product.

Kodak and Verizon and the rest of the Business Roundtable account for millions of dollars in political donations, and that's why their views are heeded by lawmakers. But they're also the ones whose repeated cutbacks have resulted in countless families now going without insurance. If they have a better idea for effectively providing coverage to the people they once called their own, let them speak.

Another GOP Myth Exposed: Requiring proof of citizenship a useless burden

(remember, Baucus and Dem leadership IMMEDIATELY capitulated to racist congressman Joe Wilson and the GOP on this…)

A new statewide study has found that a federal requirement to check the citizenship of all Medi-Cal applicants has imposed significant burdens on California's 58 counties but that officials have not reported any cases of existing recipients who had falsely claimed U.S. citizenship.

The study by the California Endowment and the California Healthcare Foundation, released this week, found that the requirement in particular made it harder for the homeless, mentally ill, people born outside California and children over age 16 to access public healthcare. That's because such groups had a more difficult time finding birth certificates, passports, driver's licenses and other documents needed to prove U.S. citizenship and identity.

Statewide, the study found that virtually all county health departments reported additional workloads, backlogs and costs in implementing the verification requirement, which Congress passed in 2005 and California began implementing in the last two years.

2009-10-30T10:24:00.000-07:00

TODAY'S TOPICS: My Take: House Bill/Public Option?, Afghanistan Quagmire, McCrystal, TARP, Kucinich, Grayson, Daily Show

All Time Greatest Republican Scandal Headline! This was from yesterday too:

"South Carolina Republican Caught With 18 Yr. Old Stripper, Bag of Sex Toys and Viagra In Cemetery"

Another Public Option that Isn’t…

So the Pelosi bill contains somewhat of a public option and will extend coverage to at least 35 million people. She deserves a bit of credit for keeping her caucus together long enough to produce even that.

But let's be clear, her public option will only cover those that currently don't have insurance, which means at most 2-4 percent of the total population (probably less than half that) will likely get enrolled.

Second, reportedly because she only had about 200 votes for a robust public option (thanks Blue Dogs!), the plan won't reimburse doctors at a rate five percent higher than Medicare, and instead force the government to negotiate with providers directly...just like the private insurers.

In other words, these are big, big victories for the insurance industry, as it will undermine the ability of the public option to compete - and to create pressure for reduced costs. Remember, the other HUGE WEAKNESS of both bills is that they don't provide ANY regulation of premiums.

In California, before an auto insurance company can raise our rates they have to prove to a board of public officials that there is a good reason to do so...the same should be done with health care premiums. A strong public option was so critical precisely because of this lack of cost controls.

Again, to keep those premiums down, a public option would have tied rate reimbursements to Medicare and would have been open to everyone on the exchanges. I fear this will no happen whatsoever now. I hope I'm wrong.

As I've also argued against here, this plan, as with the Senate's, still will force most people to buy private insurance...with taxpayers helping subsidize the coverage for those that can't afford it. I'm all for paying for universal coverage...but why do we have to pay the private insurance companies? This guarantees that 30% of all the money we give them will go to administrative costs, CEO salaries/bonuses/stock options, advertising, etc.

Worse of all, the government won't negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies...this is largely because of the deal struck by Obama with Big Pharma. The result: $ hundred of billions in lost consumer savings for prescription drugs - letting the pharmaceutical industry continue to gouge the American public with prices as much as 60% higher than in Canada.

Also deeply disappointing was the elimination of Kucinich's state single payer option.

Obama Should Lay Down the Law!

I'm still perplexed by the fact that Obama simply refuses to lay down the law on all these Blue Dogs and corporate Dem Senators! Let's remember, its these Democrats that must win re-election in more conservative districts, thus it is they that need support from the DNC and the President to win more than anyone.

Can you imagine if Obama came to their office and said listen, "If you do not support the cornerstone of my legislative agenda - including a robust public option - then you will not receive a dime from the DNC, a visit or any support from me, and I will publicly encourage someone to run against you in the primaries. Got it?"

If he did that, you'd see Blue Dogs lining up to where "I Love the Public Option" t-shirts! At the same time, he can and should be more involved in challenging the absurd proposals -- advanced by conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans -- for "opt-outs" and "triggers," which threaten to weaken the public option to the point of meaninglessness.

Good Things About Health Plans...

First, it proposes to pay for itself by a surtax on those that make over $500,000 a year...rather than tax upper end health plans (many of which would be union members who gave up a lot to get those kinds of plans).

Also, the plan would expand Medicaid, a critical component of any serious health care plan. Of course, the more they expand it, the more it saves money, which begs the question again: Why not just allow EVERYONE to buy into Medicare?

Insurance companies would have to obey limits on the out-of-pocket costs they could demand, and would not be permitted to charge copays or other fees for preventive care such as checkups or mammograms.

Children would remain eligible for family coverage through age 26, rather than the current 23, a step that would reduce the number of young uninsured adults.

In addition to a ban on insurance denial based on pre-existing conditions, the industry would be required to renew any policy as long as the premiums are paid in full. Nor could insurers charge higher premiums because of gender, and they would be prevented from placing annual or lifetime caps on coverage.

Finally, there would be a huge increase of funding for community health clinics...a critical and affordable health care alternative for poor and lower income populations.

For all those reasons, the Democrats must move the launch of this bill to 2010...rather than the ludicrous and current 2013 starting point. Why the hell would we start instituting these reforms in 2013 and not by next year!!??? This must be changed during debate...

Still the Elephant in the Room: For Profit Health Care

As I keep saying, the story is really a quite simple one: If you put a god damn dollar sign on peoples health, corporations that are legally required to only be concerned with maximizing profit for their shareholders (and Wall Street holds a lot of sway on this issue too), will, by definition, always seek to DENY sick and poor people the health care they need!

And for those that have it, they will seek to DENY them coverage when they do get sick. Why would any one ever base a health care system on the premise that sick people need to be denied coverage???

Its called maximizing profit...doesn't matter if it costs lives or not...why is this so hard for people, or the media, to understand? Answer: Because OUR REAL RELIGION in this country is a Market Fundamentalism that is constantly reinforced through our media, advertisements, and so on...

Conclusion...

I would be hard pressed in the end, no matter how lacking these bills are, to vote with the Republicans and ensure its defeat. This is one of those incredibly difficult pieces of legislation in which on pure principle, I’d have to say “we can do better, let’s go back to the drawing board.”

If this bill is defeated by the Repubs, this could be a death blow to Obama and the Democratic Party, and while the Party clearly needs a serious cleansing, if Republicans get back in charge it could be literally catastrophic for our nation and world.

So…I would probably vote for either (but fight like hell still to improve them), puke a little in my mouth while doing so, go get a blood transfusion, then an enema, and shower for a day crying in the corner of the stall. Then back to work improving this legislation every year…particularly focusing on opening up the public option, expanding Medicaid further, and regulating insurance industry premiums.

And, at the end of the day, this will help millions of people...that's a simple fact...but wow...this is a sad statement about the current state of our nation.

VIDEO SECTION

Daily Show does an absolutely brilliant dismantling of Fox news claiming to be, well, news…and the way in which they generate stories from their “opinion” wing to their “news” wing. Sadly, Stewart, as he has seemingly been bent on doing of late, brings up MSNBC at the end as the EQUIVALENT of Fox but on the left. This is deeply disturbing, because as I have pointed out, this is EXACTLY the false narrative Fox and the corporate media have been pushing of late.

I mean, of course CNN would make this claim, as it puts them in the spot of being the unbiased, credible news source while discrediting MSNBC…which is actually the only network that truly goes after facts and truth.

Sorry, Fox news racists attacking Obama for being like Hitler every day is not fucking equivalent to Maddow and Olbermann pointing out the role that insurance industry contributions have in stifling reform. Sorry…c’mon Jon, you’re better than that! I think Stewart also realizes by attacking both he himself appears unbiased and “credible” (as decided by the status quo), and might reach out to a larger audience…like more independents and right wingers. Unfortunately, it’s not true.

Stewart ends well though…bottom line is the Obama administration has been flubbing all this…

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/fox-sake

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) breaks down in tears several times on the House floor Wednesday afternoon as he read letters from people who said their loved ones died because they were uninsured."

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/congressman-grayson-stories-those-who

Check it out! My man Glenn Greenwald about Joe Lieberman's threat to filibuster the health care bill if it contains a public option, Evan Bayh quickly following suit and the financial gain being made by both men and their spouses for doing so.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/glenn-greenwald-lieberman-and-bayh-enrichi

Colbert Joe Lieberman proves he's independent of his Connecticut constituents by opposing a public option in health care reform.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/joe-lieberman-true-independent

I agree with Kucinich’s overall analysis here, as well as his outrage and embarrassment…the question is, if these are as good as the bills get, do you actually join Republicans and vote against them?

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/dennis-kucinich-could-end-being-bailou

Kucinich asks the big question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately: Does our 2 party serve the people or democracy itself anymore? Of course the answer is no. I’m not convinced a third party can be viable in this country however, and don’t want to split the left down the center, unless another conservative party comes in to do the same to the right. Then, that would be fantastic! A four party system, ranging from the progressive party, to the Democratic Party, to the GOP Crime Family, to the insane asylum Party…

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/dennis-kucinich-time-ask-ourselves-2-p

DefoxAmerica (watch the video): "Fox "News" personalities are pushing an agenda that is dangerous to ordinary Americans. Using tactics such as placing individuals singled out for censure on a blackboard and linking them to murderous dictators like Josef Stalin, Fox News has deliberately created an atmosphere of hysteria that they have used to attack organizations and individuals fighting for the issues that matter most to working families. I urge you to stand up to these new McCarthy-ite tactics by voting against any unconstitutional legislation that singles out specific organizations. This includes the Continuing Resolution that cuts off Federal support to the national anti-poverty group ACORN."

http://defoxamerica.com/?utm_source=rgemail

Listen to Alan Grayson’s now infamous calling out of a “K Street whore”. Granted, he’s got to be a little more careful throwing around such loaded language, particularly when you use the word “whore” as it relates to a woman. But, let’s be frank, that Enron Lobbyist hired by the Fed to protect bank industry criminals, is by definition, a corporate whore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFSv_yweOfs&feature=player_embedded

Though the Senate overcame a procedural hump and voted by a wide margin in favor of cloture and to extend federal unemployment insurance, Republicans attempted multiple delays to, for some reason, ensure that unemployed Americans desperate for money for food, rent, and gas...were denied any help. So, on the Senate floor yesterday, Sen. Dick Durbin (WHO SHOULD BE SENATE MAJORITY LEADER!) listed off the unemployment rate in the states represented by the 13 lawmakers who voted against the measure last night.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/durbin-gops-obstruction-unemployment-benef

ARTICLE SECTION

TARP on Steroids, by David Sirota

A few clips:

It had been a dark and stormy month of financial collapse, culminating in an attempted power grab. Pushed by his fellow Wall Street Ponzi schemers, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson - a former Goldman Sachs CEO - was threatening Armageddon unless Congress ratified his pamphlet-sized decree for a no-strings-attached bank bailout. The straightforward proposal, backed by President George W. Bush and President-to-be Barack Obama, would have turned Paulson into King Henry - a despot allowed to autonomously dole out $700 billion to any of his cronies.

SNIP

Whereas the original TARP included some oversight language and power to limit Wall Street bonuses, TARP on Steroids includes no specific oversight or executive pay constraints. Whereas TARP permitted the government to underwrite both small and large banks, TARP on Steroids allows taxpayer cash to go only to the behemoths (which, not coincidentally, tend to make the biggest campaign contributions). And whereas TARP limited the Treasury Secretary's check-writing authority to two years and $700 billion, TARP on Steroids would let him spend as much as he wants.

This last point is what poker players call "the tell" - the inadvertent tip exposing a scam. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's tell came when he publicly said the Obama administration would oppose amendments limiting the new bailout power - even if the limit had a $1 trillion cap.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/30-2

McChrystal Doesn’t Get It—Does Obama? by Scott Ritter

A few clips:

There is a curious phenomenon taking place in the American media at the moment: the lionization of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the American military commander in Afghanistan. Although he has taken a few lumps for playing politics with the White House, McChrystal has generally been sold to the American public as a “Zen warrior,” a counterinsurgency genius who, if simply left to his own devices, will be able to radically transform the ongoing debacle that is Afghanistan into a noble victory that will rank as one of the greatest political and military triumphs of modern history. McChrystal’s resume and persona (a former commander of America’s special operations forces, a tireless athlete and a scholar) have been breathlessly celebrated in several interviews and articles. Reporters depict him as an ascetic soldier who spouts words of wisdom to rival Confucius, Jesus and Muhammad.

SNIIP

McChrystal operates under the illusion that American military power can provide a shield from behind which Afghanistan can remake itself into a viable modern society. He has deluded himself and others into believing that the people of Afghanistan want to be part of such a grand social experiment, and furthermore that they will tolerate the United States being in charge. The reality of Afghan history, culture and society argue otherwise. The Taliban, once a defeated entity in the months following the initial American military incursion into Afghanistan, are resurgent and growing stronger every day.

The principle source of the Taliban’s popularity is the resentment of the Afghan people toward the American occupation and the corrupt proxy government of Hamid Karzai. There is nothing an additional 40,000 American troops will be able to do to change that basic equation. The Soviets tried and failed. They deployed 110,000 troops, operating on less restrictive lines of communication and logistical supply than the United States. They built an Afghan army of some 45,000 troops. They operated without the constraints of American rules of engagement. They slaughtered around a million Afghans. And they lost, for the simple reason that the people of Afghanistan did not want them, or their Afghan proxies.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/30-5

The Stimulus is Working (without it we would be F******...)…We Need Another…

As I've maintained, Obama's most important accomplishment to date was the stimulus package! This will serve as more evidence that New Deal style economics works!

The economic stimulus plan approved early this year had saved or created about 650,000 jobs so far. In a sign that the economy is improving, the Commerce Department reported this morning that "the economy grew at a 3.5 percent pace in the third quarter, the best showing in two years." The reports did not capture the complete job impact of the tax cuts, direct payments to individuals through such programs as Pell Grants for college education and unemployment compensation.

But also, there was a 22.4 percent jump in car sales, the result of the Cash for Clunkers (C4C) program. This increase in car sales accounted for 42.0 percent of the growth in the quarter. I think this program needs to be mimicked for other energy efficiency appliances (and is…we just need even more for it).

Economist Dean Baker points out some other important details: State and local government spending contracted at a 1.1 percent annual rate. The stimulus spending did lead a modest increase in investment spending at the state and local level. However, this was more than offset by spending cutbacks that states implemented to meet balanced budget requirements.

While the growth shown in this report allows us to pronounce the recession ended, it does not provide much basis for optimism about the future. Consumption spending is virtually certain to shrink in future quarters. The same is true of structure investment and state and local government spending.

We are unlikely to get much boost from the trade sector or much further boost from defense spending. The only sector that is likely to be a source of substantial growth in the next year is inventories, as the rundown eventually reaches an endpoint. However, with so much weakness elsewhere in the economy, inventories fluctuations will not turn the economy around.

2009-10-28T14:42:00.000-07:00

TODAY'S TOPICS: Lieberman the Rat, Obama Apologists, Wall Street, Public Option, Marine Resigns, Climate Change/Marijuana

"The bottom line is that the public option can’t really hold private insurers accountable if it is only competing for 10 percent of the insurance market, because private insurance companies aren’t going to change their business practices if 90 percent of their customers can’t take their business elsewhere.”

-- Senator Ron Wyden (Oregon), EXACTLY!

Senator Lieberman Threatens to Filibuster the Public Option

If I even start writing about this abomination it will turn into a post laden with profanity (so I’ll leave it to Robert Scheer today to really break it down…)...So just quickly, outside of the fact that Connecticut is the home of AETNA, and that Lieberman received over $1 million from the insurance industry, he was ALSO one of the Gang of 14/Up or Down Vote!!

You remember, that group of “centrist” Senators that wanted all the filibustering to end, and for more up and down votes!!? There’s also that small fact that 70% of people living in Connecticut WANT a public option, that his wife works for the insurance industry, and that the Democrats – particularly Obama – forgave him for all that he did for McCain, all the lies he told, all his backstabbing and conniving, and STILL GAVE HIM a Committee Chairmanship.

Yet, he does this!? The most important legislative fight perhaps in decades and he’s ready to sink ANY REFORM if it provides competition to private insurers? This guy is the epitome of a rat…the Dems need to rid him – COMPLETELY – of what’s left of the “party” (i.e. the Dem Caucus…in fact, I bet he rats them out to R’s).

He should be stripped of the committee chairmanship that he was ONLY granted because he promised he would be the 60th vote to at least prevent filibusters. And, he deserves a good ole’ fashioned beat down…

Obama Apologists and the Need for us to be Honest

You know the kinds of apologists I’m talking about right? Anything you criticize Obama for, there’s an almost inner recording that immediately is set off, and it goes something like this: “Yeah, but…(then a series of excuses…he’s got to think about re-election, he needs independent voters, he can’t seem too liberal, he’s blah, blah blah). Funny how everyone suddenly becomes wanna be political consultants when forced to rationalize why we can’t even get the most basic of policies that help people over corporations.

Or there’s this beauty: he’s playing chess, not checkers. He’s so brilliant, you just don’t understand how he’s actually fighting for the little guy…you’ll see, he’s tricking people into blah, blah blah.”

Listening to people come up with all these tortured theories about these ingenious strategies that Obama is utilizing, and that no one else understands, borders on dementia. There’s almost nothing he does that can’t be explained by either coming up with political rationales that go way beyond reality, or complex theories about “chess playing”.

Look, let’s just be honest. I don’t blame all the disappointments on just him. We’re also seeing:

A Democratic Party that has been too co-opted by corporate interests and cowardice;
A Republican Party that is one big sick joke;
A public in which less than 50% believe in evolution, a third can't even name a single branch of government, nearly 20% believe the sun revolves around the earth, and barely 50% believe in global warming now;
A media that is so inane, idiotic and addicted to “he said, she said” and false equivalencies its become nothing more than a stupid factory;
A corporatocracy that has so much wealth, power, and political influence we are on the verge of becoming a kind of fascist state;
A campaign finance system that literally has turned out system into a casino in which legalized bribery isn't the exception, but the norm;
And then there's the right wing echo chamber – led by Fox News – that is whipping up ignorance and hysteria at a rate not seen since Satan himself led a revolt against God (assuming you believe that…which I don’t…but it’s a good analogy anyway)!

A few quick words on public idiocy and then I'll get back to the Obama apologist syndrome. On one hand, yeah, Americans are waking up on some things….but then going backwards on others. Take global warming – the single greatest threat to humanity in our short history. The all out assault on science by the right wing and big business has succeeded in REDUCING by 20 points in the past three years the number of Americans who actually believe it!!!

That’s right, only fifty-seven percent of Americans believe in global warming. Soon we’ll be debating gravity again!

On the other hand, nearly 50% of Americans now support legalizing Marijuana…which is a huge increase in enlightenment.

This is a rather simple dichotomy to explain though: one, pot smoking is fun and most Americans have done it. Two, fixing the abuses of the war on pot is much, much easier than say, taking on the entire earth’s climate. Third, the amount of anti-pot propaganda has gone way down in recent years and the anti-global warming propaganda has gone way up.

So the bottom line being, we’re still a confused people when it comes to issues that are hard, and take actual intellectual energy and honesty. So trust me, I GET ITS DIFFICULT for Obama. I get that we must be measured in our disappointment and criticisms.

I believe I am on this blog all the time. I bend over backwards to point out the good that he’s done, as well as the forces against him that are hell bent on preventing anything remotely positive happening for anyone but the military and corporations, and the reality of the votes it takes to get anything passed in Congress (thanks Blue Dogs, Repubs, and Corporate Dems!).

But, with all that said, we can’t ignore all the deeply disturbing actions and inaction's he has taken…if we do, we are simply being controlled in a different way than the right wing is (though obviously they are WAY PASSED even Borg levels).

Trust me…I want him to do well…I want him to succeed…but I will not ignore reality in order to make myself feel better. Let’s also remember, by pushing him, attacking him when he sells out, demanding that he fights and stands up for what he said he would, and praising him when he does so, we will serve as a counter balance to all those enormous forces that have clearly pushed him in the wrong direction.

He even asked us to play this role in the campaign! He, as did FDR, said clearly, “I agree with you, now go make me do it.” So frankly, I don’t even feel like I am undermining him, though when he’s wrong, that’s what I may have to do sometimes. But, I feel like by pushing him and reminding him of why we elected him, it HELPS HIM….and much, much more importantly, it helps our country…at a time we happen to be sitting on the brink…

Marine Captain Resigns Because of Afghanistan War Quagmire!

Here’s a couple clips from Glenn Greenwald about his resignation letter:

Matthew Hoh, a former Marine captain with combat experience in Iraq, resigned last month from his position with the Foreign ServiceAs Glenn Greenwald notes, Hoh's observations are entirely consistent with David Rohde's account of his seven-month hostage ordeal with the Taliban: namely, the longer we occupy Afghanistan, the more people we kill and imprison without charges, the greater the central fuel of terrorism -- anti-American hatred -- rises, not only in Afghanistan but across the Muslim world.

As the Pentagon's own commissioned Report from 2004 concluded:

Negative attitudes and the conditions that create them are the underlying sources of threats to America's national security . . . Direct American intervention in the Muslim world has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for Islamic radicals. Hoh told The Washington Post's Karen DeYoung that he's "not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love" and that he believes "there are plenty of dudes who need to be killed," adding: "I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys."

Plainly, there's nothing ideological about his conclusions; they're just the by-product of an honest assessment, based on first-hand experiences, of how our ongoing occupation of that country is worsening the very problem we're allegedly there to solve.

VIDEO SECTION

Jon Stewart delves into Net Neutrality (one of the most critical issues facing our country), and "rips old "Pony Express" John McCain for stepping into the void left by Ted Stevens and his support of the "Internet Freedom Act of 2009". "

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/daily-show-here-neutrality

Looks like we're going to see a push to open the public option from Senator Ron Wyden once the bill gets on the floor..

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/wyden-merkley-promise-floor-fight-ope

From The Colbert Report: The petition signers who want to overturn the "everything but marriage" bill should be able to stay in the closet that the gay people have abandoned.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/word-dont-ask-dont-tell

Senator Bernie Sanders’ opening remarks on the Climate change legislation…he’s awesome:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsNYm2v3050

FROM ALTERNET: On September 8, 2009, a school girl named Lilly asked President Obama who he'd have lunch with if he could pick anyone alive or dead. The president chose Gandhi, explaining that Gandhi's nonviolence inspired Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar Chavez in the United States.All three of these men--Gandhi, MLK and Chavez--were committed to nonviolence and opposed war as a foreign policy tool.

Similar to his invocations of Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount during the campaign, the president continues to cite "inspiration" from luminaries of nonviolence, only to reject their philosophies when it comes time to govern.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/143479/president_obama%27s_heroes%3A_a_bunch_of_people_who_would_not_approve_of_war_in_afghanistan/

FROM C&L (this is a brilliant expose of how the Right Wing Echo Chamber Works):

Washington, DC - Today, Media Matters for America released a new video demonstrating how the conservative echo chamber operates in the age of President Obama. Conservative activists - aided by Fox News, a political organization disguised as a news network - use distortions, lies, and smear tactics to shape public opinion and influence national policy.

"Unlike the Clinton and Bush years, the right-wing echo chamber is now aided by a network that has thrown any remaining shred of journalistic credibility out the window," said Eric Burns, President of Media Matters. "The modern conservative movement has gained an enormous megaphone in Fox News that they are using to impact legislation and shape public opinion."

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/media-matters-rise-conservative-mediaRaw

FROM C&L: Story has the heartwarming news that bankers aren't getting to celebrate in peace at their annual conference:The annual American Bankers Association meeting in Chicago is not going as planned. Besieged by activists from the Service Employees International Union, the AFL-CIO and Americans for Financial Reform, the leaders of America's financial sector were interrupted Sunday night as a throng of protesters poured into the conference area and began to chant.

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/showdown-chicago-brings-out-1000-prot

Olbermann on the study I posted about a few days ago...our health care system wastes $700 billion a year...

http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/study-us-health-care-system-wastes-700-billion

This is getting ugly. Rachel Maddow reports on some breaking news from The New York Times -Brother of Afghan Leader Is Said to Be on C.I.A. Payroll

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/nyt-brother-afghan-leader-said-be-cia-payr

ARTICLE SECTION

Too Big to Fail: Why the Big Banks Should Be Broken Up, but Why the White House and Congress Don't Want to, by Robert Reich

There’s no other single issue that I’m more dismayed and disappointed by, than the way in which Obama and his economic team of corporatists and fraudsters have dealt with Wall Street (Paul Volker aside…and that’s why he’s now being shunned by Obama…he’s standing up for humans not banks). I don’t care to what degree someone has become one of those Democratic Obama apologists, there is NO EXCUSE for the way in which he, Geitner and Summers have operated.

Reich breaks down how we rein in Wall Street versus what we’re getting…which is a damn tragedy.

A few clips:

And now there are five - five Wall Street behemoths, bigger than they were before the Great Meltdown, paying fatter salaries and bonuses to retain their so-called"talent," and raking in huge profits. The biggest difference between now and last October is these biggies didn't know then that they were too big to fail and the government would bail them out if they got into trouble. Now they do. And like a giant, gawking adolescent who's just discovered he can crash the Lexus convertible his rich dad gave him and the next morning have a new one waiting in his driveway courtesy of a dad who can't say no, the biggies will drive even faster now, taking even bigger risks. What to do? Two ideas are floating around Washington, but only one is supported by the Treasury and the White House. Unfortunately, it's the wrong one.

The right idea is to break up the giant banks.

SNIP

While it (the Administration) says it doesn't want another bank bailout, its solution to the "too big to fail" problem doesn't go nearly far enough. In fact, it doesn't really go anywhere. The Administration would wait until a giant bank was in danger of failing and then put it into a process akin to bankruptcy. The bank's assets would be sold off to pay its creditors, and its shareholders would likely walk off with nothing. The Treasury would determine when such a "resolution" process was needed, and appoint a receiver, such as the FDIC, to wind down the bank's operations.

SNIP

Worse yet, the Administration's plan gives the big failing bank an escape hatch: The receiver might decide that the bank doesn't need to go out of business after all - that all it needs is some government money to tide it over until the crisis passes. So the Treasury would also have the authority to provide the bank with financial assistance in the form of loans or guarantees. In other words, back to bailout. (Historical footnote: Summers and Geithner, along with Bob Rubin, while at Treasury in 1999, joined Greenspan in urging Congress to repeal Glass-Steagall. The four of them - Greenspan, Summers, Rubin and Geithner also refused to regulate derivatives, and pushed Congress to stop the Commodity Futures Trading Corporation from doing so.)

http://www.truthout.org/1027092

Lieberman Twists the Knife, by Robert Scheer

A few clips:

Is there a more hypocritical figure in American politics than Joe Lieberman? The Connecticut senator declared Tuesday that he would support a filibuster of any health care reform bill that has a public option—even the version with the “trigger” compromise accepted by Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe—because it might cost money…

SNIP

This from a senator who, as much as anyone, helped run up the national debt since 9/11 by pushing to raise the military budget to its highest level since World War II. It is a budget inflated by enormous expenditures on high-tech weaponry irrelevant to combating terror, such as the $2-billion-a-piece submarines—produced in his home state of Connecticut—that he claimed were needed to combat al-Qaida, a landlocked enemy holed up in caves. The same week that he and others in Congress passed a $680-billion defense bill larded with pork of the sort he has always supported, Lieberman is worried about the impact of a very limited public option on the debt.

SNIP

Maybe he can also take that time to justify his strong support for the government bailout of troubled banking and insurance companies that has tripled the federal deficit this year to $1.4 trillion. Is AIG not now a “government-run insurance company,” and doesn’t the $185 billion of taxpayer money tossed at that sorry enterprise add up to more than twice the yearly cost of the health reform package? And that’s without considering the trillions of tax dollars put into play to shore up Citigroup, Bank of America, GM, Chrysler and those other suddenly socialized sectors of American corporate life.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/28

We Should be Prosecuting Like we Use to!

"Compare this to what happened after the Savings and Loan heist almost 20 years ago. No less than 1,852 S&L officials were prosecuted and 1,072 were jailed. Over 500 CEOs and top officers were indicted. What is going on here? Don't we believe in holding people accountable anymore? Tell the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI to get cracking!" The S&L bailout cost taxpayers $124 billion. In the current crisis, taxpayers have lent $3 trillion so far, and it will be many years before the true costs to taxpayers are known. No other U.S. financial firm is matching Goldman’s stunning success. But you won't find other firms complaining.

One new survey, released last week, estimates that 23 top U.S. banks and hedge funds will shell out $140 billion in 2009 compensation, $23 billion more than their previous all-time record high set in 2007.SNIPAt a minimum, U.S. authorities could be insisting, as British officials did last Wednesday, that every big bank in the nation either agree to the modest executive pay reforms that surfaced at last month’s global economic summit in Pittsburgh or lose the right to do business with the government.

SNIP

The new French legislation, if enacted, would cap executive pay, in companies subsidized by tax dollars, at 25 times the pay of a company’s lowest-paid worker. In all other companies, boards of directors would set the executive-worker multiple that determines the executive pay ceiling, after a process that includes worker input. Shareholders would have the final say on what that multiple would be.

Support in France for an outright income cap — a "maximum wage" — has been building since last spring when the popular French weekly, Marianne, launched a petition campaign for a “salaire maximum.” How far politically can this campaign now go?

-- Sam Pizzigati, Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality.

2009-10-27T09:19:00.000-07:00

TODAY'S TOPICS: The Opt-Out Option, Grassroots Power, Balloon Boy, Wall St. Regulation?, Blackwater Denied, Sanders, Feingold, Kucinich

The Public Option Update…Reid’s “Opt-Out” and Grassroots Activism

I think it goes without saying, that despite the weakness of Senator Reid’s “public option”, the fact that it’s even on the table at this point, after the punditocracy and the news media drones have been counting it out for months, demonstrates just what progressive activism and political pressure can accomplish.

The fact is Obama and the Democratic leadership in the Senate certainly, Pelosi not as much so, had been ready and eager to jettison the public plan for Republican and Blue Dog votes since day one. My God, we STILL can’t get the President to lift more than a finger in its support, and most sources say he still prefers a fucking trigger.

So the fact that Reid has included one in the Senate plan, forsaking Senator Snowe and the bipartisan myth, is a victory…at least on some level. We also know that the House public option will be stronger, so the same determined efforts of progressive activists to insist that Congress include a public plan now must continue, with the focus being the adoption of more of what the House plan comes up with, and less of what the Senate does.

A quick note on the “Opt-Out” concept: the problem is simple, the smaller the pool that has access to the public option, the less effective it will be. This is a fundamental truth about health coverage policy.

Furthermore, the trailer park, teabagging states that will likely choose to opt-out ironically enough are the same states that have the worst health care systems and the most people unjustly suffering. So, millions of people in desperate need will be denied by political leaders that aren’t qualified to manage the French fry section at McDonald’s, let alone determine health care policy for an entire state.

One defense of the op-out (or an attack of it by the right wing), is that Medicaid also has an opt-out provision, but not one state has ever done so. Public health insurance, in other words, is too popular for states to opt out…and so too may be the case with the public option. I hope that’s the case, but remember, we are living in a different time, with a different Republican Party.

State Republican leaders would rather let people die in the streets than ever, EVER disobey the corporate interests they whore themselves out to. So we shall see…but let’s just hope something closer to the House version is adopted…without an opt-out.

Another Reminder: Health Insurance Industry Still Wins

Before I describe all the other weak aspects of the Senate bill, here’s one more study proving just how WASTEFUL and INEFFICIENT our for profit over life system is: A new report from Thomson Reuters has found that the U.S. health care system wastes up to $800 billion ever year. "The average U.S. hospital spends one-quarter of its budget on billing and administration, nearly twice the average in Canada," the report notes.

Now to more of what the insurance industry got (largely due to their ingenious strategy of appearing to be for reform…so by supporting a few modest regulations, they avoided all the real tough measures that we need most), in return for their extortion and bribery of the President and Congress.

They will get millions of new paying customers…and billions in subsidies from taxpayers to help pay for coverage for those that can’t afford what will still be exorbitant premiums. Furthermore, there are likely to be no limits on what insurers can charge (as I have maintained was the elephant in the room for all these months), while at the same time the plan is expected to limit competition from any new national government insurance plan that lawmakers create.

Remember, the public options floating around are ONLY open to a sliver of the population – not everybody like progressives have been advocating for – namely people that don’t currently have it. It’s difficult to see how a public option will truly lower premiums – at least in a significant way – if it can’t actually compete with private insurance among customers of those insurance companies!

Also of worry is the fact that a public option in which the only people with access to it are the uninsured will almost assuredly result in higher costs because the uninsured tend to be poorer (so more subsidies needed) or have a pre-exiting condition (meaning more will have to be spent to take care of them). This is a deep concern of mine...

As pointed out on C&L: These anticipated wins -- from an initiative that has at times been portrayed as doomsday for health insurers -- is the result of a strategy developed by one of Washington's savviest lobbyists, Karen Ignagni. Under Ignagni's leadership, the industry group America's Health Insurance Plans adopted the goal of universal coverage while setting out to shape it in a way that benefited insurers -- a crucial move that aligned their interests with those of other groups, including consumers and hospitals.

Insurers poured campaign donations into the coffers of key sympathetic members of the House and Senate, and loaded up on lobbyists. And when Obama and other Democrats began attacking the industry, insurers made a strategic choice not to walk away from the negotiating table.

In addition to fighting the public option, insurers that offer Medicare health maintenance organizations are battling more than $100 billion in cuts in federal payments to that program. And they are trying to beat back a move by Democrats to go after the industry's decades-old exemption from antitrust law.

But in Washington, many marvel that lawmakers have not wrung more from an industry that, surveys show, is held in low regard by the public.

Conclusion…

We’ve still got some work to do, but we should take some solace that it was the grassroots, and the grassroots alone, that made what we are getting so far even remotely possible. This must continue and expand, particularly to the debate over Wall Street regulation.

Just as we must go after those Democrats that have sold out to corporate interests, so too must we support and honor those that stand up for us. It is this cover, and this support, that tells politicians the people have their back, and they can fight for what’s right, AND win re-election.

VIDEO SECTION

Talk about a perfect illustration of my point regarding Republicans whoring themselves to big business with the price being American lives, watch Maddow discuss the fact that right in the middle of a health care crisis with the swine flu, Republicans are playing politics with a Surgeon General appointment to get even with the Democrats for wanting to investigate a health insurance company. Wow...

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/republicans-holding-surgeon-general-appoin

One of our true progressive heroes in the House, Marcy Kaptur railes on the banks on the floor. Why? Because the biggest banks are using our money to buy up smaller banks! In other words, there power is INCREASING, and there's no reason to believe anything is going to be done about this (yet). My God...it's not rocket science!! Break the banks up, reinstitute Glass-Seagall, regulate derivatives, and tax short selling of stocks...for starters.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/big-banks-take-your-money-run-congress

Bernie Sanders unfiltered…this time on the public option. A great explanation of what it is and why it’s needed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw9xkZS-xhk

Russ Feingold visits Face the Nation…and says it like it is: What liberals want is single payer.” This is actually an important distinction he makes, as it corrects the mythic narrative that we on the left need to “compromise more” and stop demanding we get everything we want…when in actuality, the public option IS THE COMPROMISE!!! Medicare for All is the real solution to our health care crisis…and we gave that up in hopes of at least getting something…and that “something” is the public option…

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/russ-feingold-what-liberals-want-single-pa

Sherrod Brown on State of the Union did a nice job of calling out Orrin Hatch for the Republicans actual OPPOSITION to Medicare and explaining why it is important, at minimum, to have a public option included in the health care bill.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/sherrod-brown-orrin-and-his-party-dont-muc

A great editorial by Bill Moyers about a great Justice who recently passed away…

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/bill-moyers-journal-william-wayne-justice

Jeremy Scahill visits Amy Goodman to discuss the fantastic news that a Judge has rejected nearly all Blackwater claims of being above the law:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/democracy-now-judge-rejects-blackwater-att

C&L: Lawrence O'Donnell recounts the pathetic saga of Bernie Kerik, the former New York City Police Commissioner and Bush nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security that has now been sentenced to jail. Finally!

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/bernie

C&L: When asked what his assessment of President Obama's first ten months in office was, Rep. Dennis Kucinich stressed the need for job creation and said the "when the private sector doesn't provide the jobs; the government has a moral responsibility to provide jobs. FDR recognized that back in the 30's, and I hope the Obama administration will recognize that in the 21st century".

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/dennis-kucinich-president-obama-needs-take

C&L: Rachel Maddow talks to editor and partner of BoingBoing Xeni Jardin about the bill introduced by Sen. John McCain that would block the FCC from keeping the entire Internet accessible to everyone (McCain happens to get more money from the telecom industry than any other Senator...gee...what a shock).

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/rachel-maddow-show-mccain-pushes-telecom-agenda

Rep. Anthony Weiner released an internal study last week showing that 151 members of Congress "currently receive government-funded; government-administered single-payer health care -- Medicare." Of those 151 members, 55 are Republicans who also happen to be "steadfastly opposed [to] other Americans getting the public option, like the one they have chosen." Included on Weiner's list are anti-public option crusaders Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), and Rep. Peter King (R-NY). Weiner explained that the purpose of this study is to "point out some of the hypocrisy of this debate." "Even in a town known for hypocrisy," Weiner said in a statement yesterday, "this list of 55 Members of Congress deserve some sort of prize. They apparently think the public option is ok for them, but not anyone else."

Back in July, Weiner offered an amendment that would have given these 55 people a chance to end their own public option by eliminating Medicare once and for all. According to Weiner, it was "put-up or shut-up time for the phonies who deride the so-called 'public option.'" Of course, no one voted for the measure. Yet now "you have members of Congress thumping their chest how they’re against government health care," Weiner noted, adding, "and yet when it's time for them to accept Medicare, they're like, 'Sign me up!'"

Watch him discuss this:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/anthony-weiner-points-out-hypocrisy-member

ARTICLE SECTION

War Is a Hate Crime, by Chris Hedges

This is another simply brilliant disection of what has gone so wrong in our culture, and how that relates to public policy. In my post about the need for hate crimes legislation, and why it matters, I left out the other part of the story: the ironic and sad fact that it was an amendment on a war funding bill. That's right, the price for protecting gays from hate crimes is the bombing and murder of the people of Afghanistan.

A few clips:

Violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people is wrong. So is violence against people in Afghanistan and Iraq. But in the bizarre culture of identity politics, there are no alliances among the oppressed. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the first major federal civil rights law protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, passed last week, was attached to a $680-billion measure outlining the Pentagon’s budget, which includes $130 billion for ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Democratic majority in Congress, under the cover of protecting some innocents, authorized massive acts of violence against other innocents.

SNIP

The brutality of Matthew Shepard’s killers, who beat him to death for being gay, is a product of a culture that glorifies violence and sadism. It is the product of a militarized culture. We have more police, prisons, inmates, spies, mercenaries, weapons and troops than any other nation on Earth. Our military, which swallows half of the federal budget, is enormously popular—as if it is not part of government. The military values of hyper-masculinity, blind obedience and violence are an electric current that run through reality television and trash-talk programs where contestants endure pain while they betray and manipulate those around them in a ruthless world of competition. Friendship and compassion are banished.

This hyper-masculinity is at the core of pornography with its fusion of violence and eroticism, as well as its physical and emotional degradation of women. It is an expression of the corporate state where human beings are reduced to commodities and companies have become proto-fascist enclaves devoted to maximziing profit. Militarism crushes the capacity for moral autonomy and difference. It isolates us from each other. It has its logical fruition in Abu Ghraib, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with our lack of compassion for our homeless, our poor, our mentally ill, our unemployed, our sick, and yes, our gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual citizens.

SNIP

…a militarized culture attacks all that is culturally defined as the feminine, including love, gentleness, compassion and acceptance of difference. It sees any sexual ambiguity as a threat to male “hardness” and the clearly defined roles required by the militarized state. The continued support for our permanent war economy, the continued elevation of military values as the highest good, sustains the perverted ethic, rigid social roles and emotional numbness that Theweleit explored. It is a moral cancer that ensures there will be more Matthew Shepards.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/26-0

In Defense of the ‘Balloon Boy’ Dad, by Frank Rich

A few clips:

Certainly the "balloon boy" incident is a reflection of our time - much as the radio-induced "War of the Worlds" panic dramatized America's jitters on the eve of World War II, or the national preoccupation with the now-forgotten Congressman Gary Condit signaled America's pre-9/11 drift into escapism and complacency in the summer of 2001. But to see what "balloon boy" says about 2009, you have to look past the sentimental moral absolutes. You have to muster some sympathy for the devil of the piece, the Bad Dad. And you can't grant blanket absolution to those in the American audience who smugly blame Heene and television exclusively for the entire embarrassing episode.

It would be lovely, for instance, to believe that cable audiences doubled in size that afternoon because they were rooting for little Falcon's welfare. But as Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler would say on Weekend Update at "Saturday Night Live," "Really?!?" Many of those viewers were driven by the same bloodlust that spawns rubberneckers at every highway accident: the hope of witnessing the graphic remains of a crash, not a soft landing.

SNIP

The role models for today's desperate fame seekers are "Jon & Kate Plus 8," not Gable and Lombard. But even if they catch a break, as Heene did on "Wife Swap," they still may end up betrayed by a stacked system. As The Times reported in August, many reality shows are as cruel as the old dance marathons. The usual Hollywood workplace rules allowing breaks for rest or meals often don't apply. Nor, sometimes, does the minimum wage.

Let 'em eat fame. If Heene's balloon was empty, so were the toxic financial instruments, inflated by the thin air of unsupported debt, that cratered the economy he inhabits. The press hyped both scams, and the public eagerly bought both. But between the bogus balloon and the banks' bubble, there's no contest as to which did the most damage to the country. The ultimate joke is that Heene, unlike the reckless gamblers at the top of Citigroup and A.I.G., may be the one with a serious shot at ending up behind bars.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/25-0

Why Wall Street Reform Is Stuck in Reverse, by Robert Reich

A few clips:

Eight months ago it looked as if Wall Street was in store for strong financial regulation -- oversight of derivative trading, pay linked to long-term performance, much higher capital requirements, an end to conflicts of interest (i.e. credit rating agencies being paid by the very companies whose securities they're rating), and even resurrection of the Glass-Steagall Act separating commercial from investment banking. Today, Congress is struggling to produce the tiniest shards of regulation that would at least give the appearance of doing something to rein in the Street.

SNIP

Brian Griffiths, the Goldman international adviser who told us inequality is good for us, doesn't know what he's talking about. America is lurching toward inequality once again, led by the financial industry. The Street is back to where it was in 2007, but most of the rest of us are poorer than we were then -- largely due to the meltdown that occurred because Wall Street overreached. The oddity is that we bailed out the Street, including Griffiths and his colleagues, but apparently won't even be repaid. And now that Griffiths et al knows his firm and the other big ones on the Street are too big to fail, he and his colleagues will make even bigger gambles in the future with our money.

http://www.truthout.org/1025097

2009-10-23T14:47:00.000-07:00

TODAY'S TOPICS: Hate Crimes, Health Care Update, Olbermann/Maddow v. Right Wing, Obama v. Fox, False Equivalencies

"I propose that we honor their memory by naming them…with health care reform no one will ever die in America because they can't see a doctor.'"

-- Rep. Alan Grayson

Health Care Reform Update

Jesus Christ! What kind of crime does an industry have to commit in America for us to draw the line? In just the past few weeks, the health insurance industry has:

1. Released two bogus studies in which they PROMISE to raise our premiums exponentially if we dare try to regulate them.
2. Denied a baby coverage because it weighed “too much”,
3. Denied women coverage if they were abused by their husbands - counting that as a pre-existing condition
4. Rescinded the coverage of a man who got HIV because he “should have told them beforehand” (even though that's impossible)
4. Denied a women who took an anti-AIDS medicine for safety purposes after being RAPED because, apparently, being RAPED is also a pre-existing condition.

It really makes one wonder why we just don't get rid of these scumbags and open Medicare to everyone doesn't it? But then, that would be far too rational, humane, and logical for this paradigm.

Will the Democrats get it? Will they understand that the health insurance industry is a leech sucking the life right out of our economy, our humanity, and our very lives? Do they understand that if they’re not going to do what they should, and create a Medicare for All system, they must at least provide competition to these bloodsuckers with a public option – something supported by huge majorities of Americans, particularly Democrats (who they’ll need to win re-election)?

I hope efforts to get bipartisan support in exchange for more death and suffering ends, and soon. The GOP has been the party of ‘no' for going on a hundred years now! On nearly every landmark reform that has improved the quality of lives of those that live in this country the GOP has been there to call it Socialism (which makes one think, "damn is socialism cool").

They opposed FDR's New Deal (including Social Security) and Johnson's Great Society (including Medicare)…that means they were against a minimum wage, child labor laws, Medicaid, the voting rights act, women’s suffrage, a 40 hour work week, public education, and the list goes on and on.

We don’t need their goddamn support or approval…in fact, if we do get Snowe’s support that means only one thing: The bill is a piece of shit and people will die because of it.

NOTHING is more important for the Democrats own future than passing a health care bill that ACTUALLY WORKS! Let the Republicans be on the wrong side of history – AGAIN – just as they have been on nearly all great reform legislation.

My Short (but special) Comment on Hate Crime Legislation

First to the great news: The hate crimes bill has crossed its last hurdle in Congress. President Obama has vowed to sign it by the end of this month. And there are bills seeking to end workplace and military discrimination coming up for debate in Congress too…nice.

After hearing this issue debated of late I feel like I need to explain why hate crimes protections are important. Too many people, obviously those that oppose it, but many that support it too, clearly are not fully understanding the nuanced reasoning behind the legislation and its purpose.

I'm sure you've heard the arguments against: All "murder is hate" so why discriminate against certain victims in favor of others? (nevermind that hate crimes apply to a lot more than murder). Or this gem, "we shouldn't be legislating thought" ("thought" being the intent of the crime). Both of these arguments COMPLETELY miss the point. Let me explain...

First, I think a much more accurate description of this legislation is "anti-terrorism", rather than "hate crime". The whole point of making the burning of a cross on a black family's yard a more serious crime than "vandalism" is because the intent of the crime is too terrorize an entire group of people...in this case blacks...simply because of their skin color (or sexual preference, etc.). Therefore, the effect of this "hate crime" is far more severe than typical "vandalism".

Even using the example of murder (which is the minority of these crimes), the difference is still clear: If a group of white men string up a black man, hang him from a tree and write "Go Home N*****'s" on his back, this also is a more heinous crime than even a regular murder...because it was solely based on the man's skin color, and it terrorizes an entire community, if not an entire race (and often done for that purpose). Think of how such a crime effects blacks in that neighborhood, that community, that state, and yes, even the entire country.

Remember too...the majority of hate crime prosecutions won't be for murder, but for lesser crimes...crimes in which the resulting terror a group is subjected to (as well as the immediate victims) is an especially important factor to recognize, and punish with greater severity because of the much greater damage inflicted. The goal of that increased severity of punishment of course will decrease the likelihood of more such crimes in the future (using the cross burning as an example again).

As for the we shouldn't "legislate thought' argument - that's a patently absurd assertion - because we already do this. How do you think we determine the differences between Manslaughter, 1st degree murder, and 2nd degree murder? By determining the friggin INTENT of the perpetrator, that's how! This is the whole purpose of a jury and a judge...and our entire judicial system!

"Hate crimes" are simply one more variation of a certain kind of crime...one that DOES INDEED cause more damage, and is even more serious a threat to society at large...particularly to those already disenfranchised groups that are nearly always the victims.

Furthermore, and perhaps MOST IMPORTANTLY, by qualifying something as a "hate crime" (again...terrorism is more apt), this allows Federal Authorities to enter the picture. This is especially important when one considers the degree of racism and homophobia across the South in police departments and local governments.

Sometimes in fact, its the police themselves that are involved. With hate crime legislation, if white supremacists in Alabama are terrorizing black families, and the local police either don't care, or perhaps don't have the resources and ability to do something about it, the Feds will and can. This is a critical distinction that I rarely hear people argue.

Also, let's face it, don't you think a gay man for instance, is in more danger of being assaulted by a group of straight bigots than a straight man is of being beaten and killed by a marauding group of anti-heterosexual gays? It's a laughable suggestion, no? Then why wouldn't we go further to protect those that are CLEARLY more in danger than the majorities?

Finally, this kind of legislation makes a statement that we, as a nation, as a society, as a people, will not tolerate crimes of terror based on bigotry, and that are designed to frighten entire groups. It says that we recognize that all of us are indeed equal, and that terrorism as a practice, and as a crime, is worthy of special status (and likewise protection against).

I hope that yesterday's victory marks a turning point in the moral imperative that is LGBT equality. Love and respect to Matthew Shepard, James Byrd, Jr. (for whom the bill is named) and their families who made this possible by their courage and fighting spirit.

VIDEO SECTION

Watch Al Franken continue to stand out as a Senator! Here he grills an insurance industry apologist on why medical bankruptcies are unheard of in countries with viable heath care systems….classic!

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/143452/sen._al_franken_(d-mn)_humbles_hudson_institute_dilettante_over_health_care_bankruptcies/

From C&L: How many times did Tucker have this coming when he worked for MSNBC but he never made the Worst Persons list since he was at the same network? Watch Olbermann destroy him...Classic:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/keith-olbermann-rips-tucker-carlson-his-wo

Maddow and Olbermann address the right wings attempt to create the mother of all false equivalencies: MSNBC is just a left wing version of Fox, and Olbermann and Maddow are just left wing versions of Hannity and O’Reilly. Ha! A few problems: one network is 24/7 lies and propaganda and serves as the media wing of the Republican Party and corporations, and people like Hannity and O’Reilly are racist, homophobic, lying sociopaths.

MSNBC on the other hand has a few progressive hosts that go after Democrats too, are incredibly intelligent and ethical, do not lie and report propaganda, and are dedicated to actual news reporting (i.e. facts…)…and correct themselves immediately when they make a factual effort. Further, MSNBC has hours of right wing shows too, have legions of typical corporate news reporters…so BIG DIFFERENCE!

But, the right wing will do anything to protect Fox by attacking MSNBC. This is precisely why George Bush Sr. went after Olbermann and Maddow as somehow equivalent to Limbaugh.

Watch Maddow and Olbermann destroy this false narrative:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/maddow-and-olbermann-right-wing-freak-out

From Media Matters--Fox News' War: New video from Media Matters shows network declared "war" on the White House long before it has struck back. This is quite a compilation:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/media-matters-fox-news-war-white-house

Watch two of my new FAVORITE DEMOCRATS – Grayson and Weiner – visit idiotic reporter Chris Mathews. First, Grayson visits…and everything but the last couple things he says about Cheney (which was a bit weird and unhelpful) are spot on:

http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/alan-grayson-enough-mister-milquetoa

Now watch Rep. Weiner visit Mathews:

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/reid-may-put-public-option-senate-bil

This is fantastic! Rep. Alan Grayson and Rep. Paul Broun discussing a bill to deny funds to ACORN. Such a bill is known as 'a bill of attainder'. In other words, Grayson is pointing out how totally and completely unconstitutional and outlandish the legislative attacks on ACORN are…but watch how he does it…

He’s the cat, and the Republican is the retarded, one legged mouse:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/alan-grayson-v-paul-broun

More on Gang Rape Defenders from C&L: As Rachel reports, it looks like the vote taken by 30 Republicans to protect contractors rather than rape victims is not playing very well for them in their local papers. Jamie Leigh Jones and her attorney joined Rachel to talk about what happened to her and weigh in on the Republican response that the amendment was just a way to take a "political shot" at Halliburton.

Believe it or not, it looks like DEMOCRAT Senator Daniel Inouye may join the Repubs in support of protecting companies who protect gang rapists after being lobbied hard by military contractors. I’m so pissed and sickened it’s hard to put into words…

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/rachel-maddow-show-indefensible

WATCH OLBERMANN discuss the free falling poll numbers of the GOP: This week's "Washington Post"/ABC poll found 51 percent of Americans say that in next year's Congressional vote, faced with the generic Democrat versus the generic Republican, they'll vote for the Democrat; 39 percent will vote for the Republican. Only 19 percent have at least a good amount of confidence in Congressional Republicans to make the right decisions, far lower than Democrats or the president, for that matter.

And the number of Americans calling themselves Republicans has fallen to 20 percent -- 20, the lowest since 1983. A closer look shows that number has fallen from 25 percent just since mid-August. That's not a five percent loss for Republicans. Dropping from 25 percent to 20 percent is a loss of a fifth. Meaning since the height of town hall, Palin, Beck, death panel palooza, one out of five Republicans has stopped being Republican… Naturally, Republicans are trying again. That's right, Tea Party Express II launches this weekend, coming to 38 cities, according to its press release, 37 on their website. Oh, well.

http://crooksandliars.com/node/32204

This is a clever Moveon.org “Pro Public Option” ad starring Heather Graham.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/143424/heather_graham_stars_as_%27the_public_option%27_in_funny_moveon_video/

ARTICLE SECTION

What 'Controlling the Media' Really Means, by Glenn Greenwald

Greenwald exposes yet ANOTHER FALSE EQUIVALENCY and ludicrous narrative being pushed by the right wing propaganda machine: Obama is trying to intimidate the press like Nixon did…and poor, poor Fox News is the victim.

First, let me quote Frank Schaeffer, former evangelical leader, who even sent a letter to Murdoch urging he make some changes to the Brownshirt Network:

President Obama is getting criticism for going after Fox News. I fault the White House too: for not going far enough. The real issue is not Fox's right wing "bias." The real issue is that Fox News seems to be trawling for assassins. Here's the letter White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs should write. Or maybe it should come from the head of United States Secret Service.

Dear Rupert Murdoch,

...since you are responsible for what is on Fox News I have a question for you: Do you ever wonder how you'll be remembered by Americans and the world (not to mention your children) if someone takes a shot at President Obama, and when asked why they did it, quotes the misinformation spouted by Fox News as their "reason?"

SNIP

When your name is forever linked to an act of history-derailing domestic terror your billions won't save you from the place in history reserved for a select group of monsters...However you got to this point, you still have a choice: reign in Fox News, fire Beck, speak out to undo some of the lies you have told through your people about our President, our country and the world, or go down in history as the man who fed the unhinged haters lies until one or more of them boiled over in some desperate act and lashed out.

You are playing Russian roulette with American history. When your name is forever linked to an act of history-derailing domestic terror your billions won't save you from the place in history reserved for a select group of monsters. When your name is linked to our next Oklahoma-type bombing or the killing of one of our elected leaders, nothing else you did in your life will be remembered.

Now a few clip from Greenwald...as he distinguishes the Bush Administration's ACTUAL assault on the 4th Estate versus Obama's denunciation of Fox:

But the Bush administration did far worse to media outlets than merely criticize them. They explicitly threatened to prosecute New York Times journalists -- to criminally prosecute them -- for reporting on Bush's illegal spying program aimed at American citizens. They imprisoned numerous foreign journalists covering their various wars. The administration's obsessive and unprecedented secrecy -- Dick Cheney refused to disclose even the most basic information about his whereabouts, his meetings, or even the number of staff members he had -- was the ultimate form of media control. And what was the Pentagon's embedding process other than an attempt to control media coverage and ensure favorable reporting? One will search in vain for much media protests about any of that.

But it was the Bush Pentagon's "military analyst"/domestic propaganda program that was, far and away, the most egregious case in a long, long time of a White House attempting to control media content and political coverage in the United States. And with very rare exception, not a single television network or cable news program ever even mentioned any of that -- despite David Barstow's having won the Pulitzer Prize for uncovering it -- because all their networks were implicated by it….As part of that propaganda program, the Bush DOD -- as they put it -- "develop[ed] a core group from within our media analyst list of those that we can count on to carry our water." They then fed those water-carriers with exclusive, secret tips about what the Government was doing, to ensure that TV programs would be forced to rely only on pro-Bush sources -- armed with "exclusives" -- while ignoring their critics.

SNIP

Fox has every right to do that, but the pretense that it is a news orgainzation is ludicrous -- transparently so -- and there isn't anything remotely wrong with the Obama White House saying so. Even those with high tolerance levels for blatant double standards should have a very hard time watching Bush officials of all people -- along with their media-star allies -- whine about criticisms of Fox coming from the White House, when the prior eight years were marked by an administration that attempted to dominate and control media coverage more than any in modern history, along with a media that seemed perfectly content, even happy, to be controlled.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/22-9

Not Dead Yet, Will Pitt

Pitt's update on the prospects of a public option. A few clips:

There's a word for this: bedlam. It's not very conducive to clarity, and is a large part of the reason much of the public has been less than enthusiastic about the entire enterprise. The Democrats control the White House, House and Senate, but haven't been able to get out of their own way, and the GOP has been doing what the GOP does best: throw rocks, muddy the waters and get people all riled up about existential threats to all that is American even though no such threats actually exist. Quite suddenly, however, a rather large break in the clouds has come on the public option issue, and for the first time since this debate began in earnest, it actually seems possible the option may win its way into a spot on the final legislation.

SNIP

How all this will eventually shake out remains deeply uncertain, but if the public option is to survive and become part of the final legislation, its proponents have picked exactly the right time to begin a full-court press. Perhaps the most dramatic example of this new drive to save the public option came in the guise of Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Florida), the House member who became an instant folk hero on the left when he described the GOP's idea of health reform as "die quickly." Representative Grayson has launched a web site called namesofthedead.com, which allows citizens to tell their stories of friends and family members who have died due to a lack of health insurance.

http://www.truthout.org/1023092

Crazy Town…American Style

"Balloon Boy"? Seriously? Even after the whole spectacle of a boy named after a bird allegedly flying across Colorado in a giant Jiffy-Pop canister was exposed as a hoax, even after all the major news networks found out beyond all dispute that they had all been punked by some erstwhile reject from a bad reality show, they kept showing it, and showing it, and showing it.

The father, who apparently masterminded this sad farce, is likely going to get creamed on several fronts - financially and legally for openers - and deservedly so, because as we all know, the states are in dire economic distress and cannot spare fiscal resources to chase down unmanned (unboyed?) floating popcorn bulbs...but with two wars, health care reform, bank reform, Iranian stress, bombs, death and general mayhem breaking loose all over the joint, one would think the TV guys would choose to focus on something besides an incident that made them all look like absolute fools.

SNIP

The Republican Party did its part last week to make sure everyone in America got their USDA recommended daily allowance of dumb by rolling out a new RNC web site that became an immediate first-ballot entrant into the Unintentional Comedy Hall of Fame. For openers, when the site was unveiled, a prominent link to "Future GOP Leaders" when clicked, led to a page reading, "404 Error: This page could not be found."

The rest of the site is riddled with pictures of black people and women, two groups that tend to vote for GOP candidates about as often as water gets turned into wine at weddings. The page dedicated to the history of the party was filled with references to great 19th century accomplishments - the Trans-Continental Railroad and the ending of slavery were most prominently displayed - put the 20th century pickings were, understandably, pretty slim. Best of all, the page dedicated to Ronald Reagan referred to him as "Ronaldus Magnus," which, loosely translated, means "Ronald the Great."

Yeah. That happened.

-- Will Pitt…God do I relate to his feelings and frustrations

Nearly Half of Americans Support LEGALIZING Marijuana!

New data from U.S. polling firm Gallup shows nearly half of Americans -- a record number -- are in support of legalizing and taxing marijuana for recreational use by adults. The poll clearly illustrates a generational and political divide on the issue, with 78 percent of self-described liberals saying they would like to see the drug legalized and 72 percent of self-described conservatives being opposed.

Gallup also found that 50 percent of Americans under 50-years-old are in favor of legalization, but just 28 percent of seniors agree. Perhaps the most important demographic to advocates of legalization are the moderate voters, among whom 51 percent now support ending prohibition.

2009-10-22T10:00:00.000-07:00

TODAY'S TOPICS: The Public Option, Military v. Obama, Goldman, Grayson, Anti-Trust Exemption, The Tort Reform Myth

Public Option Update…What's Ideal, What' s Possible, and What's Unacceptable?

First, just so we're clear, polls demonstrate increasing support for a public option, especially after you explain what it is. Second, a majority of Americans favor a public option over a bipartisan health care bill!! Hear that Harry Reid and Barack Obama!

Note to self: Harry Reid is possibly the worst, most pathetic political "leader" in the history of the universe....perhaps even since time and space itself took "form", and perhaps even weaker than any leader in the history of all universes ever, anywhere, and weaker than anyone that will ever exist anywhere, ever. In fact, if String Theory is correct, and I think it might be, I will go so far as to say that Harry Reid isn't just the worst leader in the history of our dimension, but in the history of the other 10 dimensions.

Harry Reid's quote of the day: "We're considering thinking about discussing a public option. But I'm not going to go further than that right now." What the fuck!!????

A Public Option Reduces the Deficit

A "preliminary estimate" from the Congressional Budget Office projects that the House Democrats' health care plan that includes a robust public option will reduce the deficit in its first ten years and would cost $871 billion over that period. The estimate is "significantly less" than previous ones and "under the $900 billion cap set by President Obama."

Dems Re-Brand Public Option...Finally (it needs to be connected to Medicare...people understand that)

Leading House Democrats are looking to re-brand the public option as a form of Medicare. "One of his concerns is that people don't know what a public option is. Medicare is a public option," said John Schadl, a spokesman for Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN). The idea of re-branding the public option as Medicare "Part E" -- E standing for everyone -- was first proposed by columnist Thom Hartmann last month.

Here's what an ideal public option would look like, courtesy of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. It must:

• Enact concurrently with other significant expansions of coverage and must not be conditioned on private industry actions.
• Consist of one entity, operated by the federal government, which sets policies and bears the risk for paying medical claims to keep administrative costs low and provide a higher standard of care.
• Be available to all individuals and employers across the nation without limitation
• Utilize the existing infrastructure of successful public programs like Medicare in order to maintain transparency and consumer protections for administering processes including payment systems, claims and appeals.
• Establish or negotiate rates with pharmaceutical companies, durable medical equipment providers, and other providers to achieve the lowest prices for consumers.
• Receive a level of subsidy and support that is no less than that received by private plans.
• Ensure premiums must be priced at the lowest levels possible, not tied to the rates of private insurance plans.

We should use the above as the template to compare and judge all the versions currently circulating through Congress:

Public Option(s) Update

We know the Senate Health Committee included a public option and the Finance Committee did not. And Harry Reid is...well, he's Harry "people become depressed and hopeless when they're in my presence" Reid.

Meanwhile, Pelosi is insisting the House health care bill include one and has sent "three different public option proposals to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to assess their financial impact. The three plans vary in the way medical provider reimbursement rates are handled."

A robust public option that initially reimburses providers at 5 percent above Medicare rates was originally part of the House bill. A second alternative would allow the public option to reimburse at higher than Medicare rates but could trigger the lower Medicare reimbursements if costs increased. A third option would have the public plan negotiate payment rates with providers….which is unacceptable.

According to the CBO, a public option that reimburses at 5 percent above Medicare rates would generate $85 billion more in savings than a plan that reimbursed at market rates. In fact, in its analysis of the HELP committee bill, the CBO concluded that "the public plan would pay providers of health care at rates comparable to privately negotiated rates -- and thus was not projected to have premiums lower than those charged by private insurance plans in the exchanges." As a result, that kind of public option does "not have a substantial effect on the cost or enrollment projections." Conversely, the House bill's original public option "would be about 10 percent cheaper than a typical private plan offered in the exchanges," the CBO concluded.

The Chamber of Commerce meanwhile, realizing that good things may come to human beings, not just corporations, decide to turn up the heat on democracy, be it health reform or climate change...if someone's profiting off the death and pain of others, the Chamber is there to advocate for them:

The Chamber has spent $34.7 million lobbying the federal government in the third quarter of 2009. Politico reports that "[t]he figure is greater than the sum of the next 18 highest filers so far…who combined to spend $30.9 million."

US Military Versus Obama…(will be waiting anxiously for the next Hersh article)

From C&L: The U.S. military is not just fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, America’s most renowned investigative journalist says.

The army is also “in a war against the White House — and they feel they have Obama boxed in,” Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Seymour Hersh told several hundred people in Duke University’s Page Auditorium on Tuesday night. “They think he’s weak and the wrong color. Yes, there’s racism in the Pentagon. We may not like to think that, but it’s true and we all know it.”

In a speech on Obama’s foreign policy, Hersh, who uncovered the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War and torture at Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraqi war, said many military leaders want Obama to fail.

“A lot of people in the Pentagon would like to see him get into trouble,” he said. By leaking information that the commanding officer in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, says the war would be lost without an additional 40,000 American troops, top brass have put Obama in a no-win situation, Hersh contended.“If he gives them the extra troops they’re asking for, he loses politically,” Hersh said. “And if he doesn’t give them the troops, he also loses politically.”

The journalist criticized the president for “letting the military do that,” and suggested the only way out was for Obama to stand up to them.

“He’s either going to let the Pentagon run him or he has to run the Pentagon,” Hersh said. If he doesn’t, “this stuff is going to be the ruin of his presidency.”

Hersh called the “Af-Pak” situation — the spreading conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan — Obama’s main challenge. The only way for the U.S. to extricate itself from the conflict, Hersh said, is to negotiate with the Taliban. “It’s the only way out,” he said. “I know that there’s a lot of discussion in the White House about this now.

VIDEO SECTION

Rep. Alan Grayson’s “Names of the Dead”...documenting those that have died because they can't afford, or were denied, health insurance. Brilliant! We need to put a face on this crisis...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58u1snn4UwY

Countdown's Worst Persons segment with winner Glenn Beck. Runners up Rep. Gregg Harper and Rush Limbaugh. Classy bunch here. Especially Limbaugh.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/countdown-worst-persons-becks-wankery-and

The McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945 has granted the insurance industry a captive market with no curbs on price fixing and other anti-competitive practices…and the House Judiciary Committee voted to strip the industry of this protection yesterday by a vote of 20-9! This is clearly a reaction to those LUDICROUS studies released by the insurance industry that simultaneously distorted the facts about the health reform plans as well as PROMISED TO RAISE RATES.

Currently, as pointed out in this interview, 94 percent of the country has a highly concentrated market, which means that it’s in danger of becoming a monopoly or it has already tipped over into a monopoly, and that allows insurers to collude legally with hospitals and with doctors and other providers to set prices. They set high prices that they pay to the hospitals, and then they can raise premiums. And without any competition, there’s nothing that anybody can do about it, and it’s perfectly legal.

Watch and listen to Amy Goodman interview Ryan Grim of Huffington Post no our INSANE current system:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/democracy-now-congress-considers-revoking

Frontline Oct. 20, 2009. The Warning (I watched this the other night...a must see...):

In the midst of the 1990's bull market, one lone regulator warned about derivatives' dangers--and overnight became the enemy of some of the most powerful people in Washington. You can watch the entire program on line here as well as additional invertiews with Brooksley Born, Gary Gensler, Michael Greenberger, Arthur Levitt and Joseph Stiglitz

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/frontline-warning-one-lone-regulator

More from Senator Pat Leahy on Democrats actually moving to strip the health insurance industry's anti-trust exemption away! This would be so awesome…

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/pat-leahy-taking-away-insurance-companies

Richard Lewis visits Countdown to discuss such conservative sociopaths as Michele Bachmann and Glenn Beck, as well as the human abomination representing the - I kid you not - Connecticut for Lieberman Party, Joe Lieberman.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/richard-lewis-countdown

ARTICLE SECTION

Zooming In on the Year’s Biggest Hoax, by Robert Scheer

Ok, before I get to the larger, and more important story regarding Wall Street's use of the Obama administration and Congress like a broken ATM machine that spits out money when you kick it, I will mention the President's plans to order companies that received huge government bailouts last year to sharply cut the compensation of their highest paid executives. Obviously this is a good move by the Administration.

The seven companies that received the most assistance will reportedly (let's wait and see if it happens and what if any loopholes are included before popping champagne though) have to cut the annual salaries of their 25 highest-paid executive by an average of about 90 percent from last year. The seven companies are: Bank of America Corp., American International Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., General Motors, GMAC, Chrysler and Chrysler Financial.

A few clips from Scheer's latest on Goldman Sachs and company...:

The rationale for saving Goldman and the other too-big-to-fail usurers was that the rescue would increase lending to businesses and consumers and thus revive the economy. But Goldman made money last quarter by shunning such loans and instead putting the government-guaranteed low-interest money it now can borrow toward acquisitions and bond and stock trading. As The New York Times reported: “Titans like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are making fortunes in hot areas like trading stocks and bonds, rather than the ho-hum business of lending people money.”

SNIP

The die is cast: People working in finance grabbed two-thirds of the growth in GDP, with the rest of us scrambling for the other third. Nor will the situation change anytime soon. The House Financial Services Committee is in charge of writing new rules to protect consumers, but as the respected Sunlight Foundation reports, 27 of the 71 members of that committee receive at least one-fourth of their campaign funds from the financial industry, with the rest of the committee members not far behind.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/21-3

A Rumsfeld-Era Reminder About What Causes Terrorism, by Glenn Greenwald

A few clips:

In 2004, Donald Rumsfeld directed the Defense Science Board Task Force to review the impact which the administration's policies -- specifically the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- were having on Terrorism and Islamic radicalism. They issued a report in September, 2004 (.pdf) and it vigorously condemned the Bush/Cheney approach as entirely counter-productive, i.e., as worsening the Terrorist threat those policies purportedly sought to reduce. It's well worth reviewing their analysis, as it has as much resonance now as it did then (h/t sysprog)…Let's just repeat that: "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies." And nothing fuels -- meaning: helps -- the Islamic radicals' case against the U.S. more than ongoing American occupation of Muslim countries...

SNIP

We can't combat Terrorism by sending our military into Muslim countries. Doing that only exacerbates the problem, since it inevitably intensifies the anti-American sentiment that enables and fuels the terrorist threat in the first place. All of that is so basic. It's been empirically proven over and over during the last decade. It's not Noam Chomsky or Al Jazeera pointing out these basic truths, but instead, a 2004 Task Force handpicked by Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon to review and assess the Bush administration's anti-terrorism efforts, principally the wars they were waging in Afghanistan and Iraq.

SNIP

The latest rationale of the pro-war liberal think tanks -- as epitomized by Peter Bergen's New Republic piece yesterday -- is that Al Qaeda and Taliban are inseparable and therefore "we cannot defeat Al Qaeda without securing Afghanistan." Steve Hynd has an interview with Afghan-based journalist Anand Gopal, who debunks that claim in several ways, as does Leah Farrall at the All Things Counterterroism blog. Even if Bergen's claim were true, as Matt Yglesias points out, it merely "beg[s] the question -- [Bergen] says we’re fighting the Taliban because the Taliban is working so closely with al-Qaeda, but arguably the Taliban is working closely with al-Qaeda largely because we’re fighting them."

If -- as the conventional wisdom has it (correctly) -- Osama bin Laden was eager for us to invade Iraq and get caught up in an endless occupation there, wouldn't Al Qaeda and other Islamic radicals benefit for the same reasons from our doing the same thing in Afghanistan?

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/20-5

A Corporate Monster v. 'The Vermonster', by Jim Hightower

The GOP's tort reform sham and the myth that has largely been accepted as truth by the media, too many policians, and WAY too many Americans, certainly ranks up there in terms of one of their most successful propaganda efforts. Tort reform was literally dreamed up by big business and high powered GOP consultants to simultaneously prevent the public from suing corporate criminals as well as limit the amount of money that goes to public interest attorney's - a major contributor to the Democratic party.

Some other perks of this myth would be clouding the issue in peoples minds regarding why health insurance costs so much...so rather than blame it on the insurance industry, they could divert peoples attention to those evil "ambulance chasers"! Of course, its utter fantasy...

The truth is that medical liability isn't a big driver of health costs overall...and if tort reform was enacted, we'd lower health care costs around .5% (but the price we'd pay in lives and pain would far outweigh that .5% savings).

That doesn't mean that no changes are needed, only that there are many ways to counter defensive medicine and the costs and inequities of the U.S. litigation system without shutting the courtroom door to malpractice cases. Extensive studies have been done that show frivolous malpractice cases are rare, and those that do get brought usually don't yield a payment to the plaintiff.

The trick is to make sure that the benefits of any changes go to the right people (and try and take a guess where the GOP’s allegiances lie) - the patients. That hasn't been the result of the preferred remedy for malpractice lawsuits, which is to hit trial lawyers in the pocketbook.

Before I get to Jim Hightower’s piece, here’s Michael Hiltzik of the LA Times describing the ACTUAL REALITY of tort reform, as seen here in California:

This model of tort reform comes, alas, from California. In 1975, a sharp run-up in doctors' premiums stampeded the Legislature into enacting draconian limits on malpractice cases. Under the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act, or MICRA, noneconomic damages -- that's "pain and suffering" -- were capped at $250,000. Lawyers' fees were also limited. Many other states followed with similar laws.

Who got helped by MICRA? Not consumers. California's healthcare costs aren't measurably lower than other states'. In fact, they're measurably higher. Not the victims of medical error, at least not fairly:

A Rand Corp. study in 2004 found that the cap fell disproportionately on "those with small economic losses but great damage to the plaintiff's quality of life." Women were big losers, possibly because their claims often result from obstetrics and gynecology procedures that affect fertility or sexual lifestyle, conditions which aren't amenable to economic analysis. Such patients find it hard to even bring cases, for lawyers know the long odds of winning a judgment big enough to cover costs. Doctors and hospitals? Premiums in California continued to rise sharply for 10 years after MICRA.

By the way, the MICRA cap isn't indexed to inflation. So even if $250,000 was the right limit in 1975, it's the equivalent of only about $62,000 now. MICRA's big winners are insurers. The average loss ratio for California malpractice carriers last year -- the portion of their premiums they paid out or reserved for claims -- was 16.43%, according to the state Department of Insurance. In other words, they paid out less than 17 cents of every dollar they took in.

A few clips from Hightower on this myth's sordid history:

Hmmmm. Stop consumers from bullying big business — now there's an improbable populist cause if I ever heard one! Who are these "citizens" who've formed such noisy lawsuit abuse groups? Well, they're just neighbors, we're told by the groups. Yeah, assuming you have a neighbor named Philip Morris. In the mid-'90s, this tobacco giant was still fighting off class-action lawsuits from hundreds of thousands of Americans who'd been addicted to, sickened and killed by the corporation's murderous products.

Unable to win in court, Philip Morris and its corporate allies secretly launched a nationwide campaign to rig the rules of judicial access in their favor. Philip Morris itself put up $16 million in 1995 to hire a PR firm to create faux "grassroots" fronts in every state under the banner of Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse.

SNIP

The lawsuit abuse groups are innately dishonest, not only because they deliberately hide their special-interest parentage from the public, but also because they're not really against abusive lawsuits. It's only legal actions against big corporations that get their knickers in a knot.

SNIP

Corporate executives and lawyers know that they can drag out cases like this for years. The timeline takes no skin off the nose of billion-dollar outfits with their own legal staffs, but a protracted fight can quickly bankrupt a small business. Thus, even though the corporate power is in the wrong, it can usually bully the innocent into submission.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/21

2009-10-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

TODAY'S TOPICS: The Climate Crisis, Poverty Re-Calculated, Al Franken v. KBR!, Maddow, Grayson, Afghanistan, Greenwald

US MILITARY VERSUS OBAMA

In my next post I'm going to discuss in more depth the just breaking revelations coming from Sy Hersh - investigative reporter extraordinaire: "The military is at war with Obama" (remember that I said that this is what I thought was happening the day that memo from McCrystal was leaked about needing more troops...this is just like what the military tried to do to Kennedy...now we'll see if Obama has the same kind of strength as JFK...more next post).

The Reality of the Climate Crisis

“We can save groves of trees, protect endangered species and clean up rivers, all of which is good, but to leave the corporations unchallenged would mean our efforts would be wasted. These personal adjustments and environmental crusades can too easily become a badge of moral purity, an excuse for inaction. They can absolve us from the harder task of confronting the power of corporations….

The reason the ecosystem is dying is not because we still have a dryer in our basement. It is because corporations look at everything, from human beings to the natural environment, as exploitable commodities. It is because consumption is the engine of corporate profits. We have allowed the corporate state to sell the environmental crisis as a matter of personal choice when actually there is a need for profound social and economic reform. We are left powerless.”

-- Chris Hedges on the stone cold truth: to avert the climate change crisis we need a massive paradigm shift...and that includes our consumption driven, uber capitalist economic system...recycling and changing your light bulbs ain't going to cut it

"…at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government…Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk -- at least until the riots grow too large."

-- former IMF economist and current MIT Professor Simon Johnson warning about what happens with deeply corrupt oligarchies in which the unrestrained power and recklessness of the oligarchs spawn a financial crisis...sound familiar???

"We know Obama has good values but we don't know if he has convictions."

-- Economics commentator Jeff Madrick tries to answer the question why doesn't Obama ever draw a line in the sand?

Poverty in America Worse than Thought

This is what I’ve been saying for years!! The way we calculate poverty is outdated and completely underestimates the depth of the problem. Here’s today’s news based on a revised calculation (one of those vindications that aren't very fun...):

The level of poverty in America is even worse than first believed. A revised formula for calculating medical costs and geographic variations show that approximately 47.4 million Americans last year lived in poverty, 7 million more than the government's official figure. The disparity occurs because of differing formulas the Census Bureau and the National Academy of Science use for calculating the poverty rate.

The NAS formula shows the poverty rate to be at 15.8 percent, or nearly 1 in 6 Americans, according to calculations released this week. That's higher than the 13.2 percent, or 39.8 million, figure made available recently under the original government formula.

According to the revised NAS formula:

--About 18.7 percent of Americans 65 and older, or nearly 7.1 million, are in poverty compared to 9.7 percent, or 3.7 million, under the traditional measure. That's due to out-of-pocket expenses from rising Medicare premiums, deductibles and a coverage gap in the prescription drug benefit.
--About 14.3 percent of people 18 to 64, or 27 million, are in poverty, compared to 11.7 percent under the traditional measure. Many of the additional poor are low-income, working people with transportation and child-care costs.
--Child poverty is lower, at about 17.9 percent, or roughly 13.3 million, compared to 19 percent under the traditional measure. That's because single mothers and their children disproportionately receive non-cash aid such as food stamps.

VIDEO SECTION

Senator Al Franken first talks with the victim of gang rape at the hands of KBR...and then he takes on (AND DESTROYS!!!) the attorney advocating for the protection of gang rapists. Watch:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/sen-franken-questions-arbitration-lawyer-a

Rachel Maddow talks to Rep. Alan Grayson about the trouble the Republicans are having finding someone to run against him (in contrast to the punditocracy meme that BECAUSE he spoke out he will LOSE his seat...HA!). This is another vindication for me: Fighting for what you believe, and for the progressive position, is both right, and politically smart!

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/rachel-maddow-show-graysons-anatomy

One of the pleasant "tv news" surprises of late has been Dylan Ratigan at MSNBC (don’t get me wrong, he’s no Olbermann or Maddow, but I’ll take anything I can get on the news). He has never been a liberal firebrand, in fact, he used to work for CNBC on Wall Street issues, but it appears he’s simply had enough of corporate fraud and the kind of legalized bribery that goes on in Congress. Sure, he probably also understands that it’s good for ratings, particularly at MSNBC these days, to take the side of the…wait for it…PEOPLE!!

Here he breaks down how Goldman Sachs - the pre-eminent criminal organization in the country today – managed to make $3 billion in three months investing our tax dollars sent to keep them afloat with no strings attached (granted…it’s a bit simplistic of an analysis…but people are stupid too…a factor we must remember).

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/dylan-ratigan-goldman-sachs-magic-trick

Oh my god is the Chamber of Commerce corrupt! Now it turns out that the number of businesses they’ve been touting as members for years has been a humongous lie! Thanks to a Mother Jones investigation, it turns out that the claimed 3 million business members is actually 300,000! So not only are corporations leaving the Chamber in droves due to their denial of climate change and outright opposition to any legislation addressing it, now they have to correct the fact they’ve been exaggerating their membership by 10 X’s the reality for years!

Countdown's Worst Persons for Oct. 19, 2009 with winner Tom Donahue of the Chamber of Congress. Runners up Bill O'Reilly and Jack Kingston.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/countdowns-worst-persons-oreilly-kingston

An animated spoof of the racist, homophobe, and fearmongering champion of all time: Glenn Beck:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/america-doooomed-glenn-beck-cartoon

Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz both responded to Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol's new group Keep America Safe's ad, which accused them of being afraid to debate her....now that's rich. One thing about Schultz and Maddow is that they'll debate ANYONE (and win):

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/rachel-maddow-and-ed-schultz-respond-liz-c

ARTICLE SECTION

A Reality Check From the Brink of Extinction, by Chris Hedges

Oh man…get ready for a horse sized red pill. As I often say here, I try not to do too much coverage of the climate change crisis because I don’t want to destroy all hope in anyone that reads my blog. But suffice it to say, we are on the fast track to extinction…

A FEW CLIPS:

The damage to the environment by human households is minuscule next to the damage done by corporations. Municipalities and individuals use 10 percent of the nation’s water while the other 90 percent is consumed by agriculture and industry. Individual consumption of energy accounts for about a quarter of all energy consumption; the other 75 percent is consumed by corporations. Municipal waste accounts for only 3 percent of total waste production in the United States. We can, and should, live more simply, but it will not be enough if we do not radically transform the economic structure of the industrial world.

SNIP

Those who run our corporate state have fought environmental regulation as tenaciously as they have fought financial regulation. They are responsible for our personal impoverishment as well as the impoverishment of our ecosystem. We remain addicted, courtesy of the oil, gas and automobile industries and a corporate-controlled government, to fossil fuels. Species are vanishing. Fish stocks are depleted. The great human migration from coastlines and deserts has begun. And as temperatures continue to rise, huge parts of the globe will become uninhabitable.

NASA climate scientist James Hansen has demonstrated that any concentration of carbon dioxide greater than 350 parts per million in the atmosphere is not compatible with maintenance of the biosphere on the “planet on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted.” He has determined that the world must stop burning coal by 2030—and the industrialized world well before that—if we are to have any hope of ever getting the planet back down below that 350 number. Coal supplies half of our electricity in the United States.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/19

David Rohde's Insights into What Motivates the Taliban, by Glenn Greenwald

Question to war propagandists: How does occupying and bombing Muslim countries - and killing their civilians - lessen the threat of terrorism rather than exacerbate it? Or how about this one: How does our support for ruthless dictators in Muslim countries help "win the war on terror"? How does torturing innocent Muslims help "protect" America...and not in fact endanger US troops?

Three of my favorite human beings of all time each have short quotes articulating this VERY, VERY simple truth...a truth that our government and military seem unable to recognise no matter how many times we relive the lesson:

Noam Chomsky: "Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it."

Molly Ivins: “It’s hard to convince people you are bombing that you’re doing it for their own good.”

Martin Luther King: We all have to be concerned about terrorism, but you will never end terrorism by terrorizing others.

Now to another favorite...Glenn Greenwald. A FEW CLIPS:

One of the taboo topics in the American media is how the U.S. Government routinely violates the principles we espouse for, and try to impose on, the rest of the world. We systematically torture Muslims and then cover it up and protect our torturers while preaching accountability and the rule of law; we condemn deprivations of due process while maintaining and expanding lawless prison systems for Muslims; we demand adherence to U.N. dictates and international law while blocking investigations into U.N. reports of war crimes and possible "crimes against humanity" by our allies; we righteously oppose aggression while invading and simultaneously occupying numerous countries, while threatening to attack still more, and arming countries like Israel to the teeth to wage still other attacks, etc. etc.

As a result of the media avoidance of such topics, many Americans don't ever think much about the huge gap between what we claim about ourselves and what we do. But much of the rest of the world -- certainly including the Muslim world -- sees that discrepancy quite clearly, often up-close. That's what accounts for the radically different, even irreconcilable, perceptions that Americans and so many people in the rest of the world have about who we are and what we do ("why do the hate us?"). Is it really surprising that young Taliban fighters, surrounded by a foreign occupying army and lawless prison system for the last eight years, are "fixated" on such things and are radicalized by it? Shouldn't that, by itself, make us think about not doing those things any longer, since they only exacerbate the problem we claim we are trying to solve?

SNIP

One of the most astounding feats in propaganda is how we've managed to take people who live in a country which we invade, bomb and occupy -- and who fight against us because we're doing that -- and call them "Terrorists," thereby "justifying" continuing to bomb and occupy their country further ("We have to stay in order to fight the Terrorists: meaning the people who are fighting us because we stay").

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/18-7

Goldman Can Spare You a Dime, by Frank Rich

A FEW CLIPS:

As leader of the Wall Street pack, Goldman declared surging profits, keeping it on track to dispense a record $23 billion in bonuses for 2009. But most Americans know all too well that only the intervention of billions of dollars in taxpayer bailout money saved Goldman from the dire fate of its less well-connected competitors. The growing ranks of under-and-unemployed Americans, meanwhile, are waiting with increasing desperation for a recovery of their own. Goldman is this century's octopus - almost literally so.

SNIP

The first stab at corrective legislation emerging from Barney Frank's Financial Services Committee in the House is porous. While unregulated derivatives remain the biggest potential systemic threat to the world's economy, Frank said that "the great majority" of businesses that use derivatives would not be covered under his committee's much-amended bill. It's also an open question whether the administration's proposed consumer agency to protect Americans from mortgage and credit-card outrages will survive the banking lobby's attempts to eviscerate it. As that bill stands now, more than 98 percent of America's banks - mainly community banks, representing 20 percent of deposits - would be shielded from the new agency's supervision.

SNIP

In particular, the tone-deaf Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, never ceases to amaze. His daily calendars reveal that most of his contacts with the financial sector in the first seven months of 2009 were limited to the trinity of Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JPMorgan. And last week Bloomberg News reported that his inner circle of "counselors" - key advisers who, conveniently enough, do not require Senate confirmation - are largely drawn from the same club. It's hard to see how any public official can challenge a culture that he is marinating in, night and day.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/18-8

NEWS CLIPS...

Health care bill makes Sen. Roland Burris relevant (this is classic)

For Democrats determined to get a health care bill, Sen. Roland Burris is like the house guest who couldn't be refused, won't soon be leaving and poses a plausible threat of ruining holiday dinner. Suddenly, he can no longer be ignored. The Illinois Democrat, appointed by disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, says he'll only vote for a bill to provide health care to millions more Americans as long as it allows the government to sell insurance in competition with private insurers.

Obama (actually the Attorney General's office) Issues New Medical Marijuana Policy (Yeah baby!)

Pot-smoking patients or their sanctioned suppliers should not be targeted for federal prosecution in states that allow medical marijuana, prosecutors were told Monday in a new policy memo issued by the Justice Department. Under the policy spelled out in a three-page legal memo, federal prosecutors are being told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state law. The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.

"This is a major step forward," said Bruce Mirken, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project. "This change in policy moves the federal government dramatically toward respecting scientific and practical reality."

BUT…we still need to go a lot further. The Justice Department emphasizes that even people who follow state laws still could be prosecuted under the law (though such prosecutions are a very low priority), and the new policy offers no protection in court. This confusion isn't likely to end until Congress finally reconsiders restrictive federal laws on medical marijuana.

Stimulus Working…Time for Another One!

Reporting from Washington - Some 250,000 education jobs have been saved or created by the economic stimulus package, according to a White House report released Monday.The news previews what will be a more comprehensive accounting to be posted by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board on its website next week. Of the $97.4 billion in education funding included in the stimulus bill, $67.6 billion has been spent.

According to the report, more than 6,000 education jobs in Los Angeles were saved by stimulus funds. New York City was able to retain 4,000 positions, while 7% of the teaching corps in Scottsbluff, Neb. -- 18 people -- kept their jobs.

Real Costs of Fossil Fuels

(remember these kinds of “externalities” when people say renewable energy is still too expensive…because its not once you factor in all the other costs of fossil fuels…like death, sickness and pollution clean up)

Fossil Fuels’ Hidden Cost Is in Billions, Study Says -- Burning fossil fuels costs the United States about $120 billion a year in health costs, mostly because of thousands of premature deaths from air pollution, the National Academy of Sciences reported in a study issued Monday. MATTHEW L. WALD in the New York Times -- 10/20/09

2009-10-19T09:16:00.000-07:00

TODAY'S TOPICS: Wall Street Bonuses, CFPA Weakening, Grayson/Maher, Maddow v. Phillips, Moore, Sanders, Nader, Gang Rape

"A newspaper is not just for reporting news. It is to get people mad enough to do something about it."

-- Mark Twain

"This is the United States of America. This is not the United States of Maine. I mean that one senator cannot hold the entire nation's health care plan hostage."

-- Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)…leader of the progressive caucus

Fox News and Ignorance: Like Peas and Carrots (how great is it that the Obama Administration has officially called Fox out as "not a news organization"?!)

A 2003 study found that 80 percent of those who primarily relied on Fox News believed falsehoods about why the U.S. invaded Iraq. In June 2007, the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that Fox covered the war less than CNN and MSNBC, and yet, its anchors now claim the network was "very faithful about covering all the bad news that came out of Iraq." A poll conducted last August found that 72 percent of self-identified Fox News viewers believe the false claim that health reform will provide insurance to undocumented immigrants, 79 percent believe it will use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions (it won't), and 75 percent believe that it will allow the government to put the elderly to death.

Wall Street is Back Baby...Bigger Bonuses than ever...with our money!

FROM AP: Goldman Sachs is on pace to pay annual bonuses that will rival the record payouts that it made in 2007, at the height of the bubble. In the last nine months, the bank set aside about $16.7 billion for compensation — on track to pay each of its 31,700 employees close to $700,000 this year. Top producers are expecting multimillion-dollar paydays.

The latest tally came Thursday, when Goldman reported another set of robust results. But its strong financial showing — a profit of $3.19 billion in the third quarter — was overshadowed by Goldman’s swelling bonus pool. Goldman set aside nearly half of its revenue to reward its employees, a common practice on Wall Street, even in this post-bailout era.

Even in 2008, the most tumultuous year in modern Wall Street history, Goldman employees reaped rewards that most people can only dream about. Goldman paid out $4.82 billion in bonuses last year, awarding 953 employees at least $1 million each and 78 executives $5 million or more. The rewards for 2009 will be far greater.

Health Care: Things to Watch

A few key things to watch for which will make the difference as to whether the final plan is horrific, or a decent first step (or something in between):

There must be an Employer Mandate…otherwise big business will not be paying a fair share of costs (almost $200 billion worth would be lost without one).
Pay for it by taxing the super rich. Health care can’t be paid for by a new tax on middle-class benefits…which is code for “sticking it to unions.” I like the Surtax on millionaires or Obama’s idea of reducing the amoung the super rich can deduct for charitable donations (all it would mean is they would "only" get a deduction at the rate of the next highest tax bracket...i.e. a couple % points less).
What kind of public option will it be…as in, who is eligible for it (should be everyone…), when will it start (i.e. no trigger!), will it be national or some phony “state decision” to discriminate against their citizens, and what kind of payments will doctors get for services to those on it?
Will consumers be able to sue health insurance companies for denying them needed and necessary treatments? Right now, believe it or not, the industry is the ONLY one that has the kind of immunity from potentially wrongful conduct (i.e. called ERISA ruling...denies people with employer based coverage to sue for damages). Think about it...if we require insurance companies to take everyone...including those with pre-existing conditions, how much do you want to bet we'll see an EXPLOSION of treatment denials (yet one more reason for a public option...people could leave their private insurers if they play these games!)?

Health Insurance Industry Blunders Again by Trying to Extort the American People

As easily predicted, the health insurance industry has stabbed President “ahh gee wiz, can’t we all just get along” Obama in the back yet again…though I’m sure that won’t deter him from taking their money, and unfortunately, nor am I convinced it will stop him from catering too much to their "concerns" rather than those of the public..

Blue Cross Blue Shield Association in the meantime released their own version of the AHIP propaganda report...yet another BIG MISTAKE in my mind…only giving more fuel and fire to those that truly support reform, be it a robust public option or a Medicare for All system (the best option).

This from Crooks and Liars:

By releasing a transparently hyperbolic and self-serving study on the effects of health reform, the insurance industry appears to have blundered in a big way. They discredited themselves in the eyes of the media elite, alienated potentially sympathetic members of Congress, and rallied Democrats around a common foe.

So what are they doing now? They seem to be trying the same stunt again, with a brand new study. It's not as deceptive as the last one. But it's not going to win any points for intellectual honesty, either.

This time the study's sponsor is the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA), rather than America's Health Insurance Programs. The hired gun accounting firm is Oliver Wyman, instead of PriceWaterhouseCoopers. But the message is the same as before: Pass reform, as currently envisioned, and insurance premiums will go way up...read on

Cohn thinks this report is slightly better than the last one, but they both end the same. If we implement health care reform they promise to raise your rates. Why isn't the media reporting this? They are threatening American lives and families and this should not be tolerated.

Digby also catches this and is not a happy camper about it either. Can someone please explain to me why this isn't a blatant threat? Nice little health care system you have here.

Be a shame if anything happened to it. In a normal country, this kind of corporate threat, in which they openly say that unless they get their way, they will raise premiums sky high and make everyone suffer, would be considered criminal. After all, premium pricing is entirely in their hands --- and that's why we are in the terrible situation we are in today.

VIDEO SECTION

Hell yeah...Rep. Alan Grayson visits Bill Maher on Real Time:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/alan-grayson-real-time

And Bill Maher goes off on just how completely CRAZY the GOP has become:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/real-time-new-rules-still-plenty-ridiculou

Senator Sanders Unfiltered: Return to the Gilded Age: The top 1 percent owns more wealth then the bottom 90 percent. CEOs of large corporations earn 400 times what their workers make.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/bernie-sanders-unfiltered-return-gilded-ag

Dylan Ratigan and Michael Moore slam Wall Street for the latest round of bonuses being paid to their executives after being rescued by our tax dollars.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/today-show-dylan-ratigan-and-michael-moore

As noted by C&L: Rachel had an extended segment with America For Prosperity (AFP)'s Tim Phillips last week. AFP is yet another of those 501 organizations on the right funded by the insanely wealthy, founded for no specific purpose other than keeping taxes as low as possible and government out of their day-to-day activities as much as possible. The amorphous nature of the group means they can quickly adapt to whatever issues are popular at the moment and likely to draw the most cash donations.

Mostly though they're a tool of a the Republican Party. The past president of AFP went straight from Koch Industries to the AFP, and then onto the McCain campaign as a spokeperson, Nancy Pfotenhauer. Enter Tim Phillips. Prior to becoming the AFP President Phillips main claims to fame were as a political operative, with connections to Ralph Reed and Jack Abramoff.

Phillips was instrumental in the infamous Max Cleland-Saxby Chambliss race for Senate in 2002, often described as one of the dirtiest campaigns ever. Since becoming president of AFP they've been involved in every conservative cause, from drilling on ANWR in Alaska and denying Global warming; to helping organize the Tea Party movement (along with Dick Armey's Koch-sponsored sister group Freedom Works); to now taking an active role in opposing health care reform under the "Patients United Now" ad campaign, with one of them the infamous Shona Holmes ads. Phillips makes regular appearances on all the cable news networks but especially Fox News, of course. His "aw shucks" manner plays well there and he's fairly adept at denying the reality of his work as some homespun, grassroots organization when it is anything but. Phillips is among the slimiest of this faux movement, and Rachel rightly calls him out on his foul history.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/maddow-blasts-afps-tim-phillips-parasite-ba

This was rather touching… at a town hall event in New Orleans a 9-year old Tyren Scott asked President Obama, "Why do people hate you? They supposed to love you. God is love. Watch the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py15owTneag

Congressman Weiner explains why a Public Option is necessary…and how Congressional members have one for themselves…but don’t want the public to have the same?

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/public-option-not-mysterious-thing-man

Michael Moore destroys that knuckle dragging corporatist CNBC reporter Maria Bartiromo – the same genius that while debating Rep. Weiner about health care reform said to him (and he’s 45 years old) “if Medicare is so good why aren’t you on it?” Wow…the sheer unadulterated idiocy…and she’s a TV finance reporter!!

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/michael-moore-schools-maria-bartiromo-capi

ARTICLE SECTION

Barney Frank and the Planet of the Banks, by Ralph Nader

Even Barney Frank has sold us down the river!! Just as expected, every good part of the idea to create a Consumer Finance Protection Agency (CFPA) has been watered down to ensure it won’t change anything. As I said months ago, I would be watching for two critical fights to determine both how much our country has truly been hijacked by big business, as well as how much of a fight President Obama and Congress were willing to put up. Tragically, this, as with healthcare, has been a heart wrenching disappointment and has hammered in one more nail in our collective coffin.

Wall Street is just too powerful for our democracy to survive.

The Wall Street Journal just reported that despite a still-sluggish economy, unemployment approaching 10 percent, and "regulatory scrutiny of Wall Street's pay culture," major U.S. banks and securities firms are on pace to award their employees a record high $140 billion in compensation packages this year. Workers at 23 top investment banks, hedge funds, asset managers and stock and commodities exchanges can expect to earn even more than they did the peak year of 2007, which witnessed a $130 billion payout.

Worse, these large financial institutions continue to engage in the same risky lending practices that led to the near collapse of the financial system in September 2008. The Journal reported last month that "companies are selling exotic financial products similar to those that felled markets and the world economy last fall. While Wall Street is raking in record compensation, decreases in workers' pay throughout the country "are occurring more frequently than at any time since the Great Depression."

And this is where the (CFPA) comes in…with the sole focus of protecting consumers from the financial abuses responsible for the current economic meltdown. The new agency is a key part of the administration's plan for overhauling the nation's financial regulatory system.

In response, the Chamber of Commerce has launched a $2 million ad campaign against the agency, calling it an "overly broad, overly sweeping, big government solution." But the agency is a vitally important part of crafting a regulatory system that doesn't allow big banks to take advantage of consumers -- and destroy the economy in the process.

And guess what’s happened? A few clips:

As of this writing before the final set of hearings, Mr. Frank has dropped key provisions from a proposal to establish an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). The banks did not want a consumer right of action against companies violating standards for their mortgages, credit and debit cards, or payday and installment loans. Barney said sure!

The banks want a weak oversight panel consisting of their toady regulators, who failed repeatedly and miserably in the past decade to stave off the collapse of Wall Street and its economically lethal consequences for workers and consumers. Barney said sure!

SNIP

Yet, the banks have every expectation that the Glass-Stegall Act--repealed by Clinton, Citigroup and the Congress in 1999--will not be reinstated to separate retail banking from investment banking and block the conflicts of interest that ravage investors.

The Banks will still have their protective Federal Reserve which, though empowered by a 1994 law to crack down on predatory lending, did nothing to stop the subprime mortgage rackets that submarined the housing economy.

Smelling a concessionary Barney Frank, other businesses want exemptions from the new consumer agency's authority, including auto dealers, realtors, merchants, retailers and assorted other players in the fine print game of financial services.

SNIP

The issue is not only shame. The issue is guilt and for that, prosecution, conviction and incarceration are the remedies. That is the only prospect that sobers up the corporate crooks. Adequate prosecution budgets, tougher corporate criminal laws and a government going for law and order--none of these are in any legislative proposals or in the hearts and minds of our Washington representatives.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/16-6

The Gang Rape and the Republican, by Mark Morford

As I said two weeks ago...the GOP is now the party of military contractor gang rapists. Nice...

A few clips:

Here is freshman Minnesota senator Al Franken's first-ever legislative action, a relatively simple, almost laughably surefire bill requiring the Pentagon no longer do business with any contractor -- hi, Halliburton! -- that requires its employees to agree that she cannot sue said contractor if she is, oh let's just say, gang raped by its employees. You read that right. It's a can't-sue-us-if-you're-raped clause. In a U.S. government contract. Aimed squarely at Halliburton.

Thanks, Dick Cheney! First, you are required get over your initial disgust that such legislation is even necessary, that such clauses even exist and that the Pentagon is already doing business with such contractors (hi, Halliburton/KBR!), and that there has already been a truly horrible case validating it, wherein a 20-year-old female employee was allegedly gang-raped by contractors, locked in a shipping container, abused every way from Sunday, and found out later she was unable to sue.

SNIP

The most repellant part is the 30 U.S. senators -- Republicans each and every one -- who just stepped forth to vote against the Franken amendment, essentially saying no, women should have no right to sue if they are sexually abused or gang raped, Halliburton and its ilk must be protected at all costs, and by the way we hereby welcome Satan into our rancid souls forevermore. God bless America.

SNIP

Would you like a complete list of these 30 senators' names? Right here. Why look, there's grandpa McCain. There's disgraced man-child John Ensign. Hooker-lovin' David Vitter. Saxby Chambliss. Inhofe. It's a veritable welfare-state who's who of Dick Cheney's sanctum of oily fluffers, and many more who would love to be. Shall we write a nice letter to them? Or maybe their wives and daughters?

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/16-3

House Allows Guantanamo Detainees to be Transferred (but we all know how horrible the Senate is…)

The House voted yesterday "to allow detainees being held at the Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba to be transferred to the United States, but only to stand trial." Republicans tried to strip the measure from the overall Homeland Security Department appropriations bill but failed by 224 to 193.

ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS

Most of the Arctic sea ice will be gone in a decade, according to newly released data. The Arctic Ocean will be "an open sea." One researcher explains, "This could lead to flooding affecting one-quarter of the world's population, substantial increases in greenhouse gas emissions from massive carbon pools and extreme global weather changes."

Take a deep breath -- more bad news on air pollution -- The consequences of breathing bad air is linked to appendicitis and ear infections, new studies indicate. Jill U. Adams in the Los Angeles Times -- 10/12/09

An oxygen-depleted "dead zone" the size of New Jersey is starving sea life off the coast of Oregon and Washington and will probably appear there each summer as a result of climate change, an Oregon State University researcher said Thursday.

Pretty Good News: The Department of the Interior has blocked oil drilling at 60 of 77 contested sites in Utah, claiming that the leasing of the land was rushed and badly handled. Eight of the requested sites will be withdrawn, and 52 of them will be further studied by the Department.