Imbalance

by Clint   –   March 11, 2010   –   Comments (0)   –   

In America, political power resides predominately in the business sector, whose economic interests are first and foremost on the minds of both major parties. The Democrats have less naked loyalty to corporations, but their offices are funded, lobbied and coerced nonstop by businesses that hold stake in government affairs.

For a demonstration of this power relationship, look no further than today’s news, which tells us that a “business coalition” is launching a massive advertising campaign against proposed health care reforms. The ads, which are targeted to key Congressional districts, will cost up to $10 million.

Meanwhile, on the Left, a few thousand people held a picket in D.C. to support existing proposals (though many advocated their expansion, too). The picket was combined with a coordinated assault of sharply-worded letters to local representatives.

This is a roughly typical display of the disparity in resources and organizing power that separates the Right (Business) and the Left (Labor). It explains why the health care legislation process has been a gradual narrowing of reform, and it explains why the preferred option of the American population – a government-guaranteed health care system – was rejected before negotiations even began.

ere he developed with care, lucidity, and comprehensive sweep his fundamental message about the crucial role of the people who remain unknown in carrying forward the endless struggle for peace and justice, and about the victims of the systems of power that create their own versions of history and seek to impose it.

The United States of America

by Chris   –   March 10, 2010   –   Comments (1)   –   

Waterboarding is TORTURE and a WAR CRIME

“Interrogators were instructed to start pouring water right after a detainee exhaled, to ensure he inhaled water, not air, in his next breath. They could use their hands to “dam the runoff” and prevent water from spilling out of a detainee’s mouth. They were allowed six separate 40-second “applications” of liquid in each two-hour session – and could dump water over a detainee’s nose and mouth for a total of 12 minutes a day. Finally, to keep detainees alive even if they inhaled their own vomit during a session – a not-uncommon side effect of waterboarding – the prisoners were kept on a liquid diet.” – Salon.com examines the CIA’s torture manual

Deep Thought

by Chris   –   March 9, 2010   –   Comments (0)   –   

After our next Republican President, Obama will seem like best thing since squeezable ketchup bottles. After Dubya, Bill Clinton seems like the second coming of Abraham Lincoln.

Heeeeee’s Back!

by Chris   –   March 8, 2010   –   Comments (1)   –   

Joseph McCarthy

From the NY Times:

In the McCarthy era, demagogues on the right smeared loyal Americans as disloyal and charged that the government was being undermined from within. [...]

Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, has been pressing Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. since November to reveal the names of lawyers on his staff who have done legal work for Guantánamo detainees. The Justice Department said last month that there were nine political appointees who had represented the detainees in challenges to their confinement. The department said that they were following all of the relevant conflict-of-interest rules. It later confirmed their names when Fox News figured out who they were.

It did not take long for the lawyers to become a conservative target, branded the “Gitmo 9” by a group called Keep America Safe, run by Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, and William Kristol, a conservative activist (who wrote a Times Op-Ed column in 2008). The group released a video that asks, in sinister tones, “Whose values do they share?”

What coulda been on health care reform

by Chris   –   March 5, 2010   –   Comments (0)   –   

McClatchy reported yesterday that Obama tried to shame health insurance execs with a sad letter he received from a woman who is being financially destroyed by her medical bills thanks to rising insurance premiums and deductibles.

Here’s part of the letter:

Last year (2009) my insurance premium was increased over 25% even though I increased my deductible and out of pocket to the highest limits available. I paid out over $6075.24 in premiums, $2415.26 for medical care, $225 in co-pays and $1500 for prescriptions. I never reached my deductible of $2500 so the insurance company only paid out a total $935.32 to my providers.

I must repeat, in 2009 my insurance company received $6075.24 in premiums and paid out only $935.32!

I have just been notified that my premium for next year 2010 has been increased over 40% to $8496.24 ($708.02 per month) !!!! This is the same insurance company I have been with for over 11 cancer free years!!!

Now, I seriously doubt this will change anything in the minds of the insurance executives Obama met with yesterday. The corporate culture in our country long ago shed any sense of shame or collective responsibility. Profit is the one and only motivation you’ll find in most board rooms.

However, this sort of story, repeated incessantly by the White House and Congressional Democrats could have ended this entire health care fight before the opposition (Republicans and their ignorant tea party minions) took control of the debate.

Instead, Democrats publicly focused on the heartless and technical aspects of reform. While the raw numbers are important to crafting good legislation, they should have never been allowed to take away time from the people that would be helped by reform. Tragic and real stories were replaced by haranguing over “bending the curve.”

Sob stories of the rich & famous

by Chris   –   March 4, 2010   –   Comments (0)   –   

Clooney on foodstamps

From the NY Times:

Movie stars, who not so long ago vied to make $20 million or even $25 million a picture, have seen their upfront salaries shrink in the last several years as DVD sales fell, star-driven vehicles stumbled at the box office and studios grew increasingly tightfisted.

How bad is it?

Pretty bad. [...]

[“Up in the Air” starring George Clooney] was made for about $25 million. It was possible only because Mr. Clooney, according to people briefed on the film’s finances but speaking anonymously to avoid conflict with the star or Paramount, took an initial fee that was roughly a tenth of the $20 million that Leonardo DiCaprio, a frequent Oscar contender, has received in the past.

Now, I’m pretty bad at math, but if my abacus is right a “tenth” of $20 million is $2 million. So George Clooney made at least $2 million, for a few months work. I’m like George Clooney, but let’s be honest, he’s not someone we should be pitying for their “bad” financial situation.

Let’s save our tears for Americans struggling to find any job amidst exceptionally high unemployment.

P.S. I love how the Times writer used used “a tenth” instead the $2 million figure to make the situation sound more “bad” than it really is.

Flickr photo by mrvmedia

Roundup for Wednesday 3/3/10

by Chris   –   March 3, 2010   –   Comments (1)   –   

Iraq is still f*cked up. Scores of innocent people are dying in our 51st state.

Apple pulls a dick move and sues HTC over dubious sounding patents.

Health care costs are rising rapidly because doctors and hospitals charge more. We can’t blame the insurance companies for everything.

Roger Ebert had a computer voice created from all those recordings he did for TV and movie commentaries. It sounds great, if not perfect.

Jason Kidd still has flashes of genius. I wish I had seen that play live.

And here’s an oldie but a goodie, probably not safe for work because of the swearing:

Earth still getting warmer

by Chris   –   March 2, 2010   –   Comments (1)   –   

Smoke StacksIn the United States we keep getting hit by wave after wave of gigantic snowstorms. And yet global warming continues. Did you know that January 2010 was the warmest January on record?

“January, according to satellite (data), was the hottest January we’ve ever seen,” said Nicholls of Monash University’s School of Geography and Environmental Science in Melbourne.

“Last November was the hottest November we’ve ever seen, November-January as a whole is the hottest November-January the world has seen,” he said of the satellite data record since 1979.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in December that 2000-2009 was the hottest decade since records began in 1850, and that 2009 would likely be the fifth warmest year on record. WMO data show that eight out of the 10 hottest years on record have all been since 2000.

Scientists say global warming is not uniform in all areas and that climate models predict there will likely be greater extremes of cold and heat, floods and droughts.

The recent rash of epic snowstorms may in fact be a result of the chaos created by our rapidly rising temperatures. So, ,ake sure your uninformed neighbors know the truth. And support cap & trade! (h/t Yglesias)

Great thinkers, Vol. 1: Lewis Black on legalizing weed

by Chris   –   March 1, 2010   –   Comments (1)   –   

Why we elected Democrats

by Chris   –   February 26, 2010   –   Comments (1)   –   

I’m so glad the Democrats got the message in 2006 and 2008 that we wanted them to be exactly like the Republicans (from AntiWar.com):

The House of Representatives narrowly averted allowing the US Patriot Act to expire, abandoning all the proposed privacy provisions to the bill and approving it exactly as worded by the Senate in a vote earlier this week. Parts of Patriot Act would have expired Sunday, but passed through the Senate without debate.

It’s not like Patriot Act was being abused or anything.