So you know you should get over there and read it all!
10/1/09
Jon Stewart on Healthcare
The Daily Show's Jon Stewart takes a look at the healthcare successes of the Democrats:
(h/t GottaLaff :)
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Democratic Super Majority | ||||
| ||||
(h/t GottaLaff :)
9/30/09
Score One For The Working Families Party in NYC
Score two, actually... Via The Gotham Gazette, The Working Families Party, a political party that has made significant contributions to Connecticut's political landscape, has taken over New York city:
The kinds of issues that the Working Families Party pursues?
This:
That:
And the other thing:
Both Liu and de Blasio had the endorsement of the Working Families Party, yesterday and in their original primaries two weeks ago. De Blasio’s ties to the party are particularly tight.
The victories yesterday continue a very successful election year for the Working Families Party. In the Sept. 15 primary, challengers backed by the party toppled four sitting council members.
“The Working Families Party, once derided as a ragtag collection of Brooklyn progressives, is now the pre-eminent political force in New York City politics, replacing a forlorn, disorganized Democratic Party,” Michael Barbaro observed in the City Room.
The kinds of issues that the Working Families Party pursues?
This:
Billionaires for Budget Cuts is a diverse group of insurance company CEOs, bailed-out Wall Street executives and hedge fund managers, united to stop even a pay increase in taxes on the very rich, even if it means slashing healthcare and education.
See the Billionaires' recent press clips.
Join the Billionaires for Budget Cuts Facebook group.
That:
Our healthcare system is broken. Costs are through the roof, and yet we still have hundreds of thousands of families in Connecticut without coverage. It's time for a high quality public health option. Read more.
Paid Sick Days. Between the outbreak of swine flu and the recession, it's clearer than ever that working families need paid sick days. We're leading the fight. Learn more.I don't expect that they will see a lot of corporate money flooding their coffers as they endorse candidates from every and any party that has a proven record of voting for the little guy.
In The News:
Read the our great CT Post Op-Ed on why people are voting Working Families and help spread the word:
"When you vote for a Democrat or a Republican on the Working Families line, you're vote counts for the candidate just the same as a vote on the major party line. But a Working Families vote also sends a powerful message to all politicians that it's time to put working families first again.
The real work to fix our economy will start the day after Election Day. Our elected officials will have to make difficult choices to put our country and our state back on the right track.
Voting on the Working Families line is a small way that each of us point our politicians in the right direction -- and give them a little push."
More details here.
Who needs sleep?
Those who know me well know that I am a part-time insomniac. At times I can go days without sleeping before I finally burn and crash. Many of the posts I have written were done in the middle of the night and saved to post later. Don't ask me which ones' because I probably won't remember. Now I may be able to tell you why:
And enjoy this barenaked lady I found in the bathroom in the middle of the night:
Please remind me if I forget to post this diary...A Connection Between Sleep and Alzheimer's?
You shouldn't stay up all night worrying about it, but a new study has found a connection between a lack of sleep and a biomolecule thought to be important in the development of Alzheimer's disease.
In both humans and mice, levels of a peptide called amyloid-β rise during waking hours and decline during sleep, researchers have found. They also report that sleep-deprived mice are more prone to developing deposits of amyloid-β, called plaques, like those found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. Although far from proven, the finding suggests that sleep disorders could be a risk factor for Alzheimer's. On a brighter note, it also hints at new avenues of treatment.
Many lines of evidence suggest that the naturally occurring amyloid-β builds up in the brain over many years in people who develop Alzheimer's disease, beginning long before people show signs of memory loss. But very little is known about what factors might influence levels of the peptide in the brain, says David Holtzman, a neurologist at Washington University in St. Louis in Missouri.
And enjoy this barenaked lady I found in the bathroom in the middle of the night:
9/28/09
Senator Dodd On Snowe Delaying Legislation
ctblogger uploaded this video and I thought I would yank it from him because it shows a lot slicker version of the material I covered:
Pay no attention the Blogging geek asking the question nor the mug of Sam Adam's Octoberfest beer on the counter behind him.
Pay no attention the Blogging geek asking the question nor the mug of Sam Adam's Octoberfest beer on the counter behind him.
Senator Chris Dodd on Obama's Afghanistan Strategy
In this video, taken on Saturday, September 26th, '09, Senator Chris Dodd makes sense on the situation in Afghanistan. It starts with Nutmegger John Kantrowitz, from My Left Nutmeg and the Conn-Post Blogs, discussing the shades of Vietnam parallels. But there is an 800 pound guerrilla that too many ignore that I try to point out at the end of the video:
Just so you understand what I am talking about at the end of the video, General Petraeus re-wrote the doctrine for dealing with counterinsurgencies:
The population of Afghanistan is 28,150,000 according to wikipedia - And the math based on 25 soldiers per thousand residents?
By Genral Petraeus' own standard that is how many soldiers would be needed to effectively stabelize Afghanistan. Accounting for US, UN and even the Afghanistan soldiers that have been trained up to provide security there are nowhere near enough. And there will never be anywhere near enough without a draft. That is an 800 pound guerilla that nobody will address.
Little wonder why Obama may be suffering from buyer's remorse on campaign statements and early decisions after he was sworn in:
Just so you understand what I am talking about at the end of the video, General Petraeus re-wrote the doctrine for dealing with counterinsurgencies:
The first chapter of Petraeus's manual calls for a "force ratio" of 25 counterinsurgents (here meaning US, allied, and Iraqi soldiers and police) per 1,000 residents. In Baghdad that would require a total force of 120,000. But even with the additional 17,500 US troops President Bush has called for, and a reallocation of Iraqi troops from the North to Baghdad, the total force will be approximately 80,000, a full third less than what the manual prescribes.I was shooting from the hip and based on my faulty memory, but the numbers I was talking about were sufficiently close to make the point. Thinking in terms of the situation in Afghanistan a quick look at the math tells you what you need to know.
The population of Afghanistan is 28,150,000 according to wikipedia - And the math based on 25 soldiers per thousand residents?
703,750
By Genral Petraeus' own standard that is how many soldiers would be needed to effectively stabelize Afghanistan. Accounting for US, UN and even the Afghanistan soldiers that have been trained up to provide security there are nowhere near enough. And there will never be anywhere near enough without a draft. That is an 800 pound guerilla that nobody will address.
Little wonder why Obama may be suffering from buyer's remorse on campaign statements and early decisions after he was sworn in:
Once in office, Obama compounded the damage by doubling down his bet on the war. In March, he introduced a “comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan” in his first significant public statement on the subject, which had expansion written all over it. He also agreed to send in 21,000 more troops (which, by the way, Petraeus reportedly convinced him to do). In August, in another sign of weakness masquerading as strength, before an unenthusiastic audience at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, he unnecessarily declared: “This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity.” All of this he will now pay for at the hands of Petraeus, or if not him, then a coterie of military men behind the latest push for a new kind of Afghan War.At this moment in time the Generals are asking for more troops and, even by Petraus' own standards, they aren't asking for enough to deal with the issue. And that is assuming the strategy of more boots on the ground is even an effective one. It isn't because the whole strategy is based on loonytunes logic [emph. mine], according to Pen and Sword's Jeff Huber:
As it happens, this was never Obama’s “war of necessity.” It was always Petraeus’s. And the new report from McChrystal and the Surgettes is undoubtedly Petraeus’s progeny as well. It seems, in fact, cleverly put together to catch a cautious president, who wasn’t cautious enough about his war of choice, in a potentially devastating trap. The military insistence on quick action on a troop decision sets up a devastating choice for the president: “Failure to provide adequate resources also risks a longer conflict, greater casualties, higher overall costs, and ultimately, a critical loss of political support. Any of these risks, in turn, are likely to result in mission failure.” Go against your chosen general and the failure that follows is yours alone. (Unnamed figures supposedly close to McChrystal are already launching test balloons, passed on by others, suggesting that the general might resign in protest if the president doesn’t deliver — a possibility he has denied even considering.) On the other hand, offer him somewhere between 15,000 and 45,000 more American troops as well as other resources, and the failure that follows will still be yours.
It’s a basic lose-lose proposition and, as journalist Eric Schmitt wrote in a New York Times assessment of the situation, “it will be very hard to say no to General McChrystal.” No wonder the president and some of his men are dragging their feet and looking elsewhere. As one typically anonymous “defense analyst” quoted in the Los Angeles Times said, the administration is suffering “buyer’s remorse for this war… They never really thought about what was required, and now they have sticker shock.”
I still have a pile of video to sort through and edit from this event, and more from another event that featured Ned Lamont and Rep. Rosa DeLauro.Obama said that he would only approve another escalation if he has "absolute clarity about what the strategy is going to be." McChrystal’s report is incoherent on the subject of strategy.
It says, “We must conduct classic counterinsurgency operations” and states that success depends not on “seizing terrain or destroying insurgent forces” but on “gaining the support of the people.” That’s laughable in light of the fact that classic clear-hold-build counterinsurgency operations involve seizing terrain and destroying the insurgent forces that occupy it.
The notion that we can separate the Afghan people from the insurgents is as ludicrous as the idea of invading Mexico to separate the Hispanics from the Latinos. Nor can we pretend to be the good guys when the Karzai government we prop up is as bad or worse than the insurgents. McChrystal admits that Afghans have “little reason to support their government.”
McChrystal says he sees no sign of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. So, his argument goes, in order to disrupt al-Qaeda terror network, we need 45,000 more troops to occupy a country al Qaeda is not in to make sure it doesn’t come back. And what exactly is this al-Qaeda juggernaut we’ve come to quake in fear of? As former CIA officer Philip Giraldi recently noted, “An assessment by France’s highly regarded Paris Institute of Political Studies [suggests that] Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda has likely been reduced to a core group of eight to ten terrorists who are on the run more often than not.”
If McChrystal and his allies get their way, we’ll have deployed over 135,000 troops to Afghanistan—on top of the roughly 130,000 troops still in Iraq—for the purpose of rounding up fewer than a dozen bad guys. Daffy Duck and Wiley Coyote could come up with a better strategy than that. Our military leadership and its supporters are a thundering herd of buffoons whose only real objective is to keep the cash caissons rolling and the gravy ships afloat and the wild blue budget sky high.
9/23/09
9/22/09
Blue Dog Mike Ross Real Estate Scandal?
Via TomP at dKos, Rep. Mike Ross is getting his first taste of promised push-back for going against what the majority of Americans want:
Update: Rachel Maddow gives the story a little love:
Crooks and Liars has a statement from Ross on this "Gotcha Politics" traditionally called bribes.
ProPublica is reporting that Blue Dog Congressman Mike Ross (DINO-AR) "sold a piece of commercial property in 2007 for substantially more than a county assessment and an independent appraisal say it was worth."Any other Blue Dogs or Money Party candidates in Congress want to reconsider selling out Americans to the health insurance and pharmaceutical corporations? If we don't hear from you, you will very likely hear from us...
Who did he sell it to? An Arkansas-based pharmacy chain with an interest in defeating universal health care.
Ross sold the real estate in Prescott, Ark., to USA Drug for $420,000 -- an eye-popping number for real estate in the tiny train and lumber town about 100 miles southwest of Little Rock.ProPublica: Mike Ross Raises Eyebrows With Healthy Haul
"You can buy half the town for $420,000," said Adam Guthrie, chairman of the county Board of Equalization and the only licensed real estate appraiser in Prescott.
But it's not just $420,000. There is an extra almost 1 million dollars that went to the Rosses in the deal. The total value of the transaction is between $1 million and $1.67 million.
Update: Rachel Maddow gives the story a little love:
Crooks and Liars has a statement from Ross on this "Gotcha Politics" traditionally called bribes.
9/21/09
Boehner at CPAC calling all of Obama's Policies Socialist
Flushing out Boehner's lie on Meet the Press and a David Gregory that doesn't follow politics well enough to be able to call him out on the obvious:
Boehner is no different then any other Bircher whackjob.
Boehner is no different then any other Bircher whackjob.
9/19/09
Healy Is Still Fat, Drunk and Stupid
Seriously, Healy, is this really a great way for you to to continue to go through life?
"Let this be a warning to those who think they can roll the American people and get away it. Exhibit A is the quick destruction of ACORN - Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - after several videos showed their members setting up prostitution ring and one member bragging how she shot her husband dead without anyone knowing about it - until she told the tale on tape."If the pitiful head Connecticut Republican mobile liquor sponge would turn off Glen Beck and the FOX noise for a few minutes he might begin to realize how much of a joke he really is.
I can't do anything about your being fat and drunk, Healy, but here is some Kryptonite for your stupid:
Here’s what ACORN says:Yet again... Joke is you.
When the actors approached Ms. Kaelke with their provocative costuming and outlandish scenario, she could not take them seriously. So she met their outrageousness with her own personal style of outrageousness. She matched their false scenario with her own false scenarios.And here’s a report from the San Bernadino police department:
“They were not believable”, said Ms. Kaelke of the two actors. “Somewhat entertaining, but they weren’t even good actors. I didn’t know what to make of them. They were clearly playing with me. I decided to shock them as much as they were shocking me. Like Stephan Colbert does – saying the most outrageous things with a straight face.” While her sense of humor might not be funny to many people, the fact is that she spun false scenario after false scenario and the videographer ate them up.
For example, in response to the set-up by the filmmakers in which they say they are trying get the young woman away from her abusive pimp, she responds that she was abused by her former husband as well (true) and that she shot and killed him (false). He is very much alive and living near Barstow, CA.
However, this is taken as the gospel truth, not just in the film itself, but also by several “news” personalities, indicating that no journalistic standards were applied to making the video or vetting it for broadcast.
An undercover video reportedly filmed in the San Bernardino office for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was recently released on the Internet. The film depicts a worker talking about her past involvement in prostitution and the alleged self- defense killing of her former husband.Of course when the video popped, righties didn’t apply their b.s.-filters and like when Cheney said Iraq would greet us as liberators, just assumed all was as it appeared.
The San Bernardino Police Department is investigating the claims made regarding
the homicide. From the initial investigation conducted, the claims do not appear to be factual. Investigators have been in contact with the involved party’s known former husbands, who are alive and well.
Healy is, still, clearly "Fat, drunk and stupid" if he thinks anyone is buying the Republican snake oil he sells.
9/17/09
McMahon and Schiff Add Names to #CTGOPBattleRoyale
Via tparty at MLN:
This morning, proud non-voter Peter Schiff officially entered the ring of the 2010 #CTGOPbattleroyale. This is the man about whom Stuart Rothenberg wrote earlier this year that he saw:Here is Linda McMahon's unofficial announcement:
"...no evidence that he understands how to talk to voters who have the kinds of problems that average Americans in Connecticut face each and every day, no evidence that he'd be effective in the Senate and no evidence that he has even the vaguest idea how to put together a campaign"But while Schiff will have tens of millions to spend savaging the Republican party, he may actually be late to the main event: Linda McMahon vs. Rob Simmons, which now appears to be a rematch of an under-the-radar fight the two had in 2006.
In late September 2006, as then-Congressman Rob Simmons was busy trying to fend off Joe Courtney in the closing weeks of what turned out to be an historically close election in eastern Connecticut, Greenwich multimillionaire McMahon from the other side of the state contributed $10,000 to the DCCC to help give Simmons that final push off the ledge:
McMahon, Linda E.
Greenwich, CT 06831
World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc.
DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE (D)
$10,000
primary 09/29/06
9/15/09
9/14/09
Sweeoowweet... Here Doggy
Via Jed Lewison, the happy-go-lucky teabaggers:
Much like these people, via Connecticut Bob:
And please remember to hide the white women because Obama is an angry black man...
Good hypocritical doggy!
A collage from this weekend's teabagger rally in DC (photos posted by NineTwelvePhotos on Flickr):Aren't they such thoughtful and happy people?
Much like these people, via Connecticut Bob:
They don't seem to appreciate having their voices drowned out by America, the beautiful, when they are trying to speak. Imagine that? And, of course, those were happy threats of violence they were loudly sharing with the neighborhood.Ray Charles disrupts Tea Party!
In a brilliant bit of political theater, the 9/11 tea party in Bridgeport was interrupted by the legendary Ray Charles, singing an American classic! Ann Coulter was on the stage when it happened.
And please remember to hide the white women because Obama is an angry black man...
Good hypocritical doggy!
9/11/09
A little Black history in the making...
I was checking out The Field Negro's Blog and Wayne had something far more interesting on his sidebar than anything he has written lately, to myself at least. (Sorry Field, not knocking your writing but I am a veteran.)
I have not checked out the background on this project or the "producer" myself, so if you are interested in helping out on this I suggest you use due diligence and verify before you give. I'll try and check if Wayne has looked into yet, himself. ([UPDATE] I just got an email back from Wayne and he said that he did do "some" looking into it and it appears legit. Again and always, do use due diligence and verify before you give.) Anyways, below is what Wayne had up there on the sidebar:
Choc’late Soldiers From The USAA Landmark Television Project Po Box 63511 Philadelphia, PA 19147 215-627-6265 Heshprod@gmail.com
Dear Field:An attorney friend of mine referred me to you as a possible source of help.In fewer than 70 days, Choc’late Soldiers from the USA (CSUSA), a landmark documentary about the service, sacrifice and bravery of African American soldiers in Great Britain and Europe during World War II is scheduled to premiere (see attachment) at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture on November 10, 2009.
My primary sponsor who had promised funds for the documentary’s premiere and completion is unable to fulfill its obligation, so I am left to scramble for completion funds. I am requesting that you use your blog to bring attention to my situation, which could result in an influx of sponsors in time for the November 10th premiere.CSUSA is the untold story of African American soldiers in wartime England and Europe. It was in England where many Blacks experienced, for the first time, what it was like to be treated as Americans, and as equals. It was in England where many fell in love with British women, and some go on to have families. When Blacks left England for war-torn Europe, they demonstrated their mettle and courage in combat; some took pay cuts and had their rank reduced for the privilege of volunteering for combat. It was these character-shaping experiences that gave Black veterans the courage and conviction to fight for civil rights in America during the following decades. All of us stand on the shoulders of this “The Greatest Generation.” CSUSA can go a long way toward educating Americans, of all colors, about the sacrifices Black Americans have made in defending a democracy, which, for most of its history, has denied them the rights and privileges of being an American. Surely these men and women, who fought in a segregated army and who were thwarted at every turn by racist practices, deserve to be honored as “The Greatest of the Greatest Generation.”
But time is running short. Every day 1,200 WWII veterans die. Soon they will all be gone and no one will be left to tell their heroic sagas, the stories of unbelievable patriotism against overwhelming odds. CSUSA is an unprecedented opportunity to tell an untold American story and to once and for all let these African American heroes take their rightful places in American history.While we await a decision from a major foundation, we are seeking $332,000 to complete CSUSA in time for the Smithsonian Institution’s premiere on November 10, 2009. (Sponsors usually give increments of $50k) I am pulling out all stops to secure the funds for completion, which is why I am contacting you. Anyone who underwrites the premiere and completion of CSUSA will receive the following benefits:• Their name/organization in the film credits and all accompanying materials such as brochures, posters and study guides• A tax deduction up to the maximum allowed by the IRS• Inclusion of their name in major newspaper and magazine articles as a supporter of the project• Their personal legacy linked to helping complete an enduring piece of American historyAs a former high school and college educator, I am dedicated to the long-term proposition of teaching young people about black World War II veterans.
Part of the budget will be used to develop high school and college-level curricula for American and British students. I can think of no better gift to bequeath to future generations.Choc’late Soldiers from the USA has already generated enthusiastic interest from civilians, veterans and scholars in the U.S. and Britain, and has been featured at academic conferences and commemorative ceremonies.
Also, as a work-in-progress documentary, it placed third in competition at the D.C. Independent Film Festival in 2008. I am enclosing a verifiable list of veterans, historians and sponsors who are directly involved with CSUSA.Field, I am requesting that you use you blogging influence to help me raise funds for the Smithsonian Institution premiere and completion for PBS slated for next year.
I hope you are able to help me.
Sincerely,Gregory S. CookeProducer.
[p.s. He will take donations starting from a $1.00
Just think, you can be a part of making this happen for a $1.00. Now that I like.]
I have not checked out the background on this project or the "producer" myself, so if you are interested in helping out on this I suggest you use due diligence and verify before you give. I'll try and check if Wayne has looked into yet, himself. ([UPDATE] I just got an email back from Wayne and he said that he did do "some" looking into it and it appears legit. Again and always, do use due diligence and verify before you give.) Anyways, below is what Wayne had up there on the sidebar:
HEY FOLKS, PLEASE READ THIS AND SHOOT AN E-MAIL TO THIS BROTHA TO SEE HOW YOU CAN HELP HIM. THANKS!
Choc’late Soldiers From The USAA Landmark Television Project Po Box 63511 Philadelphia, PA 19147 215-627-6265 Heshprod@gmail.com
Dear Field:An attorney friend of mine referred me to you as a possible source of help.In fewer than 70 days, Choc’late Soldiers from the USA (CSUSA), a landmark documentary about the service, sacrifice and bravery of African American soldiers in Great Britain and Europe during World War II is scheduled to premiere (see attachment) at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture on November 10, 2009.
My primary sponsor who had promised funds for the documentary’s premiere and completion is unable to fulfill its obligation, so I am left to scramble for completion funds. I am requesting that you use your blog to bring attention to my situation, which could result in an influx of sponsors in time for the November 10th premiere.CSUSA is the untold story of African American soldiers in wartime England and Europe. It was in England where many Blacks experienced, for the first time, what it was like to be treated as Americans, and as equals. It was in England where many fell in love with British women, and some go on to have families. When Blacks left England for war-torn Europe, they demonstrated their mettle and courage in combat; some took pay cuts and had their rank reduced for the privilege of volunteering for combat. It was these character-shaping experiences that gave Black veterans the courage and conviction to fight for civil rights in America during the following decades. All of us stand on the shoulders of this “The Greatest Generation.” CSUSA can go a long way toward educating Americans, of all colors, about the sacrifices Black Americans have made in defending a democracy, which, for most of its history, has denied them the rights and privileges of being an American. Surely these men and women, who fought in a segregated army and who were thwarted at every turn by racist practices, deserve to be honored as “The Greatest of the Greatest Generation.”
But time is running short. Every day 1,200 WWII veterans die. Soon they will all be gone and no one will be left to tell their heroic sagas, the stories of unbelievable patriotism against overwhelming odds. CSUSA is an unprecedented opportunity to tell an untold American story and to once and for all let these African American heroes take their rightful places in American history.While we await a decision from a major foundation, we are seeking $332,000 to complete CSUSA in time for the Smithsonian Institution’s premiere on November 10, 2009. (Sponsors usually give increments of $50k) I am pulling out all stops to secure the funds for completion, which is why I am contacting you. Anyone who underwrites the premiere and completion of CSUSA will receive the following benefits:• Their name/organization in the film credits and all accompanying materials such as brochures, posters and study guides• A tax deduction up to the maximum allowed by the IRS• Inclusion of their name in major newspaper and magazine articles as a supporter of the project• Their personal legacy linked to helping complete an enduring piece of American historyAs a former high school and college educator, I am dedicated to the long-term proposition of teaching young people about black World War II veterans.
Part of the budget will be used to develop high school and college-level curricula for American and British students. I can think of no better gift to bequeath to future generations.Choc’late Soldiers from the USA has already generated enthusiastic interest from civilians, veterans and scholars in the U.S. and Britain, and has been featured at academic conferences and commemorative ceremonies.
Also, as a work-in-progress documentary, it placed third in competition at the D.C. Independent Film Festival in 2008. I am enclosing a verifiable list of veterans, historians and sponsors who are directly involved with CSUSA.Field, I am requesting that you use you blogging influence to help me raise funds for the Smithsonian Institution premiere and completion for PBS slated for next year.
I hope you are able to help me.
Sincerely,Gregory S. CookeProducer.
[p.s. He will take donations starting from a $1.00
Just think, you can be a part of making this happen for a $1.00. Now that I like.]
We Apologize For Being Correct, Yet Again
Those of us in the left Blogosphere of Connecticut and the nation that have a nasty habit of being right so often that it is truly embarrassing to the political elite, the media, the voters and activists that don't read and pay attention to the warnings we give you would like to apologize to all of you for, yet again, being proven correct.
Via Paul Bass at the New Haven Independent:
Via Paul Bass at the New Haven Independent:
Three years ago the state AFL-CIO convened in New Haven and embraced U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman’s reelection. Thursday the AFL-CIO reconvened here — and made Lieberman its target.
The occasion was the state labor movement’s biennial convention at the Omni Hotel. The convention runs through Friday. A central theme of this year’s convention: Push politicians in Washington to pass universal health care with a “public option” — government-backed insurance.
9/10/09
Support For Public Option In Connecticut By District
Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com did a great job of breaking down some poll numbers for the Public Option on a district by district level and across the nation. I did a quick cut and paste of the numbers just for Connecticut:
The results beg the question of why some more of Connecticut's Congress critters are not leading the charge for the Public Option? They know the people want it and they have to know that it is the right thing to do.
It is an all around political winner and just plain old common sense good public policy.
Some important notes on this from Nate Silver:
The results beg the question of why some more of Connecticut's Congress critters are not leading the charge for the Public Option? They know the people want it and they have to know that it is the right thing to do.
It is an all around political winner and just plain old common sense good public policy.
Some important notes on this from Nate Silver:
We can systematize these results by means of a regression analysis that accounts for the Obama vote share and the poverty level in each district. (Technically, we'll be using a logistic regession, treating each of the voters included in one of these surveys as a separate data point.) This analysis finds that support for the public option nationwide is about 55 percent, against 36 percent opposed, similar results to what I believe to be the most reliable polls on the subject.There is some pretty good reasoning behind this data to tell the few Blue Dogs trying to stand in the way of the Public Option to suck it up and do the right thing, as well. Go and take a look at the data yourself. The information is a real eye opener as to where there is some really strong support for the Public Option even in some supposedly "conservative" districts.
What's more interesting, though, is where we project the public option in individual districts. We find that:
-- The public option is estimated to have plurality support in 291 of the 435 Congressional Districts nationwide, or almost exactly two-thirds.
-- The public option is estimated to have plurality support in 235 of 257 Democratic-held districts.
-- The public option is estimated to have plurality support in 34 of 52 Blue Dog - held districts, and has overall popularity of 51 percent in these districts versus 39 percent opposed.
Obviously, there is a margin of error inherent to this analysis when applied to any individual district. The polls that inform this analysis themselves have a margin of error, and there is an additional layer of error introduced by the statistical process that we apply to the data.
9/9/09
Don't Be That Congress!
Do you really want to be a repeat of the 80th "Do Nothing" Congress?
Pres.Truman: “On several occasions
during the past year I have reported to the Congress and to the Nation
on our general economic situation. These reports have told of new high
levels of production and employment. Farmers are producing 37% more
than in 1929. Industry is producing 65% more. In terms of actual
purchasing power, the average income of individuals after taxes has
risen 39%. The rapid growth of our post-war activity has exceeded
expectations, and has revealed anew the potentialities of our economy.
In each of my reports however, I have had to warn of dangers that lie
ahead. Today, inflation stands as an ominous threat to the prosperity
we have achieved. We can no longer treat inflation with spiraling
prices and living costs as some vague condition we may encounter in the
future. We already have an alarming degree of inflation.And even more alarming, it is getting worse. Since the middle of
1946, fuel has gone up 13%. Clothing prices have gone up 19%. Retail
food prices have gone up 40%. The average for all cost of living items
has risen 23%. The housewife who goes to buy food today must spend ten
dollars to buy what seven dollars bought a year and a half ago. She
must spend ten dollars to buy what seven dollars would have bought a
year ago. The cost of living is still climbing. In the past four months
it has risen at the rate of 16% a year. Wholesale prices are rising
too. They affect every industry and trade. And they are soon translated
into retail prices. Since the middle of 1946, wholesale textile prices
have gone up 32%. Metals have gone up 36%. Building materials have gone
up 42%. Wholesale prices on the average have gone up 40%. The harsh
effects of price inflation are clear. They are felt by wage earners,
farmers and businessmen. Wage earners are finding that bigger paychecks
this year buy less than smaller paychecks bought last year.”
But Obama can feel free to be that President... Because when it comes to real healthcare reform?
We Can't Afford to Wait
9/8/09
Republicans Sacrifice Chickens For Healthcare
You can not put a dollar value on life, and that is all your free market answers are about, aren't they?
a moral responsibility those words are clearly applicable to the health care crisis in this country. Intellectually I knew that long before I first read (and wrote about) the Remote Area Medical Mission in Wise Virginia. I lost any doubt during the weekend I spent there in July, which is why I am taking the first weekend in October to go to a similar event in Grundy, VA.Here is the real and honest moral argument:
How do we compromise on morality? IF we can make the case that what we are attempting do is a moral obligation, then I believe the politics will be on our side - the conscious of most people can be challenged. Clearly the late Senator Kennedy understood this, which is why the words of Matthew 25 were so prominent at his funeral. For whatever human flaws he had (and acknowledged both in his letter to the Pope and in his soon to be published memoir). on this he did not lack moral clarity.
Part of the responsibility of those of us who speak out on issues is to remember our dual responsibility to afflict the comfortable as we comfort the afflicted.
Yes, in politics we must look at what is possible. We must "advance the ball" down the field, since Americans are too fond of football metaphors. But one should also remember that it matters not who gains the most yardage, only who scores the most points. Thus speak not to me of points of agreement in negotiation if those do not lead to meaningful action in legislation that becomes law.
In moral tests one cannot be neutral.
So now we know who the real death panelists are!
After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money. They think they may have found one.
The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.
The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return — though if people live longer than expected, investors could get poor returns or even lose money.
Guaranteed Trickle Down Death
That is what happens when you put a dollar value on life. Investors would have twice the incentive to deny care to the elderly. What incentive would investors in healthcare insurance corporations have to keep them alive if they can make more money denying care to them and then, also, make more money on their investments in reverse mortgages?
9/3/09
Murphy Calls On Congress To Walk The Healthcare Walk
A release from CT-05 Rep. Chris Murphy:
[update] A little extra from
Real Canadians Talk Real Healthcare
For those of you that just don't get what single payer healthcare is all about, via Karoli at US Health Crisis, real Canadians talk about healthcare:
I lived in Canada for about 28 years.
I can't begin to list how much better everything is in Canada compared to the health care disaster we all suffer from south of the border. Cradle to grave, there is never any question about whether they will do everything they can to treat you in a reasonable amount of time.
I could walk in to my primary care physician any time he was open. If it was his golf day or something like his vacation time? I would go a couple of blocks down the street to another doctor. I chose those doctors based on my level of comfort with them.
My primary would even do house calls (probably still does?) if you or your kid were too sick to make it in.
If you had something so severe as to need more than what your typical primary could provide? Walk into the emergency room (or take the ambulance - they don't ask if you have insurance first because that would be inhumane). It is my understanding that they now have CLSCs in Quebec to cover the less severe emergencies like breaks, sprains, stitches, etc., that might just need the basics or to use when your primary caregivers office might be closed. This alleviates pressure on emergency rooms at hospitals so they can concentrate more on the serious emergencies.
My father was diagnosed with cancer not too long ago and given about six months to live.
He was treated by the best medical staff he could find for his specific problems. He also had a good backup for second opinions. He chose them based on how he wanted and needed to be treated and based on consultations with many caregivers. He lived 3 more years after that original dead end diagnosis and died in his 70s.
No healthcare or treatment is perfect but had he lived in the USA he very likely would have been uninsured because of pre-existing health conditions. In the USA he wouldn't have even had that "six months" diagnosis.
And never, not even once, did he have to make any healthcare decisions based on whether or not he could afford the treatment. He decided (as do all Canadians) in conjunction with and on the advice of his doctors. There was no insurance company in between them to turn him down.
The American system is as cruel to the poor and those that really need the medical help as it is profitable to the insurance companies.
Those are just some of the things I can say about the Canadian system.
Americans, in surveys, appear to be "more satisfied" with their healthcare providers than Canadians do. Maybe you don't understand this, being that you have had a crappy healthcare system all of your life...
That is because Canadians expect a lot more from their healthcare system than Americans do.
Never mind that the polls I have seen always point to satisfaction with providers BUT rarely address the cost and the mode of payment directly. Why? Because the few times we hear the voice of the people on this, for the most part, they say they hate their medical insurance companies.
My primary doctor in the US is great. He supports Single Payer. Most of the hospital people I have dealt with are great at their jobs, too. I always ask them and they support single payer by a large margin. My children have a great pediatrician and, yes, he supports single payer as well. Nothing to complain about the actual service providers. That side is pretty much equal to the Canadian providers. Some are better and some are worse, but competent and caring nonetheless. They want to give you the best service possible. And, for the most part, the majority of those providers want to give you single payer.
I am among the few that has half decent insurance. For how long, who knows? In this economy corporations are stripping workers of higher quality insurance for less costly junk plans. Our family's plan was changed to add higher co-pays and more restrictions on usage AGAIN, this year. And that is just a minor issue when many of these cash strapped corporations and small businesses are laying people off people all together so they have no insurance at all.
If our family lost our source of health insurance we know that our budget would eliminate any possibility of keeping coverage regardless of government's provision of the costly Cobra plans. On unemployment, we would struggling to keep a roof over our heads and the kids fed. Regardless of that, I expect more from my healthcare AND I expect it to cost a hell of a lot less. But that is because I have seen and lived with a better healthcare system than the one we have here.
I expect nothing less than Single Payer!
Of course, that does not mean I am completely rigid on this and unwilling to compromise. It is just a higher standard that could be attained in this country. More recently we have seen a lot of discussion on the public option, since single payer has been banned from the political discussion and the media's coverage of healthcare.
Fine.
Most recently some morons are saying that is the "Left of the Left" that are pushing for the public option and this supposed to be shocking news to be breathlessly reported on in the traditional media... As they continue their twisted and contorted takes on reality, let us look at who really supports the public option, OK?
For those politicians and media stenographers that have a problem with reading comprehension I took a moment to annotate this Survey USA graphic. There is your "Left of the Left" in RED and BLUE...
The black ink in the ledgers of insurance corporations is being balanced by the red blood of Americans.
Right now about 22,000 Americans die every year because they are under or uninsured. This has got to stop. Now... You could do nothing at all about this issue OR you could contact your Congress critters and hammer them to bring some semblance of real reform to healthcare. Americans are literally dying waiting for something to be done. And a public option, at the very least, will allow for the uninsured to get insurance and give the underinsured the opportunity to choose better insurance.
Now... As a final thought, some more healthcare experts from Canada:
Addendum: I wish that Obama would pay particular attention to the final message from the former Premier of Saskatchewan. A very simple and clear message of "Medicare for all", even if it is made as the default "public option", would go a long way towards providing a unifying message that everyone in the USA could understand as a really good thing. People understand how good Medicare is. Since there is literally a super majority of support for a public option, this would be the nail in the coffin of the insane rantings from the opposition to reform. Add to that the positive move of putting Congress into the same position as the rest of America and people will understand that reform really is about making healthcare better.
If Obama and the Conservative Democratic party members in Congress think that the super majority of Americans called the "Left of the Left" are going to be happy with just any reform... Then they are not paying attention at all and do not deserve the offices they now hold.
The liberal left has, in large part, already made all of the concessions they were willing to give when they let single payer go for the compromised "public option". And many of us will be very loud and very clear as the next elections come around in punishing politicians for failure to act in our interests.
In a few days President Obama will be meeting with the AFL-CIO leadership to talk about relaunching healthcare reform. I expect that we will see a clearer message from the President on what he wants from reform, since he has really had no clear messaging up until now.
Obama had better understand that he can either invigorate healthcare activists with a strong message of honest reform, including a public option that is even closer to the original Hacker proposal than anything we have seen, or he can fall flat on his face and all alone as allies in real healthcare reform desert him and the Democratic party members that are willing to push for more of the same.
Murphy Calls for All Members of Congress to Purchase Health Insurance in Health Reform Bill's New ExchangeFor now, I've got nothing to add to that... As long as the public option is a strong one.
NEW BRITAIN - After hosting public events in Waterbury, Danbury and Washington, Connecticut over the last two days, Congressman Chris Murphy (CT-5) is announcing today that he is returning to Washington, D.C. next week to call on Members of Congress to purchase their own health insurance on the health insurance exchange. America's Affordable Health Choices Act, the House version of the health care reform bill, will make changes to our current health care system so that more people can afford health insurance and increase choice through a health insurance exchange, which would force private plans to compete with each other and a government sponsored plan.
"For people and businesses that choose to go into the exchange, they will have access to better and cheaper coverage than they have today. There is no reason why Members of Congress shouldn't go into the exchange and choose between the public option and private plans like everyone else," said Murphy.
Murphy wants Members of Congress to be treated like employees of very small businesses are under the House reform bill. The bill states that in the first year of the law, employers with 10 or fewer employees will be able to have their employees purchase health insurance on an individual basis through the exchange. The employer would pick up the cost of, for an individual plan, 72.5% of the applicable premium and for a family plan, 65% of the applicable premium.
America's Affordable Health Choices Act also makes health insurance more affordable by providing tax credits to individuals and businesses to purchase it. While many people in Connecticut have health insurance that they like, premiums are going up and up. This summer, Connecticut's biggest insurer announced that it was increasing rates for individuals by over 30%. And a recent report found that 48,000 state residents, or 310 a week, will lose their health insurance before the end of next year because of increasing costs or other circumstances.
"We've got to act to bring down the cost of health care for people in Connecticut. If we are going to enact health care reform that the American people believe in, then Members of Congress aren't just going to have to talk the talk, we are going to have to walk the walk. I believe the health insurance exchange will be a good deal for people in Connecticut, and I am willing to place my own health care coverage needs in it to prove my faith in this effort," said Murphy.
[update] A little extra from
Real Canadians Talk Real Healthcare
For those of you that just don't get what single payer healthcare is all about, via Karoli at US Health Crisis, real Canadians talk about healthcare:
I get a kick out of the responses to the co-pay question: "Co-pay? What does co-pay mean?" This is exactly what happens when the people demand a healthcare system that works for the people instead of for the bottom line of a corporation.
Why this video? Why now?
In the spirit of truth, my friend Matte Black (@Shoq on Twitter) and his brother took their video camera to Canada on vacation to interview Canadians about their health care system. When we talked about it, I asked him to try to get negative views with specifics for balance. Here is the result. It has been edited for brevity, but the negative views were not removed, because there were none. He could not find one Canadian who thought they should kill the system. These are everyday people. They have no agenda at all other than being patriotic Canadians.
Please watch it and share it with as many people as you can.
I lived in Canada for about 28 years.
I can't begin to list how much better everything is in Canada compared to the health care disaster we all suffer from south of the border. Cradle to grave, there is never any question about whether they will do everything they can to treat you in a reasonable amount of time.
I could walk in to my primary care physician any time he was open. If it was his golf day or something like his vacation time? I would go a couple of blocks down the street to another doctor. I chose those doctors based on my level of comfort with them.
My primary would even do house calls (probably still does?) if you or your kid were too sick to make it in.
If you had something so severe as to need more than what your typical primary could provide? Walk into the emergency room (or take the ambulance - they don't ask if you have insurance first because that would be inhumane). It is my understanding that they now have CLSCs in Quebec to cover the less severe emergencies like breaks, sprains, stitches, etc., that might just need the basics or to use when your primary caregivers office might be closed. This alleviates pressure on emergency rooms at hospitals so they can concentrate more on the serious emergencies.
My father was diagnosed with cancer not too long ago and given about six months to live.
He was treated by the best medical staff he could find for his specific problems. He also had a good backup for second opinions. He chose them based on how he wanted and needed to be treated and based on consultations with many caregivers. He lived 3 more years after that original dead end diagnosis and died in his 70s.
No healthcare or treatment is perfect but had he lived in the USA he very likely would have been uninsured because of pre-existing health conditions. In the USA he wouldn't have even had that "six months" diagnosis.
And never, not even once, did he have to make any healthcare decisions based on whether or not he could afford the treatment. He decided (as do all Canadians) in conjunction with and on the advice of his doctors. There was no insurance company in between them to turn him down.
The American system is as cruel to the poor and those that really need the medical help as it is profitable to the insurance companies.
Those are just some of the things I can say about the Canadian system.
Americans, in surveys, appear to be "more satisfied" with their healthcare providers than Canadians do. Maybe you don't understand this, being that you have had a crappy healthcare system all of your life...
That is because Canadians expect a lot more from their healthcare system than Americans do.
Never mind that the polls I have seen always point to satisfaction with providers BUT rarely address the cost and the mode of payment directly. Why? Because the few times we hear the voice of the people on this, for the most part, they say they hate their medical insurance companies.
My primary doctor in the US is great. He supports Single Payer. Most of the hospital people I have dealt with are great at their jobs, too. I always ask them and they support single payer by a large margin. My children have a great pediatrician and, yes, he supports single payer as well. Nothing to complain about the actual service providers. That side is pretty much equal to the Canadian providers. Some are better and some are worse, but competent and caring nonetheless. They want to give you the best service possible. And, for the most part, the majority of those providers want to give you single payer.
I am among the few that has half decent insurance. For how long, who knows? In this economy corporations are stripping workers of higher quality insurance for less costly junk plans. Our family's plan was changed to add higher co-pays and more restrictions on usage AGAIN, this year. And that is just a minor issue when many of these cash strapped corporations and small businesses are laying people off people all together so they have no insurance at all.
If our family lost our source of health insurance we know that our budget would eliminate any possibility of keeping coverage regardless of government's provision of the costly Cobra plans. On unemployment, we would struggling to keep a roof over our heads and the kids fed. Regardless of that, I expect more from my healthcare AND I expect it to cost a hell of a lot less. But that is because I have seen and lived with a better healthcare system than the one we have here.
I expect nothing less than Single Payer!
Of course, that does not mean I am completely rigid on this and unwilling to compromise. It is just a higher standard that could be attained in this country. More recently we have seen a lot of discussion on the public option, since single payer has been banned from the political discussion and the media's coverage of healthcare.
Fine.
Most recently some morons are saying that is the "Left of the Left" that are pushing for the public option and this supposed to be shocking news to be breathlessly reported on in the traditional media... As they continue their twisted and contorted takes on reality, let us look at who really supports the public option, OK?
67% of conservatives support having the choice between a public option and private insurance.
71% of Republicans support having the choice between a public option and private insurance.
77% of Americans support having the choice between a public option and private insurance.
For those politicians and media stenographers that have a problem with reading comprehension I took a moment to annotate this Survey USA graphic. There is your "Left of the Left" in RED and BLUE...
The black ink in the ledgers of insurance corporations is being balanced by the red blood of Americans.
Right now about 22,000 Americans die every year because they are under or uninsured. This has got to stop. Now... You could do nothing at all about this issue OR you could contact your Congress critters and hammer them to bring some semblance of real reform to healthcare. Americans are literally dying waiting for something to be done. And a public option, at the very least, will allow for the uninsured to get insurance and give the underinsured the opportunity to choose better insurance.
Now... As a final thought, some more healthcare experts from Canada:
Addendum: I wish that Obama would pay particular attention to the final message from the former Premier of Saskatchewan. A very simple and clear message of "Medicare for all", even if it is made as the default "public option", would go a long way towards providing a unifying message that everyone in the USA could understand as a really good thing. People understand how good Medicare is. Since there is literally a super majority of support for a public option, this would be the nail in the coffin of the insane rantings from the opposition to reform. Add to that the positive move of putting Congress into the same position as the rest of America and people will understand that reform really is about making healthcare better.
If Obama and the Conservative Democratic party members in Congress think that the super majority of Americans called the "Left of the Left" are going to be happy with just any reform... Then they are not paying attention at all and do not deserve the offices they now hold.
The liberal left has, in large part, already made all of the concessions they were willing to give when they let single payer go for the compromised "public option". And many of us will be very loud and very clear as the next elections come around in punishing politicians for failure to act in our interests.
In a few days President Obama will be meeting with the AFL-CIO leadership to talk about relaunching healthcare reform. I expect that we will see a clearer message from the President on what he wants from reform, since he has really had no clear messaging up until now.
Obama had better understand that he can either invigorate healthcare activists with a strong message of honest reform, including a public option that is even closer to the original Hacker proposal than anything we have seen, or he can fall flat on his face and all alone as allies in real healthcare reform desert him and the Democratic party members that are willing to push for more of the same.
9/2/09
Real Canadians Talking Real Health Care
For those of you that just don't get what single payer healthcare is all about, via Karoli at US Health Crisis, real Canadians talk about healthcare:
I lived in Canada for about 28 years.
I can't begin to list how much better everything is in Canada compared to the health care disaster we all suffer from south of the border. Cradle to grave, there is never any question about whether they will do everything they can to treat you in a reasonable amount of time.
I could walk in to my primary care physician any time he was open. If it was his golf day or something like his vacation time? I would go a couple of blocks down the street to another doctor. I chose those doctors based on my level of comfort with them.
My primary would even do house calls (probably still does?) if you or your kid were too sick to make it in.
If you had something so severe as to need more than what your typical primary could provide? Walk into the emergency room (or take the ambulance - they don't ask if you have insurance first because that would be inhumane). It is my understanding that they now have CLSCs in Quebec to cover the less severe emergencies like breaks, sprains, stitches, etc., that might just need the basics or to use when your primary caregivers office might be closed. This alleviates pressure on emergency rooms at hospitals so they can concentrate more on the serious emergencies.
My father was diagnosed with cancer not too long ago and given about six months to live.
He was treated by the best medical staff he could find for his specific problems. He also had a good backup for second opinions. He chose them based on how he wanted and needed to be treated based on consultations with many caregivers. He lived 3 more years after that original dead end diagnosis and died in his 70s.
No healthcare or treatment is perfect but had he lived in the USA he very likely would have been uninsured because of previously existing health conditions. In the USA he wouldn't have even had that "six months" diagnosis.
And never, not even once, did he have to make any healthcare decisions based on whether or not he could afford the treatment. He decided (as do all Canadians) in conjunction with and on the advice of his doctors. There was no insurance company in between them to turn him down.
The American system is as cruel to the poor and those that really need the medical help as it is profitable to the insurance companies.
Those are just some of the things I can say about the Canadian system.
Americans, in surveys, appear to be "more satisfied" with their healthcare providers than Canadians do. Maybe you don't understand this, being that you have had a crappy healthcare system all of your life...
That is because Canadians expect a lot more from their healthcare system than Americans do.
Never mind that the polls I have seen always point to satisfaction with providers BUT rarely address the cost and the mode of payment directly. Why? Because the few times we hear the voice of the people on this, for the most part, they say they hate their medical insurance companies.
My primary doctor in the US is great. He supports Single Payer. Most of the hospital people I have dealt with are great at their jobs, too. I always ask them and they support single payer by a large margin. My children have a great pediatrician and, yes, he supports single payer as well. Nothing to complain about the actual service providers. That side is pretty much equal to the Canadian providers. Some are better and some are worse, but competent and caring nonetheless. They want to give you the best service possible. And, for the most part, the majority of those providers want to give you single payer.
I am among the few that has half decent insurance. For how long, who knows? In this economy corporations are stripping workers of higher quality insurance for less costly junk plans. Our family's plan was changed to add higher co-pays and more restrictions on usage AGAIN, this year. And that is if these cash strapped corporations and small businesses aren't laying people off people all together so they have no insurance at all. If our family lost our source of health insurance we know that our budget would eliminate any possibility of keeping coverage regardless of government's provision of the costly Cobra plans. On unemployment, we would struggling to keep a roof over our heads and the kids fed. Regardless of that, I expect more from my healthcare AND I expect it to cost a hell of a lot less. But that is because I have seen and lived with a better healthcare system than the one we have here.
I expect nothing less than Single Payer!
Of course, that does not mean I am completely rigid on this and unwilling to compromise. It is just a higher standard that could be attained in this country. More recently we have seen a lot of discussion on the public option, since single payer has been banned from the political discussion and the media's coverage of healthcare.
Fine.
Most recently some morons are saying that is the "Left of the Left" that are pushing for the public option and this supposed to be shocking news to be breathlessly reported on in the traditional media... As they continue their twisted and contorted takes on reality, let us look at who really supports the public option, OK?
For those politicians and media stenographers that have a problem with reading comprehension I took a moment to annotate this Survey USA graphic. There is your "Left of the Left" in RED and BLUE...
The black ink in the ledgers of insurance corporations is being balanced by the red blood of Americans.
Right now about 22,000 Americans die every year because they are under or uninsured. This has got to stop. Now... You could do nothing at all about this issue OR you could contact your Congress critters and hammer them to bring some semblance of real reform to healthcare. Americans are literally dying waiting for something to be done. And a public option, at the very least, will allow for the uninsured to get insurance and give the underinsured the opportunity to choose better insurance.
Now... As a final thought, some healthcare experts from Canada:
I get a kick out of the responses to the co-pay question: "Co-pay? What does co-pay mean?" This is exactly what happens when the people demand a healthcare system that works for the people instead of for the bottom line of a corporation.
Why this video? Why now?
In the spirit of truth, my friend Matte Black (@Shoq on Twitter) and his brother took their video camera to Canada on vacation to interview Canadians about their health care system. When we talked about it, I asked him to try to get negative views with specifics for balance. Here is the result. It has been edited for brevity, but the negative views were not removed, because there were none. He could not find one Canadian who thought they should kill the system. These are everyday people. They have no agenda at all other than being patriotic Canadians.
Please watch it and share it with as many people as you can.
I lived in Canada for about 28 years.
I can't begin to list how much better everything is in Canada compared to the health care disaster we all suffer from south of the border. Cradle to grave, there is never any question about whether they will do everything they can to treat you in a reasonable amount of time.
I could walk in to my primary care physician any time he was open. If it was his golf day or something like his vacation time? I would go a couple of blocks down the street to another doctor. I chose those doctors based on my level of comfort with them.
My primary would even do house calls (probably still does?) if you or your kid were too sick to make it in.
If you had something so severe as to need more than what your typical primary could provide? Walk into the emergency room (or take the ambulance - they don't ask if you have insurance first because that would be inhumane). It is my understanding that they now have CLSCs in Quebec to cover the less severe emergencies like breaks, sprains, stitches, etc., that might just need the basics or to use when your primary caregivers office might be closed. This alleviates pressure on emergency rooms at hospitals so they can concentrate more on the serious emergencies.
My father was diagnosed with cancer not too long ago and given about six months to live.
He was treated by the best medical staff he could find for his specific problems. He also had a good backup for second opinions. He chose them based on how he wanted and needed to be treated based on consultations with many caregivers. He lived 3 more years after that original dead end diagnosis and died in his 70s.
No healthcare or treatment is perfect but had he lived in the USA he very likely would have been uninsured because of previously existing health conditions. In the USA he wouldn't have even had that "six months" diagnosis.
And never, not even once, did he have to make any healthcare decisions based on whether or not he could afford the treatment. He decided (as do all Canadians) in conjunction with and on the advice of his doctors. There was no insurance company in between them to turn him down.
The American system is as cruel to the poor and those that really need the medical help as it is profitable to the insurance companies.
Those are just some of the things I can say about the Canadian system.
Americans, in surveys, appear to be "more satisfied" with their healthcare providers than Canadians do. Maybe you don't understand this, being that you have had a crappy healthcare system all of your life...
That is because Canadians expect a lot more from their healthcare system than Americans do.
Never mind that the polls I have seen always point to satisfaction with providers BUT rarely address the cost and the mode of payment directly. Why? Because the few times we hear the voice of the people on this, for the most part, they say they hate their medical insurance companies.
My primary doctor in the US is great. He supports Single Payer. Most of the hospital people I have dealt with are great at their jobs, too. I always ask them and they support single payer by a large margin. My children have a great pediatrician and, yes, he supports single payer as well. Nothing to complain about the actual service providers. That side is pretty much equal to the Canadian providers. Some are better and some are worse, but competent and caring nonetheless. They want to give you the best service possible. And, for the most part, the majority of those providers want to give you single payer.
I am among the few that has half decent insurance. For how long, who knows? In this economy corporations are stripping workers of higher quality insurance for less costly junk plans. Our family's plan was changed to add higher co-pays and more restrictions on usage AGAIN, this year. And that is if these cash strapped corporations and small businesses aren't laying people off people all together so they have no insurance at all. If our family lost our source of health insurance we know that our budget would eliminate any possibility of keeping coverage regardless of government's provision of the costly Cobra plans. On unemployment, we would struggling to keep a roof over our heads and the kids fed. Regardless of that, I expect more from my healthcare AND I expect it to cost a hell of a lot less. But that is because I have seen and lived with a better healthcare system than the one we have here.
I expect nothing less than Single Payer!
Of course, that does not mean I am completely rigid on this and unwilling to compromise. It is just a higher standard that could be attained in this country. More recently we have seen a lot of discussion on the public option, since single payer has been banned from the political discussion and the media's coverage of healthcare.
Fine.
Most recently some morons are saying that is the "Left of the Left" that are pushing for the public option and this supposed to be shocking news to be breathlessly reported on in the traditional media... As they continue their twisted and contorted takes on reality, let us look at who really supports the public option, OK?
67% of conservatives support having the choice between a public option and private insurance.
71% of Republicans support having the choice between a public option and private insurance.
77% of Americans support having the choice between a public option and private insurance.
For those politicians and media stenographers that have a problem with reading comprehension I took a moment to annotate this Survey USA graphic. There is your "Left of the Left" in RED and BLUE...
The black ink in the ledgers of insurance corporations is being balanced by the red blood of Americans.
Right now about 22,000 Americans die every year because they are under or uninsured. This has got to stop. Now... You could do nothing at all about this issue OR you could contact your Congress critters and hammer them to bring some semblance of real reform to healthcare. Americans are literally dying waiting for something to be done. And a public option, at the very least, will allow for the uninsured to get insurance and give the underinsured the opportunity to choose better insurance.
Now... As a final thought, some healthcare experts from Canada:
A pie fight between an incompetent poseur and a real journalist...
There has been a lot said and written about the current arguments between Salon's Glenn Greenwald and Time's Joe Klein. I wonder what the real journalist will have to say in response to Klein?
That didn't take long?
Beltway culture, checks on journalists and secrecy obligations
I'm ambivalent about whether even to acknowledge this obviously disturbed, Cheneyite rant from Joe Klein. On the one hand, I don't want to be dragged down into what is, for him, quite clearly a deeply emotional and personal matter (having its roots in things like this, this and this); I don't think very many people care about petty feuds and engaging them isn't the purpose of what I do here. Moreover, Klein's commenters (as usual) have done a thorough and masterful job of demolishing what he wrote, as have several others. On the other hand, when someone like Klein -- first in a secret club composed of several hundred journalists, editors, bloggers and other peers and colleagues, and then using a megaphone like Time -- repeatedly calls you a military-hating, unpatriotic, ignorant, Limbaugh-like, "mean-spirited, dishonorable, graceless, bully" who doesn't care if America Stays Safe, and that then is "reported" in various places, it's probably prudent to say something. So I'll just make a couple of general points illustrated by all of this that I think are worth making: (Read On...)
8/26/09
The Lion Sleeps Tonight
RIP Edward Kennedy
Via WCVB Boston:
Kennedy, who waged a public fight against a malignant brain tumor in the last year of his life, was surrounded by family members who had come in recent days to say a last goodbye to him. His death marks the end to a life where like the phoenix. Kennedy rose above earlier lapses in judgment that nearly eclipsed his potential.
Kennedy was first elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts in 1962 and was re-elected for seven full terms.
He became the third-longest-serving senator of all time.
Just a little info on the seemingly obsure reference... Apparently MBUBE = lion in Zulu:
a mishearing of the original song's chorus of 'uyimbube' (meaning "you're a lion"). Pete Seeger had made some of his own additions to the melody. The song was credited exclusively to Paul Campbell, a fictitious entity used by Harry Richmond to copyright material in the public domain.We will hear a liberal Senate roar in my lifetime.
Pete Seeger explains in one recording, "it refers to an old legend down there, [about] their last king [of the Zulus], who was known as Shaka The Lion. Legend says, Shaka The Lion didn't die when Europeans took over our country; he simply went to sleep, and he'll wake up some day."
(h/t to skippy for teaching me something new a while back)
8/25/09
Bethel First Selectman Arrested
ctblogger had the story up early at HatCityBLOG and MLN, and the Newstimes got around to covering it as well, on Bethel's First Selectman, Bob Burke, being arrested for making harassing phone calls.Ellis said Burke and the alleged victim had a personal relationship that was private between them and their families, but the issue became public after the individual went to the police department several times.To myself? The picture CB had up was screaming for a caption...
8/21/09
The only thing between us and the terrorists?
Is the neoconservative echo-chamber between Joe Lieberman's ears:
Anyways... I feel so good knowing that Joe Lieberman has proved over and over again to be incapable doing the job of dog catcher so I believe this old post has earned a well deserved repeat:
ReReReReBlogged Since this position
has yet to be filled by a qualified,
ethical or sane candidate.
The qualifications of the much needed applicant may have moved even more to the left yet again.... :)
Enjoy...
"I don't think anybody who has any fairness or is in their right mind would think the president or the secretary of homeland security would raise an alert level and scare people for political reasons... That's outrageous." - Joe Lieberman (August 1, 2004)Yes! That was the terrorist threat assessment of the man who now sits as head of the Department of Homeland Security. Given what we now know:
Ridge: Rumsfeld and Ashcroft wanted to raise terror threat level because it helped Bush’s approval rating.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette pours through Tom Ridge’s new book and offers the relevant passages where the former Homeland Security chief discusses the Bush administration’s desire to increase the terror threat level for political reasons. Ridge reveals that Attorney General John Ashcroft and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld argued in favor of raising the threat level by noting the correlation it had with Bush’s approval rating:
Osama bin Laden had released a videotape with one more ominous sounding but unspecific threat against the United States. Neither Mr. Ridge nor any of the department’s security experts thought the message warranted any change in the nation’s alert status.
“…at this point there was nothing to indicate a specific threat and no reason to cause undue public alarm,” he writes.
But that view met resistance in a tense conference call with members of the intelligence community and several other Cabinet officers including Attorney General John Ashcroft and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
“A vigorous, some might say dramatic, discussion ensured. Ashcroft strongly urged an increase in the threat level and was supported by Rumsfeld.”
Through all of this commotion about politicizing and terrorizing Americans with a lever that was theoretically meant to provide a certain measure of security... I have yet to hear one person mention the fact that they illegally aimed propaganda directly at the American people.Noting the correlation found between increases in the threat level and the president’s approval rating, Mr. Ridge writes, “I wondered, ‘Is this about security or politics?’”
Anyways... I feel so good knowing that Joe Lieberman has proved over and over again to be incapable doing the job of dog catcher so I believe this old post has earned a well deserved repeat:
Previously brewed in New Milford:
Help Wanted: Prestigious Senate Career Opportunity A prestigious opportunity for career advancement in the Senate:
The Democratic party is in search of a new Chairman (or chairwoman/chairperson) for the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Moderate Senators need only apply.(1)
The Chairman's responsibilities and Jurisdictions will include real oversight concerning failures of the Bush administration in providing security to our nation during times of war, illegal invasions, ongoing occupations, and natural disasters, as well as overseeing the bloated budget and operations of the largest branch of government ever to be created in the US governments' history through legislation authored under the Republican controlled Senate and House, and signed by the Republican pResident of the time.
Your main and immediate responsibilities will include holding the needed hearings, directing sub-commitees and legislation needed to avoid repeating the previous disasters, corrupt practices, and failures that will be found with the proper direction and oversight of a NON-PARTISAN and ETHICAL Senate leader.
Send all applications to Senator Harry Reid(2)
(1)Minorities such as moderate Republicans having no ties to far-right-wing radical organizations like the Neoconservative movement, the American Enterprise Institute, The Heritage Foundation, Energy Corporations,Teabagging, Birthers and Deathers or any of the Bush and Reagan administration policies that caused so much economic and military failure, are encouraged to apply to Senator Harry Reid for any consideration concerning this soon to be available position.
(2)Note to applicants: Please mark the subject of the Email as "Homeland Security" and refer to this x-posted Blog diary in the opening paragragh of the application. You will be contacted shortly before I post an "I told you so!" diary covering the flawed positions, election statement lies, and propaganda of the far-right-wing radical Neoconservative Joe Lieberman.
ReReReReBlogged Since this position
has yet to be filled by a qualified,
ethical or sane candidate.
The qualifications of the much needed applicant may have moved even more to the left yet again.... :)
Enjoy...
67% of Conservatives are in the "Left of the Left"
Since some morons are saying that is the "Left of the Left" that are pushing for the public option and this supposed to be shocking news to be breathlessly reported on in the traditional media... As they continue their twisted and contorted takes on reality, let us look at who really supports the public option, OK?
67% of conservatives support having the choice between a public option and private insurance.
71% of Republicans support having the choice between a public option and private insurance.
77% of Americans support having the choice between a public option and private insurance.
For those of you that have a problem with reading comprehension I took a moment to annotate this Survey USA graphic. There is your "Left of the Left" in RED and BLUE...
Now... You could do nothing at all about this issue OR... You could contact these Connecticut politicians and ask them to join the vast majority in the "Left of the Left" and take a strong stand for a public option:
CT-01: John Larson - Phone: 202-225-2265
CT-02: Joe Courtney - Phone: 202-225-2076
CT-03: Rosa DeLauro - Phone: 202-225-3661
CT-04: Jim Himes - Phone: 202-225-5541
CT-05: Chris Murphy - Phone: 202-225-4476
If voting on principle is not enough incentive for them... Perhaps we can interest them in this ever sweetening pot of gold:
A little video on where we are in this debate:
67% of conservatives support having the choice between a public option and private insurance.
71% of Republicans support having the choice between a public option and private insurance.
77% of Americans support having the choice between a public option and private insurance.
For those of you that have a problem with reading comprehension I took a moment to annotate this Survey USA graphic. There is your "Left of the Left" in RED and BLUE...
Now... You could do nothing at all about this issue OR... You could contact these Connecticut politicians and ask them to join the vast majority in the "Left of the Left" and take a strong stand for a public option:
CT-01: John Larson - Phone: 202-225-2265
CT-02: Joe Courtney - Phone: 202-225-2076
CT-03: Rosa DeLauro - Phone: 202-225-3661
CT-04: Jim Himes - Phone: 202-225-5541
CT-05: Chris Murphy - Phone: 202-225-4476
If voting on principle is not enough incentive for them... Perhaps we can interest them in this ever sweetening pot of gold:
Bloggers Take $300,000 Victory Lap
We just crossed the $300,000 mark in our effort to thank the progressive members of Congress who signed the August 19 letter, pledging to vote against any health care bill that does not have a public plan.
A little video on where we are in this debate:
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