A Healthy Choice as American as Apple Pie

Actress Heather Graham shows how a healthy public option is good for competition.

A Clever Twist

It's enough to make you see double!

Via Entertainment Weekly:

Start-up publisher OR Books has announced plans to publish Going Rouge: Sarah Palin An American Nightmare, a collection of essays about the maverick Republican with a title — and cover design — remarkably similar to Palin’s upcoming memoir. What’s more, OR’s paperback tome will be released on Nov. 17, the same day that Palin’s own Going Rogue: An American Life hits shelves — and one day after Palin’s just-announced, first-ever appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s show.

Here's the scoop:

The most honest, revealing account of the Palin story to appear this fall? You betcha!

Sarah Palin has many faces: hockey mom, fundamentalist Christian, sex symbol, Republican ideologue, fashion icon, “maverick” populist. But, above all, Palin has become one thing: an American obsession that just won’t go away. Edited by two senior editors at The Nation magazine, this sharp, smart, up-to-the-minute book examines Palin’s quirky origins in Wasilla, Alaska, her spectacular rise to the effective leadership of the Republican Party, and the nightmarish prospect of her continuing to dominate the nation’s political scene.

Getting on the Progressive Side

What will it take for President Obama to get resounding progressive support? Mike Lux, the founder of Progressive Strategies, speaks to this issue in his article, Fighting for Regular Folks.

If progressives, and regular working Americans, see Obama pick a side- our side- and really fight for it, no matter what happens over the next 3 years, we will stick with him and fight for him, too.

Right now, President Obama needs to pick the side of a public option in healthcare and he needs to "really fight for it." He will then see progressives as well as "regular working Americans" joining him in his support of a public option.

I bet his ratings will go up too!

A Lesson For the World

The Fun Theory - Fun can change behavior for the better!
This site is dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or for something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better.

Piano Staircase
”Take the stairs instead of the escalator or elevator and feel better” is something we often hear or read in the Sunday papers. Few people actually follow that advice. Can we get more people to take the stairs over the escalator by making it fun to do?

Bottle Bank Arcade

Many of us return our plastic bottles and cans. Noticeably fewer recycle their glass. Maybe that's because we don't get any money in return, as we do for cans and plastic. Can we change this attitude by making recycling glass fun to do? So you are not just rewarded with a good conscience, you also get a smile.

The World's Deepest Bin

To throw rubbish in the bin instead of onto the floor shouldn’t really be so hard. Many people still fail to do so. Can we get more people to throw rubbish into the bin, rather than onto the ground, by making it fun to do?

Who Says Government Doesn't Work?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Rape-Nuts
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

Also see, The GOP Protecting Rapists.

Go Ahead, Disprove It!

Andy Borowitz always has a funny tongue-in-cheek report.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) - Just moments after she broke with fellow Republicans and voted in favor of health care reform, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) came under fire from the GOP for allegedly lying about her nation of birth.

"This vote is going to raise suspicions, once again, that Sen. Snowe was born in Kenya," said GOP Chairman Michael Steele. "We demand that she prove, once and for all, that she is definitely not Kenyan."

Orly Taitz, leader of the so-called "birther" movement, said that Sen. Snowe's vote was "textbook Kenyan" behavior.

"She's putting her tribe first," Ms. Taitz said. "When I heard what she did, all I could think of was one word: Kenyan."

Ms. Taitz said that Sen. Snowe "has not produced any legal documents that say 'I am not Kenyan' on them, and that speaks for itself."

The Insurance Industry Blood Suckers

In Congress, the politicians are trying to decide what should be included in a healthcare package. One possibility is a public option. The argument against the public option is that it will cost too much money and that the insurance companies are better at controlling healthcare.

Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and other GOP talking points pundits are quick at diverting attention to the real issues of insurance reform.

But the following article by Robin Marty proves that we shouldn't leave all of our eggs in the insurance industry basket. As a matter of fact, the for-profit insurance industry is the last place to go to lower costs for healthcare.

Having our first child was one of the greatest moments of my husband’s and my life together. Once we adjusted to being parents, we knew that at some point we would want to expand our family. When we found out 7 weeks ago that we were expecting again, we couldn't have been more excited.

The longer we have been parents, the more we have become planners, especially financially. I made a goal of paying off my student loans before our first was born, literally writing that last check two weeks before her due date. That payment quickly became a 529 account. We became frantic savers, opening online accounts, IRAs, anything we could sock our money into. When we decided to try for a second child, we made sure to first set aside the $3000 it would cost us out-of-pocket to pay for the birth, $1500 out-of-pocket max for me, and $1500 max for the new baby.

This weekend my husband broke the news to me -- his company would be switching to a new health insurance plan starting in January. As we looked through the brochures, it jumped out at me immediately that our out-of-pocket expenses were skyrocketing. Instead of the $3000 family out-of-pocket maximum we were preparing for, we were now expected to pay $6000 for the full family, a 100 percent increase.

We've yet to be given full information, such as if his monthly payments will be increasing as well (something I'm worried about, as the preliminary paperwork shows no sign of his company continuing to contribute monthly, instead offering a $1000 HSA account). Assuming that his payment per month is the same and the company is indeed offering $1000 on top of that, he will still be paying over 10% of his pre-tax income just to pay our family's health care costs. If they have pulled their monthly assistance, that could go up to as much as 20%.

We recognize that we are lucky people. With two incomes and no real debt, we should have no major difficulties saving the additional $3000 we might need for our new arrival in May. But we know that many people aren't in our situation. Having a child should be a joyous occasion, not a time that can potentially plummet a family deep into debt.

According to the new insurance company, your health care costs should never be much as long as you are making "healthy lifestyle choices." My question for the insurance industry is, when did wanting to add to your family become an unhealthy lifestyle choice?

I will put my money on the public option for lowering health care costs. Let's hope the politicians in Congress have the courage to come to the same conclusion!

Leave It There

CNN Leaves It There

Aasif Mandvi thinks CNN is the most professional news outlet, while John Oliver claims it's an organization that only wants to seduce goats.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
CNN Leaves It There
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

Evangelical Fundamentalists

In the news are reports of gloom and doom. Many of the groups shouting the loudest are evangelical/fundamentalists who claim the end of the world is upon us.

Trying to explain this phenomenon is the following excerpt from Frank Schaeffer's new book, Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism) (Da Capo Press, 2009).

Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series of sixteen novels (so far!) represents everything that is most deranged about religion. If I had to choose companions to take my chances with in a lifeboat, and the choice boiled down to picking Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins, or Christopher Hitchens, I'd pick Hitchens in a heartbeat. At least he wouldn't try to sink our boat so that Jesus would come back sooner. He might even bring along a case of wine. [...]

Given that Revelation is now being hyped as the literal -- even desired -- roadmap to Armageddon, it's worth pausing to note that it's nothing more than a bizarre pastoral letter that was addressed to seven specific churches in Asia at the end of the first century by someone (maybe John or maybe not) who appears to have been far from well when he wrote it. In any case, the letter was not intended for use outside of its liturgical context, not to mention that it reads like Jesus on acid.

The evangelical/fundamentalist literalistic "interpretation" of Revelation is symptomatic of a larger problem: make-it-up-as you-go-along biblical interpretation suited to hyping whatever the evangelical/fundamentalist flavor of the moment is, in a desperate effort to keep religion relevant. But taken out of the context of being part of a worship cycle, the Bible became something like an extremely sharp butcher knife in the hands of children running around a garden. There's nothing wrong with the knife per se, but context is everything. Enter semi-literate American evangelical/fundamentalist rubes armed with multiple "kitchen knives" and imbued with a frontier "no bishops or kings!" suspicion of any tradition, scholarship, or hierarchy that might moderate their wild-eyed personal "interpretations" of scripture and their burning desire to make a buck. [...]

Many evangelical/fundamentalist's can't get enough of this garbage. They've been sucking it up since the early 1970s, and now, in the Left Behind books, the message has gone viral. The video game Left Behind: Eternal Forces was developed by a publicly traded company, Left Behind Games. The player controls a "Tribulation Forces" team and is invited to "use the power of prayer to strengthen your troops in combat and wield modern military weaponry throughout the game world." The game blesses religious violence. It's the Americanized version of some Islamic sheik drumming hate of the infidel into young minds in some dusty Pakistani madrassa. It's legal evangelical Jihad training, a fantasy foreshadowing of the all-too-real killings of abortion doctors and others hated as "anti-Christ."

The expanding Left Behind entertainment empire also feeds the dangerous delusions of Christian Zionists, who are convinced that the world is heading to a final Battle of Armageddon and who see this as a good thing! Christian Zionists, led by many "respectable" mega-pastors -- including Reverend John Hagee -- believe that war in the Middle East is God's will. In his book Jerusalem Countdown: A Warning to the World, Hagee maintains that Russia and the Arabs will invade Israel and then will be destroyed by God. This will cause the Antichrist -- the head of the European Union -- to stir up a confrontation over Israel between China and the West.

Perhaps, in the era of Obama, Hagee will do a fast rewrite and say that President Obama is the Antichrist, because the same folks who are into Christian Zionism are also into the far, far loony right of the Republican Party represented by oddities like Sarah Palin. These are the same people who insist that President Obama is a "secret Muslim," "not an American," and/or "a communist," "more European than American," or whichever one of those contradictory things is worse -- not like us anyway, that's for sure. Christian Zionists support any violent action by the State of Israel against Arabs and Palestinians because the increasingly brutal State of Israel is, in the fevered evangelical/fundamentalist mind, the nation presently standing in for Jesus as avenger on evildoers everywhere, by which they mean Arabs and others not like us. Christian Zionists are yet another reason why I and countless other Christians, including many of the more moderate evangelicals, mainline Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Orthodox are hesitant to be labeled "Christian." Who wants to be confused with some of the most dangerous and stupid people in the world: nuclear-armed, paranoid evangelical/fundamentalist Bible thumpers rooting for Armageddon and worrying in paranoid "official" documents about being forced to become like "the Europeans"? (Just a thought: does that make high-speed rail service a tool of the Devil?)

Paranoia, fear and hatred should not be the basis for a way of life.

The Indirect Answer

Via the Press of Atlantic City:

Asked directly if he thought challenger Chris Christie (R) was fat, Gov. Jon Corzine (D) touched his bare head, smiled and said, "Am I bald?"

Chris Christie (R)

Governor John Corzine (D)

Rushin' To Bookie Time

The news is filled with the prospect that conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh wants to place a bid to buy the NFL team the St. Louis Rams. Here's an interesting perspective on this story by Gil Ross.

So, Rush Limbaugh is trying to buy into the NFL. The NFL has a "zero tolerance" policy with drug abuse. Rush's policy is....not as strict, at least when it comes to his drug abuse. He tends to be somewhat more strict when it comes to others.

The NFL has a couple of athletes of color...well...maybe a few more than that. Rush has some interesting views on race:

"I mean, let's face it, we didn't have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back; I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark".

"You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray [the confessed assassin of Martin Luther King]. We miss you, James. Godspeed."

"Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?"

"The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies."

"They're 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?"

"Take that bone out of your nose and call me back (to an African American female caller)."

"I think the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. They're interested in black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. I think there's a little hope invested in McNabb and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he really didn't deserve."

"Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Blood and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it".

Will the NFL approve Rush Limbaugh as an owner? It seems to me that Rush wins either way. If approved he becomes even wealthier. If denied ownership he gets to promote himself as a victim. Actually, he seems to like playing the victim.

So here's the question: What are the odds on Rush crying in public while decrying being a victim?

The old Washington shell game. Lobbyist out, lobbyist in.

That is why the lobbyist always wins!!!

The following is an excerpt from the transcript of PBS's Bill Moyers Journal.

One year ago, right about now, The economy keeled over, like an overstuffed sow.

First Bush, then Barack had to fix things at once. We had to shape up those banks and their high wire stunts.

But banks bought up banks, gladly too big to fail And sent millions to Congress so their views would prevail.

Now bonuses are back and phony finances abound, But all must be well, there's a market rebound.

Executives to bankers have wallets quite blubbery... And, oh by the way, it's a jobless recovery.

Bill Moyers: Polls show the overwhelming majority of Americans favor a non-profit alternative -- like Medicare -- that would give the private health insurance industry some competition. But if so many Americans and the President himself want that public option, how come we're not getting one?

Because, the medicine has been poisoned from day one, in part because of that same revolving door that Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)and Simon Johnson (former Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund) were just talking about. Movers and shakers rotate between government and the lucrative private sector at a speed so dizzying they forget who they're working for.

Sen. Baucus:Our plan does not include a public option.

Moyers: Take a close look at that woman sitting behind Montana Senator Max Baucus. He's the Democrat who's the Chairman of the Finance Committee. Liz Fowler is her name. And now get this. She used to work for WellPoint, the largest health insurer in the country. She was Vice President of Public Policy. And now she's working for the very committee with the most power to give her old company and the entire industry exactly what they want: higher profits, and no competition from alternative non-profit coverage that could lower costs and premiums.

I'm not making this up. Here's another little eye-opener. The woman who was Baucus' top health advisor before he hired Liz Fowler? Her name is Michelle Easton. Why did she leave the Committee? To go to work -- where else? -- at a firm representing the same company Liz Fowler worked for WellPoint. As a lobbyist.

It's the old Washington shell game. Lobbyist out, lobbyist in. And it's why they always win.

They've been plowing this ground for years, but with the broad legislative agenda of the Obama White House, it's more fertile than ever. The health insurance industry alone has six lobbyists for every member of Congress, and more than 500 of them are former congressional staff members.

Just to be certain Congress sticks with the program, they've been showering megabucks all over Capitol Hill. From the beginning, they wanted to make sure that the bill that comes out of the Finance Committee next week puts for-profit health insurance companies first, by forcing the uninsured to buy medical policies from them. Money not only talks, it writes the prescriptions.

In just the last few months, the health care industry has spent 380 million dollars on lobbying, advertising and campaign contributions. And a million and a half of it went to -- don't hold your breath -- Finance Committee Chairman Baucus, who said he saw "a lot to like" in two proposed public options but voted "no."

Sen. Baucus: My job is to put together a bill that gets 60 votes. Now I can count and no one has been able to show me how we can count up to 60 votes with a public option in the bill.

Moyers: Of course not. They can't get 60 votes. Not when the people who want a public alternative can't possibly scrape up the millions of dollars Baucus has received from the health sector during his political career.

Over the last two decades, the current members of the Senate Finance Committee - you're looking at them -- have collected nearly 50 million dollars from the health sector. A long-term investment that's now paying off like a busted slot machine.

Not that we should be surprised. A century ago, muckraking journalists reported that large corporations and other wealthy interests virtually owned the Senate, using bribery, fraud, and sometimes blackmail to get their way. Jokes were made about the Senator from Union Pacific or the Senator from Standard Oil.

This fellow in particular was out to break their grip. His name was David Graham Phillips, and one day in 1906, readers of Cosmopoilitan Magazine opened its March issue to discover the first of nine articles by Phillips titled "The Treason of the Senate."

He wrote: "Treason is a strong word, but not too strong, rather too weak, to characterize the situation in which the Senate is the eager, resourceful, indefatigable agent of interests as hostile to the American people as any invading army could be…"

The public outrage provoked by Phillips and other muckrakers contributed to the passage of the Constitutional amendment providing for the direct election of Senators, who until then were elected by easily bought-off state legislators.

Of course, like water seeking its own level, big money finds its way around every obstacle, and was soon up to its old tricks, filling the pockets of friendly politicians. Today none dare call it treason. So how about calling it what it is: a friendly takeover of government. A leveraged buyout of democracy.

Outrageous? You bet. But don't just get mad. Get busy.

Best Quote of the Day

"Take Max Baucus. Please! He's the lightweight Montana Democrat to whom President Obama entrusted the heavy job of shepherding health care reform through the upper chamber. It was like asking Tweety Bird to lift a bowling ball."

~ Jim Hightower ~ Why Was a Lightweight Montana Senator on the Finance Committee Tasked to Take on Health Care Reform?

Here's a Commentary on Max Baucus:


Cartoons of the Day:

Bob Englehart, copyright 2009 Cagle Cartoons

The GOP Protecting Rapists

According to My DD, many GOP members in Congress are sinking to a new low.

It is stunning that 30 Republican members of the United States Senate would vote to protect a corporation, in this case Halliburton/KBR, over a woman who was gang raped. The details from Think Progress:

In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her co-workers while she was working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. She was detained in a shipping container for at least 24 hours without food, water, or a bed, and "warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job." (Jones was not an isolated case.) Jones was prevented from bringing charges in court against KBR because her employment contract stipulated that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration.

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would withhold defense contracts from companies like KBR “if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.” Speaking on the Senate floor yesterday, Franken said:

The constitution gives everybody the right to due process of law … And today, defense contractors are using fine print in their contracts do deny women like Jamie Leigh Jones their day in court. … The victims of rape and discrimination deserve their day in court [and] Congress plainly has the constitutional power to make that happen.

Watch Franken’s speech:

Seems simple enough. And yet, to GOP Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions of Alabama allowing victims of sexual assault a day in court is tantamount to a "political attack" at Halliburton. That 29 others, all men, chose to join him in opposing the Franken amendment is simply mind-boggling.

Here are those who vote to protect a corporation over a victim of rape:

Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Gregg (R-NH)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Kyl (R-AZ)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)

What Jeb Wants

Jeb Bush wants everyone to think happy thoughts about his big brother 'W'.

The Fox and Friends hosts and former Florida governor Jeb Bush joined together to gripe about the fact that the country won’t forget what President Bush did to the country for eight years. They said that since it’s already been a whopping 10 months, everything that’s happening is now basically the fault of the Democrats:

KILMEADE: It’s been 10 months. Should Leader Hoyer be looking backwards, and is he accurate?

BUSH: I was on the plane coming up to Washington yesterday, and I heard someone complaining that their child’s acne was because of George Bush. Of course, last week the Olympics didn’t come to Chicago — that was my brother’s fault. And at some point, people are going to have to put on their big-boy pants and assume responsibility for the great challenges and opportunities our country has. I don’t know how much longer leaders — responsible leaders in Congress — can continue to say these things.

Watch it:

Is he laying a foundation for his run in 2012?