Last Possible Chance to SAVE the Public Option

Moveon.org has started a petition drive in a last-ditch effort to save real health insurance reform and the public option.

Their petition is directed to Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, and pleads the following:

"Senator Reid, don't let a few senators derail what the majority of Americans want and need. We're counting on you to use every tool at your disposal to make sure the Senate bill includes a public option."

You can read and sign the petition here.

Health Insurance Industy Gets What it Paid For From Its Congress

Once again, its massive investment in buying the votes of the majority of the membership of Congress is paying off big-time for the health insurance industry.

Elements of the latest health care "Reform" bill to make its way through the Senate is a slap in the face to the American people, and a blank check to health insurers and the tabling of any meaningful reform for at least yet another generation.

No single payer system. No public option. No removal of the anti-trust exemption. No guarantee of the right to choose an abortion paid for by the insurer who cashes that premium check every month.

What is now in the bill? Send all of those 55-year-olds and older, especially those who have not had insurance, off to Medicare, with a buy-in check in hand. Don't get me wrong, a true expansion of Medicare IS the single payer system WE NEED but it can only work if it is open to ALL Americans, not just the oldest, sickest segment of the population not already covered by Medicare. Health insurance executives are dancing in their offices for getting this massive profit-enhancer - keep ALL of their current perks and they no longer will have to insure a large segment of society who actually gets medical care that they used to have to pay for!!!!

Months of angst, news reports filled with stories of lies, bullying, and hopes, and this is the apparent result?

A handful of Democrats, and Independent Bernie Sanders, have distinguished themselves. The majority of Congress, including many evil, vile Democrats, have shown themselves to be a disgrace to their party, to the American people, and to themselves.

Limbaugh, Beck and the Taliban - Can't Tell Them Apart

On the day that President Barack Obama was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize, the treasonist right-wing republican media leadership has aligned itself with the Taliban.

The likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have now passed from merely laughable, to outright dangerous; dangerous in that their words now constitute not just anti-American rhetoric, but out-and-out treason.

Finding it funny, Limbaugh today reveled in his statements that he "agrees with the Taliban". He agrees that the US President is "a worldwide joke", and apparently has agreed that President Obama has, as the official Taliban press release stated, "continued the strategies of George Bush". Beck and Michelle Malkin have stated that the President should turn down the award.

Rather than express pride in the accomplishments of the President, in particular the restoration of the image of the United States around the world - especially in his successful efforts in demonstrating that the Bush years are over and that the US has returned to policies of respecting the rights of others and using diplomacy first and bullets last - and being rewarded with the world's highest honor for promoting peace in the world, these miserable hate-mongers side with a sworn enemy of the state, one with which, if Limbaugh has perhaps forgotten, WE ARE AT WAR! Aid and comfort to the enemy, perhaps?

Mount Vernon, WA, Another Town Run by Partisan, Blowhard Fanatics

The sleepy little town of Mount Vernon, WA is best known for the Skagit County Tulip Festival, an event I actually attended this past April. Little did I realize at the time that I had entered the lair of the devil, if only for a single afternoon.

The good folks of Mt. Vernon a few years ago chose to elect one Bud Norris as Mayor. Mt. Vernon is not exactly West Columbia, South Carolina, the home of Rep. Joe Wilson, or is it? Well, apparently Norris thinks so.

It seems that way back when Norris was running for county commissioner, then 12-year-old budding racist and demagogue Glenn Beck was seen carrying a sandwich board saying "Vote for Norris" on Mount Vernon streets. Never forgetting a "friend", Norris has unilaterally decided to award the despicable Beck the Key to the City and proclaim Sept. 26 "Glenn Beck Day".

Reactions? Floods of telephone calls to city hall as reported by the Seattle Times; when offered tickets to the event, six of the seven City Council members declined; and this past Tuesday, Skagit County Young Democrats armed with protest signs were seen walking around the Mt. Vernon city hall, with one sign reportedly reading "Change the locks!", as reported by KOMO-TV.

Also according to the Seattle Times, the telephone of the director of Mount Vernon's Chamber of Commerce, Kristen Whitener, has been ringing, too: "We've gotten phone calls from people who are very upset. People are threatening not to shop here, things like that," she said. "I think it's unfortunate that some of the phone calls we're getting from people are being negative to Mount Vernon because of it. I hope they would understand that one decision by one person doesn't reflect everybody." (From "Mount Vernon not united on mayor's 'Glenn Beck Day'", Seattle Times, Sept. 3, 2009)

You can check out some videos of the fear mongering, race-baiting Beck and submit a protest to the event here.

Oxnard, CA Joins Eighteenth Century as Impotent Cops Tell Merchants to Kick Out Customers

Oxnard Police Department Press Release - August 31, 2009:

"The Oxnard Police Department unveiled a new component to its existing Crime Free Business program called, 'Hats Off to Beat Crime.' ...
"The Hats Off program is adapted from a successful crime prevention effort undertaken by the Folkestone Police Station in Kent, England. According to Police Constable John Weller of the Folkestone Neighbourhood [sic-British spelling] Policing Unit, the Hats Off effort dates back some 300 years. 'I found out that King Carlos III of Spain introduced a similar program in the 1700s where he banned the wearing a broad-brimmed hats, which were being used to conceal the identity of criminals.'...
"The concept behind Oxnard's Hats Off campaign is not much different from that of ancient Spain. Many [emphasis added] commercial robberies in our city occur with suspects concealing their faces with hats, hoodies or helmets...
"Refusing to remove hats, hoodies or helmets does not constitute a crime in of itself, but business owners do have the right to refuse service to persons so dressed..."

What the ...?

So, in these critical economic times, IMPOTENT Oxnard Police, who cannot do their job, are telling merchants to kick out paying customers, because they have a hat on! Because "Many" commercial robberies are committed by people with hats? Aren't these people also wearing pants, or shoes, or, heaven forbid, have keys in their pockets? Kick them all out; who needs customers? Surely not business owners in Oxnard.

Regarding their reliance on 18th Century Spain for validation of this outrageous pronouncement, just a few years earlier, in the 1600s, the Spaniards were still burning witches, and people were still being arrested in Spain in the 1800s for being a Freemason. If they were good enough for the Spanish, why not bring those back as well in Oxnard?

In a related note, I read an article about this on the Ventura County Star website, but when I went to post a comment, I found that to do so, you had to first register, and that the beginning of the registration process (I only saw the first screen, for obvious reasons) required potential commenters to provide to the paper their real name, date of birth, area of residence, and INCOME. Talk about a chilling effect on free speech. The paper must have a real close relationship with the local gendarmes.

No Immunity for Ashcroft - Federal Court Rules Illegal Detentions “Repugnant to the Constitution"

In one of so, so many bush administration criminal schemes to avoid those pesky Constitution rights, in the days following 9/11, former AG John Ashcroft rounded up untold numbers of Americans, guilty of having the "wrong" descent or religion, and kept them incarcerated on the pretext of their being "material witnesses".

As appalling as the fact that this was done, is the further fact that this was kept totally secret for years, as this policy was never announced by the government, and the extent to which it was used is still a mystery.

In a decision released today, and characterized as "a stinging rebuke ... to the Bush administration" by AP and MSNBC, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that Aschroft can be held liable for damages suffered by people who were arrested, interrogated, and held captive under this program. In his opinion, Judge Milan Smith Jr., writing for the Court, stated the following:

“Sadly, however, even now, more than 217 years after the ratification of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, some confidently assert that the government has the power to arrest and detain or restrict American citizens for months on end, in sometimes primitive conditions, not because there is evidence that they have committed a crime, but merely because the government wishes to investigate them for possible wrongdoing, or to prevent them from having contact with others in the outside world,” ... “We find this to be repugnant to the Constitution and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history.”

This case is yet again another instance where bushies have argued absolute immunity from liability and/or prosecution, and lost.

The fact that this is a civil case for damages means that witnesses and defendants, such as Ashcroft, unlike in a criminal case, can be compelled to testify under oath about their actions, either in deposition, or in court, or in both.

This is a major step forward in the long road towards achieving justice and making King W and his partners in crime pay for their actions.

Health Care Crisis Today: As Obama Reneges on "Change We Can Believe In", California HAS Dealth Panels, and they are called Insurance Companies!

"Change we Can Believe In" is now the status quo, bought and paid for by the massive right wing health care/big pharma/insurance industrial complex.

As the Obama Health Care Reform Plan quickly sinks into the deep blue sea, amid lies of government takeovers, death panels, and denials of needed health care, only one segment of society, apparently, still wants a real reform bill, built around a public option. And who might that be? THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, that's who.

Public opinion polls, including those done by Survey USA, and Research 2000 for the Daily Kos, continue to show that the majority of the public, unlike the democratic congressional leadership, have not fallen for the rhetoric, lies, and deceit, but understand the truth, and understand that the public option (except, of course, for a single payer system) is the only viable method to get out from under the hammer of the insurance industry and obtain affordable health care for all.

Today's latest poll shows 58% of the entire sample, and 81% of Democrats polled, in favor of the public option. Even 26% of Republicans polled favor the public option.

But what have we got? A sinking ship, and no reeling in of the health insurance industry, now seemingly free to increase rates, reject applicants, and deny needed care, so that their billion dollar profits can continue to rise.

All of this, as a study done by the California Nurses Association was released, showing that California is home to the real "Death Panels" in health care management - insurance companies that willy-nilly make life-and-death decisions, guided NOT by medical opinion on need, but on insurnace company cost-cutting requirements to ensure increased profits.

This study has revealed that California health insurance companies, during the first half of 2009, rejected 22% of the claims they received, lead by PacifiCare at 39.6%, Cigna at 32.7%, HealthNet at 30%, Kaiser Permanente at 28.3%, and Blue Cross at 27.9%.

This information, in fact, has influenced California Attorney General Jerry Brown to begin an investigation of the industry practices.

Kudos to Jerry Brown, as disappointment in the President and the democratic Congress mounts day by day.