Vermont lawmakers on Tuesday overrode a veto from the governor in passing a bill that would allow same-sex marriage, clearing the way for the state to become the fourth in the nation where gay marriage is legal. The Vermont House of Representatives passed the bill by a 100-49 vote after it cleared the state Senate 23-5 earlier in the day.
Vermont, which became the first state in the country to allow full civil unions for
same-sex couples in 2000, joins New England neighbors Connecticut and Massachusetts in allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry. Lawmakers in New
Hampshire and Maine are also considering bills to allow gay marriage. (They already offer same-sex couples some form of legal recognition.Forty-three U.S. states have laws explicitly prohibiting such marriages, including 29 with constitutional amendments restricting marriage to one man and one woman.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Republicans Don’t get that “Equal Protection” Thing, Lose Again on Gay Marriage.
The Catholic Church on the Verge of Repeating History, if We Let Them.
I really hate the Catholic Church. Besides their historical bloodletting, their unabashed authoritarian attitude and religious persecution even today should be enough to say “enough.” Martin Luther knew what he was doing when he and other Christians broke from the tyrannical, ceremonial and authoritarian rule of the self aggrandizers of the Catholic Church. The Pope and U.S. Bishops have learned little from their historical failings. Which leads me to the story of Wisconsin’s Bishop Morlino. I may have posted one or two story about this self righteous egomaniac, but this feature story at talk2action hit all of Morlino’s low points.
Check out the whole story here. It really is a modern day example of why there should be a seperation of church and state.Bishop Robert Morlino of Wisconsin is one of a small group of Catholic Right leaders who is gradually igniting a firestorm that threatens to engulf all of American Catholicism. By assuming the role of Grand Inquisitor he recklessly suppresses free expression in the name of quelling what he deems to be heresies. In his distrust of humanity, Bishop Morlino eerily echoes the infamous Dostoyevsky character: this modern-day Inquisitor does not believe that the most of us can handle the choices that Jesus offers in Christian thought let alone those afforded all citizens in a liberal pluralistic democracy such as ours.
As the National Catholic Reporter observed: Morlino, 62, is the fourth bishop of the Madison diocese. Previously he served as the bishop of the Helena, Mont., diocese, was a priest in the Kalamazoo, Mich., diocese and was once a member of the Jesuit order. He assumed leadership in Madison in August 2003 and within months was creating waves.After six months he made a controversial statement that he had found in Madison "a high comfort level with virtually no public morality." Some were not pleased with that assessment. After being confronted with what many saw as an unfair generalization he backed off, saying he had misspoken, explaining that he had been speaking in a philosophical sense.
Two Important Points About GM’s Volt and the Urban Mobility Vehicle.
The Volt: What was GM thinking when they developed an energy efficient vehicle and price it out of reach for most average Americans to buy. $40,000? Why not develop the Volt as an affordable $20,000 car that would fly of the showroom floors, rejuvenating the company’s sales figures? Here we go again.
The PUMA: The Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility two wheeled vehicle based on the Segway, may be a great idea but appears to have limited market appeal and could be a decade away from actual implementation. There’s nothing wrong with having a few irons in the fire, but I hope there is a more publicly imaged “next step” on the drawing boards. According to AP:
With regards to “preventing crashes:” Wouldn't out of control cars not on the GPS system still be a BIG problem in head on collisions, and still necessitate air bags and functional seat belts…?A solution to the world's urban transportation problems could lie in two wheels not four, according to executives for General Motors Corp. (GM) (GM) and Segway Inc. The companies announced that they are working together to develop a two-wheeled, two-seat electric vehicle designed to be a fast, safe, inexpensive and clean alternative to traditional cars and trucks for cities across the world.
The Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility, or PUMA, project also would involve a vast communications network that would allow vehicles to interact with each other, regulate the flow of traffic and prevent crashes from happening. As a result, the PUMA vehicles would not need air bags or other traditional safety devices and include safety belts for "comfort purposes" only.
The 300-pound prototype runs on a lithium-ion battery and uses Segway's characteristic two-wheel balancing technology, along with dual electric motors. It's designed to reach speeds of up to 35 miles-per-hour and can run 35 miles on a single charge … its total operating cost - including purchase price, insurance, maintenance and fuel - would total between one-fourth and one-third of that of the average traditional vehicle. If Hummer took GM to the large-vehicle extreme … the PUMA takes GM to the other. Larry Burns, GM's vice president of research and development, said nothing new needs to be invented for it to become a reality.
The automaker is looking for a place, such as a college campus, where the vehicles could be put to use and grab a foothold in the market.
Monday, April 6, 2009
For profit Health Care Has Got to Go Before Insurance Companies Kill Us All!
It’s a simple question: Should anyone make a profit off of a persons painful and emotionally devastating health crisis? If you answered yes, than you’re a Republican. My hope is that you have a chance to walk in that persons shoes someday, and deal with the uncertainly of the diagnoses and ability to pay for treatment.
But then, our “public servants” have a different set of standards and benefits even their bosses don’t have. The will to serve and feel their pain is removed from the decision making process.
Profiting off of other peoples illnesses is as vacuous as it is repugnant. Look at the way it is casually referred to in this story from the conservative Wall Street Journal:
You read that right. Blue Cross Blue Shield is already threatening to raise rates by $50 to $80 a MONTH if the profit margins are cut by the government. What a wonderful way to treat our elderly population.The federal government made good on its plan to cut 2010 payments for private Medicare plans, whittling the subsidies that health insurers receive sooner than the industry had originally expected. The cuts … raise concerns about what has been a critical source of profit growth for many health insurers.
President Barack Obama has argued that insurers are overpaid to administer the plans and wants to finance part of his health-care overhaul by paring their subsidies. Currently, though, a patient in these plans costs the government an average of 14% more than if he or she stayed in traditional Medicare.
The cuts mean beneficiaries enrolled in the private plans could see higher premiums or cost-sharing amounts next year, depending on the extent to which insurers try to preserve the 3% to 5% profit margins they typically make on the plans. The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, for instance, said it had calculated average monthly premium increases of $50 to $80 if the 2010 cuts were to go through.
The Republican Assassination Agenda: Machine Gun Shoot T-Shirt In Kentucky
Republican Liability Crisis is So Much Smoke...Researchers Say.
Not true, says a new study published by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Law School that aims to "examine some of the persistent myths" about civil litigation. In fact, it says, the number of civil cases in which individuals seek compensation for personal injury and property damage fell 17.4 percent in Wisconsin from 1996-2007.
Challenging another frequent criticism, that Wisconsin is rife with trial attorneys, the 42-page report notes there are fewer lawyers per person in Wisconsin than in most states. Of neighboring Illinois, Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota, only Iowa has fewer attorneys per capita than Wisconsin.
Jim Pugh, a spokesperson for WMC, said … he finds its focus predictable. "It should come as a surprise to no one that the UW Law School is trying to say that we don't have enough litigation in Wisconsin," said Pugh.
Some of WMC's efforts have focused on tort reform, such as restrictions on civil lawsuits and caps on damages. In its 2007-08 legislative agenda, WMC stated that "recent State Supreme Court decisions have thrown Wisconsin's economy into a liability crisis … We need to control excessive litigation, limit costs and restore fairness and predictability to our legal system."
Civil filings in Wisconsin state and federal courts increased by 34.2 percent from 1996 through 2007, but of those filings, the largest chunk, 60.9 percent, were in small claims -- mostly suits to collect debts. When Wisconsin's rising population is figured in, per capita tort filings dropped by 24.1 percent.
As for WMC's concerns about medical malpractice claims, the report cites data kept by the Wisconsin Medical Mediation Panels showing those cases also dropped -- by 34.2 percent between 1996 and 2007 -- even though the state's population and its number of doctors increased.
Additionally, the study reports that the National Center for State Courts collected comparable data about medical malpractice filings in 2006 for 15 states. Among these, Wisconsin tied for 14th in the per capita rate of medical malpractice filings, with four cases per 100,000 people. Comparatively, Iowa had nine and Michigan had 10 filings per 100,000 people.
If anything, WMC should be getting the word out that Wisconsin has a great business climate when it comes to liability laws.
"So why, of all the risks that businesses face, has WMC focused on this tort liability?" asked (one of the authors). "I think it has something to do with the fact that tort liability is an easy issue for organizations to use to mobilize people. It's easy to dislike lawyers, right?"
My Friend Thinks Ann Coulter Makes Sense!
Apparently, it's OK for Obama to fire the head of General Motors, but Bush can't fire his own U.S. attorneys. It is generally agreed that the Obama administration's demand that Rick Wagoner resign as chairman of General Motors is the price of GM's accepting government money. Now that we're all agreed that the government can make hiring and firing decisions based on infusions of taxpayer money, I can think of a lot more government beneficiaries who are badly in need of firing. Just off the top of my head, how about Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and everybody at the Department of Education? How about firing all the former Weathermen, like Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn and Mark Rudd, whose university salaries are subsidized by the taxpayer? When is the government going to get around to firing 99 percent of public school superintendents? They're clearly turning out an inferior product -- i.e., America's public school graduates.
If Obama can tell GM and Chrysler that their participation in NASCAR is an "unnecessary expenditure."
Doesn't PBS take federal funds? Obama should really ask Big Bird to step down. Capitalism has its own methods of clearing out dead wood, which the government keeps preventing by forcing the taxpayer to bail out capitalism's losers.
Here’s my response to my old conservative bud:
Thanks for the crazy Coulter comment. Wow, she's nuts. The people she wants to fire are people she disagrees with ideologically. Not because they have brought down the capitalist system Democrats want to save, but because they are liberal. Sounds like a dictatorship to me. What a great world it would be if we could just do away with decent, and fire everyone in the opposition party receiving taxpayer money. They would be putting in place one party rule...oh wait, Republicans in Congress are saying one party rule is bad now, after being the ruling party for 6 years.
Then again didn't the Republican Congress spend like drunken sailors and avoided going after those gaming the system, like the banks and Bernie Maddoff, thus bringing down the global economies? Using Anne Coulter's own system of firing, we should then get rid of the entire Republican Party in Congress for getting us into this mess, because they were paid with taxpayer money. Unless of course conservatives are now willing to admit Democrats hate big government regulation like Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi. Or are they trying to have it both ways, as long as nobody notices?
Sorry, I noticed.
By the way, "If Obama can tell GM and Chrysler that their participation in NASCAR is an "unnecessary expenditure," was an April fool’s joke in an online auto magazine page. Coulter believed it. Good God!
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Newt Falls Back on Fear Mongering: We're all Going to Die Blah Blah Blah!
Nevada, the Health Care Hell Hole. They Love Gambling With Your Life.
CBS: Recently thousands of letters went out across Las Vegas telling cancer patients that the only public hospital in the state was closing its outpatient clinic for chemotherapy. Obviously, our gaming and tourism is tanking. The construction industry has been decimated. And all of those things cause big, gaping holes in the state budget. The hardest-hit area for us was the Medicaid budget," Kathy Silver, the hospital's CEO, explained.
Silver had signed that letter patients received. The $21 million was cut by the legislature when tax revenues went bust. Nevada is number one in foreclosures; unemployment is over 10 percent, double what it was last year and climbing. "When the hospital first informed you that the outpatient oncology clinic was closing, what did you think?" Pelley asked Dr. Nick Spiritos, who treats ovarian and uterine cancers.
"How can you do this to cancer patients? They're dying. If we don't provide them care, their outcome is guaranteed. They're going to die," he replied.
"If you're rich enough you're obviously fine. So who is falling through the cracks here?" Pelley asked.
"The patients who don't qualify for a social services type of program," Silver said.
"What we're talking about here are people who are making $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 a year and have lost their jobs and therefore lost their insurance?" Pelley asked.
"That’s correct," Silver replied.
"The middle class," Pelley remarked.
"That's correct," Silver said.
They've put collection boxes out at convenient stores around town. (Best Health Care in the world?)
Yolanda Coleman remains untreated. After 60 Minutes' visit, a medical supply company took away her hospital-style bed and her wheelchair. "You never know what God has for you down the road," she told Pelley. "But, I know he has more for me than just to leave my children because I can't have medical insurance." Yolanda Coleman had her insurance reinstated after 60 Minutes called the insurance company to ask why she had been dropped.
The Nevada state legislature is now considering a proposal to cut millions of dollars more from the budget of University Medical Center. (It's just part of the Republican plan to cut costly entitlements and rely only on market forces. How does it sound so far?)
Gov. Mark Sanford Admits to Taking Advantage of Crisis to Cut Teachers and Public Safety!
Sanford doesn't give it a second thought, as you'll see here in the clip, to completely devastating the supply of public school teachers and cops. Without a hint of sympathy, Sanford admits he wants to take advantage of the economic crisis to cut wasteful spending. But is it wasteful spending getting the axe? Teachers? Cops?
By the way, weren't Republicans accusing the Democrats of taking advantage of the crisis to push their "liberal" "socialist" "big government" Democratic agenda?
I guess it's okay to exploit the recession if you're a Republican though, and openly admit that was exactly what you were doing, but Democrats be damned. Conservatives always have the moral high ground you know. Goodbye teachers and goodbye public safety. Wow!
Wis. Supreme Court Candidate Koschnick Believes the First Amendment Allows for Breaking Law!
A self described judicial conservative, and a Constitutional constructionist, Judge Randy Koschnick has leveled the label "liberal activist" at his opponent Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson at every opportunity. Beside the coded nature of his rhetoric to potential voters, Attila the Hun would be considered liberal when compared with the extremist beliefs Koschnick has held over his lifetime(Search this site for all the other Koschnick details).
The WPT show Here and Now featured the next video clip, edited for time, on a decision Koschnick made about a computer hacking/suicide case set to go before the Wisconsin Supreme Court soon. It's amazing to watch Koschnick's arrogant authoritarian attitude at the reporters question. Lets go down the rabbit hole...
Here are the details:
Jefferson Cty. EMS Director Mark Fisher committed suicide by blowing himself up in his home after revelations came out that he was having an affair. It was EMT Christopher Baron who decided to go after Fisher, allegedly hacked into Fisher's work computer and obtaining incriminating emails of the affair. He sent the illegally obtained emails out to 10 other individuals. Police charged Baron with felony identity theft. In his defense, Baron claimed a first amendment right to criticize a public official. Koschnick agreed, and dismissed the case. That's right, Koschnick determined that the First Amendment trumped the identity theft law. For Koschnick, the felony identity theft law was a small matter that was never addressed word for word in the Constitution, so out it went.
The Wisconsin Appeals Court reversed Koschnick's decision thank god, writing: "Wisconsin statutes are replete with provisions that criminalize conduct that may otherwise be constitutionally protected if that conduct is carried out in an unlawful manner."
Baron has appealed his case to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. I'll keep you updated on the Courts final decision on Koschnick's first amendment right to break the law ruling.
Note: I thought this letter to the editor in the Wisconsin State Journal summed up my own feeling on Koschnick's non-conservative "judicial conservativism:"
"The opponent (Koschnick) touts this as some form of superior judicial philosophy, but fails to acknowledge that it's actually just another form of activism."- P. Klein, Madison
Physiological Stress & Poverty could get into the Brain and Interfere with Achievement
Skip the voucher debate and cut the poverty rate in this country. It's time to stop wasting time with these endless ideological debates.Growing up poor isn't merely hard on kids. It might also be bad for their brains. A long-term study of cognitive development in lower- and middle-class students found strong links between childhood poverty, physiological stress and adult memory. The findings support a neurobiological hypothesis for why impoverished children consistently fare worse than their middle-class counterparts in school, and eventually in life.
"Chronically elevated physiological stress is a plausible model for how poverty could get into the brain and eventually interfere with achievement," wrote Cornell
University child-development researchers Gary Evans and Michelle Schamberg in a paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.For decades, education researchers have documented the disproportionately low academic performance of poor children and teenagers living in poverty. Called the achievement gap, its proposed sociological explanations are many. Compared to well-off kids, poor children tend to go to ill-equipped and ill-taught schools, have fewer educational resources at home, eat low-nutrition food, and have less access to health care. At the same time, scientists have studied the cognitive abilities of poor children, and the neurobiological effects of stress on laboratory animals. They've found that, on average, socioeconomic status predicts a battery of key mental abilities, with deficits showing up in kindergarten and continuing through middle school. Scientists also found that hormones produced in response to stress literally wear down the brains of animals.
Evans and Schamberg's findings pull the pieces of the puzzle together, and the implications are disturbing. "A plausible contributor to the income-achievement gap is working-memory impairment in lower-income adults caused by stress-related damage to the brain during childhood," they wrote.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
DC Vouchers Study's Bad News for Privateers of Public Education
You'll notice parent satisfaction is positive. This is the overarching, feel good message delivered by the pro-voucher crowd. Parents feel like their in control and are likely to think they have made the right decision in their schools choice. The kids are apparently not impressed or fooled. And their grade show that. Sadly, this "voucher diversion" keeps real reform of our public schools on the back burner to some extent, offering up an empty "debate" of the issues.The DC School Choice Incentive Act of 2003 established the first federally funded private school voucher program in the United States, providing scholarships of up to $7,500 for low-income residents of the District of Columbia to send their children to local participating private schools. The law also mandated that the Department conduct an independent, rigorous impact evaluation of what is now called the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP). The study's latest report, Evaluation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program: Impacts After Three Years, measures the effects of the Program on student achievement in reading and math, and on student and parent perceptions of school satisfaction and safety.
The evaluation found that the OSP improved reading, but not math, achievement overall and for 5 of 10 subgroups of students examined. The group designated as the highest priority by Congress — students applying from "schools in need of improvement" (SINI) — did not experience achievement impacts. Students offered scholarships did not report being more satisfied or feeling safer than those who were not offered scholarships, however the OSP did have a positive impact on parent satisfaction and perceptions of school safety.
Just for fun, listen to the Republican politicians calling for a "debate" on just about everything they oppose. They want a debate, filled with opinion and false statements, with fictions imagined and re-enforced over time to obscured and muddy the issue. A villification period if you will.
I'm surprised many in the press or blogosphere haven't notice this over used excuse not to do anything. Remember the line: "We need to debate..."
Jobless Legal Gun Owner Mows Down 13 People, Jobless Obama Hater Kills 3 Officers. Unintended Consequences of the Free Market.
Radio host Thom Hartmann often mentions that the homicide rates go up during Republican administrations, and go down with the Democrats. Family values and free markets are now taking its toll on our country. For instance, Jobless guy example one:
(AP) - A gunman wearing a bulletproof vest and "lying in wait" opened fire on officers responding to a domestic disturbance call Saturday, killing three of them and turning a quiet Pittsburgh street into a battlefield, police said. Police Chief Nate Harper said the motive for the shooting isn't clear, but friends said the gunman recently had been upset about losing his job and feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns. Richard Poplawski, 23, met officers at the doorway and shot two of them in the head immediately, Harper said. An officer who tried to help the two also was killed.Jobless guy example two, NY Times:
Two guys taking their recent bout of bad luck out on innocent their victims. Guys with guns. What are we to think when we’re told that “law abiding” people should be able to own a gun? Should we assume they will always be law abiding? Will they always use their firepower to defend themselves? If owning guns makes us safer, why aren’t we? 16 people died, just like that, in an instant. Consider this:A gunman invaded an immigration services center in downtown Binghamton, N.Y., during citizenship classes on Friday and shot 13 people to death and critically wounded 4 others before killing himself …Two pistols and a satchel of ammunition were found with the body.
Mr. Wong had a NY State pistol license that listed two handguns, apparently the weapons he used at the immigration services center: a .45-caliber Beretta and a 9-millimeter Beretta. The authorities matched the serial numbers of the two weapons found with the gunman’s body to the serial numbers on the pistol license.
States routinely grant concealed carry licenses without proper background checks or training. Indeed, among the evidence Bush officials ignored in their haste to relax national park gun limits was the long list of violent crimes committed by dangerous people with state concealed carry licenses. Contrary to gun lobby claims, the evidence suggests that permitting concealed weapons drives up crime rather than decreasing it.What else .....the Collegian:
More than 80 Americans are killed and 200 injured from gunshots every day, soThe NY Times:
obviously something is flawed with our current system. New York City Police officers have only about a 20 percent hit rate, and they're trained professionals. Considering most Americans aren't marksmen, they'd be more prone to miss their target and put more innocent victims in the middle of dangerous crossfire.
(This latest murder spree) was the nation’s worst mass shooting since April 16, 2007, when Seung-Hui Cho, 23, shot and killed 32 people in a dormitory and classroom at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Va., then killed himself in theA brilliant bit of B.S.! And at Alternet:
largest shooting in modern American history. In the last month, 25 people, including 2 gunmen, were slain in three mass shootings, in North Carolina, California and Alabama.So I guess maybe we should be comforted by this amazing
revelation: “We’ve got to figure out a way to deal with this terrible, terrible violence,” from Vice President Joe Biden. A brilliant B.S.
non-response.
The NRA is asking gunmen to refrain from mass shootings while key gun bills are before legislators," says a newscaster in a recent editorial cartoon. Ordaining that Mexico needs more guns not less and that lawmakers shouldn't legislate "on the fresh graves of tragedy," you'd never know the NRA realized its wet dream last year when the Supreme Court affirmed the Second Amendment in District of Columbia vs. Heller.
For years its hunter/rancher and rural constituents have recoiled at its paranoid
secessionist/military weapon wing, which drives so much NRA policy. In fact Alabama's Michael McLendon -- who killed his mother, grandmother, uncle, two cousins and the wife and toddler daughter of a sheriff's deputy in March and Terry Sedlacek -- who shot and killed a pastor through the Bible he held at an Illinois church service -- were poster boys for the right to own an arsenal.
Even while the Arkansas state legislature is considering a bill to block similar release of permit holder public records, the Commercial Appeal found 70 of 154 permit holders it checked had criminal records including Bernard Avery -- arrested 25 times with a murder charge dismissed on mental competency -- and Reginald Miller -- a felon with 11 arrests. Oops.Why is it that people all across America get to work without the help of a gun -- taking trains, working night shifts -- but gun extremists are afraid to be in church, on college campuses and on state parks without being armed?
Accomplices to Murder by Harold Evans
Richard Poplawski in a bullet-proof vest guns down three policemen in Pittsburgh. Jiverly Wong shoots 13 to death in Binghamton. Robert Stewart kills eight at a nursing home in North Carolina. Devan Kalathat, five in Santa Clara, California. Cop- killer Lovelle Mixon, four in Oakland. Michael McLendon, ten across two rural counties in Alabama.
All these gun killings—43 in total—occurred over the last 26 days. All harvest profuse expressions of sympathy and prayers for the families and the communities. The detestation for the killers is universal. How could it not be? These are crazed and evil people. They merit our detestation.
The guilty are those lawmakers and officials in states and cities who obstruct reasonable gun control laws. Take Virginia as a classic case. The mentally disturbed Seung-Hui Cho was the trigger man in the massacre at Virginia Tech; he gunned down 32 and wounded 17. But last fall the legislators of the Commonwealth of Virginia voted against—repeat, against—making it impossible for the mentally disturbed to get a gun.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Damn that Equal Protection part of the Constitution! Gay Marriage Protected in Iowa.
Iowa became the first state in the Midwest to approve same-sex marriage on Friday, after the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously decided that a 1998 law limiting marriage to a man and a woman was unconstitutional. “The Iowa statuteBut the cloud of “marriage” has obscured the attempt to remove the rights people have, including gay people, to be treated alike. That’s the bottom line and the Iowa Supreme Court pointed out that important fact:
limiting civil marriage to a union between a man and a woman violates the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution,” the justices said in a summary of their decision. “Equal protection under the Iowa Constitution is essentially a direction that all persons similarly situated should be treated alike.
Since territorial times, Iowa has given meaning to this constitutional provision, striking blows to slavery and segregation, and recognizing women’s rights. The court found the issue of same-sex marriage comes to it with the same importance as the landmark cases of the past.”But should the mod mentality of the majority over rule the natural sexual inclinations of an American and allow for a “separate but equal” second class level of citizenship? They think so, and they are called once again to shred the Constitution.
Opponents of same-sex marriage criticized the ruling. “The decision made by the Iowa Supreme Court today to allow gay marriage in Iowa is disappointing on many levels," State Senator Paul McKinley, the Republican leader, said in a statement on The Des Moines Register’s Web site. "I believe marriage should only be between one man and one woman and I am confident the majority of Iowans want traditional marriage to be legally recognized in this state. Though the court has made their decision, I believe every Iowan should have a voice on this matter and that is why the Iowa Legislature should immediately act to pass a Constitutional Amendment that protects traditional marriage, keeps it as a sacredbond only between one man and one woman and gives every Iowan a chance to have their say through a vote of the people."I’m sure slavery, segregation and not recognizing a woman’s right to vote might have had majority public support at one time, but the Constitution protected against that. Where are the strict conservative constructionist judges and justices on the issue of adding additional meaning to the original intent of the founding fathers on equal protection? Shouldn’t they oppose these changes?
We Already Have Health Care Rationing! A Government Backed Plan is Needed Now.
If you watch anything on this blog, this should be it. If you're unmoved after watching this edited for length story of rationing, than god help you. NOW descibes it this way: NOW travels to Nevada, where a huge budget deficit, spiking unemployment, and cuts in Medicaid and other public services are forcing people to gamble with their own lives. Recently, the only public hospital in Las Vegas had to shut its doors to cancer patients and pregnant women. Should the government be helping out?
I am also including this health care analysis of our current system and responses to arguments against changing it by Mary Shaw, from the Online Journal. I am impressed by her logic and concise answers.
Whenever I advocate for universal single-payer health care for all Americans, the right-wingers flood my inbox with all the predictable myths.
First, they tell me that health care is not a right. They say it’s each citizen’s responsibility to provide it for his or her family. I guess this myth gives them another excuse to look down on the poor who cannot afford the luxury of medical insurance. It makes them feel superior.
In response to that, I point out that health care is indeed a basic human right, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), to which the United States is a signatory. Article 25(1) of the UDHR states: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”
But human rights standards don’t tend to sway these folks.
Then they cry “socialism,” as if that’s a bad thing. They fail to see that national single-payer health care managed by the government would not be much different from our current system of socialized libraries, socialized fire departments, and socialized police departments. These services are paid for with our tax dollars, and they’re readily available to us when we need them. It’s all for the greater good.
Then sometimes they wave the flag and tell me that we must not change our health care system because, in their opinion, the U.S. offers the very best health care available. Why mess with a good thing? In fact, the United States ranks 37th in the World Health Organization’s rankings of the world’s health systems (below Malta, Iceland, Saudi Arabia, and numerous other countries that might surprise you).
Furthermore, a recent report from the Business Roundtable suggests that “the costs and performance of the U.S. health care system have put America’s companies and workers at a significant competitive disadvantage in the global marketplace.”
In a nutshell, Americans spend a lot more on health care than other countries, but we aren’t as healthy. That seems to confirm the World Health Organization’s assessment of our less-than-stellar level of care, with the added issue of how we’re paying so much more to get so much less. Corporate profits over the health of the people. God bless America.
And, on a final note, most of these right-wing types describe themselves as “Christian.” Well, wasn’t Jesus Christ all about healing the sick? And, as the bible describes his ministry, I don’t think Jesus ever charged a penny for his healing services. I have yet to see a valid, logical response to this last point.
And I don’t expect to.
Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist, with a focus on politics, human rights, and social justice. She is a former Philadelphia Area Coordinator for the Nobel-Prize-winning human rights group Amnesty International,
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Question to Republicans: If the Government Can’t Afford Entitlements, will Shifting Cost Burden to Individuals Make it Any More Affordable?
Of course, Republicans knew that. This makes them all the more treacherous.In the House, Republicans unveiled a budget plan that gradually would eliminate the traditional fee-for-service Medicare program, offering a stark - and politically problematic - alternative to blueprints from Obama and his Democratic allies. The plan would have future Medicare beneficiaries - people 54 and younger - enroll in private health insurance plans and receive a subsidy on their premiums.
Democrats warned that the GOP proposal would result in sharply higher costs for the elderly as the value of the subsidy fails to keep up with health care inflation.
American Bankers Assoc., the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Mortgage Bankers Assoc. Still Control Congress and Democrats. Mark-to-Market Deep Sixed.
The mark-to-market accounting rule requires assets to be valued at what they would fetch in a current market transaction.But Wall Street bankers say requiring such a rule makes them look bad, is delaying any economic recovery, and exposes their real losses for everybody to see. When big money talks, Congress not only listens, it falls in line.
Here we go again…U.S. accounting rulemakers are set to crumple on Thursday in the face of ultimatums from lawmakers (Congress), liberalizing rules that will give banks leeway to report smaller losses and asset writedowns; giving financial firms more flexibility in how they use the mark-to-market accounting rule, which has forced banks to record billions of dollars in lower values for assets.
According to the Dow Jones Newswire: House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., told a banking convention that he wants the accounting rules to be "more realistic." This includes allowing a different application of mark-to-market accounting if a bank is holding a paying asset to maturity; banks shouldn't have to write down the value of such assets.”
But investors say the changes will help big banks conceal the real value of toxic assets and say FASB was bullied by Congress as a way to prop up the economy in the short-term. Congress pressured FASB to relax the accounting rule in the belief it would help fix banks and the country's financial problems.Will investors be fooled again? No.
"Investors will not be willing to commit capital to firms that hide the economic value of their assets and liabilities," said Patrick Finnegan, a director with the CFA Institute, whose members include portfolio managers, investment analysts and advisors. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Gary Stern said Tuesday he strongly supports the system of mark-to-market accounting, “Mark-to-market "may not be perfect, but it is better than any alternative that I have observed," Stern said in response to questions following a speech to the Brookings Institution.Our Democratic Congress apparently has not learned from its past mistake:
This is not the first time Congress has interfered with FASB's standard-setting process. In 1993, FASB was about to propose that companies expense their stock options, a form of compensation heavily used by tech companies. However, then-SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt acquiesced to demands from Congress and Silicon Valley executives and told FASB to back off -- a decision Levitt has since called a mistake. After the Enron accounting scandal and when the technology bubble burst at the start of this decade, FASB adopted its options rule.Tim Backshall, chief strategist at Credit Derivatives Research said it best:
"We still know the 'stuff' is on the balance sheets and if the financials are actually allowed to adjust capital based on unreal marks then who will ever buy financials again - how can you trust them?"
Is this the change we could believe in?
House Republicans Present Budget! April Fools?
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Are Conservative Radio Talk Hosts Economic Know-it-all's? Dobbs Thinks So.
If you've ever wondered where the "ditto heads" get there "other talking points," check out the brain trust of conservative talkers, and their uninformed philosophical non-solutions. Remember, most of these radio guys didn't have the education or talent to get a job anywhere else but radio, and I say that as someone who worked in the media trenches for 28 years. It's odd no one asks these geniuses what qualifies them to offer their advice on worldwide news shows.
What is clear, their message: Labor and poor home owners brought down the worlds economies. Their once touted "ownership society," stressing home buying and a strong real estate market, was a bubble solely created to make the Bush tax cuts look like they were working. Real estate held up the market for 6 years until the bubble burst. Having been in real estate myself, I can still remember all the warnings. But Wall Street ruled the day and fed off the false promise the market for mortgages would last forever. This clip shows just how vapid and reckless these radio numskulls have become. It also shows Dobbs encouraging this rabid exchange of ideas as if poison like this is just what the doctor ordered.