Nobel thoughts

Until this very moment, I had not realized that the Nobel Peace Prize was aspirational.

Health Care Reform: Or Not

The big players in the insurance industry are very happy with the direction "reform" is headed:

"eHealth looks forward to being an active partner in implementing meaningful health reform legislation, and is poised and ready to connect the uninsured to coverage quickly." (CNN)

eHealth says it's "Ready to Connect America to Coverage."

Contrast that with the Physicians for a National Health Program Quote of the Day from by Don McCanne, M.D.: "This is yet one more reason why the model of reform selected by Congress and the Obama administration is the most expensive of all. With all of the other wasteful administrative expenses, brokers' fees are added on top, though often hidden in the premium as a commission rather than a fee.

"Compare this to Medicare enrollment. The administrative costs for automatic enrollment in Medicare, at that only once in a lifetime, are negligible for the government and its taxpayers."

"Imagine the simplicity and efficiency of automatic, lifetime Medicare enrollment at birth for everyone. But Congress won't go there... not until the nation demands it."

Physicians for National Health Plan: http://www.pnhp.org

Health Care Reform: Why I voted "no" - Rep. Dennis Kucinich

Dennis Kucinich Explains Why He Voted Against the Affordable Health Care for America Act

Congressman Kucinich has been one of the strongest voices for health care for all. With Rep. John Conyers, he introduced HR 676, the single-payer or Medicare-for-All bill, the proposal that had the widest support among Democrats in Congress until Pelosi and Obama pulled it "off the table" to make way for H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, a.k.a., the Save-the-Insurance-Companies bill that passed Saturday. Thirty-six Democrats joined all but one Republican in voting "nay," Kucinich among them. On his website, he explains why:

“We have been led to believe that we must make our health care choices only within the current structure of a predatory, for-profit insurance system which makes money not providing health care. We cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are. But we can fault legislation in which the government incentivizes the perpetuation, indeed the strengthening, of the for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem. When health insurance companies deny care or raise premiums, co-pays and deductibles they are simply trying to make a profit. That is our system.

“Clearly, the insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. They are driving up the cost of health care. Because their massive bureaucracy avoids paying bills so effectively, they force hospitals and doctors to hire their own bureaucracy to fight the insurance companies to avoid getting stuck with an unfair share of the bills. The result is that since 1970, the number of physicians has increased by less than 200% while the number of administrators has increased by 3000%. It is no wonder that 31 cents of every health care dollar goes to administrative costs, not toward providing care. Even those with insurance are at risk. The single biggest cause of bankruptcies in the U.S. is health insurance policies that do not cover you when you get sick.

“But instead of working toward the elimination of for-profit insurance, H.R. 3962 would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care. In H.R. 3962, the government is requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers. This inevitably will lead to even more costs, more subsidies, and higher profits for insurance companies — a bailout under a blue cross.

“By incurring only a new requirement to cover pre-existing conditions, a weakened public option, and a few other important but limited concessions, the health insurance companies are getting quite a deal. The Center for American Progress’ blog, Think Progress, states 'since the President signaled that he is backing away from the public option, health insurance stocks have been on the rise.' Similarly, healthcare stocks rallied when Senator Max Baucus introduced a bill without a public option. Bloomberg reports that Curtis Lane, a prominent health industry investor, predicted a few weeks ago that 'money will start flowing in again' to health insurance stocks after passage of the legislation. Investors.com last month reported that pharmacy benefit managers share prices are hitting all-time highs, with the only industry worry that the Administration would reverse its decision not to negotiate Medicare Part D drug prices, leaving in place a Bush Administration policy.

“During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back. The 'robust public option' which would have offered a modicum of competition to a monopolistic industry was whittled down from an initial potential enrollment of 129 million Americans to 6 million. An amendment which would have protected the rights of states to pursue single-payer health care was stripped from the bill at the request of the Administration. Looking ahead, we cringe at the prospect of even greater favors for insurance companies.

“Recent rises in unemployment indicate a widening separation between the finance economy and the real economy. The finance economy considers the health of Wall Street, rising corporate profits, and banks’ hoarding of cash, much of it from taxpayers, as sign of an economic recovery. However in the real economy -- in which most Americans live -- the recession is not over. Rising unemployment, business failures, bankruptcies and foreclosures are still hammering Main Street.

“This health care bill continues the redistribution of wealth to Wall Street at the expense of America’s manufacturing and service economies which suffer from costs other countries do not have to bear, especially the cost of health care. America continues to stand out among all industrialized nations for its privatized health care system. As a result, we are less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care.

“Notwithstanding the fate of H.R. 3962, America will someday come to recognize the broad social and economic benefits of a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system, which is good for the American people and good for America’s businesses, with of course the notable exceptions being insurance and pharmaceuticals.”

Why I Voted NO by Dennis Kucinich

Health Care Reform: Planned Parenthood Condemns Passage of Stupak/Pitts Amendment (Press Release)

Statement by Cecile Richards, President, Planned Parenthood Federation of America Condemning Passage of Stupak/Pitts Amendment

“Planned Parenthood condemns the adoption of the Stupak/Pitts amendment in HR 3962 this evening. This amendment is an unacceptable addition to the health care reform bill that, if enacted, would result in women losing health benefits they have today. Simply put, the Stupak/Pitts amendment would restrict women’s access to abortion coverage in the private health insurance market, undermining the ability of women to purchase private health plans that cover abortion, even if they pay for most of the premiums with their own money. This amendment reaches much further than the Hyde Amendment, which has prohibited public funding of abortion in most instances since 1977.

“Planned Parenthood serves three million women every year through its more than 850 affiliate health centers across the country and has worked tirelessly on behalf of those patients for affordable, quality health care. On behalf of the millions of women Planned Parenthood health centers serve, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America has no choice but to oppose HR 3962. The bill includes the Stupak/Pitts amendment that would leave women worse off after health care reform than they are today, violating President Obama’s promise to the American people that no one would be forced to lose her or his present coverage under health reform.


“The Stupak/Pitts amendment violates the spirit of health care reform, which is meant to guarantee quality, affordable health care coverage for all. In fact, this amendment would create a two-tiered system that would punish women, particularly those with low and middle incomes, the very people this bill is intended to assist. The majority of private health insurance plans currently offer abortion coverage, and the Stupak/Pitts amendment would result in the elimination of private abortion coverage in the ‘exchange,’ the new insurance market created under health care reform, as well as in the public option, if one is created.

“The Stupak/Pitts amendment would purportedly allow women who want comprehensive reproductive health care coverage to purchase a separate, single-service rider to cover abortion. But such abortion riders do not exist because women do not plan to have unintended pregnancies or medically complicated pregnancies that require ending the pregnancy. These so-called ‘abortion riders,’ which would be the only insurance policy through which abortion care could be covered in the ‘exchange,’ are discriminatory and illogical. Proposing a separate ‘abortion rider’ or ‘single-service plan’ is tantamount to banning abortion coverage since no insurance company would offer such a policy.

“It is extremely unfortunate that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and anti-choice opponents were able to hijack the health care reform bill in their dedicated attempt to ban all legal abortion In the United States. Most telling is the fact that the vast majority of members of the House who supported the Stupak/Pitts amendment in today’s vote do not support HR 3962, revealing their true motive, which is to kill the health care reform bill. These single-issue advocates simply used health care reform to advance their extreme, ideological agenda at the expense of tens of millions of women.

“Planned Parenthood applauds the members of Congress who stood up for women’s health and voted to oppose the Stupak/Pitts amendment. We will work with those members to rectify this travesty.

“As a health care provider, Planned Parenthood is committed to passing health care reform that will guarantee affordable, quality health care coverage for all, including access to comprehensive reproductive health care. In the coming weeks, Planned Parenthood will work with its allies in the Senate to ensure that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and those who oppose abortion do not once again hijack the legislative process in their ongoing campaign to make abortion illegal. Planned Parenthood will join forces with women and their families and health providers to ensure that health care reform does not take away benefits that most women with private health coverage have today. Together, women and their allies are going to make their voices heard, so that they do not become second-class citizens in a newly reformed health care system in the United States.”

Change Watch: Whaddaya Mean Obama Hasn't Done Anything?

As one quick to point to the gap between Barack Obama's rhetoric and his actions as chief executive (insert the words "Change Watch" in the search box at left for examples), I read with interest John H. Richardson's defense of the president in the November issue of Esquire.  The current conventional wisdom about President Obama, he thinks, was captured by a headline on the recent one-year-anniversary cover of Newsweek: YES HE CAN (BUT HE SURE HASN'T YET). ** Or, as Saturday Night Live had it a few weeks ago, Obama's two biggest accomplishments thus far are "Jack and Squat."

Richardson argues that the prevailing sentiment that Obama hasn't accomplished anything may be the only example of real bipartisanship in America, ignoring that the right is convinced he has spent the last nine months installing an authoritarian communist regime rapidly stripping us of all we hold dear as a free people and the left is afraid he is bent on transferring national wealth and political power to the corporate elite. If the opinion that Obama has done nothing is bipartisan it is so only inside the Beltway and in the corporate media. With varying degrees of accuracy, voters on the right and left are afraid he's done too much.

Richardson's summation of the conventional rap against Obama could have appeared on Impractical Proposals: Obama hasn't exited Iraq, hasn't closed Guantánamo, is getting mired in Afghanistan, hasn't passed health-care reform,  hasn't put people back to work. His obsession with bipartisanship is a sick joke.

"What a failure! What a splash of cold water in the face of all our bold hopes!"

(If it were really on IP, though, the bill of complaints would probably include references to the bailout, Timothy Geithner, too big too fail, executive compensation and bonuses, foxes managing chicken coops, the PATRIOT Act, renditions, habeas corpus, warrentless wiretaps, grotesquely large military appropriations, Pakistan, executive orders, signing statements, the media shield law ... but okay, fair enough).

Richardson thinks the conventional wisdom is wrong --  the word he actually uses is "insane." He asks that we "consider the record":

A week before he was sworn in, Obama jammed part two of the bank bailout down the throat of his own party — a $350 billion accomplishment.
Two days after he was sworn in, Obama banned the use of "harsh interrogation" and ordered the closing of Guantánamo.
A day later, Obama reversed George W. Bush's funding cutoff to overseas family planning organizations — saving millions of lives with the stroke of a pen.
Three days after that, Obama gave a green light to the California car-emissions standards that Bush had been blocking for six years — an important step on the road to cleaner air and a cooler planet.
Two weeks after that, Obama signed the stimulus bill — a $787 billion accomplishment.
Ten days after that, Obama formally announced America's withdrawal from Iraq.
A week later — we're in early March now — Obama erased Bush's decision to restrict federal funding for stem-cell research.
In April and June, Obama forced Chrysler and GM into bankruptcy.
In June, Obama reset the tone of our relations with the entire Arab world with a single speech...
Also in June, Obama unveiled the "Cash for Clunkers" program, a "socialist" giveaway that reanimated the corpse of our car industry — leading, for example, to the billion-dollar profit that Ford announced on Monday.

I'm not going to contest each of these assertions, except to say that they are a pretty mixed bag. If you think that the economic meltdown was about foreclosures and jobs not banks and Wall Street, then you may not see the bailouts as achievements, especially in the light of plus 10% unemployment and thousands of foreclosures and business failures. Even if you accept that the bailouts were necessary, you may be irked that the loot could have been handed over in brown paper bags, for all the strings that were attached.

Similarly, if you believe that many of our political problems stem from the unconstitutional transfer of power from the legislature to the executive, even unarguably good outcomes, such as the changes to stem cell research and family planning policies, can be seen as doing further harm to democratic practice if they are secured by executive fiat.

And a "withdrawal" from Iraq that leaves "enduring" military bases, tens of thousands of military trainers and advisers, and an army of private contractors is no withdrawal at all.

Richardson continues with tips of the hat to "Sonia Sotomeyer, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the order to release the torture memos" -- what about the photos?, "...charter schools, his $288 billion tax cut, and the end of Bush's war on medical marijuana. Or the minor fact that he seems" -- I'm trying to stay out of Richardson's way here -- "to have — with Bush's help, it must be said — stopped the financial collapse, revived the credit markets, and nudged the economy toward 3.5 percent growth in the last quarter."

Richardson feels safe in predicting that President Obama is now a month or two from accomplishing "the awesome and seemingly impossible task of passing health-care reform." It remains to be seen, of course, whether the package that finally emerges from negotiations between the House and Senate is anything that can be described fairly as affordable and universal.

And, as they like to say in late-night commercials, that's not all. Richardson also awards Obama points for

Appointing a conservative Bush holdover like Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense.
Appointing an establishment centrist like Leon Panetta at CIA [silencing in the process one of the strongest voices in the Democratic Party calling for CIA accountability for torture].
Appointing a hard-ass like Stanley McChrystal to head up our military forces in Afghanistan, despite McChrystal's dubious involvement in torture and the cover-up of Pat Tillman's death.
Increasing the number of drone attacks on Al Qaeda — more in the last year than all the Bush years combined.
Reinstating, with tweaks, Bush's military tribunal system for Guantánamo prisoners.
Fighting, in another unexpected defense of a controversial Bush policy, lawsuits against the "warrantless wiretapping" program — as recently as this weekend with a decision that a leading civil liberties group called "extremely disappointing."
Sending, way back in February, seventeen thousand more soldiers to Afghanistan. As Fareed Zakaira recently pointed out, this was just three thousand fewer soldiers than Bush sent to Iraq for his famous "surge."

Richardson concludes by setting up a straw man -- the Vital Center -- and then kicking the stuffing out of it. You see, Obama is governing from the middle, so "[b]lame it on the Internet, on partisan politics, on the economic crash, on the legacy of war or Fox News or Michael Moore, but our vital center is getting stiff — and it is starting to stink." Somehow transferring trillions of dollars to the corporate class is a liberal project, or at least so he can seem to be bashing both sides equally Richardson pretends to think so, and expanding the empire is central to the conservative agenda, so both sides are just being churlish when they profess to be disappointed with the way policies that they find important are being addressed.

"What's worse," Richardson says, "both sides are so angry and righteous that they can't even begin to give credit where it is due." I think he's right when he says that conservatives could be more appreciative about that $288 billion tax cut. And you would think the president would be getting a few more kudos from the right for McChrystal and Gates, to say nothing of AfPac and the drones. But to ask "how many liberals choose to be understanding about the practical difficulties of shutting down Guantánamo, achieving equal rights for gays, or tapping Al Qaeda's phones?" is to admit that the left has valid reasons to be unhappy with the Agent of Change. And to wonder "where, on either side, can you find a scrap of humility about the staggeringly complex challenge of Afghanistan and Pakistan? Or a scrap of gratitude at having escaped global financial doom?" is to beg more questions than Alex Trebek.

Our worries about how much Obama has accomplished in the year since we elected him are legitimate, especially considering the magnitude of the problems we face as a nation, and we are not only permitted to express our concerns but, as engaged citizens, we are obligated to express them.

** Richardson points out you "can find other versions of this perspective from Matt Lauer and David Gregory on NBC, from thousands of obnoxious bloggers, even from the hapless governor of New York." 

Health Care Reform: California Nurses on the canning of the single-payer in the House (Press Release)

CNA/NNOC Statement on the Withdrawal of the House Single Payer Amendment (California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee)

"On the eve of what would have been the first national vote on single-payer legislation Rep. Anthony Weiner's single-payer/Medicare for all amendment was withdrawn Friday, November 6. The vote for Congressman Weiner's single-payer amendment would have allowed advocates to have their representatives on record as single-payer supporters. The announcement of the withdrawal of the amendment also followed an 11th hour decision by the House leadership to drop an amendment sponsored by Rep. Dennis Kucinich that had been in the bill since July to remove legal barriers for states that choose to enact single payer/Medicare for all state bills.

"The outcome on the Weiner and Kucinich amendments is the latest in year-long maneuvers by the Obama administration to take single payer off the table, to exclude single payer advocates from participation in the Congressional debate and White House healthcare forums, and to twist arms behind the scenes to block both the Kucinich and Weiner amendments.

"Regrettably, the administration and Congressional leadership efforts to silence the voices of advocates of the most comprehensive, most cost effective, most humane reform reinforced the extensive corporate lobbying of the insurance industry and its corporate allies. The private insurance industry alone has sent 3,000 lobbyists to Capitol Hill this year, spending $1.4 million dollars a day to shape reform that protects their profits and reinforces the broken, insurance-based healthcare system.
Only the remarkable, and persistent effort of our members and allies has kept the flame of the single payer/Medicare for all movement moving forward in Congress. And, we're not done.

"Our focus now turns to two remaining efforts for single-payer in this Congress. Sen. Bernie Sanders will introduce S 703 in coming weeks. In addition, Rep. Kucinich's amendment to allow states to more easily implement a single-payer system may be reinserted into the bill during the conference committee between the House and Senate.

"All of these efforts are crucial to building the movement for the best solution to our healthcare crisis - single-payer national healthcare.

"While the current bills will provide limited assistance for some, the inconvenient truth is they fall far short in effective controls on skyrocketing insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital costs, do little to stop insurance companies from denying needed medical care recommended by doctors, and provide little relief for Americans with employer-sponsored insurance worried about health security for themselves and their families.

"People are suffering – they die needlessly. The Democrats, who control the White House and Congress, bear the responsibility for changing that. Republicans cheerlead to deny care and humanity. The Democrats act as though they care and block the best solution. The heroes in this debate are the Medicare for all proponents who have stood by the American families.

"We will continue to press for guaranteed healthcare in Congress. Further, the outstanding state based campaigns for single payer bills in California, Pennsylvania, Maine, Illinois, and other states will continue.

"We concur with Healthcare-NOW, 'Let us not forget how far we have come. Either now or later, a single-payer national healthcare system must come to the table. We will keep building the movement to make that happen.'"

Health Care Reform: House vote on Medicare For All cancelled

This has just been released by Healthcare-NOW!:

On the eve of what could have been the first vote on single-payer legislation in our nation's history, we have just learned that because of last minute developments, the vote and debate on Congressman Weiner's single-payer amendment will not happen.

Speaker Pelosi received a statement from Rep. Kucinich and Rep. Conyers, the co-authors of HR 676, that they do not think that this is the right time for a vote on national single-payer legislation. They made this statement despite the extensive mobilization in support of this vote across the country. In addition, Speaker Pelosi felt that offering a single-payer amendment would open the floodgates to amendments proposed to limit abortion funds, restrict immigrant access to healthcare, and other regressive legislation.

Let us remember that the potential vote on Congressman Weiner's single-payer amendment resulted from holding fast to our principles of universal, comprehensive healthcare with no financial barriers. These efforts have brought truth and clarity to a national debate on healthcare reform that has been polluted by the corporate influence over Congress. While the private insurance industry has sent 3,000 lobbyists to Capitol Hill this year, spending 1.4 million dollars a day to shape reform that protects their profits, our calls, faxes, and demonstrations have created the momentum to bring legislation based on HR 676 to the floor of the House and Senate.

The vote for Congressman Weiner's single-payer amendment would have allowed advocates to have their representatives on record as single-payer supporters.

But this legislative battle is not yet over. Our focus can now turn to two remaining efforts for single-payer in this Congress. Sen. Bernie Sanders will introduce S 703 in coming weeks, and we understand that he is considering editing it to be more like HR 676. We will have the opportunity again to see the first ever vote on single-payer in this Congress. In addition, Rep. Kucinich's amendment to allow states to more easily implement a single-payer system may be reinserted into the bill during the conference committee between the House and Senate.

All of these efforts are crucial to building the movement for the only solution to our healthcare crisis - single-payer national healthcare.

If this Congress passes inadequate legislation, there will no doubt be emboldened state movements in the coming years. We welcome them. But let us not forget the movement to push our federal legislators to meet the demands of the people, not roll that responsibility onto the states.

Healthcare-NOW! and the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care remains committed to a national, single-payer solution to the healthcare crisis.

Comprehensive, quality healthcare is a right that should be extended to every U.S. resident.

At this important time, let us not forget how far we have come. Either now or later, a single-payer national healthcare system must come to the table. We will keep building the movement to make that happen.

For healthcare justice, Healthcare-NOW!

Physicians for a National Health Program
Progressive Democrats of America
Public Citizen
Healthcare for All Texas
Western PA Coalition for Single Payer
Alliance for Democracy

Action: Donate to Healthcare-NOW!

Broader Measure of U.S. Unemployment Stands at 17.5%

"For all the pain caused by the Great Recession, the job market still was not in as bad shape as it had been during the depths of the early 1980s recession — until now.

"With the release of the jobs report on Friday, the broadest measure of unemployment and underemployment tracked by the Labor Department has reached its highest level in decades. If statistics went back so far, the measure would almost certainly be at its highest level since the Great Depression.

"In all, more than one out of every six workers — 17.5 percent — were unemployed or underemployed in October. The previous recorded high was 17.1 percent, in December 1982."

The rest of the story: Broader Measure of U.S. Unemployment Stands at 17.5% by David Leonhardt (New York Times 2009-11-6)

Clip File: Obama administration expanding military involvement in Latin America

Do we really need to occupy Columbia?

Under a 10-year deal, U.S. military forces will be deployed to seven military bases in Columbia and will have access to Columbia's major international civilian airports, and U.S. personnel and -- and, if Iraq and and Afghanistan experience is any indication, in a recipe for disaster: defense contractors will enjoy diplomatic immunity. Whether the justification is the furthering of our failed War on Drugs or to intervene in the civil war between Columbia's right-wing government and left-wing rebel groups, is the expansion of American military reach what Americans had in mind when they voted for change in 2008?

The rest of the story: New row over Colombia-US accord (BBC News 2009-12-05)

See, also: US-Colombia base deal 'this week' (BBC News 2009-10-27)

quote unquote: JFK on action

"Things do not happen.
Things are made to happen."
-- Pres. John F. Kennedy

Clip File: Spokane Considers Community Bill of Rights

"Of all the candidates, bills, and proposals on ballots around the country yesterday, one of the most exciting is a proposition that didn’t pass.

"In Spokane, Washington, despite intense opposition from business interests, a coalition of residents succeeded in bringing an innovative 'Community Bill of Rights' to the ballot. Proposition 4 would have amended the city’s Home Rule Charter (akin to a local constitution) to recognize nine basic rights, ranging from the right of the environment to exist and flourish to the rights of residents to have a locally based economy and to determine the future of their neighborhoods."

The rest of the story: Spokane Considers Community Bill of Rights by Mari Margil (Yes! Magazine 2009-11-04)

See, also: Communities Take Power - The Citizens of Barnstead, New Hampshire, Used Local Law to Keep Corporate Giants Out of Their Water by Doug Pibel (Yes! Magazine 2007-07-29)

Clip File: The filibuster is unproductive and anti-democratic

"The filibuster has become a cancer growing inside the world's greatest deliberative body."

The rest of the story: What Ails the Senate? by Christopher Hayes (The Nation 2009-11-04)

Elections; Democrats pick up seat in House

Keep that in mind when you listen to the bloviations about Democratic losses and a resurgent GOP.

All politics is local, Tip O'Neill said. This is especially true of elections for state offices. So, while the loss of John Corzine is regrettable (and New Jerseyites will come to regret it, just as Californians came to regret dumping Davis for Schwartzenegger), it says very little about national politics, despite Obama's intense (but late) arrival at the party.

Only two elections yesterday were to federal office, and the Democrats won both. In California, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi easily took a House seat in a safe Democratic district (Garamendi's victory was less newsworthy in California than the ridiculous announcement by Carly Fiorina that she has decided she should be the state's senator).

Meanwhile, in New York's traditionally Republican 23rd Congressional District, the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens, bested Conservative Party candidate Douglas Hoffman after the Republican Party candidate, a moderate, endorsed Owens and pulled out of the race. Despite a flood of volunteers, donations, and endorsements by national conservatives from Sarah Palin and the Club for Growth to Tim Pawlenty and the Government Is Not Good PAC, conservative businessman Hoffman couldn't win in a district parts of which had voted Republican since the Civil War.

In so far as anything can be predicted from these mid-mid-term votes, there isn't much good news for anybody. The fact that Michael Bloomberg, who is generally well regarded in New York, could expend $100 millon -- he outspent his Democratic opponent by more than 10-1 -- to barely win reelection should give pause to candidates like Carly Fiorina or California GOP gubernatorial wannabe Meg Whitman who think they will be able to buy their way into office with much smaller fortunes. Corzine's loss in New Jersey suggests that anti-tax rhetoric still has the power to defeat common sense, making the likelihood that we will fix any of our long term health care, education, unemployment and infrastructure difficulties problematic.  And even if he jumped in late, his people have to be a little concerned that Obama may have very short coattails.

They may not care -- for them, political purity may trump political power -- but the fact that the extreme right can't win in a district like the 23rd doesn't bode well for their chances in more centrist areas of the country. They also may not care, but the Blue Dogs and the DLC should be worried that the Rainbow coalition that carried Virginia for Obama decided to stay home when the party nominated a status-quo conservative. Moderate Republicans, meanwhile, might as well pack it in. The only hope for traditional Republican pols like the 23rd's Dede Scozzafava is to switch parties now so they'll be ready to run as Democrats in 2010.

For sanity sake, we have Jon Stewart to keep the media in perspective:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Indecision 2009 - Reindecision 2008 And Beyond
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

The Economy: How Goldman Secretly Bet On The U.S. Housing Crash

McClatchy is reporting that in "2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting."

Goldman's sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation's premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies.

Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had promoted as triple-A rated investments were closer to junk.

Pension funds, insurance companies, labor unions and foreign financial institutions that bought those dicey mortgage securities are facing large losses. It appears that Goldman's failure to disclose that it made secret, exotic bets on an imminent housing crash may have violated securities laws.

Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economics professor that McClatchy says has proposed a massive overhaul of the nation's banks, argues that the "Securities and Exchange Commission should be very interested in any financial company that secretly decides a financial product is a loser and then goes out and actively markets that product or very similar products to unsuspecting customers without disclosing its true opinion.

"This is fraud and should be prosecuted."

You think?

The rest of the story: How Goldman Secretly Bet On The U.S. Housing Crash by Greg Gordon (McClatchy Newspapers 2009-11-01)

Clip File: Lieberman

On Tuesday, Sen. Joe Lieberman announced that he will join a Republican filibuster against health care reform if it includes a public option provision. The Democrats would get more respect if they had the courage and integrity to dump the self-righteous hypocritical fraud.

Lieberman Twists the Knife by Robert Scheer (truthout 2009-10-30)
Top 15 Lieberman Betrayals: Joe's Worst Double-Crosses by Rachel Weiner (Huffington Post 2009-10-27)
Lieberman vs Sanders (Single Payer Action 2009-10-29)
Lieberman Marching Further Right in 2010: Former Dem Veep Candidate Plans to Campaign for GOP by Jonathan Karl (ABC News 2009-10-30)
Jon Stewart Takes On Media, Lieberman Over Public Option (The Daily Show/Comedy Central 2009-10-28)
Backpfeifengesicht = Lieberman by Norman Lear (Huffington Post 2009-10-30)

Backpfeifengesicht. Really. Look it up.

Health Care Reform: Lack of Insurance May Have Figured In Nearly 17,000 Childhood Deaths, Study Shows

Under the various proposals being considered by Congress, health care coverage is likely to be universal or nearly so. But will it be affordable? Unless the new system is single-payer, or at least includes a robust public option -- consumer option, as Speaker Pelosi is calling it now, it will not save money and the number of deaths will continue to be needlessly high.

This press release from the John Hopkins Children's Center (2009-10-29) provides background on the problem:

Lack of health insurance might have led or contributed to nearly 17,000 deaths among hospitalized children in the United States in the span of less than two decades, according to research led by the Johns Hopkins Children's Center.

According to the Johns Hopkins researchers, the study, published Oct. 29 in the Journal of Public Health, is one of the largest ever to look at the impact of insurance on the number of preventable deaths and the potential for saved lives among sick children in the United States.

Using more than 23 million hospital records from 37 states between 1988 and 2005, the Johns Hopkins investigators compared the risk of death in children with insurance and in those without. Other factors being equal, researchers found that uninsured children in the study were 60 percent more likely to die in the hospital than those with insurance. When comparing death rates by underlying disease, the uninsured appeared to have increased risk of dying independent regardless of their medical condition, the study found. The findings only capture deaths during hospitalization and do not reflect deaths after discharge from the hospital, nor do they count children who died without ever being hospitalized, the researchers say, which means the real death toll of non-insurance could be even higher.

"If you are a child without insurance, if you're seriously ill and end up in the hospital, you are 60 percent more likely to die than the sick child in the next room who has insurance," says lead investigator Fizan Abdullah, M.D., Ph.D., a pediatric surgeon at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center.

The researchers caution that the study looked at hospital records after the fact of death so they cannot directly establish cause and effect between health insurance and risk of dying. However because of the volume of records analyzed and because of the researchers' ability to identify and eliminate most factors that typically cloud such research, the analysis shows a powerful link between health insurance and risk of dying, they say.

"Can we say with absolute certainty that 17,000 children would have been saved if they had health insurance? Of course not," says co-investigator David Chang, Ph.D. M.P.H. M.B.A. "The point here is that a substantial number of children may be saved by health coverage."

"From a scientific perspective, we are confident in our finding that thousands of children likely did die because they lacked insurance or because of factors directly related to lack of insurance," he adds.

Given that more than 7 million American children in the United States remain uninsured amidst this nation's struggle with health-care reform, researchers say policymakers and, indeed, society as a whole should pay heed to their findings.would

"Thousands of children die needlessly each year because we lack a health system that provides them health insurance. This should not be," says co-investigator Peter Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D., director of Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins and medical director of the Center for Innovations in Quality Patient Care. "In a country as wealthy as ours, the need to provide health insurance to the millions of children who lack it is a moral, not an economic issue," he adds.

In the study, 104,520 patients died (0.47 percent) out of 22.2 million insured hospitalized children, compared to 9, 468 (0.75 percent) who died among the 1.2 million uninsured ones. To find out what portion of these deaths would have been prevented by health insurance, researchers performed a statistical simulation by projecting the expected number of deaths for insured patients based on the severity of their medical conditions among other factors, and then applied this expected number of deaths to the uninsured group.

In the uninsured group, there were 3,535 more deaths than expected, not explained by disease severity or other factors. Going a step further and applying the excess number of deaths to the total number of pediatric hospitalizations in the United States (117 million) for the study period, the researchers found an excess of 16,787 deaths among the nearly six million uninsured children who ended up in the hospital during that time.

Other findings from the study:

More uninsured children were seen in hospitals in the Northeast and Midwest than in the South and West. However, hospitals from the Northeast had lower mortality rates than hospitals from the South, Midwest and West. Insured children on average incurred higher hospital charges than uninsured children, most likely explained by the fact that uninsured children tend to present to the hospital at more advanced stages of their disease, which in turn gives doctors less chance for intervention and treatment, especially in terminal cases, investigators say. Uninsured patients were more likely to seek treatment though the Emergency Room, rather than through a referral by a doctor, likely markers of more advanced disease stage and/or delays in seeking medical attention. Insurance status did not affect how long a child spent overall in the hospital.

The research was funded by the Robert Garrett Fund for the Treatment of Children.

Co-investigators in the study include Yiyi Zhang, M.H.S.; Thomas Lardaro, B.S.; Marissa Black; Paul Colombani, M.D.; Kristin Chrouser, M.D. M.P.H.

Change Watch: Obama signs bill that will hide torture pictures

The Homeland Security appropriations bill President Obama signed into law last week includes a provision authorizing the Defense Department to continue to conceal photos documenting the torture and abuse of prisoners in U.S. military custody, according to reporting in The Washington Independent.

The American Civil Liberties Union had specifically sought those photos, and sued to get them, among other documents relating to detainee abuse, in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The exemption signed, however, is much broader than simply the photos sought in the lawsuit. It would apply to any other photos taken between Sept. 11, 2001 and Jan.22, 2009 that the Secretary of Defense has certified would, if released, endanger U.S. citizens, servicemen, or employees overseas.

President Obama had agreed to release the photos, but changed his mind after consulting with DOD secretary Robert Gates and others at the Pentagon, who warned the photos would endanger U.S. servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan by making the Afghan resistance fighters mad at us.
New York Rep. Louise Slaughter defends the Freedom of Information Act during the debate over releasing photographs of American personel abusing detainees.

The provision was the inspiration of Sen. Joe Lieberman (it almost goes without saying) specifically to thwart the ACLU suit. Although a federal appeals court last year ordered the government to produce the unclassified photos, ruling that the Freedom of Information Act can’t be trumped by citing unspecified dangers to unspecified potential targets of the anger that the information may produce, the government refused to release the pictures and appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court. The bill signed Wednesday was supported by nearly all Democrats, despite including the language weakening the FOIA and attempting to get around both lower court rulings and any similar future judgment by the high court.

Leadership: Obama has a "West Wing" moment

President Obama flew to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to witness the return of remains of 18 U.S. personnel killed in Afghanistan, "the first president to do this since 9/11." In addition to signaling that he is prepared to assume the full burdens of his office in ways his predecessor was not, it also suggests that, whatever he concludes about ending or expanding the AfPak war, his deliberations will be more than a session of "Risk 2010."

Labor: US Steelworkers to Experiment with Factory Ownership

"...job creation, but with a new twist. Since government efforts were being stifled by the greed of financial speculators and private capital was more interested in cheap labor abroad, unions will take matters into their own hands, find willing partners, and create jobs themselves, but in sustainable businesses owned by the workers."

The rest of the story: 'One Worker, One Vote:' US Steelworkers to Experiment with Factory Ownership, Mondragon Style by Carl Davidson (SolidarityEconomy 2009-10-27)

The Media: Amy Goodman

by Bill Moyers (truthout 2009-10-27)

Amy Goodman's new book is "Breaking the Sound Barrier." (Photo: Riza Falk/flickr)

This is Bill Moyers's introduction to Amy Goodman's latest book, "Breaking the Sound Barrier," published by Haymarket Books.

You can learn more of the truth about Washington and the world from one week of Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now!" than from a month of Sunday morning talk shows.

Make that a year of Sunday morning talk shows.

That's because Amy, as you will discover on every page of her new book, "Breaking the Sound Barrier", knows the critical question for journalists is how close they are to the truth, not how close they are to power. Like I. F. Stone, she values the facts on the ground; unlike the Sunday beltway anchors, she refuses to take the official version of reality as the definition of news, or to engage in Washington's "wink-wink" game, by which both parties to an interview tacitly understand that the questions and answers will be framed to appear adversarial when in fact their purpose is to avoid revealing how power really works. Quick: recall the last time you heard a celebrity journalist on any of the Sunday talk shows grill a politician on what campaign contributors get for their generosity. Try again: name any of those elite interrogators who skewered any politician for saying that "single-payer" wasn't on the table in the debate over health care reform because "there's no support for it." OK, one last chance: recall how often you have heard any of the network stars insist that Newt Gingrich reveal just who is funding his base as the omnipresent expert on everything.

See?

Now read "Breaking the Sound Barrier" for a reality check. And tune in to "Democracy Now!" to hear and see the difference an independent journalist can make in providing citizens what they need to know to make democracy work.

It takes the nerves, stamina and willpower of an Olympic triathlete to do what Amy Goodman does. That's just who she is, this quiet-spoken tornado of muckraking journalism: Edward R. Murrow with a twist of Emma Goldman, a Washington Post reporter once noted - willing to take on the powers that be to get at truth and justice, then spreading the word of those two indispensable gospels to the republic and the world beyond. Amy Goodman goes where angels fear to tread. Beaten by Indonesian troops while she and a colleague - also beaten - were covering East Timor's fight for independence. Hiking dangerous African deltas to get to the bottom of Chevron Oil's collusion with the Nigerian military. Or closer to home, in New Orleans or Appalachia or facing down the police when her colleagues were arrested in Minneapolis during the 2008 Republican National Convention (they threw her in the slammer, too).

Through her reporting, we hear from people who scarcely exist in news covered by the corporate-owned press. We learn about issues of war and peace and social wrong. She is impervious to government subterfuge or spin. "Goodman is the journalist as uninvited guest," that Washington Post reporter wrote. "You might think of the impolitic question; she asks it." And once it's been asked, she refuses to take "no comment" for an answer. She returns to a story time and again, continually digging, refusing to let her audience or investigative target forget how important it is to nail down just who's responsible and what needs to be done.

On top of everything else, she finds time to take her message out to a broad public with speeches and books and a weekly newspaper column, from which her collection of essays, "Breaking the Sound Barrier," has been selected. I'd be envious if it didn't appear unseemly. Let's just say I'm in awe. Read this collection and revel in the truth-telling. Be outraged by what you learn from it and renew your oath as a citizen. "We stand with journalists around the world who deeply believe that the mission of a journalist is to go where the silence is," Amy Goodman said in December 2008 when she accepted the Right Livelihood Award for personal courage and transformation. "The responsibility of a journalist is to give a voice to those who have been forgotten, forsaken, beaten down by the powerful." And, at a time when the future of journalism is in question, this ringing rationale for our embattled but essential craft: "It's the best reason I know for us to carry our pens, our microphones, and our cameras, both into our own communities and out to the wider world."

Right on.

"As an organization, truthout works to broaden and diversify the political discussion by introducing independent voices and focusing on undercovered issues and unconventional thinking."

Clip File: Is Afghanistan Obama's Vietnam?

"It was always a bad year to get out of Vietnam." -- Daniel Ellsberg

Here's Newsweek speculating at the beginning of this president's term. The analogy between the two adventures, the authors say, isn't exact. But in the months since this analysis was written, it has become only clearer that the U.S. has neither a coherent plan nor a convincing rationale for opposing the Taliban and that there are no good choices for moving forward.

About a year ago, Charlie Rose, the nighttime talk-show host, was interviewing Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the military adviser at the White House coordinating efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. "We have never been beaten tactically in a fire fight in Afghanistan," Lute said. To even casual students of the Vietnam War, his statement has an eerie echo. One of the iconic exchanges of Vietnam came, some years after the war, between Col. Harry Summers, a military historian, and a counterpart in the North Vietnamese Army. As Summers recalled it, he said, "You never defeated us in the field." To which the NVA officer replied: "That may be true. It is also irrelevant."

Vietnam analogies can be tiresome. To critics, especially those on the left, all American interventions after Vietnam have been potential "quagmires." But sometimes clichés come true, and, especially lately, it seems that the war in Afghanistan is shaping up in all-too-familiar ways. The parallels are disturbing: the president, eager to show his toughness, vows to do what it takes to "win." The nation that we are supposedly rescuing is no nation at all but rather a deeply divided, semi-failed state with an incompetent, corrupt government held to be illegitimate by a large portion of its population. The enemy is well accustomed to resisting foreign invaders and can escape into convenient refuges across the border. There are constraints on America striking those sanctuaries. Meanwhile, neighboring countries may see a chance to bog America down in a costly war. Last, there is no easy way out.

The rest of the story: Obama's Vietnam by John Barry and Evan Thomas (Newsweek 2009-01-31).

Other links:

"....If counterinsurgency, according to current doctrine, is all about securing the population, if securing the population implies not simply keeping them safe but providing people with good governance and economic development and education and so on, what then is the requirement of a global counterinsurgency campaign?...Are we called upon to secure the population of the entire globe? Given the success we've had thus far in securing the population in Iraq and in Afghanistan, does this idea make any sense whatsoever?" -- Interview with Col. Andrew Bacevich, Ret. (Frontline 2009-09-21)

Obama's Choice - Failed War President or the Prince of Peace? by Nick Turse (TomDispatch 2009-10-22): "While the armed forces can do many things, the one thing that has generally escaped them is that ultimate endpoint: lasting victory." (see, also: The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives by Nick Turse, an expose of the pervasive impact of the military-industrial-entertainment complex on the, uh, homeland)

Another indication of the moral bankruptcy of American policy: "The US military in Afghanistan is to be allowed to pay Taliban fighters who renounce violence against the government in Kabul," although it could be argued that those willing to be bribed will probably feel more comfortable in the company of the corrupt Karzai narcogarchy, anyway. -- U.S. to pay Taliban to switch sides (BBC News 2009-10-28)

More troops? Seriously: Troops In Afghanistan Outnumber Taliban 12-1 by Slobodan Lekic (Huffington Post 2009-10-27)

And, finally, a rare act of principle by a U.S. government functionary: U.S. official resigns over Afghan war: Foreign Service officer and former Marine captain says he no longer knows why his nation is fighting by Karen DeYoung (Washington Post 2009-10-27)

quote unquote: W.E.B. Dubois on action

"Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow,
not some more convenient season.
It is today that our best work can be done
and not some future day or future year.
It is today that we fit ourselves

for the greater usefulness of tomorrow."

-- W.E.B. Dubois

Health Insurance: Long-term care

 The Next Big Health Care Reform Fight

What finally kills people -- financially, physically, psychologically, metaphorically -- is trying to figure out how to pay for long-term medical expenses. According to the government, one year of care in a nursing home, based on the 2008 national average, costs over $68,000 for a semi-private room. A year of home care, assuming the need for periodic personal help from a home health aide (the average is about three times a week), costs almost $18,000 a year. While conservatives have been preoccupied with saving Americans from having socialized medicine foisted on them by Commissar Obama, it hasn't completely escaped their attention that an even more nefarious insurance program -- a plan to create public insurance for long-term care that would have the government interceding to prevent citizens in long-term care from being driven bankrupt or crazy by medical bills -- has been sneaking through Congress.

The proposal is known as the CLASS Act, short for Community Living Services and Support. The idea has been around for years, and the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) pushed to have the measure included in the health-care overhaul package that passed the Senate health committee in July. A similar measure was also adopted by voice vote in one of the three House committees handling health care.

This diabolical, morale-destroying scheme would be, get this, "available to anyone, including those who are already disabled." Similarly to Comrade Reid's public option plan for the states, people would be strong-armed into the program automatically, unless, of course, they themselves chose to opt out, and would pay a premium in exchange for insurance against "the cost of home care, adult day programs, assisted living or nursing homes after they had been enrolled for at least five years. Premiums and benefit levels would be set by federal health officials," you know, bureaucrats, "but advocates predict that the program would provide beneficiaries with a minimal sum, around $75 a day" (you do the math).

(Okay, I'll do it: $68,000/yr. comes to a little less than $5,700/mo. $75/day adds up to roughly $2,250/mo. Rounding off generously on both ends, you still end up with a gap of $3,000/mo or $36,000/yr. Considering that the annual median household income is around $50,000 -- and much lower for many seniors and anyone unable to work because they're in need of long-term care, under the best of circumstances the program isn't going to head off a lot bankruptcies).

The proposal has gained momentum in recent days as Democrats in both the House and Senate cast about for cash to help finance a final health package. Because the program would begin taking in premiums immediately but would not start paying benefits until 2016, congressional budget analysts have forecast that it would generate a nearly $60 billion surplus over the next 10 years, cash that would help the larger measure's balance on paper.

Predictably, the usual antis -- "including the Congressional Budget Office and the American Academy of Actuaries," a group I know I rely on for political judgments, especially around Halloween -- have popped up with dire warnings about spiraling costs. Descending into self-parody, Sen. Kent Conrad called the CLASS Act "a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing that Bernie Madoff would have been proud of," and he vowed to block its inclusion in the Senate bill. As befits a member of the people's house, Rep. Earl Pomeroy, also a Blue Dog Dem, admitted there is a problem that needs addressing, but warned the solution would require some tough decision-making, of which he avowed he is capable, "not some provision cooked up by advocacy groups at the last hour" (see, "idea has been around for years," above).

"It is not a Ponzi scheme," said Larry Minnix, president of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, which represents nonprofit providers and is one of more than 200 consumer and other groups supporting the legislation. "It is a consumer-funded insurance pool that provides people a cash benefit to help with simple chores of daily living so they can remain independent."

Oh, sure. Who're you going to believe, some non-profit consumer activist Little Goody Two-Shoes or a seasoned, tough decision-making legislative adept beefed-up like Popeye on the carloads research spinach trucked in to Washington every day by the insurance industry out of the goodness of their hard little hearts?

The rest of the story: Proposed long-term insurance program raises questions by Lori Montgomery (Washington Post 2009-10-27)

Clip File: The Empire Strikes Out

Welcome to 2025 - American Preeminence Is Disappearing Fifteen Years Early

"...So, welcome to the world of 2025. It doesn't look like the world of our recent past, when the United States stood head and shoulders above all other nations in stature, and it doesn't comport well with Washington's fantasies of global power since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. But it is reality.

"For many Americans, the loss of that preeminence may be a source of discomfort, or even despair. On the other hand, don't forget the advantages to being an ordinary country like any other country: Nobody expects Canada, or France, or Italy to send another 40,000 troops to Afghanistan, on top of the 68,000 already there and the 120,000 still in Iraq. Nor does anyone expect those countries to spend $925 billion in taxpayer money to do so -- the current estimated cost of both wars, according to the National Priorities Project.

"The question remains: How much longer will Washington feel that Americans can afford to subsidize a global role that includes garrisoning much of the planet and fighting distant wars in the name of global security, when the American economy is losing so much ground to its competitors? This is the dilemma President Obama and his advisers must confront in the altered world of 2025."

The rest of the story: Welcome to 2025 - American Preeminence Is Disappearing Fifteen Years Early by Michael T. Klare (TomDispatch 2009-10-27)

Clip File: too big to fail = too big to survive

Whether it's using the antitrust laws or enacting a new Glass-Steagall Act, the Wall Street giants should be split up -- and soon.

And now there are five - five Wall Street behemoths, bigger than they were before the Great Meltdown, paying fatter salaries and bonuses to retain their so-called 'talent,' and raking in huge profits. The biggest difference between now and last October is these biggies didn't know then that they were too big to fail and the government would bail them out if they got into trouble.

Now they do. -- Robert Reich

The rest of the story: Too Big to Fail: Why the Big Banks Should Be Broken Up, but Why the White House and Congress Don't Want to by Robert Reich (Robert Reich's Blog 2009-10-25)

Clip File: The inevitability of an American single-payer health system

"Amidst the ideological back and forth that is the health care reform debate of 2009, recent studies reveal a growing reality that each of us can easily understand, no matter what our ideological point of view.

"It will not be long until the private health insurance model will no longer work – for anybody.

"It’s got nothing to do with public options or single payer advocates just as it will have nothing to do with those prepared to defend America from socialism at all costs.

"The simple fact is that single-payer, government controlled health care is inevitable because the trajectory of the private health insurance system reveals that it is doomed to fail – and sooner than we might realize."

The rest of the story: The inevitability of an American single-payer health system by Rick Ungar (True/Slant 2009-10-20)

Change Watch: Leaderless -- Senate Pushes For Public Option Without Obama's Support

"Who knew that when it came down to crunch time, Harry Reid would be the one who stepped up to the plate and Barack Obama would shy away from the fight?"

The rest of the story: Leaderless -- Senate Pushes For Public Option Without Obama's Support by Sam Stein and Ryan Grim (Huffington Post 2009-10-24)

Action: Let Harry Reid know you support his effort to include a public option.

Health Care: Public option endgame

I'm down with flu, but I wanted to make sure you saw this updating of the status of the public option:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Take action: Contact your representatives in Congress to let them know you want a robust alternative to private health care insurance.

Clip File: Pensions -- The Next Casualty of Wall Street

"Nobody wants to admit it, but the next casualty of the Wall Street meltdown will probably be your golden years. For years corporations have been trying to choke the life out of traditional pensions, working hard to get out from under the risk-and the cost-of providing for their retirees. Between last year's credit crunch and changes to federal pension laws, they may get their wish.

"Nearly $4 trillion worth of retirement savings were wiped out in the first weeks of the 2008 financial freefall. Half of the drop was concentrated in traditional pension plans, also known as defined-benefit plans. While most workers in these plans haven't had their monthly benefits cut, unlike the 46 million people riding the stock market with 401(k) defined-contribution plans, the storm clouds are gathering."

The rest of the story: Pensions -- The Next Casualty of Wall Street by Mark Brenner (Labor Notes 2009-10-23)

The Media: The White House plays 3-Card Monte

The Obama Administration's War on Fox News is such a weird, over-the-top distraction and side show, it's hard to think that it's not an intentional distraction and side show (Democrats Urged to Stay Off Fox - The Wrap). Any chance that the White House hopes to divert the attention of Democrats from its failure to achieve much of anything nearly a year after the election that was going to change everything?

(bail out the banks) "ATTACK FOX" (no public option) "BLAME FOX" (expand Afghan war) "FOX IS NOT A NEWS ORGANIZATION" (trash habeas corpus and legal representation) "BAN FOX" (throw out treaties) "FIRE BECK" (defy Congress) "TURN OFF FOX" (undermine the Constitution) "FOX IS AN ARM OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY" (nullify laws with signing statements) "FOX FOX FOX and FOX"

White House spokespeople are saying that the Prez won't condescend to appear on Fox News until at least 2010. And MoveOn.org is slavishly trying to get the rest of the party to "stay off FOX for as long as he does." Call me old fashioned, but I can't help but think how much better off the country would be if Alan Grayson, Marcy Kaptur, Anthony Weiner, Russell Feingold, Barney Frank, Dennis Kucinich, Lynn Woolsey, Patty Murray, Jack Reed, Pete DeFazio, Jim McDermott, Jerry Nadler, Pete Stark and every other member of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party took any opportunity to go on Fox and every other media outlet to give the good folks tuning in as much access to the truth as possible. You can't really blame Obama, Emanuel, Pelosi, Reid, Baucus, et al, if they'd rather have progressives chasing Foxers than bothering their little heads over such lesser matters as the war in Oilistan or the country's desperate need for affordable, universal health care. The White House can carry on about Faux News as much as it wants, however, but nobody is going to be fooled. It wasn't Bill O'Reilly who declared Medicare-for-All "off the table," nor is it Sean Hannity sending troops to Afghanistan.

This is not say that Fox is a responsible news operation, or any kind of news operation at all. It gives nothing to Fox, though, to wish the White House would focus on governing and leave the political fisticuffs to others. Plenty of sharp Democrats, journalists and others are ready and willing to take Fox on, as MediaMatters does in this video compilation rebroadcast on MSNBC:

Health Care: We Can Have Obama's Staggeringly Complex Plan to Save the Insurance Industry

Or we can have Medicare for All.

See: The Simple Solution to the Health Care Crisis: Medicare for All by Dave Lindorff (CounterPunch 2009-07-24)

Change Watch: War on Terror II

The Obama administration makes reassuring noises about constraining executive power and protecting civil liberties, but then adopts whatever appalling policy George W. Bush put in place.

"We know the rules by now, the strange conventions and stilted Kabuki scripts that govern our cartoon facsimile of a national security debate. The Obama administration makes vague, reassuring noises about constraining executive power and protecting civil liberties, but then merrily adopts whatever appalling policy George W. Bush put in place. Conservatives hit the panic button on the right-wing noise machine anyway, keeping the delicate ecosystem in balance by creating the false impression that something has changed. We've watched the formula play out with Guantánamo Bay, torture prosecutions and the invocation of 'state secrets.' We appear to be on the verge of doing the same with national security surveillance.

"Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee seemed to abandon hope of bringing any real change to the Patriot Act. A lopsided and depressingly bipartisan majority approved legislation that would reauthorize a series of expanded surveillance powers set to expire at the end of the year. Several senators had proposed that reauthorization be wedded to safeguards designed to protect the privacy of innocent Americans from indiscriminate data dragnets--but behind-the-scenes maneuvering by the Obama administration ensured that even the most modest of these were stripped from the final bill now being sent to the full Senate."

The rest of the story: 'War on Terror' II by Julian Sanchez (The Nation 2009-10-19)

Democracy: 23 Proposals to Revitalize the US Constitution

I find myself unpersuaded by many of Larry Sabato's 23 Proposals to Revitalize the US Constitution. Drawn from his book, A More Perfect Constitution, where they are well-argued, they are certainly worthy of consideration. To my mind, though, he gives too little emphasis to rebuilding accountable institutions (labor unions, political parties, community groups), and it strikes me that some of the ideas he embraces where adopted have turned out to have unintended consequences: term limts, for example, meant to encourage frequent rotation of office (the political value of that goal escapes me, but never mind) has in practice tended to increase the power of bureaucracies and lobbies, not an outcome Sabato desires, I think. I have no disagreement, however, with his basic premise that our political system is seriously in need of reform. Here's the list:

Congress:

1. Expand the Senate to 136 members to be more representative: Grant the 10 most populous states 2 additional Senators, the 15 next most populous states 1 additional Senator, and the District of Columbia 1 Senator. [See, Democracy: How do we achieve One Person One Vote? (Impractical Proposals 2009-10-09)]

2. Appoint all former Presidents and Vice Presidents to the new office of “National Senator.”

3. Mandate non-partisan redistricting for House elections to enhance electoral competition.

4. Lengthen House terms to 3 years (from 2) and set Senate terms to coincide with all Presidential elections, so the entire House and Senate would be elected at the same time as the President.

5. Expand the size of the House to approximately 1,000 members (from current 435), so House members can be closer to their constituents, and to level the playing field in House elections.

6. Establish term limits in the House and Senate to restore the Founders’ principle of frequent rotation in office.

7. Add a Balanced Budget Amendment to encourage fiscal fairness to future generations.

8. Create a Continuity of Government procedure to provide for replacement Senators and Congresspeople in the event of deaths or extensive incapacitation.

Presidency:

9. Establish a new 6-year, 1-time Presidential term with the option for the President to seek 2 additional years in an up/down referendum of the American people.

10. Limit some Presidential war-making powers and expand Congress’s oversight of war-making.

11. Give the President a line-item veto.

12. Allow men and women not born in the U.S. to run for President or Vice President after having been a citizen for 20 years.

Supreme Court:

13. Eliminate lifetime tenure for federal judges in favor of non-renewable 15-year terms for all federal judges.

14. Grant Congress the power to set a mandatory retirement age for all federal judges.

15. Expand the size of the Supreme Court from 9 to 12 to be more representative.

16. Give federal judges guaranteed cost of living increases so pay is never an issue.

Politics:

17. Write a new constitutional article specifically for the politics of the American system.

18. Adopt a regional, staggered lottery system, over 4 months, for Presidential party nominations to avoid the destructive front-loading of primaries.

19. Mend the Electoral College by granting more populated states additional electors, to preserve the benefits of the College while minimizing the chances a President will win without a majority of the popular vote.

20. Reform campaign financing by preventing wealthy candidates from financing their campaigns, and by mandating partial public financing for House and Senate campaigns.

21. Adopt an automatic registration system for all qualified American citizens to guarantee their right to vote is not abridged by bureaucratic requirements.

Universal National Service:

22. Create a Constitutional requirement that all able-bodied young Americans devote at least 2 years of their lives in service to the country.

National Constitutional Convention:

23. Convene a new Constitutional Convention using the state-based mechanism left to us by the Framers in the current Constitution.

Although intended to advance democracy, some of these proposals strike me as anti-democratic.  Why should former leaders who have lost the confidence of the citizenry, a Jimmy Carter, say, or a George W. Bush, be restored to a degree of power by lifetime appointment to the Senate? (And vice presidents?  Makes you wonder for a minute if Sabato is kidding.) Unless you adopt other "reforms"  -- regional qualifications?  race and gender quotas? -- it's difficult to see why additional  justices would make the Supreme Court any more representative. Term limits actually limit the power of voters to decide who will represent them. A balanced budget amendment would restrict the ability of future generations to deal flexibly with crises like the current financial meltdown (and why not deficit-finance infrastructure projects, if it is intended that future generations will reap the benefits?). The line-item veto is a direct attack on representative democracy.

In making his case, Sabato, who is founder of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, is a good deal more subtle, cogent and persuasive than he comes across in outline. The reforms he suggests reflect the values he believes are already present in the Constitution: pragmatism, flexibility, fairness, the quest for equality and for justice. Whether his particular suggestions are the best ones to achieve a more perfect constitution, they are commendably thoughtful and well articulated.

Maybe, eventually, a constitutional convention will be needed to get the American experiment back on course. In the meantime, there are more limited actions -- serious campaign finance reform, an amendment to retire the electoral college, weekend voting, instant run-offs, proportional representation -- that will tend to make the system more responsive and accountable. The struggle for reform has just begun. The debate will continue. The road to go is long. A More Perfect Constitution makes a good start.

Source: "23 Proposals to Revitalize the US Constitution," from A More Perfect Constitution: Ideas to Inspire a New Generation by Larry J. Sabato.

Economic Justice: The Corporation

Corporations have no soul to be saved, no body to be incarcerated, thus they are difficult to motivate toward good. When they were delivered to life by the Supreme Court, they became "people," but what kind of people are they? If the financial meltdown -- or Michael Moore -- has piqued your interest in the workings of capitalism, this three-hour documentary will blow your stocks off.

"You'd think that things like disasters, or the purity of childhood, or even milk, let alone water or air, would be sacred. But no. Corporations have no built-in limits on what, who, or how much they can exploit for profit. In the fifteenth century, the enclosure movement began to put fences around public grazing lands so that they might be privately owned and exploited. Today, every molecule on the planet is up for grabs. In a bid to own it all, corporations are patenting animals, plants, even your DNA. Around things too precious, vulnerable, sacred or important to the public interest, governments have, in the past, drawn protective boundaries against corporate exploitation. Today, governments are inviting corporations into domains from which they were previously barred." -- from the website.

Clip File: Effects of Military and Domestic Spending on U.S. Employment

"This study focuses on the employment effects of military spending versus alternative domestic spending priorities, in particular investments in clean energy, health care and education. We first present some simple alternative spending scenarios, namely devoting $1 billion to the military versus the same amount of money spent on clean energy, health care, and education, as well as for tax cuts which produce increased levels of personal consumption. Our conclusion in assessing such relative employment impacts is straightforward: $1 billion spent on each of the domestic spending priorities will create substantially more jobs within the U.S. economy than would the same $1 billion spent on the military. We then examine the pay level of jobs created through these alternative spending priorities and assess the overall welfare impacts of the alternative employment outcomes."

The rest of the story: The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending Priorities: An Updated Analysis by Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier (Foreign Policy in Focus 2009-10-09).

Resource: Low -Tech Magazine

With a slogan like "Doubts on technology," it's not surprising that Low-Tech Magazine "refuses to assume that every problem has a high-tech solution." The topics give away the game: the history and future of industrial windmills, homes heated by burning tires, water-powered cable trains, the hidden costs of digital technology, "A world without trucks: underground freight networks" and "Life without airplanes : reintroducing ocean liners." Low-Tech Magazine offers fascinating, practical alternative thinking about technology and its uses.

Health Care Reform: What is to be done?

On last night's MSNBC Countdown, Keith Olbermann looked at the Senate health care reform bill, the prospects of the public option, Sen. Reid's leadership, and with Florida Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson the need for public action if reform is to succeed.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Here's former governor Howard Dean on the same subject:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

So what should the public do? Olbermann ends by quoting Frederick Douglas: "Agitate. Agitate. Agitate."