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I was wondering if anyone else has heard the new meme by carbon industry defenders that imposing a cost on carbon emissions won't improve CO2 emissions because "the PC wasn't developed because of a tax on typewriters" and "the internet wasn't developed because of a tax on telegraphs".
Yesterday there was an NPR segment interviewing someone from the Breakthrough Institute who popped off these seemingly reasonable-sounding, but fallacious arguments. I suspect that we will be hearing them repeated a lot in coming days.
Thom,
VERY interesting article in the latest Newsweek (6-29-09):
"Reagan was wrong - to conservative Cassandra Henry Fairlie, Republicans sowed their present-day destruction from the start"
I tried to find a link online, but it doesn't seem to be posted yet. Here are a couple of excerpts from the magazine:
'Henry Fairlie had been called "the most controversial political journalist in the British press --- including his most celebrated one, in which he coined the term "the establishment." After his 1966 move to the United States, he would write some of the liveliest and most provocative essays of his time about ... "the American scene." '
'Fairlie's critique of American conservatism began with a GOP heresy: that by embracing the free market so completely, the party had gone calamitously awry. "The conservative can all too easily drift into a morally bankrupt and intellectually shallow defense of those who have it made and who are on the make," he wrote. Without a humanizing tory influence, conservatives were apt to forget "the ugly face of capitalism" --- the way that the market tends to coarsen and destabilize society, making the gross national product fodder for our "gross national appetite." Republicans, he argued, could never succeed in uniting the country as long as they supported business interests so completely with both their policy choices and their rhetoric: "The nation cannot be brought to you, as if it were Masterpiece Theatre, by a grant from Mobil Oil," he wrote.'
Regarding Charlie Gibson's comment referenced above that "a government run plan is making a lot of Americans very nervous", does Charlie think that on the eve of their 65th birthdays, Americans sit in fear that their health insurance is about to switch over to Medicare? What is this nonsense? Does the right wing really think that Americans are dumb enough to fall for this "be afraid, be very afraid" stuff?
The reason that conservatives wanted Obama to say something about Iran is because they want Obama to fail.
The reason the media continuously shows the Iranian situation is so that they don't have to talk about the news that affects us, like the health care debate.
We have a framing problem. The conservatives are framing the health care debate in terms of the costs. We need to frame it in terms of the savings.
Are the health insurance companies allowed to fix their prices? It seems to me that they collectively have a monopoly.
Hightower's webmaster sent me to Progressive Democrats which is listing many health care protest events across the country. Perhaps we should all try to spread the word so we can get more cities across the country to list with them, too, inspiring more protests.
https://www.thedatabank.com/dpg/309/mtglist.asp?formid=meet&mtgview=L
Here's a healthcare protest in Portland, Oregon today.
Ron Wyden's Office
When Thursday, June 25, 2009
12 PM - 1 PM
Where Federal Building, Portland, OR
1220 SW 3rd Ave.
Portland, OR
See Map
I hope to see you there,
Loretta
www.portlandia.etsy.com
Thom,
As soon as you said that the Supreme Court voted 8 to 1 against the legality of stip searching a teenage girl, I guessed that the dissenting vote was Clarence Thomas and my guess had nothing to do with pornography.
I believe Thomas has a pattern of voting with the most extreme right members of the court, but when a vote goes 8 to 1, Thomas is almost always the lone dissenter and his vote is usually upholding the rights of the powerful and privileged. My guess was just an instant case of pattern recognition.
Iran Had a Democracy Before We Took It Away
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090622_iran_had_a_democracy_before...
SENATE HELP CMTE. ADJOURNS MARK UP UNTIL JULY 7
Today
The Senate Health Cmte. met for the seventh day to continue its work on a bill to overhaul health care – it’s final meeting ahead of the Fourth of July recess. The panel discussed cost, fraud, abuse issues and debated an amendment on drug re-importation. The committee will continue its debate on a bill to overhaul the U.S. health care system after Congress returns on July 7.
Thom,
I am in the U.S. military, and, as you are aware, we use a form of socialized medicine. While I am in complete support of a single payer system or at least a public option, I wanted to let you know about my experiences with socialized medicine in our own country.
What Bernie has been saying about "the devil is in the details" is absolutely correct; for a number of reasons. Until recently, as a pilot in the armed forces of the US, my primary care physician was a doctor who had completed only one year of residency. This is commonplace for flying squadrons. In fact, two of the three primary care doctors I have had were NOT board certified physicians. Nor did they have an 'attending' that they could go to with questions. Obviously this should raise an eyebrow. That having been said, I do feel that I received an appropriate level of care, but I would hesitate to send my wife to a military doctor.
Because these Doctors don't have to complete residency right away, it seems that there is little incentive for them to stay in the books (most of the doctors I am speaking of will eventually enter into a residency program either in the military or outside, but not before being the primary care physician for several hundred people).
There is also no monetary incentive for them to be successful. Because they are military officers, they get paid basically what other military officers get paid, and can only get a pay increase by getting promoted (which as a junior officer is more a function of time in service than merit).
My worst experience with military medicine has been on the dental side. I am not sure what training military dentists undergo, but they seem to be understaffed and over-worked. It is very difficult to get a dentists appointment unless you are about to deploy (deploying troops, for obvious reasons, are the primary concern. I once went 2 years between cleanings because on my yearly check-up, the dentist told me that my teeth were "clean enough" and didn't need it...I don't think that would happen in the civilian world. I also have a habit of grinding my teeth at night. The dentist refused to give me a night guard on the basis that 'he didn't think that I would use it every night'. As an officer, I was able to complain enough to eventually get a night guard, but junior troops would probably not have been as fortunate.
Again, I am in full favor of some kind of nationalized health care system but we need to make sure that American doctors continue to be the best in the world...and get compensated appropriately. The drug and insurance companies that have hijacked America need to be taken down a notch. While I realize that the military does employ some of the best trauma surgeons in the world, I don't think that America as a whole wants the same treatment that the "average joe" in the military gets.
Hi everyone,
Does anyone know of a website where public option/single payer protests across the country are being listed? It would be great if we had a central website just for protests on this issue. Or could you create a separate section on your site for this Thom? This is going to be one hell of a fight, and many of our lives depend on it.
If there isn't one, does anyone have the skills to create one? I will help, but I'm not a web wiz. I would most definitely volunteer to report on protests in the Portland, Oregon area, though.
Are there any protests going on in Portland, Oregon today?
Thank you, Loretta
Did anyone else notice how Charlie Gibson was framing the debate around a 'public option' on ABC's 'conversation' with Obama last night? Before going to break he brings up 'public option', and then says "a government run plan is making a lot of Americans very nervous". He could just as easily have said, "a lot of Americans are hoping for some sort of public option insurance plan to come out of this reform". At least he would have been more accurate to do so, according to ABC's own poll (with the Washington Post) the majority of American's are in favor of this type of reform.
I also want to thank all the Health Care for America Now supporters lobbying on the Hill today. I wish I could have made it, but unfortunately I can't take off work on such short notice - if I loose my job, I loose my health coverage. I will be calling my representatives, however, letting them know I'm with you guys in spirit.
May 5, 2009
Dear Friend:
Thank you for contacting me to express your concern about the outlining advanced interrogation procedures and sharing with me the GWU production. I appreciate your taking the time to share your thoughts on this matter with me.
I am deeply concerned about the recent disclosure of interrogation methods. Three former directors of the Central Intelligence Agency as well as the current director, Leon Panetta, all opposed this action. Former Director Hayden, who also served as Director of National Intelligence, warned that making these documents public would make it more difficult to get useful information from captured terrorists in the future. Hayden also claimed that enhanced interrogation techniques used against terrorist provided critical information and ultimately made us safer.
Like you, I abhor torture and other human rights violations, and I have always been in favor of establishing proper prisoner interrogation standards that do not violate our nation's moral and ethical sensibilities. Yet standards must allow for the collection of valuable intelligence from those who seek to harm and kill Americans.
This current administration may not endorse the interrogation tactics of the previous one, but so long as formal guidelines approved by military and civilian leaders were followed and a bipartisan group of Members of Congress were informed, as they were in these cases, I see no reason to pursue any criminal action. To invest significant time and efforts into past interrogation methods is unhelpful and in no way helps keep our country safe in the future.
As always, if I may be of assistance to you on this, or any other issue, please feel free to contact me in my Washington DC office at (202) 225-6365 or online at www.house.gov/forbes. With kind personal regards, I am
Yours truly,
J. RANDY FORBES
Member of Congress
JRF:JA
Aloha and "right on" John! Every excuse has been used by transnational corporations against a single payer health plan. Why? Because pharmaceutical and insurance corporations stand to lose billions that are being cheated from people who pay medical insurance. Like parrot's, many in the republican party mimic these arguments and don't even understand, or for that matter, base anything they say on fact or personal experience. Many of these people have never been out of the USA! They repeat what dad, uncle, cousin, auntie said, but have no factual basis for what they say.
When someone tells you that they know of someone that had to drive down to the states from Canada to receive prompt health care, ask for a name. I have many times and so far, no one has given me a name or email address so that I can ask the question. However, I have asked people from Canada, England, Norway and France (I recently graduated from online international animation school) and they all seem to like their health care. So... who do I believe... the people who can't give me proof of their assertions, or from people who are friends and give me their "actual" opinion?
The bottom line is that health care costs are crippling American small business owners, the backbone of our economy. Millions of people are going without healthcare. Millions of Americans are paying billions of dollars each year on inadequate health care, being denied services even after paying and going bankrupt.
Since most Americans favor a public health plan, the opposition is now saying that we can't afford it. I say, "how can we not afford it?" We spent trillions on a war in Iraq we were "scammed" into. We allow goods from other countries to enter our country and compete with American made goods without tariffs to compensate for the lack of health care, environmental protection and safe working conditions that are required by our US companies? And we can't afford universal health care for our own citizens?
So what’s it going to take? When will all this blow up in the face of the wealthy elite and cause mass protests in the streets? Unfortunately, I'm cynical after 30 years of apathy from the general populous. Most Americans just don't seem to get it. The following article documents the clintonization of Obama. Campaign as a liberal, yet govern as a conservative.
Foreclosure Fiasco
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090624_foreclosure_fiasco/
By Robert Scheer
It’s not working. The Bush-Obama strategy of throwing trillions at the banks to solve the mortgage crisis is a huge bust. The financial moguls, while tickled pink to have $1.25 trillion in toxic assets covered by the feds, along with hundreds of billions in direct handouts, are not using that money to turn around the free fall in housing foreclosures.
As The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, “The Mortgage Bankers Association cut its forecast of home-mortgage lending this year by 27% amid deflating hopes for a boom in refinancing.” The same association said that the total refinancing under the administration’s much ballyhooed Home Affordable Refinance Program is “very low.”
Aside from a tight mortgage market, the problem in preventing foreclosures has to do with homeowners losing their jobs. Here again the administration, continuing the Bush strategy, is working the wrong end of the problem. Although President Obama was wise enough to at least launch a job stimulus program, a far greater amount of federal funding benefits Wall Street as opposed to Main Street.
State and local governments have been forced into draconian budget cuts, firing workers who are among the most reliable in making their mortgage payments—when they have jobs. Yet the Obama administration won’t spend even a small fraction of what it has wasted on the banks to cover state shortfalls.
California couldn’t get the White House to guarantee $5.5 billion in short-term notes to avert severe cuts in state and local payrolls, from prison guards to schoolteachers. Compare that with the $50 billion already given to Citigroup, plus an astounding $300 billion to guarantee that institution’s toxic assets. Citigroup benefits from being a bank “too big to fail,” although through its irresponsible actions to get that large it did as much as any company to cause this mess.
How big a mess? According to the Federal Reserve’s most recent report, seven straight quarters of declining household wealth have left Americans $14 trillion poorer. Many who thought they were middle class have now joined the ranks of the poor. Food banks are strapped and welfare rolls are dramatically on the rise, as the WSJ reports, with a 27 percent year-to-year increase in Oregon, 23 percent in South Carolina and 10 percent in California. And you have to be very poor to get on welfare, thanks to President Clinton’s so-called welfare reform, which he signed into law before he ramped up the radical deregulation of the financial services industry, enabling our economic downturn.
Citigroup, the prime mover for ending the sensible restraints of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, is now a pathetic ward of the state. But back in the day President Clinton would tour the country with Citigroup founder Sandy Weill touting the wonderful work that Weill and other moguls were doing to invest in economically depressed communities. It wasn’t really happening then, and now millions of folks in those communities have seen their houses snatched from them as if they were just pieces in a game of Monopoly that Clinton and his fat-cat buddy were playing.
Once Weill got the radical deregulation law he wanted, he issued a statement giving credit: “In particular, we congratulate President Clinton, Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, NEC [National Economic Council] Chairman Gene Sperling, Under Secretary of the Treasury Gary Gensler, Assistant Treasury Secretaries Linda Robertson and Greg Baer.”
Summers is now Obama’s top economic adviser, Sperling has been appointed legal counselor at Treasury, and Gensler, a former partner in Goldman Sachs, is head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which he once attempted to prevent from regulating derivatives when it was run by Brooksley Born. Robertson worked for Summers in pushing through the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which freed the derivatives market from adult supervision and contained the “Enron Loophole,” permitting that company to go wild. Robertson then became the top Washington lobbyist for Enron and was recently appointed senior adviser to Fed Chair Ben S. Bernanke. Baer went to work as a corporate counsel for Bank of America, which announced his appointment with a press release crediting him with having “coordinated Treasury policy” during the Clinton years in getting Glass-Steagall repealed. As a result of deregulation, B of A too spiraled out of control and ended up as a beneficiary of the Treasury’s welfare program.
Why was I so naive as to have expected this Democratic president to not do the bidding of the banks when the last president from that party joined the Republicans in giving the moguls everything they wanted? Please, Obama, prove me wrong.
Hey people:
There are only 40 - 49 Senators in the way of historical health care reform. These corporatists are in the way of the American people. They only outnumber us in Dollars and in media propaganda. WE have video cameras on our cell phones. WE can camp out in thier yards. WE can protest on thier streets. WE 72% of 300 plus million AMericans must number what around 220 million? Are we going to let 49 corporatists get in the way of 220 million Americans? Hell no! Unite ! show pictures of these Senators on yachting vacations with corporate lobyists. SHOW THE CORRUPTION! THEY HAVE CNN AND FOX BUT WE HAVE CELL PHONES AND UTUBE!!!!!!!!!! FIGHT!
IN BRAZILIAN JUIJITSU THEY TEACH THAT THE MAN ON THE BOTTOM IN A FIGHT CAN WIN THE FIGHT IF HE IS SKILLED AT FIGHTING FROM THE BOTTOM. THAT IS WHAT WE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE DOING FIGHTING FROM THE BOTTOM. WE CAN WIN BUT WE MUST ORGANIZE AND HIT KEY POINTS. PEACEFULLY ATTACK THE SENATORS WITH THE TRUTH IN THIER OWN FRONT YARDS! THIS IS JUST ONE METHOD THAT I HAVE THOUGHT OF, BUT THERE ARE OTHERS WHO CAN THINK OF DIFFERENT WAYS OF GETTING DOWN AND DIRTY AND VERBALLY AND VISUALLY "GROUND FIGHT" ON THE INTERNET, THESE SENATORS INTO PUBLIC HUMILIATION THROUGH UTUBE EXPOSURE OF THIER CORRUPT BEHAVIOUR.
PEACE
JOHN
Are there still lots of secreted Nazi-Fascists in Argentina?
Wish we weren't losing Thom's full 3-hour show in San Francisco. Any suggestions for hearing Thom's Show live on-line?
Richard Adlof,
RE: Actually, I am surprised that it was a woman . . .
Too true!
RE: Sanford . . .
Why would he resign anything . . . I think his behavior typifies Republican behavior. Actually, I am surprised that it was a woman . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw
I would like to hear Thom's take on The Obama Deception movie, if he has seen it. The way it's presented is really hokie. Nevertheless, conspiracy or no conspiracy, there is a ruling wealthy elite who control the US and this movie attempts to explain how Obama is also a puppet of the same wealthy people who have always been in control. The people out front might change, but the ones pulling the strings have not. Which is why nothing will change until we have publicly funded elections, and nationalize the Federal Reserve. Anyway, the movie keeps talking about the ruling elite's desire for a "New World Order" and I'm not sure what that is.
Did anyone else check out the Michelle Bachmann comic book put out by the folks at DUMP BACHMANN?
http://dumpbachmann.blogspot.com/
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/06/the-bachmann-comic-our-review...
Also, there was Huckleberry's . . . Sorry . . . Huckabee's plan . . . Diet or die.
For your caller on Hillary Clinton’s healthcare plan:
Revisionist much? Ms Clinton did not put forth the best healthcare plan. There were two Democratic candidates with better healthcare plans than Ms Clinton’s . . . Dennis Kucinich advocated a true single-payer AND Ms Clinton’s plan widely parroted John Edward’s plan with greater protections for corporate health insurance providers.
Yes, Ms Clinton’s efforts remain worthy of respect BUT not unnecessarily glorified.
Breaking news from Mark Sanford's press conference!
Sanford:
Don’t fly for me Argentina
The truth is I never was hiking
My wife thought I was writing
Why all the drama
I wasn’t naked
I blame Obama
While watching the government crackdown on the Iranian people a comment was made that the Iranian middle class could not sustain a prolonged general strike because their economy was in bad shape. I was stuck by what Thom has been preaching to us that the wealthy in the US do not want a wealthy middle class in the US so that they can control us and they can keep us from protesting in the street. There it was, being played out right now in front of our own eyes, the ruling classes worst nightmare.