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Without a public option, Obama’s health plan must die

Monday, August 17, 2009

Four weeks ago, I wrote a post “Real Health Reform or Nothing!” that made the case that if we can’t get real health care reform, then progressives in Congress should vote to kill the bill. At the time, I received some emails from people who implied that I was crazy.

So, yesterday, FireDogLake posted “Without a public option, Obama’s health plan must die“. Their point is basically the same as mine — that a bill with a mandate requiring coverage, without a public option, is a huge giveaway to the health insurance industry that will do nothing to bring down the cost of health care. In fact, it may accelerate the rise in the cost of health insurance, since everyone will be required to purchase it no matter how high the cost.

So Democrats have a choice. Failing to pass health care reform may be a huge blow to the Dems. But passing a health care reform bill that requires everyone to pay for health insurance, while costing taxpayers lots of money that goes directly into the pockets of corporations, will probably be a larger blow in the long run (i.e., by the time of the next election).

Let’s be clear — the goal of the Republicans is not to kill health care reform, it is to kill the Democratic party and Obama. This point is well made by an editorial in the NY Daily News:

The most violent opposition isn’t directed at his ideas about health care reform. It is directed at him. It is about him. They couldn’t make enough of a majority to beat the Harvard-educated black guy out of the White House, so they will beat him on an issue where they see him as being most vulnerable.

In the process, they’ll come after him on health care the way Kenneth Starr went after Bill Clinton on oral sex in the Oval Office.

UPDATE: Electoral Vote has a good discussion about health care reform that has an interesting viewpoint. I’m not sure I agree with his conclusions, but he supplies good information.

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GOP attacks are hurting conservatives in the UK

Monday, August 17, 2009

With the UK economy in shambles, everyone expected the Labour Party, headed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, to be defeated soundly in the next elections there. However, US Republican Party attacks on the British National Health Service as part of their campaign to discredit US health care reform are receiving wide coverage there and are causing a backlash. The NHS is so popular in the UK that virtually all politicians, including conservatives, support it, but British Conservative Party links to the US Republican party are causing it to lose popularity quickly.

First, Investor’s Business Daily ran an anti-reform editorial claiming that “scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.” They were forced to retract that when it was pointed out to them that Stephen Hawking is, indeed, British and lives in the UK. Hawking even wrote an editorial (electronically) singing the praises of the NHS.

Then a Conservative Member of the European Parliament, appeared on US TV warning Americans against an NHS-style health care system. UK conservatives tried to distance themselves from his comments, but the damage was already done. Two UK newspapers, including one considered a conservative newspaper, ran articles revealing UK Conservative Party links to Republican NHS bashers.

The latest scandal comes from two British women who claim they were duped into appearing in anti-health reform ads broadcast in the US, and that their words were twisted to make it appear that they were against the NHS. The two women were told that they were participating in a documentary about health care, and their statements were about proposed reforms to the NHS, which both women support. Neither woman was told that their words would be used in an US ads.

The ads were sponsored by the Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, which is run by Rick Scott. Scott was forced to resign as the head of heath provider Columbia/HCA because of massive fraud at the company.

It is interesting that Britain’s health care system, which goes far beyond anything proposed by Obama, is so popular in Britain that even the slightest hint that a party wants to dismantle it will cost them an election.

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Denying Claims

Monday, August 17, 2009

Jim Morin
© Jim Morin

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Understanding

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Rex Babin
© Rex Babin

I like this comic not just because of the irony, but because it raises the question of when does free speech end and offensive speech begin. We all understand that yelling “fire” in a crowded theater is not about free speech, nor is encouraging others to perform illegal acts. But that boundary is very very fuzzy. Like most really good questions, I don’t have an answer for it.

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Protecting us from people with Islamic sounding names

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Bollywood film star Shah Rukh Khan was questioned for over an hour in Newark airport before boarding a flight for Chicago, allegedly because he had a Muslim name. Ironically, Khan is in the US to promote a film on racial profiling.

What I find annoying about this incident is that he was released after two hours because he contacted a politician in India, who then contacted the Indian Embassy in the US. In other words, he probably would have been detained for longer — indeed, the only reason we know about his detention is because he is celebrity. To his credit, Khan himself played down the incident.

For contrast, here’s what is happening to a Pakistani journalist, who is not a celebrity. Rahman Bunairee arrived a week ago with a US visa to begin a years job with the Voice of America in Washington. Bunairee was detained by US immigration, who will not provide any information about the case. A month ago his home was destroyed by the Taliban after he participated in a VOA radio call-in show and discussed continued Taliban presence in the northwest frontier region of Pakistan.

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Late Night Political Humor

Sunday, August 16, 2009

“No, earlier today, President Obama met with the Mexican president, Felipe Calderon, and they discussed the immigration problem. They met at the Mexican president’s home, which, by the way, is now in Los Angeles.” – Conan O’Brien

“President Obama met with the leaders of Mexico and Canada. Obama said he’d work with Mexico to solve the immigration problem, and he’d work with Canada to solve the Celine Dion problem.” – Conan O’Brien

“President Obama is in Guadalajara, Mexico, for his first North American Leaders Summit. Very exciting. After that, he’s expected to hold his first Imodium AD Summit.” – Jimmy Fallon

“These are troubled times, and we need a hero, someone unencumbered by politics as usual. Someone who could kill a moose with one hand and skin a bear with the other. Someone without a job. … Yes! Like a ship slowly appearing over the horizon to an island of castaways, Sarah Palin has arrived with fresh food, clothing and that little box she keeps next to her bed filled with crazy.” – Jon Stewart

“Sarah Palin exposed the shocking truth about Obama’s health care plan, saying that the America she knows is not one where her loved ones will ‘have to stand in front of Obama’s death panel so his bureaucrats can decide … whether they are worthy of health care.’ Bravo, Ms. Palin! That is the most powerful message you’ve written by throwing a handful of magnetic poetry against the fridge.” – Stephen Colbert

“Former President Clinton, of course, in the news a lot lately. Yesterday, former President Clinton gave a speech to a group from Haiti, and he urged them not to give up hope. Clinton said, ‘Things can start to look bleak, and then, all of the sudden, you’re on an airplane with two hot Asian chicks.'” – Conan O’Brien

“And here’s some optimistic news. Kim Jong-Il now says he wants to hold face-to-face talks with the United States. Now all North Korea needs is a big enough stepladder.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Now that Sonia Sotomayor has joined the Supreme Court, one third of the justices are now from New York City. This explains why the customary opening of a court session has changed from ‘All rise’ to ‘Hey, I’m judging over here!'” – Conan O’Brien

“A lot of news this weekend. Sonia Sotomayor was sworn in as the 111th Supreme Court justice and only the third female in history. This is great. Now, Ruth Bader Ginsburg will finally have a yoga buddy.” – Jimmy Fallon

“During his weekly radio address, Obama said we’ve finally begun to put the brakes on this recession, which is good news. Unfortunately, the brakes were built by General Motors.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Regis Philbin’s back in primetime, hosting 11 new episodes of ‘Who Wants To Be a Millionaire.’ But because of Obama’s tax plan, it’s been re-titled ‘Who Wants To Win Just Under $250,000.'” – Jimmy Fallon

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The crazy, upside-down world of digital copyright law

Saturday, August 15, 2009

A federal judge has ruled that while consumers have a right to make a backup copy of a DVD for their own personal use, nonetheless, software to actually make that backup copy is illegal. According to US District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel:

The court appreciates Real’s argument that a consumer has a right to make a backup copy of a DVD for their own personal use. A federal law has nonetheless made it illegal to manufacture or traffic in a device or tool that permits a consumer to make such copies.

The judge granted a preliminary injunction to take the product off the market, but a date has not yet been set for the full trial.

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The Spine that Binds

Saturday, August 15, 2009

ttown971
© Lloyd Dangle

I sure hope this isn’t really true, but if the Dems can’t pass health care reform this year, it may be time to reconsider.

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Late Night Political Humor

Saturday, August 15, 2009

“Bill Clinton has still got it. He’s still got it. He does! You think it’s easy to pick up two chicks in North Korea? But he did. And he brought them home.” -Bill Maher

“Former President Clinton flew back from North Korea on a private jet accompanied by two beautiful reporters who he rescued from being sent to an all-female prison camp. That’s pretty amazing. Yeah. In other words, after years of wasting his time as president, Clinton has finally found his calling. Isn’t that nice?” – Conan O’Brien

“The two women are okay. They said they felt violated and dehumanized by their experience. And that was just the flight home.” -Bill Maher

“The White House was reluctant to send Clinton to North Korea and imposed several conditions on the trip. Yep. First condition was that Clinton travel as a private citizen. Second, that he not negotiate with Kim Jong-Il. And third, he stop calling the trip a ‘booty call.'” – Conan O’Brien

“Have you seen what’s going on with these town halls? I don’t want to say they’re out of control. But they’re starting to show them on ESPN. I haven’t seen old white people this upset since they canceled ‘Murder, She Wrote.'” – Bill Maher

“No, I’m serious, they are giving angry mobs a bad name. … And these people, I’m sorry, they are not the best-informed group of screaming people I’ve seen in my life. Exit polls show that half these people think they’re bidding on a tractor.” – Bill Maher

“And now, there’s actual fist-fights that are breaking out in the town hall meetings. And I have to say this, if you get injured while fighting against health care, you have to lie there and bleed. You just do. I’m sorry.” -Bill Maher

“I saw a thing on YouTube, a town hall meeting in Little Rock, Arkansas. And a woman from Brockside, Arkansas, stood up. She was weeping about the threat of socialism. You know what, lady, Brockside, Arkansas, doesn’t have capitalism yet. Your idea of health care is leeches and moonshine and you’re worried about socialism? Oh, Lord.” – Bill Maher

“But Obama’s getting pissed at this. I don’t blame him. He’s getting testy. He said, ‘If I wanted to hear endless hours of babbling from the aged, I’ll ask Joe Biden a yes-or-no question.'” – Bill Maher

“Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill are in Kiawah Island, South Carolina, for a week-long vacation. That’s great. They’re saying it’s the most relaxing vacation Obama’s ever had. And you can tell when Joe Biden’s been to the beach. He comes back with braided hair plugs. It’s really cute.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Despite losing 200,000 jobs in July, the unemployment rate dropped from 9.5% to 9.4%. I think that means a lot of people got hired to work at the unemployment office.” – Jimmy Fallon

“But that small drop’s not enough for Obama. To get that number down even further, he’s promised to find Paula Abdul a job.” – Jimmy Fallon

“I can’t believe he said this — on his radio show, Rush Limbaugh recently said, ‘Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, ruled by dictate.’ Yeah. So folks, it took a while, but Obama has finally won over Rush Limbaugh.” – Conan O’Brien

“Today was his 200th day in office. Barack Obama has been — wow, he made it. And he said he still loves the job as much as ever. And he loves it so much, he’s thinking about finally doing it and becoming an American citizen.” -Bill Maher

“Mel Martinez, the Senate’s only Hispanic Republican, announced he’s stepping down. When asked why, Martinez said, ‘I’m sick of the other Republicans asking me the difference between a chalupa and a chimichanga.'” – Conan O’Brien

“I thought also the biggest news flash of the week: Sonia Sotomayor is now on the Supreme Court. The Senate confirmed her. She will be — I thought this was interesting — sworn in on Saturday by Chief Justice John Roberts. And that is progress: a Hispanic woman having a white man come in on Saturday.” – Bill Maher

“This is a weird story. Someone recently tried to sell an Xbox that was autographed by Sarah Palin for $1.1 million. Yeah. Unfortunately, the Palin Xbox kept quitting in the middle of every game.” – Conan O’Brien

“Hey, yesterday, did you hear this? Computer hackers managed to shut down Twitter and my favorite, Facebook, for several hours. In a related story, yesterday American productivity jumped by 159%.” – Conan O’Brien

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3,300 registered lobbyists working on health care reform

Saturday, August 15, 2009

There are now 3,300 registered lobbyists working on the current overhaul of the nation’s health care system, which means that the health care lobbyists outnumber members of Congress (including the Senate) by over six to one.

These lobbyists represent over 1,500 organizations (with three more organizations joining the fray each and every day). These organizations have spent $263 million on lobbying during the first six months of 2009, with drug makers leading the spending with $134 million alone. These totals don’t include money spent on other activities, such as the $53 million spent for TV commercials on health care, or the $20.5 million campaign contributions to federal candidates and political parties.

So, if you ever wonder why the politicians don’t listen to the majority of Americans who want single-payer health insurance, just remember that money talks.

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Glenn Beck literally lies his ass off on health care

Friday, August 14, 2009

Jon Stewart catches Glenn Beck lying out of his ass!

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Ironic Divorce and Selective Faith

Friday, August 14, 2009

The man who donated the original money to put the proposition that banned same-sex marriage on the ballot in California is now involved in a very messy divorce to his wife of 43 years.

At the time he donated the money ($125,000) to gather the signatures for Proposition 8, Doug Manchester said “my Catholic faith and longtime affiliation with the Catholic Church leads me to believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman”. Of course, not only is the Catholic Church against gay marriage, they are also strongly opposed to divorce.

But that hasn’t stopped Manchester from pulling money (over $9 million) out of joint bank accounts he shares with his estranged wife, stealing private mail addressed to her, hiding financial assets, possibly forging her name to an $8 million tax refund check from the IRS, and other shenanigans designed to screw his wife and kids. According to petitions filed with the court, his wife alleges that he is “dragging his feet on paying my expenses, refusing to pay certain expenses until I accepted his demands regarding our property division. I believe Doug did this to squeeze me financially. … Respondent was attempting to compel me to settle on his terms by impeding my access to funds for living expenses” (which total $131,625 a month).

Why is it that social conservatives seem to think that all their religious rules apply only to other people?

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Executive Gallows

Friday, August 14, 2009

Tony Auth
© Tony Auth

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Real Power Bipartisanship

Thursday, August 13, 2009

A company in Salt Lake City has announced a new battery that can store enough energy to run your house, and is cheap enough (projected cost $2,000) and has a long enough life (10 years) to make it practical and profitable.

The new battery would make it economical for homes to generate and store their own energy. Even homes that do not generate their own energy from alternative sources such as solar cells (which are rapidly declining in price) or small windmills could charge the batteries using cheap, off-peak power from the grid.

This has stunning implications for our nation’s energy situation. It would solve the huge problem of our aging electrical grid by creating a distributed energy network that doesn’t require moving so much power around on expensive and unsightly power lines. A distributed system would be much harder for terrorists to sabotage than our current centralized system. And much of our current power generation capacity is only used for short periods of peak demand, and sits idle the rest of the time. With batteries smoothing out the demand for power, we could use our current facilities more efficiently, avoiding the need to build new power plants and power lines. All of this means cheaper power and less pollution. And less dependence on foreign oil.

So what is this news doing in a political blog? First of all, the company that is creating this stunning new technology is CoorsTek, founded by Adolph Coors, the same guy who started the well-known beer company. Through the years, the Coors empire has been major funders of right-wing organizations, including the John Birch society, the Heritage Foundation, and an assortment of pro-religion, anti-science organizations.

But today, the great-grandson of Adolph Coors, Grover Coors, is working on the new battery technology. He has a Ph.D. and specializes in solid-state ionics and advanced materials. Grover’s brother, John K. Coors, is the CEO of CoorsTek, and their nephew, Doug Coors, oversees R&D.

Second, one of the main advisors to CoorsTek is Chris Cannon, the former congressman from Utah County (arguably the most conservative district in America). Cannon is not just there for political advice, he has a strong background in energy and manufacturing. And he now calls himself a “post-partisan Republican”, saying:

If you look at the president, he inherited some really difficult things. But he hired a guy to be the secretary of energy who is a scientist. And we are on the verge of so many scientific breakthroughs that no matter what the president’s ideology is, if we do the right thing scientifically, America is going to do well. Many of the innovations that are coming out of Utah that I’m involved with are likely to be really important, regardless of the leadership.

So while current Republicans in Congress criticized Obama’s energy proposals as “economic back-breakers”, Cannon is taking advantage of those proposals to create a new, more vibrant economy.

The technology could mean a lot of things, but it certainly means that we change the way we invest. It also means that we shift our expenditures on terrorism, because our infrastructure for power transmission is probably the weakest link in America today. If you have local batteries with local control, that gives terrorists a more difficult target. And local control systems are much simpler than a vast national transmission grid.

And finally, the new battery is based on sodium, a toxic material that is a byproduct in the production of nuclear weapons. The US government just happens to have enormous quantities of sodium at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington, which it needs to clean up safely. So in a way, the batteries are made from materials recycled from nuclear bomb production!

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I can’t help it – I totally disagree with this comic, but I still think it is funny

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Chuck Asay
© Chuck Asay

Of course, Chuck Asay jumps on the “death panel” bandwagon, even though it has been completely debunked. I was even tempted to change the label “Nanny Gov’t” to “Insurance Companies”.

I believe this is the first time I’ve ever posted a comic from Asay (or as some people call him, Ass-ay). But surprisingly, just the day before this, he actually wrote a comic critical of the Republicans:

dim-21
© Chuck Asay

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