Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
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"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion. |
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Why, look, it's health care reform! Sort of.
♦ It's been obvious for months that the Democrats' health care reform would leave millions of people without health care, that the delays in the small print — changes that won't take effect, by design, for years — will leave huge numbers of people to suffer and die. The legislation was written by or, shall we say, "in collaboration with" insurance industry lobbyists, so we won't waste a moment feigning surprise that it's close to toothless when it comes to punishing insurance companies for killing people. But on the other hand, it's eager to punish ordinary people via the IRS for the new crime of not buying health insurance from those giant killer insurance companies. There's a lot of favorable buzz about how it's supposed to bring coverage to 31,000,000 people who don't have coverage now, but of course, what that means is that 31,000,000 people are required to buy health insurance. All in all it's pretty damned sad to watch our alleged leaders pronounce this catastrophe a victory, as if it's something to brag about. And it's a little extra stab in the gut to see that Dems didn't "lose", because at no point in this entire dance of death did any but a few of the Democrats even try to bring about a meaningful fix of America's deadly health care system. ♦ Raw Story decided to count the countless victims, and put a number to their misery, and their conclusion is that 135,000 American citizens will die due to a lack of health insurance before current proposed health care reform measures would take effect. And this, dear folks, is what the President, the Democratic leadership, and far too many voices of alleged leftish punditry want us to accept as a victory — 135,000 dead Americans. Heck of a fine Christmas present, eh? ♦ In running for President, Barack Obama often invoked the memory of his mother as he called passionately for health care reform. His mother, you might recall, died of ovarian cancer while battling an uncaring insurance company for the coverage she'd paid for. And there's nothing in the pending legislation that would change the way the insurance industry screwed over President Obama's mother.
♦ The more I read about the notion of taxing "Cadillac health plans" to pay for the "health care reform", the more it sounds like a sorry idea to me. ♦ Former President Bill Clinton has endorsed the current health care reform legislation. Count that as another red flag, another enormous reason to oppose it. ♦ To more emphatically flip off poor Americans, Senate Democrats have agreed to ban importation of affordable prescription drugs from other countries. Thirty Democrats in the Senate and the infamous Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut) voted to effectively shut down one of the few ways for non-rich Americans to get affordable meds. A related question: Are you going to get all enthusiastic and ring doorbells and work the phones for the Democrats in 2010? Another question: Do you know anyone who will? ♦ From media accounts and a lot of the Left's reaction, you'd think Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut) is to blame for scuttling health care reform. He's always portrayed as negotiating in bad faith, a thorn in the Democrats' side, and he's suddenly said he'll filibuster health care reform if it includes a Medicare buy-in provision — even though Lieberman has publicly called for a Medicare buy-in for about nine years now. I don't believe the big change of heart — do you? Lieberman is invited to every Democratic Party caucus and meeting, he's a committee chair, he's very much a Democratic Party insider. He seems to relish playing the role of the bad guy, but the evidence suggests that he's just doing what the Democrats and the Obama administration want. When Lieberman did his complete about face and said he couldn't possibly support what he's supported in the past, effectively sinking the last shreds of anything progressive in the legislation — the White House said nothing. Because what Lieberman wants is what the Obama administration wants, and vice versa. He's the administration's key to watering down health care reform. And meanwhile, the same Obama insiders couldn't wait to blast Howard Dean for stating the obvious, that this ain't health care reform and ain't worth supporting. Former Governor Dean (D-Vermont) is a doctor, a respected voice for health care reform, and about as liberal as an American politician is allowed to be, and he's a thorn in this administration's side, while Joe Lieberman is an ally to the White House. I'll wager that most of the people who voted for Barack Obama last year thought it would be the other way around. Suckers. ♦ Observe and listen closely, as President Obama again tells the left, the voters who put him in office, that they're about to be screwed. Again. ♦ And now, a moment with Glenn Greenwald: "Of all the posts I wrote this year, the one that produced the most vociferous email backlash — easily — was this one from August, which examined substantial evidence showing that, contrary to Obama's occasional public statements in support of a public option, the White House clearly intended from the start that the final health care reform bill would contain no such provision and was actively and privately participating in efforts to shape a final bill without it." ♦ I know I've said this before and I apologize for the rerun, but I can't shut myself up. Common sense called for a single-payer, universal health care system, but that was compromised away. Instead the common-sense crowd was offered a public option, the definition of which kept getting smaller and smaller until the "public" who'd have such an "option" could fit in a Moose Lodge. As the public option was compromised away there was a momentary infatuation with some sort of Medicare buy-in, which was, of course, promptly compromised away. What's left is crap, with little that's bothersome to the insurance giants &mdash rules against rejections for “pre-existing conditions” and rules against rescission (rules which will probably prove easy to circumvent) and certainly such rules won't outweigh the profits in requiring millions and millions and millions more Americans to pay premiums for awful, unreliable, and just plain deadly "health insurance". And the compromising isn't over yet. There's more compromise to come, more health care, more health, and more lives to be surrendered in the political give and take, which when Dems are in power becomes the political give and give some more. Give it another week or two and this ugly pile of batcrap is going to get even worse. Most Americans don't follow politics closely, and they're probably only dimly aware that health care reform is being debated. When Americans realize that the Democrats' "health care reform" means they'll be required to spend money to buy health insurance, a lot of Americans are going to be furious. And not just "tea baggers" and Republicans and conservatives and cheapskates — lots of ordinary Americans who might otherwise find themselves annoyed at Democrats on election day. And that's just with the facts of the matter — just try to imagine how much worse it'll look when the Republican Lie Machine describes what I've just described. So even disregarding all the myriad aspects of Just Plain Crap in the health care reform legislation, even disregarding the millions of people who won't be covered and the thousands and thousands who'll be condemned to die under this "health care reform", even disregarding how this "health care reform" is a gift-wrapped Christmas present for Big Insurance, even disregarding everything else, the plain fact of requiring Americans to buy health insurance is going to make millions of Americans despise the Democratic Party. If this lousy "health care reform" bill passes, Dems get a demoralized Democratic Party base because nobody likes being sold down the river, and they get a new generation of Americans who'll hate Democrats. Yeah, this could very well do for Democrats what Watergate did for Republicans — and I guess, that's what Democrats want.
♦ Of course, it's not yet too late for the Democrats to pull their asses out of the fire. Pass a universal Medicare buy-in that would let any American buy into Medicare coverage for a break-even price. Millions and millions would sign up, and they'd have good health coverage and they'd be happy with it. And Dems could do this through reconciliation, with a mere 51 votes needed to pass it in the Senate. They have the 51 votes, I'm pretty sure. It's only the will and the spine that they lack. Which is no surprise. ♦ After ex-Gov Dean criticized the latest compromise, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) ripped into Dean with about twenty-two times the backbone and ferocity I've ever seen Rockefeller display against a Republican. ♦ So which was more gag-me corrupt, the bribe to Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) for his unnecessary vote, or last week's bribe to Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) for her unnecessary vote? ♦ Blue Shield of California is threatening to violate state law by skipping the grace period and immediately canceling coverage for anyone late with a payment. ♦ Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has snuck some actually good stuff into the legislation. ♦ Here's a quick but solid debunking of several of the anti-reform gang's arguments. ♦ A few months ago I hated Ben Nelson, Max Baucus, Joe Lieberman, and all the other key players in this friggin' mess, and I rather disliked the President. Now there's nobody involved who hasn't moved to the bottom rung of the totem in my estimation. And of course, my opinion and yours don't matter in the slightest to these people, 'cuz you and I aren't millionaires. ♦ No more pink ribbons for me. Dunno why this idea hasn't popped up before — The wife of Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut) is on the executive masthead at the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the "Race for the Cure" folks who allegedly care about breast cancer. I care about breast cancer plenty, but so long as Mrs Lieberman's husband is working to kill 44,000 Americans annually — that's the death toll from lack of health insurance — Susan Komen gets nuthin from me. And I'll be pulling for anyone who challenges any of the schmucks in the primaries. ♦ Here's a Research 2000 poll that sounds about right. Likely voters support the public option, 59% to 31%, but for mandates without a public option — which looks like what we're getting — the support collapses to 33% for, 56% against. We'll see repercussions come election day, count on it, every election day for the rest of your life. ♦ OK, enough about this god-awful health care reform sell-out. I need to calm down and swallow a couple of generic Rolaids. In other news... ♦ A friend of ours was aboard a train that struck a car and killed two people at a crossing last week, and it spurred him toward some serious thinking about how common such tragedies are. 1,600 people were killed in similar wrecks at train crossings since 2000, according to a 2004 article in the New York Times. And there's precious little evidence that anyone anywhere near the wheels of power cares.
♦ In keeping with the Obama administration's policy and explicit request, the US Supreme Court says torture victims can't sue for damages. Here's what you need to know in a nutshell: "By refusing to hear the case, the Court let stand an earlier opinion by the D.C. Circuit Court which found that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a statute that applies by its terms to all “persons” did not apply to detainees at Guantanamo, effectively ruling that the detainees are not persons at all for purposes of U.S. law." In refusing to hear the case, the Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling that no Americans could be held liable because “torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military’s detention of suspected enemy combatants.” Any questions? Any confusion about what this means? I don't think so. What it means seems pretty dang plain to me. The constitution and the law are all very well and good when they're in the government's favor, but when the constitution has been violated or laws have been broken by the government, the government will decide which persons are persons and which persons aren't persons, and torture is to be expected. Remember that next time the media goes into panic mode because an American soldier is being held by an enemy and maybe tortured, and if you still don't understand the implications, go ask Stalin. ♦ In keeping with the Bush-Cheney stance on "state secrets", the Obama administration is seeking to derail another lawsuit by torture victims, claiming that national security requires that the case not be heard. I could add a few paragraphs of further muttering about the emptiness of the constitution and the charade of a President who's a "constitutional scholar", but wouldn't you and I both prefer that I do something more productive, like mop the bathroom floor? ♦ The Obama administration's CIA is "working closely" with a group known for kidnapping and torturing members of Hamas in Palestine. And the more things don't change, the more things remain the same. ♦ The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is holding "disappeared" people in almost 200 unmarked holding pens, many located in unmarked commercial spaces in suburban office parks and strip malls. In 2008 a high-level ICE official bragged at a conference of law enforcement officers, "If you don't have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he's illegal, we can make him disappear". Even twenty years ago people would have been infuriated at news like this, but America is basically over now and I doubt this will even be "newsworthy" outside the pages of The Nation and other left-wing mags.. ♦ Oklahoma County District Judge Daniel Owens has extended the temporary restraining order blocking Oklahoma's bizarre anti-abortion law that would require that details of every abortion be reported and posted on a state website. ♦ I'm actually a get-tough-on-crime type when it comes to sex crimes, especially sex crimes against children, but I haven't yet seen a "get tough" law that could differentiate between sex crimes and just plain sex. Cases like this, where a 17-year-old's life is utterly trashed because he boinked his 15-year-old girlfriend, are commonplace and infuriating. ♦ Gay marriage has been legalized in the nation's capitol. ♦ The Obama administration will (or at least they're hoping to) start transferring prisoners from Guantanamo to that otherwise empty brand-new prison in Illinois. This is, of course, just the sensible, constitutional, American thing to do. It's as obvious as frying an egg before eating it. There's just no way to get from Point A (we're running an illegal concentration camp outside the bounds of US law) to Point B (so let's not) without moving prisoners to American soil. It's so staggeringly obvious that it's quite difficult for me to work up the will to type anything about it beyond "About time". But the anti-American camp — the people opposed to all concepts of justice ordinarily described as "American" — have worked themselves into a froth over this, with claims that it'll inspire a flurry of terrorist attacks on Illinois and the prisoners will all escape, or a court will declare them all citizens and set them free, or they'll convert every American car thief and drug addict in prison to wild-eyed jihadis, or I don't know what else. So this first, tiny, obvious step toward common sense and what's quaintly called "American values" will be controversial, and it's a controversy we really can't win. As with so many other non-controversies raised to the level of hysteria, nothing that can be said from the sensible side that can come close to matching the screams and imagined horror from the loony-bin side. On the teevee, it'll be another argument between passionate freaks and ... basically nobody on the other side, because how do you argue with passionate freaks on issue after issue after issue without losing your voice or your marbles or both? ♦ Freedom of speech has been suspended by law in Canada, at least until after the Olympics ends. ♦ Judge Cormac Carney (appointed by Bush43 in 2002) has dismissed charges against two senior executives with Broadcom, and sharply criticized the "potentially criminal wrongdoing" of federal prosecutors in the case. It's a Bush-Cheney era case, but the man primarily responsible, US Attorney George S. Cardona, is one of the numerous holdovers, still in office in the Obama administration. ♦ Some 22,000,000 White House emails hidden, lost, deleted, and lied about during the Bush-Cheney administration have been recovered, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (donate) and the National Security Archive (donate) have settled their lawsuits over the matter. The content of the emails will, with a little luck and a lot of redacting, be available to the public in about five years. Our prediction: The emails will reveal massive lawbreaking, but really nothing more than what's already known and being ignored. Check back in 2014 and we'll see.
♦ Ah, but on the other hand, if you're Citigroup the IRS has your back. "The Internal Revenue Service on Friday issued an exception to long-standing tax rules for the benefit of Citigroup and a few other companies partially owned by the government. As a result, Citigroup will be allowed to retain billions of dollars worth of tax breaks that otherwise would decline in value when the government sells its stake to private investors." ♦ Reduce the minimum wage. That's the economic solution proposed by Charles Lane, who's paid to have such opinions by the Washington Post. ♦ The Senate Banking Committee has given the colossally incompetent Ben Bernanke, Time's idea of a Man of the Year and Obama's choice to head the Fed, a green light for another chance to screw things up. The vote was 16-7, which means that at least 16 Senators know even less than I do about economics. Bernanke is to the American economy what Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) is to the world's environment. ♦ Hidden deep in the small print of the Obama administration's rescue program for mortgage-holders in arrears is an itsy-bitsy piece of legalese that says "borrowers must waive important notification rights. This clause allows banks to reject borrowers without any written notification and move straight to auctioning off their homes without any warning". Sweet, as usual, for the bankers. ♦ "Whack-a-mole" has been recreated as "Whack-a-banker", and it's very popular. ♦ President Obama's "get tough" meeting and statements for big bankers last week was all "a PR stunt", says a senior executive present for the meeting with Obama. "He might have sounded mean on 60 Minutes, but during the meeting he was a hell of a lot nicer". It's all so very of course, isn't it? ♦ The woman arrested and jailed for filming her sister's birthday party at a movie theater can sue, but she probably can't win, because American law has been crafted so thoroughly to Hollywood's request that the theater's action probably isn't actionable. ♦ Take a peek behind the teller's counter, and see how big banks screw poor customers. ♦ Washington Mutual, or WaMu, is long gone and its death is basically ancient history, so why was it shut down so quick, while other probably equally teetering banks, like Wells Fargo, were allowed to live? ♦ Google has lost a copyright case in France, where a court has ruled that the search giant must pay for its unauthorized scanning of books for its Google Book search. I love Google Book search and use it quite often, and I can't see how the court's ruling is wrong. ♦ At a luxury hotel in Miami, the management installed a very powerful water filter to improve the quality of the hotel's drinking water. The filter was apparently so powerful it filtered the chlorine out of the water, thus providing a cozy breeding ground for bacteria and killing at least one hotel guest.
♦ Looks like the people involved in the coup will get political amnesty.
♦ More bad news for high fructose corn syrup in another batch of research. I've never seen any good news about NFCS, unless you count research funded by Monsanto or the HFCS lobby. The stuff is poison, and it's in most processed food that Americans buy at the grocery store. ♦ Why do so many transit buses run empty or nearly empty at off-peak times or in distant corners of the metro? This guy's reasoning makes sense to me, and he says it's politics, and because buses provide a needed service even in the distant 'burbs. ♦ I have seen about a hundred headlines this week marking the departure of Charles Gibson from ABC's World News Tonight. I grew curious and clicked at approximately the 20th and again the 50th and 90th article, but at no point did I find anything Mr Gibson accomplished in his long stint as a newscaster besides showing up on time and looking good in a suit and maybe reading what was written for him better than Ted Baxter did. Mr Gibson retires a millionaire, and decades of news remain unreported. ♦ Here's an interesting, rather well-written speech by Mark Lloyd, the media diversity guy at the FCC who's been ceaselessly smeared by the right-wing's fleet of professional and amateur liars. It's worth reading the whole dang thing, but the money quote is here: "And then came the attacks. Andy Schwartzman was the first to warn me about an obscure right wing blog that was distorting my views about the First Amendment. The blogs continued and spread different exaggerations and distortions, they were picked up by radio and cable and then YouTube, Facebook, and Wikipedia, and then by so-called news services and newspapers, the NRA and other association newsletters, e-mail blasts from church groups ... and then to certain public officials. "Allow me to clear away some mud: I am not a Czar appointed by President Obama. I am not at the FCC to restore the Fairness Doctrine through the front door or the back door, or to carry out a secret plot funded by George Soros to get rid of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck or any other conservative talk show host. I am not at the FCC to remove anybody, whatever their color, from power. I am not a supporter of Hugo Chavez. The right wing smear campaign has been, in a word — incredible, generating hate mail and death threats. It is the price we pay for freedom of speech. And I do support free speech." ♦ The anti-rape amendment introduced by Senator Al Franken (D-Minnesota) to the fury of pro-rape Republicans has survived, so far. It's in the final version of the Defense Spending Bill. ♦ Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour (R-Of Course) is unlikely to even read the brief of falsely accused criminals seeking clemency, but he's pretty dang likely to issue pardons to cold-blooded killers who do odd jobs around his mansion. He's pardoned at least five, so far.
If we lived in a sane society or if Barbour was a Democrat that would be pretty much the end of his career. But we don't and he's a Republican, so he's immune. Note that Slate's coverage comes from a year-and-a-half-old newspaper's coverage, coverage I'd never seen, coverage that went nowhere, just like Slate's coverage will go nowhere. ♦ So uberlibertarian Rand Paul (son of Ron) had to fire his Senate campaign spokesman when it turned out, to Paul's alleged surprise, that he's a racist. Is anyone really surprised when Republicans turn out to be racists? ♦ Congressman Alan Grayson (D-Florida), who's been one of the few stalwart voices for genuine health care reform, is apparently a nut with no understanding or respect for the First Amendment. He's asked Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate and prosecute a site that mocks him. Cripes, and this is one of the few "good guys". ♦ President Obama, you lie. ♦ Pennsylvania's Attorney General, Tom Corbett, continues his long-running and clearly politically-motivated investigations of his likely political opponents. ♦ "We could learn from the Pilgrims by understanding that the Bible is not just a book of how to be nice to people, it is an entire blueprint for the way civilization can be structured." Words of staggering stupidity from US Congressman Todd Akin (R-Missouri). ♦ Last year's Republican candidate for President, that ol' maverick John McCain, continues to be a lying sack of sh*t. ♦ And his running mate, Sarah Palin, wins "Lie of the Year" honors from politifact.com. ♦ David Axelrod, one of President Obama's key people, says the filibuster format is part of the Senate's "time-honored rules", and journalist James Fallows points out that Axelrod's basically wrong, as the rule hasn't been in place that long and has only been regularly abused for a few years now. But Fallows declines to point out what I think is increasingly obvious — Axelrod, Obama, and the Democrats like the filibuster the way it is, because it allows Republicans to keep the brakes on everything, blocking any real reform in any policy matter — and Axelrod, Obama, and the Democrats want meaningful change blocked. ♦ A flight attendant treated Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York) like an ordinary person instead of the high-fallutin' jackass of a Senator that he is, and Senator Schumer freaked. ♦ The headline says "Rapist ex-lawmaker claims copyright on his name, threatens legal action against anyone who uses it without permission, and reading that I just knew he'd be a Republican. Guess what? He's a Republican. ♦ Charges have been dropped against a woman who videotaped a few minutes of a movie while taping her sister's birthday party at a movie theater. Still, she spent two nights in jail, racked up fat legal bills, and her arrest came at the order of management at a Muvico Theater in Rosemont, Illinois, so here's hoping the woman's legal response is focused right there. ♦ Domino's is changing its pizza recipe to get out of last place in taste tests, but they'll always be in last place to me, thanks to nutty co-founder Thomas Monaghan. ♦ Unknown News is updated once weekly, usually on Mondays. Have a seat and some cheese puffs but please, no smoking. With a tip o' the hat to AK for free quick and efficient software assistance, Daniel D. and the letter Z, JR Mooneyham, Little Green Footballs, Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog, Bad Attitudes, Body Impolitic, Arthur D. Hlavaty, Southern Beale, Washington's Blog, Unreasonable Faith, Sherri B., Cassandra, Joseph D., Joe G., Lon Garm, J.S. (not the Watergate felon) Magruder at Why Not Resist?, SirJ, Bill T., Wig, our first home at pitas.com (1999-2003, and still a great place for publishing your blog), and the love of my life (who prefers to remain anonymous).
Recommended sites for gathering unknown or underreported news: Media Matters Pro Publica ThinkProgress Washington Monthly TruthOut
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