A 2nd Quote of the Day

Found it on All Hat No Cattle:

“But according to a newly released memo from the CIA, they used horrible torture techniques on prisoners. Dick Cheney claimed that it wasn’t torture. Enhanced interrogation techniques, that’s what he called it, enhanced interrogation technique. And he didn’t shoot that guy in the face. No, no, that was enhanced quail hunting.”

-David Letterman

Needs no further comment.

Lunacy Marks The Right… and what are we doing about it?

clipped from tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com Gun-Toter From Obama Event: I, Like My Pastor, Want The President To Die The violent anti-Obama sentiment coming out of central Arizona managed to get still more toxic over the weekend. Chris Broughton, the man who brought an AR-15 rifle and a handgun to an Arizona Obama rally earlier this month, says he “concurs” with his fundamentalist pastor’s prayer for President Obama “to die and go to hell.” And in an interview with a local TV station, pastor Steven Anderson himself elaborated on his statement to TPMmuckraker that he would prefer Obama to die of natural causes so “he’s not some martyr.” “I don’t want him to be a martyr, we don’t need another holiday. I’d like to see him die, like Ted Kennedy, of brain cancer,” Anderson now says. Broughton said of Anderson’s controversial August 16 “Why I Hate Barack Obama” sermon: “I concur, I think we’d be better off if God would send [Obama] where he’s going now instead of later. [Obama] is destroying our country.”

Broughton said he moved to the Tempe area to attend Anderson’s storefront church, which is an “old-fashioned, independent, fundamental, King James Bible only, separated Baptist church.”

Roughly 24 hours after attending Anderson’s anti-Obama sermon, Broughton made national headlines when he showed up heavily armed to an Obama event in Phoenix.

The Secret Service says they’re aware of the latest out of Arizona and “appropriate follow up will be conducted.”

Umhm…sure.

If you are an Organic Food person…

… like Elly and me, then this article in the NY Times, ‘Non-GMO’ Seal Identifies Foods Mostly Biotech Free, will be of more than passing interest.

Here’s part of it:

clipped from www.nytimes.com Alarmed that genetically engineered crops may be finding their way into organic and natural foods, an industry group has begun a campaign to test products and label those that are largely free of biotech ingredients. With farmers using gene-altered seeds to grow much of North America’s corn, soybeans, canola and sugar, ingredients derived from biotech crops have become hard for food companies to avoid. But many makers of organic and natural foods are convinced that their credibility in the marketplace requires them to do so. The industry group, the Non-GMO Project, says its new label is aimed at reassuring consumers and will be backed by rigorous testing. “There’s a vulnerability here that the industry is addressing,” said Michael J. Potter, the founder and president of Eden Foods and a board member of the Non-GMO Project, the organization responsible for the testing and labeling campaign. The initials GMO stand for genetically modified organism.

Quote of the Day (a Doozy!)

“I think the interrogations were in violation of the Geneva Convention against torture that we ratified under President Reagan. I think that these interrogations, once publicized, helped al Qaeda recruit.”

- Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), in an interview on Face the Nation, on the Bush administration’s interrogation methods.

Looks like McCain and Cheney are not in the same Party.

(Thanks to Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire)

Oh Canada…

I was watching Dr. Robert Ouellet, the President of the Canadian Medical Association, on C-Span’s Morning Edition as he took calls and questions on Canada’s single-payer system. The most important thing he did was blow holes in the myths which are being actively promoted by the Right-wing health opponents. I wish everyone could be watching or listening to this and, if as is the case on Sundays, C-Span reruns this morning’s program on C-Span 3 in the afternoon, then it would be worth catching it and listening.

In connection with this program, I would refer you to a long article I read last night on Truthout, titled “Don’t Get Sick.” by Gail Pellet, a Canadian living in the United States, who makes a detailed defense of Canada’s system and part of the history of how it came about as a result of the work of T. C. (Tommy) Douglas, a Baptist minister turned politician in Saskatchewan (and, interestingly enough, the grandfather of Kiefer Sutherland.)

This from the article:

In 2004, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation conducted a poll to determine whom Canadians thought was the greatest Canadian of all time. It was not Pierre Trudeau, Joni Mitchell, Dan Aykroyd, Leonard Cohen, Margaret Atwood, Lorne Michaels, Oscar Peterson, Peter Jennings, Celine Dion, Neil Young, Keanu Reeves, nor Wayne Gretzky. It wasn’t even Keifer Sutherland or his dad, Donald. No, it was Keifer Sutherland’s grandfather, Tommy Douglas, who is credited with making sure that Canadians would have universal, government-funded health care. When Canadians are periodically polled and asked what they are most proud of, in addition to peacekeeping, it is their national health care system.

The Canadian system is single-payer, however YOU select your doctor (sounds a little like what Obama keeps saying and the Repiglicans keep denying). Ouellet, who is the outgoing President of the CMA, originally spent a great deal of effort to get the Canadian system privatized, until a polling of the country revealed that 85% of the population wanted to improve the public system and had no interest in privatization. He then worked to strengthen the one area that has been called up as weak and that is waiting periods for some procedures in some parts of the country. He points out that these are not that great and in the last couple of years since the 2004 poll have been greatly reduced. It should be noted that NONE of the complaints about waiting periods apply to emergencies or necessary needs of major diseases. As one person on the phone with Ouellet on C-Span said: “If you have cancer, Canada is the best place to be.”

It is problematic that we, as Americans, don’t like to listen to other countries and their successes. We have had the same response to systems in Great Britain and France that we have had to Canada, that is, we are unique, and special, etc.etc. etc…. meanwhile our lives are shorter in length and we are further down on the scale (37th exactly) when compared to the Health Care programs in other countries. This is our peculiar problem, and we suffer for it.

By the way, if you are interested in how Tommy Douglas got Saskatchewan and then the whole country to move toward the program they have now, then you might be interested in a speech he is famous for when he founded the New Democratic Party. It’s called “Mouseland” and this animated video is introduced by Kiefer Sutherland HERE Note… this is not about Health Care, but about political change and, glory be, it applies to us as well.

Quote of the Day

From Bill Moyers on the Bill Maher Television program:

“The problem is the Democratic Party. This is a party that has told its progressives — who are the most outspoken champions of health care reform — to sit down and shut up. That’s what Rahm Emanuel, the Chief of Staff at the White House, in effect told progressives who stood up as a unit in Congress and said: “no public insurance option, no health care reform.”

“And I think the reason for that is — in the time since I was there, 40 years ago, the Democratic Party has become like the Republican Party, deeply influenced by corporate money. I think Rahm Emanuel, who is a clever politician, understands that the money for Obama’s re-election will come from the health care industry, from the drug industry, from Wall Street. And so he’s a corporate Democrat who is determined that there won’t be something in this legislation that will turn off these interests. . . .”

I thank Glenn Greenwald’s Salon blog for pointing this one out. The videos of the whole program can be seen Here, Here, and Here.

Food for Thought from a Slate Article

Now and then you read a post on the web that DOES make you think in a little different direction than you have been thinking.

An example for me is an article I just read in Slate called The Republican Death Machine by Jacob Weisberg.

It takes off with Senator Charles Grassley telling a Town Hall meeting that Obama was going to “Pull the plug on grandma,” and then continues into a new direction:

It was Sen. Grassley himself who rammed the GOP’s most astonishing pro-death policy through the Senate in 2001. The estate-tax revision he championed reduces the estate tax to zero next year. But when the law expires at year’s end, the tax will jump back up to its previous level of 55 percent. Grassley’s exploding offer has an entirely foreseen if unintended consequence: It’s going to encourage those whose parents and grandparents are worth anything more than a million bucks to get them dead by midnight on Dec. 31, 2010.

Just the idea of some greedy youngsters wanting to make sure Mom and Pop have folded their tents in time for the kiddies to earn the big bucks tax free is chilling. Weisberg goes on with this:

In a 2001 paper titled “Dying To Save Taxes,” Wojciech Kopczuk and Joel Slemrod examined 13 tax changes since 1917 and concluded that “for individuals dying within two weeks of a tax reform, a $10,000 potential tax savings … increases the probability of dying in the lower-tax regime by 1.6 percent.” A 2006 study done in Australia, which abolished its inheritance tax in 1979, reached the same conclusion: “a statistically significant effect of the abolition of inheritance taxes on the number of deaths.” More than half the people who, according to statistics, ordinarily would have paid the Aussie inheritance tax in its final week managed to evade it by living a bit longer. Here, Congress has created an incentive for Grandma to stick around through Jan. 1, 2010, then snuff it before the end of next year.

He discusses Social Security which, since it was enacted, has had the effect that people live longer and it has pushed death rates at ages that were previously high down to more reasonable levels. When Republicans started to campaign for privatizing Social Security, income security for the elderly would probably be lost and death rates would rise at earlier ages. Ah, the joy of statistics!

So the question is:

Why are Republicans trying to kill America’s old people? After all, senior citizens are more likely to vote for the GOP than for Democrats. They were the only substantial demographic segment John McCain won in 2008. You’d think Republicans would want them to hang on as long as possible. The problem is that because of the Democratic programs Social Security and Medicare, the aged are expensive for government to keep around.

Speaking as one of the getting more elderly everyday crowd, it is clear to me why I am a Democrat. And when I hear the folks on the Right push the “Obama is out to get Grandma” routine, I can show that it is the other way ’round.

The Right will use Kennedy’s passing to fight Health Care Reform

Watching Teddy’s Memorial Service on MSNBC while I am surfing the web and discovering that the radical right web sites are using the occasion to say some of the nastiest things about him, about liberals and about and public option health plan. I’ve been looking at blogs entitled “It Ain’t America No More!” and “The Mary Jo Kopechne Right to Life Bill” and “Gun Grabbers Rush to Exploit Ted Kennedy’s Death” and “The Ted Kennedy moral whitewash peaks today.” I could go on (and I didn’t put in links, since, if you want to read this crap, you can go find it yourself.)

A lot of right-wing writing is trying to ward off the push that Kennedy’s death is giving liberals to pass Health Care. This, I guess, is to be expected.

At least we can make fun of the right’s anti- health care reform stand, as Mark Fiore shows in this animation:

Quote of my Lifetime

“A common mistake that people make when
trying to design something completely foolproof is
to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”

- Douglas Adams

As I see whole masses of people who have very little being used by people who have a great deal… ie: the way the Insurance Industry has gotten the right-wing poor to support a Health Care setup that will make them poorer… the words of the late Douglas Adams become a striking revelation.

Ezra Klein points out why Chuck Grassley is not going to support Health Care

Whatever use he is in The Gang of Six is minimal. I hope Obama realizes that this is not a source for bipartisanship. Here’s part of the column:

clipped from voices.washingtonpost.com The Pressure on Chuck Grassley Most of the commentary on Chuck Grassley’s truculence and back-pedaling has focused on his potential primary challenge and fear of the Iowa electorate. The more plausible argument is that Grassley fears his fellow Republican senators. I’m hearing that Grassley is getting reamed out in meetings with his colleagues. The yelling is loud enough that staffers in adjacent offices have heard snippets. But the real threat isn’t the yelling of his colleagues. It’s their capacity to deny Grassley his next job. This is the final year that Grassley is eligible to serve as ranking member — the most powerful minority member, and, if Republicans retake the Senate, the chairman — of the Senate Finance Committee. His hope is to move over as ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, or failing that, the Budget Committee. But for that, he needs the support of his fellow Republicans. And if he undercuts them on health-care reform, they will yank that support.

So now we know who comes first for Grassley: The American People or Himself.

Cartoon of the Week

Jeff Danziger, New York Times Syndicate:

Why do we get involved with these guys?

Quote of the Day

“Republicans now say that if Kennedy had not been forced by illness to relinquish the chairmanship of that committee, he would have negotiated away the strongest provisions of that bill to win passage.

“Kennedy’s Republican friends should not make that disingenuous argument in his lamented absence. Lest there be any doubt about what he truly wanted, his bill includes a robust public option along with all the insurance reforms and cost controls that the president has endorsed since this process began.

“How would he have handled the intransigence and dishonesty of the Republican opposition? We know that he could shout as well as whisper — and that he could be partisan as well as bipartisan. He believed that the time for incremental changes had passed. He was ready to fight. The tragedy of his death is not only that he didn’t see the triumph he had dreamed, but that he fell before he could lead the nation to that final victory. Now that victory will have to be won in his name.”

- Joe Conason in an article entitled Ted Kennedy Wanted The Public Option.

Capitalism: A Love Story – Michael Moore’s new film opens on October 2

Here’s the trailer:

Looks like he’s in rare form…

Health care Fit For Animals

That’s the title of  Nicholas Kristof’s fine Op-Ed this morning, where he discusses the revelations on health insurance made by former CIGNA publicist Wendell Potter.

He discusses the techniques that the insurance companies use to deny coverage while raking in huge profits… and makes it clear that this is where change MUST take place… change that more or less mandates a public option.
From Kristof:

“All this is monstrous, and it negates the entire point of insurance, which is to spread risk.

“The insurers are open to one kind of reform — universal coverage through mandates and subsidies, so as to give them more customers and more profits. But they don’t want the reforms that will most help patients, such as a public insurance option, enforced competition and tighter regulation.”

Read the WHOLE COLUMN and pass it on to those who need convincing.

Quote of the Day

I was reading some of the World press on Afghanistan, which we appear about to turn into another Iraq… and be stuck for decades. This summed up the cause of the current problem for me:

“We still think we can offer Afghans the fruits of our all-so-perfect Western society. We still believe in the Age of Enlightenment and that all we have to do is fiddle with Afghan laws and leave behind us a democratic, gender-equal, human rights-filled society.”

- Robert Fisk in The Independent (London).

Some insight into the Blue Dog Democrats: Health care industry contributes heavily to Blue Dogs

This is from a McClatchy article on the $62,650 more That Blue Dogs get from the health sector than other Democrats. I’ve put part of it here… but read the whole thing.

clipped from www.mcclatchydc.com WASHINGTON — As the Obama administration and Democrats wrangled over the timing, shape and cost of health care overhaul efforts during the first half of the year, more than half the $1.1 million in campaign contributions the Democratic Party’s Blue Dog Coalition received came from the pharmaceutical, health care and health insurance industries, according to watchdog organizations. The amount outstrips contributions to other congressional political action committees during the same period, according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit watchdog organization. The Blue Dogs, a group of fiscally conservative lawmakers, successfully delayed the vote on health care overhaul proposals until the fall. “The business community realizes that (the Blue Dogs) are the linchpin and will become much more so as time goes on,” former Mississippi congressman turned lobbyist Mike Parker told the organization’s researchers.

A note I received from BoldProgressives.org…

…after I signed their petition. I pass it on to you. Ted Kennedy should be remembered by a major, public-option Health Care Bill. I pass this on to my readers:

I just signed this petition to honor Ted Kennedy, which will be delivered to senators on Monday:

“Ted Kennedy was a courageous champion for health care reform his entire life. In his honor, name the reform bill that passed Kennedy’s health committee ‘The Kennedy Bill’ — then pass it, and nothing less, through the Senate.”

Kennedy’s bill includes a public health insurance option, and it would be an honor to Kennedy’s memory if it passed the Senate. Will you sign the petition? You can sign here.

Thanks.

Quote of the Day – 2 (I couldn’t pass this one up)

“This is what Bush and Cheney truly achieved in their tragic response to 9/11: two terribly failed, brutally expensive wars, the revival of sectarian warfare and genocide in the Middle East, the end of America’s global moral authority, the empowerment of Iran’s and North Korea’s dictatorships, and the nightmares of Gitmo and Bagram still haunting the new administration.

“But what they did to the culture – how they systematically dismantled core American values like the prohibition on torture and respect for the rule of law – is the worst and most enduring of the legacies.”

- Andrew Sullivan in The Atlantic.

Quote of the Day

“Dick Cheney has a brand new book. It’s a memoir about his life and times, and I believe the title of it is called, ‘Too Fat to Waterboard.’”

-David Letterman

Thanks to All Hat No Cattle.

The best way to honor Ted Kennedy’s memory is to pass a really good Health Care Bill…

This is the time for Democrats, and Obama in particular, to show the respect that Ted Kennedy deserved for his 42 years in the Senate by passing the one bill that was most important to his life. It seems to me that the final bill, which should also be named after Ted, should give us the real public option that the great majority of Americans want and that Kennedy had not yet managed to get us.

Ted’s ability to cross the aisle and bring in Republicans… and his support over the years for many of his Republican colleagues on civil legislation… should be stressed by Dodd and the other Senators that Ted trusted with his concerns when the brain tumor kept him out of DC. This is the time to call in the notes that Ted gave out over the years.

It would be, I think, a tremendous embarrassment to the Republicans, like Orrin Hatch and  Charles Grassley NOT to support a Ted Kennedy Health Care Bill. And though they would probably come out against it, by using Kennedy’s name here, they would also be defeating Republican challengers in man of the 2010 elections.

I hope Obama realizes the immense opportunity available at this moment.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy 1932 – 2009

What a thing to wake up to at 5:00 in the morning… Ted Kennedy, at 77, is dead. What this means for the Senate, for America and for the Health Care legislation has yet to be seen… but it certainly will have an effect.

The Kennedy Family issued this statement:

“We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever. He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it. He always believed that our best days were still ahead, but it’s hard to imagine any of them without him.”

Kennedy played a major role in passing many pieces of legislation that have affected the lives of all Americans, including the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the National Cancer Act of 1971, the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974, the COBRA Act of 1985, the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the Ryan White AIDS Care Act in 1990, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, the Mental Health Parity Act in 1996 and 2008, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program in 1997, the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002, and the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act in 2009.

This almost certainly means that the Health Care Bill in the Senate will end up going through a reconciliation vote requiring only 50 Senators, since without a Massachusetts Democrat for another 5 months until a State election can be held, the 60 Senator majority is now gone. This will be a major problem for the President and, yes, for all of us.

Some Education for the Afternoon…

Quote of the Day

“I want a public option too!”

- Max Baucus to 40 Montana Democrats (seen in  Talking Points Memo).

Really???!!!

And now a word from…

…the folks who are fighting for us:

Make sure to stay on top of the real issues!

Opera and Communities…

I was so sorry to read the article in Opera News about the bankruptcy and fall of the Baltimore Opera, especially after last winter’s closure of the Connecticut Opera. Both of these companies had served for around six decades, through times of triumph and times of desperation, only to be destroyed by this wretched economy and threadbare community support.

I say this as I prepare The Hunting Of The Snark, the opera for children that Ed Roberts composed and that I was librettist  and director on back in the early 70s in NYC, for it’s February production at Full Circle Theater in Shepherdstown.

While I know we can push this as “children’s theatre” or as a “family piece”, in the long run it is sung drama in operatic form … opera … and it is anyone’s guess how this community will respond to it.