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January 8, 2010
Calvin Trillan's Thrillin' Prediction
NOW WITH 33% MORE CLOUDS, 20% MORE TRANQUILITY
lil Floaty Dude t-shirt desgin now printed on American Apparel, made in the USA
Those of you who loved the old lil' floaty dude design now have three more reasons to love it!
New and Improved design!
Now Printed on American Apparel, Made in the USA!
33% MORE CLOUDS!
ALSO: Now Silkscreened for higher quality, longer lasting image!
January 7, 2010
Past Etsy Customers: You're eligible for a huge deal!
If you take a photo of your shirt in a location that's unique to your region of the world, and either upload it to my etsy site using the fanlove feature, or send a copy of that image to the Official Punk Patriot email address, you are eligible for 50% off your next shirt!
So what are you waiting for? Get out, grab that camera, take some photos, and get 50% the price of your next shirt!
Email me and let me know you've uploaded the photo, and I'll make up an invoice for you.
So what are you waiting for? Get out, grab that camera, take some photos, and get 50% the price of your next shirt!
Email me and let me know you've uploaded the photo, and I'll make up an invoice for you.
January 6, 2010
CIA bombs the CIA
from the BBC
The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA agents in Afghanistan was an al-Qaeda double agent, US media reports say.
He is said to have been a doctor from Jordan, arrested there a year ago.
He was then reportedly recruited by the Jordanians and CIA, who wrongly thought they had turned him, and given a mission to find al-Qaeda leaders.
The reports came as the top US military intelligence officer in Afghanistan issued a scathing assessment of the state of the intelligence effort there.
In a report, Maj Gen Michael Flynn said that US intelligence in Afghanistan was still "unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which US and allied forces operate and the people they are trying to protect and persuade".
The study, published by the think tank Center for a New American Security, cites one officer's remarks that the US was "clueless" due to its lack of useful intelligence about the country.
However the report's findings were rejected by Mike Hurley, a former member of the US 9/11 commission and a former CIA chief in Afghanistan.
He told the BBC: "Nowhere in the report does the group... suggest that there is not a significant role for intelligence to play in finding and fixing and finishing off enemy leaders in Afghanistan. That's precisely their job, that's what they're trying to do."
Changing sides
The attack at Forward Operating Base Chapman was the worst against US intelligence officials since the US embassy in Beirut was bombed in 1983.
The Washington Post quoted two former US government officials as saying that the alleged attacker had lured the CIA officers into a meeting with a promise of new information on al-Qaeda's top leadership.
The reports named him as Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year-old al-Qaeda sympathiser from Zarqa, Jordan, arrested by Jordanian intelligence over a year ago.
His specific mission was thought to be tracking down al-Qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The CIA has declined to comment on the reports.
Jordanian intelligence believed they had brought Humam al-Balawi over to their side and sent him to Afghanistan to infiltrate al-Qaeda, US network NBC says.
According to Western intelligence officials quoted in the reports, Humam al-Balawi called his handlers last week to arrange a meeting at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, where he said he would relay urgent information about Zawahiri.
Once inside the base, the reports say, he blew himself up killing seven CIA employees and his handler, whom Jordanian media have named as Ali bin Zeid.
Questions were raised after the bomb was detonated in the base's gym last week about how the attacker could have managed to pass through security.
The Washington Post says he was picked up in a car outside the base and driven in without being thoroughly searched.
A US official, also a former CIA employee, told the Associated Press news agency that such people were often not required to go through full security checks, in order to help gain their trust.
"When you're trying to build a rapport and literally ask them to risk [their lives] for you, you've got a lot to do to build their trust," he said.
SPY vs SPY vs SPY: CIA bomber was a CIA agent
The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA agents in Afghanistan was an al-Qaeda double agent, US media reports say.
He is said to have been a doctor from Jordan, arrested there a year ago.
He was then reportedly recruited by the Jordanians and CIA, who wrongly thought they had turned him, and given a mission to find al-Qaeda leaders.
The reports came as the top US military intelligence officer in Afghanistan issued a scathing assessment of the state of the intelligence effort there.
In a report, Maj Gen Michael Flynn said that US intelligence in Afghanistan was still "unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which US and allied forces operate and the people they are trying to protect and persuade".
The study, published by the think tank Center for a New American Security, cites one officer's remarks that the US was "clueless" due to its lack of useful intelligence about the country.
However the report's findings were rejected by Mike Hurley, a former member of the US 9/11 commission and a former CIA chief in Afghanistan.
He told the BBC: "Nowhere in the report does the group... suggest that there is not a significant role for intelligence to play in finding and fixing and finishing off enemy leaders in Afghanistan. That's precisely their job, that's what they're trying to do."
Changing sides
The attack at Forward Operating Base Chapman was the worst against US intelligence officials since the US embassy in Beirut was bombed in 1983.
The Washington Post quoted two former US government officials as saying that the alleged attacker had lured the CIA officers into a meeting with a promise of new information on al-Qaeda's top leadership.
The reports named him as Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year-old al-Qaeda sympathiser from Zarqa, Jordan, arrested by Jordanian intelligence over a year ago.
His specific mission was thought to be tracking down al-Qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The CIA has declined to comment on the reports.
Jordanian intelligence believed they had brought Humam al-Balawi over to their side and sent him to Afghanistan to infiltrate al-Qaeda, US network NBC says.
According to Western intelligence officials quoted in the reports, Humam al-Balawi called his handlers last week to arrange a meeting at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, where he said he would relay urgent information about Zawahiri.
Once inside the base, the reports say, he blew himself up killing seven CIA employees and his handler, whom Jordanian media have named as Ali bin Zeid.
Questions were raised after the bomb was detonated in the base's gym last week about how the attacker could have managed to pass through security.
The Washington Post says he was picked up in a car outside the base and driven in without being thoroughly searched.
A US official, also a former CIA employee, told the Associated Press news agency that such people were often not required to go through full security checks, in order to help gain their trust.
"When you're trying to build a rapport and literally ask them to risk [their lives] for you, you've got a lot to do to build their trust," he said.
December 21, 2009
Israel Admits to Illegally Harvesting Palestinian's Organs
fuuuuuucked
From the Guardian
Israel has admitted that pathologists harvested organs from dead Palestinians, and others without the consent of their families – a practice that it said ended in the 1990s, it emerged at the weekend.
The admission, by the former head of the country's forensic institute, followed a furious row prompted by a Swedish newspaper reporting that Israel was killing Palestinians in order to use their organs – a charge that Israel denied and called "antisemitic".
The revelation, in a television documentary, is likely to generate anger in the Arab and Muslim world and reinforce sinister stereotypes of Israel and its attitude to Palestinians. Iran's state-run Press TV tonight reported the story, illustrated with photographs of dead or badly injured Palestinians.
Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli Arab MP, said the report incriminated the Israeli army.
The story emerged in an interview with Dr Yehuda Hiss, former head of the Abu Kabir forensic institute near Tel Aviv. The interview was conducted in 2000 by an American academic who released it because of the row between Israel and Sweden over a report in the Stockholm newspaper Aftonbladet.
Channel 2 TV reported that in the 1990s, specialists at Abu Kabir harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers, often without permission from relatives.
The Israeli military confirmed to the programme that the practice took place, but added: "This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer."
From the Guardian
Israel has admitted that pathologists harvested organs from dead Palestinians, and others without the consent of their families – a practice that it said ended in the 1990s, it emerged at the weekend.
The admission, by the former head of the country's forensic institute, followed a furious row prompted by a Swedish newspaper reporting that Israel was killing Palestinians in order to use their organs – a charge that Israel denied and called "antisemitic".
The revelation, in a television documentary, is likely to generate anger in the Arab and Muslim world and reinforce sinister stereotypes of Israel and its attitude to Palestinians. Iran's state-run Press TV tonight reported the story, illustrated with photographs of dead or badly injured Palestinians.
Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli Arab MP, said the report incriminated the Israeli army.
The story emerged in an interview with Dr Yehuda Hiss, former head of the Abu Kabir forensic institute near Tel Aviv. The interview was conducted in 2000 by an American academic who released it because of the row between Israel and Sweden over a report in the Stockholm newspaper Aftonbladet.
Channel 2 TV reported that in the 1990s, specialists at Abu Kabir harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers, often without permission from relatives.
The Israeli military confirmed to the programme that the practice took place, but added: "This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer."
December 16, 2009
Obama's Corporatized, Privatized, war in Afghanistan
from TPM Muckraker
Private contractors will make up at least half of the total military workforce in Afghanistan going forward, according to Defense Department officials cited in a new congressional study.
As President Obama's escalation of the war in Afghanistan unfolds, the number of contractors will likely jump by between 16,000 and 56,000, adding up to a total of 120,000-160,000, according to an updated study from the Congressional Research Service.
DOD officials who spoke with the study's author said contractors would make up 50-55 percent of the total workforce -- troops plus contractors -- in the future. This would actually be a significant reduction from the last two years, when contractors have averaged 62 percent of the total.
As we've reported, many questions about the army of contractors, which outnumbers the size of the U.S. troop force, remain unanswered and underexamined. We don't have up to date numbers on how much the United States spends on private contracts, and the DOD does not break down the services done by contractors in Afghanistan (it does for Iraq).
As of September 2009, contractors providing security, transportation, and logistical services numbered 104,100 in Afghanistan and 113,700 in Iraq, according to the military. Most of the contractors in Afghanistan are local nationals, according to the military. Here's a table looking at how much the numbers in Afghanistan will increase with Obama's surge:
Interestingly, it looks like military planners themselves -- not just the media and politicians -- find it all too easy to ignore the role of contractors in U.S. foreign policy. The most recent Quadrennial Defense Review, a key strategic overview of American defense and military policy, runs over 100 pages. Just five sentences of the QDR document addresses the use of private contractors, the CRS study notes.
Besides crunching the numbers, the study also looks at whether contractors can undermine U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the issue of abuses of civilians by contractors.
Here's a graph we've shown you before, now updated through September 2009:
[so much more after the jump]
Private contractors will make up at least half of the total military workforce in Afghanistan going forward, according to Defense Department officials cited in a new congressional study.
As President Obama's escalation of the war in Afghanistan unfolds, the number of contractors will likely jump by between 16,000 and 56,000, adding up to a total of 120,000-160,000, according to an updated study from the Congressional Research Service.
DOD officials who spoke with the study's author said contractors would make up 50-55 percent of the total workforce -- troops plus contractors -- in the future. This would actually be a significant reduction from the last two years, when contractors have averaged 62 percent of the total.
As we've reported, many questions about the army of contractors, which outnumbers the size of the U.S. troop force, remain unanswered and underexamined. We don't have up to date numbers on how much the United States spends on private contracts, and the DOD does not break down the services done by contractors in Afghanistan (it does for Iraq).
As of September 2009, contractors providing security, transportation, and logistical services numbered 104,100 in Afghanistan and 113,700 in Iraq, according to the military. Most of the contractors in Afghanistan are local nationals, according to the military. Here's a table looking at how much the numbers in Afghanistan will increase with Obama's surge:
Interestingly, it looks like military planners themselves -- not just the media and politicians -- find it all too easy to ignore the role of contractors in U.S. foreign policy. The most recent Quadrennial Defense Review, a key strategic overview of American defense and military policy, runs over 100 pages. Just five sentences of the QDR document addresses the use of private contractors, the CRS study notes.
Besides crunching the numbers, the study also looks at whether contractors can undermine U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the issue of abuses of civilians by contractors.
Here's a graph we've shown you before, now updated through September 2009:
[so much more after the jump]
December 8, 2009
The Story of Cap & Trade: or Why You Can't Fix the Problem with the Thing That Caused the Problem
The Story of Cap & Trade is a fast-paced, fact-filled look at the leading climate solution being discussed at Copenhagen and on Capitol Hill. Host Annie Leonard introduces the energy traders and Wall Street criminals... er um, innovators.
December 7, 2009
STUPAK CHANGES NOTHING
Under Stupak, if you want to get an abortion, you can pay out of pocket, just like now. No change.
If you pay for your own private insurance, and your plan covers abortion, you can have an abortion. No change there either.
Since the Hyde Amendment, federal funding for abortion has been illegal.
The problem isn't the Stupak amendment, it's the Hyde Amendment.
Why has the left-wing chosen NOW to get pissed off, when it's been on the books for years?
Why have they never made an issue about it before now?
SHOWBOATING.
The usual stuff:
BLOG: http://punkpatriot.blogspot.com
FACEBOOK: http://bit.ly/1OtiqI
TWITTER: http://www.twitter.com/punkpatriot
STORE: http://punkpatriot.etsy.com
DONATE? http://bit.ly/7OwKc2
December 6, 2009
WHY PROTESTS TODAY SUCK
Protests today are totally impotent...
Except there's an unpermitted protest coming up in March, that I didn't know about at the time of filming, which I hope proves me wrong:
http://www.thepeaceoftheaction.org
The usual stuff:
BLOG: http://punkpatriot.blogspot.com
FACEBOOK: http://bit.ly/1OtiqI
TWITTER: http://www.twitter.com/punkpatriot
STORE: http://punkpatriot.etsy.com
DONATE? http://bit.ly/7OwKc2
December 5, 2009
December 4, 2009
Afghanistan: Graveyard of Empires
The war in Afghanistan is like being caught in a brier patch-- once you're in far enough, every way you go is equally as bad. That's why the best way out is to simply wander in circles until you bleed to death. Obama clearly understands this strategy.
November 29, 2009
November 23, 2009
Colby The Christian Robot
Nothing political here, just hilarious, in a very Subgenius sort of way.
Praise be to Bob, may slack be upon him. We all burn in his mighty pipe!
Praise be to Bob, may slack be upon him. We all burn in his mighty pipe!
November 21, 2009
Public Option Myths That Liberals Believe
By Kevin Gosztola
November 20, 2009
On Saturday night, the Senate will take a procedural vote to move debate on the current health insurance enrichment bill in Congress forward.
Democratic Senators like Dick Durbin, Patrick Leahy, and Chuck Schumer, through a project called Citizens for a Public Option, have been building support for the public option and encouraging Americans to write letters to the editor that debunk health care reform myths---myths that the conservative echo chamber have been propagating.
Senators (and representatives in the House and Obama) can champion this health insurance legislation all they want and claim it will “foster greater competition in the marketplace, create more choices for consumers, and lead to lower costs and better quality for all,” but doctors who have been on the front lines of America's sick care non-system do not believe many of the arguments that Democrats are using to create support for a public option.
Myth #1 – Public option will help control costs
Dr. Margaret Flowers with Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) explains that Americans have been led to believe that “the public option is going to keep companies honest and help control costs.”
Obama and Congress are taking an approach that has failed to control costs time and time again.
“We've already had states that have tried this type of approach over the past few decades,” says Flowers. “Every state that has tried this approach has had these grandiose hopes where they had said we're going to cover this many of hundreds of thousands of people in this time period and not a single one of them has succeeded. They've all fallen far short and then gone under financially.”
Self-employed doctor, Dr. Matt Hendrickson, who risked arrest in a MobilizeforHealthcare.org action at the Cigna Offices in Glendale, CA, cites examples “from the last 20 years of states that have attempted a public option.” He explains that Tennessee, Oregon, and Massachusetss (twice) have tried the public option.
“In each case, the number of uninsured went down briefly then returned to the baseline for one reason: cost,” said Hendrickson. “There's no way to control cost as long as you allow private insurance industry to add a 25% surcharge to all healthcare transaction and to continue divert money to avoiding the sick, marketing and advertising, to avoid the sick and try to dump them onto a public plan.”
Anesthesiologist Dr. Samuel Metz, who is with the Mad as Hell Doctors, explains, “Massachusetts has been held up as an example of a state that has come closest to providing universal health insurance. However, not only has it failed to provide universal health insurance. It is also now the most expensive place on the planet for healthcare. It leads the U.S. in annual cost per person.”
The public option, “will not reduce the cost of healthcare,” says Metz. “In fact, it's anticipated it will add $800 billion more into a system that's already twice as expensive as the average industrialized nation.”
Myth #2 – The public option is a "public" option
The public option that came out of the House, according to Dr. Flowers, is “even worse than we could have imagined because they're predicting that maybe 2% of the population will be able to go into that public option, that it will be run by private insurance companies, and that it will actually cost more than private insurance.”
What's so public about something only open to 2% of the population?
As Kevin Zeese from the Prosperity Agendaexplains, “No matter how much you hate your current insurance, no matter how much they've abused you with premiums, co-pays, denials of care, no matter what they've done to you, you can't leave your insurance and go to the public option,” said Zeese. “90% of Americans can't even choose it. So much for choices.”
Flowers adds the government would be subsidizing the purse of private insurance to try to help people buy their products. Government would be putting public dollars into the pockets of private insurance companies. And, a private corporation would be allowed to run the public option.
How many Americans really think putting reform in the hands of those who have created this crisis in health care in America will ultimately work or produce any favorable results?
Myth #3 – Public option will make single-payer possible
Doctors, nurses, and patients following the de-evolution of health care reform closely know that the public option (especially the idea of a robust public option) is a carefully calculated political carrot being offered to progressives so they will sit down, shut up about single-payer, and support this current corporate giveaway to private insurance companies, which is moving through Congress right now.
Hendrickson explains, “The reason why the public option was introduced, according to congress people that have spoken to the single-payer movement, was because of the single-payer movement. There was such an upswell in the progressive part of this country for single-payer that they opted for some compromise that would not have been given if there wasn't so much support for single-payer.”
If you ask Zeese, this won't do anything to get us closer to single-payer.
This bill will “enshrine and deepen the power of the insurance industry.” Hundreds of billions of dollars in new revenue, according to Zeese, will now be available for corrupting and influencing Congress.
It will be even harder to get single-payer if a weak public option remains in the bill. And the money government gives away will help private insurance fight any additional reforms to legislation passed by Congress and Obama.
Metz concludes that the public option will make it impossible for us to achieve universal coverage for at least a decade.
“Every passing year we'll see more Americans with worse health and nobody will do anything because we will point to our legislation and say give it another couple years to work,” says Metz. “And in five years, we will have exhausted the financial resources of the government, we will have exhausted taxpayers, we will have exhausted the good will of voters, the patience of voters, and no one will want to attempt health reform again.”
# # #
Author's Bio: Kevin Gosztola is a trusted author who publishes his writing regularly to OpEdNews and Open Salon and he is a 2009 Young People For Fellow. He is a documentary filmmaker currently completing a Film/Video degree at Columbia College in Chicago. Currently, he is working on a documentary project on Renaissance 2010 and Chicago Public Schools. On Columbia College's campus, he helps organize events and programming with a humanities/social sciences group known as Critical Encounters. He is currently working with the group to plan a media summit for Chicago in April 2010 and is currently seeking speakers who are willing to participate in talking to artists and media makers about how they can use participatory or social media to create art & media that promotes conversation and action on political, social, and cultural issues.
November 20, 2009
On Saturday night, the Senate will take a procedural vote to move debate on the current health insurance enrichment bill in Congress forward.
Democratic Senators like Dick Durbin, Patrick Leahy, and Chuck Schumer, through a project called Citizens for a Public Option, have been building support for the public option and encouraging Americans to write letters to the editor that debunk health care reform myths---myths that the conservative echo chamber have been propagating.
Senators (and representatives in the House and Obama) can champion this health insurance legislation all they want and claim it will “foster greater competition in the marketplace, create more choices for consumers, and lead to lower costs and better quality for all,” but doctors who have been on the front lines of America's sick care non-system do not believe many of the arguments that Democrats are using to create support for a public option.
Myth #1 – Public option will help control costs
Dr. Margaret Flowers with Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) explains that Americans have been led to believe that “the public option is going to keep companies honest and help control costs.”
Obama and Congress are taking an approach that has failed to control costs time and time again.
“We've already had states that have tried this type of approach over the past few decades,” says Flowers. “Every state that has tried this approach has had these grandiose hopes where they had said we're going to cover this many of hundreds of thousands of people in this time period and not a single one of them has succeeded. They've all fallen far short and then gone under financially.”
Self-employed doctor, Dr. Matt Hendrickson, who risked arrest in a MobilizeforHealthcare.org action at the Cigna Offices in Glendale, CA, cites examples “from the last 20 years of states that have attempted a public option.” He explains that Tennessee, Oregon, and Massachusetss (twice) have tried the public option.
“In each case, the number of uninsured went down briefly then returned to the baseline for one reason: cost,” said Hendrickson. “There's no way to control cost as long as you allow private insurance industry to add a 25% surcharge to all healthcare transaction and to continue divert money to avoiding the sick, marketing and advertising, to avoid the sick and try to dump them onto a public plan.”
Anesthesiologist Dr. Samuel Metz, who is with the Mad as Hell Doctors, explains, “Massachusetts has been held up as an example of a state that has come closest to providing universal health insurance. However, not only has it failed to provide universal health insurance. It is also now the most expensive place on the planet for healthcare. It leads the U.S. in annual cost per person.”
The public option, “will not reduce the cost of healthcare,” says Metz. “In fact, it's anticipated it will add $800 billion more into a system that's already twice as expensive as the average industrialized nation.”
Myth #2 – The public option is a "public" option
The public option that came out of the House, according to Dr. Flowers, is “even worse than we could have imagined because they're predicting that maybe 2% of the population will be able to go into that public option, that it will be run by private insurance companies, and that it will actually cost more than private insurance.”
What's so public about something only open to 2% of the population?
As Kevin Zeese from the Prosperity Agendaexplains, “No matter how much you hate your current insurance, no matter how much they've abused you with premiums, co-pays, denials of care, no matter what they've done to you, you can't leave your insurance and go to the public option,” said Zeese. “90% of Americans can't even choose it. So much for choices.”
Flowers adds the government would be subsidizing the purse of private insurance to try to help people buy their products. Government would be putting public dollars into the pockets of private insurance companies. And, a private corporation would be allowed to run the public option.
How many Americans really think putting reform in the hands of those who have created this crisis in health care in America will ultimately work or produce any favorable results?
Myth #3 – Public option will make single-payer possible
Doctors, nurses, and patients following the de-evolution of health care reform closely know that the public option (especially the idea of a robust public option) is a carefully calculated political carrot being offered to progressives so they will sit down, shut up about single-payer, and support this current corporate giveaway to private insurance companies, which is moving through Congress right now.
Hendrickson explains, “The reason why the public option was introduced, according to congress people that have spoken to the single-payer movement, was because of the single-payer movement. There was such an upswell in the progressive part of this country for single-payer that they opted for some compromise that would not have been given if there wasn't so much support for single-payer.”
If you ask Zeese, this won't do anything to get us closer to single-payer.
This bill will “enshrine and deepen the power of the insurance industry.” Hundreds of billions of dollars in new revenue, according to Zeese, will now be available for corrupting and influencing Congress.
It will be even harder to get single-payer if a weak public option remains in the bill. And the money government gives away will help private insurance fight any additional reforms to legislation passed by Congress and Obama.
Metz concludes that the public option will make it impossible for us to achieve universal coverage for at least a decade.
“Every passing year we'll see more Americans with worse health and nobody will do anything because we will point to our legislation and say give it another couple years to work,” says Metz. “And in five years, we will have exhausted the financial resources of the government, we will have exhausted taxpayers, we will have exhausted the good will of voters, the patience of voters, and no one will want to attempt health reform again.”
# # #
Author's Bio: Kevin Gosztola is a trusted author who publishes his writing regularly to OpEdNews and Open Salon and he is a 2009 Young People For Fellow. He is a documentary filmmaker currently completing a Film/Video degree at Columbia College in Chicago. Currently, he is working on a documentary project on Renaissance 2010 and Chicago Public Schools. On Columbia College's campus, he helps organize events and programming with a humanities/social sciences group known as Critical Encounters. He is currently working with the group to plan a media summit for Chicago in April 2010 and is currently seeking speakers who are willing to participate in talking to artists and media makers about how they can use participatory or social media to create art & media that promotes conversation and action on political, social, and cultural issues.
Insurance Companies Pass Landmark Bill Part 2
Sorry that this took so long to upload. YouTube was refusing to allow me to upload it, so I uploaded it over at Blip.TV
November 14, 2009
October 30, 2009
Why the hell does the Insurance Industry support reform?
Democrat Led Health Insurance "Reform" might make things WORSE
by The Punk Patriot
So if you're a loyal Democrat, you're probably all riled up about the health insurance reform going on in congress. You're probably anxious for Congress to get something, ANYTHING passed. Not so fast there buddy. Health insurance reform, even if it's done by Democrats could end up making things WORSE, not better.
"What? How could this possibly be?" you might ask. Well...
It's old news by now that insurance giant Wellpoint, owner of Maine's Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, is suing the State of Maine, to increase their profits. But you may not know the entire backstory: Anthem Blue Cross, in anticipation of the individual mandate for health insurance, has jacked up their rates 18% from what they were previously, jacking many people's premiums through the roof.
What may surprise you if you're not paying close attention, is that the Health Insurance industry is actually in favor of health insurance "reform." How could this be? Did they suddenly grow a concience, and decide that letting people die to increase their profit margin was wrong? Are they crying out to Big Government to regulate them like Sinners calling out to Jesus? "Please, Government! Save us from our own wicked nature!"
Not a chance in Hell.
It's no surprise that Wellpoint has run television ads in favor of the health insurance "reform" being pushed by Democrats in Congress. If the individual mandate becomes a final part of the bill, whether you can afford to or not, we will all end up having to pay these new increased rates, or face federal fines of up to three thousand dollars, depending on which version of the individual mandate ends up in the final bill.
Maine's state government has the power to regulate insurance rates. In light of this 18% increase, the State of Maine stepped in, and reduced the increase from 18% to 11%. So people's rate are still going up, and health insurance is still becoming less affordable. But that wasn't enough for the private insurance giant.
Last year Wellpoint made $2 billion in profits. In Maine alone, they've paid out over one million dollars in CEO bonuses. Rather than cut CEO bonuses to reduce their overhead, they are increasing their rates. Let's call a spade a spade. Wellpoint is essentially suing to ensure not their profit margin, but their CEO bonus margin.
So what's the deal here? Why are Congressional Democrats so willing to pass a bill that will essentially screw us over to benefit of the Insurance Industry? Easy. Follow the money. The health insurance is a powerful lobby, and one can accurately predict the level of a politician's support for the mandate, and for the Public Option, based on how much money was contributed to their campaign from the health insurance industry.
"But the Democrats are supposed to be on our side! It's the Republicans who are corrupt corporate sleazebags!" You might say. And yes, while the Republicans are generally corrupt, with lots of corporate donors, the corporate lobbyists who really run the show don't care about party affiliation. They care about who is in power at the moment. Right now, that's the Democrats.
That's why you find the Democrats in the predicament they're in. They have to satisfy the Private Health Insurance industry while making it look like they're achieving meaningful reform. They're playing a balancing act, giving the insurance industry exactly what they want, while still trying to fool their constituents into thinking that they're doing what's right.
Well, have they done their job?
Who owns your congressperson? Find Out: OpenSecrets.org
October 29, 2009
Mr Anti-Regulation, Alan Greenspan, calls for Trust-Busting
U.S. regulators should consider breaking up large financial institutions considered “too big to fail,” former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said.
Those banks have an implicit subsidy allowing them to borrow at lower cost because lenders believe the government will always step in to guarantee their obligations. That squeezes out competition and creates a danger to the financial system, Greenspan told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
“If they’re too big to fail, they’re too big,” Greenspan said today. “In 1911 we broke up Standard Oil -- so what happened? The individual parts became more valuable than the whole. Maybe that’s what we need to do.”
[Read the Full Article After The Jump]
Scholars Reject Obama's Warrantless Wiretaps as illegal
From Wired.com
The Obama administration’s position that the government can force mobile carriers to hand over cellphone tower location information on their customers without a warrant is wrong, two legal scholars say.
"Because CSLI acquisition is hidden, indiscriminate and intrusive, and because it reveals information over a period of time, it should be subject to the highest level of Fourth Amendment oversight (the same procedures used for wiretapping and video surveillance)," the scholars wrote late Friday.
The scholars are Susan Freiwald, of the USF School of Law, and Peter Swire, of Ohio State University.
Their words, published by the American Constitution Society, came a month after the Justice Department made its claim in a little-noticed case that the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures did not apply.
Most Americans have or will carry a mobile phone in their lifespan, so the outcome could have wide-ranging privacy ramifications. Smartphones, like the iPhone, use cell-tower information to power geo-location applications like Google Maps.
In a case pending before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the government maintains it can require federal judges to order mobile phone companies to release historical cell-tower information of a phone number without probable cause — the standard required for a search warrant.
While judges have differed on the issue, the resulting evidence can be used in a criminal prosecution. The case on appeal concerns a Pennsylvania judge who rejected the government’s position in a drug prosecution that the new administration inherited.
Mobile-phone providers keep cell-site information for up to 18 months. Historical cell-site location information includes the tower connected at the beginning of a call and at the end of the call. The government does not claim a warrantless right to cell-site information for future calls, only for calls already dialed.
[more after the jump]
The Obama administration’s position that the government can force mobile carriers to hand over cellphone tower location information on their customers without a warrant is wrong, two legal scholars say."Because CSLI acquisition is hidden, indiscriminate and intrusive, and because it reveals information over a period of time, it should be subject to the highest level of Fourth Amendment oversight (the same procedures used for wiretapping and video surveillance)," the scholars wrote late Friday.
The scholars are Susan Freiwald, of the USF School of Law, and Peter Swire, of Ohio State University.
Their words, published by the American Constitution Society, came a month after the Justice Department made its claim in a little-noticed case that the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures did not apply.
Most Americans have or will carry a mobile phone in their lifespan, so the outcome could have wide-ranging privacy ramifications. Smartphones, like the iPhone, use cell-tower information to power geo-location applications like Google Maps.
In a case pending before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the government maintains it can require federal judges to order mobile phone companies to release historical cell-tower information of a phone number without probable cause — the standard required for a search warrant.
While judges have differed on the issue, the resulting evidence can be used in a criminal prosecution. The case on appeal concerns a Pennsylvania judge who rejected the government’s position in a drug prosecution that the new administration inherited.
Mobile-phone providers keep cell-site information for up to 18 months. Historical cell-site location information includes the tower connected at the beginning of a call and at the end of the call. The government does not claim a warrantless right to cell-site information for future calls, only for calls already dialed.
[more after the jump]
October 25, 2009
12 arrested in LA at Blue Cross
Los Angeles 10/15/09 – 12 arrested at the L.A. Anthem Blue Cross offices sit-in at as Maureen Cruise RN, public health care nurse, explains why single payer is not off the table. Along with a contingent of doctors at this recent sit-in, Cruise believes universal health care (a.k.a. single payer or medicare for all) is the only option. As Dr. Jo Olson told me, single payer is the only fiscal and moral solution. She has been working for a single payer system for the past five years. Nurse Cruise was an L.A. public health care nurse at numerous clinics until they all closed with the recent economic downturn. As she explains, 122 people die every day for lack of health care in the U.S. More die every day because they are denied health care from insurance companies despite paying their high premiums. People are forced into medical debt and foreclosure to pay for health care, unlike any other country. “What kind of country does this to it’s people?” she asks.
Nurse Cruise goes on to say that Pelosi’s announcement to the world that single payer is off the table was a ploy to make everyone forget about it and go for a public option instead, a public option written by and for the insurance industry, which spends over a million dollars per day lobbying Congress. The public option, as she says, is an insurance industry bailout, because with our economic downturn and the insurance industry’s annal retentive (my words) policy of raising rates to make up for losses, they are losing customers and so they look to the deep pockets of our government in the corporate welfare state we call America. But as long as we don’t have a viable health care system without the for profit insurance factor, and as long as we don’t have universal health care, people will continue to rally.
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