The Supreme Court Justices asked why this healthcare law is different than manditory burial insurance or requiring broccoli consumption? The answer is obvious, one only dies once, it can be assumed, and with fairly fixed basic costs other than health insurance which would be possibly substantial without coverage. Health coverage if unexpected, could possibly be continuous and chronic if pre-existing clauses prevent their coverage.
As for an individual mandate, I would ask the Justices to describe the economic damage comparable to death & chronic illness, lack of broccoli consumption would result in.
So neither is a comparable set of circumstances and further shows the uniqueness of health insurance that requires extraordinary measures of a personal mandate to allow a fully functional system. Without this concept, universal coverage is regulated to emergency rather than preventative coverage and escallates costs beyond all foreseeable control
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Friday, March 23, 2012
Paul Ryan & The Medicare Kiss of Death by Tom Love
Ah, the Kiss of Death, add the name of Rep. Paul Ryan to the List of the Greatest Betrayers of the Aged, Blind, Infirmed, and Disabled since Judas kissed Jesus. His bill would stab the back of Medicare Recipients for generations and make a mockery of the greatest gift of the New Deal, Social Security. Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Income, all earned since the Great Depression in 1935 gone in a flurry not seen since the High Sheriff of Nottingham rode through Sherwood Forest.
But enough of my purple prose, let us hear the words of Newt Gingrich before he too twisted the knife. I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with Newt Gingrich. But when he says that Paul Ryan’s budget plan is too “radical” and represents “right wing social engineering” it’s hard to deny the truth. So we should say, “Thank You.”
The real Ryan Plan gives tax breaks to billionaires, paid for by tearing Medicare to shreds and its the plan to dismantle Medicare and reward billionaires with more tax breaks and is a strong example of how extreme today's Republican party has become. If only other Republicans saw things the way you did, we'd be much better off. So send a thank you note:
http://www.dscc.org/act4?action_KEY=189.
But enough of my purple prose, let us hear the words of Newt Gingrich before he too twisted the knife. I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with Newt Gingrich. But when he says that Paul Ryan’s budget plan is too “radical” and represents “right wing social engineering” it’s hard to deny the truth. So we should say, “Thank You.”
The real Ryan Plan gives tax breaks to billionaires, paid for by tearing Medicare to shreds and its the plan to dismantle Medicare and reward billionaires with more tax breaks and is a strong example of how extreme today's Republican party has become. If only other Republicans saw things the way you did, we'd be much better off. So send a thank you note:
http://www.dscc.org/act4?action_KEY=189.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
The Breed Amendments
Controversy over women’s reproductive rights by Angry Republican Men has led to a series of issues best described as The Breed Amendments. Personhood Amendments, State Sponsored Vaginal Probes for Women Seeking Abortions, Legislative Hearings on Birth Control and Arguments Limiting or Outright Banning Birth Control without having a single woman testifying, and even Republican Talk Radio Hosts attacking the morals and character of women who dare to attempt to testify are the tools of choice in this version of the War on Women conducted by the GOP.
My grandmother, who was active in the Women’s Suffragette Movement in the late 1800’s and early 20th Century told stories, which I as a child scarcely believed of what is probably described as Men Behaving Very Badly, but here, we will describe as The Breed Amendments. One may recall there is a commercial of a tiny gerbil holding a megaphone and exhorting his fellow gerbils to Row, Row, and Row. Perhaps that same sentiment is at work here with Breed, Breed, and Breed being shouted over the seemingly deaf ears of American Women. Maybe women have become so insulated that comparisons with livestock are appropriate, however my long ago grandmother would certainly have disagreed, and been insulted by these Breed Amendments.
by Tom Love
My grandmother, who was active in the Women’s Suffragette Movement in the late 1800’s and early 20th Century told stories, which I as a child scarcely believed of what is probably described as Men Behaving Very Badly, but here, we will describe as The Breed Amendments. One may recall there is a commercial of a tiny gerbil holding a megaphone and exhorting his fellow gerbils to Row, Row, and Row. Perhaps that same sentiment is at work here with Breed, Breed, and Breed being shouted over the seemingly deaf ears of American Women. Maybe women have become so insulated that comparisons with livestock are appropriate, however my long ago grandmother would certainly have disagreed, and been insulted by these Breed Amendments.
by Tom Love
Saturday, March 3, 2012
The Keystone XL Flim-Flam By Jim Hightower
For Rep. Allen West, the skyrocketing price of gasoline is not just a policy matter, it's a personal pocketbook issue. The Florida tea-party Republican (who, of course, blames President Obama for the increase) recently posted a message on Facebook wailing that it's now costing him $70 to fill his Hummer H3.
It's hard to feel the pain of a whining, $174,000-a-year congress-critter, but millions of regular Americans really are feeling pain at the pump - especially truck drivers, cabbies, farmer, commuters and others whose livelihoods are tethered to the whims of Big Oil. It's an especially cynical political stunt, then, for congressional Republicans, GOP presidential wannabes and a chorus of right-wing mouthpieces to use gas price pain as a whip for lashing out at Obama's January decision to reject the infamous Keystone XL pipeline.
This friendly Canadian corporation, they cried, would send 700,000 barrels of "tar sands crude" oil per day through the 2,000-mile-long pipeline that it would build from Alberta, Canada, to Texas refineries on the Gulf Coast. "Less dependence on OPEC," they chant like a mantra, "more gasoline for America, lower prices for consumers." What's not to like?
Well, aside from inevitable environmental damage from pipeline leaks, and the fact that this foreign-owned corporation would use the autocratic power of eminent domain to take land from unwilling sellers along the 2,000 mile route, here's something not to like: The gasoline and diesel that would be made from this Canadian crude would not go to American gas pumps, but to foreign markets.
The dirty little secret that those pushing so urgently for building Keystone XL don't want you to know is that the tar sands oil producers are in cahoots with Texas refineries to move the product onto the lucrative global export market, selling it to buyers in Europe, Latin America and China - not to you and me.
The pipeline and the toxic crude it'll carry across six states would do absolutely nothing to shave even a penny off of the price we pay at the pump.
Already, U.S. refineries are exporting records amounts of the gasoline they make. For the first time in 62 years, America is now a net petroleum exporter. Valero Energy Corp., the largest U.S. exporter of refined petroleum products, is a major lobbyist for Keystone XL. Along with Motiva (an oil refiner jointly owned by Shell and Saudi Aramco) and Total (a French refinery), Valero has signed secret, long-term contracts with Keystone's owner (TransCanada Corp.) and several tar sands oil producers to bring this crude to Port Arthur, Texas. All three have upgraded their refineries there to process diesel for export.
Adding to Big Oil's enjoyment is the fact that the Port Arthur refineries of Valero, Motiva and Total are within a Foreign Trade Zone, giving them special tax breaks for shipping gasoline and diesel out of our country. And adding to the dismay of some U.S. consumers, TransCanada has quietly boasted that Keystone XL would cut gasoline supplies in our Midwestern states, thus raising prices at the pump and siphoning more billions of dollars a year from consumers pockets into the vaults of multinational oil interests.
So, lets tally the score in this Keystone pipeline deal: The American people's environment would be put at risk, foreign nations would get the fuel, pipeline and oil investors would get the tax-subsidized profits, and we'd all stay hooked on deadly polluting oil. Meanwhile, the financial speculators and supply manipulators who are artificially causing our gasoline prices to rise escape scrutiny, while self-serving politicians (tanked up on Big Oil's and Wall Street's campaign cash) divert attention to the bugaboo of Obama's pipeline decision.
And, yet again, our nation has an excuse to postpone the necessary investments in conservation, alternative fuels and mass transit that will actually solve the gas-gouging problem.
What's not to like?
http://www.creators.com/opinion/jim-hightower/the-keystone-xl-flim-flam.html
It's hard to feel the pain of a whining, $174,000-a-year congress-critter, but millions of regular Americans really are feeling pain at the pump - especially truck drivers, cabbies, farmer, commuters and others whose livelihoods are tethered to the whims of Big Oil. It's an especially cynical political stunt, then, for congressional Republicans, GOP presidential wannabes and a chorus of right-wing mouthpieces to use gas price pain as a whip for lashing out at Obama's January decision to reject the infamous Keystone XL pipeline.
This friendly Canadian corporation, they cried, would send 700,000 barrels of "tar sands crude" oil per day through the 2,000-mile-long pipeline that it would build from Alberta, Canada, to Texas refineries on the Gulf Coast. "Less dependence on OPEC," they chant like a mantra, "more gasoline for America, lower prices for consumers." What's not to like?
Well, aside from inevitable environmental damage from pipeline leaks, and the fact that this foreign-owned corporation would use the autocratic power of eminent domain to take land from unwilling sellers along the 2,000 mile route, here's something not to like: The gasoline and diesel that would be made from this Canadian crude would not go to American gas pumps, but to foreign markets.
The dirty little secret that those pushing so urgently for building Keystone XL don't want you to know is that the tar sands oil producers are in cahoots with Texas refineries to move the product onto the lucrative global export market, selling it to buyers in Europe, Latin America and China - not to you and me.
The pipeline and the toxic crude it'll carry across six states would do absolutely nothing to shave even a penny off of the price we pay at the pump.
Already, U.S. refineries are exporting records amounts of the gasoline they make. For the first time in 62 years, America is now a net petroleum exporter. Valero Energy Corp., the largest U.S. exporter of refined petroleum products, is a major lobbyist for Keystone XL. Along with Motiva (an oil refiner jointly owned by Shell and Saudi Aramco) and Total (a French refinery), Valero has signed secret, long-term contracts with Keystone's owner (TransCanada Corp.) and several tar sands oil producers to bring this crude to Port Arthur, Texas. All three have upgraded their refineries there to process diesel for export.
Adding to Big Oil's enjoyment is the fact that the Port Arthur refineries of Valero, Motiva and Total are within a Foreign Trade Zone, giving them special tax breaks for shipping gasoline and diesel out of our country. And adding to the dismay of some U.S. consumers, TransCanada has quietly boasted that Keystone XL would cut gasoline supplies in our Midwestern states, thus raising prices at the pump and siphoning more billions of dollars a year from consumers pockets into the vaults of multinational oil interests.
So, lets tally the score in this Keystone pipeline deal: The American people's environment would be put at risk, foreign nations would get the fuel, pipeline and oil investors would get the tax-subsidized profits, and we'd all stay hooked on deadly polluting oil. Meanwhile, the financial speculators and supply manipulators who are artificially causing our gasoline prices to rise escape scrutiny, while self-serving politicians (tanked up on Big Oil's and Wall Street's campaign cash) divert attention to the bugaboo of Obama's pipeline decision.
And, yet again, our nation has an excuse to postpone the necessary investments in conservation, alternative fuels and mass transit that will actually solve the gas-gouging problem.
What's not to like?
http://www.creators.com/opinion/jim-hightower/the-keystone-xl-flim-flam.html
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