Headlines - Sunday

Very bad news for unemployed Americans who are running out of benefits:

Tens of thousands of workers have already used up their benefits, and the numbers are expected to soar in the months to come, reaching half a million by the end of September and 1.5 million by the end of the year, according to new projections by the National Employment Law Project, a private research group.

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Jonathan Alter: What's Not to Like? - Reform? Why do we need health-care reform? Everything is just fine the way it is.

 

Reform? Why do we need health-care reform? Everything is just fine the way it is.

 

Go ahead, shoot me. I like the status quo on health care in the United States. I've got health insurance and I don't give a damn about the 47 million suckers who don't. Obama and Congress must be stopped. No bill! I'm better off the way things are.

I'm with that woman who wrote the president complaining about "socialized medicine" and added: "Now keep your hands off my Medicare." That's the spirit!

 

I had cancer a few years ago. I like the fact that if I lose my job, I won't be able to get any insurance because of my illness. It reminds me of my homeowners' insurance, which gets canceled after a break-in. I like the choice I'd face if, God forbid, the cancer recurs—sell my house to pay for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in treatment, or die. That's what you call a "post-existing condition."

 

And how could the supporters of these reform bills believe in anything as stupid as a "public option"? Do they really believe that the health-insurance cartel deserves a little competition to keep them honest? Back in the day, they had a word for competition. A bad word. They called it capitalism. FedEx versus the U.S. Postal Service, CNN versus PBS—just because it's government-backed doesn't mean you can't compete against it. If they believed in capitalism, the insurance companies would join the fray and compete.

I'm glad they don't. I prefer the status quo, where the for-profit insurance companies suck at the teat of the federal government. Corporate welfare's what we've got, and it's a damn good system. Through a wonderful program called Medicare Advantage, the insurance companies receive hundreds of billions of dollars in fees to administer a program that the government is already running. Don't touch that baby. You'd be messing with the handiwork of some fine lobbyists.

 

Go and read the rest.

 

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Obama trims sails on health reform

 

From the start of his presidency, Barack Obama made clear that his plan for enacting comprehensive health-care reform came down to three words: fast, broad and bipartisan.

That was then.

Now, as lawmakers begin to flee Washington for a month-long recess, the White House team is retooling its message and strategy, hoping a more modest approach will reinvigorate Obama's signature domestic policy initiative and give him a first-year victory for Democrats to carry into the 2010 midterm elections.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/01/AR2009080102403.html?hpid=topnews

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There is such a huge mess to clean up from the past eight years, and part of it is the utter indifference to safety displayed by manufacturers. Oh, and by the way? This company made "natural" products:

WASHINGTON — Officers with the U.S. Marshals Service have seized all skin sanitizers and skin protectants, including ingredients and components, at Clarcon Biological Chemistry Laboratory's facility in Roy, Utah, the Food and Drug Administration said.

The FDA also warned the public Saturday not to use any Clarcon products because they contain harmful bacteria and are promoted as antimicrobial agents that claim to treat open wounds, damaged skin, and protect against various infectious diseases. No cases have been reported to the FDA.

Clarcon voluntarily recalled the affected products, marketed under several different brand names, in June 2009, following an FDA inspection that revealed high levels of potentially disease-causing bacteria in the products.

The inspection also uncovered serious deviations from the FDA's regulations, including poor practices that permitted the contamination. The FDA's seizure of these products, along with their ingredients, occurred after Clarcon did not agree to promptly destroy them. The FDA said it is protecting the public by preventing these products from entering the marketplace.

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A coalition of one  The United States is now the only foreign military in Iraq after Britain and Australia both pulled the last of their troops out. The quiet, inauspicious end of the coalition was quite the opposite of its creation, when then-president Bush wooed nations large and small for support before and after the March 2003 invasion.

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Halliburton shareholders sue the board for malpractice Shareholders, mad as hell after more than half a billion dollars in fines were levied against the company for bribing Nigerian officials, are suing the company in Harris County District Court, seeking to "punish" officials who allowed such lax standards that millions of dollars could be spirited away to Nigerian bureaucrats, incurring massive fines and harming shareholders' profits.  "According to the lawsuit, 'the defendants caused Halliburton to maintain internal controls that were so deficient that Halliburton insiders were able to divert millions of dollars of company funds to pay illegal bribes to various foreign officials in direct violation of the [Foreign Corrupt Practices Act]. Defendant's failure in this regard has caused substantial damage to Halliburton,'" Houston Press reports.

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'Christians' wink at torture: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/01-4

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TPM: Upping the Ante

Be careful who you get into bed with, they say. World Net Daily has been the major outlet on the right carrying the 'reporting' ball for the 'birther' movement. And I'd noticed how over the last few days they started saying how whether Barack Obama was born on US soil is beside the point. Which is sort of weird since I thought that's what this whole conspiracy theory was based on. But, no, apparently there are ten other bogus reasons why President Obama may not be a "natural born" citizen of the USA and thus not actually president.

But I didn't figure they'd be getting this far so quickly. Now WND has put out a piece reporting on the latest questions about whether Obama may actually be the anti-christ.

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TPM: Unfired

President Obama nominates fired US Attorney Daniel Bogden to serve as United States Attorney for the District of Nevada - the job he had before President Bush fired him shortly after the 2006 election.

Fifty years ago, Rush Limbaugh wouldn't have been called a racist because virtually all white people in America back then were racists and didn't even know it. He's called a racist today because America has changed dramatically and Rush hasn't. He's still living in the days of Leave It to Beaver. But even this throwback to the 1950s has to mind his p's and q's today, not daring to utter his white supremacist ideology in plain English, using instead dog whistles, euphemisms, code words, and other indirections to avoid saying what he wants to say so badly it may make him bust someday, namely, the dreaded N-word.