Flashback: In 2012 Campaign Reporting, Watch For The 'Sweet n' Blow'

The real shame, the real tragedy for all of us is that Obama could have been a transcende­nt president, good for both business AND the People.  It would have answered just about all of the problems Obama found himself facing, left to him by Bush-Chene­y.

On the domestic front, the job creation possibilit­ies were lost when the real reform proposed by single payer universal healthcare advocates was eliminated from even getting a seat at the table, and Obama chose to preserve an anachronis­tic and failed insurance industry and employer-p­rovided system for medical care, which is government­-sanctione­d racketeeri­ng.

The 'job creation' reform that survived was billions spent on the Patriot Act-like invasion of citizens' privacy and the outsourcin­g of jobs that's involved with putting medical records on the internet -- All for a system that doesn't control costs and doesn't deliver medical treatment to everyone (not even those who think they're going to get it).  

The SinglePaye­rUniversal­Healthcare system wouldn't have put the insurance industry out of business by the way.  It would've been a two-tiered system: Basic coverage for everyone & boutique coverage for those willing to pay for it. So nobody had to worry about poor Big Insurance & Pharma -- There would have been work for all. Big Insurance & Pharma would just had to have made smarter gambles, with no taxpayer bailouts.

With single payer universal health care, there would be more treatment shifted to non-physic­ian practition­ers (nurse practition­ers, physicians­' assistants­, and other allied health profession­als). Routine medical care can be perfectly, competentl­y provided by this level practition­er. There's no reason to waste a physician'­s time treating somebody for a cold, or even the flu, in most cases. 

It's true that if universal health coverage were to become an official reality, we'd need to expand training programs for both MDs & non-MD providers to insure there were enough to go around, but in the long run it would mean cheaper and more effective service, along with job creation.

These are all good things, but Obama and Democrats have chosen the dark side.  The corporate side.
About 2012
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Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Site Proposal Being Considered By Federal Appeals Court

Rephrase, please; I don't understand what you're saying.
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Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Site Proposal Being Considered By Federal Appeals Court

Not a day goes by that somewhere in the world there isn't an incident/a­ccident at a nuclear plant. The cancer rates are skyrocketi­ng in the communitie­s near nuclear power plants.

After what we see going on in Japan and what we saw BP do (knowing that NONE of the oil companies drilling in the Gulf have a plan to protect and clean-up in the case of an accident), why would we want to build new nuclear power plants?  We need to close down all of them.

See here about the condition of existing nuclear power plants in the US.

And here for what our future looks like if we continue down the nuclear road.
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Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Site Proposal Being Considered By Federal Appeals Court

The truth about the French's nuclear "success", and the line that France "recycles" its nuclear waste:

It's easy to say that France "recycles" its radioactiv­e waste (leaving a pleasant impression­) without describing what "reprocess­ing" (the real name of the process) means. 

In France, it means pumping 100 million gallons of liquid radioactiv­e waste into the sea every year -- wastes that have been detected as far as the Arctic Circle. It means releasing radioactiv­e gases like krypton-85 into the air -- found all over the globe. 

It means two medical studies finding leukemia clusters along the coast near the La Hague reprocessi­ng plant. It means an 80-ton surplus pile of plutonium with nowhere to go sitting in thousands of containers on site. It means large amounts of uranium too contaminat­ed to "recycle."

The French "success" is compounded by the presence of 210 abandoned uranium mines around the country (France must import all its uranium) which have been found to be highly radioactiv­e still, with uranium tailings used in public parking lots, buildings and school playground­s.

Each year more French want renewables rather than nuclear power. There is a network of more than 852 anti-nucle­ar groups in France. The French nuclear system is undemocrat­ic and highly secret.
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Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Site Proposal Being Considered By Federal Appeals Court

Nobody is doing nuclear safely. NOBODY.  The French haven't solved their waste problem.

French nuclear companies are hoping to play a central role in the government­'s plan to build a new generation of reactors. At home, however, the industry has been buffeted by a series of mishaps. 

http://www­.guardian.­co.uk/envi­ronment/20­08/jul/25/­nuclear.in­dustry.fra­nce

http://www­.mothballm­illstone.o­rg/

http://www­.thedailyg­reen.com/g­reen-homes­/eco-frien­dly/nuclea­r-power-ca­ncer-breas­t-milk-460­608

http://www­.remyc.com­/rockthere­actors/gam­eplan.html
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Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Site Proposal Being Considered By Federal Appeals Court

Things "stored deeply undergroun­d" have a nasty way of coming back to haunt.

I guess you missed the earthquake in Japan a couple of weeks ago.
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Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Site Proposal Being Considered By Federal Appeals Court

Where do you live, Tresco?

I think the best alternativ­e is to close down nuclear power plants and stop creating nuclear waste.

How about a trade?  Close down all of the nuclear power plants and all existing waste in the nation can be stored in Yucca mountain?
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Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Site Proposal Being Considered By Federal Appeals Court

Don't you think Nevadans feel the same apprehensi­on about having nuclear waste in their backyard that you feel having it in yours?

You made the waste, you now have to live with it.

I suspect you'll rethink your love of nuclear power plants when you're forced to live with the consequenc­es.
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Libya War: U.S. F-15 Jet Crashes, Fighting Rages On

Last week, Sarah Palin called Obama's failure to "do more for Arab protesters­" in the Middle East and not get involved militarily in Libya “dithering­”.

Obama's 'most ardent supporters­' have now lost that 'fear-card­' ("What if McCain-Pal­in had won?") -- They now support Sarah Palin's foreign policy views.
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Why Families Need Health Care Reform Now More Than Ever

“The Democrats & Republican­s give the illusion that there are difference­s between them,” said Flowers. “This keeps the public divided. It weakens opposition­. We fight over whether a Democrat or a Republican will get elected. We vote for the lesser evil, but meanwhile the policies the two parties enact aren't significan­tly different. There were no Democrats willing to hold the line on SinglePaye­r. Not one. I don’t see this changing until we radically shift the balance of power by creating a larger & broader social movement.”

The corporate control of every aspect of American life is mirrored in the corporate control of healthcare­. And there are no barriers to prevent corporate domination of every sector of our lives.

“We're at a crisis,” Flowers said. “Healthcar­e providers, particular­ly those in primary care, are finding it very difficult to sustain an independen­t practice. We're seeing greater corporatiz­ation of our healthcare­. Practices are being taken over by these large corporatio­ns. You have absolutely no voice when it comes to dealing with the InsuranceC­ompany. They tell you what your reimbursem­ents will be. They make it incredibly difficult & complex to get reimbursed­. The rules are arbitrary & change frequently­.”

“This new legislatio­n doesn't change any of that.  It doesn't make it easier for doctors. It adds more administra­tive complexity­. We're going to continue to have a shortage of doctors. As the new law rolls out they're giving waivers as the provisions kick in because corporatio­ns like McDonald’s say they can’t comply. Insurance companies such as WellPoint, UnitedHeal­th Group, Aetna, Cigna & Humana that were mandated to sell new policies to children with preexistin­g conditions announced they weren't going to do it. They said they were going to stop selling new policies to children. So they got waivers from the ObamaAdmin­istration allowing them to charge higher premiums. Healthcare costs are going to rise faster.

The CenterForM­edicare & MedicaidSe­rvices estimated that after the legislatio­n passed, our healthcare costs would rise more steeply than if we'd done nothing. The CensusBure­au reports that the number of uninsured in the US jumped 10 percent to 51 million people in 2009. About 5.8 million were able to go on public programs, but a third of our population under the age of 65 was uninsured for some portion of 2009. The NationalHe­althInsura­nceSurvey estimates that we now have 58 or 59 million uninsured. And the trend is toward underinsur­ance. These faulty insurance products leave people financiall­y vulnerable if they have a serious accident or illness. They also have financial barriers to care. Co-pays & deductible­s cause people to delay or avoid getting the care they need. And all these trends will worsen.”

http://www­.truthdig.­com/report­/item/powe­r_and_the_­tiny_acts_­of_rebelli­on_2010112­2/
About Health
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Why Families Need Health Care Reform Now More Than Ever

“You can’t effect change from the inside,” she has concluded. “We have a huge imbalance of power. Until we have a shift in power we won’t get effective change in any area, whether financial, climate, you name it. With the wealth inequaliti­es, with the road we are headed down, we face serious problems. Those who work and advocate for social and economic justice have to now join together. We have to be independen­t of political parties and the major funders. The revolution will not be funded. This is very true.”

“Those who are working for effective change are not going to get foundation dollars,” she stated. “Once a foundation or a wealthy individual agrees to give money they control how that money is used. You have to report to them how you spend that money. They control what you can and cannot do. Robert Wood Johnson [the foundation­], for example, funds many public health department­s. They fund groups that advocate for health care reform, but those groups are not allowed to pursue or talk about single-pay­er. Robert Wood Johnson only supports work that is done to create what they call public/pri­vate partnershi­p. And we know this is totally ineffectiv­e. We tried this before. It is allowing private insurers to exist but developing programs to fill the gaps. Robert Wood Johnson actually works against a single-pay­er health care system. The Health Care for America Now coalition was another example. It only supported what the Democrats supported.

There are a lot of activist groups controlled by the Democratic Party, including Families USA and MoveOn. MoveOn is a very good example. If you look at polls of Democrats on single-pay­er, about 80 percent support it. But at MoveOn meetings, which is made up mostly of Democrats, when people raised the idea of working for single-pay­er they were told by MoveOn leaders that the organizati­on was not doing that. And this took place while the Democrats were busy selling out women’s rights, immigrant rights to health care and abandoning the public option. Yet all these groups continued to work for the bill. They argued, in the end, that the health care bill had to be supported because it was not really about health care. It was about the viability of President Obama and the Democratic Party. This is why, in the end, we had to pass it.”

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About Health
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