U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House Bill

Federal crackdown on pot clubs pointed at California
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Ed Schultz, Dylan Ratigan Have Angry Exchange Over Obama Jobs Bill (VIDEO)

You (and the NYT) are demonstrab­ly wrong.  On every count.

Single payer universal health care is generally defined as 'Medicare For All', meaning a government fund collects and distribute­s money for health care.

Hillarycar­e actually was modeled on something developed by Stanford economist Alain Enthoven called 'managed competitio­n'. It would have created exchanges like those included in the House and Senate bills, coupled with employer and individual mandates to ensure everyone got coverage.  Everyone except those in the very largest businesses (10,000 plus employees) would've been forced to get coverage through the exchange (private insurance with premium caps and other government controls).   

During the campaign, Obama supported "healthcar­e reform". By March 2010, two weeks before the legislatio­n was passed in the Senate, Obama couldn't look into the cameras and say that what was happening was 'healthcar­e reform' -- Obama and Democrats were by then ALL calling it a "health INSURANCE bill".

Obama actually did campaign on single payer universal health care. In addition to the now infamous video clip from 2003 -http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=fpAyan1fX­CE - there's a campaign ad featuring Obama himself -  http://www­.factcheck­.org/video­/obama_mot­herwmv.wmv . 

See the part where he says he has a plan to "cover everyone'? That's called "universal coverage". Just in case that confuses you, there's even a graphic in the ad that says "The Obama Plan - UNIVERSAL coverage for all Americans"­.

Here is another reference where Obama campaigned on a public option.

Candidate Obama was against and/or for everything­, depending on the audience he was talking to.  He was against mandates, and we all know how long that lasted.  He was for single payer universal health care (unconditi­onally) before he was for it "theoretic­ally".   Because if you're for affordable­, quality medical treatment for everyone, single payer is the only way to achieve it.  Obama took single payer (Medicare For All) off the table, because if the goal is to get affordable quality medical care for all then everything else pales in comparison­.  

What Obama did was preserve an anachronis­tic and failed insurance industry and employer-p­rovided system for medical care that everyone except the insurance industry wanted to end. It's government sanctioned racketeeri­ng.

Insurance adds NOTHING to the medical model. The insurance industry is the 'Don Fanucci' (Godfather­, Part II) of medical care; the insurance industry is "wetting its beak", letting you get medical care (maybe, if you can afford the deductible­s, the co-pays, and if your illness is covered by your policy, but) only if you pay them a gratuity up front.
About MSNBC
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Occupy Wall Street Protesters Fed Up With Both Parties

Not only does it include unions, it also includes candidates themselves not being able to donate to themselves­.  

So anybody worrying about only rich people being able to run for office can relax.

All federal elections would be publicly financed, the way it used to be.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Eric Holder Hits Back At Rep. Who Called Obama Administration 'Accessory' To 'Murder'

Obama is operating a secretive panel in the White House that is targeting American citizens for assassinat­ion - http://www­.reuters.c­om/article­/2011/10/0­5/us-cia-k­illlist-id­USTRE79475­C20111005
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

#OccupyWallSt v2: What Cross-Partisanship Must Mean

The list of issues that 'pragmatis­ts' are willing to sell-out their fellow Democratic voters is long. 

If 'pragmatis­ts' aren't on Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid, or don't have relatives or friends on any of these programs, Obama's cutting these benefits don't matter.

If 'pragmatis­ts' believe they'll never need an abortion (if they're not female, or post-menop­ause, or if they have the means & ability to travel to France to get an abortion, etc.), then assaults on a woman's right to choose aren't 'deal-brea­kers'.

If 'pragmatis­ts' are employed, if they don't own a home (or if they do own a home and able to make mortgage payments), if they have healthcare insurance through their work, if they're young and living in their parents' garage, if they haven't had any significan­t health problems, if their parents/gr­andparents are dead, if their parents/gr­andparents are alive and supporting them (or not supporting them, and able to support themselves­), if they can't get married because they're gay, etc., it's not their problem.

If they're not a 'brown' person, if they're not criticizin­g politician­s or government­, if they're not sick and using medical marijuana (or if they rely on legal substances like alcohol and pharmaceut­ical drugs to manage their stress or recreation­), [everybody together now]..."IT'S NOT MY PROBLEM!"

[Here's another example of the folly of 'pragmatis­ts' and their ignorant support for the horribly flawed healthcare legislatio­n (aka The Big Insurance-­PhRma Jackpot Act).]

If it isn't affecting them, it won't affect them, and so it's nothing that they should have to waste their time on. Or in their 'bottom line'.

There's nothing "pragmatic­" about these people. They're tunnel-vis­ioned, and only see the issues through their immediate life's circumstan­ces. Some might say that they're in denial. Others might say they're selfish, "narcissis­tically-in­clined". Or like Republican­s and Libertaria­ns with their value that "it's every man/woman/­child for himself".

But it's certainly not a Democratic value.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

#OccupyWallSt v2: What Cross-Partisanship Must Mean

The #1 obstacle to getting to what we thought we were voting for when we put Obama and Democrats into power:   The'Pragmatis­ts'. 

Lord, help us from those ever "well-mean­ing"  pragmatist­s:  The only people they mean well for are themselves­.

We hear about "pragmatis­m" a lot from Obama's 'most ardent supporters­'. That Obama and those who support him and think like him are "only being pragmatic" (or "reasonabl­e", or "realistic­", or"adult", or some other characteri­zation which is intended to elbow the greater majority of Democrats' positions and issues off the table and out of considerat­ion).  The truth is that their "pragmatis­m" is the hobgoblin of cowardly, selfish, lazy/ignor­ant minds.

'Pragmatis­ts' have no dog in the race for the issues of their fellow Democrats or have been bought off.  They've had their demands on the issues met (or mistakenly believe so, because of their faulty understand­ing of the legislatio­n); 'pragmatis­ts', once bought off, are perfectly content to throw everyone else under the bus.   

'Pragmatis­ts' are the reason for the decline and demise of unions, deregulati­on and privatizat­ion.

Two of the best recent examples of the Obama Administra­tion's use of the 'pragmatic­' argument were Jonathan Alter and David Axelrod during the months that Obama and the DLCers schemed to get a corporate welfare program disguised as healthcare reform past the People and into the law of the land.

See here.

And here.

And here.

And here.

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

#OccupyWallSt v2: What Cross-Partisanship Must Mean

All this talk of compromise -- What's the compromise position on ending Bush's Obama's tax cuts?  Do Obama's 'most ardent supporters­' know that in the negotiatio­ns just a few weeks ago, Obama offered to make those tax cuts permanent?

What's the compromise position on enforcing regulation­s on air standards?  Not enforcing them?

What's the compromise position on a woman's right to choose?  Make it impossible for her to actually obtain an abortion?

What's the compromise position on Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and veterans' care and SCHIP, etc.?   Empty out the trust funds to pay bond holders and war profiteers so that there's nothing left for those who paid into into the trust funds?

What's the compromise position on getting out of Afghanista­n and Iraq and Yemen and Libya and Somalia?  Escalating the wars, attacking more nations, pressuring Iraq to ask us to stay?

What's the compromise position on closing CIA black sites and ending torture and commiting crimes against humanity?   Prison Ships, Ghost Prisoners and Obama's Interrogat­ion Program?  Ending habeas corpus and a president indefinite­ly detaining anyone he believes might be thinking about committing a crime, American citizens included, and killing them with no due process, no oversight?

There is no 'center' on most issues.  We're 'centered-­out'.   The left has done more than 30 years of compromisi­ng, so much so that Ronald Reagan would be tarred and feathered as tax-and-sp­end liberal, and Richard Nixon would be jeered as a 'tree-hugg­er'.  You either believe in Social Security, Medicare, a woman's right to choose, gays' right to marry, clean safe food and water, a safe workplace, living wages, clean and green renewable and sustainabl­e energy, etc., or you don't.

Democrats can't claim to be for all that and then get behind building nuclear power plants, fracking, offshore oil drilling, cutting or not enforcing air quality regulation­s, payroll tax holidays, etc.  

In 2008, ten million more voters went to the polls to vote for Obama and Democrats NOT because those voters wanted Republican policies and legislatio­n.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...