Single Payer Healthcare Now

Another Example Why Racist Ineptitude Of Right A Danger To Our Country #p2 #tcot

SinglePayerHealthcareNow — 2010-03-14T02:03:24Z

The Right has always attempted to portray themselves as the law and order party that best knew how to protect the country. Of course the largest terrorists attack on our country that caused more deaths than any terrorist attack ever occurred under their watch. Their policies of torture and unadulterated and indiscriminate aggression failed to keep us safe. Lucky for our country that the professionals under the current administration did not succumb to the Right’s rhetoric attempting to codify a policy of racial profiling. The capture of two ladies completely foreign to the profile or stereotype is proof positive that the Right must simply be considered purveyors of failed ideological policies and rhetoric.

Jamie Paulin-Ramirez Held In Connection With Plot To Assassinate Swedish Cartoonist

IVAN MORENO | 03/13/10 08:25 PM

LEADVILLE, Colo. — Before her daughter disappeared last fall, Christina Mott recalls that the 31-year-old who had been held in connection with an alleged assassination plot announced she had converted to Islam and told them they'd go to hell if they didn't follow in her steps.

Jamie Paulin-Ramirez also began talking about Jihad with her Muslim stepfather and spent most of her time online as she withdrew from her family, Mott said.

"We were enemies," Christine Mott, 59, said. "We couldn't even speak to each other."

Paulin-Ramirez left Leadville, Colo., an old mining town west of Denver, on Sept. 11, and took her 6-year-old son with her, her mother said. A U.S. official, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity, said Saturday that Paulin-Ramirez had been detained in Ireland in connection with an alleged plot to kill cartoonist Lars Vilks, whose 2007 sketch depicted the head of the Prophet Muhammad on a dog's body, offending many Muslims and provoking terror front Al-Qaida in Iraq to offer a $100,000 bounty for his slaying.

Irish police said later Saturday that they had released an American woman and three others arrested in Ireland over an alleged plot to assassinate Swedish artist Lars Vilks had been freed without charge. Three others remained in custody and were being questioned. Irish police refused to confirm whether Paulin-Ramirez is the woman in custody, and have declined to release the identities of any of those arrested.

Smoking as she sat on her living room couch in Leadville, Christine Mott said she hadn't eaten in days. She described her daughter as troubled single mother who had the "mentality of an abused woman" and who, in trying to escape her loneliness, may have spiraled into the depths of Islam extremism. Her reported arrest came hours before U.S. authorities unveiled a terror indictment against another American woman, Colleen LaRose, of Pennsylvania.

U.S. authorities on Tuesday unsealed terror charges against the 46-year-old LaRose, who allegedly went by the name "Jihad Jane" to recruit others online to kill the cartoonist.

Mott told The Associated Press that she learned of her daughter's arrest in the case from the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies.

Denver FBI officials said Saturday they couldn't confirm that the FBI had contacted Mott about the case.

Jamie Paulin-Ramirez Held In Connection With Plot To Assassinate Swedish Cartoonist

Catholic Health Group Accepts Abortion Language in Reform Bill -- Politics Daily

SinglePayerHealthcareNow — 2010-03-14T01:26:01Z

The head of the national association of Catholic hospitals, which holds great sway in the health care debate, threw her support Saturday behind the contested Senate reform bill in a move that could give a major boost to the legislation's prospects.
But the endorsement of Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, could also put the nun and her organization at odds with the Catholic hierarchy, which continues to oppose the bill due to its provision on abortion coverage.
As Politics Daily has reported, the Senate bill does not appear to allow for abortion funding, contrary to what many pro-life critics have claimed. But the dispute is proving pivotal to the bill's chances in the House, where a cadre of pro-life Democrats, led by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) has threatened to sink the it if their demands for stronger anti-abortion language are not met.
In her statement Saturday, Keehan made it clear she thinks any qualms about abortion language in the Senate version can be resolved, and in any event are not enough to justify opposition to what Catholic leaders say is a pro-life issue and a "human right" -- universal and affordable health care. Keehan attended a March 3 briefing by President Obama at the White House, an event she said clarified her decision to support the bill.
"As I watched our president present his plan to pass the health reform legislation, it was clear this is an historic opportunity to make great improvements in the lives of so many Americans," Keehan said in her statement. "Is it perfect? No. Does it cover everyone? No. But is it a major first step? Yes."
She "has a major concern on life issues" about the bill, she said, and believes they will require monitoring should the bill become law. But she believes the concerns are adequately addressed by the mechanism to keep abortion coverage apart from the government-regulated health care markets. CONTINUED

Catholic Health Group Accepts Abortion Language in Reform Bill -- Politics Daily

Pro-life group urges Congress to pass Senate health care bill #hcr #p2 #tcot

SinglePayerHealthcareNow — 2010-03-14T01:23:19Z

Twenty-five pro-life Catholic theologians and Evangelical leaders yesterday sent letters to members of Congress urging them not to let misleading information about abortion provisions in the Senate health care bill block passage of sorely-needed reform.

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, a Washington-based advocacy group, said that the Senate health bill upholds abortion funding restrictions and supports pregnant women.

The letter included a page by page analysis of the Senate bill as it pertains to abortion.

The group asked members of Congress “to make an informed decision about this legislation based on careful deliberation guided by facts.”

“We believe that the provisions below provide extensive evidence that longstanding restrictions on federal funding of abortion have been maintained. Furthermore, this bill provides new and important supports for vulnerable pregnant women,” the letter states.

The complete text of the letter follows:

Dear Member of Congress,

As Christians committed to a consistent ethic of life, and deeply concerned with the health and well-being of all people, we want to see health care reform enacted. Our nation has a rare and historic opportunity to expand coverage to tens of millions of people, make coverage more affordable for all families, and crack down on many of the most harmful practices of the health insurance industry.

We are writing because of our concern about the lack of clear and accurate information regarding abortion provisions in the health care reform bill passed by the Senate on December 24, 2009.

Reforming our health care system is necessarily complex, and the provisions related to abortion, or any other issue, require careful examination of the facts as they exist in the legislative language. We believe that the provisions below provide extensive evidence that longstanding restrictions on federal funding of abortion have been maintained. Furthermore, this bill provides new and important supports for vulnerable pregnant women.

Following is a comprehensive factual listing of all provisions related to abortion and positive supports for pregnant women in HR 3590, along with specific page references.

Abortion-Related Provisions Included in the Senate-Approved Health Care Reform Bill “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (HR 3590 EAS/PP)

CONTINUED

Pro-life group urges Congress to pass Senate health care bill | National Catholic Reporter

Final March To Reform - Days 3-5: The voice of the people #p2 #tcot #hcr

SinglePayerHealthcareNow — 2010-03-12T22:39:10Z

The Final March for Reform is going strong -- yesterday, OFA supporters made the phones ring off the hook in Congressional offices on Capitol Hill and across the country. But for every member of Congress, there are eight anti-reform lobbyists swarming Capitol Hill -- and the upcoming vote is still too close to call.

So in these crucial, final days, we must make sure the voices of constituents break through the lobbyist attacks. And here's the plan to make it happen:

As the next step in the Final March for Reform, OFA supporters like you will be gathering at volunteer phone banks across the country. We'll be calling supportive voters in critical districts nationwide, asking them to reach out to their representatives and express their strong support for reform. A local OFA organizer will be on hand at every event, and no experience is required.

Here's how to join in: First, RSVP for an event near you -- there's one in Houston, on March 13th. Before you go, make sure to invite friends to come with you, or help them find an event in their area on our website. Then join with local supporters at your event and reach out to as many voters as you can -- each call makes a vital difference.

RSVP here to get started. Here are the details for the event nearest you:

What: Final March for Reform Phone Bank
Where: 1102 Pinemont Dr. #I
Houston, TX 77018
When: Saturday, March 13th
12:00 PM

Can't make it to that event in Houston? Click here to search for other events near you.
As we speak, insurance-industry lobbyists are deploying from their emergency base at the D.C. Ritz-Carlton, banging down the door of every Congressional office on Capitol Hill to derail reform and preserve their ability to jack up premiums and deny care to those in need.

In the old Washington, that would have been an unstoppable barrage.

But thanks to your unprecedented organizing, the lobbyists have finally met their match: the American people.

So let's get out there, and make sure the people's voice is heard.

Please sign up to join the Final March for Reform event in Houston, on March 13th:

http://my.barackobama.com/FinalMarch-RSVP
Let's finish this,
Jeremy
Jeremy Bird
Deputy Director
Organizing for America

Want A Rational Alternative To The #TeaParty? Join The #CoffeeParty #tcot #p2

SinglePayerHealthcareNow — 2010-03-12T21:32:08Z

Meet the people who are percolating in the Coffee Party

By Jessica Ravitz, CNN March 12, 2010 10:17 a.m. EST

Atlanta, Georgia (CNN) -- In one chair sits a rural retiree, his financial security shot in the slump, a humble Southerner who's never thought much about politics. In another seat is a born Northerner, an inner-city native, a relative of a civil rights giant. And nearby, circling a table, are an economist, an artist, a onetime John McCain supporter and a long-haired guy who's rich in Woodstock memories.

Meet these members of the Coffee Party Movement, an organically grown, freshly brewed push that's marking its official kickoff Saturday. Across the country, even around the globe, they and other Americans in at least several hundred communities are expected to gather in coffeehouses to raise their mugs of java to something new.

They're professionals, musicians and housewives. They're frustrated liberal activists, disheartened conservatives and political newborns. They're young and old, rich and poor, black, white and all shades of other.

Born on Facebook just six weeks ago, the group boasts more than 110,000 fans, as of Friday morning. The Coffee Party is billed by many as an answer to the Tea Party (more than 1,000 fewer fans), a year-old protest movement that's steeped in fiscal conservatism and boiling-hot, anti-tax rhetoric.

This new group calls for civility, objects to obstructionism and demands that politicians be held accountable to the people who put them in office.

"The government has become so broken that the will of the people has been lost in the political game," said Stacey Hopkins, 46, coordinator of the Atlanta, Georgia, chapter. "And the only voices you're hearing are the ones of those who are screaming the loudest. They have a right to their views, but they don't have the right to speak for all Americans."

CONTINUED

Meet the people who are percolating in the Coffee Party - CNN.com

Stop Big Insurance – PLEASE WATCH – DO YOUR PART #hcr #p2 #tcot

SinglePayerHealthcareNow — 2010-03-12T21:06:13Z

You have to see this video.

On Tuesday thousands of everyday people performed a citizens' arrest on the insurance companies who were meeting in Washington, D.C. to plot to kill health care reform. I've never seen so much energy in a crowd before. You have to watch!

It's getting down to the final push for health reform.
The House is preparing to pass the health care bill the Senate passed in December, along with a package of improvements to that bill. Those improvements will then be sent to the Senate for an up-or-down vote, with the goal of having President Obama sign both bills by the end of the month.

The House may vote on these bills as early as this coming week, and the vote is going to be close. Many Representatives will try to take the side of the insurance industry instead of the side of the American people. It's up to us to make sure they hear what America wants - real health care reform, now!

Can you pledge to make as many calls as it takes to your Representative, urging them to vote YES on health reform? Click here to pledge and tell as many friends as you can.

The health care package being considered by Congress isn't everything we wanted. But the bills will do a world of good for everyone in America. Here's how:

If you have insurance, you can keep it. But insurance companies won't be allowed to spike premiums every year and will have their profits and administrative expenses subject to federal and state scrutiny.²
If you lose your coverage or need to buy insurance on your own for any reason, insurance companies won't be able to deny you coverage and they can't charge you more because you're sick or because you're a woman. If you get sick, your insurance company won't be able to cancel your insurance retroactively like they do today. Preventative care will be free and young people can stay on their parent's insurance policy until they are 26. And small businesses and individuals will be offered steep subsidies so everyone can afford coverage.³
Insurance companies will no longer be able to sell junk insurance. If you're buying insurance on your own, insurers will have to offer plans with a standard comprehensive benefit package, they will be required to spend 85% of your premium dollars on your medical care, they will no longer be able to cap your benefits, and your out-of-pocket costs will be limited - severely reducing their profits and bad practices.
And, if you're uninsured, you will be able to purchase insurance you can afford. In all, 30 million uninsured will get good coverage, saving an estimated 30,000 lives per year.

In addition, the fixes being put to an up-or-down vote will dramatically cut back the burden of the so-called "Cadillac tax" on working families, increase subsidies so everyone can afford insurance, and fully close the Medicare donut hole for seniors.

There's a lot to support in these bills, and the staus quo is unacceptable.

Click here to pledge to call your Representative as much as it takes until they vote YES on health reform.

If these bills fail, if we lose this chance for health reform, we won't get it again for decades. If these bills fail, if we let the insurance companies win, the insurance industry will get to continue on with business as usual.

We've come so far, and these bills do so much good for so many. We can't turn back now.

It's time for Congress to choose which side they're on: Will they listen to us and pass health reform? Or will they listen to the insurance companies and doom America to more needless deaths, bankruptcies, and denials of care?

Click here to pledge to call your Representative as many times as it takes and make them take our side.

We're at the finish line. Only a few more votes are left. Let's win this thing!

To your health,
Levana Layendecker
Health Care for America Now

Health Reform Myths Debunked #p2 #tcot #hcr

SinglePayerHealthcareNow — 2010-03-12T15:37:01Z

Op-Ed Columnist

Health Reform Myths

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: March 11, 2010

Health reform is back from the dead. Many Democrats have realized that their electoral prospects will be better if they can point to a real accomplishment. Polling on reform — which was never as negative as portrayed — shows signs of improving. And I’ve been really impressed by the passion and energy of this guy Barack Obama. Where was he last year?

But reform still has to run a gantlet of misinformation and outright lies. So let me address three big myths about the proposed reform, myths that are believed by many people who consider themselves well-informed, but who have actually fallen for deceptive spin.

The first of these myths, which has been all over the airwaves lately, is the claim that President Obama is proposing a government takeover of one-sixth of the economy, the share of G.D.P. currently spent on health.

Well, if having the government regulate and subsidize health insurance is a “takeover,” that takeover happened long ago. Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs already pay for almost half of American health care, while private insurance pays for barely more than a third (the rest is mostly out-of-pocket expenses). And the great bulk of that private insurance is provided via employee plans, which are both subsidized with tax exemptions and tightly regulated.

The only part of health care in which there isn’t already a lot of federal intervention is the market in which individuals who can’t get employment-based coverage buy their own insurance. And that market, in case you hadn’t noticed, is a disaster — no coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, coverage dropped when you get sick, and huge premium increases in the middle of an economic crisis. It’s this sector, plus the plight of Americans with no insurance at all, that reform aims to fix. What’s wrong with that?

The second myth is that the proposed reform does nothing to control costs. To support this claim, critics point to reports by the Medicare actuary, who predicts that total national health spending would be slightly higher in 2019 with reform than without it.

Even if this prediction were correct, it points to a pretty good bargain. The actuary’s assessment of the Senate bill, for example, finds that it would raise total health care spending by less than 1 percent, while extending coverage to 34 million Americans who would otherwise be uninsured. That’s a large expansion in coverage at an essentially trivial cost.

And it gets better as we go further into the future: the Congressional Budget Office has just concluded, in a new report, that the arithmetic of reform will look better in its second decade than it did in its first.

Furthermore, there’s good reason to believe that all such estimates are too pessimistic. There are many cost-saving efforts in the proposed reform, but nobody knows how well any one of these efforts will work. And as a result, official estimates don’t give the plan much credit for any of them. What the actuary and the budget office do is a bit like looking at an oil company’s prospecting efforts, concluding that any individual test hole it drills will probably come up dry, and predicting as a consequence that the company won’t find any oil at all — when the odds are, in fact, that some of the test holes will pan out, and produce big payoffs. Realistically, health reform is likely to do much better at controlling costs than any of the official projections suggest.

Which brings me to the third myth: that health reform is fiscally irresponsible. How can people say this given Congressional Budget Office predictions — which, as I’ve already argued, are probably too pessimistic — that reform would actually reduce the deficit? Critics argue that we should ignore what’s actually in the legislation; when cost control actually starts to bite on Medicare, they insist, Congress will back down.

But this isn’t an argument against Obamacare, it’s a declaration that we can’t control Medicare costs no matter what. And it also flies in the face of history: contrary to legend, past efforts to limit Medicare spending have in fact “stuck,” rather than being withdrawn in the face of political pressure.

So what’s the reality of the proposed reform? Compared with the Platonic ideal of reform, Obamacare comes up short. If the votes were there, I would much prefer to see Medicare for all.

For a real piece of passable legislation, however, it looks very good. It wouldn’t transform our health care system; in fact, Americans whose jobs come with health coverage would see little effect. But it would make a huge difference to the less fortunate among us, even as it would do more to control costs than anything we’ve done before.

This is a reasonable, responsible plan. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Op-Ed Columnist - Health Reform Myths - NYTimes.com

Health Reform Myths Debunked #p2 #tcot #hcr

SinglePayerHealthcareNow — 2010-03-12T15:35:52Z

Op-Ed Columnist

Health Reform Myths

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: March 11, 2010

Health reform is back from the dead. Many Democrats have realized that their electoral prospects will be better if they can point to a real accomplishment. Polling on reform — which was never as negative as portrayed — shows signs of improving. And I’ve been really impressed by the passion and energy of this guy Barack Obama. Where was he last year?

But reform still has to run a gantlet of misinformation and outright lies. So let me address three big myths about the proposed reform, myths that are believed by many people who consider themselves well-informed, but who have actually fallen for deceptive spin.

The first of these myths, which has been all over the airwaves lately, is the claim that President Obama is proposing a government takeover of one-sixth of the economy, the share of G.D.P. currently spent on health.

Well, if having the government regulate and subsidize health insurance is a “takeover,” that takeover happened long ago. Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs already pay for almost half of American health care, while private insurance pays for barely more than a third (the rest is mostly out-of-pocket expenses). And the great bulk of that private insurance is provided via employee plans, which are both subsidized with tax exemptions and tightly regulated.

The only part of health care in which there isn’t already a lot of federal intervention is the market in which individuals who can’t get employment-based coverage buy their own insurance. And that market, in case you hadn’t noticed, is a disaster — no coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, coverage dropped when you get sick, and huge premium increases in the middle of an economic crisis. It’s this sector, plus the plight of Americans with no insurance at all, that reform aims to fix. What’s wrong with that?

The second myth is that the proposed reform does nothing to control costs. To support this claim, critics point to reports by the Medicare actuary, who predicts that total national health spending would be slightly higher in 2019 with reform than without it.

Even if this prediction were correct, it points to a pretty good bargain. The actuary’s assessment of the Senate bill, for example, finds that it would raise total health care spending by less than 1 percent, while extending coverage to 34 million Americans who would otherwise be uninsured. That’s a large expansion in coverage at an essentially trivial cost.

And it gets better as we go further into the future: the Congressional Budget Office has just concluded, in a new report, that the arithmetic of reform will look better in its second decade than it did in its first.

Furthermore, there’s good reason to believe that all such estimates are too pessimistic. There are many cost-saving efforts in the proposed reform, but nobody knows how well any one of these efforts will work. And as a result, official estimates don’t give the plan much credit for any of them. What the actuary and the budget office do is a bit like looking at an oil company’s prospecting efforts, concluding that any individual test hole it drills will probably come up dry, and predicting as a consequence that the company won’t find any oil at all — when the odds are, in fact, that some of the test holes will pan out, and produce big payoffs. Realistically, health reform is likely to do much better at controlling costs than any of the official projections suggest.

Which brings me to the third myth: that health reform is fiscally irresponsible. How can people say this given Congressional Budget Office predictions — which, as I’ve already argued, are probably too pessimistic — that reform would actually reduce the deficit? Critics argue that we should ignore what’s actually in the legislation; when cost control actually starts to bite on Medicare, they insist, Congress will back down.

But this isn’t an argument against Obamacare, it’s a declaration that we can’t control Medicare costs no matter what. And it also flies in the face of history: contrary to legend, past efforts to limit Medicare spending have in fact “stuck,” rather than being withdrawn in the face of political pressure.

So what’s the reality of the proposed reform? Compared with the Platonic ideal of reform, Obamacare comes up short. If the votes were there, I would much prefer to see Medicare for all.

For a real piece of passable legislation, however, it looks very good. It wouldn’t transform our health care system; in fact, Americans whose jobs come with health coverage would see little effect. But it would make a huge difference to the less fortunate among us, even as it would do more to control costs than anything we’ve done before.

This is a reasonable, responsible plan. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Op-Ed Columnist - Health Reform Myths - NYTimes.com

GOP Leaders Lied Again On Reconciliation Procedure #p2 #tcot #hcr

SinglePayerHealthcareNow — 2010-03-12T15:23:54Z

This is the reason why their base is so misinformed. It is not that most on the Right are selfish ideologues, it is that their leaders are a disservice to them. We must help them to new real leaders and informed resources.

Update on reconciliation

by David Waldman

Fri Mar 12, 2010 at 06:45:58 AM PST

Republicans have been lying about reconciliation being the "nuclear option" for weeks. So it should come as no surprise that CQ (subscription) now reports:

Republican aides, reporting the decision, interpreted it to mean the House would have to clear the Senate bill and President Obama would have to sign it before the reconciliation bill could be passed. House leaders had been hoping that the two bills could be passed almost simultaneously.

The parliamentarian, however, later reportedly clarified his position to Senate aides, saying that the reconciliation bill could be written in a way that would not require Obama to sign the Senate bill into law before the reconciliation bill is voted on.

Thank you, and have a pleasant day.

If you don't have a CQ subscription, for now you'll have to settle for Politico's story:

[A]ccording to reporting by POLITICO’s David Rogers, the accounts aren’t accurate and misconstrue what the Senate parliamentarians have said. That is that reconciliation must amend law but this could be done without the Senate bill being enacted first. "It is wholly possible to create law and qualify law before the law is on the books," said one person familiar with situation.

For example, if the big bill itself amends some Social Security statute, reconciliation could be written to do the same --with changes sought by the House. Then if reconciliation is passed and signed by President Barack Obama after he signs the larger bill, the changes made in reconciliation would prevail.
This jives with what Pulse sources were saying soon after the first wave of stories hit – in essence, don’t take the reported parliamentarian’s declaration to the bank.

CONTINUED

Congress Matters

Stewart: Fox News Is The Meanest Sorority In The World #p2 #hcr #tcot

SinglePayerHealthcareNow — 2010-03-12T15:14:32Z

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Health Care: The Ultimate Last Final Push

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Reform

Highlights: Obama's Speech On Health Care Reform In St. Louis #p2 #hcr #tcot

SinglePayerHealthcareNow — 2010-03-12T02:58:54Z

The Washington Post: Stop promoting torture #p2 #tcot

SinglePayerHealthcareNow — 2010-03-11T22:46:31Z

The op-ed pages of The Washington Post should be a place for serious debate about the direction of our country.

But by hiring former Bush administration speechwriter Marc Thiessen -- the second former Bush speechwriter to whom it has given a regular column -- The Washington Post has crossed the line. Thiessen is a serial misinformer. And he shouldn't be rewarded with the audience or credibility that a regular column provides.

In his latest column, Thiessen attacks lawyers who have represented detainees, warning that these lawyers may hold "radical and dangerous views" and that by giving detainees representation, lawyers are "using the federal courts as a tool to undermine our military's ability to keep dangerous enemy combatants off the battlefield in a time of war." These outrageous claims have been refuted by lawyers from across the political spectrum, including former Bush administration attorneys -- yet the Post gives Thiessen free rein to engage in baseless smears. He's even used misleading statements in support of torture.

Nearly 7,000 people have signed our petition to tell The Washington Post to say no to promoting torture. Will you join us?

Click here to tell The Washington Post: Stop promoting torture.

Thiessen is a proponent of torture, and in his quest to advocate for torture and attack torture opponents, he has resorted to misinformation and smears that have no place in the debate over national security policy.

Thiessen's willingness to distort the truth and engage in hysterical attacks doesn't just undermine his own credibility -- it undermines the ability of readers to trust The Washington Post as a source of honest analysis.

The Post has offered Thiessen a platform to promote his views, despite the fact that he:

...said in his book that lawyers who represented Guantanamo detainees were "aiding and abetting America's enemies."
... falsely claimed in his most recent book that, since CIA interrogation of terror suspects began after 9-11, there were no attacks on U.S. interests at home or abroad.
... falsely claimed in a Post op-ed that Bush oversaw "2,688 days without a terrorist attack on [American] soil," ignoring the anthrax mail attacks, the El Al shooting in Los Angeles and other domestic terrorist attacks.
... misleadingly compared waterboarding of detainees with the training of U.S. troops.
... called President Obama's decision to release Bush administration torture memos "irresponsible" and claimed that "Americans may die as a result."

Click here to tell The Washington Post: Stop promoting torture.

The editors of The Washington Post need to hear from you that falsehoods and outrageous smears in support of torture are not acceptable. We need more voices to join the nearly 7,000 who have already confronted the Post. Let's tell them: You've gone too far. Stop promoting torture.

Will you join us?

Sign the petition to The Washington Post.

Thank you for your help in holding the Post accountable.

This is our healthcare - Mother battles for life after giving birth #p2 #tcot #hcr

SinglePayerHealthcareNow — 2010-03-11T22:24:47Z

The protagonists in this tragedy are two working, productive, tax paying citizens and their kids. That an unfortunate medical event has changed their future that had they had affordable medical care and insurance would not have been, must be considered a sin against humanity. All those who think incidents like this are isolated or that given that they may have insurance that they are somehow insulated to this eventuality, better wake up. Most are a job, a pre-existing condition, or an insurance company rescission away from this.

Residents of Kingwood for nine years, Katy Hayes, her husband Al, and their three children, Amber, 16, Jake, 5, and newborn Arielle, currently reside in Greentree Village. Both are self-employed. Al teaches music and Katy is a massage therapist. Katy has been described as having a great laugh, a quick smile, a warm touch, loves animals and is as down to earth as you can get. She’s known to be active, hard-working, and very devoted to her husband, children and friends.

A few weeks ago, a perfectly healthy Katy gave birth to daughter Arielle, only to experience an intense and prolonged pain after the birth.

“It was a home birth, no drugs, eight hours of labor, and almost a 10-pound baby. So a little bit of pain is to be expected, but the pain kept getting worse and worse,” said Michele Dykstra, a close family friend of Hayes. Dykstra stepped into the role of caregiver for Arielle after Hayes went to the hospital. Doctors at Kingwood Medical Center eventually discovered the new mom had a Streptococcal A infection that had aggressively invaded her body.

As a result, Katy has experienced multiple organ failure and is unconscious. Surgery last week involved the removal of several sepsis organs. She is currently on a ventilator and is receiving dialysis.

“She had complete organ failure. They removed her bowels, her uterus, her ovaries, and I believe some colon,” said Dykstra.

Due to the fact that both are self-employed, they do not have medical insurance and their financial need is enormous. Family, friends and a growing online community of supporters are pulling together to help the family. There has been an amazing outpouring of helpful gestures by the community including meals, childcare, housekeeping, groceries and visits. Numerous fundraisers are currently being planned to help the Hayes family. CONTINUED

TAKE ACTION: New York Time Must Correct ACORN Hoax by O’Keefe & Right Wing #p2 #tcot

SinglePayerHealthcareNow — 2010-03-11T16:56:51Z

NYT and the ACORN Hoax
Why can't paper admit its mistakes?

3/11/10

Ignoring calls from numerous critics, the New York Times refuses to own up to mistakes in the paper's coverage of the now-famous right-wing videotapes attacking the community organizing group ACORN. Instead, the paper's public editor, Clark Hoyt, is relying on an absurd semantic justification in order to claim the paper does not need to print any corrections.

As conventionally reported in the Times and elsewhere, right-wing activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles dressed up as a pimp and a prostitute and visited several local ACORN offices, where office workers gave the duo advice on setting up a brothel, concealing a child prostitution ring and so forth. But many of the key "facts" surrounding the videos are either in dispute or are demonstrable fabrications.

TAKE ACTION!

ACTION: Encourage New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt to recommond that the paper investigate the ACORN videos and produce a report that clarifies the record.

CONTACT:
New York Times
Clark Hoyt, Public Editor
public@nytimes.com

Phone: (212) 556-7652
Please post copies of your letters in the comments section on the FAIR Blog

Though O'Keefe appears in various scenes in the videos wearing a garish and absurd "pimp" costume, he in fact did not wear the outfit when he appeared in the ACORN offices (Washington Independent, 2/19/10); he was dressed in a button-down shirt and slacks. This fact undermines one of the key contentions of the ACORN smear--that the group is so hopelessly corrupt that they would dispense advice to an obvious criminal.

What's more, the "advice" that they received, according to the transcripts released by O'Keefe and Giles, does not appear to be as incriminating as it was portrayed in the videos--and echoed in outlets like the New York Times.

A review of the Times coverage:

--In an early piece (9/16/09), readers were told of the "amateur actors, posing as a prostitute and a pimp and recorded on hidden cameras in visits to ACORN offices.... Conservative advocates and broadcasters were gleeful about the success of the tactics in exposing ACORN workers, who appeared to blithely encourage prostitution and tax evasion." The Times explained:

The undercover videos showed a scantily dressed young woman, Hannah Giles, posing as a prostitute, while a young man, James O'Keefe, played her pimp. They visited ACORN offices in Baltimore, Washington, Brooklyn and San Bernardino, Calif., candidly describing their illicit business and asking the advice of ACORN workers. Among other questions, they asked how to buy a house to use as a brothel employing underage girls from El Salvador.

The paper also reported that O'Keefe "was dressed so outlandishly that he might have been playing in a risque high school play. But in the footage made public--initially by a new website, BigGovernment.com--ACORN employees raised no objections to the criminal plans. Instead, they eagerly counseled the couple on how to hide their activities from the authorities, avoid taxes and make the brothel scheme work."

--Three days later (9/19/09): "Their travels in the gaudy guise of pimp and prostitute throughvarious offices of ACORN, the national community organizing group, caught its low-level employees in five cities sounding eager to assist with tax evasion, human smuggling and child prostitution."

--New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt weighed in (9/27/09), chiding the paper for not being more aggressive in promoting the ACORN videos--lamenting that Times readers weren't as up-to-speed on the story as "followers of Fox News," who already knew "that a video sting had caught ACORN workers counseling a bogus prostitute and pimp on how to set up a brothel staffed by under-age girls, avoid detection and cheat on taxes."

--The following week (10/4/09), Hoyt was on the ACORN case again: "To recap: Two conservative activists with a concealed video camera, posing as a prostitute and her pimp, visited offices of ACORN, the community organizing group, and lured employees into bizarre conversations about how to establish a bordello, cheat on taxes and smuggle in underage girls from Central America."

--After O'Keefe was charged in January with attempting to tamper with the phone system in Sen. Mary Landrieu's office, the Times reported under the headline, "After Arrest, Provocateur's Tactics Are Questioned" (1/28/10): "Mr. O'Keefe is a conservative activist who gained fame last year by posing as a pimp and secretly recording members of the community group ACORN giving him advice on how to set up a brothel."

---On January 31, 2010: "Mr. O'Keefe made his biggest national splash last year when he dressed up as a pimp and trained his secret camera on counselors with the liberal community group ACORN--eliciting advice on financing a brothel on videos that would threaten to become ACORN's undoing.

--On March 2, 2010, under the headline, "ACORN's Advice to Fake Pimp Was No Crime, Prosecutor Says, " the Times reported: "The ACORN employees in Brooklyn who were captured on a hidden camera seeming to offer conservative activists posing as a pimp and a prostitute creative advice on how to get a mortgage have been cleared of wrongdoing by the Brooklyn district attorney's office."

But the story the Times continues to tell is wildly misleading, as a review of the publicly available transcripts of his visit (BigGovernment.com) makes clear. O'Keefe never dressed as a pimp during his visits to ACORN offices, seems to never actually represent himself as a "pimp," and the advice he solicits is usually about how to file income taxes (which is not "tax evasion". In at least one encounter (at a Baltimore ACORN office), the pair seemed to first insist that Giles was a dancer, not a prostitute.

In the case recounted in the March 2 Times story, the transcripts show that O'Keefe did not portray himself as a pimp to the ACORN workers in Brooklyn, but told them that he was trying to help his prostitute girlfriend. In part of the exchange, O'Keefe and his accomplice seem to be telling ACORN staffers that they are attempting to buy a house to protect child prostitutes from an abusive pimp.

Throughout the months the Times covered the story, it made a major mistake: believing that Internet videos produced by right-wing activists were to be trusted uncritically, rather than approached with the skepticism due to anything you'd come across on the Web. O'Keefe and the Web publisher Andrew Breitbart refused to make unedited copies of the videotape public, and with good reason: A more complete viewing, as the transcripts show, would produce a much different impression.

While the Times decide to skip the standard rules of journalism, ACORN commissioned an independent investigation led by former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger (12/7/09), which noted that

theunedited videos have never been made public. The videos that have been released appear to have been edited, in some cases substantially, including the insertion of a substitute voiceover for significant portions of Mr. O'Keefe's and Ms.Giles' comments, which makes it difficult to determine the questions to which ACORN employees are responding. A comparison of the publicly available transcripts to the released videos confirms that large portions of the original video have been omitted from the released versions.

So what has the Times done in response? As reported extensively by blogger Brad Friedman (Brad Blog), several Times staffers have been asked to justify the paper's lack of accountability. In the most remarkable exchange, public editor Clark Hoyt--who had criticized the paper for not doing enough reporting on the tapes--wrote that the paper had made no errors that merited a correction (Brad Blog, 2/23/10). He explained that the January 31 story "says O'Keefe dressed up as a pimp and trained his hidden camera on ACORN counselors. It does not say he did those two things at the same time."

It is hard to believe that Hoyt actually believes what he's saying here. The obvious implication from the language of the article (and the others documented above) is that ACORN was dispensing advice to someone dressed up in an absurd pimp outfit. The Times chose to believe that O'Keefe's work was journalism that didn't need to be treated skeptically. The videos were in fact a hoax, and the Times was duped. Its readers deserve to know as much--and ACORN, which suffered serious political damage as a result of the false stories, deserves an apology.

In his September column criticizing the paper for being slow to report the ACORN videos, Hoyt wrote: "Some stories, lacking facts, never catch fire. But others do, and a newspaper like the Times needs to be alert to them or wind up looking clueless or, worse, partisan itself." Worse than looking partisan, though, is being wrong.

ACTION: Encourage New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt to recommond that the paper investigate the ACORN videos and produce a report that clarifies the record.

CONTACT:
New York Times
Clark Hoyt, Public Editor
public@nytimes.com
Phone: (212) 556-7652

CBO offers new estimate for #HCR - $875B Reduce Budget Deficit By $118 Billion #p2 #tcot

SinglePayerHealthcareNow — 2010-03-11T16:44:47Z

CBO offers new estimate for Senate healthcare bill: $875B

By Jordan Fabian - 03/11/10 10:28 AM ET

The Congressional Budget Office released a new estimate of the Senate's healthcare bill that showed it would save less money.

The new estimate released Thursday states that the Senate bill will now cost $875 billion over 10 years and reduce the deficit by $118 billion, $14 billion less than the previous CBO score.

The figure is sure to play into the healthcare debate as House leaders whip their members to support the Senate bill. But what lawmakers are really waiting for from CBO is its score of President Barack Obama's proposed fixes to healthcare legislation.

The non-partisan CBO originally estimated that the Senate's healthcare bill would cost $871 billion over a 10 year period.

CBO offers new estimate for Senate healthcare bill: $875B - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

Call for reform: Day 2 #hcr #p2 #tcot

SinglePayerHealthcareNow — 2010-03-11T16:37:56Z

President Obama has called for the House to vote to move health reform forward as early as next week. Your representative, Rep. Ted Poe, voted last fall to allow insurance companies to continue to jack up rates, drop coverage when folks need it the most, and discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions.

Now, we're in the final march for reform and there's one last chance to do the right thing. Please call Rep. Poe today and let them know there is a political price to favoring big insurance companies over the American people -- OFA supporters in Texas have pledged 506,830 volunteer hours to fight for candidates who support reform.

According to our records, you live in Texas's 2nd congressional district. You can reach Rep. Poe's Kingwood office at (281) 446-0242. Please call now -- then click here to let us know you made a call.

(Not your representative? Click here to look yours up.)

We know the stakes: Coverage for millions of uninsured Americans. Ending insurance company abuses, like denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions and drastically raising premiums. Reining in costs that are bankrupting families and crushing businesses. Putting life-and-death decisions in the hands of patients and doctors, not insurance company bureaucrats.

Everything we've worked for depends on winning this upcoming vote in the House of Representatives -- and it's going to be very, very close. If there was ever a time to pick up the phone and make a difference, that time has come.

Please call today:

http://my.barackobama.com/FinalMarchCall

Thanks for joining together for this Final March for Reform. Because of you, we're going to win this.
Mitch
Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America

Health Care Close After Democrats, White House Meet #hcr #p2 #tcot

SinglePayerHealthcareNow — 2010-03-11T15:00:06Z

ERICA WERNER | 03/11/10 08:10 AM |

WASHINGTON — A final agreement nearly in hand, President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders are about to embark on one last sales job that will determine the outcome of the president's signature health care overhaul.

It will come down to a phenomenal effort by congressional leaders and the White House to win over skittish lawmakers after a year of incendiary debate, even as Obama keeps up campaign-style appearances designed to fire up public support.

A closed-door meeting in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office Wednesday evening moved congressional leaders and administration officials close to agreement on such issues as additional subsidies to help lower-income families purchase health insurance and more aid for states under the Medicaid program for low-income Americans.

Democrats still need to see a final cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office – and want to ensure it stays around $950 billion over 10 years – but they made plans to begin to read the bill to rank-and-file Democrats at a caucus meeting Thursday.

"We're going to get started," Pelosi, D-Calif., said after her meeting with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and other key officials. Some unanswered questions remain, Pelosi said, "but we're hoping that we'll get those answered over the course of the reading. It's not much."

"I'm very pleased about where we are," she said.

Obama invited members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to meet with him Thursday at the White House to discuss the health legislation. The White House also said Obama would travel to northeastern Ohio on Monday for an appearance near the hometown of an uninsured cancer patient named Natoma Canfield, whom the president has made a symbol of the need for reform.

It will be Obama's third event on health care in a week. In St. Charles, Mo., on Wednesday Obama shouted to a crowd: "The time for talk is over. It's time to vote."

At stake is the fate of Obama's call to expand health care to some 30 million people who lack insurance and to prohibit insurance company practices such as denial of coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions. Almost every American would be affected by the legislation, which would change the ways people receive and pay for health care, from the most routine checkup to the most expensive, lifesaving treatment. CONTINUED

Health Care Close After Democrats, White House Meet

SUPPORT Connie Saltonstall NOW-Stupak Gets Challenge In MI House Primary #p2 #hcr #tcot

SinglePayerHealthcareNow — 2010-03-10T23:38:17Z

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) will face a primary challenge later this year from former Charlevoix County Commissioner Connie Saltonstall.

On Monday, Saltonstall, a former teacher who lost a state representative race in 2008, announced her intentions to challenge Stupak, who has represented Michigan's First Congressional District since 1993.

Saltonstall has spoken out against Stupak for his anti-abortion views, which have repeatedly obstructed progress on health care reform.

He "has a right to his personal, religious views, but to deprive his constituents of needed health care reform because of those views is reprehensible," Saltonstall said in a statement.

SUPPORT Connie Saltonstall

Connie Saltonstall Challenges Bart Stupak In Michigan House Primary

Final March For Reform : Day 1: Get the facts out #p2 #tcot #hcr

SinglePayerHealthcareNow — 2010-03-10T22:36:02Z

As the President has made clear, Americans deserve a final up-or-down vote on health reform. And the House is now expected to hold its final vote as soon as one week from today.
As we speak, insurance-industry lobbyists are gathering at the D.C. Ritz-Carlton to stage a last-minute blitz to block reform -- even as they jack up premiums by as much as 60% for small businesses and families across the country.

So starting today, we're launching an unprecedented week-long campaign sprint -- our "Final March for Reform." Each day until the vote, we'll feature a powerful new way for OFA supporters to speak out in our communities and weigh in directly with Congress.

Today, we'll start by spreading the facts about reform in our communities. Smears and falsehoods have clouded this debate -- Congress must understand that if they pass reform, their constituents will know the truth about what we've finally achieved. Click here to begin.

We've put together a simple summary of the President's proposal, a fact sheet to show friends and co-workers how the plan will specifically help them, posters to display, Facebook notes to post, and much more.

We're on the verge of solving a crisis that has vexed our nation for generations -- and eluded the best efforts of seven previous Presidents.

But our opponents will stop at nothing to distort the President's proposal and derail our progress. It may all come down to what we do together this week.

Today, it's time to show the insurance lobbyists that no smear campaign cooked up at a posh hotel can match the power of millions of regular citizens who are ready for change and committed to the truth.

Please join our truth squad -- and start spreading the facts today:
http://my.barackobama.com/DayOne

Thanks for making it possible,
David Plouffe

Action Alert: PBS to Replace Moyers, NOW with Newsweek Editor? #p2 #hcr

SinglePayerHealthcareNow — 2010-03-10T19:41:21Z

Meacham hire would send the wrong message

3/10/10

PBS is reportedly in final talks with Newsweek editor Jon Meacham to be co-host of its forthcoming Need to Know program (New York Times, 3/9/10). Meacham's consideration for a show that would replace hard-hitting independent programs Now and the Bill Moyers Journal sends a clear and troubling message about PBS's priorities (Extra! Update, 6/05).

Meacham is a fixture on commercial pundit shows in addition to his Newsweek duties. In these venues, he is a consummate purveyor of middle-of-the-road conventional wisdom with a conservative slant. After the 2008 election, Meacham (10/27/08) authored an article on America as a "center-right nation"--a conclusion based on dubious historical analogies (Sarah Palin is a kind of Thomas Jefferson) and cherry-picking national election results, casting aside evidence that would undermine the conclusion (FAIR Blog, 10/19/08).

He recently (FAIR Blog, 11/30/09) cheered on a Dick Cheney presidential run as "good for the Republicans and good for the country." Meacham had just months earlier (FAIR Blog, 1/12/09) argued that any critical investigations into the Bush/Cheney record on torture would be pointless ("the rough equivalent of pornography," as he put it).

TAKE ACTION!

ACTION: Please write to PBS and tell them that choosing Jon Meacham to host Need to Know would mean that public television still needs to find suitable replacements for the hard-hitting, independent journalism of Now and Bill Moyers Journal.

CONTACT:
Michael Getler, PBS Ombud
Web Form: http://www.pbs.org/ombudsman/feedback.html
Please post copies of your letters in the comments section on the FAIR Blog.

Meacham's approach to journalism seems to be antithetical to the hard-hitting approach of Moyers and Now; he's called on journalists to "cover other institutions as you would want to be covered," with "charity and dignity and respect" (Meet the Press, 1/1/06). This Golden Rule approach to news was illustrated when he intervened in a Newsweek online story about Joe Scarborough, a personal friend who often invites Meacham on his cable show, to remove from the lead the fact that Scarborough had served as the defense attorney for the murderer of an abortion provider (FAIR Blog, 6/11/09).

Of course, some sources get more than their share "charity, dignity and respect," as when Meacham remarked about interviewing Rev. Billy Graham (Imus in the Morning, 6/27/05): "It was amazing. I went in and I realized this is what God probably was going to look like. The white hair, the blue eyes, he'll have a Southern accent, that's the way it should be, I think."

While Now and Bill Moyers Journal are notable for holding politicians feet to the fire, Meacham uses much more generous standards. After Cheney and right-wing Democratic Sen. Zell Miller gave speeches at the 2004 Republican National Convention that were filled with blatant distortions--accusing Democratic candidate John Kerry of being opposed to all U.S. weapons systems because he had voted against a Pentagon appropriations bill, for instance (FAIR Media Advisory, 9/3/04)--Meacham (MSNBC, 9/1/04) called it "a brilliant tactical night, one of the most brilliant in the age of television. These were two concise, rather devastating rhetorical hits at John Kerry.... They did not miss anything that they could hit."

Following the November 2009 announcement about the retirement of Moyers and the cancellation of Now, FAIR launched a petition (12/16/09) signed by over 14,000 people, calling on PBS to develop new programming that would feature the independent, outside-the-Beltway perspectives that appeared on those programs. PBS's response (1/22/10) was a recycled press release that didn't address any of the activists' concerns, instead asserting vaguely that "PBS is committed to maintaining the highest level of news and public affairs programming." This announcement suggests that that "highest level" is going downhill fast.

CONTACT:
Michael Getler, PBS Ombud
Web Form: http://www.pbs.org/ombudsman/feedback.html