Women at the Forefront

post from OutrageNation on 11 July 2009 10:02:00 PM. © OutrageNation

The last few weeks have shown that women are more and more putting themselves at the forefront of protest and rebellion.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.outrageradio.com/index.php?/weblog/entry/women_at_the_forefront/

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!

Bernie Sanders on Effective Healthcare Reform

post from Firedoglake on 11 July 2009 10:00:57 PM. © Firedoglake

Al Franken officially earned his seat in the U.S. Senate last week, winning by slightly over 300 votes out of 2.9 million cast in Minnesota. Franken?s campaign hinged on a dedication to healthcare reform, and with 60 Senate seats now belonging to[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://firedoglake.com/2009/07/11/bernie-sanders-on-effective-healthcare-reform/

Digg this

Sheriff Joe's rabid supporters spew hate: 'Kill
any man, woman or child who comes across the border illegally'

post from Crooks and Liars on 11 July 2009 10:00:37 PM. © Crooks and Liars

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player! DOWNLOADS: (74)
PLAYS: (487)

Well, we've seen plenty of recent evidence that Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the nativist law-enforcement chief of Maricopa County, Arizona, attracts genuine extremists in support of his cause.

This recently released YouTube by Humanleague makes the case even more starkly. Its centerpiece is the opening comments by an avid supporter of the Minutemen and Sheriff Arpaio named Brandi Baron, who opines thus:

Baron: I say, give orders to shoot to kill, and kill any man, woman or child who comes across the border illegally. I'll bet you, you kill enough of them, right off the bat, people will stop coming over that way.
[Questioner]
That's what I just said. Personally, I think a minefield would be good. Why build a fence when you can plant some mines?
Q: You just said that you would kill kids.
Baron: If they're being drug across the border, hell yes. The difference between those people and us -- Our country is No. 1. Theirs? Pffft!

This sort of inhuman callousness and disregard for human life is part and parcel of why nativist movements like the Minutemen -- and the mainstream embrace of such factions by public figures like Arpaio -- inevitably spawn violent offspring like Shawna Forde and her gang of killer Minutemen, who gunned down a family in cold blood because they mistakenly believed the father was a big-time drug dealer with cash on the premises. There's a powerful continuum between gangs like Forde's and "mainstream" nativists like Arpaio and his supporters.

As Jill Garvey at Imagine 2050 observes:

This is exactly why Shawna Forde felt justified in breaking into a Latino family?s home and murdering a little girl and her father.
While some of the individuals featured on this video may be unstable or exhibit strange behavior, they are not crazy. These are functioning adults who are perfectly capable of behaving in a reasonable manner. They choose not to. They choose hate over tolerance. They choose to advocate violence over rational dialogue. Violence against immigrants occurs because bigots in positions of power (Sheriff Joe) set the stage and provide an atmosphere that make it acceptable.

Incidentally, sentiments such as these are nothing new to the Minutemen. In the video below -- featuring Minuteman leader Chris Simcox -- you can watch one of his Minuteman cohorts opine similarly:

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player! DOWNLOADS: (1431)
PLAYS: (4542)

No, we ought to be able to shoot the Mexicans on sight, and that would end the problem. After two or three Mexicans are shot, they'll stop crossing the border and they'll take their cows home, too.

This is what I'm talking about when I talk about eliminationism.

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/sheriff-joes-rabid-supporters-spew-h

Digg this

Do progressives want thoughtful positions or
knee-jerk government bashing Vote Wonder Woman

post from Open Left - Front Page on 11 July 2009 10:00:00 PM. © Open Left - Front Page

In the New Organizing Institute's mock election, I endorsed Wonder Woman for her high-quality[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenLeft-FrontPage/~3/sTdEhpep6Os/do-progressives-
want-thoughtful-positions-or-kneejerk-government-bashing-vote-wonder-woman

Digg this

Must Watch YouTube Videos Of The Day Hitler
Distraught Over Sarah Palins Resignation And Singer-Songwriter-Guitarist Gets His Revenge Against United Airlines For Carelessly Breaking His Taylor Guitar

post from The Gun Toting Liberal on 11 July 2009 09:45:59 PM. © The Gun Toting Liberal

And Now For A Little Bit Of Twisted Fun>: Take A Break Saturday At The GTL?DON'T MISS ANOTHER ARTICLE: JOIN HUNDREDS OF OTHER GTLâ?¢ READERS BY SUBSCRIBING TO OUR SYNDICATED NEWSFEED OR RECEIVE AN EMAIL EVERYTIME A NEW ARTICLE IS AVAILABLE BY CLICKING ON THE APPROPRIATE IMAGE BELOW:Must...

This is only a comment summary. Visit http://guntotingliberal.com to view the lastest content complete with some of the most outrageous original photoshops in the political blogosphere!

Read The Full Article:
http://guntotingliberal.com/?p=6065

Digg this

Overnight Caption Contest (new)

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 11 July 2009 09:40:13 PM. © Docudharma - Front Page

[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Docudharma/~3/mGpiZpUfXZ0/overnight-caption-contes
t-new

Digg this

Overnight Caption Contest

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 11 July 2009 09:40:13 PM. © Docudharma - Front Page

[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Docudharma/~3/mGpiZpUfXZ0/overnight-caption-contes
t-new

Digg this

It's Time for a Special Prosecutor

post from MyDD on 11 July 2009 09:39:11 PM. © MyDD

The plot thickens, as they say. Former Vice President Dick Cheney has been linked to a decision within the Bush Administration to conceal a still-unidentified CIA program from Congress. The New York Times has the story: The Central Intelligence Agency[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mydd/~3/xp_LZxSiR1c/997

Digg this

At a Crossroads (Weekend Anthropology)

We open each ceremony with homage to Elegua.We offer a libation of water, and say a simple prayer to him:"Omi Tutu, Ana Tutu, Tutu Ile, Tutu Laroye"Elegua opens the doors to all endeavors.He is the guardian of the Crossroadsand the messenger to[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Docudharma/~3/bh1hTC9n6bY/at-a-crossroads-weekend-
anthropology

Digg this

Dennis Kucinich Schools Prominent Wingnut Doc at
This Week's Single Payer Hearing

video details and more

(Ed. note - Logan already posted on this, but it's worth a second look .)

Ah yes, I'm not surprised that psychiatrist David Gratzer testified this week that the Canadian healthcare system is just awful and how the poor deprived Canadians are simply pouring across the border to the Mayo Clinic to get specialized medical care.

Oddly enough, he forgot to mention that the Canadian government was not only sending them across the border, they were picking up the check. Yes, it's a system so awful, even Canadian conservatives defend it.

How gratifying it was, to see Dennis Kucinich lay the smackdown on this guy.

Dr. Gratzer has been a prominent freemarket advocate since his college days and has been riding that gravy train ever since. He is especially beloved of freemarket conservatives because of a piece he wrote two years ago that hit the wingnut sweet spot: "The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care."

He's a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a "non-partisan" think tank funded by the usual partisan suspects:

Manhattan Institutekquote>The Manhattan Institute received $19,470,416 in grants from 1985-2005, from foundations such as the Koch Family Foundations, the John M. Olin Foundation, Inc., the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Scaife Foundations, and the Smith Richardson Foundation. The Manhattan Institute does not disclose its corporate funding, but the Capital Research Center listed its contributors as Bristol-Myers Squibb, Exxon Mobil, Chase Manhattan, Cigna, Sprint, Reliant Energy, Lincoln Financial Group Foundation, and Merrill Lynch.

So I think you can see where he's coming from. And really, what could make the right wing more excited than a Canadian doctor, criticizing the Canadian health care system?

Just recently, he wrote an op-ed for the Wall St. Journal which Media Matters debunked, and is famous for pushing HSAs (health savings accounts), which are sort of the health care version of privatizing Social Security. (Naturally, wingnuts love them!)

You're probably not aware that for the past decade or so, right-wing American groups have been pouring a lot of money into Canada to undermine their health system. (Can you guess why? I knew you could! So American health care corporations can make a killing there, too!)

Dr. Gratzer's biggest thing is hammering away on wait times - even though the long wait times are mostly for non-urgent care. (You can read a rebuttal about many of the common myths here.) He also thinks the way to bring down the cost of prescription drugs is... to cut back on those pesky FDA requirements!

While serving as an adviser to Rudy Giuliani's campaign, he was called out by Factcheck.org and others for supplying a bogus cancer statistic Rudy used in an ad:

Rudy Giuliani's latest radio ad, which began airing in New Hampshire this week, draws a stark picture for anyone diagnosed with prostate cancer in England. "I had prostate cancer, five, six years ago," the Republican presidential candidate says in the ad. "My chance of surviving prostate cancer, and thank God I was cured of it, in the United States, 82 percent. My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England, only 44 percent under socialized medicine.?

The pushback was fast and furious:

"You would get an F in epidemiology at Johns Hopkins if you did that calculation," said Johns Hopkins professor Gerard Anderson, whose 2000 study "Multinational Comparisons of Health Systems Data" has been cited by Gratzer as a source for his statistics.... Five-year prostate cancer survival rates are higher in the United States than in Britain but, according to Howard Parnes of the National Cancer Institute, this is largely a statistical illusion.... Both Anderson and Parnes say that it is impossible, on the basis of the available data, to conclude that Americans have a significantly better chance of surviving prostate cancer than Britons.

British health officials were also quick to point out the error:

The Office for National Statistics says that the five-year survival rate from prostate cancer in Britain is 74.4 per cent.
Mr Giuliani?s campaign did not give an immediate response. But a spokeswoman has previously insisted that he would continue to repeat the statistic and run the advertisement. She said the 44 per cent figure came from an article in a ?highly respected intellectual journal? published by the right-wing Manhattan Institute, which he had read because ?he is an intellectually engaged human being?.
The article?s author, David Gratzer, who is an adviser to Mr Giuliani?s campaign, has acknowledged to The New York Times that the statistic is seven years old and ?crude?.
He said that it came from the Commonwealth Fund, which specialises in health policy issues. But the same organisation has since issued a statement accusing Dr Gratzer of misusing its research.

The Commonwealth Fund responded:

In fact, the five-year survival data cited in the City Journal article do not come from The Commonwealth Fund report, and cannot be calculated from that report. What the report, Multinational Comparisons of Health Systems Data, 2000 by Gerard F. Anderson and Peter S. Hussey of Johns Hopkins University, includes are data on prostate cancer incidence and mortality rates in the two countries.
Specifically, The Commonwealth Fund report features a chart showing that, in 1997, the incidence of prostate cancer in the U.S. was 136 per 100,000 males and the mortality rate (death rate) was 26 per 100,000 males. By comparison, in the U.K. the prostate cancer incidence was 49 per 100,000 and the death rate was 28 deaths per 100,000. (The prostate cancer incidence rate?which is the number of men diagnosed with the disease in a given year?in the U.S. is thought to be higher because prostate cancer screening is much more common in this country.)
The incidence rates simply report the number of men diagnosed with prostate cancer in a given year. Prostate cancer mortality rates report the number of men who died of the disease in a given year. Neither speaks to length of survival, and that figure can not be calculated using the others.

Yes, Dr. Gratzer (like most right-wing true believers) is prone to seeing what he wants to see, and then insisting it's the truth. How refreshing to see him treated as the willful nincompoop he is.

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/not-ready-dennis-kucinich-demolishes

Digg this