Media Porn Hides Real Threats to Children
By Michael Collins
Who knows if Casey Anthony is guilty or innocent? Even Casey might not know at this point. We do know one thing, without any doubt. As our economy and nation crumble around us, we're being amused to death by the corporate media. They've got good reason to keep the headlines on Casey. Absent a major distraction, there might be a focused look at the misrule and looting of this country for the past decades that has created the real threats to the health of children.
"Infant mortality is an important indicator of the health of a nation, and the recent stagnation (since 2000) in the U.S. infant mortality rate has generated concern among researchers and policy makers." Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, CDC, November 2009
PermalinkKilling Us Quickly – Ryan’s Medicare Proposal
We're not worth having around after 65, says Michael Collins. Why else would they want to kill us off?
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) proposed a Medicare plan that combines Social Darwinism and a bailout for health insurance carriers, even larger than the one provided by the president's health care reform legislation.
The specific features of the program are less important than the overall effect. In summary, Ryan proposes a plan that will starve most of those sixty-five and older of health care. Here are the numbers, based on Congressional Budget Office projections and elaborated by Dean Baker and David Rosnick (in 2011 dollars) (Center for Economic and Policy Research, April 2011)
Joe Klein's Fatuous Fantasy
Time Magazine's Joe Klein is having an allergic reaction to free speech and public debate. The title of his latest column says it all: The Left's Idiocy on Health Reform. It's an ex cathedra pronouncement from a made man at one of the nation's oldest media properties.
What's got Joe so worked up?
Two things. He's upset at the lack of respect that internet based writers show for the mainstream media and Washington insiders. He's also beside himself that people are actually finding fault with the health care reform bill which many bloggers have the nerve to describe as just another government bailout for big business.
In the snarkier precincts of the left-wing blogosphere, mainstream journalists like me are often called villagers. Joe Klein, Dec. 30
That's some pretty nasty name calling isn't it. "Hey villager!" Accusing an entire class of people of idiocy pales by comparison. If I've ever read the term villager, I didn't pay enough attention to remember it. But let's take Joe's word that it's out there in all its rhetorical glory. According to Klein, leftist bloggers see villagers as "regurgitating spin spoon-fed by our sources or conjuring a witless conventional wisdom that has nothing to do with reality as it is lived outside the village." Now there's some idiocy – from Joe's keyboard to our screens.
Triumph of the Money Party
Health Care Reform DOA. Why the Surprise?
They Did what they Always Do
The Money Party is a small group of enterprises and individuals who have most of the money in this country. They use that money to make more money. Controlling who gets elected to public office is the key to more money for them and less for us September 30, 2007
Dr. Howard Dean, MD, just said pull the plug on the current health care reform effort. The cure is worse than the disease according to the good doctor.
Why the surprise?
Last week the president announced that he's sending 30,000 troops to Afghanistan without a declaration of war by Congress and without Afghanistan posing a direct threat to the United States violating both the United States Constitution and international law at the same time.
The bailed out Wall Street failures are paying back just enough of their loans to the Treasury Department to allow a new round of huge bonuses. At the same time, they continue to get tons of cash through the Federal Reserve. Pay back a few billion, get seven trillion dollars in credit. Not a bad deal.
Universal Single Payer Health Care Coverage: An Economic Stimulus Plan
by Stephen Lendman
The Institute for Health & Socio-Economic Policy (IHSP) is "non-profit policy and research group and is the exclusive research arm of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, (focusing on) current political/economic policy analysis in health care and other Industries....to enhance, promote and defend the quality of life for all."
In January, it released a "First-of-Its Kind Study" titled, "Single Payer/Medicare for All: An Economic Stimulus Plan for the Nation" to reform the system by providing universal care, adding productive new jobs, billions in public and private revenues, billions more in employee compensation, and added tax revenues. More on that below.
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