Well, I’m actually snowed in today . . . I tried getting out yesterday afternoon & couldn’t make it out of the cul-de-sac & since then we’ve had nothing but snow (well, we’ve had nothing but snow since before Christmas) so I’m not even going to try today.

And if things weren’t going to be bad enough this year, our furnace went out Sunday night and it’s just barely limping along now. Luckily our house is well insulated and even though we’ve kept it off at night (as the temperature dropped to about 3°) the house hasn’t gotten below 55°.  Still.

OK, enough whining . . . . These links come from BostonBoomer (with my deepest appreciation) and I’ll find more throughout the day:

Please post your favorite links in the comments & I’ll post an update to this as I find more.

Can they do this? And would the Senate care if they did? Would ANYONE care?

13 state AGs threaten suit over health care deal
Republican attorneys general in 13 states say congressional leaders must remove Nebraska’s political deal from the federal health care reform bill or face legal action, according to a letter provided to The Associated Press Wednesday.

America the Traumatized: How 13 Events of the Decade Made Us the PTSD Nation

The Millennial Decade screwed with our heads and destroyed our national identity. Are we in for a cataclysmic century?

And:

Why Obama Must Continue Releasing Yemenis From Guantánamo

. . . in this final article I look at the stories of the six Yemenis who were also released. These releases were enormously important because Yemenis make up nearly half of the remaining 198 prisoners in Guantánamo, and until these six men were repatriated, only 16 Yemenis had been freed from Guantánamo throughout the prison’s long history.

Women are leading the charge on financial reform. In the spirit of celebrating their contributions, here are the top five heroes of 2009.

Not mentioned? The Bush administration lying its way into a war of choice, listening in on the phone conversations of Americans, torture, Abu Ghraib, putting an unqualified crony in charge of FEMA, the US Attorneys firing, outing a CIA operative to get back at her husband, etc.

The Global War on Stealth Underwear

There is no “war” against terrorism. What George W. Bush launched and Barack Obama insists on perpetuating does not qualify. Not if by war one means doing the obvious and checking a highly suspicious air traveler’s underwear to see if explosives have been sewn in. If Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had put the stuff in his shoes we would have had him because that was tried before, but our government was too preoccupied with fighting unnecessary conventional wars and developing anti-missile defense systems to anticipate such a primitive delivery system.

The Obama effect and the year in medicine

An Italian doctor has captured international attention with a new theory – and possible treatment – for multiple sclerosis.

Paolo Zamboni, a professor of medicine at the University of Ferrara, has published a series of papers suggesting that a narrowing of blood vessels in the neck could contribute to the development of MS. According to Dr. Zamboni, veins draining blood from the brain are malformed, or become blocked, leading to a buildup of iron in the brain which, he thinks, causes the neurological symptoms of MS.

By increasing blood flow, through a relatively simple operation, he believes symptoms can be reversed or minimized. The procedure has been performed on 65 MS patients, including Dr. Zamboni’s wife, with mixed results.

If you, a friend or family member has an interest in MS – W5 the CTV show – did a fabulous job explaining just what CCSVI is and how The Liberation Treatment has already changed the lives of MS patients.

The Liberation Treatment: A whole new approach to MS (video links to the show on the right sidebar)

Dr. Zamboni wondered if the iron came from blood improperly collecting in the brain. Using Doppler ultrasound, he began examining the necks of MS patients and made an extraordinary finding. Almost 100 per cent of the patients had a narrowing, twisting or outright blockage of the veins that are supposed to flush blood from the brain. He then checked these veins in healthy people, and found none of these malformations. Nor did he find these blockages in those with other neurological conditions.

“In my mind, this was unbelievable evidence that further study was necessary to understand the link between venous function and iron deposits on the other,” Zamboni told W5 from his research lab in Ferrara.

What was equally astounding, was that not only was the blood not flowing out of the brain, it was “refluxing” reversing and flowing back upwards. Zamboni believes that as the blood moves into the brain, pressure builds in the veins, forcing blood into the brain’s grey matter where it sets off a host of reactions, possibly explaining the symptoms of MS.

I don’t know how to analyze bias in reporting but, there’s very little talk of “health care” in this New York times piece: A “Holy War” says Orrin G. Hatch regarding the news that Harry Reid has merged the two Senate plans ::

Democrats expressed confidence that they would have the votes needed to move forward when the legislation hits its first test in the Senate, probably later this week. To get past that first procedural hurdle, Mr. Reid will need the votes of all 58 Democratic senators and the two independents aligned with them.
. . .
Republicans have vowed to fight the legislation at every turn, saying it represents a dangerous expansion in the role of government that would increase taxes and insurance costs for millions of people. “It’s going to be a holy war,” said Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah.

Oh, and it’s got a name now the , “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” And (to “save money”) it mostly doesn’t go into effect until 2014.

For the actual details of the bill, check out Ezra Klein’s blog: the full bill, a short summary & a list of stuff that happens right away.

In the (I guess) better-late-than-never department, Michael Moore says, “Democrats’ healthcare bill is giveaway to insurance industry“

The recession has swept in a wave of out-of-work residents looking for online job listings, Internet access to fill out unemployment applications, and help with their resumes.

“You can’t keep a DVD on the shelf,” she said. “Families can’t afford Netflix. And many people don’t buy their books anymore — they use the library.”

Kim Bui-Burton, president of the California Library Assn., described conditions as “extraordinarily difficult.” Never lavishly funded, libraries started to falter with last year’s credit and mortgage disasters. Now, she said, they are being battered by deep state and local cuts.

In Ventura, the H.P. Wright Library is the city’s most heavily used branch, Griffin said. But it’s one-third the size of the main library downtown and the county can no longer afford to keep it open.

Students, furious at the increase that will bring their yearly fees above $10,000 for the first time, rushed the UCLA building where the regents were meeting, throwing food, sticks and vinegar-soaked red bandannas meant to look like blood.

UC police arrested 14 people for disrupting the meeting and resisting arrest.

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This news is old as things go for this page but, it’s new to a lot of people and VERY exciting in my world:

Neurologists at the University at Buffalo are beginning a research study that could overturn the prevailing wisdom on the cause of multiple sclerosis (MS).

The researchers will test the possibility that the symptoms of MS result from narrowing of the primary veins outside the skull, a condition called “chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency,” or CCSVI.

CCSVI is a complex vascular condition discovered and described by Paolo Zamboni, M.D., from Italy’s University of Ferrara. In the original Italian patients, CCSVI was found to be strongly associated with MS, increasing the risk of developing MS by 43 fold.

This narrowing restricts the normal outflow of blood from the brain, causing alterations in the blood flow patterns within the brain that eventually causes injury to brain tissue and degeneration of neurons.

The preliminary findings were based on a pilot study at the BNAC headed by Zivadinov, and at the Universities of Ferrara and Bologna, Italy, directed by Zamboni and Fabrizio Salvi, M.D, respectively. The study showed that several abnormalities affecting the predominant pathways that return venous blood from the brain to the heart occurred more frequently in MS patients than in controls.

This research, supported by the Hilarescere Foundation of Italy and the BNAC, was conducted to replicate the findings of the Italian investigators.

“Results of this preliminary study, which involved 16 relapsing-remitting MS patients and eight age-and-sex-matched healthy controls, showed that all the MS patients, but none of the controls, had chronic insufficient blood flow out of the brain,” said Zivadinov.

I’ve been following this story closely (since before the Buffalo study was announced.) A good site to find more information is the This Is MS Form where they have a whole section dedicated to CCSVI news. Among other things, they are tracking the progress of MS patients who have gone to Standford University to have stents inserted in their collapsed veins.

Wearing a pedometer can be a big step in the weight-loss battle

“What we found was, on average, that wearing a pedometer increased people’s physical activity by about 2,000 steps per day,” Bravata said. “That’s equivalent to about a mile.”

High-fat, high-sugar diet alters bacteria in the gut, making it easier to gain weight

A high-fat, high-sugar diet does more than just pump calories into your body. It also alters the composition of bacteria in your intestines, increasing the proportion of the little buggers that make it easier for you gain weight and harder to lose it, research in mice suggests. And the changeover can happen in as little as 24 hours, much faster than researchers had suspected, according to a report today in the new journal Science Translational Medicine.

The Pentagon official, who is familiar with Hasan’s record as a medical resident, said his behavior was discussed during monthly meetings of top training officials at Walter Reed and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the review sessions, said Hasan’s name often came up because of his sometimes aggressive and argumentative behavior.

Obama helping lobbyists weaken offshore tax crackdown Dems passed in 2002 over GOP opposition

What this is all about is corporate lobbying against provisions that both use taxpayer money to reward domestic companies that pay their fair share of taxes and disincentivize companies from trying to rip off the public through offshore “inversions.” And it’s one of the first examples we’ve seen of the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress potentially doing something even worse than the Bush administration and the Republican Congress.

Currently, these five Democrats are demanding that Speaker Pelosi hand over all relevant Congressional power to an independent commission that will be allowed to slash and partially privatize Social Security and Medicare, or else they will allow the United States to default on its debt.

Months ago the president of CNN/U.S., Jonathan Klein, offered a choice to Lou Dobbs, the channel’s most outspoken anchor. Mr. Dobbs could vent his opinions on radio and anchor an objective newscast on television, or he could leave CNN.

Relentless Pressure from Progressive Groups Pushes Hatemonger Lou Dobbs Out of CNN

Dobbs’ abrupt departure from the network is a major victory for the Latino advocacy groups demanding his resignation. For years, the talk show host has stirred up xenophobic, anti-immigrant hysteria and promoted an array of right-wing talking points, giving lie to CNN’s reputation for impartiality as well as comically belying his own claims of “independence.”

How Catholic Bishops Threw the Health Care Debate into Turmoil with Anti-Abortion Maneuver

Members from heavily Catholic districts wouldn’t sign on until the bishops gave their blessing on the language, Republicans wouldn’t vote for the rule until the National Right to Life Committee signed off. Pelosi assessed her risk, apparently calculating that the Stupak language would be stripped out of the bill that is eventually sent to the president’s desk.

Nearly 150,000 dementia patients each year are given anti-psychotic drugs unnecessarily, an official review says.
The figure represents four in five of all the people who are being prescribed the drugs in care homes, hospitals and their own homes to manage aggression.

The use of the drugs – dubbed a chemical cosh – is linked to 1,800 deaths as well as leaving people struggling after strokes and falls.

Federal health officials now say that 4,000 or more Americans likely have died from swine flu — about four times the estimate they’ve been using.

An excavation was scheduled to resume Thursday at a rural western Missouri property where authorities believe they may find bodies and buried glass jars with notes written by children who may have documented sexual abuse.

The property, about 30 miles east of Kansas City, was once owned by two of five family members arrested Tuesday.

“There has been an indication that there are body or bodies in numerous locations,” said Lafayette County Sheriff Kerrick Alumbaugh, although he would not say whose bodies they might be.

Official: Obama rejects all Afghan war options

President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

Laugh of the day:

Perry: Obama ‘hell-bent’ on socialism

Speaking at a luncheon for a Midland County Republican Women’s group, Perry said that “this is an administration hell-bent toward taking American towards a socialist country. And we all don’t need to be afraid to say that because that’s what it is.”

The Justice Department recently reiterated its request for Congress to extend with few changes key provisions of the Patriot Act: sections that allow roving wiretaps on multiple phones, seizing of business records and a never-used authority to spy on non-Americans suspected of being terrorists even though they have no connection to a recognized terrorist group.

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Where's the Coffee?

This is it:

Senate acts to extend aid for jobless, homebuyers:

Congress has no choice but to act when there are 15 million jobless chasing 3 million jobs and 7,000 people run out of benefits every day, said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont. Economists talk about the end of the recession, he said, but “for most Americans, it will still be some time before things start getting better.”

Secret copyright treaty leaks. It’s bad. Very bad. (h/t Susie & Joseph)

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama’s administration refused to disclose due to “national security” concerns, has leaked. It’s bad. It says:

• That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. (snip)
• That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. (snip)
• That the whole world must adopt US-style “notice-and-takedown” rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused (snip)
• Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (snip)

Then, some odd good news (for me at least)….
Low Cholesterol May Help Prevent Cancer

The findings should help ease longstanding fears that low cholesterol is associated with an increased risk of cancer, said Dr. Demetrius Albanes, a senior investigator at the U.S. National Cancer Institute, and an author of one of two reports in the November issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.

“These results should help dispel any lingering thoughts that low cholesterol may help cause cancer,” said Eric Jacobs, strategic director of pharmacoepidemiology at the American Cancer Society, who wrote an accompanying editorial.

The female bears at a zoo in Leipzig, Germany are going bald. And it’s not pretty.

Ned Lamont pursuing gubernatorial campaign

Connecticut businessman and former Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont filed papers Wednesday to create an exploratory committee for a statewide race, a clear step toward a possible run for governor next year.

The mysterious online town

“A colleague of mine spotted the anomaly on Google Maps, and I thought ‘I’ve got to go there,’” Roy Bayfield, who works at an area university, told the U.K.’s Telegraph. “I started to weave this amazing fantasy about the place, an alternative universe, a Narnia-like world. I was really fascinated by the appearance of a non-existent place that the Internet had the power to make real and give a semi-existence.”
He walked to what would have been the center of town, according to the tech giant’s mapping service. But found nothing but empty fields.

What a bummer: Casino: $166M Win Was Slot Malfunction

“$166,666,666.65. I was screaming … heart was beating really fast,” he said.

Casino managers came over and roped off the machine. Seebeck spent an hour deciding what he’d do with his millions. Then came the adrenaline crash.

The casino told him the Ultimate Party Spin had spun out of control, malfunctioned and he wouldn’t get any money for a malfunction. They wanted him to agree in writing, but he wouldn’t.
“They make you think you won and everyone around you that you won, and then later, ‘It’s probably a malfunction,’” he said.

And finally, House Health Care Vote Likely At 6 p.m. Saturday & AARP To Make ‘Major Announcement’ On Health Care Tomorrow, Won’t Confirm Rumors Of House Bill Endorsement

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The world – or at least that bit of it that sits between Canada and Mexico – waits with bated breath for President Obama’s speech clarifying his Health Care Plan to the joint session of Congress tonight. Meanwhile:

U.N. Afghan panel cites fraud in vote as Karzai pulls ahead

Citing “clear and convincing evidence of fraud,” an Afghan election complaints commission on Tuesday ordered an audit and a recount of votes at numerous polling sites across this warring nation.

The order came on a pivotal day in the drawn-out — and increasingly tense — aftermath of the Aug. 20 presidential election.

College for $99 a Month

Luckily for Solvig, there were new options available. She went online looking for something that fit her wallet and her time horizon, and an ad caught her eye: a company called StraighterLine was offering online courses in subjects like accounting, statistics, and math. This was hardly unusual—hundreds of institutions are online hawking degrees. But one thing about StraighterLine stood out: it offered as many courses as she wanted for a flat rate of $99 a month. “It sounds like a scam,” Solvig thought—she’d run into a lot of shady companies and hard-sell tactics on the Internet. But for $99, why not take a risk?

Solvig threw herself into the work, studying up to eighteen hours a day. And contrary to expectations, the courses turned out to be just what she was looking for. Every morning she would sit down at her kitchen table and log on to a Web site where she could access course materials, read text, watch videos, listen to podcasts, work through problem sets, and take exams. Online study groups were available where she could collaborate with other students via listserv and instant messaging. StraighterLine courses were designed and overseen by professors with PhDs, and she was assigned a course adviser who was available by e-mail. And if Solvig got stuck and needed help, real live tutors were available at any time, day or night, just a mouse click away.

Stuck in the Middle

It is a core belief of Washington’s political culture that policymaking by compromise—“meeting in the middle”—is the way to gain and keep the support of the vast, moderate, essentially reasonable group of voters who constitute a coherent political center. My problem with this analysis is that so many of the big decisions that have to be made are binary: yes or no. The only terrain in the middle consists of “maybe” or “kind of,” and I see no evidence that the country is in a “maybe” or “kind of” mood.

It Could Be the End of Our Democracy as We Know It, By E.J. Dionne

This sounds melodramatic. It’s not. The court is considering eviscerating laws that have been on the books since 1907 in one case and 1947 in the other, banning direct contributions and spending by corporations in federal election campaigns. Doing so would obliterate precedents that go back two and three decades.

The full impact of what the court could do in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission has only begun to receive the attention it deserves. Even the word radical does not capture the extent to which the justices could turn our political system upside down. Will the high court use a case originally brought on a narrow issue to bring our politics back to the corruption of the Gilded Age?

Making your COBRA policy look good: Sen. Baucus proposes fee up to $3,800 for the uninsured

The Baucus plan would require insurers to take all applicants, regardless of age or health. But smokers could be charged higher premiums. And 60-year-olds could be charged five times as much for a policy as 20-year-olds.

Thank Susie at Suburban Guerrilla for this: emptywheel at FireDogLake crunches the numbers:

The Bad Max Tax

“Of course, both these families would be in the 25% federal tax bracket. Bad Max is asking middle class families to pay more for health care than they pay in federal taxes.

And let’s look whether it…’ll solve the debt crisis so many in the middle class are experiencing.

Here’s a very rough budget for that family making $67,000 (I’m not an accountant, so tell me where my assumptions are wrong).

Federal Taxes (estimate from this page): $8,710 (13% of income)

State Taxes (using MI rates on $30,000 of income): $1,305 (2% of income)

Food (using “low-cost USDA plan” for family of four): $9,060 (13.5% of income)

Home (assume a straight 30% of income): $20,100 (30% of income)

Bad Max Tax: $20,610 (31% of income)

Total: $59,785 (89% of income)

Remainder for all other expenses (including education, clothing, existing debt, transportation, etc.): $7,215 (or 11% of income)”

And finally – also by emptywheel:
The Max Baucus WellPoint/Liz Fowler Plan

All this time I’ve been calling Max Tax health care Max Baucus’ health care plan.

But, as William Ockham points out, it’s actually Liz Fowler’s health care plan (if you open the document and look under document properties, it lists her as author). At one level, it’s not surprising that Bad Max’s Senior Counsel would have authored the Max Tax plan. Here’s how Politico described her role in Bad Max’s health care plan earlier this year:

Bonus link: The Max Tax Distribution List

Well, this is interesting. Not only did Bad Max send the MaxTax plan out with the name of WellPoint’s former VP still on it, but he distributed it to the industry hacks too. Only the industry hacks.

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Fighting over Frida Kahlo

In Mexico, the emergence of work said to be made by the artist has led to a very public debate about its authenticity. The Times’ art critic has seen the pieces.

I don’t quite get how you have a “signature issue” and yet only now are ready to “draw some lines in the sand” — but, hey! I’m not the president:

Obama Readies Reform Specifics

Until now, Obama has resisted taking firm positions on specific elements of a broad health-care bill, instead expressing openness to many ideas. But the approach has left lawmakers divided over contentious elements, such as how to rein in costs. And with a growing chorus in favor of a slower, less ambitious approach, Obama is inching toward a proposal that would bear his name and carry the political risks of sponsorship.

The president returned from Camp David on Sunday and spent part of the day working on his address, some of which may be tested Monday in a Labor Day appearance in Cincinnati, aides said.

“People will leave [Wednesday's] speech knowing where he stands,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “And if it takes doing whatever to get health care done, the president is ready, willing and able to go do that.”

Obama is not inclined to make veto threats, as President Bill Clinton did on the issue of universal health care, Gibbs added, “but I’m sure he will draw some lines in the sand.”

New Fee on Health Insurance Companies Is Proposed to Help Expand Coverage

The proposal by Mr. Baucus does not include a public option, or a government-run insurance plan, to compete with private insurers, as many Democrats want.

…

The separate new fee on insurance companies would help raise money to pay for the plan. The fee would raise $6 billion a year starting in 2010, and it would be allocated among insurance companies according to their market shares.

…

Mr. Schumer said, “The health insurance industry should pay its fair share of the cost because it stands to gain over 40 million new consumers under health care reform legislation.”

Mr. Rockefeller said the fees were justified because insurance companies were “rapaciously, greedily and unstoppably making money by underpaying the patient, by underpaying the provider and by overpaying themselves.”

…

Another section of Mr. Baucus’s proposal would help pay insurance premiums, co-payments and deductibles for people with incomes less than 300 percent of the poverty level ($66,150 for a family of four). It would also provide some protection for people with incomes from 300 percent to 400 percent of the poverty level (up to $88,200 for a family of four), so they would generally not have to pay more than 13 percent of their income in premiums.

Mr. Baucus’s proposal does not include a “trigger mechanism” of the type recommended by Ms. Snowe, who would offer a public insurance plan in any state where fewer than 95 percent of the people had access to affordable coverage.

. . . . Are you kidding me? It’s going to take 20 years to close Medicare D’s donut hole????
Questions from readers about healthcare debate

What specific cost and benefit changes to Medicare are included in healthcare reform plans?

The House is considering a change to the Medicare prescription drug benefit that would raise premium costs while lowering beneficiaries’ total spending on prescription drugs. The 20-year plan to close the “doughnut hole” — the gap in coverage that occurs when a patient has reached the coverage limit of $826 but not the catastrophic limit of $4,350 — is estimated to result in higher premiums for Part D plans, but lower average drug spending. For patients who spend small amounts on prescription drugs, this change would raise premiums more than it would lower out-of-pocket costs. For patients who require a lot of expensive drugs, buying prescriptions would become more affordable.

Ah, now we’re getting down to the nitty-gritty:
Axelrod: Firm on public option

Axelrod disputed that interpretation in an e-mail.

“In no way did I back off our position,” he wrote. “I must have said half a dozen times that he thinks the public option is an important tool to bring about competition and choice that will help consumers. To say that it is not the whole of health insurance reform, in a country where 160 million people have employer-sponsored health insurance and would not even be affected by this, does not mean I am backing off!”

Gadget Makers Can Find Thief, but Don’t Ask

Amazon’s policy is that it will help locate a missing Kindle only if the company is contacted by a police officer bearing a subpoena. Mr. Borgese, who lives in Manhattan, questions whether hunting down a $300 e-book reader would rank as a priority for the New York Police Department.

He began to see ulterior motives when he twice sent e-mail messages to Amazon seeking an address to send a police report and got no reply.

“I finally concluded,” Mr. Borgese said, “that Amazon knew the device was being used and preferred to sell content to anyone who possessed the device, rather than assist in returning it to its rightful owner.”

And in a related story: Amazon.com Offers to Replace Copies of Orwell Book

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Health Care

. . . As a Kansas resident, this story struck home :

States most likely to win under healthcare overhaul are home to its biggest foes

“The states that tend to be more conservative have a higher rate of people who are uninsured,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of FamiliesUSA, which advocates for a healthcare overhaul. “As a result, healthcare reform is going to provide a disproportionate amount of resources to those states.”

In Wyoming, for example, nearly one out of three people under the age of 65 went without health insurance at some point during the last two years, according to Pollack’s group. A huge majority of the uninsured have jobs, but work for employers who don’t provide coverage.

The idea, as it stands, is that there will be two health-care bills. The one with the hard stuff — the subsidies, the Medicaid expansion, the Medicare reforms, the public plan, and the revenue measures — will go through the budget reconciliation process, and thus sidestep the filibuster. Then there’ll be a bill that includes everything that was ineligible for the budget reconciliation process.

But will it work?

51 Vote Rules May Force a Public Option Too Liberal for Some Dems

According to Martin Paone, a legislative expert who’s helping Democrats map out legislative strategy, a more robust public option–one that sets low prices, and provides cheap, subsidized insurance to low- and middle-class consumers–would have an easier time surviving the procedural demands of the so-called reconciliation process. However, he cautions that the cost of subsidies “will have to be offset and if [the health care plan] loses money beyond 2014…it will have to be sunsetted.”

And there the irony continues: Some experts, including on Capitol Hill, believe that a more robust public option will generate crucial savings needed to keep health care reform in the black–and thus prevent it from expiring. But though that may solve the procedural problems, conservative Democrats have balked at the idea creating such a momentous government program, and if they defected in great numbers, they could imperil the entire reform package

Business as Usual

Low-Wage Workers Are Often Cheated, Study Says

“What our study shows is that this is a widespread phenomenon across the low-wage labor market in the United States.”

According to the study, 39 percent of those surveyed were illegal immigrants, 31 percent legal immigrants and 30 percent native-born Americans.

The study found that 26 percent of the workers had been paid less than the minimum wage the week before being surveyed and that one in seven had worked off the clock the previous week. In addition, 76 percent of those who had worked overtime the week before were not paid their proper overtime, the researchers found.

FDA found lead in all 20 lipsticks tested, at 0.09 to 3.06 parts per million -
four times higher than the highest level reported in by CSC. FDA used a new
method to analyze lipstick and concluded that earlier methods likely
underestimated lead levels.

FDA noted that three manufacturers had the highest lead levels, but did not
name these brands. The CSC report found a few brands with consistently higher
lead levels, including L’Oreal, Maybelline and Cover Girl.
. . .
FDA found an average lead level in lipstick more than 10 times higher than its
own standard for lead in candy. FDA’s standard for candy is based on the
lowest lead level that can be achieved. A similar standard should be applied
to lipstick. Full release at www.safecosmetics.org

Now comes James Taranto, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, who is suggesting that Cheney would be a terrific presidential candidate in 2012. If national security emerges as the key issue in the election, he argues, “Republicans would be wise to nominate someone with both toughness and experience. Under such circumstances, it’s hard to think of a better candidate — assuming, of course, that he could be persuaded to run — than Richard B. Cheney.”

And (maybe) not so usual?

Obama White House Has Secret Plan To Harvest Personal Data From Social Networking Websites
NLPC has uncovered a plan by the White House New Media operation to hire a technology vendor to conduct a massive, secret effort to harvest personal information on millions of Americans from social networking websites.

The information to be captured includes comments, tag lines, emails, audio, and video. The targeted sites include Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and others – any space where the White House “maintains a presence.”

“When you see a fire burning like this, with no Santa Ana winds, we know that with the winds, it would be so much worse, so much more intense,” said Los Angeles County fire Capt. Mark Whaling.

The Santa Anas are so devastating when they carry fire because they sweep down from the north and reach withering speeds as they squeeze through wilderness canyons and passes and plunge into developed areas.

Even though winds have been mostly calm since the blaze began along the northern fringe of Los Angeles and its suburbs, the flames have spread over 199 square miles of forest in a week.

I apologize for this abridged news post.

Some of you know that I’ve been dealing with family health issues and while they aren’t totally resolved (everyone is well on the road to recovery) I CAN’T put off getting back to doing my share…. And I miss you all to much to put off participating until things get back to normal. DO things get back to normal? Who knows.

Senator Ted Kennedy

Robert Scheer: Remembering the Real Deal

I would put Kennedy alongside my other hero, George McGovern, as the most trusted standard-bearer of the Democratic Party’s too-often-sabotaged liberalism. I just could never imagine either of them ever selling us out. Indeed, I haven’t felt quite so sad about the passing of a political leader since the day when people started bawling all over the Bronx with the news that FDR had died. In a political world dominated by bipartisan cynicism, there are few touchstones of integrity for the common folk, and Kennedy was one of them.

Byrd wants health bill renamed for Kennedy

“In his honor and as a tribute to his commitment to his ideals, let us stop the shouting and name calling and have a civilized debate on health care reform which I hope, when legislation has been signed into law, will bear his name for his commitment to insuring the health of every American,” Byrd said.

Politico forwards spin that GOP would support health reform if Kennedy had been active in Senate

In an obituary for Sen. Edward Kennedy, the Politico repeated the Republican claim that Kennedy’s absence from the health care debate prevented lawmakers from reaching a bipartisan compromise, reporting that “Republicans complained that without Kennedy, Democrats were less willing to make the concessions needed for true compromise.” Several progressive commentators have identified this talking point as GOP spin intended to disguise Republicans’ obstructionism, with Salon.com’s Joan Walsh, for example, stating that “absolutely no evidence supports that point of view,” and washingtonpost.com blogger Ezra Klein noting that Kennedy’s committee has already reported out a bill.

Health Care

Poll: 86 percent say insurance, public or private, should be available to all

Among the 1,000 Democrats, Republicans and independents surveyed on Aug. 12 and 13, 79 percent say they believe a federal government health insurance option should be available for people to buy.

Yet about one-fourth of those polled believe the “public option” is a national health care system, similar to the one in Great Britain.

“These two words have become radioactive, they have been swift-boated,” said William Mann, senior vice president of Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates. “There is a real misunderstanding.”

Franken Faces Friendly Fire From Liberals Who Want Public Option

Franken declined to discuss whether he would consider voting for a health care bill that did not include a public option.

“I’m not going to negotiate against myself,” he said.

Kucinich Calls on Insurers to Testify Before Panel

Kucinich, a vocal House liberal, asked the insurance executives to prepare testimony to “discuss the methods and protocols by which your health insurance company determines coverage for prescribed medical treatments, the administrative cost associated with this activity, and your company’s awareness of the response by doctors to these activities.”

“I further request that the testimony put into context anecdotes of claims denials, deferrals, and policy rescissions by insurers,” Kucinich wrote. “Your testimony should also discuss the adequacy and availability of data on, and government oversight of, the extent and impact of these actions.”

National News

Cheney’s Jihad–Why “enhanced interrogation techniques” don’t enhance U.S. interests, by Peter Bergen

Of the terrorists, alleged and otherwise, cited by the CIA inspector general as being fingered by KSM during his coercive interrogations, only Ohio truck driver Iyman Faris was an actual al Qaeda foot soldier living in the United States who had serious intention to wreak havoc. However, he was not much of a competent terrorist: In 2002 he researched the feasibility of bringing down the Brooklyn Bridge by using a blowtorch, an enterprise akin to demolishing the Empire State Building with a firecracker.

If that was the most threatening plot the United States could discover by waterboarding the most senior al Qaeda member in U.S. custody, it was thin stuff indeed.. .. ..

Who is Obama playing ball with? by Amy Goodman

It looked like it was business as usual for President Barack Obama on the first day of his Martha’s Vineyard vacation, as he spent five hours golfing with Robert Wolf, president of UBS Investment Bank and chairman and CEO of UBS Group Americas. Wolf, an early financial backer of Obama’s presidential campaign, raised $250,000 for him back in 2006, and in February was appointed by the president to the White House’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Economic recovery for whom?

Interestingly, Wolf’s appointment came in the same month that UBS agreed to pay the U.S. $780 million to settle civil and criminal charges related to helping people in the U.S. avoid taxes. Not to worry. UBS, an ailing bank with a pre-existing condition, had great insurance coverage. It was actually receiving $2.5 billion in a backdoor bailout from bailed-out insurance giant AIG. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said, “It looks like we’re simply laundering this money through AIG.” UBS, this bank that shelters wealthy tax dodgers, was actually being bailed out by hardworking U.S. taxpayers.

An effective investigation into the breadth of the CIA’s interrogation programs must be bipartisan, similar to the work of the Church Committee in the 1970’s

On his annual salary of $100,000 as a television camera operator, he could afford the $2,200 initial mortgage payments. And he planned to sell the home before the mortgage reset.

Now Mr. Clavon is part of what many economists say is a looming threat to a housing recovery: more than a half-million option ARMs scheduled to reset in the next four years, at rates many homeowners cannot afford. His mortgage payments have risen to $2,700 a month because of a clause he did not notice on his contract, and are scheduled to rise above $4,000 in two years.

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My mom’s a three-time cancer survivor so I’m always interested in stories like this.

Marriage ‘cancer survival impact’

US researchers from Indiana University analysed data on 3.8m people diagnosed with cancer between 1973 and 2004.

They found people who were married had a 63% chance of surviving five years, compared to 45% of people who were separated, the journal Cancer reported.

The team said the stress of break-up probably affected survival rates.

Or …. The Department of Maybe Yes, Maybe No:

Strained marriages ‘harm women’ (March 5, 2009)

US psychologists found wives in tense marriages were prone to risk factors for heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

In comparison, husbands seemed relatively immune from such problems.

The sale process for the Procter & Gamble unit was run by Goldman Sachs. Among the unit’s products is Actonel, a treatment for osteoporosis, the colitis drug Asacol, and Enablex, a treatment for an overactive bladder.

The Procter unit had $2.3 billion in revenue in the year ended in June, including more than a billion from Actonel. Warner Chilcott had revenue of $938 million in 2008.

Most of the unit’s 2,300 employees are expected to transfer to Warner Chilcott, the companies said in a statement. The deal, which needs regulatory approval, is expected to close by the end of the year.

Already, a handful of cases of Tamiflu-resistant H1N1 have been reported this summer, and there is no shortage of examples of misuse of the antiviral medications, experts say.

People often fail to complete a full course of the drug, according to a recent British report — a scenario also likely to be occurring in the U.S. and one that encourages resistance. Stockpiling is rife, and some U.S. summer camps have given Tamiflu prophylactically to healthy kids and staff, and have even told campers to bring the drug to camp. Experts anticipate more problems in the fall as children return to school and normal flu season draws nearer.

The trustees who oversee Social Security are projecting there won’t be a cost of living adjustment (COLA) for the next two years. That hasn’t happened since automatic increases were adopted in 1975.

By law, Social Security benefits cannot go down. Nevertheless, monthly payments would drop for millions of people in the Medicare prescription drug program because the premiums, which often are deducted from Social Security payments, are scheduled to go up slightly.

“I will promise you, they count on that COLA,” said Barbara Kennelly, a former Democratic congresswoman from Connecticut who now heads the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. “To some people, it might not be a big deal. But to seniors, especially with their health care costs, it is a big deal.”

Glenn Beck returns to Fox News Channel on Monday after a vacation with fewer companies willing to advertise on his show than when he left, part of the fallout from calling President Barack Obama a racist.

A total of 33 Fox advertisers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., CVS Caremark, Clorox and Sprint, directed that their commercials not air on Beck’s show, according to the companies and ColorofChange.org, a group that promotes political action among blacks and launched a campaign to get advertisers to abandon him. That’s more than a dozen more than were identified a week ago.

While it’s unclear what effect, if any, this will ultimately have on Fox and Beck, it is already making advertisers skittish about hawking their wares within the most opinionated cable TV shows.

The speaker, eager to hear reports from the field and keep the party’s message on track, participates in a weekly call with members of her caucus.

“The reports we get back are very positive,” she said. “By and large, members are getting a very good reception.”

Still, a phone hotline and an e-mail address relay some of the thornier questions that arise from town hall meetings to Pelosi’s staff, allowing prompt responses on details such as how the legislation addresses home health care, or when a small business would be mandated to provide health care coverage.

“That it is still moving forward speaks to the fact that the leadership has been successful,” said Ken Thorpe, chairman of health policy at Emory University in Atlanta, and a senior official at the Health and Human Services department during President Bill Clinton’s unsuccessful push for health care reform.

“She’s very hands-on,” Thorpe said.

Remember me? Wall Street repackages debt for sale

Wall Street may have discovered a way out from under the bad debt and risky mortgages that have clogged the financial markets. The would-be solution probably sounds familiar: It’s a lot like what got banks in trouble in the first place.

In recent months investment banks have been repackaging old mortgage securities and offering to sell them as new products, a plan that’s nearly identical to the complicated investment packages at the heart of the market’s collapse.

“There is a little bit of deja vu in this,” said Arizona State University economics professor Herbert Kaufman.

But Kaufman said the strategy could help solve one of the lingering problems of the financial meltdown: What to do about hundreds of billions of dollars in mortgages that are still choking the system and making bankers reluctant to make new loans.

All the President’s Zombies

“We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals,” said Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1937. “We know now that it is bad economics.” And last year we learned that lesson all over again.

Or did we? The astonishing thing about the current political scene is the extent to which nothing has changed.

The debate over the public option has, as I said, been depressing in its inanity. Opponents of the option — not just Republicans, but Democrats like Senator Kent Conrad and Senator Ben Nelson — have offered no coherent arguments against it. Mr. Nelson has warned ominously that if the option were available, Americans would choose it over private insurance — which he treats as a self-evidently bad thing, rather than as what should happen if the government plan was, in fact, better than what private insurers offer.

But it’s much the same on other fronts. Efforts to strengthen bank regulation appear to be losing steam, as opponents of reform declare that more regulation would lead to less financial innovation — this just months after the wonders of innovation brought our financial system to the edge of collapse, a collapse that was averted only with huge infusions of taxpayer funds.

So why won’t these zombie ideas die?

The risk of a double-dip recession is rising

The global economy is starting to bottom out from the worst recession and financial crisis since the Great Depression. In the fourth quarter of 2008 and first quarter of 2009 the rate at which most advanced economies were contracting was similar to the gross domestic product free-fall in the early stage of the Depression. Then, late last year, policymakers who had been behind the curve finally started to use most of the weapons in their arsenal.

That effort worked and the free-fall of economic activity eased. There are three open questions now on the outlook. When will the global recession be over? What will be the shape of the economic recovery? Are there risks of a relapse?

. . .

But if they maintain large budget deficits, bond market vigilantes will punish policymakers. Then, inflationary expectations will increase, long-term government bond yields would rise and borrowing rates will go up sharply, leading to stagflation.

Another reason to fear a double-dip recession is that oil, energy and food prices are now rising faster than economic fundamentals warrant, and could be driven higher by excessive liquidity chasing assets and by speculative demand. Last year, oil at $145 a barrel was a tipping point for the global economy, as it created negative terms of trade and a disposable income shock for oil importing economies. The global economy could not withstand another contractionary shock if similar speculation drives oil rapidly towards $100 a barrel.

Obama’s Team Is Lacking Most of Its Top Players

Of more than 500 senior policymaking positions requiring Senate confirmation, just 43 percent have been filled — a reflection of a White House that grew more cautious after several nominations blew up last spring, a Senate that is intensively investigating nominees and a legislative agenda that has consumed both.

The department’s ethics watchdog has recommended considering prosecuting Central Intelligence Agency employees or contractors for harsh interrogations in Iraq and Afghanistan that went beyond approved limits, a government official said.

“The sentence remains,” Mohamed Sahfri Abdul Aziz, the head of religious affairs in Pahang state said, according to Malaysian media accounts. “She has been released but only temporarily.”

This would be the first time that a woman has been caned in this mainly Muslim country of 27 million people that is seen as a moderate state.

The sentencing has turned the spotlight on an Islamic legal system that runs alongside civil laws in the multi-ethnic country. It also comes at a time when influence of the Pan Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), which wants to introduce an Islamic state, is growing.

Madoff, 71, who since June has been serving a 150-year sentence at a North Carolina federal prison, has been telling fellow inmates he does not have much longer to live, the Post said, citing the unofficial and unusual sources.

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