A groundbreaking 8-year study just released by Harvard University and McGill University researchers finds that the U.S. lags in most measures of worker accommodations as compared to most of the industrialized world.  The s/… Read full post »

    The health care reform bill is now down to the Senate, and they are going to wrestle with their version for weeks if not months.  No advocates of reform will get want they want in this sausagefest.  But, so far, weakened health care reform beats no health care refor/… Read full post »

   In the crusade against Obama administration efforts on behalf of economic recovery and health care reform, we encounter lies, damn lies, and Republican talking points.  Touchstones like:  “government takeover,” “government-run,” “profligate s/… Read full post »

^{Open Carry Crusader George Donnelly (YouTube)} 

   George Donnelly, of Plymouth, Pennsylvania, is a blogger, a gun owner, and an open carry enthusiast.  “Open carry,” for those of you who are not gun fashionistas, is the movement to “normalize&/… Read full post »

   We are told the majority of Americans who receive health care through their employers are asking, “Crisis, what crisis?”  Unless, that is, they lose their jobs.  Or have a claim denied for lifesaving care.  Or have uninsured children.  Or their emplo/… Read full post »

    The murder last week of Meleanie Hain, “the pistol-packing soccer mom” of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, was a tragedy rich in easy irony.  Killed in her home by her husband, Scott Hain, a probation officer, who shot her several times as she was in the midst of a video ch/… Read full post »

   Someday, when this “great recession” (a lousy name) is laid to rest, historians will probably key their analysis of its end to remarks made by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on September 15, when he said following a speech at the Brookings Institution:

“Even though fr… Read full post »

            Contrary to the premature obits appearing in rags like the Washington Post, the public option is not yet dead.  Granted, its prospects look bleak, at least according to Senate Blue Dogs.  So-called centrists, typified by the Finance Committee D/… Read full post »

An article appearing in the Minneapolis Star Tribune today, entitled “14-foot-tall vampire illustrates view of one physician’s group,” included the following statement:  “It [The American Medical Association] initially opposed the public option but recently came/… Read full post »

   A New England Journal of Medicine survey released yesterday reveals that 73 percent of doctors favor a public option as a component of health care reform.  Sixty-three percent favored a public option as part of a public-private mix of insurance options, while another 10 percen/… Read full post »

   While you wait for your health care ship to come in—or be dashed upon the rocks—one largely unnoticed benefit to the newly unemployed is the federal premium subsidy for COBRA.  A COBRA subsidy can make the difference between having health care and going uninsured f/… Read full post »

In the Pantheon of Lies there are lies, damn lies, statistics and, in our age, internet lies.  Which are the biggest?  Internet lies, by a landslide.  One pipsqueak blogger, a Peter Fleckenstein, of Phoenix, has elevated the internet lie to an art informed by mania that must be read/… Read full post »

  Senator Ted Kennedy will not make the final leg of the journey toward realizing universal health care.   In fact, bereft of his consummate mastery of legislative skills, we may not make the final leg of the journey in this emotionally charged year of rancor.  Kennedy calle/… Read full post »

   The entire health care reform debate can be boiled down to a single proposition, which I repeat as stated by Minnesota State Representative Linda Berglin (DFL), a leading Minnesota health care reform advocate:

 “Who do Americans mistrust more, insurance companies or the… Read full post »

              In Redwood Falls, Minnesota, a town hall disrupter characterizes health care reform as “a step toward communism.” Senator Jim DeMint, (R, S.C.), calls the debate that of socialism versus freedom.  There are fistfights in Tampa, de/… Read full post »

Government Takeover Imminent!

  We are on the threshold, or, depending on whom you listen to, it has already happened.  A government takeover.  Raw, unbridled, governmental violence, wrought on an unsuspecting populace. Here, in the U.S.  The evidence:

·&nbs… Read full post »

A million grads could benefit     

   Paying back student loans is one of life’s inevitabilities, like death and taxes. Over the past fifteen years, the burden of financing a college education has fallen more and more onto the backs of students, through feder/… Read full post »

     Why You Can’t Be a For-Profit and a Nonprofit

    I am a huge fan of the New York Times, although I’m mostly a Sunday Times guy—there aren’t enough hours in the week to keep up with it seven days running. … Read full post »

   Speaking truth to power—how difficult it becomes once you wield power.  The fourth estate—journalism, newspapers, media—wields power.   The journalistic community, especially the print community, is the de facto arbiter of truth and gatekeeper of pu… Read full post »

Just don’t call it socialized medicine

            The U.S. spends 16% of gross domestic product on health care, Germany 10.7%.  They like their system much better than we like ours.  But here is the banner headline, given our gr/… Read full post »

            Two recent court cases related to the rights of same-sex couples highlight the quandary the Obama administration finds itself in with regard to its heretofore rock solid base of support within the gay community.  Both cases originate in California,/… Read full post »

The administration plan for revamping federal financial regulatory agencies calls for:

• A consumer protection agency to regulate the interactions between consumers and financial institutions
• The Fed to regulate “too big to fail” firms with the capacity/
… Read full post »

What is with our freaky Dow?  Last Friday, it was knocking at 8,800. This week it lost 2 percent and was hovering around 8,500 the last time I checked.  Is the Dow in the same universe as us?  We, the people, who are locked in a prolonged and deep/… Read full post »

            Our economic meltdown is like a tie-the-balloon game.  Get a grip on one segment and a new bulge erupts.  State budget crises are one such bulge, and California’s is the mother of all budget crises.  State budgets are lagging indicto/… Read full post »

The arcane logic of the General Motors "B & B"—Bailout & Bankruptcy—holds more than a few hazards for the proud new owners of the slimmed-down former automotive behemoth.  Of course I am talking about us, the new owners, the American and Canadian people, who own 75% of the/… Read full post »