You might want to sit down to read this one ......
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-dorlester/guaranteed-health-care-in_b_280528.html
AMERICANS UNITED FOR HEALTH CARE AND INSURANCE REFORM
http://www.americansunitedhcr.wordpress.com
Phone/Fax (712) 239-0992
Direct Questions to:
americansunitedhcr@cableone.net
Press Release
9 A.M. CDT, August 31, 2009
AMERICANS UNITED FOR HEALTH CARE & INSURANCE REFORM RALLY & March in Washington, D.C. Sept. 13, 2009
Sioux City, August 31, 2009: A rally/march will be held in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 13, 2009 between 12N – 5pm in support of the administrations health care and health insurance reform goals. It is the goal of Americans United for Health Care and Insurance Reform to let congress know that all Americans need health care and insurance. Over 47 million Americans are uninsured and millions more are underinsured or at risk of losing their health insurance
The rally/march will begin at the Lincoln Memorial and march to the steps of the Capitol Building via the National Mall. This rally/march will be peaceful.
Robert Reich has given his support to this rally and march, “….I just want Congress to know how many Americans want universal health care and will settle for no less than complete coverage and no less than a public insurance option, to keep private insurers honest. So I’m happy to lend my support to whatever you are doing.”
Americans have enjoyed the freedom of movement, speech and employment. It is time that American citizens have the freedom that comes from knowing they have affordable health care for themselves and their families. Health care is not just for the privileged but it is a fundamental right.
Other groups marching on September 13, 2009 for health care reform are Congressman Fattah’s “March for Healthcare”, “Medicare for All”, and “March on Washington for Health Care.”
We invite all those who wish to participate visit our web blog at http://www.americansunitedhcr.wordpress.com and register to rally.
For more information please see our web blog (address above)Please direct all questions to our committee at americansunitedhcr@cableone.net.
Americans United for Health Care and Insurance Reform is not affiliated with Organizing for America or the Democratic National Committee or affiliated with any other groups, special interests or lobbying forums.
Is John McCain a Crook?Chris SuellentropThe controversial George W. Bush-sponsored poll in South Carolina mentioned John McCain's role in the so-called Keating Five scandal, and McCain says his involvement in the scandal "will probably be on my tombstone." What exactly did McCain do? In early 1987, at the beginning of his first Senate term, McCain attended two meetings with federal banking regulators to discuss an investigation into Lincoln Savings and Loan, an Irvine, Calif., thrift owned by Arizona developer Charles Keating. Federal auditors were investigating Keating's banking practices, and Keating, fearful that the government would seize his S&L, sought intervention from a number of U.S. senatorsAt Keating's behest, four senators--McCain and Democrats Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, Alan Cranston of California, and John Glenn of Ohio--met with Ed Gray, chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, on April 2. Those four senators and Sen. Don Riegle, D-Mich., attended a second meeting at Keating's behest on April 9 with bank regulators in San Francisco.Regulators did not seize Lincoln Savings and Loan until two years later. The Lincoln bailout cost taxpayers $2.6 billion, making it the biggest of the S&L scandals. In addition, 17,000 Lincoln investors lost $190 million. In November 1990, the Senate Ethics Committee launched an investigation into the meetings between the senators and the regulators. McCain, Cranston, DeConcini, Glenn, and Riegle became known as the Keating Five.(Keating himself was convicted in January 1993 of 73 counts of wire and bankruptcy fraud and served more than four years in prison before his conviction was overturned. Last year, he pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud and was sentenced to time served.) McCain defended his attendance at the meetings by saying Keating was a constituent and that Keating's development company, American Continental Corporation, was a major Arizona employer. McCain said he wanted to know only whether Keating was being treated fairly and that he had not tried to influence the regulators. At the second meeting, McCain told the regulators, "I wouldn't want any special favors for them," and "I don't want any part of our conversation to be improper." But Keating was more than a constituent to McCain--he was a longtime friend and associate. McCain met Keating in 1981 at a Navy League dinner in Arizona where McCain was the speaker. Keating was a former naval aviator himself, and the two men became friends. Keating raised money for McCain's two congressional campaigns in 1982 and 1984, and for McCain's 1986 Senate bid. By 1987, McCain campaigns had received $112,000 from Keating, his relatives, and his employees--the most received by any of the Keating Five. (Keating raised a total of $300,000 for the five senators.)After McCain's election to the House in 1982, he and his family made at least nine trips at Keating's expense, three of which were to Keating's Bahamas retreat. McCain did not disclose the trips (as he was required to under House rules) until the scandal broke in 1989. At that point, he paid Keating $13,433 for the flights.And in April 1986, one year before the meeting with the regulators, McCain's wife, Cindy, and her father invested $359,100 in a Keating strip mall.The Senate Ethics Committee probe of the Keating Five began in November 1990, and committee Special Counsel Robert Bennett recommended that McCain and Glenn be dropped from the investigation. They were not. McCain believes Democrats on the committee blocked Bennett's recommendation because he was the lone Keating Five Republican. In February 1991, the Senate Ethics Committee found McCain and Glenn to be the least blameworthy of the five senators. (McCain and Glenn attended the meetings but did nothing else to influence the regulators.) McCain was guilty of nothing more than "poor judgment," the committee said, and declared his actions were not "improper nor attended with gross negligence." McCain considered the committee's judgment to be "full exoneration," and he contributed $112,000 (the amount raised for him by Keating) to the U.S.
Here's the kicker, Folks....after helping Keating steal all that money from his investors, on Thursday,August 21, 2008, Senator John McCain actually hired Charles Keating to help John McCain get to the White House. Crooks of a feather, one might say.
MY HOLIDAY WITH JOHN McCAINIt was just before John McCain's last run at the presidential nomination in 2000 that my husband and I vacationed in Turtle Island in Fiji with John McCain, Cindy, and their children, including Bridget (their adopted Bangladeshi child).It was not our intention, but it was our misfortune to be in close quarters with John McCain for almost a week, since Turtle Island has a small number of bungalows and their focus on communal meals force all vacationers who are there at the same time to get to know each other intimately.He arrived at our first group meal and started reading quotes from a pile of William Faulkner books with a forest of Post-Its sticking out of them. As an English Literature major myself, my first thought was "if he likes this so much, why hasn't he memorized any of this yet?" I soon realized that McCain actually thought we had come on vacation to be a volunteer audience for his "readings" which then became a regular part of each meal. Out of politeness, none of the vacationers initially protested at this intrusion into their blissful holiday, but people's buttons definitely got pushed as the readings continued day after day.Unfortunately this was not his only contribution to our mealtime entertainment. He waxed on during one meal about how Indo-Chine women had the best figures and that our American corn-fed women just couldn't meet up to this standard. He also made it a point that all of us should stop Cindy from having dessert as her weight was too high and made a few comments to Amy, the 25 year old wife of the honeymooning couple from Nebraska that she should eat less as she needed to lose weight.McCain's appreciation of the beauty of Asian women was so great that David the American economist had to move his Thai wife to the other side of the table from McCain as McCain kept aggressively flirting with and touching her. Needless to say I was irritated at his large ego and his rude behavior towards his wife and other women, but decided he must have some redeeming qualities as he had adopted a handicapped child from Bangladesh. I asked him about this one day, and his response was shocking: "Oh, that was Cindy's idea - I didn't have anything to do with it. She just went and adopted this thing without even asking me. You can't imagine how people stare when I wheel this ugly, black thing around in a shopping cart in Arizona . No, it wasn't my idea at all."I actively avoided McCain after that, but unfortunately one day he engaged me in a political discussion which soon got us on the topic of the active US bombing of Iraq at that time. I was shocked when he said, "If I was in charge, I would nuke Iraq to teach them a lesson". Given McCain's personal experience with the horrors of war, I had expected a more balanced point of view. I commented on the tragic consequences of the nuclear attacks on Japan during WWII -- but no, he was not to be dissuaded. He went on to say that if it was up to him he would have dropped many more nuclear bombs on Japan. I rapidly extricated myself from this conversation as I could tell that his experience being tortured as a POW didn't seem to have mellowed out his perspective, but rather had made him more aggressive and vengeful towards the world. My final encounter with McCain was on the morning that he was leaving Turtle Island. Amy and I were happily eating pancakes when McCain arrived and told Amy that she shouldn't be having pancakes because she needed to lose weight. Amy burst into tears at this abusive comment. I felt fiercely protective of Amy and immediately turned to McCain and told him to leave her alone.He became very angry and abusive towards me, and said, "Don't you know who I am." I looked him in the face and said, "Yes, you are the biggest asshole I have ever met" and headed back to my cabin. I am happy to say that later that day when I arrived at lunch I was given a standing ovation by all the guests for having stood up to McCain's bullying. Although I have shared my McCain story informally with friends, this is the first time I am making this public. I almost did so in 2000, when McCain first announced his bid for the Republican nomination, but it soon became apparent that George Bush was the shoo-in candidate and so I did not act then. However, now that there is a very real possibility that McCain could be elected as our next president, I feel it is my duty as an American citizen to share this story. I can't imagine a more scary outcome for America than that this abusive, aggressive man should lead our nation. I have observed him in intimate surroundings as he really is, not how the media portrays him to be. If his attitudes toward women and his treatment of his own family are even a small indicator of his real personality, then I shudder to think what will happen to America were he to be elected as our President.
This letter was written by:Mary-Kay GamelProfessor of Classic Literature & ArtsCowell CollegeUniversity of CaliforniaSanta CruzCalifornia.
Bailout, schmailout!
Odeh Odeh said, "The economic situation in the country in my opinion is the turning point ..."
I agree with Odeh. This is a huge eye-opener that the Republican Administration was asleep at the wheel, or just plain incompetent.
Whereas Barack Obama in this national financial crisis has demonstrated the calm temperament
and right decision making necessary to be president, according to article below:
"In a financial crisis, Obama shows a steady hand" By Albert R. Hunt Bloomberg News Published: September 21, 2008 http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/21/america/letter.php
"More revealing, though, was to whom the candidates turned on that panic-ridden morning of Sept. 15, and how the messages evolved before and after that day.
McCain called Martin Feldstein, the well-known Republican economist and Reagan administration adviser; John Taylor of Stanford University, who served in President George W. Bush's Treasury; and Carly Fiorina, once the chief executive of Hewlett-Packard.
Obama called the former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, and the former Treasury secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers.
It was a mismatch."
Tellingly, three former SEC chairmen, a Democrat, Arthur Levitt, and two Republicans, David Ruder and Bill Donaldson, have endorsed Obama. Levitt is a board member of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.
Donaldson, who was tapped by Bush to head the SEC, says Obama called him last year about the financial-regulatory problems. He has never heard from McCain.
"Obama has been talking about the need for better financial regulation well before this crisis hit and has done some real thinking about it," says Donaldson, a lifelong Republican. "McCain comes across as someone who suddenly realized changes have to be made."
Carpe Diem, "seize the day" America.
America's choice is clear- Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Rob [bob-pol]
Paul Krugman,September 22, 2008, wrote:
So let's try to think this through for ourselves.
I have a four-step view of the financial crisis:
1. The bursting of the housing bubble has led to a surge in defaults and foreclosures, which in turn has led to a plunge in the prices of mortgage-backed securities - assets whose value ultimately comes from mortgage payments.2. These financial losses have left many financial institutions with too little capital - too few assets compared with their debt. This problem is especially severe because everyone took on so much debt during the bubble years.
3. Because financial institutions have too little capital relative to their debt, they haven't been able or willing to provide the credit the economy needs.
4. Financial institutions have been trying to pay down their debt by selling assets, including those mortgage-backed securities, but this drives asset prices down and makes their financial position even worse. This vicious circle is what some call the "paradox of deleveraging."
The Paulson plan calls for the federal government to buy up $700 billion worth of troubled assets, mainly mortgage-backed securities.
How does this resolve the crisis?
Well, it might - might - break the vicious circle of deleveraging, step 4 in my capsule description. Even that isn't clear: The prices of many assets, not just those the Treasury proposes to buy, are under pressure. And even if the vicious circle is limited, the financial system will still be crippled by inadequate capital. Or rather, it will be crippled by inadequate capital unless the federal government hugely overpays for the assets it buys, giving financial firms - and their stockholders and executives - a giant windfall at taxpayer expense. Did I mention that I'm not happy with this plan?
The logic of the crisis seems to call for an intervention, not at step 4, but at step 2:
The financial system needs more capital. And if the government is going to provide capital to financial firms, it should get what people who provide capital are entitled to - a share in ownership, so that all the gains if the rescue plan works don't go to the people who made the mess in the first place.
That's what happened in the savings and loan crisis: The feds took over ownership of the bad banks, not just their bad assets. It's also what happened with Fannie and Freddie. (And by the way, that rescue has done what it was supposed to. Mortgage interest rates have come down sharply since the federal takeover.)
But Paulson insists that he wants a "clean" plan. "Clean," in this context, means a taxpayer-financed bailout with no strings attached - no quid pro quo on the part of those being bailed out. Why is that a good thing? Add to this the fact that Paulson is also demanding dictatorial authority, plus immunity from review "by any court of law or any administrative agency," and this adds up to an unacceptable proposal.
I'm aware that Congress is under enormous pressure to agree to the Paulson plan in the next few days, with at most a few modifications that make it slightly less bad. Basically, after having spent a year and a half telling everyone that things were under control, the Bush administration [now] says that the sky is falling, and that to save the world Americans have to do exactly what it says now now now.
But I'd urge Congress to pause for a minute, take a deep breath, and try to seriously rework the structure of the plan, making it a plan that addresses the real problem.
Don't let yourself be railroaded - if this plan goes through in anything like its current form, we'll all be very sorry in the not-too-distant future.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/22/opinion/edkrugman.php
John McCain today claimed to be a Wahington outsider, and says that Washington insiders, who listened to special interest lobbyists about deregulating the banking industry, caused our Financial system problems.
We are in the worst financial crisis this country has faced in modern times. During these eight long years of Republican control, we have seen runaway greed, the deregulation of financial institutions and the mismanagement of the housing market resulting in the skyrocketing number of home foreclosures. This has led to a disastrous unraveling of the U.S. economy. Can we survive four more years of these irresponsible practices and policies of the Bush administration?
For 26 years in Washington, McCain has supported deregulation of the financial sector. Now he blames deregulation and those who advocated it, saying now that he was for regulation. Straight talk express got derailed there. McCain is a powerful Senator, head of numerous committees, and he has 83 Wall Street lobbyists in his cadre.
McCain said he will get rid of greed. "Enough is enough! We're going to put an end to greed!" -- John McCain 9/17/08. yet McCain gained allot of big oil donations for his switch from opposing to advocating off shore drilling. Industry Gushed Money After McCain's Reversal on Drilling. Campaign contributions from oil industry executives to Sen. John McCain rose dramatically in the last half of June, after the senator from Arizona made a high-profile split with environmentalists and reversed his opposition to the federal ban on offshore drilling. Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month -- three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban -- compared with $116,000 in March, $283,000 in April and $208,000 in May. So, dare McCain look in the mirror to see who's the greedy one?
McCain is also so greedy about wanting to be president that he sold out his character, and some of his staunch supporters now call him the Ugly New McCain because of his profuse lying in this campaign. By Richard Cohen Wednesday, September 17, 2008; Following his loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 South Carolina primary, John McCain did something extraordinary: He confessed to lying about how he felt about the Confederate battle flag, which he actually abhorred. "I broke my promise to always tell the truth," McCain said. Now he has broken that promise so completely that the John McCain of old is unrecognizable. He has become the sort of politician he once despised.
McCain said, "Evil must be defeated!" -- John McCain 8/16/08 Yet he has demonstrated unbridled behavior toward loyal and dedicated workers. Yahoo News: McCain's History of Hot Temper Raises Concerns. WASHINGTON -- John McCain made a quick stop at the Capitol one day last spring to sit in on Senate negotiations on the big immigration bill, and John Cornyn was not pleased. Cornyn, a mild-mannered Texas Republican, saw a loophole in the bill that he thought would allow felons to pursue a path to citizenship.
McCain called Cornyn's claim "chicken-s---," according to people familiar with the meeting, and charged that the Texan was looking for an excuse to scuttle the bill. Cornyn grimly told McCain he had a lot of nerve to suddenly show up and inject himself into the sensitive negotiations.
F--- you," McCain told Cornyn, in front of about 40 witnesses. It was another instance of the McCain losing his temper, as POW-MIA activist Carol Hrdlicka put it, "It's his way or no way." So, dare McCain look in the mirror if he is to carry out his mandate to destoy evil.
And how about Sarah Palin who says she will stand for individuals and fight prejudice, by Charley James - "So Sambo beat the bitch!" This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama's win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat's primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively. "It was kind of disgusting," Lucille, who is part Aboriginal, said in a phone interview. So, dare VP Palin look in the mirror to see who the bigot is.
If we are to get out of the huge rut George Bush has driven this country into, we cannot afford to elect dishonest leaders, because if they can lie to the American people now for personal reasons during the campaign, who thinks they won't continue to lie to us in the White House.
Time to turn the page, and throw the liars out. This country has to get back on track.
references http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/us/politics/16record.html
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/McCain_team_includes_83_Wall_Street_0917.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/26/AR2008072601891.html?nav=rss_politics
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-kelly/the-delicate-subject-of-j_b_127359.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbra-streisand/the-country-cant-afford-t_b_127846.html
http://www.laprogressive.com/2008/09/05/alaskans-speak-in-a-frightened-whisper-palin-is-%E2%80%9Cracist-sexist-vindictive-and-mean%E2%80%9D/
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20080907/pl_mcclatchy/3035300_1
Why risk our future livelyhood on unstable financial markets!
http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/1066/ssgrandparentsfs6.jpg
The Republican seems willing to consider privatization -- and Democrats aim to use that to sway senior voters. By Peter Wallsten, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 14, 2008 WASHINGTON -- It was a spectacular flop: a president making dozens of fruitless trips around the country to build support for a plan his own party's leadership refused to accept.But President Bush's failed push to privatize Social Security has not deterred John McCain from putting forward the same idea -- and from risking a similar political disaster.
McCain, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, spoke several times last week about changing how the popular retirement program is funded, at one point calling it a "disgrace" that younger workers are forced to pay for a plan that, in his view, is unlikely to benefit them when they retire.Democrats are gearing up to turn McCain's stand on Social Security, and his willingness to consider a privatization plan, into a key campaign issue. They say changing the program in that way would undermine retirees' benefits, and they hope to use the issue to harm the Arizona senator's support among a set of voters who tilt toward him -- seniors.On Tuesday, a coalition of Democratic strategists, labor unions and liberal activist groups that helped defeat Bush's efforts in 2005 plans to launch a similar campaign. They intend to target McCain and dozens of GOP congressional candidates who have supported proposals to allow workers to divert some of their payroll taxes out of the Social Security system and into private investment accounts.
The McCain campaign has responded to these and other attacks by accusing Obama of fear mongering, repeatedly denying that the Arizona Republican ever supported privatization in the first place.
But a rarely-seen video in a new documentary (#4. SS, http://progressiveaccountability.org/third-term/ ) by the group Progressive Accountability, a portion of which was handed over to the Huffington Post, shows this simply isn't true. McCain has in fact argued that privatization is necessary to maintain Social Security into the future.
"Without privatization, I don't see how you can possibly, over time, make sure that young Americans are able to receive Social Security benefits," McCain declares at a December 2004 event in New Hampshire.
ref.. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-mccainsocial14-2008jul14,0,1786903.story
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/20/mccain-claimed-privatizat_n_127984.html
I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!
Bush economic advisors? An OXYMORON to beat all oxymorons!
