MIMI SIGNOR INTRODUCTIONS

Tribute to Healthcare-NOW! founder Marilyn Clement

GRASSROOTS STRATEGY PANEL PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

PART FOUR

PART FIVE

PART SIX

PART SEVEN

Bill Black:

It came to my attention yesterday that Bank of America’s “senior advisor” in Germany is Hans-Olaf Henkel. I believe that Bank of America should consider the context in which I became aware of this fact very disturbing. Mr. Henkel has just written the following:

Mr. Galbraith should familiarize himself Jimmy Carter's "Housing and Community Development Act" where in Section VIII Banks were prohibited the practice of "red lining" which until then enabled them to distinguish "better living quarters" and "slums."

The full context of Dr. Galbraith’s interview, and Mr. Henkel’s written reply to Dr. Galbraith can be found at the following links to my response to Mr. Henkel (see here, here and here).

Our tribe rulez, your tribe droolz! Neener-neener!

(h/t Blue Lyon)

Honesty comes to Lord Kos, albeit belatedly:

Army Sergeant who served in Iraq accused of waterboarding his 4-year-old daughter.

"Sternly worded letter" appears in mainstream news story:

Over the past 12 years, Josh Libresco's health insurance premium has increased almost eight-fold for his family of four.

The 54-year-old San Rafael resident is facing a 39 percent rate hike from Anthem Blue Cross on March 1 that will raise his premium from $858 to $1,192 a month. In 1998, his monthly premium was $151.

Libresco was one of a number of Anthem policyholders who received a letter last week saying California's largest for-profit health insurer plans to hike premiums on individual policies by as much as 39 percent.

Anthem has declined to say how many of its 800,000 individual policyholders in California are being affected by the hike. But Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius demanded specifics in a sternly-worded letter Monday, saying the insurer has "a responsibility to provide a detailed justification for these rate increases."

Of course, the great thing about the health care reform debate over the past year has been how the progressives with big megaphones have systematically educated the public on the issues, and shown how we don't even need insurance companies, if we adopt a health care system that works.

James Kwak:

We like to make fun of government in this country, but really, what are you and a few of your buddies going to do to fight JPMorgan Chase on your own? For all of our beloved rugged individualism (and our individual right to handguns), it doesn’t do much good when you’re up against your credit card issuer.

In Last Rites for the USA, Cindy Sheehan addresses the substantial erosion of U.S. democracy by oligarchy. The freshest hell, as Sheehan sees it -- an ultimate tipping point, she claims, in tearing away ANY illusion of democracy -- is the Supreme Court’s recent aggressive decision to expand “personhood” rights and protections of corporations in relation to campaign financing.

“Corporations have long held sway over our government and the soft fascism of corporate control has been running things behind the scenes.”

Just a totally flat out cute kitty video.

Concluding an extra-long thumbsucker on the FT piece everyone's talking about -- about how Rahm Emanuel, Robert Gibbs, Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod are destroying Obama's presidency, a process that Obama is completely unaware of -- Steve Clemons advises Obama:

[G]et back to putting good policy before short term politics.

"Get back?" Oh, really? When would that have been?

"Progressive" Alaska:

Via Raw Story:

The largest gay-rights advocacy group in New Jersey has announced it will no longer give money to the Democratic Party.

The move follows the state legislature's failure last month to legalize gay marriage and amid growing signs that the effort to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is already faltering.

Here. Good!

Chomsky talks about how the teabaggers are people who need answers for what's gone wrong in their life and how the corporate entities funding their activities are giving them answers - crazy answers, but answers nonetheless.

Rather than embed the video directly, I'm linking to page where I found it, courtesy of Avedon, Progressive Alaska. I'm doing that because I want you to see the poll in the upper right hand corner: Which Word More Accurately Defines Sarah Palin To You? Your choices are "saint" or "slut". And this from a site that describes itself as "progressive".

Chomsky's answer is good. Now here's the page:
http://progressivealaska.blogspot.com/20...

Videos from "Where Do We Go From Here" presented by PNHP at Beth Israel Medical Center on January 19, 2010.

Part One
Donna Smith, Katie Robbins, Christopher, Blair and Dr. Len Rodberg speak at the panel

Part 2
Donna Smith, Katie Robbins, Christopher, Blair and Dr. Len Rodberg speak at the panel

Part 3

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Haw.

News of tomorrow... today!

Obama: My plan is definitely crappy, cruel, and corporatist enough. Well if it isn't, please tell me how to make it worse.

GOP: Sorry, no matter how much worse you make it, it's just not going to be bad enough. But please keep trying!

Unison: The American people want a bipartisan solution. Maybe today puts us on track to have a plan that's crappy, cruel, and corporatist enough. The American public deserves no less!

Prudent Bear:

Rent-seeking is another current problem of Wall Street, not addressed by Volcker. This takes many forms, and has resulted from computerization and from the endless proliferation of derivative instruments. Basically, Wall Street houses, by their substantial market share in trading businesses, acquire insider information about money flows, and then profit by trading on this information. Traders have always done this, of course, and there is no sensible way of making it illegal. In addition genuine “crony capitalism” insider information about future finances and future government actions is as available as it always has been, but with larger trading volumes and fewer inhibitions is more usable without technically contravening insider treading legislation. Thus insider trading, almost all of it technically legal, has acquired an enormously magnified profit potential. This is the principal reason for Wall Street’s greater share of the economy; the genuine value added to third parties from “hedging” or liquidity” is only a tiny fraction of the rents Wall Street can extract from these markets.

After two days of tech troubles.

MMT (Modern Monetary Theory, or "chartalism")*. BillyBlog:

But the point is that the Bush deficits are immaterial to judging whether the Obama deficits are sustainable or whether the Obama administration has “more” or “less” fiscal space. What defines the amount of fiscal space is not the past fiscal position – surplus or deficit – but the extent to which there are underutilised real resources that can be brought back into production.

What Violet said.

The brainless "progressive" flap about Sarah Palin writing some notes on her hand is some weird embodiment of what Somerby calls "the cult of the offhand comment."

If anyone was worried that our politics wasn't going to keep getting dumber at a pace that makes Moore's Law pale in comparison, have no fear.

Note:

Ugh. And ugh.