Democracy Now: “One Voice for Choice"–FireDogLake Founder Launches Campaign to Target Dems Supporting Stupak Amendment

Jane Hamsher through her blog at Firedoglake is ramping up the pressure on Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid not to drop the public option. Jane Hamsher learned just this morning that word on the Hill is that Harry Reid is trying to cut a deal for triggers. Jane has set up an ActBlue site to raise $100,000 to make a big move against Harry Reid in his home state of Nevada. Over $41,000 has already been raised.

Jane points out that " It's all on Harry Reid if the public option is killed. He has the power to make sure it passes using reconciliation for majority rule If he takes out the public option, it's because he's too weak to stand up to the insurance companies. "

Find out how you can help by calling Nevada Dems at this site.

Click on the picture to Sign up to Phone Bank against the Stupak amendment. Watch Democracy Now VIDEO. Final Vote Results for Stupak Amendment Roll Call 884
Check out Ben Smith's CommonDreams article: Jane Hamsher Leads Left Against the White House.

A Tale of Two Obamas

by Robert Kuttner, Co-Founder and Co-Editor of the American Prospect
Huffington Post
Dec. 6, 2009

It was the best of Obama, it was the worst of Obama.

I was pleasantly surprised to be invited to the White House jobs summit last Thursday, where I got to watch President Obama engage with about 130 people off the cuff. And I was reminded, first hand, what drew so many of us to the promise of this remarkable outsider -- the decency, the intellect, the idealism, and the evidently progressive impulses. I came away even more bewildered and dismayed at the reality that this president, who could have been such an insurgent at a moment demanding insurgency, has been so utterly captured by the Wall Street elite, the health insurance industry elite, and the military elite.

Click here to read the words of a brilliant President speaking extemporaneously who convincingly shows that he grasps and understands the policy details.

Bill Moyers Interviews Film Director Oliver Stone About President's Decision to Send 30,000 Troops to Afghanistan

Click on the picture to view Oliver Stone's articulate commentary on Afghanistan. Stone is a Vietnam Vet who signed up to serve. Based on his experience, Stone predicts that the war in Afghanistan will explode into another Vietnam. He calls it a "tragic mistake."

Why Bank of America Fired Me

Check out the article about Jackie's story here.

Eliot Spitzer: Geithner, Bernanke “Complicit” in Financial Crisis and Should Go

On Democracy Now, Eliot Spitzer said that Bernanke and Geithner “actually built and participated in creating the structure that now has collapsed,” and calls on them to be replaced. As New York Attorney General Spitzer sued AIG, and in 1999 began doing subprime cases predicting that this debt would explode. Spitzer points out that Timothy Geithner was was the overseer of the collapsed financial structure, who failed in his mandate to negotiate for us. Spitzer criticized the perspective that permitted Bernanke to continue to allow bubbles to be inflated without understanding the subprime impact, and dealing with the crisis after the fact. Spitzer thinks the emphasis should be on creating jobs and investing in small business, pointing out that creativity has always been our best asset.----Editorial comment by 26Dems

Thom Hartman: Bush, Franco, Poetry and War Crimes

Click on the picture to explore the poetry of Pablo Neruda.

Aetna Forcing 600,000-Plus To Lose Coverage In Effort To Raise Profits

By Sam Stein
Huffington Post
stein@huffingtonpost.com
12/04/09


Health insurance giant Aetna is planning to force up to 650,000 clients to drop their coverage next year as it seeks to raise additional revenue to meet profit expectations.
In a third-quarter earnings conference call in late October, officials at Aetna announced that in an effort to improve on a less-than-anticipated profit margin in 2009, they would be raising prices on their consumers in 2010. The insurance giant predicted that the company would subsequently lose between 300,000 and 350,000 members next year from its national account as well as another 300,000 from smaller group accounts.

"The pricing we put in place for 2009 turned out to not really be what we needed to achieve the results and margins that we had historically been delivering," said chairman and CEO Ron Williams. "We view 2010 as a repositioning year, a year that does not fully reflect the earnings potential of our business. Our pricing actions should have a noticeable effect beginning in the first quarter of 2010, with additional financial impact realized during the remaining three quarters of the year."

Click here to read more.

Rachel Maddow & U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice on Obama's Afghanistan Plan

And here is the rest of it.

Howard Dean Hosts Maddow, Interviews Spitzer: Stop Multimillion $ Payouts for Failed Bankers

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

And here is the rest of it.

Why is Obama Championing Bush's Financial Wrecking Crew?

By William K. Black, Assoc. Professor, Univ. of Missouri, Kansas City; Sr. regulator during S&L debacle
Huffington Post
November 23, 2009 10:43

Tom Frank's book, The Wrecking Crew explains how the Bush administration destroyed effective government and damaged our social fabric and our economy. The Obama administration has chosen to reward two of the worst leaders of Bush's crew -- Geithner and Bernanke -- with promotion and reappointment. Embracing the Wrecking Crew's most destructive members has further damaged the economy and caused increasing political and moral injury to the administration.

Last week was a bad one for Geithner and Bernanke. Senator Dodd said that Bernanke's confirmation was no longer a done deal. The House Financial Services Committee revolted against the administration, the Fed, and Chairman Barney Frank. It voted for a strong bill to audit the Fed. Senate Banking Chairman Schumer went to a conference at Columbia University -- where a generation of students salivated at the prospects of Wall Street wealth -- and was overwhelmed by an audience denouncing the continuing stranglehold of the finance industry over successive administrations and the Congress. Neither Barney's blarney nor Schumer's schmooze was any avail before an outraged public.

Click here for the rest of the story.
William K. Black is the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One. Two circulating copies are available on loan from Tucson libraries. Bill Moyers interviewed William K. Black on April 3, 2009 about "liars loans" and the gutting of the loan verification process. According to Black, nobody was looking during the Bush years. And when nobody looks, fraud escalates.
Click on the picture to watch Video:

Moyers Message to Obama: Study History or Repeat its Mistakes

by Danny Schechter
Commondreams.org
November 21, 2009

How LBJ Was Sucked Into Escalation In Vietnam And Why Its Happening Again

Elders are considered wisdom keepers in most of the world's cultures, perhaps just not our own. They are repositories of important lessons, keepers of the collective memory, and as such, usually revered. In our own midst, in our own time, one man deserves all praises due for the role he's chosen to play as the sage of the electronic stage, as our educator in chief, as the voice of the national conscience, as the best journalist on television.

His name is Bill Moyers and he proved again on Friday night why he is such a giant and national treasure.

On the very day that the world's media honored one of their richest and most powerful TV brands, Queen Oprah, who announced "the show was my life" but that she was stepping down two years hence, Bill Moyers delivered one of the most important programs of his career in an effort to call our young President to account, to prevent another similar tragedy in the making. As she reveled in the headlines as a a celebrity goddess, he went back to work.

Alas, like Oprah, Moyers will also be stepping down next year, not in 2011. Who got all the media attention? Ms. O, not Mr. M!

He aired this report on this weekend of the anniversary of the Kennedy Assassination to remind us what happened to the leader who replaced that generation's young prince. I am talking about Lyndon Baines Johnson, the master of the Senate, who succeeded John F Kennedy on that terrible day in Dallas.

LBJ came to office with many heavy burdens, including a war raging in South East Asia. His Presidency would be defined by how he handled it, or failed to handle it. As fate would have it, a 30 year old Bill Moyers was one of Johnson's aides and an eyewitness to the tragedy that followed that original sin.

On his Journal, Moyers went back to the historical record, to selected but revealing tapes of Johnson's own phone calls with his colleagues and appointees-yes he wiretapped himself the way Nixon did years later-and those calls showed how he agonized over whether to escalate the war, a course of action he knew could not succeed.

The parallels with the present day, and the upcoming decision by President Obama to escalate the war in Afghanistan are unmistakable and undeniable.

Read on to finish the story.

Click on picture to watch this program online at PBS.

Bill Moyers Journal airs tomorrow, Sunday November 22 KUAT 12 noon

HHS Task Force Mammogram Recs Slammed

By Michael Collins
OpED News
November 19, 2009

HHS Head Sibelius Says, Ignore Panel, Get Checked

"The (task force) recommends against routine screening mammography in women aged 40 to 49 years." U.S. Preventative Services Task Force, Nov. 17, 2009

"My message to women is simple. Mammograms have always been an important life-saving tool in the fight against breast cancer and they still are today. Keep doing what you have been doing for years - talk to your doctor about your individual history, ask questions, and make the decision that is right for you." Kathleen Sebelius, Health and Human Services Secretary, Nov. 18.

Talk about a short news cycle. A Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) appointed "best practices" task force dismissed the value of "routine" mammograms as a cancer prevention technique for women 40 to 49 years on Tuesday, November 17.

A day later, Wednesday, Nov. 18, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued a statement dismissing the committee recommendations.

'The U.S. Preventive Task Force is an outside independent panel of doctors and scientists who make recommendations.

"They do not set federal policy and they don't determine what services are covered by the federal government." Kathleen Sebelius, Nov. 18.

The committee is made up of independent practitioners but operates under the sponsorship of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, HHS. The agency states that their task force "recommendations have formed the basis of the clinical standards for many professional societies, health organizations, and medical quality review groups."

Sebelius didn't care. Amidst Republican outcries that this was the way Democratic sponsored health reform would operate, she issued her terse statement dismissing the dismissal of mammography for women 40 to 49.

The DC flap started when Diane Rehm had task force member Dr. Diane Pettiti, MD (ASU professor) on her show yesterday, Nov. 18. (Listen to the November 18 Diane Rehm show at this link.) She asked the doctor for the name of one cancer specialist on the task force. Petitti was unable to answer (video 1:53). The doctor also told Rehm that "Cost effectiveness was not a part of the discussion. Cost was not uttered in the room."

Dr. Rebecca Zurrbier, MD, Chief of Breast Imaging at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, DC was listening to the Rehm show and became incensed. She pointed out that no one on the committee had either a clinical specialty or indicated any direct experience in treating cancer in a WUSA, Channel 9 special news feature (video). Zurrbier's WUSA critique was a devastating counterpoint to Rehm's skilful questioning on her radio show earlier in the day.

The HHS sponsored task force had 16 members. These members issued a statement on cancer treatment. There is not one oncologist on the panel nor is there a radiologist. The specialties of task force physicians consist of: Family Medcine (4 members); Pediatrics (2); Obstetrics and Gynecology (2); Internal Medicine (2); Geriatrics (1); Epidemiology (1); Primary Care (1). The non MD's had these specialties: Nurse Practitioner - Psychiatry (1); Nurse Practitioner - Family Medicine (1); and, PhD researcher (1).

If you were seeking treatment for cancer or consultation on current treatment, would you consult anyone with the specialties listed? Not if you're concerned about your health. Cancer is not what these doctors treat. Dr. Zurrbier's point was so obvious, she seemed amazed that this kind of finding could even occur. So should we.

WUSA's did an on-the-spot review of task force member affiliations. They came up with three members tied to HMO's or health insurance companies. Dr. George Isham, MD is the Chief Health Officer for a major health care provider, Health Partners. Dr. David Grossman, MD, is an investigator a research division of the Group Health Cooperative health care network in the Seattle area. Dr. J. Sanford Schwartz, MD, is the past executive director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. He's also on the Blue Shield Medical Advisory Panel.

There are three other affiliations that deserve note.

Task force Chairman, Bruce Nedrow Calonge, MD, is a Colorado physician who is the Chairman of the Colorado Foundation for Medical Care, a major advisor on "quality improvement" in care for the state and other health care organizations. Dr. Pettiti, who said the recommendations would have no influence on insurance coverage, is a health policy and medical advisor for Kaiser Permanente of Southern California. Joy Melnikow, MD is the associate medical advisers for Healthwise, a medical knowledgebase company serving health providers, insurance companies, and government entities. The firm also provides software for patient information.

Thanks to the incisive questioning of NPR syndicated radio host Diane Rehm and the quick and clear response of cancer specialist, Dr. Zurrbier on WUSA, the issue hit the public airwaves and was quickly resolved with the rapid response of HHS Secretary Sebelius.

Now it's time to find out how this HHS research organization could impanel a group of experts to recommend cancer treatment protocols when none of the physicians on the panel were oncologists and none had any identified clinical experience treating cancer. It's also a good time for those on the task force to examine why they chose to issue this guideline without cancer researchers and clinicians on the committee?

Why were the deficiencies in this process, so obvious to us, too difficult for the HHS administrators to grasp?

This article may be reproduced in whole or in part with attribution of authorship and a link to this article.

Author's Bio: Michael Collins is a writer in the DC area who researches and comments on the corruptions of the new millennium. His articles focus on the financial manipulations of The Money Party, the abuse of power by government, and features on elections and election fraud. His articles can be found there. His website is called The Money Party.