For several years now the evidence of the Alberto Gonzales gang's manipulation of the Federal Civil Service within the Department of Justice has been well publicized. The fact that right-wing political ideologues were being approved for career professional positions based on social issue orthodoxy, rather than competence and qualifications, is yet another blight on the scandalous legacy of the current occupant of the White House.
Today's report in the Washington Post reveals that this practice of burrowing right-wing political operatives into the Civil Service is also in-place in the scientific agencies. Perhaps this is the mis-administration's strategy for making permanent the Republican obsession for combating the truth of science with their twisted political and social priorities.
The Center for Public Integrity is soon to release their "Broken Government" study. The fund-raising teaser release promises 120 specific cases. This kind of investigative effort to hold the Bushies accountable as the mis-administration fades into oblivion is crucial. Revealing and acting on the depth and breadth of this conspiracy is vital to the success of any reforms and corrects to the offenses of the past eight years.
The Obama-Biden Administration will be stretched and tested to uncover and flush-out these right-wing activists who have burrowed their way into the Civil Service like so many termites. The evidence of these infestations must be met with quick action.
Executive appointees selected for positions above these people must be prepared to take every possible action within the laws and regulations of the Civil Service structure to either get them dismissed, or make it too hard for them to stay and accomplish their nefarious goals. Attention to the selection of the Administrator of the Office of Personnel Management will be a key to success in this area.
Various Executive agency inspectors general must be supported in investigating these political opportunists. IF they are found to be substantially unqualified for the job description that they were hired to fill, then it should be clear grounds for dismissal as an unlawful appointment.
The Obama-Biden appointees who are saddled with these burdens must enforce clear, precise and enforceable performance standards. When confronted with qualitative requirements to enforce and perform based upon laws and regulations that these infiltrators are likely to hold ambitions to undermine and avoid, could more easily force them to resign.
Even in its demise the minions of the current mis-administration are appearing to be increasingly unwilling to follow the current occupant of the White House and the vice out of Washington. This certainly adds to the challenge and urgency of establishing the new administration's executive leadership. Too many months and too many acting, caretaker, leaders in the executive departments will make it all the harder to untangle the tentacles of the Bush parasites.
Failed U.S. health care is a major contributor to our systemic economic crisis. Indeed, the excesses of Wall St. and the subprime mortgage catastrophe mirror U.S. health care policy – both are typified by privatized profit (for investors and insurers), and socialized risk (for taxpayers and consumers). Inflated U.S. health care costs – 16% of GDP and rising – are major contributors to an inflationary economy. Redress of this single aspect of an out-of-control U.S. economy would lift all boats. Comprehensive health care reform would improve the economic status of all, relieving health access concerns of families, individuals and businesses, large and small.
So-called "legacy costs" alone, comprised largely of retiree health and pension benefits, have contributed significantly to General Motor’s negative cash flow, prompting yet another request for government bailout. In 2005, costs of health care coverage to GM amounted to $5.6 billion for 1.1 million employees, retirees and their dependents. In 2005 BusinessWeek reported that legacy costs added $1,600 to the cost of each GM vehicle.
It’s time to confront the crippling economic effects of employment-linked health coverage that reduces competitiveness of businesses in the world marketplace, reduces effective employee take-home pay, and adds to the costs paid by all for goods and services (note above cost added to each U.S. -made car). State and city budgets, too, are depleted by escalating health costs for employees and retirees.
Progressives leaders must do a better job of promoting civic discourse while clearly defining issues, like health care reform. Democrats shoud cease parroting right-wing framing and code words intended to distort the issue, e.g., "government health care" or "socialized medicine," as a couple of recent Colorado candidates have done. We need to refute Republican "free-market" advocacy that treats health care as a commodity to be exploited for maximum profit, with top-skimming of over 25% of health care dollars for private insurance shareholder profits, CEO salaries, excessive administrative costs, marketing, lobbying, etc. "Free-market" health care is as perverse an incentive as free-market police and fire protection would be, leaving everyone vulnerable, at the mercy of the marketplace.
Barack Obama showed promise broaching issues during the campaign. He made a start at explaining the high cost of privatizing Medicare (13% higher than traditional Medicare), and the failure of Medicare prescription drug reform that prohibits negotiation of bulk drug rates, as the VA does to save money. The 2003 reform was a giveaway to insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies, with billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies and inflated costs to benefit their bottom lines. Now is the time to make the case for an improved Medicare for All - a public insurance with true free choice of providers and hospitals. By contrast, for-profit insurance choices are narrowly limited to "in-plan" providers, necessitating change of providers with change of insurance.
Comprehensive health care reform shoud be part of a broad economic remedy. U.S. health costs are almost double those of all other industrialized nations, and growing; yet we still experience worse overall health outcomes. Increasing numbers of underinsured pay escalating costs for decreasing coverage. Taxpayers currently pay for over 60% of health care costs, including 70% of legislators’ health coverage. By many accounts, that is enough to provide single-risk-pool coverage for all.
In fact, single-payer health care is the only model of reform that has demonstrated in over 20 federal and state studies the capacity to save money and provide comprehensive coverage for all.
It is time for reform that benefits the worker as well as the CEO.
First posted on Huffington Post 11-13-08
So much for all of the GOP talking points and faux news air-time devoted to "...no arbitrary deadlines." The current news sound-bites are full of controversy and contradiction from inside Iraq. But, the American conservatives are being surprisingly quiet. Read More »
The "right-to-life" movement that elevates embryonic life above women's lives is more accurately termed "right-to-prenatal-life." One of the most extreme 2008 anti-abortion, anti-contraceptive ballot measures is the so-called Colorado "Personhood" amendment - number 48 - defining fertilized eggs as "persons" with Fourteenth Amendment rights to "life, liberty and due process of law." Simultaneously, rightists have opposed the same rights for women as "reading feminism into the Constitution."
Both Amendment 48 and a rule change proposed by the Bush administration Department of Health and Human Services would re-define pregnancy as the point of conception, disregarding the medical definition of pregnancy - "the implantation of a fertilized egg." They would effectively categorize as abortion any contraception (e.g., the pill, IUD, emergency contraception, contraceptive patch) that interferes with the implantation of a fertilized egg, thus outlawing most contraception - the primary means to reduce the need for abortion.
In a slippery slope to 19th century status for women, rightists have promoted "conscience clauses" permitting pharmacists' and others' refusal to fill prescriptions or provide health care for women. The HHS proposal states, "[T]he conscience of the individual or institution should be paramount in determining what constitutes abortion..." - holding women's health hostage to anyone's professed religious/ideological beliefs.
It is time to recognize that abortion serves as surrogate for a spectrum of unspoken issues related to female personhood and male entitlement. The anti-abortion political litmus test was introduced by Paul Weyrich, who dictated that women step aside and "make way for new life." It serves dual purposes - the marginalization of women and the lightning rod around which to mobilize political coalitions, notably, Evangelicals and Catholics. The elevation of fetal life over women's lives, coupled with conservative strategist Howard Phillips' euphemistically described goal of return to "one-family-one-vote," is calculated to marginalize and disenfranchise women, consistent with the ultraright tenet that ultimately, only select white Christian males should retain the right to vote or hold office.
Rickie Solinger concluded from her historical research of women's health care that women's rights have often been held hostage by politicians and others with "political agendas hostile to female autonomy and racial equality" (Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race Before Roe v. Wade, 1992). The criminalization of contraception and abortion, and the widespread U.S. adoption black market that assigned value to babies and punishment to women based on race, were some effects of pre-Roe efforts to control women's reproduction.
At core, Weyrich's anti-abortion, anti-contraceptive and abstinence-only ideology serves as cornerstone of an anticipated male supremacist theocracy. It is the platform upon which the majority of Republican candidates continue to run in 2008. The greatest conceit - that pregnancy is not a health issue and women's lives are expendable - underlies the dual standards of Republican Party pronatalist policy demanding female submission to males who presume the right to hold women hostage to personal beliefs.
Bob Schaffer's out of touch, wrong on critical issues rap-sheet grows by the day. I found this latest charge in Ed Quillen's column in the Sunday Denver Post.
Read the whole column online at http://www.denverpost.com/quillen/ci_10799075
or scroll down to the extended post text.
The Referendum A test still carries a lot of weight with me. Once again here's a case where Bob Schaffer sided with big-monied interests and against Colorado farmers, ranchers and communities.
Hopefully, he'll be sliding into the dustbin of Colorado political history by 10:00 PM on November 4th. Being too cozy with the "drill baby, drill" crowd of oilies is bad enough, but working on the wrong side of water policy is unforgiveable.
PS - If you get a chance, drop a complimentary email to Ed (his email link at at the end of the Extended Post Text). It is so hard to find something worthy of praise in the Denver Post these days that we should encourage Ed to continue his good work.
Read More »Reports are coming in that Barack Obama's Colorado appearances today were record breaking. One Democratic Party insider says that the Denver Rally pulled in over 100,000 supporters.
I was within a softball toss of Barack in Fort Collins. One early estimate claims 45,000 attended; it sure looked like a lot more than that to me. The Eastern half of the CSU Oval was filled with people, and more were crowded into the Southwest quarter of the Oval.
If I were priviledged enough...I would paste in one of my low-res pictures of the crowd. But, even Barack said that the setting was incredible. The trees surrounding the Oval were in full color.
Barack's message has evolved, even from the acceptance speach at Mile High. Focused, positive and thoroughly inspiring.
I was struck by several uses of "the future" today. Each time was full of hope and desire for the best for all Americans. Barack's comments were on-target for a number of topics: the economy, healthcare, primary education, secondary education, jobs and how John McCain is out of touch.
The program started with a prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance and an a capella performance of the National Anthem. Betsy Markey gave one of her best speaches as did Governor Bill Ritter.
Other news organizations will have a full transcript of the speach. The press contingent was impressive. But, news coverag does not compare to being there...being there to see the future President.
Politico.com has posted a great story that is popping-up in several of my veterans e-newsletters. The example and precedent that Michelle Obama is setting is not only the right thing to do, but holds great promise for correcting a decades-old problem within the Democratic Party.
Here's the link, and the full story is in the Extended Post Text.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14733.html
I continue to see signs and symptoms of a Colorado Democratic Party that hasn't figured out how to get past the Vietnam-era paradigms of domination by anti-war activists. Perhaps with Michelle's example we'll see more Democratic Party officers who will behave as if they are not afraid of the Pledge of Allegiance or National Anthem, and will remember to include either/both of those in party functions.
The barrier between Democratic events and spoken prayer is lowly crumbling. Releasing the anxiety for Democratic candidates to speak openly about religion.
But, there are still too many occassions where a Democratic event will include a 10-foot tall American flag and silence on that final Patriotic step of including the Pledge or Anthem. Democrats who have served in the Armed Forces and would like to continue their service in political office are often dismayed and disappointed by this behavior.
There are too many really nice renditions of the National Nathem available to not allow the 2-minutes it takes to play one on a tape deck or over the PA system. Yet every time a group meets, and the American flag is in the room, the failure to make this Patriotic effort will disappoint a veteran, offend a veteran's family member or friend, and the favorite charge by the opposition of Democrats being "un-patriotic" is perpetuated. Read More »
The Rocky Mountain News weighs-in this morning with a good report on the growing revelations of the GOP voter suppression agenda. Curiously, this shows in Colorado as a fight between the GOP Secretary of State and two strong GOP County Clerks.
The County Clerks, Republicans Scott Doyle (Larimer) and Pam Anderson (Jefferson), are holding the line for what is right and just in the face of CD-6 Candidate and Secretary of State Coffman's fixation on a questionable policy. This year's election controversy is increasingly looking like valid charges of radicals in the GOP deliberately using technicalities and irrational procedural hoops to deny eligible citizens the right and opportunity to vote.
The contemporary "voter fraud" cries of the GOP are a manufactured issue with the sole purpose of suppressing likely Democratic voters. There is no problem other than the radical conservatives seeing their political clout wither with each succeeding election. The facts of the miniscule number of REAL cases of Federal and State voter fraud charges and convictions in recent history defy the hysteria of the GOP.
Doyle and Anderson are providing leadership and good public policy for all of Colorado. Too bad that there is some other influence keeping Mike Coffman from recognizing, and acting on, that good example. Maybe it is too much for him to run for Congress and be responsible for a fair election.
Read the Rocky's full story online at:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/oct/22/secretary-of-state-stands-by-registration-check/
His evaluation of the Sarah Palin selection rests on that decision as an indicator of how McSame would later decide on the people to fill the other leadership positions in a supposed McSame mis-administration. This is a powerful indictment of a candidate for president of the US when the nation so despirately needs a clear change of direction.
The specter of Sarah Palin equivalent appointments throughout the US Executive Branch shows no chance of reforming, and certainly not reversing, the criminal excesses of the past seven years. There will be no resolution to the US Attorney firings, and little hope of removing the fraudulently hired radical right-wingers who have been peppered throughout the Department of Justice to undermine, rather than enforce, the law.
This demonstrated decision-making pattern by John McCain is a screaming warning to America. No other fact shines so brightly than the selection of Sarah Palin to confirm that McSame is the incarnation of a third, and perhaps more devastating, term for the G.W. Bush policies.
Considering everything you find important, think your retired relatives who will be hurt if McCain succeeds and leads America down the path of more for the wealthiest and less for the rest. Victory in the race for the White House is critical, but top to bottom electoral victories on the ballot is equally important for our communities and state.
This was not the one-word headline I expected to see in this morning's Foreign Policy magazine Morning Brief email. Similarly, the Financial Times brought gloomy articles confirming the depth of the current fiscal decline.
"Falling by more than 20 percent over seven straight trading days, the U.S. stock market's recent performance now meets the standard definition of a crash." - FP Morning Brief, 10 October 2008
this is the first attention grabbing fact from FP. Realistically a seven point consecutively repeated 20% downward trend line is what I've always called a "death-slide."
It's a very effective way to get the attention of executive decision-makers and mid-level managers. I've seen motivation and attention to detail factors show a marked increase.
"Investors have lost an estimated $8.4 trillion dollars so far this year, with the Dow Jones industrial average sinking another 678 points or 7.3 percent Thursday." - FP Morning Brief, 10 October 2008
My proposal is to add this figure to the existing National Debt burden enacted by the current occupant of the White House. In addition to being a condemning legacy of this presidency, it should be a lesson in who, and how, to elect the next president.
Personally, I'm watching the value of my supposedly solid Federal employee Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) account in a similar decline. Holding a large percentage of my shares in a Standard & Poors 500 fund isn’t such a happy place at the moment.
One of the most disagreable experiences I've had during this year's political campaign came when national, and local, groups viciously attacked the integrity, motivations and message of General Petraeus. Yet, on Wednesday the conservative Heritage Foundation heard policies and concepts from Petraeus that confirm the campaign platform of Barack Obama.
The complete story from the "Washington Independent" is in the Extended Post Text (via Foreign Policy magazine's Daily Brief service). This is an online news outlet associated with Colorado Confidential.
This can't stay a minor story. Petraeus' comments must be shared, and the Obama campaign should advertise these policies and tactics with enthusiasm.
Part of the value in this this is seeing a competent national leader, Obama, openly discuss a strategic vision and mission for the US military. Now we're seeing that a widely praised general is able to accept that mission and describe the operational policies and tactics to accomplish what is apparently Barack Obama's security policy in opposition to McCain's irrational Iraq fixation.
Read More »We now have the answer why she has been so distant and untouchable for the past few weeks. The McCain team has been prepping and coaching her at an unprecedented level.
She did not demonstrate the depth and scope needed to rise to the level of serious consideration of filling the job of VP, and certainly not reach any level of assurance that she is competent to follow fragile John McCain into the Oval Office. The GOP is so off-course to continue to promote her presence on the ticket as qualified in any sense of the word.
The dodge and weave she demonstrated throughout the night was infuriating. The WingNuts succeeded in their pre-emptive intimidation of Gwen Ifill. Necessary and justified follow-ups and clarifications were obviously by-passed by Ifill to avoid post-debate vilification by the Radical Right.
Palin's few clear pronouncements on security and foreign policy issues were deplorable. The casual mention of moving the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem is a toxic position that surely pleases the American Radical Religious Right (i.e., Talibangelist Mullah Dobson), but is an idea that has been known for decades to be immeasurably inflammatory to every Muslim influenced government in the world.
By side-stepping the question on nuclear weapons and nuclear non-proliferation she definitively disqualified herself in this election. The balance between deterrence and pre-emption has been horrifically blurred by the current mis-adminstration. Sarah made it even murkier.
Sarah Palin's performance last night was too close to the narrow, partisan message of the GOP Convention and totally devoid of any promise of potential to serve in the highest executive office. The best that could be offered is that she's now completed the crash course of study to be a good spokesperson for the McCain campaign. Competently reciting talking points with no further depth or capability.
On August 29, the Friday before the Republican Convention, members of the Council for National Policy convened in Minneapolis to grant their imprimatur to the vice presidential candidacy of Sarah Palin. Focus on the Family's Tom Minnery described the group's reaction in a Focus on the Family Action video, which has since been removed from their website: "There could not be more excitement based on the little we know about Palin so far," enthused Minnery. Given general longstanding opposition to women in positions of power among CNP members, Minnery was asked whether James Dobson could possibly support a woman for the office. He quoted Dobson: "If it's the right woman, we are ready to vote for her." Dobson has been hoping for some time to find a "Margaret Thatcher" type, noted Minnery.
Outside the obvious, i.e., her anti-gun control and anti-abortion positions, Minnery recited Palin's positives as a conservative candidate: a hocky mom in an intact marriage who "has not rejected her feminine side"; because she and her husband are union members, it was speculated that blue collar voters in important swing states would be attracted; and (improbably) because she is a woman, that she would appeal to Hillary Clinton supporters.
The Council for National Policy (CNP) has remained largely below the radar since its 1981 founding as an umbrella group uniting a network of over 500 members from Congress, the business community and hard-right evangelicals. The press are excluded from their secretive invitation-only strategy meetings, held three times annually.
The group is strongly influenced by the teachings of the late Rousas Rushdoony, a CNP member and patriarch of the reactionary Christian Reconstructionist (Dominionist) movement that has infused the doctrine of conservative churches since the '60s, and seeks Christian dominion over all aspects of society and the world.
Read More »The full story is in the extended text
This is not the first time that a GOP elected official has been suspected of uttering GOP "code words" seeking to enflame centuries-old racial hatred against Barack Obama. So, what we would have expected to be a classic Rove whisper campaign is coming into the open.
These are probably the end results of a string of disgusting "conservative" messages that have encouraged the kind of actions we have seen in Colorado ove th past week. From the Aurora Assassination Cell that GOP US Attorney Troy Eid is working so hard to dismiss as harmless, to the Loveland assassination caller that the newspaper is trying so hard to ignore, it's getting ugly. Read More »
BREAKING - Sunday, September 7th
Perhaps this should be counted as a media watch victory. R-H editor Ken Amundson published a lengthy apology and signifcant policy change for the telephone call-in column. Still, the R-H won't publish even their own editorials online.
In addition to the election season curtailment of political LTEs to 200-words, Amundson will not allow comments on individual candidates to be published in the call-in line column. At least this could slow down the Right WingNut lies and slurs in one Colorado newspaper.
///original post///
Among the wide range of Colorado newspapers the Loveland Reporter-Herald rests in a unique place between hometown paper and loyal arm of a conservative media group. But, on Tuesday September 2, 2008 the R-H crossed a dubious line by publishing an anonymous telephone message claiming that assassinating Brack Obama is acceptable because he is inexperienced.
"All you Democrats take what you're saying about Sarah Palin, and that's what all of us Republicans are saying about Obama. He's way too inexperienced for the job. I would much rather have a little inexperience at the number two position than the No. 1 position. The only way to get rid of that experience in an inexperienced president is either by impeachment or assassination." (emphasis added)
Political commentary is expected in America, but advocating one of the worst crimes for the offense of "inexperience" is truly despicable. By publishing this rant without edit, or disclaimer is an indictment of complacancy and possibly even accessory by the Reporter-Herald.
In response to my my protest of this publication the Managing Editor of the R-H, Ken Amundson, provided this response:
I also reacted negatively when I read that comment this morning. I have taken steps internally to deal with it.
Ken Amundson
Today's edition of the R-H makes no mention of the offending comment. It seems that Mr. Amundson's true definition of dealing with it internally is to ignore it and hope the issue dies.
Don’t look for this on the Reporter-Herald website. It was originally published as part of the “R-H Line” feature for anonymous telephone calls. They also do not publish letters to the editor on their websites.
The Extended Post Text holds the necessary information for others to join me in demanding that Ken Amundson and the Reporter-Herald take responsibility for this incident, cooperate with Federal authorities to determine if there really is a threat to Barack Obama, and publish an apology with a condemnation of inciting the public to illegal, criminal acts that undermine the political process in America.
Read More »I hope my mother, my wife and my teenage daughter will excuse this one - but, my initial reaction holds that McCain is having a post midlife crisis moment here. Now he gets to spend the rest of the campaign on stage with either a blonde or a brunette former beauty queen; sometimes both.
Considering the depth and experience available to him in the rest of the GOP universe I am completely baffled that there can be any other reason for this decision. I am now even more appreciative for the intelligent and practical decision by Barack Obama to grab Joe Biden as his VP running mate.
The supposed VP Debate won't be. With this line-up it is clear that candidate Palin will carefuly recite radical right wing talking points fed to her by the McCain handlers. Even if Biden were allowed in the format/rules to challenge her on any issues we'll hear nothing original.
Thus there could not be a more distinct choice between the two tickets. Looking at the "rap-sheet" provided by MoveOn, American voters can have no doubts of the radical and destructive policies and positions John McCain is accepting by filling the GOP ticket with Palin. Read More »
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/world/middleeast/27abuse.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
This should not have happened. The list of Army Values ideals of professional and ethical conduct that have been violated in this incident are staggering. The possible charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice are equally broad and severe.
Although the criminals in uniform who committed these crimes appear to approaching their day in Courts Martial, I fear that the current mis-administration's depravations that inspired this conduct will never be held responsible. This is an arguable progression from the lies and deceit of the Iraq invasion decision, the dehumanization of the insurgents, the embrace of torture, and the "do whatever it takes" doctrine of the current occupant and his mis-administration. Read More »
When Democrat Mark Udall debated Republican Bob Schaffer in July, he made no effort to refute Schaffer’s distortions surrounding health care reform. In fact, he essentially short-circuited meaningful debate by adopting the nebulous right-wing description of single-payer health care as “government health care,” thus capitulating to Republican framing of the issue.
Just what is government health care? Is it the more than 60 percent of all health care costs that are paid by taxpayers, including subsidies for inflated costs of private insurances? Private insurers skim the cream and game the system for profit, and count on government (taxpayers) to pick up the health care costs of all whose coverage they reject. Does government health care include the 70 percent of our legislators’ health coverage that is funded by taxpayers?
Democrats who facilely echo GOP talking points grossly misrepresent single-payer health care. In fact, contrary to assertions by the right-wing “free market” chorus, only single-risk-pool insurance provides true free choice of private providers, the same as traditional Medicare before Republicans moved to privatize Medicare (at 12 percent higher cost). Private insurance plans limit choice to “in plan” doctors, often requiring change of providers when plans are changed. Only single payer is capable of providing comprehensive, continuous health care benefits and protection against medical bankruptcy.
Our leaders should vigorously protest the abomination of Medicare prescription drug reform that was written by insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies with billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies and inflated profits to benefit their bottom lines, while prohibiting negotiation of bulk drug prices.
Instead of privatizing Medicare-for-profit, why not improve and expand its coverage for everyone? Traditional Medicare has lower overhead costs – less than 4 percent – whereas private insurances divert 25 percent or more to profits, lobbying, marketing, exhorbitant CEO salaries and wasteful administrative costs. Profit is a perverse incentive for health insurance, which protects its bottom line by reducing benefits and shifting ever-greater costs to consumers.
The insulated political class in Washington, dependent upon corporate money and privy to 70 percent taxpayer-subsidized health coverage, seem out of touch with the U.S. people. Polls by Pew and others have revealed that increasing numbers – 54 to 65 percent – support a national single-payer health care plan. A recent study reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine (3-31-08) that 59 percent of U.S. physicians “support government legislation to establish national health insurance,” an increase of 10 percent since 2002.
Notably, more than 20 federal and state studies since 1990, including the 2007 Lewin Group evaluation in Colorado, have demonstrated that single-payer health insurance is the only reform model that can both save money and provide comprehensive health care benefits for all. The Colorado single-payer proposal and Rep. John Conyers’ national health care bill, HR 676, both deserve serious further study.
We have everything to gain from an honest dialogue about quality-, saftey-centered universal single payer health care, in place of profiteering health insurance gatekeepers.
Free daily panels moderated by The Nation's John Nichols at 11 AM, are followed by additional panels covering Health Care on Monday, August 25, followed the rest of the week with forums on Media and Election Reform, Economic Justice, Global Warming and Constitutional Law.
Participants include Reps. John Conyers, Barbara Lee, Robert Wexler, Keith Ellison and Lynn Woolsey; Tom Hayden, Jim Hightower and authors David Sirota and Vincent Bugliosi; various writers and publisher of The Nation; journalist and radio host Laura Flanders; Jeff Cohen, author and founder of FAIR; and many others.
For schedule and more info, check Web site http://pdamerica.org, click on "Progressive Central" in green bar at page top. Watch for posting of PDF event flyer.
Also, check link to HCAC page for Democratic Convention Actions around Health Care.
Denver area readers didn't get to see El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa's full response. Also, it seems that the Gazette reporter and the Heritage Foundation comedian, James Carafano, have never read the National Response Plan (NRP - the Nation's real Homeland Security policy) and are totally out of touch when it comes to the concept of preparedness and local response.
One of my most memorable duties was to clear the way at Fort Carson for the Colorado National Guard to move the M-577 Armored Command Post vehicle that responded to the Columbine tragedy. Even that process took hours for authorization and travel time.
It is absolutely commendable that local law enforcement has found 52 missions for the vehicle. That proves to me that it is multi-functional and that El Paso County Sheriff's Deputies and Colorado Springs Police are fully trained to use it. In the horrible event of another large-scale hostage crisis I'm more confident that they are ready.
This is a disappointing piece of reporting that seems pre-disposed to criticize the cops. Rapid response by local first responders is a key factor in the NRP. There's no doubt in my mind that this BEAR could respond very quickly to any hostage or large-scale shooting incident between Pueblo and Fort Collins.
Trying to imply that this is a boondoggle and waste of Federal funds is irresponsible. Of course the new operators of the vehicle needed training. That's just being thorough and responsible. Mechanical adjustments for high altitude operations are far from design flaws.
Pity what Ms Zubeck and Mr. Carafano would have as comments for the hundreds of Modification Work Orders (MWOs) that are applied to US military vehicles of all types every year. Without a doubt this "BEAR" should be in Colorado Springs and not some Federal Depot waiting for FEMA to decide it's OK to use it for a state or local purpose. Read More »