Roman Polanski and Cardinal Roger Mahoney

My letter today to the Los Angeles Times:

Now that District Attorney Steve Cooley's office has managed to get Roman Polanski arrested in Switzerland on a 1977 unlawful sex case, it may occur to others why he has let Cardinal Roger Mahoney off the hook.

Mahoney signed a $660 million settlement for victims on more than 500 cases in July two years ago.

Yet Cooley can't find enough evidence to prosecute the pedophile priests or Mahoney for a coverup. Looks like a double standard at work.

Michael Moore Gives Wolf Blitzer a Lesson in Asking Questions

From The Raw Story:

[On CNN] Blitzer begins by pointing out that there are people who don’t like Michael Moore.

“Let’s talk about…most people who are going to see this movie who don’t like you are going to say, ‘you know what, Michael Moore has done pretty well in this free-market, capitalist system—you’ve become a fairly rich guy yourself.’ ” states Blitzer.

After Moore asks for the names of people who don’t like them, so he can ‘invite them to dinner,’ he continues with “Why am I against capitalism if I’ve done so well? Shouldn’t the question be better put—I’m not trying to do your job for you—but wouldn’t the question better be, ‘gee Mike, you’ve done so well, why don’t you just kick back at the lake and enjoy your life. Why do you care about people losing their healthcare and their jobs and all that…you’re not losing yours…I wonder if there was a Wolf Blitzer 200 years ago who asked Thomas Jefferson or John Adams or George Washington, ‘hey, you know, you guys are wealthy land owners…’”

Blitzer always asks the wrong questions. I yell at him all the time.

Finally After all the Screaming and Lies -- a Wingnut Murder?

The FBI is investigating the hanging death of a U.S. Census worker near a Kentucky cemetery. A law enforcement official says the word "fed" was scrawled on his chest.
The body of Bill Sparkman, a 51-year-old Census field worker and occasional teacher, was found Sept. 12 in the Daniel Boone National Forest in rural southeast Kentucky.

He was a part-time teacher who had only recently earned his teaching credential.

Read more.

Insurance Industry Bribed Baucus Big Time

Montand Democratic Senator Max Baucus, the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee has brought forth from that committee an absolutely horrible health "reform" bill. It deserved to be DOA.

For example, it requires all US residents to buy insurance, and a single parent over 50 would be paying FIVE TIMES the premium a single parent, 28 would pay. It is absolutely unaffordable. Smokers get 50% added to their premium. There's no public option, but the bill includes a co-op system, which is a weak ineffective way to replace the public option. Essetially, the co-op plan invites citizens to form their own alternate insurance plans in the various states. Good luck with that, a bunch of amateurs going up against will established huge insurance companies.

Why did Max Baucus' committee write this bill which former insurance executive Wendell Potter call, "a gift to the insurance industry? The answer is easy. The industry has bribed Baucus big time over the years -- some $3 million to date. And look at the figures from the latest election cycle, courtesy of OpenSecrets.org.

It is all over the Internet what a piece of crap this bill is.

You Gotta See This...

A CELEBRATION of the fact that the World Health Organization ranks the United States # 37 in quality and access to health care. Well, maybe not exactly a celebration.



Send this on to a friend. Two friends.

Send it Senator Baucus, the man who has taken $3 million in bribes from the health insurance industry to bring out a Senate bill that will deliver millions of new customers to the insurance companies at whatever price they set. Or else.

Signs for Teabagger / Wingnuts / Tax Revolters at Their Next Rally

Here at Stuff You Should Know, we are always willing and ready to help. Therefore we wanted to contribute our ideas for signs and posters the Wingnuts might like to carry on their next rally in Washington, D.C.

• I AM HEAR BECAUSE I AM AN UNINFORMED INDIOT
• FOX NEWS TOLD ME TO BE HERE AND HERE I IS
• I DON'T NEED NO STINKIN HEALTH CARE. AND NEITHER DO MY KIDS
• I AM AFRAID OF SOCIALISM WHATEVER THAT IS
• NO NEGRO HAS A RIGHT TO BE PREZDENT
• RACISM IS WRONG. BUT OBAMA SHOULD BE PICKIN COTTON
• I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK LIKE WHEN PREZDENTS WAS ALWAYS WHITE
• OBAMA GO BACK TO KENYA WHERE YOU WUZ BORN.
• HITLER VOTED FOR OBAMA FROM THE GRAVE
• IF I KNEW WHY I WAS HERE, I WOLD BE AT HOME
• OBAMA LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE STALIN ONLY WITHOUT THE MUSTACHE
• HEALTH CARE IS STUPID. LET'S SPEND THE MONEY ON ANOTHER WAR
• IF YOU GET SICK, GET UP AND WALK IT OFF LIKE A GOOD AMURICAN
• DON'T SPEND MORE MONEY ON HEALTH CARE, SPEND IT ON OPERATION IRAQI LIBERATION
• PROTECT OUR CONTSTIUNION LIKE THE WAY GEORGE BUSH DID.

Teabagger / Tax Protest / Anti Health Care Nut / Republican Protesters Demonstrate Their Intellectual Capacity

Yeah, the teabagger / birther / conspiracy nuts are all very intelligent and "INFROMED"

Woman Revolts Against Bank Of America

Ann Minch of Red Bluff, Calif refuses to pay off credit card after being a good customer, paying her credit card bill on time, even paying more than minimum payment for years.

Then B of A raised her interest rate to 30%. This is the same Bank of America that got a $700 billion bailout from us taxpayers.

The interest rate hike was the last straw. She made this video as a "love letter" (ha) to Bank of America.

This is one of the most widely viewed YouTube videos ever made. Ms. Minch is a fine American.

I hope her revolt sparks widespread rebellion against these loan sharks.

This Photo Was so Good I Wanted to Run it Again

I shot this at a Farmers Market a few weeks ago. The fiddle player is a university mathematics professor. I don't know about the guitar picker.

These Republicans are Such a Classy Bunch

Republicastupids. Photo from HuffPo.

Joe Wilson's Web Site Still Down But his Stock Has Risen in Cracker Country

The rednecks in Joe Wilson's part of the woods in South Carolina are sending him money via another Website specifically designed to do nothing but collect credit card cash.

There is something really sick going on in this country when a cracker like Wilson can shout at the President of the United States during a joint session of Congress and get congratulated for it by morons who are registered to vote.

Personally, I think a lot of it stems from the belief in that former Confederate state that it really is acceptable to disrespect a black man. No problem, he's just a "nigra." I suspect Wilson has a white sheet in his closet with two eyeholes in it.

This from the NYT:

In Washington, Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina was sharply criticized by both Democrats and his fellow Republicans for shouting “You lie!” during President Obama’s health care address on Wednesday. But here in his strongly Republican Congressional district on Thursday, he was celebrated by many of his constituents for his outburst.

Joe Wilson. Thoroughly disgusting. Embarrassing. The country is full of fools worshipping a Congressional buffoon.

Republican Fools

Last night Republican Congressmen made fools of themselves in front of the entire world. Some of them held up signs during President Obama's speech, as if they were at a town hall meeting in Podunk, Idaho.

And then there was Joe Wilson, a Congressman from South Carolina, with his outburst, "YOU LIE!" I certainly hope his outburst was a career changer for him. And this guy is a colonel in the National Guard, yelling at his Commander in Chief. Back to obscurity.


The first two shots are from BagNews Notes. The Wilson shot is from HuffingtonPost.

Joint Session of Congress

This is a picture of a joint session of Congress. Every single one of these guys has great health insrance courtesy of us. Socialized health care. And many of them don't want us to have anything like it.

Founding Fathers Were in Favor of Universal Health Insurance

Proof:

Preamble to the Constitution:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Seems to me the general Welfare would include universal health care as a right, not a privilege. And then there was the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Now how can you enjoy "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" without your health? Case closed.

Labor Day Heroes

I can't leave this blog today without directing you to The Public Record and its story on Labor Day and the Heroes of the Union Movement. It is well worth reading.

THE UNION MAID
Woody Guthrie

There once was a union maid, she never was afraid
Of goons and ginks and company finks and the deputy sheriffs who made the raid.
She went to the union hall when a meeting it was called,
And when the Legion boys come 'round
She always stood her ground.

CHORUS:
Oh, you can't scare me, I'm sticking to the union,
I'm sticking to the union, I'm sticking to the union.
Oh, you can't scare me, I'm sticking to the union,
I'm sticking to the union 'til the day I die.


This union maid was wise to the tricks of company spies,
She couldn't be fooled by a company stool, she'd always organize the guys.
She always got her way when she struck for better pay.
She'd show her card to the National Guard
And this is what she'd say:

CHORUS

You gals who want to be free, just take a tip from me;
Get you a man who's a union man and join the ladies' auxiliary.
Married life ain't hard when you got a union card,
A union man has a happy life when he's got a union wife.

CHORUS

And finally, here is a YouTube video featuring Pete Seegar, who is a national treasure:

Soldier Killed in Afghanistan Had Reinlisted for Son's Health Coverage

The story is at Raw Story

CNN news anchor John Roberts asks "How far would you go to get good health insurance?" A report this morning tells the heartbreaking story of a man who lost his job as a computer consultant, and along with the job went the health insurance for his family.

Army SPC Greg Missman had ended his military service 11 years earlier, but signed back on in order to provide his young son Jack with health insurance coverage.

After only one month on the ground in Afghanistan, Missman's father Jim received the news that Greg's convoy had been ambushed, and Greg was killed in the attack.

CNN reports that a "Pentagon spokesman said there is no way to count how many soldiers have joined the armed services to get health care benefits. As for Greg Missman, his son will continue receive military health insurance so this soldier's sacrifice will live on."

The CNN YouTube video is at the Raw Story Web site
And according to Senator Chuck Grassley and the rest of the Gang of Idiots, we don't need health care reform.

White House Green Jobs Czar Van Jones Resigns Under Pressure from Glenn Beck

Van Jones is a brilliant environmental activist, author and graduate of Yale Law School. My first sentence here does not even begin to outline his accomplishments and honors. For more, see Wikipedia. He has reportedly worked behind the scenes to help unseat reactionary FOX "News" mouth breather and knuckle dragger Glenn Beck. The score now is Beck 1, Jones 0, after Beck began pounding on Jones for his "radical Communism," and for signing a petition calling for answers to questions about 9/11. Most news stories center on the petition, because even corporate reporters recognize that the Communism thing is silly. But most news stories fail to identify the petition. We have found it, at 9/11 Truth.org

Here are just a few of the "radical" questions in the petition.

• Why were standard operating procedures for dealing with hijacked airliners not followed that day?
• Why were the extensive missile batteries and air defenses reportedly deployed around the Pentagon not activated during the attack?
• Why hasn't a single person been fired, penalized, or reprimanded for the gross incompetence we witnessed that day?
• How could Flight 77, which reportedly hit the Pentagon, have flown back towards Washington D.C. for 40 minutes without being detected by the FAA's radar or the even superior radar possessed by the US military?

Jones said he quit rather than serve as a distraction while the president is working on crucial projects including health reform. He also said he didn't closely scrutinize the petition before he signed it, but it seems to me all the questions are reasonable, and I would have liked to see the 9/11 Commission attempt to answer them.

Glenn Beck is a coward and a bully. Compared to Van Jones, he is a piece of dog poop on my shoe. But Beck will probably now be encouraged to go after more Obama appointees.

Little Trip up the Coast

We took a little trip up the California Coast this last week. Here's a shot of Ocean Avenue, Cayucos. The yellow building is a relic of the Old West, Hoppe's restaurant
And here's lunch. Some kind of Salmon thing I think, with mashed potatoes and herbs.

Health Care: We Are Truly Screwed

Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone has written a piece on health care that puts to shame the "reporting" done by the cable news networks and even the big city newspapers. It is a long piece, but worth reading. Here is the link. And here is a summary that comes near the end of the article.

To recap, here's what ended up happening with health care. First, they gave away single-payer before a single gavel had fallen, apparently as a bargaining chip to the very insurers mostly responsible for creating the crisis in the first place. Then they watered down the public option so as to make it almost meaningless, while simultaneously beefing up the individual mandate, which would force millions of people now uninsured to buy a product that is no longer certain to be either cheaper or more likely to prevent them from going bankrupt. The bill won't make drugs cheaper, and it might make paperwork for doctors even more unwieldy and complex than it is now. In fact, the various reform measures suck so badly that PhRMA, the notorious mouthpiece for the pharmaceutical industry which last year spent more than $20 million lobbying against health care reform, is now gratefully spending more than seven times that much on a marketing campaign to help the president get what he wants.

I was so incensed by the piece that I immediately wrote a blistering note to Obama at the White House Web site promising never ever to support him for a second term. Obama has become a huge disappointment. Even bigger because he held out to much hope for so many of us. We knew Bush as a dick to begin with, so no big deal when he turned out to fulfill our expectations. But Obama promised HOPE and CHANGE. Crap. Very little of it is happening. Obama is a phony.

Invitation

To my readers: You're invited to take a look at a brand new Web site I built for a very talented recording artist. Her name is Erin Rametta, and here is the link. You can even sample some of her music on the site.