Jack & Jill Politics

EVENING OPEN THREAD IS UP

rikyrah, Craig and all the rest of the gardeners on this site, Chicago is instituitionalizing the comunity garden

Why is Goldman Sachs buying allowed to buy tax credits? Why are tax credits allowed to be sold?
http://norris.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/wors...

a MAJOR as one of the shooters?

a MAJOR?

39 year old Major.

More horse manure from the press about closing banks. White polticians have besieged the regulators since day one. But no racism involved.

There's a rumor that one of the suspects has an "Arabic sounding name."

PLEASE don't let it be Pookie X shooting up the base.

MSNBC took that down on thier latest updates.Remember OKC bombing when everyone was saying it was the muslims only to find out it was timmy from next door.

Pookie X?

Black convert to Islam

CNN reporting the dead at 12 now at Ft. Hood.

12 dead, 31 wounded

Cancer on the Brain… and a Perspective on Health Care
By: A Siegel Thursday November 5, 2009 9:40 am

A Siegel's father-in-Law in 2008

Siegel's father-in-law in 2008

My father-in-law has brain cancer. He is a good man. He is the type whose hands are (sadly too often) filled at the end of a stroll with trash he picked up on the way. He has helped others in need, whether friends (doing all too many renovation and repair projects) to strangers (a pencil portrait of my better 95+% as a child was someone-without-money’s payment for extensive dental work). He is a good man. And, the prognosis isn’t good.

Not surprisingly, my better 95+%, my mother-in-law, my other in-laws, their friends are not especially joyous about facing this.

Yet, they face it with a sort of calm that is rarely seem in America when a family faces a major medical crisis. To date, there has not been one iota of discussion about financial challenges. There is no stress of looking at check-book balances, no fearful whispers about mounting medical bills, no distress over potential financial bankruptcy, no extended phone calls with insurers battling to get a test covered or to see whether a physician in system. In fact, the only discussions of money have been comments about how ridiculously low the bills are and why it really isn’t worth the time to seek reimbursement for supplementary insurance programs.

In this stressful time, my father-in-law and my mother-in-law are absoutely free of financial tensions from medical costs.

Sadly, perhaps, for my children’s future, this isn’t due to great family wealth. (They are solidly middle class.) Nor have they unlocked the key to some super-secret executive-based insurance program.

The reason for calm is simple: my father-in-law is French.

It isn’t because that French people are inherently calm and reasonable people, shy and reticent to get into an argument. (Sigh, actually the reverse. Here’s a good cheat sheet to prepare for an argument.)

No, the absence of fiscal tension results from basic public policy: universal coverage.

As with all French residents, my in-laws have health-insurance. When necessary, they simply go to get taken care of. In this public-private system, they have costs to bear (such as that few Euros charge for visiting a doctor) for treatment but those costs will not overwhelm a family’s budget.

The French provide for universal coverage at a per capita cost far lower than America’s spotty and unequal medical system.

And, the French have much better health care results.

Considering my father-in-law’s situation has made me wonder: is one reason for those better results the lower tension due to the universal coverage?

Does universal coverage make it easier for my father-in-law and other ill people to focus their energy on getting better rather than pouring over (if Americans lucky enough to have it) health insurance paperwork?

Does the universal coverage and lack of financial pressure make it easier for my mother-in-law to focus on her husband’s health? And, does the near absence of insurance paperwork and bureaucracy make it less likely that she, herself, might get sick?

My blogging focus is on energy and environmental issues. Within that, I am intrigued (and frustrated) by our failures to analyze adequately costs and benefits. And, I am always searching for those win-win-win-win solution paths that address the complexity of the real world, identifying interactions and building on them. It seems that the ‘tension relief’ factor of (single payer, please…) universal coverage is absent from the US discussion. Tension Relief is, however, a factor worthy of note and consideration.

As a note, this is not a call for sympathy about my father-in-law. I hope, for his grandchildren, that he beats medical odds for a long time to come. When he does die, whether soon or many years from now, the world will be a lesser place. As written above, he is a good man who makes the world better through his actions. But, by his own words, he has had a good, long, and full life. He has seen all his children succeed beyond his dreams, he has seen them all married, and had the chance to play with his grandchildren. And, he lives in a system that allows him to face his medical challenges without fear for his, his wife’s, or his children’s financial futures.

http://firedoglake.com/2009/11/05/cancer-on-the...

Healthcare protestors today held a sign with deceased emaciated Jewish victims of the Holocaust in a pile with the sign titled "National Socialist Healthcare"......low-down, scum of the earth mofos.....

take a look at the lunacy

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/05/the-12...

This is why I am so angry w/ both President Obama and the Jewish community. This s@#$ started w/ the death camps in Aug during the recess and no one called the Republicans on it. You had Sen Grassley and Rep whacker from VA who is Jewish repeat this on TV. everybody ran away from it and then this happens. But no racism involved at all.

this is about as scary as it gets; folks that KNOW how to use guns professionally, shooting people.

Some people are trying to blame this on battle stress.If it was just one soldier I would buy that but 3 working together?10 to 1 they are white with questionable associations.

This will have damaging effects psychologically for troops and their families for sure...just devastating.

new shots fired at Ft. Hood

The number of deaths has increased to 9 per CNN.

How many of you think these military men shooting up a military base are some Beck/Palin/Fox sychophants?

I dont know but today is the 5th of Nov,Guy Fawkes day.Crazy ass Bachmann march on the congress talking about bringing it down and now this.SMH

Good Lord,
"Remember, Remember the Fifth of November..."
also from V-for-Vendetta.
How dare those muthaf*ckas co-op that film? Ron Paul co-opted it too.

Why don't these muthaf*ckas appreciate that "V" would actually be delivering the roses (kisses of death to them)?

These shooters are on some teabagger shit for real. I won't be surprised if in the coming days we find out these people have Glen Beck and Palin sites all over their computer.

That's jumping the gun a bit don't you think? Do you have a hotline to the FBI office or something?

To these nutbags dates are symbolic.Now I dont think the RNC would go this far but their allies would.Bachmanns hooligans marching on the capitol,Pat Boone talking about exterminating the White House,beck well I dont have to remind you of the things he said.This is not going to end well and its time to take action.

Wasn't there a wingnut, just a few weeks ago, who called for a military uprising against the administration?

Yup.

I have no doubt they are part of the fringe encouraged by these hate mongers.

I got a feeling that this is going to be a Timothy McVeigh situation and this shit is gonna blow up on the Republican party and Fox News. For real.

4000 people came to Capitol Hill today to denounce the effort to reform healthcare. What can we do to get 40,000 to descend on Washingotn in support of reform, speecifically with a strong public option?

I heard it was 1000 to 2000 and Politico said it was in the 10's of thousands.So just like the teabaggers the countng is full of bovine excrement

Anyone else watching what is going on in Fort Hood? Three shooters so far, 7 dead, 12 injured. Sounds like an uprising. Scary.

Update***20 injured.

Yes. Was just listening to MSNBC; David Shuster and Tamryn Hall had Sen. Hutchinson on, and she was saying that 30 were injured. Haven't heard anyone else with that number, and Hall asked her on air the source of her info (which I missed...sorry).

Anway...if you have friends/fam there, call and check in with them.

In the morning thread Morphus posted an article on Restless Vagina Syndrome.I reposted on another board and you got to read the comments
http://www.deephousepage.com/forums/showthread....

Is the gay rights movement like the civil rights movement? Tonight at 7:30 p.m. EST join a LIVE discussion about the black community and gay rights at www.basicblack.org. "Basic Black" is a PBS show that has been covering the black community in Boston and beyond since 1968. This episode will also cover the recent elections in Boston. You can send your questions and comments in at any time at www.basicblack.org.