BC/BS sued in New Jersey

They seemed like such nice people. Read the rest of this post...

Judge order San Diego to get rid of the seals

I'm divided. The seals are cute. But reading that their waster is causing the beach to be contaminated, and thus closed down, is clearly not a good thing. Still, it does seem like the beach belongs to the seals at this point. What do you think?

My friend Rex Wockner made a video today of the seals on the beach in San Diego.

Read the rest of this post...

Second GOP Senator admits strategy is to kill, not improve, health care reform

Not that this is news, but the GOP has been freaking out over the bad publicity that Senator DeMint is generating for them, after he said that health care reform was going to be Obama's Waterloo. Read the rest of this post...

Massive brawl in South Korean parliament

Read the rest of this post...

The Onion is sold to the Chinese

Yet another pinko rag. Read the rest of this post...

Mormons continued to baptize Jewish Holocaust victims in 2009

They promised to stop in the mid-90s, and then last fall Jewish groups caught them still doing it. According to researcher Helen Radkey, the baptisms continued into 2009 as well. Read the rest of this post...

Among western allies polled, France has highest favorable view of US

Big change over the past year in a lot of countries. From PEW:

Many of the increases are striking, especially among some of America’s traditional Western allies. Last year, only 42% expressed a positive opinion of the U.S. in France; today, three-in-four feel this way. Just 31% of Germans held a favorable view last year, compared with 64% now. Large increases also took place in Spain (+25 percentage points) and Britain (+16). More than two-thirds (68%) of Canadians have a positive opinion of the U.S., up from 55% in 2007, the most recent year in which Canada was surveyed by the Pew Global Attitudes Project.

Read the rest of this post...

FOX News anchor melts down with parking attendant

Do you know who she is?!?!?!?!?! Read the rest of this post...

Nazis!

Wouldn't it be swell if the people who always play the Nazi card actually cared about oppressive government eating away at the rights of its citizens. Read the rest of this post...

Reid: No health care vote till after August recess

Let's hope this gives our side time to rally. Rather than theirs. Taegan has a bit more. Read the rest of this post...

Texas Christian right wants to teach kids that there would be no US if it had not been for God

Had God signed the Declaration of Independence, I think we'd have known.

The Christian right is making a fresh push to force religion onto the school curriculum in Texas with the state's education board about to consider recommendations that children be taught that there would be no United States if it had not been for God.

Members of a panel of experts appointed by the board to revise the state's history curriculum, who include a Christian fundamentalist preacher who says he is fighting a war for America's moral soul, want lessons to emphasise the part played by Christianity in the founding of the US and that religion is a civic virtue.

Opponents have decried the move as an attempt to insert religious teachings in to the classroom by stealth, similar to the Christian right's partially successful attempt to limit the teaching of evolution in biology lessons in Texas.

One of the panel, David Barton, founder of a Christian heritage group called WallBuilders, argues that the curriculum should reflect the fact that the US Constitution was written with God in mind including that "there is a fixed moral law derived from God and nature", that "there is a creator" and "government exists primarily to protect God-given rights to every individual".

As always, this is a bit absurd. We already learn in school that the pilgrims came here to escape religious oppression in Europe. So what is this really about? As I've said before, a large part of me wishes the religious right good luck. I can't think of anything better for my niece and nephews in the north than having to compete on their SATs and in the job market against kids from the south who spent their school days learning base-God math. ("What's the cosine of 247, Mary Sue? Only God knows for sure, Mrs. Applebee. Correct!") Read the rest of this post...

Obama calls for more mild oversight of Wall Street

More foot dragging and a renewed call for "non-binding" shareholder votes which are a complete waste of time as we have repeatedly witnessed recently. Most people don't blame Obama or the crisis but they certainly blame him for his failure to take serious action on the most critical issue of the day. His continuing "business as usual" approach with a few minor tweaks is good news for the status quo on Wall Street but bad news for anyone with a retirement plan or who has to work for a living. Americans are generous people who grudgingly went along with the rescue plan to prevent an even greater recession but there has been so little in return.

Americans have watched their 401Ks crumble and Wall Street go right back to huge bonuses and yet Obama continues to be meek. Sure, they have at least stabilized or possibly have made a couple of bucks back but nobody has come close to regaining the losses. Anyone who believes American voters won't react poorly to this failed response are kidding themselves. The GOP may be guilty of creating this (along with Clinton's team - now known as Obama's team) but they are going to eat the Democrats for lunch on the economy if it doesn't turn quickly.

The financial system has stabilized but needs new regulations to curtail behavior and practices that led to the meltdown that brought Wall Street to the brink of collapse, President Barack Obama said Wednesday night in a prime-time press conference at the White House.

The president specifically mentioned regulatory changes that would require shareholders to have nonbinding votes on executive compensation packages. He said the government could impose new fees on institutions that engage in what he called "far-out transactions."

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Research firm cited by GOP to oppose health care reform "is wholly owned by UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation's largest insurers."

Funny thing. The Lewin Group is often cited by Hill Republicans because of its research in opposition to the pubic option. Well, that company is owned by a health insurance company. Isn't that just a coincidence? We already know the GOP is also owned by the insurance companies. Now, we know their "non-partisan" research is insurance company owned, too:

The political battle over health-care reform is waged largely with numbers, and few number-crunchers have shaped the debate as much as the Lewin Group, a consulting firm whose research has been widely cited by opponents of a public insurance option.

To Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Republican whip, it is "the nonpartisan Lewin Group." To Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, it is an "independent research firm." To Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the second-ranking Republican on the pivotal Finance Committee, it is "well known as one of the most nonpartisan groups in the country."

Generally left unsaid amid all the citations is that the Lewin Group is wholly owned by UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation's largest insurers.

More specifically, the Lewin Group is part of Ingenix, a UnitedHealth subsidiary that was accused by the New York attorney general and the American Medical Association, a physician's group, of helping insurers shift medical expenses to consumers by distributing skewed data. Ingenix supplied its parent company and other insurers with data that allegedly understated the "usual and customary" doctor fees that insurers use to determine how much they will reimburse consumers for out-of-network care.

In January, UnitedHealth agreed to a $50 million settlement with the New York attorney general and a $350 million settlement with the AMA, covering conduct going back as far as 1994.

No reporter should ever quote a Republican citing the Lewin Group without this full disclosure: "the Lewin Group is wholly owned by UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation's largest insurers." Read the rest of this post...

Ben Smith: At big moment, President Obama goes small

I like Ben's writing, and I find him a good, reasonable, and reasoned barometer of what's going on in politics. Ben thinks Obama blew it last night during his press conference on health care reform.

President Barack Obama came alive about 50 minutes into Wednesday night’s news conference – when somebody finally changed the subject.

The president’s remarks on his chosen subject, health care, were cautious and choreographed, hemmed in on one side by the calculations of his professional wordsmiths, on the other by the delicacy of negotiations with two houses of Congress.

He never detailed his own plan, or named a single victim of America’s broken system, and he spoke largely in the abstractions of blue pills, red pills, and legislative processes. It’s not easy to turn delivery system reform into a rallying cry for change, but at times, it was as if Obama wasn’t even trying.

His dryness was all the more striking by contrast with the press conference’s conclusion, when he suddenly re-engaged with a question that he’s spent much of his life mulling, race, in the form of the arrest of a black Harvard professor.

The appearance was striking by its absence of a move that’s long characterized Obama’s political career: When in trouble, go big. Faced with a crisis of confidence or with a political furor, he’s repeatedly shown an ability to rise above the storm, and to broaden the playing field, as when he turned a flap over his pastor into a meditation on race in America.

Now, facing his hardest test as President, Obama chose to go small.

At least, as Ben notes, Obama has shifted gears and is no longer only talking just about how many uninsured the plan will help, but rather, how it will help EVERY American family. That's good news, and it's something I've been promoting for a while.

Of those of you who saw the press conference, what did you think? Was Obama lacking, or did he do a good job on the health care part of the evening? (TNR had a different take than Ben.) Read the rest of this post...

Mormons may have secretly baptized Obama's African ancestors, in addition to his deceased mother

After forcibly, and secretly, converting President Obama's deceased mother to Mormonism last year during the presidential campaign - as revealed first by AMERICAblog - evidence now suggests that the Mormons may have converted Obama's known African ancestors as well.

The White House claims the topic didn't come up on Monday when the president met with Mormon President-Prophet Thomas Monson at the White House. Really? The president finds out a few months ago that the Mormons tried to steal his dead mother's soul, and no one mentioned it? I find it hard to believe that the president-prophet wasn't stumbling all over himself to apologize to the president. And if he wasn't, why wasn't he? Are the Mormons really so arrogant that they'd secretly defile the memory, and soul, of the deceased mother of the president of the United States and then not apologize when their leader finally meets our leader in person?

Something doesn't smell quite right about the White House's denial.

And now we find out that it looks like the Mormons may have gone after much of the rest of Obama's family as well.

Once again we learn that all you have to do is sit down and talk with someone, and they'll stop coming after you. And your family. Or not. Read the rest of this post...

Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

So, the president did his press conference to rally America. He really needs to rally Democrats on Capitol Hill. It's unbelievable that any Democrat would think that delaying passage of health care is a good political move. But, that's the kind of idiotic thinking that sometimes takes hold in the bubble that is Capitol Hill. Some of those Democrats, especially many freshmen, owe their seats to Obama and the agenda upon which he ran. Not passing real reform is really bad politics.

The Bush years really did a number on the American people. His lies and incompetency have created the sense that we can't solve problems any more. That's part of what Obama is up against. Unfortunately, some of the Democrats on Capitol Hill seem to playing into that Bush-created mindset.

It's too early to be so annoyed.... Read the rest of this post...

Life is good, if you are a banker

It's as if nothing happened. The recession doesn't exist and the banking implosion never happened. Morgan Stanley proved yet again why non-binding shareholder votes are a waste as the CFO declared Q2 a "pretty good quarter for the employees, but not so for the shareholders." They don't care. At all. It's all about their bonuses and the rest be damned.

But Wall Street, helped by improving profits, is on track to pay employees as much as, or even more than, it did in the pre-crisis days. So far this year, the top six U.S. banks have set aside $74 billion to pay their employees, up from $60 billion in the corresponding period last year.

The increase in set-asides for employee pay has raised the ire of Washington, where lawmakers denounced financial leaders for returning to old habits and vowed to enact measures governing executive compensation.

"It strengthens our commitment to getting legislation passed," Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in an interview Wednesday, adding that a committee vote on a bill to increase oversight of Wall Street pay has been scheduled for Tuesday. "The amounts are troubling."

Troubling indeed that so little action has taken place by Congress or Obama. Very troubling. Read the rest of this post...

China accused of industrial espionage

Maybe Germany and the West ought to do the same thing China does and start arresting people. Oh that's right. In the case of Rio Tinto in China, it was a business deal that went bad which spurred on the leader of China to get involved in arresting a foreign national. In the case of Germany accusing China of industrial espionage, Germany is raising the subject but has not arrested anyone. Also, China is being accused of stealing advanced engineering and technology from the West so they can catch up. Which scenario sounds more likely to deserve arrests and involvement from the highest levels of government?

Opfermann estimated that German companies were losing around €50bn (£43bn) and 30,000 jobs to industrial espionage every year.

"China wants to be the world's leading economic power by 2020," Opfermann said. "For that they need a speedy and intensive transfer of high-level technological information which is available in developed industrial lands, if you can get your hands on it".

The areas most under attack include car manufacturing, renewable energies, chemistry, communication, optics, x-ray technology, machinery, materials research and armaments. Information being gathered was not just related to research and development but also management techniques and marketing strategies.

Opfermann said internet espionage was the biggest growth field, citing the "thick fog of Trojan email attacks" taking place against thousands of firms on a regular basis and the methods employed to cover up where the emails had come from.

But he said "old-fashioned" methods were also rife, such as phone-tapping, stealing laptops during business trips or Chinese companies who regularly sent spies to infiltrate companies.

Read the rest of this post...

World population demographics changing

Of particular note would be Europe and Japan who continue to have longer life spans despite their horrible, socialist health care systems. Go figure.

The report, An Aging World: 2008, shows that within 10 years older people will outnumber children for the first time. It forecasts that over the next 30 years the number of over-65s is expected to almost double, from 506 million in 2008 to 1.3 billion – a leap from 7% of the world's population to 14%. Already, the number of people in the world 65 and over is increasing at an average of 870,000 each month.

The rate of growth will shoot up in the next couple of years, with both overall numbers and proportions of older people rising rapidly.

The shift is due to a combination of the time-delayed impact of high fertility levels after the second world war and more recent improvements in health that are bringing down death rates at older ages. Separate UN forecasts predict that the global population will top 9 billion by 2050.

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