AAAAAAGGGGGGHHHH!!!!!!! My eyes.......

(Note: Post formerly was titled "Kossack shows ass". My dumb.)

AARP’s Stealth Fees Often Sting Seniors With Costlier Insurance

The group, formerly called American Association of Retired Persons, collects hundreds of millions of dollars annually from insurers who pay for AARP’s endorsement of their policies.

The insurance companies build the cost of these so-called royalties and fees, which amounted to $497.6 million in 2007, into the premiums they charge AARP members, according to AARP’s consolidated financial statement for that year. Read more…

The Health Insurance Game

Data from the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy show that:

1. The top seven U.S. health insurers earned a combined $10 billion dollars - nearly triple their profits of 5 years earlier (Wall Street Journal, August 2006).

2. In 2004 top executives of the 11 largest health insurers made a combined $85 million per year in one year (Weiss Reports).

3. The 20 largest HMOs in the U.S. made $10.8 billion in profits in the fiscal year 2005. 12 top HMO executives pocketed $222.6 million in direct compensation in the fiscal year 2005. Read more…

Oh, Harry, Harry, Harry...

Reid told reporters in Las Vegas on Tuesday that New York “has a history of sending stars to the Senate.” He cited Kennedy’s late uncle, Robert Kennedy, and Clinton as examples.

Um, Harry, those two actually RAN for the office. They didn't jump to the front of the line.

(Cross-posted at Blue Lyon)

if a guy has a lung collapse in a football game on Sunday and flies home Monday, how is he even considered for playing the following Sunday? What is this, Terminator, the NFL?

Amazon a savage place for workers

The company achieved global profits topping £2.2 billion last year. Behind the scenes, it employs thousands of casual workers in Britain to fetch and package items under arduous conditions.

An investigation at Amazon's enormous warehouse in Bedfordshire found that workers:

* Were warned the company refuses to allow sick leave, even if the worker has a legitimate doctor's note. Taking a day off sick, even with a note, results in a penalty point. A worker with six points faces dismissal. Read more…

As an Air Force vet who's proud of my service, I find this story absolutely appalling.

I also think that if the economy weren't in the toilet the new supervisor at this courthouse wouldn't be so quick to force an experienced and well-liked employee to take down his flag.

Photo Credit: Jessica Griffin, philly.com

But then again, politics is all about one-upsmanship, isn't it? Especially when you get to show off just how big a butthat you can be in your new supervisory position.

image from Progressive Majority Wisconsin

ScienceBlogger Mike the Mad Biologist is all over the story of how Sheila Bair, head of the FDIC, has been dissed and mistreated by the folks in charge: Sheila Bair, Geithner, and the acceptance of male hysteria.
 Read more…

If you read my last post you'd see that Canada is having some interesting times politically with the House of Commons pushing for a confidence motion in the Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Canadian Bush) so that they could vote "no confidence" forcing him to resign or call an election. You cannot remain the PM without the confidence of the House. That's how it works.

Today is a sad day for democracy in Canada. The Governor-General, Michaëlle Jean, has decided to grant Harper his prorogue. This has nothing to do with what is in the best interest of Canadian people as Harper likes to drone on and on about. This is all about Harper not wanting to lose his job. HE provoked the opposition by trying to take away public party subsidies, HE tried to take away worker's and women's rights, and HE gave us a crap economic platform that wouldn't help anyone.

"For the first time in the history of Canada the prime minister is running away from the parliament of Canada," said Liberal leader Stephane Dion, who headed up the opposition movement against Harper. Read more…

At least 1,000 people showed up today in Pasadena, California for the Join the Impact protest against Proposition 8. There were rallies held all across the country as part of the protest against marriage discrimination. The big California rallies were in Los Angeles and San Francisco, but Pasadena's rally had a pretty good turnout given that the effort to put it together didn't start until Wednesday. Read more…

Via Big Media Matt (who is auditioning to be Versailles’ next Richard Cohen) comes this bright idea hyped by Ezra Klein Read more…

Yesterday I was talking about why it really sucks that being right doesn't matter, but who you are in the Village hierachy does. Similarly, I'll confess to being mildly annoyed that Hoss is finally on board the Shrill Supertrain of "Oh my god we're fucked!" to which an important corollary is "and centrist policies aren't going to help anything." Let me be clear: Atrios is and always has been in the camp of the Good Guys, even if there may be valid reason to include him in the universe of Bad Blogger Boyz, for (not) blogging in certain ways or on certain issues. Regardless, my philosophy has always been "it's your blog, write what you want." Even as I recognize that the PB1.0 has come to mirror the Village SCLM, and that 'leading voices' like his set the tone for much of what is written and discussed. Blogging is still different from paid, professional journalism; I don't believe bloggers have any special responsibility to cover anything other than what they're motivated to write about on any given day. But it's slightly maddening to know that Atrios, and others, have upon occasion taking to calling some of us Doomsayers "too doomy" for pointing out that this was going to happen, and that Dems have proven useless about stopping it.

But getting back to the topic, yes, I agree. I don't see it getting better anytime soon. That's exactly and precisely why blogs like this one have moved in the direction it has over the last few months. Agree or disagree she got a raw deal: making HRC the centerpiece of front page news and policymaker's daily discourse won't address any of the real problems facing us. Just as discussing Sarah Palin's sex life won't, or what kind of dog the Obama kids should get won't, or why KO is the greatest media personality evah won't, or why Joe Lieberman is History's Greatest Monster won't... Read more…

"Of the baker’s dozen that the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington reported being under investigation in its 2008 annual report, “Most Corrupt Members of Congress,” nine appear headed for re-election. ... Of the four others in the baker’s dozen, three resigned. And just one lost."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I've Been to the Mountaintop"

Thank you very kindly, my friends. As I listened to Ralph Abernathy and his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about. It's always good to have your closest friend and associate to say something good about you. And Ralph Abernathy is the best friend that I have in the world. I'm delighted to see each of you here tonight in spite of a storm warning. You reveal that you are determined to go on anyhow.

Something is happening in Memphis; something is happening in our world. And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, "Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?" I would take my mental flight by Egypt and I would watch God's children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there.

I would move on by Greece and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon. And I would watch them around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality. But I wouldn't stop there.

I would go on, even to the great heyday of the Roman Empire. And I would see developments around there, through various emperors and leaders. But I wouldn't stop there.

I would even come up to the day of the Renaissance, and get a quick picture of all that the Renaissance did for the cultural and aesthetic life of man. But I wouldn't stop there.
I would even go by the way that the man for whom I am named had his habitat. And I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked his ninety-five theses on the door at the church of Wittenberg. But I wouldn't stop there.

I would come on up even to 1863, and watch a vacillating President by the name of Abraham Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. But I wouldn't stop there.

I would even come up to the early thirties, and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but "fear itself." But I wouldn't stop there.
Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, "If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the 20th century, I will be happy."

Now that's a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding.

Something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee -- the cry is always the same: "We want to be free."

And another reason that I'm happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we are going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demands didn't force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.

And also in the human rights revolution, if something isn't done, and done in a hurry, to bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world is doomed. Now, I'm just happy that God has allowed me to live in this period to see what is unfolding. And I'm happy that He's allowed me to be in Memphis.

I can remember -- I can remember when Negroes were just going around as Ralph has said, so often, scratching where they didn't itch, and laughing when they were not tickled. But that day is all over. We mean business now, and we are determined to gain our rightful place in God's world.

And that's all this whole thing is about. We aren't engaged in any negative protest and in any negative arguments with anybody. We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people. We are saying -- We are saying that we are God's children. And that we are God's children, we don't have to live like we are forced to live.

Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we've got to stay together. We've got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity.

Secondly, let us keep the issues where they are. The issue is injustice. The issue is the refusal of Memphis to be fair and honest in its dealings with its public servants, who happen to be sanitation workers. Now, we've got to keep attention on that. That's always the problem with a little violence. You know what happened the other day, and the press dealt only with the window-breaking. I read the articles. They very seldom got around to mentioning the fact that one thousand, three hundred sanitation workers are on strike, and that Memphis is not being fair to them, and that Mayor Loeb is in dire need of a doctor. They didn't get around to that.

Now we're going to march again, and we've got to march again, in order to put the issue where it is supposed to be -- and force everybody to see that there are thirteen hundred of God's children here suffering, sometimes going hungry, going through dark and dreary nights wondering how this thing is going to come out. That's the issue. And we've got to say to the nation: We know how it's coming out. For when people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.
We aren't going to let any mace stop us. We are masters in our nonviolent movement in disarming police forces; they don't know what to do. I've seen them so often.

I remember in Birmingham, Alabama, when we were in that majestic struggle there, we would move out of the 16th Street Baptist Church day after day; by the hundreds we would move out. And Bull Connor would tell them to send the dogs forth, and they did come; but we just went before the dogs singing, "Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around."

Bull Connor next would say, "Turn the fire hoses on." And as I said to you the other night, Bull Connor didn't know history. He knew a kind of physics that somehow didn't relate to the transphysics that we knew about. And that was the fact that there was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out. And we went before the fire hoses; we had known water. If we were Baptist or some other denominations, we had been immersed. If we were Methodist, and some others, we had been sprinkled, but we knew water. That couldn't stop us.

And we just went on before the dogs and we would look at them; and we'd go on before the water hoses and we would look at it, and we'd just go on singing "Over my head I see freedom in the air." And then we would be thrown in the paddy wagons, and sometimes we were stacked in there like sardines in a can. And they would throw us in, and old Bull would say, "Take 'em off," and they did; and we would just go in the paddy wagon singing, "We Shall Overcome." And every now and then we'd get in jail, and we'd see the jailers looking through the windows being moved by our prayers, and being moved by our words and our songs. And there was a power there which Bull Connor couldn't adjust to; and so we ended up transforming Bull into a steer, and we won our struggle in Birmingham. Now we've got to go on in Memphis just like that. I call upon you to be with us when we go out Monday.

Now about injunctions: We have an injunction and we're going into court tomorrow morning to fight this illegal, unconstitutional injunction. All we say to America is, "Be true to what you said on paper." If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right. And so just as I say, we aren't going to let dogs or water hoses turn us around, we aren't going to let any injunction turn us around. We are going on.

We need all of you. And you know what's beautiful to me is to see all of these ministers of the Gospel. It's a marvelous picture. Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the people more than the preacher? Somehow the preacher must have a kind of fire shut up in his bones. And whenever injustice is around he tell it. Somehow the preacher must be an Amos, and saith, "When God speaks who can but prophesy?" Again with Amos, "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Somehow the preacher must say with Jesus, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me," and he's anointed me to deal with the problems of the poor."

And I want to commend the preachers, under the leadership of these noble men: James Lawson, one who has been in this struggle for many years; he's been to jail for struggling; he's been kicked out of Vanderbilt University for this struggle, but he's still going on, fighting for the rights of his people. Reverend Ralph Jackson, Billy Kiles; I could just go right on down the list, but time will not permit. But I want to thank all of them. And I want you to thank them, because so often, preachers aren't concerned about anything but themselves. And I'm always happy to see a relevant ministry. Read more…

Ted Stevens is telling newspaper editors in Alaska he's not a felon.

"I've not been convicted yet," Stevens said Thursday in a meeting with the editorial board of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. "There's not a black mark by my name yet, until the appeal is over and I am finally convicted, if that happens. If that happens, of course I'll do what's right for Alaska and for the Senate. ... I don't anticipate it happening, and until it happens I do not have a black mark."
Stevens reiterated that position during a televised debate late Thursday night, declaring early in the give-and-take with Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, "I have not been convicted of anything."  Read more…

According to Chapman, Barack Obama:

makes a habit of claiming that “wages are shrinking,” working families have lost ground and the country desperately needs his “Rescue Plan for the Middle Class.”

July 14November 4 can't come soon enough.

The news is still sketchy, but Oregon TV station KCBY is reporting that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has arrested two men in connection with a plot to break into an African-American school (not yet named) and kill students to kick off a national murder spree. The men said they did not expect to succeed in assassinating Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, but to be slain trying.

Jim Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of ATF's Nashville field office, said the two men planned to kill 88 people, including 14 African-Americans by beheading. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.

Props to the Crockett County TN SO for stopping the two men.

"Why should KitchenAid make blenders and health care coverage decisions? Why should lumber companies cut trees and create hospital networks?"

Ezra Klein asks and gives some reasons why , and the New Republic too: Why CEOs Don't Get It on Health Care

Investment News

The $700,000 billion financial services industry bailout plan has a critic in Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairwoman Sheila Bair, who said yesterday the initiative does not do enough to prevent Americans from losing their homes, The Wall Street Journal reported today.

At some point Versailles will work out that the well being of the big shots is connected to the well being of the little guys.

Apparently so. Read more…

Last year John Bertko dumped a net of 8,300 shares of Humana stock. Since November 2006 Bruce Goodman has dumped a net of 31,251 shares of Humana stock.

Merely stating the net sales of shares does not give the scale of greed we are dealing with. If you go through the trades of Humana’s Board of Directors you see parasites exercising options for little or nothing and selling at huge gains. Someone needs to ask Yarmuth and the rest of the Kentucky delegation, if Humana does not believe in it’s business model, why should the rest of us? Read more…

{{First post - wish me luck}}

Ah, where were "the authorities" back in January? I think we’d have a different democratic nominee if they’d been vigilant about this voter fraud thingy back then.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/09/a...

Here's my favorite part:

"And in Lake County, home to the long-depressed steel town of Gary, the bipartisan Elections Board has stopped processing a stack of about 5,000 applications delivered just before the October 6 registration deadline after the first 2,100 turned out to be phony.

"All the signatures looked exactly the same," Ruthann Hoagland, a Republican on the board. "Everything on the card filled out looks exactly the same." Read more…

SEC Loosens Accounting Rule Banks Blame for Crisis

The standard, also known as "mark to market," has led portfolios to plunge in recent months as banks affixed fire sale prices to their assets, a move that sometimes required them to raise still more capital to meet regulatory requirements. The measure also led to clashes between corporate executives and independent auditors over how low the markdowns should be forced to dip. Read more…

Courtesy of Rodney Crowell (who doesn't have an official video for this song, this is the only one I could find, but the song is awesome and captures a lot of our elite):

I can search for truth some other time

Right now I just want to get what's mine

Misogyny? Nah! Never!

*Caution* that link is about as disgusting as you will ever see (click at own discretion) and was advertised through "Advertising Liberally" on Chris Bower's Openleft post where he cries about how the "netroots" don't get no respect.

Now why would that be?

H/T Big Tent Dem who explains why they "git no respect" a little differently" than by the above example.