Wisconsin Clean Elections Coalition

Health Care

Think that’s a radical concept? If so, then the majority of Americans are radicals. According to a national Harris poll in 2003, a strong majority of American “would prefer health care services to be provided by non-profits or government.”

The public’s sentiment is understandable, given the facts. Take, for instance, a recent Reuters story on a major university study. “For-profit nursing homes and hospitals on average provide an inferior quality of care compared with their nonprofit peers,” the news service reported, adding that “Nonprofit hospitals are also better at keeping costs down.”

See the complete article here.

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For an interesting discussion on single-payer health insurance see TPM Cafe

CEOs (bless their hearts)

As the scandal continues to unfold, the basic plot line is starting to look achingly familiar. Something to do with companies stacking the deck so that top executives somehow keep drawing all the aces. Something to do with CEOs whose personal greed knows no bounds. Something to do with auditors and lawyers who surely should have known better. Something to do with boards of directors whose inattention (willful or otherwise) knows no sense. Something to do with shareholders who knew nothing and were, once again, easily victimized. And unless something dramatic changes, it’s something that is going to keep happening.

The depressing part of this particular executive compensation card-trick is that actually turns out to be ingeniously simple.

See the complete Drutman article on TomPaign.com

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From www.TooMuchOnline.org

The American Economic Model: A Runway Turkey? Slowly, ever so slowly, Americans are beginning to recognize that people elsewhere in the world may actually have better ideas about how to run a modern economy than we do.

A new report, just released by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, figures to speed this recognition along, via a fascinating comparison of life and labor in the United States and Europe.

Boosters of the “American model” — low taxes on the rich, lax regulations on business, meager protections for workers, and a flimsy social safety net for the poor — like to claim that the “European model” of higher taxes, tougher regulations, job security, and a cradle-to-grave safety net simply can't generate enough dynamism to deliver job growth and upward mobility.

For the complete newsletter click here, and I highly recommend signing up for their newsletter here, and the book Greed and Good is excellent too.

Click on the image to see the report called "Is the U.S. a Good Model for Reducing Social Exclusion in Europe?" If you can believe it there is one country worse than the U.S. in income inequality, and that's Mexico. In mathematics we are fifth from the bottom (Mexico again leads).

Are we in good company or what?

But we beat everybody else as having the highest expenditures in health care!!! So there!

Nobody can touch us at 15% of GDP, Canada is at 9.9% and Japan at 7.9% (where its life expectancy is 81.8 years compared to our 77.2 and Canada's 77.9 years. And our prison population is nearly four times the country in second place, Poland.

I guess being the highest is not always best. This is not a happy document.

Look west for better campaigns

Look west for better campaigns

by Scott Milfred, Wisconsin State Journal

Virtually every candidate for state office in Minnesota voluntarily agrees to limit his or her campaign spending.

Virtually every candidate for state office in Wisconsin spends as much as he or she possibly can.

Minnesota candidates spend more time on the ground, appearing at community events, debates and in the newspapers.

Wisconsin candidates spend more time on the air, running slick TV and radio ads with overly simplistic, often misleading messages that dodge the real issues.

And running all of those ads requires a ton of money. So Wisconsin candidates have to spend countless hours begging for dollars -- making them less independent and more susceptible to corruption.

See the complete Wisconsin State Journal article here.

Tidbits

TOP MOST PRIORITY: Don't forget to attend the FightingBobFest on September 9th. We are very excited to announce that John Stauber, Amy Goodman, Jim Hightower, Greg Palast, U.S. Senator Tom Harkin and Doris “Granny D” Haddock will join us as special guests for our fifth annual Fighting Bob Fest in Baraboo, Wisconsin on Saturday, September 9, 2006.Click on the link above to register.

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I've met with Nelson Eisman, who is running on a third-party ticket for governor, and I'm convinced that he needs to be in the debates. But first he must be able to show massive support, and that's where we come in.

Neither Doyle nor Green will seriously discuss ethics and campaign reform, because they are part of the problem. But Eisman will force it to the table. If he wins, these reforms will be a top priority. If he doesn't he will at least force the political duo to show their colors.

See Eisman's positions at http://VoteEisman.org/values. While on his site you can go to Nelson in the News and listen to his radio interviews, and don't miss his latest with Ben Merens.

Eisman represents the Green Party -- and I support about 80% of that party's goals, which is far more than either the Republicans or Democrats have delivered to the Wisconsin people.

But the important thing Eisman would add to state government is political balance! Whichever party controls the assembly and/or senate, final bills will be signed only if they make sense for the taxpayers of Wisconsin. He is not being financed by special interests going into what would be his first term, and likely won't be when they see his independence.

I don't know whether I will finally vote for him or one of the other candidates, but it is vitally important that we move Eisman into the debates. Spread his name and support him where you can.

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CRG: I don't always agree with them, but the conservative CRG Network is an excellent group to follow. They are as dead-set against government corruption as we are, and spring their activists into motion when recalls of politicians are in order. They are indeed holding politicians accountable for their actions.

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Connecticut. Now Joe Lieberman is going to run as an Independent, draw enough votes away from Democrat Lamont to give the Republicans a victory. Lieberman will then be appointed by Bush to a cabinet position, and Lamont will go back to being a multimillionaire. In the meantime watch the flow of money from the right-wing to Lieberman to ensure that scenario.

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Minimum markup law: Current law requires a minimum 9% markup on gas, which would prevent major gasoline companies from driving out of business the minors, and then being free to gouge the public. Will the "free market" save us? Not as long as Congress continues to allow merger after merger, thus eliminating the competition.

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Terrorism: Sorry folks, call it what you want, but we damned well better reinstitute profiling at the airports. Experts say it is easier to search for suspicious people than for suspicious materials, and I believe them.

I sort of like the idea of having two planes competing on the basis of whether they were "politically correct" versus "overly protective." I know the arguments, but I'll be on the latter flight and at my destination before the former finds a willing flight crew. I also favor letting the feds wire-tap my phone, though I'd like to see an independent oversight board sampling their work. But we had better get real; the right kind of terrorist attack will disable our country.

I'd also like to see all carry-on cell phones checked at security and kept in the baggage compartment until arrival. Pick them up as you depart the plane. Key fobs and garage door openers will also face scrutiny.

ACLU: And now, our infamous ACLU is suing Boston Logan airport for singling out passengers that "look suspicious." Good for you Boston, let the ACLU prove that "suspicious looking" is now a protected category.

You may have seen this before, but supporters of the ACLU might want to read it again.

But then, where the ACLU has failed our sensationalist news media is doing an excellent job of redirecting the terrorists to other US vulnerabilities, virtually giving the the addresses of our weak spots. Are they on our side?

Tax Cuts: I keep hearing that we are lacking the financial resources to develop new bomb detection technologies and hire enough security personnel, and I wonder how much smarter it would have been for Bush to forego the tax cuts to the wealthy, who didn't need the cuts in the first place, and instead spend that money on R&D for detecting bombs and providing underbelly laser systems to block incoming missiles from shoulder fired weapons. This was not a good time to drain government revenues, but that's what Bush's contributors demanded.

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Back From The Dead: Privatization: It is hard to believe, but the idea of privatizing Social Security, which most observers thought had been killed and buried, could return, Dracula-like, from the dead after the 2006 elections.

Currently, money that is collected by FICA withholdings is used by the government, mostly appropriately, to fund current SSI recipients and excesses to fund other government programs. Redirect FICA to the private industry and the government will have to replace those funds with borrowed money. So the financial industry wins twice, first by taking a percentage of FICA to help (??) investors, and then by loaning the government replacement money at higher interest rates. Who gets screwed? Both the seniors and their children. Social Security has been the most successful government program ever, and the only thing that needs changing is the elimination of the $90,000 cap (which means the wealthy will contribute more), and they should means test the payments. SSI should be an insurance for those who didn't do as well in life, not a given as it is now.

This whole issue points to one clear factor: If money were not changing at the political level, Congress could find a way of fixing the system damned fast. Eliminate campaign contributions from the private sector (or at least provide a voluntary opt-out system like those in Arizona and Maine) and we'll see these conflicts dry up in a hurry.

Jack Lohman

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Thanks to tooMuchOnline.org:

Stat of the Week: Which Americans Matter to Congress? In 2009, under current law, the estates left behind by only three of every 1,000 people who die will owe any estate tax. The other 997 estates, notes the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, will face no estate tax liability whatsoever. This link points to "Since last minimum wage increase, Congress has reduced the estate tax nine times." (They've also increased their own wages seven times.) The dollar value of estates exempt from estate tax has been raised six times since 1996. Over that same period, the federal minimum wage has not been raised at all.

Give me a Break!

 
How good are you at detecting a Phishing Fraud? Take this easy test. Click on the link (i.e. Chase), and when finished go to the bottom of this section for several tricks that I use.

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Here's an interesting test of senses by the BBC.

If you like cats and have Windows Media Player (other other .wmv player), don't miss CatEntics.wmv

And then, for those Table Tennis buffs....

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This is a neat duplicate files identifier. You have to tell it which drive to scan, and then it lets you select which duplicates you want to delete. The basic program is free and the advanced version can be purchased for $19.95.

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Passengers on a small commuter plane are waiting for the flight to leave. They're getting a little impatient, but the airport staff has assured them that the pilots will be there soon, and the flight can take off immediately after that.

The entrance opens, and two men walk up the aisle, dressed in pilots' uniforms-both are wearing dark glasses, one is using a seeing-eye dog, and the other is tapping his way up the aisle with a cane.

Nervous laughter spreads through the cabin; but the men enter the cockpit, the door closes, and the engines start up. The passengers begin glancing nervously around, searching for some sign that this is just a little practical joke.

None is forthcoming. The plane moves faster and faster down the runway, and people at the windows realize that they're headed straight for the water at the edge of the airport territory.

As it begins to look as though the plane will never take off, that it will plow into the water, panicked screams fill the cabin-but at that moment, the plane lifts smoothly into the air.

The passengers relax and laugh a little sheepishly, and soon they have all retreated into their magazines, secure in the knowledge that the plane is in good hands.

Up in the cockpit, the copilot turns to the pilot and says, "You know, Bob, one of these days, they're going to scream too late, and we're all gonna die."

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On Phishing emails, here are a couple of hints:

• You don't have an account at the site that supposedly originated the email is obvious. STAY AWAY.

• Hover your mouse over the link they want you to go to. If it says www.ebay.com, but the hover discloses a different address, STAY AWAY.

• If the hover discloses a numeric site (i.e. http://213.354.392.010/ebay.com), STAY AWAY.  

• If the hover discloses another site first (i.e. http://www.xwy.com/ebay.com), STAY AWAY.

If an email asks for an update, go to the site through your web browser and appropriately log on with your password. Do not click on email links unless you just requested something from the site and their email is in response to your request.

Book Recommendations

See other reviews on Amazon.com

Who Will Tell The People? : The Betrayal Of American Democracy (Paperback)
by William Greider ISBN: 0671867407)

From Kirkus Reviews: An angry inquiry into the putative decline of democracy in the US. Unlike many observers, Greider (Secrets of the Temple, 1987, etc.) goes beyond the manifest deficiencies of electoral campaigns to focus on the politics of governance--and he concludes that so-called monied interests are ascendant in Washington's power centers. By the author's anecdotal account, the institutionalized intervention of these corporate advocates into administrative as well as legislative affairs costs ordinary citizens dearly--from purposefully lax enforcement of federal law and indulgent treatment of casino capitalism through an inequitable tax system. In Greider's canon, the sorry state of the union does not lack for guilty parties. He blames the ebb of democracy in America on both major political parties (which cater to affluent elites), the press (which no longer mediates between the public and its representatives), big business (as exemplified by the awesome influence wielded by General Electric Co.), and even the populace (whose activism has been limited of late to grass-roots concerns). Greider goes on to argue that the cold war's end offers the US a historic opportunity to renew its democratic principles and to apply them on a global basis. For starters, he proposes that a citizenry committed to challenging the status quo could make multinational enterprises more accountable to society at large, if need be by denying them access to the vast domestic marketplace until they measure up to populist standards of responsibility. Whether the heterogeneous American people have an agenda as explicitly progressive as Greider assumes (and embraces) will strike many as a very open question. Still, a provocative and sobering assessment of how self-government's reach can exceed its grasp. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

I read this book a year ago, and was very impressed with it. You can purchase used copies on Amazon for almost the price of shipping.