More specifically, he wants to know your likes and dislikes in the admittedly dysfunctional American Healthcare system:

I am thinking that this is another opportunity to drive home the message of support for Single Payer!

Have at it right over here:

Senator Dodd asks: Is your health care working? What changes would you like to see? Add your ideas at YouTube's Senate Hub at http://youtube.com/senatehub

Democratic Senators are writing a major health reform bill. Rising costs are hitting families and businesses and now 46 million Americans live without health coverage. We need reform. Respond now with your ideas as the Senate writes health care legislation. You can help.

What are you still doing here?

It appears kicking in their doors, faxing them out of paper and ringing their phones off of the hook is helping single payer as nyceve was invited to go to Washington. I am hoping that means the CNA, NNM and PNHP might all get their opportunities, as well:

I was asked to come to Washington and I need your help 

by nyceve

Thu Jun 04, 2009 at 12:24:38 PM EDT

If you haven't seen that diary yet?

And if you hadn't noticed that last diary by the National Nurses Movement on their meeting with Baucus: Sanders told them that Dodd might be interested in having a committee meeting looking at Single Payer in comparison to the other proposals. Baucus was iffy on it.

He agreed to use the power of his office to have charges dropped against the Baucus 13, nurses, doctors, and activists arrested for raising their voices in the committee hearings.

Please consider calling, faxing or emailing Dodd and asking him to do this. Here is the phone number: Tel: (202) 224-2823

As promised to dickday in comment... "As a reward for these few minutes of distraction from the daily rut I promise that my next post will be nearly pointless. :)"

I like to play with photoshop sometimes...

The little pieces of nothings that I have done pale in comparison to some of the greats out there. The amount of time that I have to put into doing just a crappy photoshop amazes me and has given me an even greater appreciation for what some these artists do. Some of the Bloggers that I read regularly (near daily, If I have the time) are darned good at snark, humor and playing with internet scissors.

Take DistributorCap's work for example:



 Or one of the greats, Tengrain:



Anyways... Tengrain calls his Blogging friends, his regular readers, scissorheads and, yes, I am proudly a scissorhead. It is an apt moniker since most of us really enjoy seeing the great work being done out there.

I have 4 kids but I am going to intorduce you to my youngest daughter (Connecticut Kid3 - she is 5) in a video I took a few months ago... I figured that since dickday has sound, well, now he can enjoy video:



I think she may turn out to be just like Daddy...

And I hope that this was meaningless enough of a post to satisfy my debt to dickday...

Via the National Nurses Movement at dKos:

Eight Heroic Healthcare Activists Arrested at Baucus Hearing

Is this a turning point in the single-payer debate?  Will the DC insiders be forced to listen to the public and healthcare activists--and not just big-money healthcare donors?

Both AP and Politico are reporting on the events at this morning's Senate Finance Committee, where brave healthcare activists, one after the other, stood up to protest the exclusion of single-payer reforms from the conversation.

CSPAN had the video up:

 

Video via Heather at Crooks and Liars' Video Cafe:

Just note what Sanders says near the end about the fact that it is Democratic party members that want to make it a 60 vote healthcare debate virtually guaranteeing to keep the most conservative Democratic party members in conjunction with the near extinct gopasaurs in the right wing in the drivers seat on the healthcare debate.

Via PNHP:

Important coverage of PNHP co-founder Dr. David Himmelstein's single-payer testimony on Capitol Hill on April 23, including in the Congressional Quarterly, Kaiser, and the San Diego Union Tribune, among other places.

Single payer action items below...

Let's Shut Down the Fax Machines Again

Clark Newhall

Our last weekend was a great success. We shut down fax machines in the offices of Sen. Baucus, Rep. Pelosi (Washington and DC offices) and the White House. We sent over 7000 faxes in those three days.

it's time to do this again, because single payer is still being ignored at this critical time. The Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Sen. Baucus, is holding 'roundtable hearings' in the next week to hear about health reform. Guess what. Not only is there no single payer advocate invited to testify -- there has not even been an invitation to a doctor!!! Donna Smith tells me that the only medical person testifying is a nurse from AARP; we know what she is shilling for -- more overpriced insurance policies AARP can sell to rip off seniors with. Unbelievable!!

At the request of Katie Robbins from HealthCareNow, we have created a new fax that you can send to any member of the Senate Finance Committee. A copy will also go to the usual suspects at the White House. Because the fax was written by Katie, the language is much less inflammatory than my typical rhetoric, but that's ok. I don't think anyone reads these anyway after the first 500 or so, they just count them.

So let's give them a pile of faxes to count. Send yours today. It's Free. It's Easy. That makes it Free and Easy. Just put your name, your email, where you are from and any comment you like, then hit the SEND YOUR FAX NOW button. If you like, you can send one to each of the Senators on the list. Have fun and let's see how many fax machines crash this weekend.

Take a moment to donate too. The time is NOW to make the most of our overwhelming show of support for single payer Medicare For All. We can do that by adding the Mike Farrell videos to nationwide TV but we need your donation.

The ads are scheduled to go on Larry King Live and on Hardball beginning this weekend, but every ad costs money. Help increase the number of ads we can show. So far we have enough to show the ads to 3 million people in the next week. We need your donation to raise that to ten million. Let's get those ads pushed out as far as we can. Help us now.

For more information on other healthcare news here is a diary at ePluribus Media chalk full of info.

Yep! Yep! Yep! (with plenty below the fold...)

"The Daily Beast's Scott Horton reports that a judge in Spain decided today that an investigation of Bush officials involved in torture policy will go forward and can lead to prosecution.

In a ruling in Madrid today, Judge Baltasar Garzón has announced that an inquiry into the Bush administration's torture policy makers now will proceed into a formal criminal investigation. The ruling came as a jolt following the recommendation of Spanish Attorney General Cándido Conde-Pumpido against proceeding with a criminal inquiry, reported in The Daily Beast on April 16.

Judge Garzón previously initiated and handled investigations involving Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, Argentine "Dirty War" strategist Adolfo Scilingo and Guatemalan strongman José Efraín Ríos-Montt, often over the objections of the Spanish attorney general. His case against Pinochet gained international attention when the Chilean general was apprehended in England on a Spanish arrest warrant. Scilingo was extradited to Spain and is now serving a sentence of 30 years for his role in the torture and murder of some thirty persons, several of whom were Spanish citizens.

Garzón's ruling today marks a decision to begin a formal criminal inquiry into the allegations of torture and inhumane treatment he has been collecting for several years now."

Read more »

... stovepipe the information you want to hear in a CIA report, David Kurtz:

Late Update: I'll leave it to others more expert than I am in the timeline of the evolution of our torture policy to figure out where those two CIA reports fit in, but I'm a little surprised at first glance by how late those reports are dated, coming well after the 2002 capture of Abu Zubaydah and the 2003 capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Later Update: Ask and ye shall receive. Spencer Ackerman explains why those dates are significant. The point here is that by 2004-05, the Administration's self-justification for its torture policy was well underway. These reports are not contemporaneous accounts of what intelligence the torture yielded. Rather, the CIA and Cheney were papering the file well after the fact.

Well? You have a good idea now...

Since both the White House and Congress no longer consider prosecuting torture as a crime, it is safe to assume that we can begin to legally use these methods as legitimate tools to lobby our Congress and White House for the real changes we expect from our government. These methods that I document will be equally applicable to those who lobby against the interests of average American citizen on these issues.

Congressionally Approved Method of Lobbying #2, the method for lobbying Congressional members and White House administration officials that push for hate based and bigoted legislation against the LGBT community and Marriage Equality will be placed below the fold because even the edited image is probably NSFW:

Read more »

Since both the White House and Congress no longer consider prosecuting torture as a crime, it is safe to assume that we can begin to legally use these methods as legitimate tools to lobby our Congress and White House for the real changes we expect from our government. These methods that I document will be equally applicable to those who lobby against the interests of average American citizen on these issues.

Congressionally Approved Method of Lobbying #1

Method for lobbying Congressional members and White House administration officials that push for funding of energy non-solutions such as the proven mythical "clean coal":

The symbolism of turning their mythical clean energy into a tool for lobbying for real clean energy solutions ought to  shock them into doing the right thing.

Standard Connecticut policed state disclaimer: Please read and clearly understand the meaning of "SNARK" before you waste my time and the taxpayers money following me around on the internet and in the real world. Just remember how stupid illegally harassing Ken Krayeske made all of you look.

"Oh, well, *that's* a good idea. How about we *all* follow *you* and jump off a cliff like lemmings?" he said snarkily.

Step 2: Documenting Bushvilles

Welcome to America in decline:

"They are tagging us because we are homeless," she said, staring at her orange wristband. "It feels like a concentration camp."

We need to set out to document these atrocities in as much detail as we can. Are there any places like this near you:

Bushville, Ontario, California:

"Is a campground the solution to the problem of homelessness? The California City of Ontario thinks so."

     More:

"Tent cities have sprung up outside Los Angeles as people lose their homes in the mortgage crisis."

More:

"Large, often confused, crowds formed ragged lines behind police barricades where officers handed out color-coded wristbands. Blue meant they were from Ontario and could remain. Orange indicated they had to provide more proof to avoid ejection, and white meant they had a week to leave.

Pattie Barnes, 47, who had her motor home towed away last week, shook with anger.

"They are tagging us because we are homeless," she said, staring at her orange wristband. "It feels like a concentration camp.""

Welcome to free market America:
"It feels like a concentration camp."

Bushville, Sacremento, California:

"Some 300 people call a tent city in Sacramento home, including Tracy Vaughan, who moved to the city with her husband six months ago.

Via the AP, No Job - No Home:


As many as 1200 homeless?
"Some nearby homeowners have reportedly complained about the tent cities, but Sacramento's new mayor, former NBA star Kevin Johnson, has suggested that the tent cities might provide a temporary solution to the lack of shelter. As many as 1,200 people may be living in these tent cities, according to the local ABC 7 News."

Bushville, Reno, Nevada:

"A few tents cropped up hard by the railroad tracks, pitched by men left with nowhere to go once the emergency winter shelter closed for the summer.

Then others appeared -- people who had lost their jobs to the ailing economy, or newcomers who had moved to Reno for work and discovered no one was hiring.

Within weeks, more than 150 people were living in tents big and small, barely a foot apart in a patch of dirt slated to be a parking lot for a campus of shelters Reno is building for its homeless population. Like many other cities, Reno has found itself with a "tent city" -- an encampment of people who had nowhere else to go.

From Seattle to Athens, Ga., homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the most visible rise in homeless encampments in a generation."

Bushville, Santa Barbara, California:

"The relatively tony city of Santa Barbara has given over a parking lot to people who sleep in cars and vans."

Bushville, Fresno, California:

"authorities in Fresno are trying to manage several proliferating tent cities, including an encampment where people have made shelters out of scrap wood."

America the Beautiful:
3rd world shantytowns.

Bushville, Athens, Georgia:

"Wayne Hill packed up his meager belongings last week and moved his home deeper into the woods.

Hill's red tent and neighboring homes had inched too close to the nearby highway, and police told him to move.

"We've asked them to move back off the road a little bit," Athens-Clarke police Maj. Carter Greene said. "It seemed they were encroaching on Lexington Road."

snip

But Tent City limits slowly crept downhill, so now people look up from Lexington Road and a perimeter off-ramp to see campsites and junk piles."

Can you just imagine the horror of having to actually see the homeless?

Bushville, Seattle, Washington:
(Note: there are several - 5 or 6 - of them in Seattle)

"Activists point to the annual One Night Count as evidence that not enough shelter beds exist. During the count of the homeless in Seattle and other parts of King County on Jan. 25, volunteers counted 2,631 people sleeping in cars and trucks, doorways and parks and under highways, or walking around or riding buses to stay warm in freezing temperatures. When comparing similar areas counted a year ago, the number of homeless increased 15 percent.

An additional 2,515 people spent the night in emergency shelters, with 3,293 more in transitional housing, for a total of 8,439 homeless people."

Bushville, Nashville, Tennessee:

"To its credit, Nashville recognizes that there is a problem with the "system" and, as the community slowly works towards correcting these problems, understands that there is at least a temporary need for the existence of homeless encampments.

To its discredit, Nashville is currently engaged in dismantling Tent City, the largest (the population fluctuates wildly at times, but is consistently around 50) and oldest (in existence since the mid 1980s) homeless camp in the area, which is slated to close June 1, 2009; sooner if outreach workers are able to find housing for the remaining residents."

Bushville, Chatanooga, Tennessee:

"The demolition of Tent City left many of Chattanooga's homeless without a place to live.

But not so for one lucky man.

For the first time in six years Richard Waldrep has a home to call his own.

Waldrep has spent the last several years on the streets, for the last few months he called "Tent City" home.

But, now that home has been destroyed.

Due to safety concerns and liability issues Norfolk Southern Railroad bulldozed the property leaving Waldrep and almost 30 others to find another place to live. "

Bushville, St. Petersburg, Florida:

"Police officers with box cutters showed up where St. Pete's tent city residents had moved and set up. The cops slashed their tents to the ground as residents watched in shock. Now one homeless group is moving to label St. Petersburg as the 'meanest city in the nation.' Video by Tina May."

The police destroying the few meager belongings left to these homeless people. Is that what the mandate of police officers is supposed to include today? What happened to serve and protect?

Do you know of any of these tent cities or Bushvilles near you that the media has yet to disclose of? If you do... Links, photos, and videos need to be added to our own archives in order to document the widespread disaster that is a very result of this failed Bush economy and the free-market run amok.

Arthur Delaney at the HuffPo is attempting to document these stories. We should all be doing our part to identify these places:

There are reports of tent cities popping up across the country as unemployment rises in a worsening economy. The biggest and highest-profile shantytown is in Sacramento, where hundreds of newly-homeless tent residents are cooking soup in old coffee cans.

We want to know where else this is happening.

HuffPost readers: Is there a tent city near you? Have you noticed a newly-formed community of people living together in improvised housing in a public space? Email us! Send any information you've got (or pictures) to submissions+homeless@huffingtonpost.com.

Sacramento's KCRA reported this week that city officials plan to shut the tent city down:

While this is a good idea - documenting where they exist is really only Step 2 because it is an idea without a real humane purpose.

Rather than just documenting these stories, perhaps we should try to solve the problems? In some of these Bushvilles there are already people working to help fix the problems as both short term and long term solutions are needed.

In Portland, Oregon, many in the community are providing the elbow grease to make their tent city, Dignity Village, more livable for the short term and more effective at helping the people get back to work:

Many more community's across the country, have looked to us for answers to help the homeless population that is growing bigger each year. When People come out to visit us , they are amazed at what we have set up and how we help the 50 to 60 homeless people that live here at any given time, a stepping stone effect that gives each person living here a chance to help themselves regain a new start to gain main stream living again.

All of this comes from donations from viewers and visitors that help to support our goals.

Dignity Village has been working this way since 2001 and long before Bushvilles started popping up. I imagine that they are probably experiencing a huge surge in people needing their help as the economy has collapsed over the last few months.

The right did not solve the problem of Hoovervilles, but the left did with the bold and visionary leadership of FDR. Many on the right would like nothing more than to ignore Bushvilles because it exposes the reality of their political ideology taken to extremes.

We can and will solve the problem of Bushvilles.

I am no community organizer, but I imagine that we need to take these steps first:

1. Identify the major problem - done

2. Identify where it exists - ?

3. Identify problems that are more local to each area - ?

4. Get to work solving the short term problems on a local area needs basis - ?

5. Get to work solving the long term problems on a local area needs basis - ?

Are any of you up to a real challenge?

Are any of you interested in beginning Step 2 and starting to document as many of these tent cities and Bushvilles as we can? Searching for links, getting out in the streets and photographing and videoing these places AND, more importantly, documenting the problems they face so we can try to find real solutions would be no small undertaking.

Previously posted at ePluribus Media, dKos and my own Blog... Some other info added from comments:


In Dallas the city keeps plowing the tent cities under with bulldozers. They have an estimated 10000 homeless and only 2000 beds available in the shelters.

In North Hollywood:

PSSSST! Do something...

Is that all?



We can do that and still have time for a beer break and a very long nap...

Just for you:

"If we act like a dysfunctional family and we don't finish these things and we're forever debating them, I think this will go on for several years," Dimon, 52, said at a conference hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. "It's completely up to us at this point." (snip) "When I hear the constant vilification of corporate America, I personally don't understand it," Dimon said in his speech. "I would ask a lot of our folks in government to stop doing it because I think it's hurting our country."

For the average American that needs this message from Corporate America to you translated here he is, with his fellow CEOs, spelling it out in plain language for you. And don't forget to leave the privatized profits on the nightstand for him when you leave the room because he just screwed you with the socialized losses.

:::

You need a fifth of booze to forget these lovely people in Corporate America?

Allen Stanford, the billionaire Texan accused of an $8 billion fraud by U.S. regulators, has refused to cooperate in the government's probe, a court filing showed on Wednesday.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Stanford, two of his top aides and three of his companies with operating a long-running fraud involving high-yield certificates of deposit. He is also accused of misappropriating $1.6 billion in investor funds.

"I hereby assert my privilege against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and and decline to testify or provide an accounting, and will continue to decline to testify, provide an accounting or produce any documents related to the matters set forth in the Commission's complaint,"

Sorry... That was a Bozo taking the fifth.

:::

Do you feel like they are all manipulating you? Talk to Cramer about that:

He also calls Wall Street Journal reporters "bozos" and says behaving illegally is okay because the SEC doesn't understand it anyway.

Here are some gems:

-On manipulating the market: "A lot of times when I was short at my hedge fund, and I was positioned short, meaning I needed it down, I would create a level of activity before hand that could drive the futures,"

-On falsely creating the impression a stock is down (what he calls "fomenting"): "You can't foment. That's a violation... But you do it anyway because the SEC doesn't understand it." He adds, "When you have six days and your company may be in doubt because you are down, I think it is really important to foment."

-On the truth: "What's important when you are in that hedge fund mode is to not be doing anything that is remotely truthful, because the truth is so against your view - it is important to create a new truth to develop a fiction," Cramer advises. "You can't take any chances."

.

 We are so proud of Corporate America and Wall Street and their patriotic words and actions.

Hijacked in entirety from DrSteveB at dkos.

Since we all want to get health some (any?) kind of health reform" we are being told by Washington insiders to set aside our advocacy for single payer and join in with the kumbaya negotiations with enemy (AHIP) to get 'er done. Sure, as a matter of policy and economics, single payer is the best way to reduce and control costs, and also get to universal comprehensive coverage. However, as a matter of realistic power politics, I am told by the powers that be that we can't do it this year, so we should settle for what is doable.

Okay. I'll bite. Let's get the best plan we can get with 50% plus one in each house of Congress. And as usual, that means 51 Senators, since we have a larger and more probably liberal majority there.

But can we please please stop pretending that we can or should "negotiate" with AHIP? This idea that the private insurance companies are compromising is nonsense!

Ron Brownstein provides some happy talk in the Atlantic regarding talks between SEIU Andy Stern and Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry trade association. Supposedly, there is a convergence around the goal of "universal" coverage with progressive calling for "guaranteed issue" while the insurance companies get "individual mandates." They are of course opposite sides of the same coin. The insurance companies would have to sell you an insurance plan product; the police power of the state would require you to buy it.

Brownstein does point out that the "only" thing left to negotiate is "affordability." Gee. Is that all?

Community rating is the term for setting the cost of a plan (your premium) based on everybody in the same insurance pool, and not basing it on your individual risk. It ends the practice of most insurers in most states charging different customers different prices (not just premium, but also deductible, copes, exclusions, etc) based on age, health status, location. This is important since even if they have to sell it to you, and even if you have to buy it, if you have a serious pre-existing condition (i.e. are actually sick and need care), they may charge you a million dollars to buy the plan. Or exclude your prior condition. Or set a million dollar deductible. Or 50% copay. Or whatever makes it so they can still make a profit, even if they have to sell you plan and you have to buy it.

Therefore, community rating helps a bit with this, though once again the devil is in the details. What is the community, that is the pool, on which your plan rate is set? Is it just the small company who is your current employer; in which case, one person getting sick increases the rate a lot for everybody? It is always better (for we the people) to have the community pool be as large and unselected as possible. Of course, the best would be a single big insurance pool covering all Americans. Hmmmm... I wonder if there is a name for something like that...?

Of course, if there were also a broadly available public option, open say to everybody, then the insurance companies would have to compete for your business.

So there has been lots of talk about AHIP compromising and being weak 'cuz everybody hates them. Yes, insurers ought to be operating from a position of weakness, and their business model is increasingly inadequate, and everyone should be able to imagine a health system without their participation. Alas, we have on our side Senator Max "lobbyists just want what's best for America" Baucus negotiating for our side, who knows what we are going to get.

Actually it was pretty funny reading Brownstein's Atlantic piece about Andy Stern/SEIU trying to find common ground with Karen Ignagni/AHIP, having just read the NY Times a day before reporting just the latest collapse of the phony grand coalitions, with AFSCME and SEIU pulling out when AHIP & Pharma were signaling no compromise was possible on Public Option, and silence on Community Rating.

On the other Michael Hitzlitz gets it better than most in today's LA Times:

The genius of modern marketing is pouring old material into new packaging. Over the years this has given us yogurt in tubes, prechopped salad greens in cellophane bags and, most recently, the health insurance industry's new image as a friend of reform.

In December, the industry's trade group, AHIP (for America's Health Insurance Plans) revealed that it had experienced an epiphany and decided for the first time to support the principle of universal healthcare -- insuring everyone in America, regardless of health condition.

It described its change of heart as the product of three years of sedulous soul-searching by AHIP's board of directors, who claimed to have "traveled the country and engaged in conversations about healthcare reform with people from all walks of life."

As a connoisseur of health insurance lobbying practices, however, I withheld judgment until I could scan the fine print. What I found by reading AHIP's 16-page policy brochure was that its position hadn't changed at all. Its version of "reform" comprises the same wish list that the industry has been pushing for decades.

Briefly, the industry wants the government to assume the cost of treating the sickest, and therefore most expensive, Americans. It wants the government to clamp down hard on doctors' and hospitals' fees. And it wants permission to offer stripped-down, low-benefit policies freed from pesky state regulations limiting their premiums.

As for universal coverage, which is the goal of many reformers (if not yet the Obama administration), the industry will accept a government mandate to take on all customers, as long as all Americans are required by law to buy coverage.

[snip]

The insurers think government intervention is fine if it applies to customers they don't want. The way they put it in their reform plan is that we need a system that "spreads costs for high-risk individuals across a broader base" -- the base consisting of all taxpayers, that is.

Who are these "high-risk" individuals, by the way? At an AHIP convention last year, I heard a prominent industry consultant describe the customers the industry is desperate to dump on taxpayers as those with multiple chronic diseases, like diabetes sufferers with asthma or cancer patients with heart problems. He called these people "clinical train wrecks." (Nice way for someone connected with the "caring professions" to talk, isn't it?)

So how about this:

Insist that the CBO do an honest, complete, side-by-side comparison that includes true single payer such as John Conyers HR-676 United States National Health Insurance Act, and the alternative of a strong public option such as Pete Starks' HR-193 AmeriCare (keep what you have if want to; strong public option of expanded and improved Medicare otherwise), and whatever it is that HCAN, Obama and Baucus, etc are proposing as of now. Heck, for that matter, they should also look at whatever it is important Republicans such as Enzi or Grassley or AHIP are proposing.

And, then lets have a straight up and down vote... on the best plan that can get 51 senator (heck let's make it 50 + vice president Joe Biden; gotta give him something to do).

Let the Republicans (and if need be blue dog DINOs) block the best real reform we can get now. One option is to bypass the filibuster via budget or reconciliation. The other is to make them REALLY filibuster by having the Senate Majority Leader (I hear he is one of us) disallow or revoke Senate Rule 22 (which it is his power to do) and actually force them to vote.