From the 1961 Operation Coffee Cup Campaign against Socialized Medicine as proposed by the Democrats, then a private citizen Ronald Reagan Speaks out against socialized medicine. There is no video …2009 is not the first time a presidential incumbent spoke about a health care plan at the national level. I think this is interesting to listen to, a way to add to the health care debate forum.

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As you know, I have posted recently about the inequities in the political parties and the laws governing our state of Michigan, but I have also found that the racial disparities and inequities carry over to the national level in ethics investigations:

The House ethics committee is currently investigating seven African-American lawmakers — more than 15 percent of the total in the House. And an eighth black member, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), would be under investigation if the Justice Department hadn’t asked the committee to stand down.

Not a single white lawmaker is currently the subject of a full-scale ethics committee probe…

A document leaked to The Washington Post last week showed that nearly three dozen lawmakers have come under scrutiny this year by either the House ethics committee or the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent watchdog created in 2008 at the insistence of Pelosi. While the list contained a substantial number of white lawmakers, the ethics committee has not yet launched formal investigative subcommittees with respect to any of them — as it has with the seven African-American members…

Another CBC member said black lawmakers are “easy targets” for ethics watchdog groups because they have less money — both personally and in their campaign accounts — to defend themselves than do their white colleagues. Campaign funds can be used to pay members’ legal bills.

“A lot of that has to do with outside watchdog groups like [Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington] that have to have a level of success to justify OCE,” the CBC member said. The good-government groups were strong backers of the OCE’s creation.

But these same groups won’t go after Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), this lawmaker claimed, “because she has plenty of money to defend herself,” and the outside groups don’t want to take a risk. The Democrat said the ethics committee would be going up against Harman’s lawyers and “going up against” the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee if they push the OCE to pressure the ethics committee to act.

Harman was allegedly recorded on a 2005 federal wiretap discussing with an Israeli operative her bid to become Intelligence Committee chairwoman. Harman has denied any wrongdoing, but an attempt by the ethics committee to get a transcript of the taped call was rebuffed by the Justice Department.

What especially galled black lawmakers was that the ethics committee voted to move forward with the Waters and Richardson probes following the OCE referrals, while Graves — who OCE also thought should be investigated by the ethics committee — saw his case dismissed.

Even worse, the ethics committee issued a 541-page document explaining why it wouldn’t look into allegations that Graves invited a witness to testify before the Small Business Committee — on which he sits — without revealing his financial ties to that witness.

“It is kind of crazy,” said an aide to one senior black Democrat. “How can it be that the ethics committee only investigates African-Americans? It doesn’t make sense.”

Really, none of it makes sense, but then again, when it comes to racism, nothing is sensible.  There is no justification for racism.  The Ethics Committee gets the Asshole Business Award of the week, first for only investigating by skin color and second for trying to cover that shit up.

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Well, I started off this morning with an interesting commentary on one of my earlier posts about Michigan laws being unconstitutional:

In my post, I had pointed out that doctors are held to different standards than other professionals and are granted special perks in the courts of law that aren’t guaranteed to any other members of the general public.

Since today is an election day in our area, and galvanized by the comment about Michigan’s laws, I thought I would take a look at the Michigan Supreme Court’s rulings and see if there is any correlation between rulings and campaign contributions.

Guess what I found?  Since 1996, Michigan Supreme Court justices have written opinions in favor of the health care professionals in the year of or directly following hundreds of thousands of dollars of campaign funding from health care based groups.  (Good sites to check if you are looking in Michigan are the Michigan Campaign Finance Network and the Michigan Secretary of State; both will help you research campaign finance in Michigan.  A good  national source is www.Followthemoney.org )

Justices Young, Markman, Corrigan, and other republican justices, wrote their own opinions favoring doctors, against injured patients, right after receiving hundreds of thousands of campaign finance dollars from doctors’ groups.  Technically, it appears that the justices who received such large campaign donations should have recused themselves to prevent bias, but instead of declaring their campaign contributions from the medical groups and recusing themselves, these justices wrote judgments against injured patients right after receiving pay-outs from doctors.  Something fishy is going on here.

I started doing research back to 1996.  It appears that this is the point at which some legislation had been introduced to bring the medical field into more accountability.  HIPAA was passed in 1996, and this is also the year that the Republican party began dumping hundreds of thousands into Michigan Supreme Court campaigns.  Ever since 1996, the medical groups have spent more money on Michigan Supreme Court candidates than any other politician.

I have long held that these types of laws and rulings are instituted by the Old White Man’s Club (check out the  Sotomayor’s article about her version of the Old White Man’s Club), but in Michigan, with the unemployment for minorities set to hit 25%, and a pay-to-access-the-courts system set up by Supreme Court Justices who refused to recuse themselves after receiving big campaign contributions, it looks like it’s a rigged race.  Judging by the comment I received, I am not the only one who has figured this out.  Dont’ you just love a little ire to start off your week on a good note?

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Julie Gerberding, the head of the CDC, went on CNN’s House Call with Dr. Sanjay Gupta to discuss the Hannah Poling case and admitted that vaccines trigger autism in a subset of the population with …

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You know, I had published articles about this type of cautionary tale, but I think that watching the videos results in a different response. It’s frightening how similar the government’s response and the symptoms with the videos about the cheerleader just in 2009 and the 1976 Swine Flu vaccine response. Locally hundreds of people have contracted the swine flu. I may have had the swine flu, but our local doctor’s office and others have stopped testing the local population. The local university has stopped testing the student population, per CDC regulations telling them that only pregnant women and those that were “dead” could be tested. I read over the epidemiological regulations myself, and testing for the general public is over.

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Well, I have been receiving information on flu shots since I posted information on the raging debate regarding flu shot injuries. Watch the video about this woman with dystonia, which physicians say was the side-effect of having the flu shot vaccine. It’s compelling, but it also makes me more adamant about questioning vaccines for the very reason that I know that nothing is 100% safe. The very thing that makes me nervous about vaccines is the fact that vaccine advocates claim they are “completely safe.” Well, apparently they are not.

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You know my weakness for break-up songs, and while I have no pity for the cheater, I love the anguished performance. I love the beating on the door, the promises that now that he has been caught cheating that he knows where his love really lies (current girlfriend, not cheating partner apparently), and I kind of like the whole dancing in the stairwell with some sinuous snap and twist moves reminiscent of the famous MJ. MMMM, makes Monday smile. Maybe I just like the begging, but begging though it may be, it’s very well done. And even though she might open the door, we know she won’t take him back. What girl doesn’t want her cheating ex to beg though??? Love it!

Another Music Monday: whenever I watch or listen to 3Oh!3, I have been watching closely to see when they move from slapstick Farley Brothers to some discernible talent, and I think this video starts it off. I love Katy Perry anyway, and I think she only adds to this one. Vocals sound decent here, even if I’d like to hear a bit more work behind the male vocals. The sounds of talent are emerging. Nice work guys.

There is some more disturbing data about PCB’ effect on the environment as emerging rates of cancer-afflicted animals in PCB-infused water:

For example, the sea lions that are a major tourist attraction at San Francisco’s Pier 49 are being diagnosed with deadly tumors around their rear flippers and anuses. Frances Gulland, director of veterinary science at the Marine Mammal Center in nearby Sausalito, told Newsweek her center periodically gets calls from the pier reporting sea lions crippled by horrible swellings. Gulland said 17 percent of the sea lions brought to the center from the pier die of renal failure or paralysis caused by tumors that travel up the genital tract and push against the kidney and spine.

According to the journal article, sea lions that died of genital carcinoma had an 85 percent higher concentration of toxic PCBs in their system than other sea lions. PCBs, polychlorinated biphenyls, are chemicals used in coolants and electrical transformers.

Gulland said that blubber samples of sea lions who died of cancer also show high concentrations of the pesticide DDT. Many sea lions are born near the Channel Islands, where 1,700 tons of DDT were dumped before it was banned in 1972.

The Organic Consumer’s Association has been reporting

In Canada’s St. Lawrence Estuary, cancer was found to be the second leading cause of death among dead beluga whales that were found beached or drifting out to sea. The Saguenay River, which flows into the estuary, is lined with aluminum smelters. The smelters are heavy producers of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), proven carcinogens for humans as well as animals.

Belugas feed from the bottom of the estuary, eating creatures like the blue mussel. Blue mussels in the Sanguenay River area had PAH concentrations 200 times higher than in adjacent areas.

It’s not just the whales. Smelter workers there have shown high rates of lung cancer, while people in the area who drank from taps supplied with surface water developed stomach and intestinal cancer.

In our local area, claims have been made that cancer rates are on the rise, and in California, the issues regarding even groundwater have become areas of debate as talk centers around rocket fuel polluting water.  Or, we could always look to the pigs in the spinach fields supposedly polluting water.  The real issue here is water pollution and its startlingly vivid effects on the animals who consume it; are humans next?

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Remember when I wrote about the Catholic church before, saying that they had gotten away with abuse by filing for bankruptcy?  Oh, you don’t?  Maybe I didn’t, but it happens so frequently right now that nobody knows for sure which diocese is being affected now.    A Catholic church diocese in Wilmington has declared bankruptcy after figuring out that they couldn’t pay the victims who had pressed charges against them, with trials starting over the next few months.

On our local front, we had offered to give seminars at the local churches to help parents protect their kids on the internet.  The Catholic diocese out of the Western Michigan segment stated that they already provided parents with notices about abuse and “didn’t have to do anything else.”  It was a telling reply.  Other churches have asked more questions about qualifications of the presenters, about costs for participants, which was about $10/person to cover copy costs and things of that nature.  What does the Catholic church do?  Says it doesn’t have to offer anything like this.

It’s a pretty telling statement considering that no one has to offer internet security presentations, but other churches would anyway.  I wondered, at the time, what other legal battles were going on, and now I know.  Other diocesan members don’t want to admit that anything might happen with them.  The local bishop in our area is pretty arrogant about the subject of children getting hurt on the local playground, again saying it had no obligation to “do anything different than the public schools,” even though 2 serous play-related concussions requiring hospital evaluation (see my latest on concussions in the NFL post) occurred at the school.  Thank goodness the Catholic church is basing all of of its decisions lately on what it “has to do” as opposed to helping others.

The diocese has paid more than $6.2 million since 2002 to settle claims of sexual abuse. The bankruptcy filing lists the diocese’s assets as being between $50 million and $100 million but said its estimated debt is between $100 million and $500 million. Lawsuit plaintiffs as well as banks and pensions were listed as creditors.

Other dioceses that have sought bankruptcy protection in abuse scandals are Davenport, Iowa; Fairbanks, Alaska; Portland, Ore.; San Diego; Spokane, Wash.; and Tucson, Ariz. The San Diego case was dismissed.

At least four bankruptcy cases ended with payments for victims. In May 2008, the Davenport diocese agreed to pay $37 million to more than 150 people. A $50 million settlement in 2007 involving about 175 lawsuits ended a bankruptcy filing by the Portland archdiocese, which set aside another $20 million for future claims.

The Tucson diocese emerged from Chapter 11 in 2005 after creating a fund of more than $20 million for people molested by clergy. The Catholic Diocese of Spokane settled by offering to pay victims $48 million that it is raising through sale of assets and by donations.

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We needed a good laugh today. I buried my 10 year old lab-mix yesterday, and it was hell. Someone sent me this to make me smile. Watch this to make you laugh.

It sounds innocuous enough:  a pro football player got hit during a game and suffered a concussion.  We all think that this sort of thing might reasonably happen to a pro football player, concussions, injuries, that sort of thing.  But now, the NFL has begun to talk about the dangers of sustaining concussions, the links to depression, suicidal thoughts, cognitive affect.  Well, actually, they aren’t saying cognitive affect, I am.  But, pro football players are starting to talk about concussions too.

In a recent football game, see the link here, one player hit another player who may or may not have had the ball in his hands at the time.  The reason this has become a heated issue in the NFL is because the NFL has just started to talk about the dangers of sustaining concussions, and apparently sustaining concussions in a sport when you don’t even have the ball in your hand is more of a problem than if someone hits you when you do have the ball.  Having the ball in your hand, to most male commentators, justifies a hard hit that causes brain damage.  Go figure.  I can’ t really, because brain damage is brain damage to me, ball or no.

But, Wesley’s hit, as it’s called is provoking controversy about the concept of causing players long term damage.  I am happy the NFL has finally begun to talk about this, because head injuries occur even in children’s sports, but the common misconception has been that a “little concussion”  is no more significant than a bruise, except when you consider that it is the brain that is bruised.

It’s not a slight injury, a brain bruise, so why has it taken the NFL so long to realize that players may be affected long term from numerous brain bruises?  Check out the articles below.  It’s clear the NFL didn’t think that they would find any significant statistical data from studying head injuries.  I have been a longtime champion of making school officials pay attention to sports-related or playground-related head trauma’s, and it’s tough going.  Teachers all seem to think that kids are never badly hurt; apparently the same thinking was applied to NFL players.  But why?  What happens when we pay our players to  perform for our entertainment and then shrug off injuries that may be lifelong?  Well, guess that is what the NFL is for.  Here is the Asshole Business Award of the week, going to the NFL for not looking into this sooner and letting scores of players get injured and hurt off the field as a result of their injuries on the field.

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tired of getting jokers… Love the asses and elbows. Break-up songs rock. Love it.

I guess I don’t have much sympathy here. I like that she’s crying here, very realistic, but… All I got to say to say is: Dude, you’re the OTHER woman…