The Real News: Paul Jay Interviewing Margaret Flowers: 'Supreme Court Sides With Corporatization of Medicine'

Source:The Real News- with a look at SCOTUS & the ACA.

"Dr. Flowers: Decision strengthens the role of private insurance companies and makes the fight for Medicare for All more difficult" 

From The Real News

As I said yesterday on FreeState MD, what Dr. Margaret Flowers doesn't seem to have a problem  with, if the Affordable Care Act was thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court today, 20 million Americans would ,lose the health insurance that they have today and we would go back to pre-2010, that left out 45-50 million Americans without health insurance. With no replacement available or able to pass the Congress (House & Senate) signed by President of the United States, whether that's President Barack Obama today, or perhaps a President Mitt Romney next year. 

I can understand someone being against a law or policy, but to throw out a current law simply you don't like it, that currently benefits 300 plus million Americans, with no ability to pass a new law simply because you don't have the political support and votes for it, you are hurting people (even unintentionally) to try to save them in the future. 

Dr, Flowers and her supporters are essentially telling a country of 300 hundred plus Americans that even though you like what you currently have, since we think it's not good for you, we're going to take it away from you now and perhaps give you something better and different down the line. Even though in the meantime they have to go back to a system where they couldn't afford health care that they need now. 

The Nation: Laura Flanders & Margaret Flowers: 'Obamacare Doesn't Go Far Enough'

Source:The Nation- Laura Flanders talking to Dr. Margaret Flowers.

"Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program sees one major flaw in President Obama's Affordable Care Act: It did not go far enough. The only solution, Flowers argues in this conversation with Laura Flanders, is to push for universal healthcare by expanding medicare so that it covers all Americans." 

From The Nation

The consequences of the U.S. Supreme Court throwing out most, if not all of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, (which Dr. Margaret Flowers doesn't seem to have problem with) is that 20 million Americans, most of those Americans who are very hard-working and limited in income, would automatically lose their current health insurance. 

If SCOTUS throws out the ACA, we would immediately go back to a system that left out 45-50 million Americans who get up and work very hard for a living and don't make a lot of money, who can't afford health insurance, even if their employers currently offer health insurance, because they can't even afford their employer's plan. 

Dr. Flowers seems to be suggesting that we can just throw out the ACA (also known as ObamaCare) and replace it with a government only and government-run plan, where every single American would be under the same government-run, health insurance plan, which has never been popular in this country, or it would've. been passed into law by now, as if it's that easy. 

What Dr. Flowers seems to be suggesting, is that replacing ObamaCare would be really easy. You spill a glass of milk, no problem. Just clean up your little mess and pour yourself another glass of milk. As if there's not a Republican House of Representatives right now, or they would just suddenly see the light and say something like: "You know what, I've been wrong all along. What we really need is a government takeover of our health care system in America. Let's pass that today and send it to the Senate."  

What we need to do instead, is for SCOTUS to uphold the current Affordable Care Act and then let the election decide what kind of health care system that we should have in the future and have a little faith in American democracy and Americans to make their own most personal of decisions, like their own health care. Instead of big government treating them like idiots and telling them that they know what's best for them.  

You can also see my follow up post about Dr. Margaret Flowers and the SCOTUS ruling on the Affordable Care Act, at FreeState MD.

Thom Hartmann: 'Higher Income = Job Growth'

Source:Thom Hartmann- on taxes in America.

"Thom Hartmann responds to a caller's question about Supply Side Economics

If you liked this clip of The Thom Hartmann Program, please do us a big favor and share it with your friends... and hit that "like" button!" 

From Thom Hartmann

What left-wing talk radio host Thom Hartmann doesn't mention in this video, is before Ronald Reagan was President, the economy was horrible and it was still horrible during the first two years of his Presidency. The 1970s was one of the worst decades we had economically with those high tax rates, that Thom Hartmann and other leftists speak so highly of. 

President Reagan cuts taxes across the board in 1981, gets them passed in a divided Congress (Democratic House and a Republican Senate) that alone with President Reagan didn't pay for those tax cuts or his boom in the defense budget. But as he admitted later on, if it is a choice between ending the Cold War and a balanced budget, he takes ending the Cold War and living with a large debt and deficit, that he left for President Bush in 1989. 

Starting in 1983, the American economy boomed: 10% unemployment goes down to 5%. President Reagan's economic policy is called Supply Side Economics. He didn't invent it, people like Art Laffer developed it in the late 1970s. You cut taxes across the board and you don't pay for them with budget cuts, because the theory is that the economic growth stimulated by the tax cuts, would make up for any lost revenue from the tax cuts.

President Reagan and Congressional Republicans were half right, that the tax cuts did generate economic growth, because everyone including the middle class had additional money to spend and the middle class spent that money, but not enough to make for the 1T$ or so (in today's money) that taxes were cut by. And even Mr. Hartmann isn't aware of that or won't acknowledge it, 

Tax cuts to stimulate economic Growth is not new. President Kennedy and President Johnson did this in the 1960s and we saw and economic boom by the mid 1960s. Both these guys are Democrats by the way and both Progressive Democrats, but they also had balanced budgets back then, President Johnson is still the last President before President Clinton to have a balanced budget. Thom Hartmann speaks about the advantages of these high tax rates, pre-President Kennedy ranging from 25-90% and doesn't mention how bad the economy was in the 1970s.

With those big tax rates again from 25-90% pre President Kennedy, recession in the late 1950s, two recessions in the 1970s, with weak economic and job growth, mixed in, taxes were cut in the 1960s, 1980s and 1990s, under two Democratic President's and one Republican President and we had economic booms in those three decades. High taxes don't work especially if you are in the middle class, when you are struggling just to pay the current bills. 

Supply Side Economics mixed in with borrow and spending, which is what we got from Ron Reagan and George W. Bush doesn't work either. Taxes should be designed based on people's ability to pay and that encourage productivity and economic growth.

David Pakman: Democratic Representative Al Green Calls For Radicalized Christian Hearings

Source:David Pakman- U.S. Representative Al Green (Democrat, Texas)

"--During anti-Muslim Congressional hearings, Texas Congressman Al Green, a Democrat, calls for hearings on the "radicalization of Christians."

Source:David Pakman

To answer David Pakman's question: because the militant wing of the Christian-Right base in America, votes overwhelmingly Republican. And even the non-militant base of the Christian-Right in America, wouldn't approve of a Congressional committee (House or Senate) investigating members of their own movement, even if they are terrorists. 

But the fact is the overwhelmingly terrorists attacks in America that are based on religion, comes from so-called fundamentalist, Protestant Christians, not Islamists. For the simple reason that Muslims and Middle Easterners, are still such a small minority in America. Especially compared with Anglo-Saxon-Protestants. whether they're Southern or Northern in America.

The Young Turks: Ana Kasparian & Michael Shure: 'Scary: Private Prison Presentation For Investors'

Source:The Young Turks- with a piece about CCA.

"Corrections Corp of America (CCA), a huge private prison business, has a presentation for investors that just might creep you out. How much money is made by locking people up? Ana Kasparian and guest host Michael Shure discuss the prison industrial complex, the failed drug war, and the incentive to push for profits over a safer society." 

From The Young Turks

"It was from Barclays' analyst Manav Patnaik, and it was on the private prisons business.

Specifically, it was a "virtual tour" of the Metro Davidson County Detention Facility, which is managed by Corrections Corp of America (CXW) one of two companies that that has a "duopoly" on the private prisons business.

As he notes, tours of facilities are often useful for investors, but a prison tour is unusual, since investors aren't typically inclined to do wander into a prison.

So he did it for them and described the experience." 

From Business Insider

I said this many times this year already, but apparently it needs to be said again: one of the core functions of government, at any level, is law enforcement. One of the core functions of state and the Federal Government, is also criminal justice. They're supposed to house and hopefully rehabilitate our criminals, especially our repeat offenders, longtime felons, and violent criminals. 

Private, for-profit, corporations (which is what the Corrections Corporation of America is) is in the business to make as much money as they can. Which is great, in a free, capitalist, society, like America. But not at the expense of taxpayers and our convicted felons.  

You want to save money on criminal justice in America: 

Stop locking people for simple drug obsession and for being addicts. 

Stop sending mentally handicapped people to prison.

Put our prison inmates to work in prison, so they can learn the skills that they need to do well on the outside legally, but also so they can pay for their room and board while in prison.

The Nation: 'Fighting Back Against Stop-and-Frisk'

Source:The Nation- with a video about stop & frisk.

"Several thousand people marched down Manhattan's Fifth Avenue on June 17 to demand an end to the New York Police department's controversial Stop-and-Frisk tactic. The silent march, organized by the NAACP and a coalition of nearly 300 other groups, sought to draw attention to the damage the massive spike in street interrogations is causing to communities of color.

For more videos visit:The Nation" 

From The Nation 

There are plenty of laws, at least in American history, that are unconstitutional, as well as ineffective. I'm thinking of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act today, as well as bans against homosexuality in the 1950s and 60s, in general, bans against inter-racial marriage, forced segregation by government, alcohol prohibition in the 1920s and 30s, the so-called War On Drugs today. 

There are also laws that are perhaps unconstitutional, but seem to work. I think New York City's Stop & Frisk police policy seems to be one of them. I don't live in New York, I live 200 miles South of NYC, just outside of Washington. But the crime rates there, not just in this century so far, have plummeted, as well as in the 1990s. Stop & Frisk seems to be a reason for that. 

I'm not a lawyer and don't pretend to be one even in the Blogosphere, let alone on TV, but unless opponents (especially on the Left) can argue and claim that minorities and gays are specifically being targeted by the NYPD Stop & Frisk policy, simply because they're minority or gay, or both, they're going to have a helluva time getting this law thrown out by the courts, even in supposed left-wing New York City.

The Young Turks: Cenk Uygur: Mitt Romney - 'I Don't Have A Political Career'

Source:The Young Turks- Governor Flip Flopper (Republican, Massachusetts) I mean Mitt Romney  (easy mistake) talking to CBS News's Bob Schieffer, on Face The Nation.

"Is Mitt Romney a politician? The 2012 Republican Presidential candidate said "I don't have a political career" in an interview with Bob Schieffer on CBS's Face The Nation. The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down." 

From The Young Turks

Cenk Uygur is someone that I agree with as often as Jews declare their love for Palestine and Arabs declare their love for Israel. Well, perhaps even more often that that. But Cenk nailed Mitt Romney on the head (to use an ageless cliche) when he said that Mitt Romney only doesn't have a political career, because he keeps losing. 

Mitt lost a very winnable U.S. Senate seat to Ted Kennedy in 1994, when even Teddy wasn't a very popular Democrat (perhaps even in Massachusetts) and when Democrats all over the country and not just in Congress, got their asses handed to them. But Teddy since his opponent was Mitt Romney, was one of those few Congressional Democrats who managed to survive 1994, because his opponent was Flip Flopper. I mean Mitt Romney, but you get the idea. Ted Kennedy was the Democrat who nicknamed Mitt Multiple Choice, a political nickname that Mitt is still trying to live with, almost 20 years later. 

Go up to 2007-08, when Mitt Romney was perhaps the best funded Republican running for President, in a field that didn't have a Republican frontrunner the whole time, until John McCain gets hot in early 08 and starts winning a bunch of primaries. But Mitt finishes 2nd or 3rd in that field, because he spent about a year trying to convince Republican voters that he wasn't who he really was, which was a flip flopping politician, who has no consistent record as a politician. 

So sure, if you want to play semantics, Mitt Romney is not a career politician. But to be a career politician, you first have to get elected and get reelected over and over. And Mitt Romney is still trying to figure out how to get elected in the first place.