Bad Deeds for 3/19/2010

 

Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership President is No Rocket Scientist – Voicing concern about the cancellation of NASA’s troubled Constellation program, Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership president Bob Mitchell said the following at a luncheon at the new Holiday Inn in Webster:

If we don’t have control of space and the Russians do, they could easily shoot down our satellites and we would have no cell phones.

A logical mind might ask:

· Don’t cell phones operate from cellular towers, not satellites?
· We have astronauts in space now. How could they stop anyone from shooting at our satellites?
· Isn’t NASA working with the Russian space agency? Don’t our astronauts work side-by-side with Russian cosmonauts?
· Haven’t we been without a means to transport our astronauts for extended periods (2 years or more) several times before?
· Aren’t the American commercial space ventures expected to be flying manned missions to the International Space Station in just a few years (before Constellation would be able to)?

Mr. Mitchell is trying to preserve good jobs in the Houston area. But saying dumb things doesn’t help.

 

Fox News Lying About Health Care Reform – On Tuesday and Wednesday, Fox breathlessly promoted what it claims to be a new survey from the New England Journal of Medicine showing doctors oppose health care reform, but there’s a problem: the non-scientific survey was conducted months ago, was not published in the NEJM, and, according to a spokesperson for the journal, it has “nothing to do with the New England Journal of Medicine’s original research.” A video compilation of Fox’s false claim is at the link.

 

Despite the Lies, Here is What the Health Care Compromise Bill Does

1. CUTS THE DEFICIT Cuts the deficit by $130 billion in the first ten years (2010 – 2019). Cuts the deficit by $1.2 trillion in the second ten years.
2. REINS IN WASTEFUL MEDICARE COSTS AND EXTENDS THE SOLVENCY OF MEDICARE; CLOSES THE PRESCRIPTION DRUG DONUT HOLE Reduces annual growth in Medicare expenditures by 1.4 percentage points per year—while improving benefits and lowering costs for seniors. Extends Medicare’s solvency by at least 9 years.
3. EXPANDS AND IMPROVES HEALTH COVERAGE FOR MIDDLE CLASS FAMILIES Expands health insurance coverage to 32 million Americans Helps guarantee that 95 percent of Americans will be covered.
4. IS FULLY PAID FOR Is fully paid for – costs $940 billion over a decade. (Americans spend nearly $2.5 trillion each year on health care now and nearly two-thirds of the bill’s cost is paid for by reducing health care costs).

 

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Uses Slanted Polling Tactics – We know that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will spend millions on advertising to try to stop the Democrats’ final push on health care — $10 million in the last two weeks ago or so, according to our colleague Jeff Zeleny. But this week, the organization that calls itself the largest small business lobby deployed another, more subtle weapon from its arsenal: the poll.

On Monday, the Chamber announced the results of voter surveys it commissioned in 10 swing Congressional districts currently held by Democratic legislators. The polls were carefully targeted.
Instead of randomly selecting their respondents, the Chamber of Commerce sampled from voter lists, a practice many media pollsters do not endorse because the lists are often outdated and are generally not representative — they do not include unlisted telephone numbers, for example. Moreover, the firm that conducted the surveys, Ayres, McHenry & Associates, identifies itself as a partisan (Republican-leaning) firm.

 

Republican Senator Sounds Like a Character from “The Godfather” – Senator Tom Coburn made this threat yesterday:

If you’re a House Democrat who voted against health reform the first time and change your vote to yes, we’ll block any appointment you may receive after you lose your seat for changing your vote.

 

Don’t Be Guilty of the Bad Deed of Non-Action – This is it: The fate of health care reform will be decided in the next 48 hours.

It could come down to a vote or two. And that means that right now, every last message to Congress makes a difference.

It’s an all-hands-on-deck moment. Even if you’ve already called and written your representative, it’s time to send one last message. If you haven’t yet weighed in, now’s the time. And please send this on to friends, neighbors, colleagues, former roommates, and anyone who cares about health care reform.

 

Glenn Beck Out to Destroy Church Pastors Who Question Fox News – This past week, Glenn Beck publicly revealed that his staff is moving beyond simply twisting the news for ideological ends to now funding opposition research and internet attack campaigns with the stated purpose of destroying the personal credibility of pastors who dare to question statements made by FOX commentators.

 

Bart Stupak: I Don’t Listen To Nuns – In two interviews yesterday, Michigan Congressman Bart Stupak revealed a great deal about himself. First, in what shouldn’t be surprising to anyone, Stupak told Fox News that he doesn’t listen to nuns. Why would he? They’re only women, after all. And we know the men run the institutional Catholic church. According to Fox:

Congressman Bart Stupak, D-Mich, responded sharply to White House officials touting a letter representing 59,000 nuns that was sent to lawmakers urging them to pass the health care bill.
The conservative Democrat dismissed the action by the White House saying, “When I’m drafting right to life language, I don’t call up the nuns.” He says he instead confers with other groups including “leading bishops, Focus on the Family, and The National Right to Life Committee.”

 

Insurance Company Targeted HIV Patients to Drop Coverage – In May, 2002, Jerome Mitchell, a 17-year old college freshman from rural South Carolina, learned he had contracted HIV. The news, of course, was devastating, but Mitchell believed that he had one thing going for him: On his own initiative, in anticipation of his first year in college, he had purchased his own health insurance.

Shortly after his diagnosis, however, his insurance company, Fortis, revoked his policy. Mitchell was told that without further treatment his HIV would become full-blown AIDS within a year or two and he would most likely die within two years after that.

So he hired an attorney — not because he wanted to sue anyone; on the contrary, the shy African-American teenager expected his insurance was canceled by mistake and would be reinstated once he set the company straight.

But Fortis, now known as Assurant Health, ignored his attorney’s letters, as they had earlier inquiries from a case worker at a local clinic who was helping him. So Mitchell sued.

In 2004, a jury in Florence County, South Carolina, ordered Assurant Health, part of Assurant Inc, to pay Mitchell $15 million for wrongly revoking his health insurance policy.

In September 2009, the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s verdict, although the court reduced the amount to be paid him to $10 million.

Previously undisclosed records from Mitchell’s case reveal that Fortis had a company policy of targeting policyholders with HIV. A computer program and algorithm targeted every policyholder recently diagnosed with HIV for an automatic fraud investigation, as the company searched for any pretext to revoke their policy. As was the case with Mitchell, their insurance policies often were canceled on erroneous information, the flimsiest of evidence, or for no good reason at all, according to the court documents and interviews with state and federal investigators.

 

Today is the Seventh Anniversary of the Invasion of Iraq – If we are really to keep America safe, it’s essential we remember exactly which American politicians empowered Iran, Al Qaeda and the Taliban from 2001 to 2008, and why. History will be repeated not only if we forget it, but also if we let it be rewritten by those whose ideological zealotry and boneheaded decisions have made America less safe to this day. Here are some quotes to help you remember how this mess came about:

“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.”
“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.”
—Cheney
–
“My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.”
—Cheney (3/16/03)
–
“We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
—Condoleezza Rice (9/8/02)
–
“Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”
—George W. Bush (10/7/02)
–
My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.”
—Colin Powell, United Nations Speech (2/5/03)
–
On Sept. 7, 2002, [Judith Miller] and fellow New York Times reporter Michael Gordon reported that Iraq had “stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb.” As proof, she cited unnamed “American intelligence experts” and unnamed “Bush administration officials.” Subsequently, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and Donald Rumsfeld all pointed to Miller’s story as justification for war. On April 22, 2003, she told PBS’s Newshour that WMD had already been found in Iraq: “Well, I think they found something more than a ’smoking gun.’”
—Think Progress (Miller now works for Fox News)
–
“[T]he area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.”
—Donald Rumsfeld (3/30/03)
–
“We found the weapons of mass destruction.”
—Bush (5/29/03)
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Ted Koppel: [Y]ou’re not suggesting that the rebuilding of Iraq is going to be done for $1.7 billion?
Andrew Natsios [Agency for International Development]: Well, in terms of the American taxpayer’s contribution, I do. This is it for the U.S.
–
—Nightline (4/23/03 Funny how the tea party crowd never uttered a peep as Bush funded his war with borrowed, off-the-books money that added a couple trillion dollars to the national debt.)

Regards,

Jim