Bad Deeds for 9-3-2009

 

Insurance Company Told Employees to Fight Health Reform According to Watchdog -Anthem/Wellpoint and United Healthcare may have violated the right of employees to be free of political pressure by employers. Both companies are urging their employees to lobby members of Congress with corporate assistance, including talking points and even the placing of phone calls for the employees, according to Consumer Watchdog.

An email from UnitedHealth told its employees that “you may be contacted during business hours by the United for Health Reform advocacy team.” United for Health Reform is UnitedHealth’s advocacy group. The letter also urges employees to contact United for Health Reform on their own, and to seek out town halls on health care reform.

Anthem/Wellpoint “sent what appears to be an undated general employee e-mail carrying the Anthem logo. The e-mail urges employees to ‘make your voice heard’ by visiting a ‘grassroots website,’ the Wellpoint Health Action Network, ‘to assist you with contacting your elected officials… about this important issue’,” Consumer Watchdog stated in a press release.

The letter also states that “tens of millions” of Americans would lose their private insurance coverage and be forced on to a public health plan. Consumer Watchdog says the message to Anthem/Wellpoint’s employees from that is that “employees would lose their jobs if proposed national reforms are passed.”

Read the Anthem/Wellpoint email.

 

Mayor to Give Glenn Beck Key to City – Mayor Bud Norris of Mount Vernon, Wa., says he will give the key to his city to conservative talk show host Glenn Beck on September 26. Norris says Beck will deliver a short talk that night and become the first person to receive a key to the city in the six years Norris has been mayor.

Protesters from the Skagit County Young Democrats walked outside city hall Tuesday with protest signs, one reading “Change the locks!” They called it “totally inappropriate” to give a man who labeled President Barack Obama a “racist” a key to the city. (He’s also talked about his fantasy of poisoning the Speaker of the House.)

Norris told KOMO News the key does not represent city approval of every comment that Beck may make, but recognizes a local boy who made it big.

Note to Norris: Charles Manson and Fred Phelps are also famous. You probably won’t see their hometown giving them the “key to the city” because, like Beck, they’re also insane and hateful.

 

Right-Wing Doesn’t Want Your Children to Be Inspired to Do Well in School – According to an announcement posted on ServiceWire.org, President Obama will address students “about the importance of persisting and succeeding in school” at 1 p.m. Eastern, Sept. 8, at the WhiteHouse.gov website. And what does the right-wing think about the president encouraging students to be responsible and work hard in school? They’re saying:

At a forum at Free Republic, “He’s recruiting his civilian army. His ‘Hitler’ youth brigade.”

At the AmericanElephant blog, the subject of the day was a national “Keep-Your-Child-at-Home-Day,” and said, “Totalitarian regimes around the world have sought to spread their propaganda and entrench their power by brainwashing the children.”

Yes, the right-wing believes that you should keep your children away from school that day because if they get inspired to actually pay attention, learn to read and write, and apply critical thinking skills, they’re actually a lot less likely to believe the crazy ranting of the right-wing. (Oh, by the way, it was OK when George W. Bush talked to the school kids.)

Regards,

Jim