Montana Left Blogs

Home run

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:15:44 -0800

If you haven’t read Roger Clawson’s column yet this week, go do it. The old man still occasionally hits one out of the park.

On Terrorism

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:35:44 -0800

by jhwygirl

The Hill has an article up – Sen. Levin: Fort Hood shooting rampage was likely a terrorist attack.

“Likely”? Should that even be in question?

n. A person or an organized group which unlawfully uses or threatens to use force or violence against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons

I mean, remember this guy? We killed him pretty quick and all – but still, that was terrorism.

Xenophobic? I say yes.

Tester: support Chris Dodd's financial regulation legislation

Jay Stevens — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:36:41 -0800

There's a critical bill in danger of going extinct in the Senate Banking Committee, Chris Dodd's financial regulation bill:

Dodd said outdated rules leave regulators unable to keep pace with the industry.
"Our financial regulatory system, created piece by piece over decades with little thought given to how it would function as a whole, is simply unable to prevent staggering greed and unthinkable recklessness from threatening our economic security," said Dodd....
Dodd's legislation would create a single bank agency aimed at preventing regulator "shopping" by firms seeking lenient oversight. He also proposed setting up a systemic-risk agency and a Consumer Financial Protection Agency to police firms for credit-card and mortgage lending abuses.

The bill would also remove the bank oversight powers of the Fed and FDIC and create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, whose function would be to monitor and regulate financial institutions and the products they offer, including credit cards, mortgages, and other traded investments:

Under the proposed legislation, the agency would have the power to monitor the financial marketplace, including loans and credit cards, with consumers' interests top of mind. Existing agencies that have that power today have other industry monitoring responsibilities as well.
The agency would focus on making sure financial product disclosures are easy to understand so consumers know what they are getting themselves into as well as on financial literacy education and research. It also would have the power to write rules and enforce them on issues such as arbitration for credit card disputes.

The bill has hit a familiar snag: "centrist" Democrats, and nay-saying Republicans.

One of the Democrats on Dodd's Banking Committee is Jon Tester. In recent statements, Jon's reaffirmed his commitment to ensuring that "members of the insurance industry" have their "feet to the fire," and that national financial institutions are "held accountable" while local banks aren't subject to excessive regulation. One way he can be true to his rhetoric is to support Dodd's banking bill when it comes up to vote....

Senate Patient Protection and Affordability Act gives hope to struggling Montanans

Robert Struckman — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:56:43 -0800

The U.S. Senate made history Wednesday night with the release of the Patient Protection and Affordability Act.

The act will give a lift to Montana's small businesses and working families by providing stable, quality health care. It will strengthen Medicare and control runaway costs while meeting the particular needs of the state's wide open spaces.

"We're encouraged that the Senate is moving quickly," said Jim Fleischmann, Montana director for Change That Works, a nonprofit grassroots organization with employees in a dozen states. "Real health care reform will bring accessible, affordable health care to Montana. And it can help small business owners who want to provide medical insurance for their employees."

He added that he's pleased that the Senate bill, like the Affordable Health Care for America Act passed by the U.S. House of Representatives 11 days ago, includes a public health insurance option.

"A public option will help guarantee choice and accountability and help break the stranglehold that Big Insurance has on our health care system," he said.

How it will help:

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will:
Increase health care choices, resulting in more competition and choices than are currently available.
Prohibit any rationing of health care.
Provide accessible and affordable coverage for the uninsured with pre-existing conditions.
Provide re-insurance for retiree health benefit plans. The Act will create immediate access to re-insurance for employer health plans providing coverage for early retirees. It will help protect coverage while reducing premiums for employers and retirees.
Close the coverage gap in the Medicare (Part D) drug benefit. The Act will reduce the size of the "donut hole" by raising the ceiling on the initial coverage period by $500 in 2010. It will guarantee 50 percent price discounts on brand-name drugs purchased by low and middle-income beneficiaries in the coverage gap.
Award small business tax credits. The Act will offer tax credits to small business to make employee coverage more affordable. Tax credits of up to 50 percent of premiums will be available.
Prohibit discrimination based on salary. The Act will prohibit group health plans from establishing eligibility rules for health care coverage that has the effect of discriminating in favor of higher wage employees.
Spur the state economy and generate state tax revenues. Investments in primary care clinics and community health centers included in the Act will create jobs for health care providers and staff, generating local economic activity.
Reduce drug prices. States spent $15 million providing prescription drugs to Medicaid beneficiaries in 2007. The Act will increase the Medicaid drug rebates, benefiting states and the federal government.
Source: Democratic Policy Committee
http://dpc.senate.gov/dpcdoc-s...

Why we need reform:

In Montana:

? 30 people lose their health insurance everyday.
? 16 percent of residents are uninsured.
? A total of 22,920 residents will have lost coverage from January 2008 to December 2010 unless there's health care reform.
? A typical Montana family will pay $21,822 for health coverage in 2019, unless there's health care reform.

Source: Center for American Progress
http://www.americanprogress.or...

In the United States:

? 16,653 families file for bankruptcy every week because they can't pay their medical bills.
http://pnhp.org/new_bankruptcy...

? 826 people in the United States die How often? because they lack affordable, accessible health care.
http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/2009_...

For more comments or information, please contact: John Firehammer (406) 531-6958 or john.firehammer@changethatworks.net

Right-wing group claims to represent "sunshine," just don't shine the light on them

Montana Cowgirl — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:47:40 -0800

When Howie Rich, the New York City billionaire, helped bankroll the trio of fraudulent ballot initiatives in 2006, the uprising of anti-government arch-conservatives helped block democrats from gaining more ground in the Montana legislature with a groundswell of tea-bagger types-- even though the initiatives were declared invalid in the closing months of the race.

Enter in 2009 the Montana Policy Institute: a group that keeps its backer veiled in secrecy. Organized as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the group is a thinly regulated entity that can engage in limited amounts of public organizing, but cannot advocate for or against candidates and is supposed to remain non-partisan.

It guards its secrecy as closely as possible and the group refuses to identify any of its donors or its out-of-state bankroller. The group refuses to say, in fact, much about itself at all. Its website says it is a

"free market think tank focused on Montana issues and Montana solutions"

(it just refuses to prove it is funded by actual Montanans) and wants to

"make state and local government more transparent."

As long as you don't try to shine a light on their own financial backers: the group flatly refuses to disclose them. There's something highly suspect about a group that refuses to hold themselves to the very standards of openness, sunshine, and transparency they claim to champion.

Thank You Straight, White Women!

dgsma — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:12:39 -0800

In the 1980's, when AIDS transfixed and terrified the entire nation, decimated a generation of gay men and brought the concept of guilt and shame to a whole new (mostly sexual) level, something remarkable happened.

In the cities, ACT UP raised awareness of our anger and sadness, Gay Men's advocacy groups sprang from pain and suffering and LGBT Social Service Agencies were born out of frustration and feelings of helplessness in the face of open discrimination by established services. Our Lesbian sisters became our mothers and nurses. Our mothers and sisters became our advocates and protectors. And those very brave souls who self-identified as Positive became our Pioneers.

In rural America, it was different
In rural America, being gay was/is not so well supported and buttressed by community and numbers. In rural America, LGBT people were and mostly continue to be the victims of jokes, derision and violence.

It has always been a fine line to walk, that place between integrity and safety. In rural America, the stigma of HIV drove most gay men and even some women deeper and deeper into the closet. Fear and concern for their safety kept ACT UP at a distance, a Bozeman Gay Men's Health Crisis a laughable impossibility.

But some people stepped up.

In Montana, it was our mothers and sisters and friends. These were mostly, with a few notable exceptions, straight, white women who were not a threat to anyone's faith or social structure.

They stepped into the gap where compassion should have been and created organizations that doled it out. They cajoled governments and churches and people in power to allocate money and space and time. They quilted and baked and visited hospitals and went to funerals and spoke at Rotary. Their faces were the familiar faces of compassion and reason in the increasing climate of fear that gripped us here, and I suspect much of rural America- and it was none too soon.

I remember the fear. I also remember the love and the dedication of these women that inspired me to overcome my fear as a closeted gay priest and sponsor the World AIDS Day Prayer Vigil at the Cathedral in Helena. I also became (somewhat) of an activist- limited by my fear and my priesthood. I suspect it was a completely familiar feeling to many gay men growing up in the wilds of Montana, the prairies of the Dakotas or the backwoods of Idaho and Wyoming at the time.

Those feelings that kept me and others like me in the shadows still linger, but more importantly, they are less powerful because of the dedication, perseverance, stubbornness and downright balls of these women.

So: Straight, White Women- Thank You. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

There's only one problem: you might have done your job too well.

To this day in Montana (and I suspect it's true in other places as well), most gay men's health organizations, HIV testing sites, and state-governed departments that have a direct impact on our lives are not led or even staffed by gay men- and gay men remain the most severely saturated population with HIV here.

Why?

Maybe because we didn't have to.

So dear women, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say gay men need your help one more time. We need you to help us get back in the saddle, because it's high time we quit hiding and start taking control of our issues instead of complaining about them. It's time to face discrimination and homophobia instead of hiding behind your apron strings. I think we can do it because you've bravely shown us how, but now, it may be time to start getting out of the way.

I don't mean to imply that we don't need you. We do. Please continue to be our teachers and mentors and cheerleaders and supporters as well as being our mothers. We especially need good mothers.

Because a good mother teaches her children to tell the truth, to make a bed, to use good manners, to survive a fight, to love, to learn, to thrive. In short, a good mother not only teaches her children to grow up and leave her and to make the world their own, she knows when her kid needs a swift kick in the ass- and gives it to him.

And maybe that's just what we need.

United for Peace and Justice joins Veterans for Peace in their Call to Action

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:52:24 -0800

It is possible that any day now President Obama may decide to escalate the war in Afghanistan. Here in the U.S. and no doubt around the world, people will react in pain, anger and sorrow, knowing what tragedy and suffering will follow.

The following is a message received from United for Peace and Justice, a group that Montana Women For is a member of:

We call on you to act NOW to pressure the President to choose otherwise and at the same time plan actions if he does decide to send more troops.

An escalation will mean at a very minimum that the U.S. will occupy Afghanistan for several more years, sending home dead and wounded soldiers while killing and wounding many times more Afghans. The suffering in Afghanistan today will grow by orders of magnitude and the U.S. will be that much less secure in direct proportion. In addition, the U.S. economy today still teeters at the abyss. Escalating the Afghanistan war will not just be the ruin of desperately needed domestic programs but may very possibly destroy the entire economy.

For these reasons and many more we call upon our members and every U.S. citizen with a love of humanity in their heart to pledge to at least the following actions:

Post your events on the UFPJ calendar.

a. Reach out to a group in your community — a church, union, civic group, etc. — and make an appointment that day to go and speak with them about the war.

b. Return to the streets with vigils, demonstrations, nonviolent civil resistance and be prepared to comment to the news media about the escalation of the war. Post your event here!

Endorsed by: United for Peace and Justice, Veterans For Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, the A.N.S.W.E.R Coalition, National Assembly, National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, Pledge of Resistance, Voices for Creative Nonviolence and World Can’t Wait.

UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE
www.unitedforpeace.org | 212-868-5545
PO Box 607; Times Square Station; New York, NY 10108

Postcards from Bizarro World

Jay Stevens — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:30:26 -0800

Man, I had no idea how much Hoffman's ACORN conspiracy tapped into conservative illogic. Check this out, from Public Policy Polling:

PPP's newest national survey finds that a 52% majority of GOP voters nationally think that ACORN stole the Presidential election for Barack Obama last year, with only 27% granting that he won it legitimately....
Belief in the ACORN conspiracy theory is even higher among GOP partisans than the birther one, which only 42% of Republicans expressed agreement with on our national survey in September.

Un-freaking-believable. Only twenty-seven percent of Republican voters thinks ACORN didn't steal the presidential election for Obama? Seriously?

Man...I don't know what to say. It's one of those polls that really challenges your faith in the human race. What's going on over there on the right? I mean...it's like an alternate universe over there, a place hardly impacted by reality.

It's Taken A Long Time

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:46:10 -0800

But I do have to admit. The right is correct about this small and usually insignificant point. Lefties are the biggest wieners in the entirety of the blogotubes.

Senate health care bill released

Jay Stevens — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:01:24 -0800

The Senate health care bill is out.

Some of its provisions:

- A public option with a state opt-out clause

- Increase payroll tax on Medicare for high-income people

- A tax on high-cost, "Cadillac" health care plans

- Does not prohibit insurers from covering abortions, like the House bill's Stupak amendment

- The health-insurance exchange opens a year later than it would under the House bill, in 2014
More generous subsidies than under the Baucus bill

- $900B over ten years

Igor Volsky charted a comparison of the bill to both the Baucus bill and the House bill. Here's a short summary (pdf) of the bill. Or read the whole bill (pdf) and report back!

The support for cloture on the bill from Democrats Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu, and Ben Nelson is uncertain.

Discuss.