An Open Letter to Representative Edolphus Towns on Health Care

January 24, 2010

Representative Edolphus Towns
2232 Rayburn House Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-5936
Fax: (202) 225-1018

Re: Healthcare Legislation

Dear Representative Towns:

I am a constituent and a supporter of yours in the 10th Congressional District of New York. I am writing to urge you to support and encourage your fellow progressives to support the Senate version of the Health Care reform legislation. I am a proud progressive and I am often pained to see our shared aspirations compromised; I do not believe that this legislation constitutes such a concession. This legislation is a necessary first step, whose components enjoy tremendous support in your district and throughout the country. This legislation is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss for two reasons: we will not be granted an opportunity to achieve this gain again, and a failure now will be so a severe loss to the national democrats that we will lose power, costing us more in our efforts for progress than any defeat.

Ted Kennedy was reported to have stated that his greatest regret was letting healthcare under Nixon slip away. Every subsequent attempt has resulted in less progressive proposals. Every subsequent attempt has failed. It does not serve our cause to cash in this legislation for less progressive legislation in the future or allow our string of failures to continue one day longer. Looking to the history of health care reform, a failure now will haunt us with less progressive iterations in the next effort.

I further believe that the political cost of failure would cost us the democratic majority in 2010 and the presidency in 2012. Our desire for stronger subsidies and a public option can be realized in reconciliation. Even if they could not be won in reconciliation and were lost, would our resentment over not achieving more aggressive legislation in one arena be worth abandoning our seat of power and the opportunity to revisit the issue? Would it be worth an act of political self-sabotage and abandoning the opportunity to act on all other issues? I urge you and the liberal objectors in the House to act in the interest of the nation and our self-preservation and pass this significant and worthwhile legislation.

Thank you for your attention, I hope that my thoughts have been of some value and will help express the robust support this legislation enjoys in your district.


Very truly yours,

David Cann

AVENGE ME!

By Guest Columnist Can of Campbell’s Soup

Since 1962, I have suffered in silence. Andy Warhol brazenly and unapologetically appropriated my image, and used it to vault himself into a career of success as the darling of the pop art scene. Many were the late night in which I and newspaper cartoon panels would drink and rail at the likes of Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, whose cute little observations made them money and fame on our likenesses.
Today, however, we may finally have justice. Not for ourselves, grant you, but for all the other images who have been subject to “creative interpretation” to create “art.” Shepard Fairey, has finally admitted that his Obama campaign poster, “Hope,’’ was based off a photograph cribbed from the Associated Press. Thank god the Associated Press sued him, too, or else artists would think that just looking at an image and changing it to suit their artistic perception would be sufficient to get away with “making art and reflecting their personal vision of what they observe.” Bullfeathers.

The Bible called me yesterday when the story broke to say it was still rankled at Milton’s “take on it” in Paradise Lost. Mona Lisa’s face sent me an email, and Beowulf and Gawain and the Green Knight have always been angry to have been subjected to the oral tradition without being sourced as an original work whose history and development have been corrupted by the input and influence of artists over the years.

And don’t even get me started on these kids today and their “hip hop” and their “sampling.”

Darell Issa: I Almost Certainly Have Never Shot Nobody

Congressman Darrell Issa (R—CA), introduced the September 17, 2009 motion to kill funding to ACORN. It is not without irony that it is Darrell Issa leading the charge against ACORN: Issa has defended and rewarded Blackwater in strange and inappropriate ways, has shown personal contempt for the law, racking up half-a-dozen criminal charges as a petty thug, and made bold and embarrassing partisan attacks that have compromised his integrity.

Issa and Blackwater
Issa has a hysterical and inappropriate relationship with Blackwater. Howard Krongard, a State Department official, was forced to resign for blocking congressional probes into investigations of contract fraud and arms smuggling by Blackwater. Just a few days before Krongard’s forced resignation, Issa sent him the a laudatory letter thanking him for his sterling performance: "Thank you for your service. And I’ll end by saying that the first week of December the president’s having a Christmas party. I have an extra guest ticket. After today, I know that you’ve earned it. I would be happy to have you use my guest ticket and then you’ll get your picture with the president and you’ll get to meet him as well you should."

Issa not only singled out a Blackwater apparatchik forced out of government service his improper service to Blackwater. In a congressional hearing investigating Blackwater for killing Iraqi civilians, Issa defended the company. Not only did he attempt to shield Blackwater from the allegations of wrongdoing, Issa accused the families the Blackwaters’ Iraqi murder victims of lying to congress.

Issa and Wild Unsupported Grandstanding at the Expense of Congressional Decorum

Issa demonstrated showed his poor character by angrily denouncing efforts to provide Federal Funding to for care for 9-11 first responders made sick, saying they were not victims of terror, but rather "It simply was an aircraft, residue of the aircraft and residue of the materials used to build this building." Issa also accused Joe Wilson and Valarie Plame of perjury before congress. Also,

Issa has a Rich History of Petty Criminal Chagres, Which Is Just Hillarious
Issa has full criminal history, including three charges of auto theft and two gun charges. Says Issa when questioned on a few of his gun charges, "I remember plenty of the details, but I don't think 30-year-old misdemeanors are fair play here" My favorite quote of Issas, which he actually made in his own defense (as in to imply that he would look better rather than worse for having made the statement), is the following: “Shots were never fired. ... I don't recall having a gun. I really don't. I don't think I ever pulled a gun on anyone in my life."

What is Issa’s Beef with ACORN?
With no sense of irony whatsoever, Issa stated the “scandal surrounding the criminal activities of ACORN have called into question their role in all aspects of government."
Also, you may recall something from high school civics prohibiting bills of attainder, wherein in is unconstitutional for the government to pass legislation punishing a person or group without the benefit of due process. It is all covered in Article I of the Constitution of the United States. Does this make the proposed law unconstitutional? Yes.

Guns, Guns, Guns (Part III)

The Policy Change We Need
The question is whether or not we need a change. I retreat to the above statement that there are a myriad of hobbies and pastimes whose dangers we tolerate, and in some cases, celebrate. I am a motorcyclist, a hobby whose danger and high rate of fatalities is no secret and certainly a part of the appeal. Why should guns be any different? If we decide that guns are worth the danger, after all, we are a nation of independent and free thinking individualists, than no reform may be called for.
For three reasons, I believe guns are different than other dangerous hobbies. First, guns are not just a hobby, but a fetish. Guns, a symbol of our independence and potency, put a premium on aggression and defensive paranoia in a way that I, personally, find troublesome. Second, hobbies like motorcycling, skydiving and scuba primarily endanger the hobbyist. Gun ownership primarily endangers those around the hobbyist. This requires a different criterion to evaluate appropriate regulation. Finally, guns are not primarily a hobby, but first and foremost a weapon. Because of this, they should be subject to regulation as such. In the same way that gun ownership is important to maintaining or self-image as independent, they proclaim that defense and protection are to be vested in the hands of everyday Americans. Luckily, this is not a reflection of reality: police and government serve to protect the rule of law. Based solely on the numbers presented above, gun ownership makes us less safe rather than safer, so it seems the more civilized response is to leave the policing to the police, and stop expecting the right to shoot each other and ourselves.
So, if we deem that we are not willing to accept gun violence (a position I advocate, but am not qualified to decide alone), what reform is appropriate?
Gun rights advocates state that the gun laws which have been in place in recent years (many of which are no longer in effect) are not effective in reducing crime and gun violence. A Department of Justice study focusing on the Assault Weapon Ban found that the reductions in crime would be modest. The Center for Disease Control released a report on evaluating the effectiveness of firearms laws as a strategy for preventing violence; the results were insufficient “to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws reviewed for preventing violence.”
The half-measures provided in waiting periods, ineffective registration and licensing requirements, ammo bans, school zone bans, felon prohibitions and waiting periods hamstrung by gun show loopholes are not effective. If we decide that guns are a problem, which I propose they are, the regulations proposed are insufficient. Considering that the minority of American’s who defend the rights of gun ownership have shown such zeal to mischaracterize efforts to regulate gun control, nothing is lost by skipping the half-measures and seeking more extreme restrictions. If, therefore, people agree that guns are a danger, and that reform is appropriate, the argument must be made for a total ban.
The argument against the ban is that it would not be effective, but would leave guns in the hand of criminals. This argument falls flat: no law is completely effective; we do not propose that murder should be decriminalized because there are murders – that argument is just insane. Secondly, all people that break the law are criminals, why would gun bans be different?
It would take time, as America is just flooded with guns, and we have never had trouble importing contraband. Overtime, there would be fewer guns on the streets. That means, at least, fewer kids accidently shooting themselves with their parents legally owned guns. It would also mean fewer legal guns being stolen and being used in violent crime. Would a ban mean an end to all firearm violence? No, it would not. Law enforcement is difficult and ongoing; the war against crime is never won because people will stop breaking the law. The ban would serve to provide that when laws are broken, it is more difficult to do so with a firearm. If, and only if, you feel that gun violence is not worth the benefits it serves as a recreational activity, I believe you are obliged to support a ban on all firearms.

Guns, Guns, Guns (Part II)

Evaluating Gun Laws
In deciding what sensible gun laws should be, we have to examine the costs of unrestricted gun ownership and the benefits of access to guns.
The Costs: Firearm Related Deaths
The costs are violence: accidental shootings and intentional homicides. The most recent statistics available for gun violence are 2005, wherein 30,694 people were killed by firearms: 12,352 by murdered; 17,002 by suicide; 789 in accidents; 330 shot by the police, and 221, where the “intent was unknown.” There were only 18% fewer firearm related fatalities than the 37,313 automobiles related fatalities of 2008. There were 71,417 non-fatal shootings in 2005.

The Benefits: Recreation and Self-Defense
The argument for guns for recreation could be made in the sheer popularity of guns in the United States. More than one in three homes contains at least one gun. There are more privately owned guns in America than there are Americans over the age of 18 (there are 230,173,211 Americans over the age of 18 and more 283,000,000.)
According to the NRA, “the number of privately owned guns in the U.S. is at an all-time high, and rises by about 4.5 million per year.” According to the ATF, nearly 4 million new firearms are produced in the alone US every year.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 12.5 million Americans are hunters. There are nearly four million members of the NRA. There is no doubt that guns are a popular form of recreation. There 2 million members of PETA, 650,000 members in The American Youth Soccer Organization, 500,000 members of the ACLU, 500,000 in NOW, 300,000 in the American Motorcycle Association , 250,000 members of the American Medical association. The NRA, as a hobby and political organization, is by far the biggest of all of these.
Self Defense is much harder to prove. There is a poverty of evidence to support the assertion that gun ownership actually provides any security. While there are 789 accidental annual deaths by shooting, there are only 154 justifiable homicides with guns per year. It seems that based upon the amount of deaths, even accidental deaths, the shootings in self defense are dwarfed. It appears that the costs outweigh the benefits if measured only in terms of lives saved. The defense provided by gun ownership seems to largely be an idea, rather than a fact.

Gun Culture and the Road to Change
A change in gun law would be more than a mere policy reform; it would be a referendum on a major underpinning of American culture. American individualism is represented in the gun. From a revolutionary force of armed gentleman farmers taking on and defeating the world’s greatest empire, to hard scrabbled frontiersmen who carved America from an untamed wilderness, America’s defense and fortune is won by the gun. The American spirit requires no support more than the trusty sidearm – that it may hunt to survive and defend from attack.
Further, since the conservative voice that defends gun rights so often paints the left both eager to encroach on civil liberties (a conceit shown hollow in recent years) and to weak and effeminate to protect America from danger, the left is in a difficult possession in trying to advocate for gun control. How do you advocate for gun control, either modest or extreme, when your efforts will be painted as emasculating America? Obama, who has proposed no serious changes to the gun laws in the future, and who supports only very modest changes in theory, has been successfully characterized as a gun control zealot. This characterization produced a swell of fear and to a nationwide a run on guns and ammo.
The truth, however, is that Americans want reform for our current gun laws. In polls dating back to 1993, the public opinion has found it more important to control gun ownership than to protect gun owner’s rights. In that time, despite all changes over time, public opinion has always favored gun control over the rights of gun ownership. Despite the consistency of the trend, however, gun control – while still more important to the public than gun owners rights—is less popular than ever. This change, however, is not a reflection of a genuine organic response to shifting political realities; the change is panic induced by a coordinated and calculated lie disseminated by the right.
During the presidential campaign, McCain threatened that Obama had unspoken plans to attack gun rights, and that we should not be swayed by Obama’s assurances that he supports gun rights: “the rights of law-abiding gun owners will be at risk.” At the same time, according to FactCheck.org, “The NRA is circulating printed material and running TV ads making unsubstantiated claims that Obama plans to ban use of firearms for home defense, ban possession and manufacture of handguns, close 90 percent of gun shops and ban hunting ammunition.” The NRA states, “You can’t trust Obama with your guns” he shall be “the most anti-gun president in American history.” The conservative and misleading news coverage persisted, seeking to sow seeds of uncertainty; the warning continued to be that while Obama claims to support the second Amendment, we should not believe him.

From this we may take that we live in a gun culture, where firearms serve a special place in our notion of who we are as individualists. Americans support gun reform, but are cautious to give up an important pastime and recreation so important to our identity. Further, the waters of debate have been muddied by lies and misstatement, making any policy change in the immediate future problematic.

Guns, Guns, Guns (Part I)

The Second Amendment and the Right to Bear Arms
The goal of this post is to examine the intended scope of the second Amendment, and to analyze the arguments put forth by those who call for or argue against restrictions on gun rights. This post also seeks to examine what policies best suit us going forward, and whether or not those goals are reconcilable with the second Amendment ‘s right to bear arms.
As a caveat before I begin, I will state that I personally see merits to both sides of the argument, and do not have an axe to grind here. Hopefully, as readers, you will agree that my presentation of both sides is fair and critical, and it is my hope that by the end of this analysis, you will either agree or respect the logic behind my conclusions. Without further ado:
The Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights provides:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The question most often posed is whether this right pertains to individuals, granting them the right to possess weapons for personal use and protection, or whether this right is a collective right providing State’s the right to maintain organized standing armies for defense and rule of law, such as State run units of the National Guard. A second question is that if this right pertains to individuals, what limitations, may be imposed on this right? One has to admit, that in a single sentence, to call for a “regulated” right that “shall not be infringed” there appears to be some contradiction and ambiguity.

The Amendment Itself: Individual Right or State’s Right
According to the National Rifle Association (the NRA), the second Amendment serves two purposes: the right to arm yourself to protect against government oppression, and the right to maintain “citizen militias” for state and Federal protection without an official government sponsored standing army. The argument here is that the right is an individual right.
This argument makes some sense, since there are by in large, two sorts of rights provided in the Bill of Rights: positive rights and negative rights. Positive rights are rights which require a right to be given, or oblige some action on the part of the state; negative rights are rights which prohibit the state from acting to infringe a right. Most of the rights in the Bill of Rights are negative rights, rights which prohibit the state from infringing on a personal freedom possessed by an individual.
The first Amendment provides freedom of speech, religion and assembly free from government intervention. The third Amendment provides the freedom from having US troops commandeer your home. The fourth Amendment provides the freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. The eighth Amendment provides the right against excessive bail or cruel and unusual punishment, and the perhaps most compellingly, the ninth Amendment reserves in the people all rights not enumerated.
The other rights, however, are positive rights: rights which are grants of duty of the state to individuals. The Fifth Amendment provides the right to due process, committing the state to provide a full and fair trial to all individuals before depriving them of life, liberty or property without a fair trial. The sixth Amendment provides that the state owes a duty to all criminal defendants to provide a speedy and public trial by a jury, the right to confront their accuser and the right to be represented by legal counsel. The seventh Amendment creates in the state the duty t provides defendants in civil cases with a trial by jury.
By examining the breakdown of these rights, a compelling argument begins to take shape that the lion’s share of the rights in the bill of rights are positive rights provided to individuals. The wrinkle, however, appears when we examine the tenth Amendment, which provides: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. This Amendment creates a new category of right, unlike those provided above. The Amendment creates an acknowledgement of state’s rights (herein linked to the people’s rights, the rights of individuals) to be protected against the rights of the Federal government. This notion, that the rights of states (to be associated with the rights of individuals) are to be preserved in the same spirit as individual rights, and are contemplated and reserved in the same document, creates a real ambiguity as to the intention of the second Amendment. Absent the tenth Amendment, the argument that the second Amendment is clearly an individual right is a strong one, but with it questions arise. Luckily, sufficient history exists to address the question.

The History
Amusingly, the history that produced the ambiguity is based upon nearly identical arguments to those going on today. The Anti-Federalists, those who wished to see the centralized Federal authority be weaker than individual state’s rights, largely argued that the second Amendment right was to be a state’s right, to protect against the tyranny of the Federal government. In fact, the Second Continental Congress, while debating different versions of the second Amendment, a provision stating that the right existed “for common defense of a free state,” but was instead replaced with “necessary to the security of a free State.” Importantly, the national army of the time was a loose confederation of state militias, and the state’s rights version holds up better historically.
In fact, this argument persevered through much of the early legal history (such as the cases of US v. Cruikshank, Presser v. Illinois, Miller v. Texas, Robertson v. Baldwin), and seems to be the predominate philosophy up until relatively recently. Even more strange is that today’s conservatives, whose position would be ideologically consistent with the state’s rights perspective, fight against the position that state law should shape gun rights, and argue for an individual and Federally protected Federal right. This became most clear in the recent District of Columbia v. Heller case, where the Supreme Court (supported by conservatives and the gun rights lobby) found that the individual right protected by the Federal Constitution prevents states from drafting laws which would infringe on an individual’s second Amendment rights.
I do not argue that the individual rights argument is without merit: the Bill of Rights was purposefully modified to allow for ambiguity where it originally stated clearly that the right was reserved for states rather than individuals. I further believe that while the legal history prior to the recent case of District of Columbia v. Heller, the legal precedent favored an argument for state’s rights. Still, the law is a fluid and living thing, and the terms of the debate today have shifted to grant that the second Amendment now protects an individual right, rather than a state’s right. What, then, does a rational national policy look like considering that the current treatment of the right, although a historically disfavored interpretation, is an individual right?

Why the Resignation of Van Jones Matters

Van Jones, a man who I admire for dedicating his life to the advancement of the America’s less privileged, has been cowed into resigning from a post as “Special Advisor on Green Jobs” to the Obama Administration by criticism from the right wing. The criticism of Van Jones has been unapologetically political in nature, based solely on his personal past as a liberal activist. Jones, most importantly, is a casualty of politics.

I will provide a biographical sketch of Jones, and address the myriad of hollow criticisms and misstatements and lies (I am loath to accuse pundits of lying, but willing to do so when applicable) that surround him. But first, I feel it is necessary to provide the context to explain how Jones came to be targeted and why.

THE ATTACK ON JONES
On July 28, 2009, Fox News personality Glenn Beck appeared on the Fox morning talkshow, Fox & Friends, and said Obama has "a deep-seeded hatred for white people." Beck continued, "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people, I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist." Fox News disclaimed the statement later that day, issuing a public statement immediately.

An African-American advocacy group, ColorofChange.org, most recognized for their advocacy work done on behalf of the Jena 6, took Beck to task. Incensed by Beck’s statement, and challenging it as reckless race baiting, or what Tavis Smiley would call “racial arson,” ColorofChange.org called for calling on Beck's advertisers to stop sponsoring his show. Fifty-Seven Companies responded to the call and dropped Beck.

Beck responded. He did not apologize for calling Obama a racist. He did not attempt to explain, justify or defend his statement. Instead, he focused his response to personal attacks on Van Jones, co-founder of ColorofChange.org, and Special Advisor on green jobs to the Obama Administration. Beck took a step away from the criticism of his own comments and the resulting outcry and focused the whole of his attention on ad hominem attacks on Jones. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times:

During his 2 p.m. PDT show, Beck did not address the boycott spearheaded by Color of Change to protest the talk show host’s remark last month that he believes President Obama is “a racist.”
Instead, he spent a large share of his program suggesting that Jones, who co- founded Color of Change in 2005, is a radical. Jones now serves as a special advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.


WHO VAN JONES IS AND WHAT HE WAS ATTACKED FOR
Jones began a career of community organizing (an effort the right has been unreserved in its disdain for, despite their shallow conceits towards populism) as a Yale law student. Focusing primarily on police brutality, Jones was involved with protests in the LA Riots that followed the Rodney King verdict. Beck and right wing critics have stated that Jones served time in prison for inciting street violence and fueling race riots. In actuality, Jones participated in peaceful protests of police brutality, was arrested with a group of peaceful protesters, was released and apologized to by the LA Police, and received a settlement from a civil suit for wrongful arrest.

Jones was also a member of Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), a communist group that grew out of a San Francisco Organization called Roots Against War (RAW), founded to protest the first Gulf War. The group focused on racial, social and gender equality, and galvanized mass protests against police brutality. Jones has specifically been attacked for his affiliation with STORM because of its avowed Communist orientation, being likened to Nazis because of his “STORMtrooopers.” Jones has never apologized for his affiliation with a group who chartered itself on racial, social and gender equality, and I think his critics should be embarrassed to expect it.

Jones went on to found the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, focused on promoting social justice in the Oakland area, with programs like the Books Not Bars Campaign to reform California’s youth prison system, the self explanatory Green-Collar Jobs Campaign, the Heal the Streets program, a 10-month fellowship course to develop leadership in 15-18 year olds, and Soul of the City Campaign to make Oakland greener, more spiritually and socially conscious, and a watch dog program to advocate against police brutality.

Jones has likewise been a supporter of Mumia Abu Jamal, a Black Panther whose death sentence has been subject to speculation, as to the appropriateness of the death penalty, the fairness of his trial, and even his guilt. Jones has been widely attacked for his support of Jamal.

He has also been admonished for the statement that 9/11 should engender “sadness and anger at the deaths of innocent working class people” but also anger at the US government for the “worldwide aggression had engendered such hate across the globe that working class people were not safe at home. We honored those who had lost their lives in the attack -- and those who would surely lose their lives in subsequent U.S. attacks overseas.” He added that he was fearful that “Anti-Arab hostility is already reaching a fever pitch as pundits and common people alike rush to judgment that an Arab group is responsible for this tragedy," and that he feared “that an atmosphere is being created that will result in official and street violence against Arab men, women and children."

For the above statements, Mike Pence, Republican Congressmen from Indiana called for Jones’ resignation. Pence identifies as "a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order." Pence helped establish “Operation Offset” wherein he demanded tax cuts and abortion bans to counteract liberal efforts to provide aid to survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

Jones then founded ColorofChange.org in the wake of Katrina as an organization specifically aimed at advocating for people of color being underserved by the system. ColorofChange.org is probably best known for its advocacy work done on behalf of the Jena 6, six black high school students in Louisiana who were subjected to threats of lynching, and then trumped up legal charges.

In 2007, Jones founded a non-for profit, Green-For-All, specifically seeking to use green-collar jobs as a solution to American poverty. His works have earned him the following awards and accolades:

• 1997-1999 - Rockefeller Foundation "Next Generation Leadership" Fellowship
• 1998 - Reebok International Human Rights Award
• 2000 - International Ashoka Fellowship
• 2008 - Time Magazine Environmental Hero
• 2008 - Elle Magazine Green Award
• 2008 - One of the George Lucas Foundation's "Daring Dozen"
• 2008 - Hunt Prime Mover Award
• 2008 - Campaign for America's Future "Paul Wellstone Award"
• 2008 - Global Green USA "Community Environmental Leadership" Award
• 2008 - San Francisco Foundation Community Leadership Award
• 2008 - Puffin/Nation prize for "Creative Citizenship"
• 2008 - World Economic Forum "Young Global Leader"
• 2009 - Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award
• 2009 - Eco-Entrepreneur Award; Howard University
• 2009 - Individual Thought Leadership, Energy & Environment Awards; Aspen Ins Institute

WHY THIS MATTERS
Van Jones is a leader for social justice, a prominent and respected voice for the disenfranchised and a passionate advocate for the greening of America. His association with an organization that called a right-wing pundit to task for race baiting led him to be targeted politically. Fox News has proclaimed his resignation as “a victory.”

It should be unacceptable to Americans of either party to allow a leader who offers so much to be driven from the halls of power for political reasons. Let us not forget that even if we take his commitment to social justice as political extremism, the accusation cuts both ways. If we can have a GOP candidate for Vice President who speaks on behalf of political organizations who advocate violent secession from the Union, or GOP Governors who call for secession, surely there is room for a Special Advisor who refuses to apologize for his association with Communists. This sort of political gamesmanship is unacceptable. We cannot afford to lose advocates for the poor and the greening of America to these sorts of shoddy, shallow and cheap political attacks; there just aren’t enough people committed to social justice to spare.

The Post Wherein I Present the Whole WSJ Article by Whole Foods CEO, John Mackey, Infused With Appropriate Counter Argument and Profanity

John Mackey, CEO and co-founder of famous union busting powerhouse Whole Foods recently wrote an editorial for the Wall Street Journal wherein he decried the Obama Administration’s efforts to revamp healthcare and stated that health care is not a human right. I am providing his editorial in its entirety, interjecting my opinions and observations in italics.

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit.
Obama has not provided a Health Care Plan, but rather provided Congress with suggestions for “Guiding Principles” in drafting one – to refer to any of the several health care proposals as “ObamaCare” is a misstatement that is perfidious or ignorant. One of those Guiding Principles, a stated requirement for any plan he enacts, is that the Plan be “deficit neutral.” That means the title alone is based on a false premise.

By John Mackey

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out
of other people's money." —Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher privatized a dozen national industries during her time as Prime Minister, and revamped the British Health Care system extensively in the 1980s, and yet, left it as a “socialist” program. Probably not the most compelling person to quote at the opening of this article. She is currently receiving socialist treatment for a broken arm and advanced dementia.

With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people's money. These deficits are simply not sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.
While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits (The Congressional Budget Office has confirmed that the Plan is Deficit Neutral, Asshole!) and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system (This argument is literally taken, in several places to the word, from “GOP Health Care Talking Points” from gop.gov). Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment. (Is he making the argument that people without healthcare would be less empowered with government financing for their healthcare? What an asshole!)Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:

• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. (He is saying that the problem is that people are getting too much insurance for too little, and that we need to pass on some more costs to the insured. That is, perhaps, the dumbest thing he suggests in this whole shit sandwich he calls an editorial.) For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees' Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.
Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. The average Whole Foods “Team Member makes $25,451 per- year. Depending on the number of the people in the family, this average wage places these employees near, at or below the Federal Poverty level. Luckily Whole Foods only asks their employees to spend 10% of their pre-tax annual income on medical care before they kick in one-cent. Otherwise they would look bad.
This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully (John Mackey may be the first person in our national healthcare debate to suggest that it is actually the wasteful spending of the insured causing the crisis. If you were looking for a good place to decide to hate this ass-hat, I humbly propose that now would be a good point). Our plan's costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.

• Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.

• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable. The reason this is a bad idea is because than you have certain states, and I am looking at you, Delaware, who are willing to relax the legal requirements for the industry so that all the companies relocate. Then, in the race to the bottom, the only type of health insurance Americans can get is that provided in the state with the least regulations providing the least possible benefits. This is why credit card companies are all in Delaware, and legally allowed to eat your first born.

• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover (because why should health insurance be required by law to cover health conditions- that’s bullshit, right? Whose with me?) These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars (what with making insurance companies pay for hospital care and all). What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying (damn those special interest groups, like theAmerican Cancer Society and American Heart Association.)

• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care. I mean do you really want to be able to sue if you or a loved one is harmed through medical negligence or malpractice? Think of the poor insurance companies who need to be protected from those greedy families who lost loved ones to medical malfeasance. Won’t someone please, just once, think of the insurance companies?

• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor's visit and how that total breaks down? (Is he suggesting that people either a) do not know that medical treatment is expensive, or b) would not seek medical treatment if they knew how much it cost their insurance company? What fucking planet is this asshole from?) What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?

• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy (based on highly disputed partisan projections, unless you account for programs such as the recent White House proposal to create an independent council to set Medicare fees, estimated to save billions in the short term) and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment (what about having the government pay your healthcare bills to private providers leaves Americans underpowered, exactly?), choice (or without choice) and responsibility (yeah, John Mackey, fuck those irresponsible Medicare patients.)

• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren't covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
If only there were some way to, as a community, decide to contribute a voluntary portion of our earnings to provide medical care to those who need it. We need to think of some way to choose representatives from the public to craft these plans, and then some group to “govern” these donations and distribute them. Of course these donations to take care of other people should be subject, somehow, to accountability by the people making the donations through some sort of “vote.” John Mackey may really be onto something here. God, what a fucking asshole.

Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter? ( Or, perhaps, everybody has a human right to all three, asshole.)

Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food (provided by the USDA Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food through the Federal Food stamps program to 34 million Americans a month) and shelter (provided by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, which provides Federally subsidized housing for 1.2 million American households)it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges (god, what an asshole). A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. (Ok, this is probably the most offensive bit here. First, it isn’t true: you could easily make an argument that the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness includes an implicit promise of healthcare. Second, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act actually makes it illegal to deny medical treatment to somebody who needs it, making the right to healthcare, at least in the most immediate sense, a right in America, protected by law. Third, there are lots of rights we have that are not included in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, like the right not to be a fucking slave. Fourth, is this bag of dicks actually trying to argue that there is no human right to healthcare? It sounds an awful lot like that this bag of dicks is trying to argue that there is no human right to healthcare.)That's because there isn't any. This "right" has never existed in America. (Dude, did he just refer to the right to healthcare in sarcastic quotes? How can a millionaire CEO be so brazen as to snidely refer to the “rights” of the sick poor to healthcare in a nationally syndicated editorial and not be afraid to walk down the street without being spat on by every person that recognizes him? HOW?)

Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care (This is, interestingly enough, a lie. The right to healthcare s actually provided in both Canada and the UK, as provided in the 1984 Canada Health Act, Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and in the UK’s national Health Service Constitution.) Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them (it is worth adding that being told what treatments you have a right to merely defines the scope of the right, rather than negating it.) All countries with socialized medicine (metaphorically) ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines (metaphorically) to receive scarce (not actually) treatments.

Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor's Business Daily. (For what treatment? How long does this last? Is the wait to see a doctor actually longer than it is in the US? Is it longer than, say California?) In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million (Ok, this doesn’t even make sense. The waiting line is 1.8 million? What the fuck does that even mean?)

At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they already have an "intrinsic right to health care"? The answer is clear—no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K.—or in any other country.
Ok, I was wrong before, this is more fucking infuriating. Assuming what he is saying is true, and he is not a font of credibility, so what. If the government provides enough healthcare to meet the standard required as an essential human right, there is no reason to think that people wouldn’t want more. And that doesn’t negate it, or discount the sufficiency of the services to meet the minimum human right. That is like saying because criminal defendants with public defenders would like more legal services, than there is no right to habeas corpus. Total fucking bullshit. And again with the statement that there isn’t a human right to healthcare, which is, in the case of the three countries mentioned, technically incorrect, and in a broader sense, morally abhorrent.

Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health. Again, we really need to bring all these cancer patients to task for their lack of responsibility. And don’t get me started on those fucking goldbrickers with MS.

Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly (?!) preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.

Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age. Despite being a audacious, stomach churning piece of self-promotion, this is also wrong.

Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society. So, if you are sick and poor, or just either of the two, you now know you have nobody but yourself to blame.

Mr. Mackey is co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc. Perhaps you should not shop there.

FOX News: A Potential Political Bias?

FOX News has been wailing and moaning that the Tea Party protests, and FOX News itself, have been subject to unfair treatment in the mainstream media. The criticism, however, fails on two levels. Fist, FOX has claimed that by providing unflattering coverage, members of the media-at-large are violating the First Amendment Rights of the protesters. Second, a cursory reflection on the treatment FOX News gave those who protested the Iraq war betrays a shallow, politically based hypocrisy that deserves derision. I am pleased to provide at least a small part of that richly deserved derision. Allow me to begin.

Point One: Unfavorable Treatment by the Media Constitutes a Violation of the First Amendment
FOX News claims that the “main stream media” coverage was controlled by a “far-left vision,” and was “hateful,” “condescending,” “vulgar,” “obscene” and most importantly “don’t understand the First Amendment.”
Here is the problem: the First Amendment protects your right to say any damn thing, so that it can be introduced into the marketplace of ideas and wilt our flourish based upon their merit. The First Amendment provides the Tea Party folk to voice their ideas. The function and dynamic of the First Amendment requires that the right end when the idea is voiced. Other voices in the media, such as CNN, MSNBC and NPR must be free to respond those ideas and pooh-pooh them as necessary. That is the idea of evaluating the merit of ideas: people need the freedom to claim that Obama is a Nazi (really) and the rest of us must be allowed to laugh at them until our faces cramp up and we are afraid we are going to pass out, but sober ourselves because you don’t want to be unconscious near these maniacs. But we laugh later and are happy that we allowed them to speak because their hilarious and delusional fears make our social fabric more rich and nuanced, and provide necessary levity when debating serious issues. Plus, without them, David Icke would look crazy.

Point Two: FOX News is Hypocritical
You would expect that based on the outrage that FOX News displayed on the treatment the Tea Party’s received from the “left-leaning media,” you might expect that the conservative-leaning FOX would have provided wholly even-handed coverage of the anti-war protests leading up to and following the commencement of the Iraq war. If that is the case, I would also like to interest you in some real estate.
In one 2007 segment on FOX Sean Hannity program, they characterized the anti-war protesters as the “radical element” of “ hard left wingers, led by ‘Hanoi Jane’” spit on Veterans, send hate-mail to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and “vulgar people.” The segment wrapped with saying of “Code Pink, which is antiwar group” that “these are not Americans as far as I'm concerned." It goes on.
Fox Reported on anti-war protesters by providing a full complement of pro-war protesters and suggesting that “if the anti-war protesters succeed in altering U.S. policy, it would put more troops in harm's way.” Similar coverage establishes that “even as a majority of Americans say they want U.S. troops to stay in Iraq and finish the job,” anti-war protesters still subject Bush to criticism; this despite the fact that “almost half of voters think” that “if American troops left now,” it “would symbolize a victory for Iraqi insurgents and terrorists.” FOX also had the audacity to suggest that Cindy Sheehan, mother of a soldier slain in Iraq lacked “a legitimate reason for requesting another meeting with President Bush,” but rather was “just trying to get publicity for anti-war demonstrators.”


In 2005, Sean Hannity blamed “the anti-war left” for protesting the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, citing specific instances of such protests; Hannity, however, failed to mention that the “the anti-war left” protesters at the funerals were Fred Phelps and his cadre of loons from the Westboro Baptist Church. Typical of the “anti-war left,” Phelps believes “that God is killing soldiers to punish America for condoning homosexuality.” Says Phelps, "This is the hypocritical, fag-infested, fag-run United States of America and we're supposed to respect that fag rag flag?" Hannity astutely identified these sentiments as the type of typical liberal pabulum that passes for protests against the war, and rightly took them to task for bringing their left-wing agenda to the funerals of the fallen. Such fair and balanced characterizations set the standard for honoring and providing honest coverage of protesters of all political stripes.
And they aren’t alone: The Washington Post drew fire for granting equal coverage to anti-war and pro-war protests in 2007; however, unlike FOX, The Washington Post magnanimously covered the disparity and corrected the misrepresentation stating that anti-war protesters far outnumbered their pro-war counterparts.
So it appears, and I am proud to claim that I am the first to say this, but FOX News may be hypocritical. Pulitzer, please!