Mary from Pacific Views with another post spelling out exactly what Goldman Sachs did to crash the economy.
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How the tobacco lobby wrote the new anti-smoking legislation:
JUAN GONZALEZ: The White House has called the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act the, quote, “strongest measure protecting children from the dangers of smoking to date.”
But not everyone agrees. Several public health professionals have come out strongly against the new legislation. They argue that it [...]
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Remember that Rolling Stone piece about Goldman Sachs I mentioned the other day? Here’s another post from Matt Taibbi that should raise serious concerns about the stranglehold the company has on the economic markets:
“In a move set to infuriate and send many Zero Hedge readers over the top, the NYSE has taken action to make [...]
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So many health care providers are addicts, and if they need drugs, they end up doing horrible things like this.
A Rose Medical Center operating room technician who was fired after failing a drug test for a powerful pain medication may have exposed thousands of patients to hepatitis C.
The technician, infected with hepatitis C, is charged [...]
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Rolling Stone finally linked to the Matt Taibbi story. Go read all about how Goldman Sachs rules our world.
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Via Lambert, this from Naked Capitalism: Is the new government program to aid underwater homeowners really predatory lending? Sure looks like it:
Why would you trade a non-recourse loan from which you can walk away for a recourse loan that guarantees you’ll end up as bad as some poor slob at Tappahannock? It doesn’t seem like [...]
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Juan Cole writes about how Dick Cheney is worried that the sacrifices made on behalf of capturing Iraq’s oil fields will be wasted. He quotes a new report from the Public Record that reviews the documentary record:
‘ [An] April 2001 report, “Strategic Policy Challenges for the 21st Century,” was prepared by the James A. Baker [...]
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From Coalition of the Obvious, via Avedon, this useful “compare and contrast” on national health care systems. It especially means something to me because a few years back, after my unemployment ran out and I was working an hourly job, I developed pneumonia and couldn’t afford to pay for a chest x-ray. (I don’t remember [...]
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Via Gawker, this astonishing clip:
Last night Glenn Beck’s guest was ex-CIA person Michael Scheuer, who stated that the only hope for the country was for Osama Bin Laden to “deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.” Seriously.
Why would any good, patriotic American say such a thing in a discussion about border protection? [...]
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Matt Taibbi on Goldman Sach’s response to his recent Rolling Stone piece. Go read it all, but this is priceless:
After my Rolling Stone piece about Goldman, Sachs hit the newsstands last week (unfortunately the piece is not yet up on the magazine’s web site, so I can’t link to it yet — but it is [...]
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Al wins! Again!
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A heart attack patient denied a blood test because he apparently still owed $7 on a previous test.
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Go read:
Playing along isn’t working. So how about rounding up all the members of the Progressive Caucus (and their many allies around the country) and opting out? Leave the Democractic Party. Form a third party of their own (or just join the Greens). All of a sudden the Democratic Party has a numbers problem. All [...]
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It’s getting to the point where I don’t even want to read Simon Johnson anymore:
Buried in the late wire news on Friday – and therefore barely registering in the newspapers over the weekend – Treasury announced the rules for pricing its option to buy shares in banks that participated in TARP.
The Treasury Department said the [...]
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I guess it’s the food industry’s version of taking the 5th Amendment? It’s already past time for a rigorous overhaul of the FDA. During the BushCo years, staffing was deeply cut, compliance and disclosure was simply voluntary - and did you know they stopped doing random inspections? Maybe if enough people stop buying processed foods, [...]
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9.2 Million people are already insured by a single payer system in this country.
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That John Roberts is just another in a long line of Republican closet cases. Just sayin’!
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I wish I’d been paying closer attention to this, because now I have a whole lot of questions that weren’t there before I read Matt Taibbi’s latest story for Rolling Stone: “How Goldman Sachs took over Washington by engineering every major market manipulation since the Great Depression.”
But first, the “good” news:
WASHINGTON — Landmark legislation to [...]
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About wait times for surgery in a Canadian hospital. Who would have guessed, etc. Canadians are so polite. This guy kicks McConnell’s ass, then closes with:
In summary, Senator McConnell, in an effort to advance your position opposing public health care, you have maligned a very proud institution whose service to our community dates back some [...]
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Jim Hightower:
Like a Fourth of July crescendo of fireworks, our gasoline prices are rising higher and higher. While this is tough on consumers, we’re assured by a covey of tongue-clucking industry analysts that nothing can be done about it, for it’s simply the law of supply and demand in action — so suck it up, [...]
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One of my friends wrote me after the Sanford story broke:
I encourage you — and any whom you can influence — to pay attention to all the commentary about Sanford. And, what I predict is that you’ll note precious little to nothing in all the commentary with regard to the effects of his policies [...]
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Posted in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels on Jun 24th, 2009
I guess I should feel sorry for this alleged “victim”?
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Christy Hardin Smith:
For the last year or so, we’ve been dealing with a family health care crisis. Most of you know that both my in-laws were hospitalized for months last summer, only to have my mother-in-law pass away last October.
Since that time, my father-in-law moved in with us because he could not live [...]
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You mean crazy Michael Moore was right again? And it really was about controlling the oil?
WASHINGTON — Documents gathered by lawyers for the families of Sept. 11 victims provide new evidence of extensive financial support for Al Qaeda and other extremist groups by members of the Saudi royal family, but the material may never find [...]
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Former CIGNA PR rep Wendell Potter is testifying before a Senate committee this afternoon. Coincidentally, my friend D. sent a link to this recent interview in the Columbia Journalism Review, and you should read the whole thing. And after you read it, you should bookmark it. Whenever you see an erroneous story about healthcare reform, [...]
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Looks like someone wants to make restitution:
The much-maligned health insurance industry is braced for another black eye today as the Senate hears testimony from a former insurance company executive.
Wendell Potter, who worked in public relations for Cigna and Humana Inc., for more than 20 years before retiring in 2008, is scheduled to testify this afternoon [...]
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I just thought I’d point out the most obvious reason why even supportive Democrats are dragging their feet: the longer they go without taking a stand, the longer it will be before Big Pharma and the insurance companies set the hounds loose on their personal lives and finances.
Expect to see lots of “scandals” in the [...]
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Let’s see what happens with this:
Defense Minister Ehud Barak has authorized the building of 300 new homes in the West Bank, defying U.S. calls for a halt to settlement growth.
Activists for Bimkom association, which works for justice and human rights in planning and knows a thing or two about the situation in the territories, have [...]
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I once did a three-hour interview with a prominent Republican state legislator, famous for being the leader of the state’s pro-life movement. (He confided to me that nothing he did for the movement was ever enough, that they might even be, yes, a tad wacky.)
Despite our many political differences, we did hit it off and [...]
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Lambert:
The public option is not some sort of compromise. It is not some kind of gentle glidepath to single payer, since the legislation will be designed to make the transition to single payer FAIL, as Kathleen Sibelius admits. And as the public option FAIL takes 10 years or so to play out, it will suck [...]
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