Dakota Today

**"Toxify" corporate and special interest contributions so Congress represents real people

One idea that is sprouting wings is that we all need to rise up and “toxify” money dumped into Congress by corporations involved in banking, insurance, health industry, military products, etc. The money they are getting from the very rich is destroying democracy by making it meaningless.

Our congress critters come out here pretending to be listening to us and then go back to Washington and vote for the big insurance companies, the big banks, and whatever special interest can buy their actual attention. They then dump some generality press release out giving a convoluted irrelevant reason for their votes that is supposed to fool us dumb folk.

It may not be possible for the State of South Dakota to ban all such contributions to federal candidates and incumbents, but the South Dakota Democratic and Republican Parties could refuse to allow any candidate to run under their party banners if they take money from special corporate interests.

Check the continuation for more on the "toxify" contributions idea as presented on Bill Moyers program by George Goehl.  I found this at Democratic Underground after I posted the information preceding.

*** Stay tuned for more on the money "toxification" movement --- Doug Wiken

** GOP Elves at work on a new "Guantanamo Willy Horton" in Illinois TV ad

John Thune is fretting and stewing that some prisoners in Guantanamo might end up in an Illinois prison "only about 450 miles east of Sioux Falls". Thune should have a flashing light with his own talking points terror ball colors.

"Moving dangerous terrorists from a secure location in Cuba into the heartland of the United States is an irresponsible move that could endanger American lives," Thune said in a statement. "Instead of holding the terrorists outside the United States, President Obama has decided to move the Guantanamo detainees to a location only 450 miles from Sioux Falls, South Dakota."
Terror suspects' new home: Illinois | argusleader.com | Argus Leader (17 December 2009)
 http://www.argusleader.com/article/20091216/NEWS/912160337/1001/news
 http://snipurl.com/tqk6q

Of course, Thune has also said that the Democratic Health plan won't help anybody for at least 1800 days from date of passage.

Robbinsdale Radical has an embedded video of US Senator from Minnesota Al Franken suggesting that Thune is entitled to his own opinions, but not to his own facts.  Have a look at Thune getting skewered.

Embedded Video at Robbinsdale Radical

After hearing Thune fretting, I saw the handwriting on the wall, some GOP elves, operatives, co-conspirators, and trolls are in a basement room filled with bags of cash twisting their brains into a knot trying to figure out a way to get people convinced that Willy Horton was in Guantanamo and will be soon escaping from the Illinois prison to get into a new revolving door commercial.

The Revolving door Video (requires Java, Flash)

Will there be parole and weekend passes for Guantanamo inmates once they get moved to Illinois?  Can Guantanamo prisoners be persuaded to walk around in a circle? Do any of them have faces more fear inducing than that of Black William Horton?  What are the inmates family values?  Will the question of why Will Horton was moved from a Maryland prison to Guantanamo ever be asked or answered by anybody besides Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck?  The work of GOP operatives is tough, but somebody has the big money to pay for it.it.  They will have to resurrect Talon News.

** Stay tuned for news that isn't..at least not yet ---- Doug Wiken

 

**Orchid and frost on the window..photo for a cold day

Yesterday December 12, 2009 was a pretty nice winter day for this area.  Actually not a bad day to be oooght and aboot as some of the Canadian students at the U of R used to say.  Today however is not nearly so nice.  We have some of the Canadian's and Eskimo's air occupying our space today.   High temperature today seems to be about 1/10th of what it was yesterday.  Anyway, below is a photo of one of my wife's orchids and the frost on the window.

Yesterday was also a nice night for the Winner Regional Hospital annual Christmas Party.  Food was pretty good too.  My wife when she isn't watering her plants works there.  In fact, she got a 25 year pin and a certificate last night.  It even spelled her name correctly even if the envelope it came in had "Wanda Wilken" on it.   Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

** Stay tuned, there may be warmer weather coming --- Doug Wiken

*** Representative Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin "Stands Tall for South Dakotans"

Whether or not about 600,000 South Dakotans actually think Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin actually represents them or some group of rich and influential “stake holders” in the Health Insurance industry seems to be an open question.  Whatever we do think, some lobbyist group is loading SD TV with ads claiming SHS is “Standing Tall for South Dakotans”.

My perspective on her standing tall has little to do with left or right, liberal or conservative or even up or down, but with her rank opportunism.



I did not hear the same radio broadcasts that Todd Epp heard and commented on his blog  at KELOLAND Issues Blogs  because both SDPB radio and TV have been off the air in the daytime out here in the boondocks.   I did read the column Herseth-Sandlin got into the Mitchell Daily Republic and did not find it persuasive or even setting a plausible reason for opposing the plans to change health insurance.

There is one good reason to oppose it and that is not Herseth-Sandlin’s reason, but is that the current proposals are a hodge-podge of bandages on a wasteful system that sucks out something like $395 billion in insurance profits and overhead from actual health care.   George McGovern has presented the only real reform of health insurance that makes any sense.

That is "Extend Medicare to every US Citizen”.  That is not nearly 2,000 pages of ways to allow private insurers to ration health care with no regard for patients or their doctors, but with full regard for their own profits and incredible executive salaries.

"Medicare for all citizens" is the only idea that makes sense if one ignores the totally deceptive TV ads fussing about government control of health. This is not government control of health nor is it corporate control of health. It is health insurance for all something the US has needed for over 50 years. Herseth and Blue Dog Democrats of Blue Dog crap fame have not presented a real health reform package any better than the secret GOP plan (remember Nixon's secret plan to end the Vietnam War?).

Those wanting to get the government off their health-care backs are inviting continued economic gang rape by corporations.  Thomas Friedman suggests that the lack of universal health care is the result of cowardice on the part of legislators in the face of corporate contributions or well-funded attack ads.  They are not pushing for optimal government policy instead weakly push for suboptimal policies.  They make little attempt to educate and inform on the real potential of policies and instead say upfront without discussion that such options are "off the table". The lack of universal health insurance separated from employment is also killing start up of innovative small business.  He concluded today on Charlie Rose with something like, "A great nation producing sub-optimal policies will soon cease to be a great nation."

The other problem with this “reform” that Herseth-Sandlin is not mentioning is that it will be used as an excuse to not actually reform heathcare with a universal single payer system.

*** Stay tuned even if you are perfectly happy with sub-optimal politicians and policies --- Doug Wiken

**Herseth-Sandlin and Blue Dogs make Blug Dog Crap

Rep. Herseth-Sandlin again demonstrates that the primary work product of Blue Dog Democrats is blue dog shit. 

Rep. Herseth-Sandlin talks like she represents people when she campaigns here in South Dakota, but when she gets to DC, she isn’t Democratic or Republican, she is 100% opportunist. She claims voting against the Health "Reform" Bill because of the budget impact, but did not consider that for the Iraq war and the other Bush loads of crap she supported. Her explanations for votes here in SD are convenient even if likely totally false responses suitable only for plausible denial

She forgets South Dakota real people in DC and remembers only corporations which dump money by the truckload into politics. In a way she is worse than a Republican since she portrays herself as something better. Her motormouth blithering blather is camouflage for a totally empty political perspective that is overwhelmed by reptilian brained  political survival. Her voting and explanations are an insult to any thinking Democrat or Republican.

The real problem with "Democratic" political hacks like Herseth-Sandlin is that they add credibility to the regressives of the right wing in the GOP party and implicitly support the manure spreader load of policy myths that have never worked and will never work.  By appealing to the lowest most ignorant wing of the GOP she makes the work of real Democrats in South Dakota even harder than it would be without her.  She has had a great opportunity to help educate South Dakotans on the failure of GOP policies and the workability of liberal alternatives and failed completely.

I fully understand that politicians have to get elected to do anything, but when they do get elected and then act as if the only thing important is to get re-elected, they demonstrate only opportunistic cowardice.   They fail to do a good part of the job that actual statesmen labor on educating and informing and they and she also make that honorable task even harder.

Obama has fallen victim to the idea that the current "middle" of the political spectrum in Washington actually stands for something besides the current muddle of a status quo  that works like a fascist combination of government and corporations.  The GOP now is skewed so far to the regressive backward right that they have made themselves as irrelevant as 17th century Tories in the US.  The Blue Dog Democrats are about an inch to the left of that GOP regression now and then and should be made irrelevant by a hard-nosed Obama driving for something better than mere but expensive patches on the current muddle.

Obama wasn't elected to further change of the small kind that rattles around in your pocket with car keys.  Washington is fundamentally screwed up and utterly corrupted by corporate money.  Herseth-Sandlin is making herself part of the problem instead of part of the solution.

If she opposed the cobbled-together 1900-page health care bill because it is a fraud designed only to bankroll a legacy insurance industry no more viable than a buggy whip plant, she might make some sense.  Supporting the McGovern "Make Medicare available to every citizen plan"  would make her into another prairie statesman instead of just another teat on the boar pig gluttony represented by the congressional status quo.

*** Stay tuned for more on the crying need for political campaign financing --- Doug Wiken

** Got $100 ? Update computers or contribute to SDPB?

South Dakota Public Broadcasting Radio has a "Midday" call in program on weekdays.  Every second Friday, the "Computer Guys" do their best to spread knowledge about computers, software and other interesting technology.  Today, like most techies recently, they were busy hyping Windows 7.

I e-mailed them and asked two questions:

From your perspectives, what advantages does Windows 7 have over WXP for someone doing basic text editing, reading email, and posting text on the web?

And a real puzzlement:

With only $100 to spare, which will do the most good, upgrading to W7 or contributing $100 to SDPB?

The first question was answered with mostly "NO". If you are not doing video editing or in dreadful need of a touch screen etc and are doing more or less mundane computer work editing text, reading e-mail, etc. you probably can get by with Windows XP until something like 2014 and still have Microsoft plugging security holes.

My second question, which I must admit was a bit tongue-in-cheek, was greeted with "That's just MEAN..really Mean-spirited" also delivered by them in a similar spirit. That was soon followed by 3 out of 4 of the experts deciding with no other motives than truth, justice and the American way that it would be better to contribute to SDPB than update computers and OS to Windows 7..

I found that logic just so persuasive that I broke down this evening and found SDPB on the Web and then hit their "Donate Button" on their remarkably drab "sparkling" website and agreed to be nice and contribute $100. Better them than Microsoft... assuming a false dichotomy provides logic for doing anything.

If you feel generous and recognize the contributions of public broadcasting to information and knowledge in SD, you can also make use of their secure site to make a contribution pledge.

Pledge Form at  South Dakota Public Broadcasting Website

Recently, President Obama has noted the generally misleading nature of Fox "News" and that is generating controversy in some SD Blogs. Not many sane observers can honestly attack PBS or SDPB for being hopelessly slanted either to the left or to the right...sort of depends on the day and on whoever is pontificating.

** Stay tuned even if you can't find the "Donate Now" button for Dakota Today -- Doug Wiken

** About a half dozen reasons for Single-Payer Health Insurance

A site has found some of the salaries of the bigwigs in the health insurance industry.  It appears these greedy SOBs are very good reasons for Single Payer insurance of the kind George McGovern supported: "Extend Medicare to every US Citizen."

Insurance Executive Salaries

Our Congress Critters have spent the summer putting together a 1000 or more pages of a bill that does nothing but patch the corrupt health insurance industry with bandages designed to camouflage their excess, obscene greed so that not quite so many egregious denials of coverage exist.

The logic of all these patches does not lead logically to "a public option" as a pitiful small part of another huge industry subsidy, but rather to a public option as the only option allowed. Insurance companies can suck money out of us by providing supplemental coverage similar to those for current medicare program for those of us "lucky" enough to be over 65. Again,  Ask yourself:

• Do you love your family?
• Do you love your insurance company and these executives?

Take your pick.

** Stay tuned, and if you are bored, total up the salaries of the listed insurance company executives--- Doug Wiken

** Health Insurance reform...One side lying the other not telling the truth

I may be paranoid, but I have stopped believing either Democrats or Republicans in Congress are actually one bit interested in real reform of health insurance and thus in directly in the long run also reform of the US Healthcare industry.  The title of this post is from the site below.

Chris Floyd's Description of the "fighting" sides

Some health insurance industry group dumped a report into the media and Congress claiming there will be huge increases in health insurance premiums. Democrats in Congress pounced on that and claimed it was a good reason to support their "reform"

My paranoia suggests this is a ploy. The Democrats can play Br'er Rabbit pleading "Don't throw me into that Briar Patch". Democrats can play this game as they support anything but a single payer system which might actually reduce citizen's spending on healthcare even as it is extended to everybody ala Medicare which now works mostly only for those of us over 65.

CBS News has been taking surveys over a period of time on the "public option" (which I think should be the only option).

---------------------------------------

CBS News Poll. Oct. 5-8, 2009

"Would you favor or oppose the government offering everyone a government-administered health insurance plan -- something like the Medicare coverage that people 65 and older get -- that would compete with private health insurance plans?"

Date...........Favor Oppose Unsure

                    %         %            %

10/5-8/09      62      31           7

9/19-23/09    65        26          9

8/27-31/09     60       34         6

7/24-28/09     66        27        7

7/9-12/09       64        29        7

6/12-16/09     72        20        8

----------------------------------

Note that the support for the "public option" has decreased somewhat because of all the industry propaganda much of it also spewed by Max Baucus who claims to be reform as he produces a plan guaranteeing no real reform, but rather a 1000 page bill that is actually a huge bandage to cover up fraud and deceit and waste in the current system even as it maintains the virtual monopoly of corporate health insurance.. Despite that, support for a public option is still above 50%.

And, if you want another measure of the reason why we should accept nothing but the single-payer universal care approach in the one-line "McGovern Bill"..

"Extend Medicare to every US Citizen"

take a look at the link below which explains a bit about the health insurance system congress generously provides itself at the expense of us taxpayers.

CBS TV explains the Healthcare Plan Congress Gives Itself

And remember, When you hear that this reform involves six percent or more of the US economy, that refers to actual health care not the health insurance industry itself.

*** Stay tuned for more winter of discontent ---- Doug Wiken

**SDPB puts together good info on TV reception....but.....

If you are still curious about the changes involved in going from analog to digital TV and the effects those changes had on channel frequencies, signal strength, antenna information, splitter information, digital to analog, etc. etc.  Check the link below:

SDPublic Broadcasting on Antennas, etc.

I don't think you will find any better information on antennas, cabling, splitters, amplifiers, etc. (especially for South Dakota) than above. It appears to have some information that has been put together with a little more experience answering real questions than initially was put out in glossy "Easy to Do" brochures, ads, websites, etc.

Now, the "but". SDPB-TV has recently been promoting the "sparkling" new website you saw if you looked at the link above. Your perspective may not be a bit like mine however. It does appear improved from the old tangled mess of a site, but it now looks a bit like a site for a mortuary that hides links behind barely readable icons of limp light blue on stale barely darker blue. At least for my old eyes, some more contrasty larger type on icons would be an improvement.

I have this prejudice against web designers, phone designers, radio designers, TV remote designers, cellphone designers etc that dislikes and fails to understand their tendency to use some color like light gray on drab gray with very small type or incomprehensible, ambiguous icons. There are some of us old geezers interested in technology and the internet who don't have perfect vision and 36-inch diagonal digital monitors situated in perfect non-glare lighting and in front of a $2000 special chair.  And, now and then cellphones are needed in dimly lit or dark areas.  Radios and TV controllers that require a flashlight to be seen and which place often used and dangerous to use keys next to each other.  Enough already....  Well maybe not.  Stuff so damn tiny that it can only be used by women or small girls with tiny fingers is also aggravating to those of use with a few stiff fingers that only fit the larger glove sizes.

** Stay tuned... and stay tuned to public TV and radio too...even if now and then aggravating, there is nothing better on commercial TV or radio--- Doug Wiken

Who put the bomp .... Who put the "Con" in Congress?

* No, it is not music. It is the sound of a lot of health insurance industry money oiling the palms of those who pretend to represent those of us who are not rich. Bill Moyers a night or two ago indicated that the health insurance industry has spent $350 Million on deceptive ads, lobbying, and political contributions since the idea of "health reform" gained currency (no pun intended).

* Max Hocus Baucus,  Democrat of Montana has sucked several $million out of the health industry and apparently something in the neighborhood of a million in this last go round. He is in charge of making sure no public option or single payer system comes out of congress as he smiles and talks about reform.

* George McGovern in a talk in Winner, SD recently responded to a question of mine regarding the complexity of society and issues wondering how many congress critters were actually capable of comprehending what they claim to be doing. McGovern politely danced around that and implicitly indicating the problems in Congress were not mainly due to ignorance or mental deficiency, but rather to the nearly incomprehensible amounts of money flooding incumbents of Senate and US Congress. He expressed some sympathy for them suggesting that they were not now really free agents. I guess in terms more of us less politic might say, " Our congress critters have become political prostitutes. They are bought and paid for with multimillion campaign "contributions".

* We have recently had most of the South Dakota delegation Sen. Johnson, Sen Thune, and Representative Herseth-Sandlin back here in South Dakota pretending to really, really be interested in the concerns of people burned and bankrupted by health problems and problems with health insurance. Then they go back to Washington and build a 1000-page incomprehensible bill which is claimed to be reform, but is really a boondoggle stimulus package for the health insurance and health industry.

* Our representatives talk to us a bit like did George Carlin when he gave the sports scores," 10-7, 24- 8, 6 -1 and a partial score 14.

" Our representatives Democratic and Republican are feeding us partial scores that only include bits and pieces of what the health insurance industry wants us to hear. There are a few lonely voices, but they are few and far between. The Republicans who oppose health care reform are mostly not doing it because they want something better, but because the status quo, fouled up as it is, benefits their largest contributors.

*Democrats in Congress who fail to listen to George McGovern's prescription for a single line bill, "Extend Medicare to every Citizen" are failing to comprehend the benefits to the Democratic Party and the country of that best single payer option. If Obama and Democrats pass such a bill, the Republican Party will be a small voice crying in the wilderness for the next 40 years.

*The GOP has opposed nearly every program that benefited everyday people including most of us South Dakotans. Had Republicans won on the REA, The RTA, hydro power development, farm policy, Medicare and Medicaid, and social security, South Dakota would be dark every night at dusk with sick poverty stricken elderly huddling in the cold without washing machines, TV or radio. South Dakota would be even more like a third-world country than it is now.

*Add opposition to an efficient universal health insurance plan and the GOP will be not just an empty bag of tricks, but a vacuum-packed empty bag. The current steaming pile of amendments and patches for a defective system is worse than nothing. If the smoke and mirrors congress passes this "reform", we will be hearing for the next 20 years if we live that long that "We just reformed health insurance." even as the industry demonstrates that it is all just a new bit of sham legislation to raid the US Treasury and still leave millions uninsured.

* The putrid stench from Washington regarding health insurance "reform" is a powerful reason to ban all poitical contributions and have only publicly-fiananced campaigns. I don't think our political prostitutes should be allowed to accept so much as a free cup of coffee from constituents or lobbyists.

* Big money makes democracy irrelevant. Throw the Democratic and Republican bums out. Drag the money changers out of our political "temples".  Much is yet to be done.

*** Stay tuned for the partial weather report --- Doug Wiken