Why? Because it would require people to buy goods from private companies, without being able to opt-out.

So says Karl Manheim, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, and Jamie Court, chairman of Consumer Watchdog in Santa Monica, Calif.

Don’t think that just because Clinton’s plan would have “covered everyone,” that it is better than Obama’s. Clinton’s plan would be a boon for the private insurance industry — not for families.

I guess it’s a moot point at this time; she can’t get the nomination.

To cover everyone, a better option is universal single payer government provided healthcare.

The latest Pew Research poll shows that Clinton and Obama are now neck and neck, whereas last month, Obama had a 10 point lead.

Harpers

• Turns out most people choose cooperation over competition: “why, if humans prefer cooperation when given that option, are there so many instances of competition shown in everyday life?”
• Hawaiians make move for national sovereignty and occupy historic palace, declaring it would take over the official government duties. The Hawaii Kingdom Government is a constitutional monarchy of the rightfully independent nation of Hawaii. They do not recognize Hawaii as a U.S. state, but as an autonomous nation occupied by the United States.
• Radiohead joins MTVexit to make this video about sweatshop labor.


Because the project is funded in part by USAID, I’m surprised how not terrible it is. Sure, it’s cliche and not insightful, but at least, it’s not dehumanizing and it makes the connection between the two kids.

It just doesn’t offer any analysis about the problem — why is the white kid wearing the shoes made by the other kid? And who is profiting from the exploitation of child labor? Corporations — like those who sponsor MTV programming and that of other Viacom networks.

And it doesn’t really offer any solutions. But MTVexit isn’t really about stopping sweatshop labor. Their mission statement says they want to increase awareness about human trafficking through education and outreach with local anti-trafficking organizations. Sounds like they’re trying for an easy PR boost.

Few would deny that child labor and human trafficking are bad — besides Nicholas Kristof, Milton Friedman and a few other insane ideologues who deny reality and ignore human suffering — so I can’t see what this campaign actually hopes to do — besides give MTV the false appearance of caring.

By the way, MTV’s website has a whole section on activism, listed under the subtitle “Movies, Games & More.”

• Clinton makes cheap attempt to appear in touch with working folks, AP couldn’t even resist scoffing:
  
  

  SOUTH BEND, Ind. - Hillary Rodham Clinton, a former first lady who hasn’t driven a car or pumped gas in many years because of Secret Service restrictions, joined a blue-collar worker at a filling station Wednesday to illustrate how the high price of gasoline is squeezing consumers.

  
  The Democratic presidential candidate and sheet metal worker Jason Wilfing, 33, pulled into the station in a large white Ford 250 pickup truck, Clinton riding shotgun. Never mind that it wasn’t even Wilfing’s truck — he had borrowed his boss’s larger vehicle to accommodate Clinton’s security agent and personal assistant, who rode in the back.

  Trailing Wilfing and Clinton was a Secret Service motorcade consisting of six gas-guzzling Suburbans, two squad cars and a green SUV bearing photographers and TV cameras. Several other reporters and cameramen stood shivering in unseasonably cold temperatures, ready to capture the multi-vehicle arrival.

  Clinton and Wilfing stepped out of the car and approached the pump. Wilfing chose regular unleaded gasoline, and began filling the tank. The two engaged in chit chat, with New York senator mentioning her proposal for a temporary gas tax holiday to ease the price pinch on consumers.

  The tank filled, Clinton looked at the price recorded at the pump and shook her head.

  “Sixty-three dollars,” she said. “For just about half a tank.”

  Shutters clicked, cameras whirred. Point made.

First they randomly (racially profiling) targeted Sean Bell and two of his friends as they leave a club after celebrating his bachelor party. As he got into a car, the police began shooting at them - firing 50 rounds and killing Sean Bell.

The police claimed that they were fired on, but no gun was found on the other side. The men were completely unarmed and guilty of NO CRIME.

The trial only lasted two months.

This is a disgusting outcome. Shame on Judge Arthur J. Cooperman.

And why was there no jury trial? oh right, the three police didn’t want it and opted to go before the superior court. Good ‘ole democracy.

Civil rights leaders demanded a federal investigation and vowed to march through the streets in protest after three police officers were cleared of all charges in the killing of an unarmed black man. (April 25)

“We’re going to demonstrate to the government that New Yorkers will not take this abortion of justice lying down,” said Al Sharpton, prominent civil rights leader.

From Sept. 11, 2007:

A few pies to the face greeted Thomas Friedman - New York Times columnist - as he was preparing to give the keynote address on Earth Day before a packed auditorium at Brown University.

His talk - titled “Green is the new Red White and Blue” - was about how corporate environmentalism (which would give corporations ownership of our common resources and legal rights to pollute our air and water under the facade of conservation) can restore the United States to its “natural place in the global order.”

“Luckily, this outrageous neoliberal capitalist propaganda was interrupted with a surprise visit from the Greenwash Guerrillas.”

That’s a very successful pieing. You can see Friedman flustering as he visibly debated himself about whether to continue with the speech.

He decided to go back and clean up before delivering his address.

And his lecture made the reasons for the pieing — his racism and imperialism — all the more apparent.

For example, two of his talking points:

• “He used two hands to graph the price of oil against the freedom of the people in the country selling it, which he argued is an ‘inverse correlation.’”
• “We’re going to get really super-efficient at raping the natural world,” he said during the lecture, adding that clean, cheap energy can become “a license to buy a Hummer and drive it through the Amazon.”

Right, corporations are kicking families from their homes and communities, destroying the farmland and natural environment to produce pseudo-fuels known as biofuels — e.g., corn ethanol — for fucking hummers that CEOs can then drive over the ruin they caused — a purely callous final insult.

———-

The Guerrillas also threw leaflets to the audience, stating:

Thomas Friedman deserves a pie in the face…

* because of his sickeningly cheery applaud for free market capitalism’s conquest of the planet

* for telling the world that the free market and techno fixes can save us from climate change. From carbon trading to biofuels, these distractions are dangerous in and of themselves, while encouraging inaction with respect to the true problems at hand.

* for helping turn environmentalism into a fake plastic consumer product for the privileged

* For his long-standing support for the US Occupation of Iraq and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Such committed support to the US War Machine and its proxy states overseas cannot be masked behind any twisted mask of “green” - the US Military is the largest single emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.

* for his pure arrogance.
On behalf of the earth and all true environmentalists — we, the Greenwash Guerrillas, declare Thomas Friedman’s “Green” as fake and toxic to human and planetary health as the cool-whip covering his face.

One student was apprehended by police after a professor - the organizer of the event - chased her down and did what he called “a citizen’s arrest.” Another student got away. The school has not yet meted out punishment.

George Bush has set a new record: the lowest approval rating in the 70 year history of the Gallup Poll. The poll taken over the weekend found that 69 percent of people in the United States disapprove of Bush’s job.

1. “Attack Iran”

“I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran,” Hillary Clinton declared to an early morning audience on Good Morning America. “In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”

Not quite what I want to wake up hearing. What the fuck. She may as well have sang it as McCain did, “Bomb, bomb, bomb. bomb-bomb Iran.”



It’s official. I despise her.

But at least she’s now being honest about how hateful she really is. No more of those silly lies about diplomacy and measured action. Is this truthfulness a new shift in her campaign strategy?

Next up: “I supported and still support NAFTA - it was good for my friends at Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods and other former clients.”

And “I’m actually much wealthier than Obama; the poor chap has made less than 4 percent what Bill and I’ve made since 2000. And Obama would not be welcomed at our country club - not just because he’s not big money, but also because he’s black.“

Yeah, that’s right, the Clintons were members of an all white country club in Arkansas, which might explain the following.

2. “The Race Card.”

Yesterday during a radio interview, Bill Clinton said, “[Obama and his campaign] played the race card on me.” Right, because black people have a special card - not only does it help them win the presidency (so successful in the past!), but it can also get them out of jail free and let them off with a warning when police pull them for speeding.



Come on, Billary, stop being such a supercilious racist. Race privilege doesn’t mean that black people have a card they can pull, but that white people have a knapsack full of shit they didn’t earn.

“Hold on a second,” Obama responded when asked about Clinton’s recent remarks. “So former President Clinton dismissed my victory in South Carolina as being similar to Jesse Jackson and he is suggesting that somehow I had something to do with it?

“You better ask him what he meant by that. I have no idea what he meant. These were words that came out of his mouth. Not words that came out of mine.”

His words? Bill says they’re not. Billary’s now denying he made the comments that he made while on-air. Frankly, by now, he should know the futility of disavowing something recorded. Ridiculous.

• Lower life expectancy in disadvantaged counties:

People are dieing younger in many of our nation’s worst off counties, a new study has found. The study authors conclude, “[T]he 1980s and 1990s marked an era of increased inequalities in mortality in the United States.”

“[These inequalities are] particularly troubling,” the researchers explain, “because an oft-stated aim of the U.S. health system is the improvement of the health of all people, and especially those at greater risk of health disparities.”

Despite its stated goals, our health system is leaving many people without the care they need to live. The insurance driven healthcare is not covering everyone. It is inadequate and the price is deadly.

We need universal, single payer healthcare to remove these unjust inequalities, so no one’s life is needlessly cut short.



• We react to fairness in the same way we do to money:

The human brain responds to fairness, UCLA researchers have found, the same as it does to winning money or eating chocolate. Fairness and money are both seen as rewards.

Given that money and fairness are often mutually exclusive, the real question becomes what is more rewarding. I would say the latter. You?

• Stereotypes play a bigger role than you think in determining outcome:

Social stereotypes, researchers found in a meta-analysis of several studies, partially determine a person’s ability to do well at a particular task or job.

For example, Asian women tend to do better at math if they identify as Asian rather than women.

Racism is so deeply internalized that the language describing a sporting event actually affects its outcome. Another study has shown that white golfers tend to perform better against black opponents if they are told that they are being judged on their “sport strategic intelligence” than if they are told they are being tested on their “natural athletic ability.”

“The power of stereotypes should not be underestimated. What we think about ourselves - and also, what we believe others think about us - determines both how we perform and what we are able to become,” said Professor Alex Haslam of the University of Exeter. “As well as holding people back, stereotypes and preconceptions can boost both individual and group performance. For example, if you belong to a group that is always exposed to the message ‘we are the best,’ this can promote personal achievement. While we’re often told ‘believe in yourself,’ it can actually be more beneficial to focus on beliefs about your group, as group identity is a powerful vehicle for both personal and social change.”