Monthly Archives: April 2009

AIG Outrage Revealed: Fights Almost 50% Of Serious Claims

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ProPublica

Civilian workers who suffered devastating injuries while supporting the U.S. war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan have come home to a grinding battle for basic medical care, artificial limbs, psychological counseling and other services.

The insurance companies responsible for their treatment under taxpayer-funded policies have routinely denied the most serious medical claims. Those insurers — primarily American International Group (AIG) — recorded hundreds of millions of dollars in profits on this business.

The civilian contractors have played an indispensable role in the two conflicts, delivering fuel to frontline troops, guarding U.S. diplomats and translating for soldiers during dangerous raids. More than 1,400 civilian workers have died and 31,000 have been wounded or injured in the two war zones.

The insurance system for civilian contractors has generated profits for the providers, primarily AIG, the war zone’s dominant player. Insurers collected more than $1.5 billion in premiums paid by U.S. taxpayers and have earned nearly $600 million in profit, according to congressional investigators.

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Don’t Hand Those Clothes To Me

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So, will Sarah Palin really try to run for president in 2012? Did she learn anything from the last time she ran for national office? Let’s find out with some help from The Police’s “Don’t Stand So Close To Me”.

Don’t Hand Those Clothes To Me
Original music and lyrics, Sting, 1981
Additional lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider 2009

Young gov’nor, the subject
Of blogger fantasy
She wants this so badly
Knows what she wants to be
Inside her there’s nothing
This girl’s a prop on stage
Veep-picking, she’s so close now
This girl is half his age

Don’t hand, Continue reading →

Norm, take out the earplugs…

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I guess he’s not listening…

Norm Coleman: ‘The law is on our side’

Norm Coleman is trying to convince Minnesotans that his appeal to the Supreme Court is warranted. “I think the law is on our side,” Coleman told StarTribune.com.

In a meeting Thursday with the Star Tribune editorial board, Coleman said that the principle of enfranchising legitimate voters is more important than leaving Minnesota without two senators for another few weeks.

But Coleman also acknowledged that many Minnesotans are tired of the seemingly interminable recount process, in which he trails by 312 votes after Monday’s ruling by a three-judge panel. He is doing a round of interviews, he said, “for the purpose of letting folks know that we’re doing this for a reason.”

“In spite of what some say, that somehow this is an effort to delay something — no,” he said. “There are very legitimate, important constitutional questions regarding whether or not people’s vote should count.”

It’s funny to see Republicans suddenly so concerned with voters’ rights, and ‘the disenfranchisement of voters’… Especially when such enormous effort has been made, in a transparent fashion, to make sure votes were counted correctly.

At this point, this is only about keeping Senator Al Franken from taking his seat, and giving the Democrats 59 seats in the US Senate. It’s playing rotten politics. This is not about the people of your state. The courts have looked at this thoroughly and given both sides the opportunity to make their case (as they should) before making their decision. They’ve made their decision.

And now that fat lady is singing – at the top of her lungs..

Coleman, take out the ear plugs, and stop denying the state of Minnesota their two seated US Senators. Every step you now take to further frustrate the process is meant to stall the inevitable. The more you drag this out, the worse you look.

Do what is right and honorable, and best for the people of Minnesota.

Open Thread: A little George Carlin

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We Are Equal

George Carlin, “I would like to talk about things that bring us together.”  ”Things that point out our similarities, instead of our differences.”  ”That’s all you ever hear about in our country is our differences, in the media and from the politicians.”

It is a hilarious video.

US Media Ignores Vindication of Progressive Blogs’ Charge of White Phosphorus War Crimes By US-Ally Israel.

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A guest-post by TheZoo commenter 5thstate

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White Phosphorous in Gaza.

About four and a half years ago the US military was battering the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, Iraq, into submission.  Even as the battle was being fought reports began to surface that White Phosphorous shells were being used, injuring (and/or killing) civilians who had been unwilling or unable to abandon the town despite the inevitability of attack, and despite international agreements that WP-use be significantly constrained if civilians might be hurt.

In the aftermath Italian public television aired a half–hour film purporting to show evidence of the use of “Willie Pete” against the town and its civilians. The blogosphere picked up on the story and buzzed with commentary and accusations—no prizes for guessing which side of the issue left-wing and right-wing blogs fell.

The NY Times reported on the controversy in its International section with an article titled: “US Is Slow to Respond to Phosphorus Charges“, dated November 21, 2005. Of its approximately 24 paragraphs the most lines are given to the US military’s criticism of the Italian documentary and in descriptions of their confusing PR efforts to counter the charges. Nowhere does the NYT article state that the use of “Willie Pete” against civilians is a war crime under international law to which the US is a signatory.

The article concludes:

At home, on the public radio program Democracy Now!, Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, an American military spokesman, said, “I know of no cases where people were deliberately targeted by the use of white phosphorus.”

But those statements were incorrect. Firsthand accounts by American officers in two military journals note that white phosphorus munitions had been aimed directly at insurgents in Falluja to flush them out. War critics and journalists soon discovered those articles.

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Real Estate Plunge Hitting Malls Across The Country

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Some malls are trying creative ideas to capture business.  Here is one idea that is being used to get your business.

A half-dozen malls across the country are planning to install a huge contraption called the Flowrider in vacant retail space. Where once people shopped for three-packs of underwear or sheet sets, they are now turning up in flip-flops and shorts to surf an artificial patch of ocean.

However good a business that turns out to be for the company controlling the Flowrider, it is also a sign of the times. With major retail chains like Linens ‘n Things and Circuit City closing stores or disappearing altogether, mall and shopping center vacancies are soaring, forcing landlords to find new ways to lure traffic and stave off decline.

You ask, what is a Flowrider?   They got their start in water parks and on cruise ships. It is a 10-feet-tall wave machine that sends 35,000 gallons of water gushing over a slope at more than 30 miles an hour.  Mall owners are paying close to $2 million dollars to install this device.

The recession has already taken its toll on retailers across the country. Now shopping malls themselves are in big trouble. One of the largest mall owners in this country filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy today.

General Growth Properties, which owns more than 200 malls, is more than $27 billion in debt – another sign that the meltdown in residential real estate is now spreading to the commercial sector as well.

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AIG Turns Back On Blind Amputee

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How AIG has handled John Woodson’s claim is unconscionable.  While executives get bonuses and expensive junkets, Woodson received the least expensive route they could possible take.  He is a 51 year old truck driver for the KBR contracting firm who lost his leg when his truck hit a roadside bomb in Iraq.

An Oklahoma man who lost an eye and a leg in Iraq says the giant insurance company AIG refused to provide him a new plastic leg and fought to keep from paying for a wheelchair or glasses for the eye in which he has 30 percent vision.

Woodson is one of a number of injured contractors whose alleged difficulties with AIG were examined in the joint investigation.

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Turley: Torture prosecution is not ‘retribution’

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George Washington University law school professor Jonathan Turley was a guest last evening on The Rachel Maddow Show, and discussed the White House release of the Bush-era secret torture memos, and President Obama’s ruling out the prosecution of CIA officials for the use of those tactics.


Olbermann: ‘Mr. President, you are wrong’

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A “Special Comment” from Countdown with Keith Olbermann, April 16, 2009:

From Countdown:

As promised, a Special Comment now on the president’s revelation of the remainder of this nightmare of Bush Administration torture memos. This President has gone where few before him, dared. The dirty laundry — illegal, un-American, self-defeating, self-destroying — is out for all to see.

Mr. Obama deserves our praise and our thanks for that. And yet he has gone but half-way. And, in this case, in far too many respects, half the distance is worse than standing still. Today, Mr. President, in acknowledging these science-fiction-like documents, you said that:

“This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke.”

“We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history.

“But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.”

Mr. President, you are wrong. What you describe would be not “spent energy” but catharsis.
Not “blame laid,” but responsibility ascribed. You continued:

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77 Days In Office – The Right Wing Claim Obama Most Damaging President

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I found an op-ed at MichNews.com that was just over the top.  Lynn Stuter, a guest contributor,  it putting all the blame for everything on President Obama.  To hear her tell it, he is going to be our ruination.  Ms. Stuter just goes straight for the jugular in her opening statement about President Obama.

The United States of America lays in shambles. In 77 days since usurping the Oval Office, the Also Known As (AKA) Obama Administration has done more damage to this nation than any president before him.

First off, the definition of usurping is, to seize and hold (a position, office, power, etc.) by force or without legal right.  If there was some kind of brilliantly executed coup, we would have heard about it.  However, I distinctly remember on November 4th, Obama won, fair and square, the election for President of the United States.  I don’t know where Lynn was, but she missed the party of the decade.  She further states that:

In that short time-frame, AKA …

· has signed into law legislation that will, in one year, put this nation $1.8 trillion further into the hole, bearing in mind that the total deficit spending of the Bush Administration, in eight years, was $400 billion!

Where to begin, I’ll start with Bill Clinton, who enacted a bill to cut the deficit.  That bill contributed to dramatic decline of the budget deficit in the years following its enactment–in 1998, for the first time since 1969, the nation achieved a budget surplus.

The economy continued to grow, and in February 2000 it broke the record for the longest uninterrupted economic expansion in U.S. history—lasting ten years. In the year 2000, the nation was on track to be debt free for the first time since 1835.  The surplus in fiscal year 2000 was $237 billion—the third consecutive surplus and the largest surplus ever.

George Bush was left with a deficit cutting plan that was working, instead he decided in 2001, to give a $1.35 trillion tax cut program—one of the largest tax cuts in U.S. history.  Oh No, he wasn’t going to use it to pay down the deficit, instead Bush had a town hall meeting where he announced, “the surplus is not the government’s money. The surplus is the people’s money.”  This was a mistake that cost this country dearly.

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