The Progressive Puppy

Anti-Labor Joe - The Union Basher!

Although corporate executives would refuse to do their jobs without contracts guaranteeing their extravagant salaries, many of those same execs regularly deny workers the same protection.  The Employee Free Choice Act would allow workers the option of choosing whether and how they want to form a union.  (Sounds scary, huh?)  To greedy CEOs and their congressional peg boys, any piece of legislation that might result in higher wages and better conditions for workers smacks of socialism... or worse! 

An anti-EFCA group called "Americans for Prosperity" (which really should be called "Americans for the Prosperity of Wealthy Americans") paints a scary picture on its website:  Unions seem intoxicated with the idea of card check because it allows them to see who is not yet onboard with unionizing a specific shop. Those who have not yet applied their signature to the card are often visited at all hours of the day and night. They are pressured both at work and at home by organizers intent on obtaining signatures.  (Hear that?  If ya' don't sign da' card, dem union thugs is gonna pay your famly a little visit in the dead of night, mebbe measure youse guys for some cement galoshes.)

But as public support has been growing for the Employee Free Choice Act, the stalwart defenders of corporate sovereignty - that'd be the GOP and right-wing pundits - have called out the big guns to pitch their anti-labor message.  Their new hero is the guy with more ego than Rahm Emanuel, more self-delusion than Dick Cheney, and more love of publicity than Rev. Rick Warren.  It's the Wascally Wurzelbacher!  (Even the ever-evolving Madonna never reinvented herself as many times as Samuel Wurzelbacher aka Joe the Plumber aka Joe the Political Pundit  aka Joe the Congressional Hopeful aka Joe the War Correspondent... and now, Joe the Union Basher!  The difference being, of course, that Madonna is arguably more adept at switching hats than Joe the Whatever whose swollen head is so ripe that it absolutely SCREAMS for a bed of lettuce.)

So now Mr. Wurz-burger has joined the ranks of those who think workers must be forever grateful for whatever crumbs get tossed their way by the masters of corporate greed and mismanagement.

Amanda Terkel at Think Progress writes:  Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka “Joe the Plumber,” was recently tapped by the anti-labor group Americans for Prosperity to shill against the Employee Free Choice Act.  Americans for Prosperity spokesperson Mary Ellen Burke said that Wurzelbacher was chosen because “he represents the American worker” and is a “role model.” At a rally yesterday near Pittsburgh, PA, Wurzelbacher received a chilly welcome from many residents - especially union members... As the union members noted, Wurzelbacher never had a plumbing license.

One union member is quoted as saying:  "So for the Republican party to take a position that this is the epitome of a working person makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to anybody here that has to pay taxes."
 
David Sirota sums up:  Workers stagnating wages has nothing to do with decreased productivity... wages are stagnating despite increases in productivity.  The truth is what business and its anti-labor front groups don't want to admit:  That workers' wages have stagnated because workers have not been able to collectively bargain for better pay.  That's what the Employee Free Choice Act aims to fix.

And that's what "Americans for Prosperity" and Joe the Union Basher want to stay broken.

Newt Gingrich Gets (Another) Religion

This is weird.  It seems that Newt Gingrich and I have similar religious backgrounds.  We were both raised Baptist and we both converted to Catholicism.  But while I took the pope plunge in the late seventies (and quickly came to realize that the Catholic Church is just as grim and judgmental as the Baptist Church but with prettier costumes), the former Speaker of the House nibbled at his first communion wafer just two days ago - which makes him rather old to be discarding the faith of his fathers for a denomination many Southern Baptists still consider to be the Whore of Babylon. 

Max Blumenthal at AlterNet wonders if the twice-divorced Gingrich decided to convert with an eye toward the 2012 presidential race.  A Catholic political adviser to Karl Rove and George W. Bush  says that Newt's sins - including his affair with a congressional aid - have been magically absolved:  "From a Catholic point of view, Newt’s sins no longer exist... He’s made a fresh start in life.  So Newt will continue to sin and confess but there aren’t going to be a lot of Catholics who will hold that against him.  They understand why being a Catholic makes a difference."  (Gotta love that divine power of absolution!) 

Blumenthal thoughtfully provides Gingrich's post-adultery backstory:  House Republicans intimately aware of his affair with Bisek were involved in forcing Gingrich to resign from Congress so they could push on to their apocalyptic impeachment of Clinton without worrying about Gingrich’s exposure.  Gingrich promptly turned to matters of the heart, dumping his second wife, Marianne Ginther.  He announced his intention to divorce her just as he had done with his first wife, Jackie Battley—while she was lying in a hospital bed, immobilized after a major medical procedure.  (Battley was recovering from cancer surgery; Ginther’s appendix had ruptured.)  He never bothered to tell his wife in person that he was leaving her for another woman.  He called her on the phone, delivered the news, and hung up.

See, he wouldn't have been able to get away with that shit as a Catholic.  Okay, he would have gotten away with everything but the divorce part.  The god of Pope Benedict XVI  is especially tolerant toward heterosexual philandering. 

Now that Gingrich has embraced his third wife's religion, it's unlikely that he'll be marrying again.  (Was the savvy Callista thinking about Newt's track record when she put a missal in his hand?)  Still, if it's a ticket to heaven - or the presidency - that Gingrich desires, he seems to have lined up his ducks admirably. 

Although I no longer participate in the supernatural rituals of the Catholic Church, I'm glad that Newt has found a belief system that offers instant forgiveness for his particular foibles.

Still More Iraqi Gays To Be Executed

128 prisoners currently face execution in Iraq, many of them convicted of the crime of being homosexual. 

Ali Hili of Iraqi-LGBT says that authorities will start killing these people in batches of twenty later this week.  Mr Hili told UK Gay News that raids by the Iraqi police and Ministry of the Interior has already resulted in the murder of seventeen members of his organization:  "The death penalty has been increasing at an alarming rate in Iraq since the new Iraqi regime reintroduced it in August 2004... Allegations of torture are not being investigated adequately or at all by the CCCI (Central Criminal Court of Iraq). Torture of detainees held by Iraqi security forces remains rife... The state executing people for 'morals' crimes is obviously unacceptable and deplorable."

From PageOneQ:  Iraqi-LGBT is concerned that the Iraqi authorities have not disclosed the identities of those facing imminent execution, stoking fears that many of them may have been sentenced to death after trials that failed to satisfy international standards for fair trial... Amnesty International has called on the Iraqi authorities to make public all information pertaining to the 128 people, including their full names, details of the charges against them, the dates of their arrest, trial and appeal and their current places of detention.  (Of course that won't save the lives of those already scheduled for hanging.)

Less than a month ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had this to say about LGBT global human rights abuses: "The persecution and discrimination against gays and lesbians is something that we take very seriously.  It is terribly unfortunate that right now in unfortunately many places in the world violence against gays and lesbians, certainly discrimination and prejudice are not just occurring but condoned and protected.  And we would hope that over the next few years we could have some influence in trying to change those attitudes."

Dear Madam Secretary:  Working to change attitudes is always nice.  But does America have so little influence in a country we've been occupying for over six years that we must stand passively by while its government summarily executes gays?  Maybe you could like, uh, make a phone call?  (I do realize that this isn't part of Mrs. Clinton's job description.  But you'd think that for all the cash we've shelled out propping up Iraq's "democratic" regime, we might get them to spare a few lives for us.  And it's not like the U.S. State Department is unaccustomed to meddling in the affairs of other nations.  We do it all the time - and with less to show for it than might be accomplished in this tragic situation.)

UPDATE:  Besides the "official" executions of homosexuals in Iraq, six gay men in Sadr City were shot to death by members of their own tribe after family members disowned them.  And a cafe which served as a gathering place for gays was set on fire.

The Health Insurance Machine

It's an undisputed fact that health insurers serve only one purpose - to make money for their owners and shareholders.  They do this by using any legal means available (and even some illegal means) to rake in cash from people who rarely get sick and deny coverage to folks who might actually need more than cursory attention.  Insurance companies do not care if your daughter has cancer, or if your wife suffers from chronic pain, or if your husband needs an operation to keep him alive.  They. Do. Not. Care.  Representatives might make soothing noises when they speak to you over the phone, they'll direct you to a clinic or supply you with a list of doctors on the network, some may even express sympathy for your plight.  But make no mistake.  The health insurance industry is driven by profit, and there's no profit to be had in seeing that seriously ill people receive the treatment they deserve.  So they deny coverage. 

As more Americans lose jobs, more folks are having to seek out private health insurers in order to provide health care for themselves and their families.  John Dorschner at the Miami Herald discovered that insurance company "guides" for denying coverage occasionally pop up on the Internet:  This confidential information on some insurers' practices is available on the Web - if you know where to look.  What's more, you can discover that if you lie to an insurer about your medical history and drug use, you will be rejected because data-mining companies sell information to insurers about your health, including detailed usage of prescription drugs...  The problem is, material available on the Web shows that people who have specific illnesses or use certain drugs can't buy coverage.  "This is absolutely the standard way of doing business," said Santiago Leon, a health insurance broker in Miami.  Being denied for preexisting conditions is well known, but when a person sees the usually confidential list of automatic denials for himself, "that's a eureka moment. That shows you how harsh the system is." ...Among the health problems that the guides say should be rejected: diabetes, hepatitis C, multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia, quadriplegia, Parkinson's disease and AIDS/HIV.

From InsuranceCompanyRules.org:  It’s bad enough that insurance companies are allowed to block health care for patients’ "preexisting conditions."  Making matters worse is health insurance companies’ manipulation of this loophole to deny claims they’re supposed to be covering under their own agreements.  Just look at Assurant, ordered by the Connecticut Insurance Department in 2007 to pay restitution to patients whose claims were improperly squashed by the company’s subsidiaries, based on supposed preexisting conditions.  In the words of the state Attorney General: "Assurant calculatingly denies coverage for catastrophic illnesses….Assurant promised benefits, but abandons them when they face cancer and other devastating diseases." 

ICR found a 2001 e-mail from Amerigroup’s Illinois director of medical management that said:  "Please keep up the good work with the marketing reps of not trying to sign up pregnant women."

We have turned over our health care to a cool and impersonal machine whose engine must be constantly greased with money.  In return for maintaining the machine, we're assured that it will continue to sputter along, performing no useful function and dedicated to nothing besides its own existence.  We should scrap this piece of junk and start afresh. 

Michele Bachmann, Loonier Than Ever

Matthew Yglesias writes:  Keep in mind that these aren’t just two weirdos hiding out in a cabin somewhere.  Beck has a show on a major cable news network and Bachmann has a seat in Congress.

Yglesias is talking about tag-team conspiracy partners Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and the ever odious Glenn Beck of Fox News.  With  needles clacking louder than James Dobson's false teeth, the hyperventilating duo have knitted a sweater of intrigue that will no doubt be turning up on eBay, for all the wingnut promotion their whacked out theory is getting.  Bachmann and Beck are peddling the story that the Obama administration (or, the subterranean realm of the Antichrist to those who live in Rapture World) is working in cahoots with liberal congressmen (rasping devils from hell) to replace the dollar with a unified global currency.  (Gasp!)

From Think Progress:  The myth was started when China’s central bank governor suggested replacing the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Though the suggestion has nothing to do with a unified global currency, Fox News’ Major Garrett decided to ask President Obama whether he supported the fictional prospect of such a move.  (Obama, for the record, does not.)  Today on Glenn Beck’s radio show, Bachmann declared that the U.S. will soon be moving to "give up the dollar as our currency and we would just go with a One World currency."  Such action, she warned, would mean the U.S. as a country would be "no more." 

Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina soon hopped the train to Conspiracyville as well, claiming,  "China and maybe Geithner [are] even agreeing about some new world currency."  And it wasn't long before Karl Rove and Sean Hannity purchased their tickets on the refurbished Wingnut Express.  ("Chinese government" "International currency" "Obama administration" "Conspiracy" "I think they did I think they did I think they did... Choo Choo!")

It's too early to tell if the Main Stream Media will be joining conservatives on their journey into madness.  Shrieking the phrase "Economic Marxism," Bachmann has already called for an "orderly revolution" in America and warns her right-wing followers of the "imminent dangers of tyranny under Barack Obama."  

I wonder what size straight jacket this woman wears?  Maybe she could be persuaded to knit one for herself.

Nutty Needs a Bath

Our backyard squirrel is not a tidy eater.