The Tragedy of the Senate

This post is a fantasy. I'll explain that later. Let's start with the reality. The reality is that The House of Representatives, legislative body that actually represents the people of the united states (except those unfortunate enough to live in the District of Columbia) passed a comprehensive health reform bill two weeks ago. This bill is not even close to the single payer system I would have wanted and it's a retreat from a robust public option set to medicare rates, but it is a step forward. It includes a national public option that can be built on later. It does include the horrible anti-choice Stupack Amendment, but hopefully that can be dealt with later in the process.

Now debate might possibly begin in the Senate, the legislative body that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever in the 21st century. In the House, every member represents roughly the same amount of people, whether you are Barbara Lee from Berkley CA or Michelle Bachman from MN, you know you have the same mandate. Each representative carries the weight of about 700,ooo people. (We can talk about the pitfalls of winner take all systems vs proportional representation as well of course). Not so in the Senate. Barbara Boxer of CA represents 30 million people. Mike Enzi of Wyoming represents about 500,000. They each have ONE vote. If I was Barbara, any time Mike Enzi questioned me on, let's say global warming, I'd laugh heartily and say "girl, I represent 30 MILLION people", and then run through the halls demanding that Mike Enzi produce 60 of himself before he dared to question me again. That just shows why Ms. Boxer is a way better Senator than I would be. She manages to hold her tongue most of the time.

Not only is the Senate unrepresentative, favoring rural areas over urban and conservative over liberal (The Democratic Party actually won 50% of votes case in 2004 to the Republicans 45% but the Republicans picked up 5 seats). It's undemocratic within itself. It takes 3/5 (60 out of 100) of the membership to even allow a vote on anything. The fillibuster (as it is known) has been a favorite trick of reactionary forces in the US, most famously during the civil rights era, when "unlimited debate" was used to block racial justice.

So here we are, The health bill is about to maybe, kind of, let's hope be debated in the Senate and 41 Senators representing 25 percent of the population can kill it if they want by not even allowing a vote. The fate of millions of people who worry about just being able to see a doctor rest in the hands of such dubious characters as Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson. The tragedy here is that, because of the structure and rules of the Senate, far reaching progressive legislation is almost impossible in this country. It's built into our system. Forget health care, just try passing the Employee Free Choice Act, making it easier for workers to unionize.

Now here's why this is all a fantasy. Let's say you wanted to pass a constitutional amendment, making the Senate truly representative. You know, you still want an upper house made up of members who have longer terms and represent larger constituencies to temper the occasional Stupack Amendment that comes out of the House. I would be cool with having 50 Senators elected from districts representing regions of the country of equal population.

Well, that's impossible. Even if todays Senate would actually approve such an amendment, the constitution forbids it. Congress may propose amendments except that... "no state, without it's consent, shall be deprived of it's equal suffrage in the Senate". So we're stuck with a system devised when Rhode Island and Pennsylvania were almost different nations. In 2009, the 500,000 people of Alaska have much more say about what happens to health care than the 30 million of California.

The one thing we can do is get rid of the filibuster. Progressives might worry that this could come back to haunt us when Republicans are back in power. Well that's a risk I'm willing to take. We're taking a larger risk by keeping it. Without the filibuster we could have a national public option, expanded labor rights, and a climate bill. With it, we make it almost impossible to get progressive legislation through the congress, even with massive majorities. We tie our hands forever and allow a reactionary minority to block the will of the people.

This is probably a fantasy as well, it will be very difficult to get rid of the filibuster, but it's something that we should be fighting for.

It's about Money....

I just saw this post about LGBT supporters of Michael Bloomberg and it got me thinking. I'm gay, Bloomberg has been generally good on gay issues I suppose. Why am I not supporting him? The reason I'm not supporting him is class. It goes beyond sexual orientation, race, religion, any of the dividing lines we like to rail about. My solidarity is going to be with the poor woman (for argument sake lets say she happens to be straight) fighting to keep her apartment while a rich (let's say he's gay) developer is trying to evict her. This is a hypothetical of course, but it illustrates one of the places identity politics breaks down.

Bloomberg might be cool with gays and lesbians but he's shown shocking indifference to the struggles lower income people of every orientation face every day. This is an uncomfortable truth the wine and cheese liberals in Manhattan don't always want to deal with. I've seen my neighborhood transformed from a vital incubator of creativity to a warehouse for students with rich parents and investment bankers.

Bloomberg has appointed the most anti-tenant Rent Guidelines Board since the creation of that board, approving an 8.5% rent hike (the largest in 20 years) in 2008.

People are holding on for dear life in this city and we have a Mayor who symbolizes the worst instincts of predatory capitalism, greenlighting a deal several years ago for Tischman-Speyer to force thousands of people out of their homes in Stuyvessant Town.

Bloombergs cynical politics extend to his campaigning for Joe Lieberman (who right now is trying to block health reform that would save thousands of lives a year). It goes on and on. He wouldn't even endorse Obama last year.

Bloomberg recently campaigned with Rudy Giuliani and stood by while Giuliani fanned racial and class resentments. That was just too much. He has allied himself with the most reactionary forces in our community.

I haven't even mentioned the obscene spending, the buying off of non profits, the continuation of Giuliani's punitive food stamp and welfare policies.

These are not issues on the radar of the wealthy gay elite, but they matter to people struggling to make ends meet. There's something so sad about all this. Even in the midst of an economic catastrophe, so many of us continue to worship at the altar of wealth and power.

We live in a society where a huge percentage of our citizens face daily humiliations because of their economic status. I see little evidence Michael Bloomberg has any understanding of this or any desire to fight for the dignity of people who can't afford to buy a luxury condo on a lower east side block that used to be an actual neighborhood.

Oh but he supports LGBT rights? So does Thompson. I'll be voting for Bill Thompson on Tuesday.

Don't Let OBAMA betray us....

Today, another friend of mine said she cannot afford her health insurance and will drop it..

I read a heartbreaking letter from another friend who has dangerous sleep apnea and cannot get insurance.

Health Care reform without a public option will not lower prices enough to help my friends.

Like many of you, I volunteered for President Obama believing he would bring real change to this country.

I cried as he was elected President. In the campaign he said he supported a robust public option as a critical

element for health care reform. Even this was a hard pill to swallow for most progressives. We have always wanted

a single payer system and elimination of the for profit insurance system. We were willing to take the public option as

a compromise.

But now President Obama has abandoned real health care reform. His aides have attacked public option reporters and in a

most appalling quote the president has said people on the left are "Obsessed with a public option".

Fine Mr. Obama. We will fight you too.

Don't expect millions of people to volunteer for your re-election if you turn "health care reform" into huge subsidies for the insurance industry.

Thankfully 60 House Democrats have put their collective foot down. They have told the White House and the Senate they will vote NO on any

bill that does not include a robust public option. THE AFL-CIO has already said they will sit out the next campaign if the Democrats waver on a public option.

Even Rachel Maddow and Keith Olberman have blasted your inability to do what is right on this issue.

So President Obama..... Do you want health care reform to pass? Do you want to get re-elected?

THEN DO WHAT YOU SAID YOU WOULD IN THE CAMPAIGN.

make him do it...

Call the White House.... 202 456-1414

Ask for the office of Linda Douglas, key health care point person

tell her the President must demand a real public option so that Americans can choose to escape from for profit insurance companies.

This is a life and death issue for millions of our fellow citizens.

My friend Michael Faulkner wrote a letter to Obama pleading with him to stand firm on a public plan.

here it is............

Dear Mr. President,

As a proud supporter of you, and Governor Howard Dean before you, I was deeply, profoundly saddened by your Secretary of HHS's comments over the weekend seeming to back-off from support for a public-option in the health care legislation.

I can only hope that such comments were a trial balloon to gauge public opinion on the necessity of the public option. What a tragedy the lack of a public option would be. I believe Co-Ops to be insufficient to solve the health care crisis.

Today ends 8 days of free health care provided to Greater Los Angeles, which saw as many as 8,000 insured, under-insured, and uninsured members of the general public give up countless obligations and stand in hours-long lines to receive the most basic healthcare procedures, what kind of message does it send to us that support for a public option is weakening IN THE WHITE HOUSE?

You ran your campaign on the theme of "Hope." I have Sleep Apnea, which requires expensive equipment or surgeries to treat, and is considered a "pre-existing condition" that excludes me from affordable healthcare. Yet it is hard to afford the equipment necessary to treat my condition without insurance. And I am not overweight -- the bad luck of genetics left me with what one doctor called "bad geography" in my esophagus that causes my condition.

The basic, inalienable rights our nation was founded on were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I can tell you that living with a condition that you cannot afford to treat takes away one's happiness. I can tell you that I interpret the right to life as the right to a HEALTHY life.

I know you understand this and support the public option. Please don't let prevaricators and mediocre meddlers around you convince you to back away from supporting a public option. We need it. It will be good for American businesses, allowing them to compete with companies based in countries where healthcare is a right. It will be good for American workers, removing the burden of healthcare costs from their unions. And it will be good for all Americans, as we regain our sense of community and shared sacrifice. Please, Mr. President, don't take away my hope.

You ran on the theme of Hope. In the words of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who in some ways set the stage for you, please "keep hope alive."

Sincerely,

Michael Faulkner

If you agree with me, please take the time to write President Obama yourself. You can find out how right here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/opinion/18herbert.html?_r=1

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/18/unemployed----and-crossin_n_261939.html

August Health Care Blues

I don't think it's an overstatement to say the health care debate is a debate more fundamental to who we are as a people than any we have had since perhaps the civil rights battles of the 1960's. It forces each of us to grapple with what we are willing to sacrifice to help our fellow citizens and whether we look at society as isolated individuals fighting over finite resources or a community of human beings who collectively work to secure dignity for every single person. This is what is at stake.

For the past few weeks we have had to endure a blizzard of lies from entrenched interests bent on stopping health care reform at all costs. We hear how old people will be left to die by government bureaucrats (people are being left to die today by health industry bureaucrats and there is nothing in any bill that would empower the govt to deny care to the elderly). I've even heard my liberal friends say that they support reform as long as they can keep their private insurance plans they are so afraid of a single payer system.

Let's be clear. Nothing on the table in congress right now goes far enough to really reform health care or guarantee every American equal access to health care. Eventually we will need to move to a single payer system. Honestly I hope the right wing nuts are right when they say the purpose of the public option is to destroy private insurance and I hope Obama is wrong when he says if you like the insurance you have you can keep it.

Here's why. As long as different classes of people do not have access to the same level of care, we are not a just society. Even under Obama's plan, a poor woman on medicaid who gets cancer is not going to get the same level of care as a rich woman. Effectively we are rationing care based on income. We are saying the lives of the wealthy are worth more than the lives of the poor. We are all participating in this and we are all responsible.

In Canada or the United Kingdom, the level of care is the same for everyone. There are not dozens of different programs like medicare, medicaid and private insurance (or even the "public option" which hopefully will become the basis of a single payer system here). Everyone in these other countries has a stake in making the health system the best it can be since they all depend on it. It's a much different mind set than in the US where we are conditioned to grab what little we can and hold onto it for dear life.

I know what many of you are thinking, "but their quality of care is horrible, they have to wait, rationing! etc." Bullshit. We have rationing in this country, it's based on income. We have higher infant mortality, lower life expectancy and they have better health outcomes in general. Single payer would reduce costs in a way that the public/private system being proposed cannot. Hospitals and doctors could be given global payments as opposed to being paid per test or visit they could be paid by each case or on salary.

Recently some right wing nut said that Steven Hawking wouldn't be alive if he were under the care of the British National Health Service. Well he actually is under the care of the NHS and says he owes his life to his NHS doctors. Here is a great article from The Guardian detailing how our health care debate is viewed in the UK.

My sincere hope is that somehow a strong public plan with rates tied to medicare rates that all doctors who accept medicare will be required to accept will survive in congress. If that happens this plan will eventually destroy private health insurance just as the industry fears. Once say 75% of the country is enrolled it will be politically feasible to pass a single payer plan. Imagine a day when every single person in this country knows he or she can receive the care needed if she gets sick, where the first thing one thinks of when diagnosed with a life threatening condition will no longer be money but how best to get well. This would fundamentally alter our feelings about ourselves and about our nation. The pervasive fear and insecurity that grips so many Americans would be no more and people would be free to pursue their life's dreams without having to beg corporations to promise to help if they get sick.

It's possible. A lot of money wants us to believe it isn't. Right now Democrats in the Senate are negotiating away the public option and Obama (who has already given away a sickening amount of leverage to drug an insurance companies) has signaled he is fine with this. Howard Dean has repeatedly said anything that is passed without a strong public option is not health care reform, but a huge giveaway to the insurance companies.

Yes, this is the transcendent issue of our time. This is why we elected a Democratic President. Unfortunately the administration has been acting more like Jimmy Carter on this than LBJ. As Roosevelt said to the left during the great depression when they wanted him to move faster "You have to make me do it". Obama is only hearing outrage on the right and he needs us to make him and the congress do the right thing.

Health Care thoughts...

We all know that the United States is the only industrialized democracy that does not guarantee health care to all of it's citizens.    If you or someone in your family becomes gravely ill, even if you have health insurance, you can expect to be devastated financially.   There is something fundamentally abusive going on when someone fighting for their life has to think about finances.  It's something that all these other countries think is so abhorrent they have outlawed the possibility.  

In all these debates about cost, taxes and private vs public, that bottom line, gets lost.  The bottom line is it is unacceptable to inflict this level of fear on each other, fear of how to pay to stay healthy.  Yet this is what we do when we make up excuses over and over again for why we can't get health care done.  The people who think they have good insurance are afraid of losing what they have and those who might pay more in taxes resist.  Of course there is the power of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. 

This is where Capitalism breaks down.  Capitalism is great for computers and clothes and vacations but it's not that great at ensuring everyone has an education or can see the doctor.  Imagine if we had no public schools.  And this might make people crazy, but imagine how much better our public schools would be if the rich weren't allowed to abandon them for private schools and had a stake in making them better.  I'm not advocating that per se, but it does make one think.

That's why I wish we were debating a single payer system, a system where everyone has a stake in making that one system work for everyone.  The public option being debated in congress will have to do but it's the least we should do.  If you become sick, all you should be concerned with is how you are going to get well, not if you will lose your home trying to pay to get well.  All these other nations take this for granted.   Until we achieve what they have, we will not be a civilized society.

WHATS UP WITH OBAMA AND THE GAYS?

I'm not getting married anytime soon and I don't want to join the military but just in case I do want to do battle with north korea or a future husband I'd like to have the option.   Maybe Barack is freaked out by us?

 

Recipe Tuesday: Summer Mayonnaise Pudding

It's nearly summer and I'm jumping the gun with one of my classic seasonal pudding: Summer Mayonnaise Pudding. It's refreshing, delicious and nutritious. Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS

1 cup regular raisins

1 cup golden raisins

9 cups mayonnaise

2 teaspoon salt

8 eggs

4 cups of sugar

1 cup of vanilla

1 bag of prunes

1 Combine raisin, mayonnaise, and salt in 4-quart pot on medium high heat. Stir until boiling. Simmer 1 hour, uncovered at the lowest possible heat, adding sugar gradually.

2 Beat eggs in a separate bowl. Mix in some of the hot raisins very slowly to equalize the temperature of the two mixtures (to avoid curdling).

3 Return eggs to pan with raisins. Slowly bring mixture barely to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat and stir several minutes at a low simmer, stirring constantly until you get a nice thick pudding consistency. Cool 15 minutes. Add vanilla. Serve either warm or chilled. Pour into pudding cups. Garnish with prune.

Note: If you want to make a more light and fluffy, but still rich, summer mayonnaise pudding, separate the eggs. Use the egg yolks to stir in first to the pan with the raisins. Once the pudding has become nice and thick, beat the egg whites in a separate bowl to soft peaks. Remove the pan of mayonnaise pudding from the stove, fold in the beaten egg whites into the pudding.

Margaret and Helen: lefty bloggers on scooters

Margaret and Helen have been best friends for over 60 years now, and they blog together as a way to keep in touch.

The subject of their most recent post: Life's a bitch... and so is Dick Cheney.

Margaret, I am here to tell you that Dick Cheney is a bitch – a big one too. I mean I thought that Sarah Palin was a bitch, but even she can’t hold a candle to this guy. Have you been listening to him recently?

There's a conspiracy theory running across the web that Margaret and Helen are fakes. Just characters made up by a bored prisoner with access to a computer, or something. But the paranoid in this case are in the minority. Are they for real? Who cares. They think Dick Cheney's a bitch, and that's all that matters.

Unjustly Targeted Individuals Meeting

David Plouffe of Organizing for America, a political action group composed of the holdovers from Barack Obama's presidential campaign, sent out an email blast last Friday. The subject -- June 6: It all begins.

Plouffe wrote:

Remember this date: Saturday, June 6th, 2009. We will look back on that day as the moment when the fight for real health care reform began in your neighborhood -- perhaps even in your own living room...These kickoffs are so crucial that President Obama will join confirmed hosts and attendees on a live conference call.

Great. I'll go to a neighbor's house to talk health care. I followed the link in the email to search for local meetings. Most of the meetings listed are standard fare with plain titles, like, say, Organizing for Health Care. The most significant exception: Unjustly Targeted Individuals Meeting.

Their agenda:

As weak as we are, let us stand up and be the force to stop the illegal proliferation and illegal use of microwave radiation weapons, high radio frequency weapons, non-lethal weapons, through-the-walls weapons.

The truth is, I want to go. But I'm scared. Only one person is going so far and that's the organizer. There's room for 24 more, and there are still volunteer opportunities. I imagine the big question of the day is, "Will the president discuss 'through-the-walls weaponry?'"

Thanks to David Plouffe, Barack Obama and Organizing for America for organizing absolutely everyone on this issue, including parties of one.

This Anteater is protesting Max Baucus' refusal to allow supporters of Single Payer Health Care testify at Senate Finance Committee hearings on Health care reform.

It's gross.  And this guy knows it.  Unfortunately, he's staging his protest in a field miles away from anyone.  But he's pissed and he's not gonna let Max Baucus get in the way of change we hope we can believe in.

Recipe Thursday: Tomato Peanut Bread

I know most of you only know me as a political analyst for Gorhonio, but the fact is that I'm writing a cookbook in my spare time. That said, I'm going to post some of my recipes here and ask all of you - or at least some of you - to follow these recipes and offer me any and all feedback. Don't worry about being direct. I appreciate the feedback.

So without further ado, here's my newest bread recipe: Tomato Peanut Bread.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup butter (1 stick), room temperature

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 large ripe beefsteak tomatoes, mashed

1 cup peanuts

Preparation:

Grease bottom of a 9x5x3-inch loaf pan.

In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. In a mixing bowl with a hand-held electric mixer, beat together butter and sugar on medium speed. Beat until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla extract.

With mixer at low speed, beat in flour, alternating with mashed tomatoes. Stir in peanuts. Bake at 350° until golden brown -- a toothpick inserted into center of bread comes out clean.

Cool bread in pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes; turn bread out onto rack; cool completely. For best flavor, wrap tomato peanut bread tightly in foil and store overnight before slicing and serving. Makes one loaf of tomato peanut bread. – Josh

This is why I can't stand the CA initiative system.

This is why I'm glad New York doesn't run it's government by ballot initiative like California.  

Blue Cross Double Cross

It was bound to happen.  Blue Cross, Blue Sheild of North Carolina is launching an ad campaign against a "Public Option" as part of health care reform.  

Blue Cross is my health insurance company.  I would love to leave them and join a public plan where profit is not a part of the equation.