By Robert Gehrke and Lisa Schencker

The Salt Lake Tribune

August 18, 2010 06:07AM

An offer of $140 million in federal money for education and health care is not being met with gratitude by Utah legislative leaders.

Far from it.

Instead, Utah’s Republican leaders are apoplectic that Congress provided the money — aimed at keeping teachers in the classroom and helping with the health care burden of low-income residents — and frustrated that any attempt to reject it may be fruitless.

“I’m truly astonished,” House Speaker David Clark, R-Santa Clara, said Tuesday. “Congress has unequivocally carried out the constitutional responsibilities of this state and this Legislature. … [Congress said] ‘The Utah Constitution doesn’t matter. We’re doing an end-run around this, and we’re going to decide how the money is going to be spent.’ ”

Astonishment! The Republicans are wailing at Obama for not fixing quickly enough the economy they ruined. When he takes action, they cry ‘No.” They block the very solutions necessary because they would rather have the country fail than Obama succeed. We are in a mess, a diabolical mess.

No decision has been made on whether Utah will seek the funds. Legislative leaders are meeting (more…)

By JUDY FAHYS

The Salt Lake Tribune

August 18, 2010 10:41AM

Federal regulators may well have the authority after all to decide how a Utah magnesium plant manages its hazardous waste, under a Denver appeals court’s ruling released Tuesday.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out an Oct. 17, 2007, decision by U.S. District Judge Dee Benson that US Magnesium in Tooele County is exempted from the nation’s cradle-to-grave hazardous waste law, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).

In short, the appeals court said the Environmental Protection Agency can update its “tentative” interpretation of a regulation into a final one without additional public input. It ordered Benson to reconsider the case.

Is it any wonder we are in an environmental quagmire. Action began on this issue in 2001. The  case was eventually decided by Judge Benson in 2007. Three years later the Appeals Court overturns the decision and orders Benson to reconsider the case, thus it is still unresolved. This is a near total failure of the court system. All this delay has been worth millions to Mag Corp and to New York businessman Ira Rennert, and the public be damned.The corporate polluters are benefited by the slow moving court system and the earth and its inhabitants suffer irreparable damage.

The delay in this decision is far more devastating than the long and tedious process of the death penalty. This needs fixed, and who will fix it? Nobody. This is a horrible condemnation of our justice system.

“Even under the case law US Magnesium asks us to follow, the agency is at liberty to adopt without notice and comment a reasonable interpretation of that ambiguous regulation,” said the opinion written by Judge Neil M. Gorsuch and joined by the two other judges on the appeals panel.

Although neither side has said what it will do next, it is possible the ruling will finally settle the two-decade-old (more…)

By Rosemary Winters

The Salt Lake Tribune

August 18, 2010 06:07AM

As a new school year begins, health experts at the University of Utah warned parents Tuesday to keep energy drinks out of their kids’ backpacks.

“How much should the pediatric population drink? None,” said Howard Kadish, chief of pediatric emergency medicine at the U.

Caffeine-charged drinks such as Red Bull, Rockstar, Full Throttle and Who’s Your Daddy have flooded convenience and grocery stores in recent years. The beverages may contain the equivalent of two or three cups of coffee. Among teenagers, they’ve become go-to drinks for parties and late-night studying.

Young people are especially vulnerable to the harmful side effects of caffeine, said Barbara Crouch, a pharmacologist and director of the Utah Poison Control Center. Those who guzzle energy drinks can experience anxiety, heart palpitations, restlessness, sleeplessness, nausea, vomiting and — in extreme cases — heart arrhythmias and seizures.

It’s not a new issue. In 2009, researchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine published a paper in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence that called for more accurate labeling of energy (more…)

What consumers should know about buying olive oil

By Kathy Stephenson

The Salt Lake Tribune

August 17, 2010 07:05PM

Two decades ago, the only place to buy a bottle of olive oil was a Greek or Italian specialty market.

Today, bottles of this healthy oil are sold everywhere, from local grocery stores to big-box warehouses. Each year, U.S. consumers spend $700 million on olive oil.

But with more choices has come an array of marketing terms such as “extra-virgin,” “cold-pressed,” “light” and “unfiltered.” Taken together, these labels can seem confusing and inconsistent, as in the past the product hasn’t been regulated by the federal government.

Why would we post an article on olive oil? This article is not only about olive oil, but also about the important role that government plays in labeling of food products. It is a prime example of what happens without government supervision.

Currently none of us know the true quality of olive oil. For years I’ve been buying ‘extra virgin’ because the nutritionists have indicated there is an important difference. Now I discover that ‘extra virgin’ may not be what it claims to be, and one thing is for sure, we cannot depend on the integrity of free enterprise corporations. That is the Law of the Jungle that so around here pray to every day.

From now we will all know to look for the USDA rating label before buying an olive oil.

For the average consumer, it can be difficult to figure out what these terms actually mean, as well as why one bottle of 100 percent extra-virgin olive costs $6, while another costs $20 or more.

The confusion could be ending soon, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently adopted a new set of standards. Companies are encouraged to adopt the USDA’s definitions to help consumers differentiate the best oils from the cheap imposters. The federal agency adopted the new regulations in April, and plans to start enforcing (more…)

By Mark Stibich, Ph.D., About.com Guide

Updated April 26, 2009

About.com Health’s Disease and Condition content is reviewed by our Medical Review Board

Why is Dark Chocolate Healthy?:

Chocolate is made from plants, which means it contains many of the health benefits of dark vegetables. These benefits are from flavonoids¹, which act as antioxidants². Antioxidants protect the body from aging caused by free radicals³, which can cause damage that leads to heart disease. Dark chocolate contains a large number of antioxidants (nearly 8 times the number found in strawberries). Flavonoids also help relax blood pressure⁴ through the production of nitric oxide⁵, and balance certain hormones in the body.

Note: Stay up-to-date on longevity and anti-aging with my weekly newsletter⁶.

Heart Health Benefits of Dark Chocolate:

Dark chocolate is good for your heart. A small bar of it everyday can help keep your heart⁷ and cardiovascular system running well. Two heart health benefits of dark chocolate are:

• Lower Blood Pressure:⁸ Studies have shown that consuming a small bar of dark chocolate everyday can reduce blood pressure in individuals with high blood pressure.
• Lower Cholesterol:⁹ Dark chocolate has also been shown to reduce LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol) by up to 10 percent.

Other Benefits of Dark Chocolate:

Chocolate also holds benefits apart from protecting your heart:

• it tastes good
• it stimulates endorphin production, which gives a feeling of pleasure
• it contains serotonin, which acts as an anti-depressant
• it contains theobromine, caffeine and other substances which are stimulants

Doesn’t Chocolate Have a lot of Fat?:

Here is some more good news — some of the fats in chocolate do not impact your cholesterol. The fats in chocolate are 1/3 oleic acid, 1/3 stearic acid and 1/3 palmitic acid:

• Oleic Acid is a healthy monounsaturated fat that is also found in olive oil.
• Stearic Acid is a saturated fat but one which research is shows has a neutral effect on cholesterol.
• Palmitic Acid is also a saturated fat, one which raises cholesterol and heart disease risk.

That means only 1/3 of the fat in dark chocolate is bad for you.

Chocolate Tip 1 – Balance the Calories:

This information doesn’t mean that you should eat a pound of chocolate a day. Chocolate is still a high-calorie, high-fat food. Most of the studies done used no more than 100 grams, or about 3.5 ounces, of dark chocolate a day to get the benefits.

One bar of dark chocolate has around (more…)

by Justin Pritchard

Associated Press

Los Angeles » The federal agency responsible for ensuring that the Deepwater Horizon was operating safely before it exploded last month fell well short of its own policy that the rig be inspected at least once per month, an Associated Press investigation shows.

In fact, the agency’s inspection frequency on the Deepwater Horizon fell dramatically over the past five years, according to federal Minerals Management Service records. The rig blew up April 20, killing 11 people before sinking and triggering a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Since January 2005, inspectors issued just one minor infraction for the rig. That strong track record led the agency last year to herald the Deepwater Horizon as an industry model for safety.

The inspection gaps are the latest in a series of questions raised about the agency’s oversight of the oil drilling industry. Members of Congress and President Barack Obama have criticized what they call the cozy relationship between regulators and oil companies and vowed to reform MMS, which both regulates the industry and collects billions in royalties from it.

We arrive once again at the core of most of our current problems—the federal government has failed to do its job of regulating the various industries that must be closely supervised for the benefit of all Americans.

The Bush Administration and the anti-government Republican Party are responsible for most of this failure of regulation. They simply don’t believe (more…)

By Gail Collins

The New York Times

This is a very interesting article, worthy of your time. That we can’t teach about birth control in the school system in 2010 is a decimating condemnation of the unrelenting influence of religious dogma.

A thousand years ago, popular birth control methods in the Western world included spitting into the mouth of a frog, eating bees and wearing the testicles of a weasel. In Cordoba, Spain, which was supposed to be on the scientific cutting edge, women were told to leap up and down vigorously after sex, and then jump backward nine times.

This is by way of saying that Sunday we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill. We live in troubled times. But let’s give thanks that we avoided the era of the weasel testicles.

This is a story about science, and obviously sex. But it’s also a saga about getting information.

American women had been limiting the size of their families long before the pill came along. In the 19th century, the fertility rate was plummeting, and ads for everything from condoms to douching (more…)

Rep. Jim Matheson’s self-justifying rationale for voting against health care reform fails before this question: What would have happened had his view prevailed? (”Health reform needs more work,” Opinion, April 4.) There is no evidence that a better bill could have emerged at any time in the next several years. Republicans have stood silent for decades in face of the need for health care reform. They did nothing but obscure and obstruct during the entire past year. Democrats were exhausted by this fight. Had they lost, they would have had neither the energy nor the influence for another try.

Hence, Matheson’s vote essentially said that he preferred to settle for nothing — to return to the status quo for an indeterminate time, each year adding to the disintegration of our health care system and to the burden on American families. He preferred guaranteed increases in insurance costs and family misery to the likelihood that this bill will start us in a more positive direction. No bill of this size and complexity could be perfect, but this one can be adjusted and improved with experience, and it will be far less costly than the do-nothing alternative Matheson evidently preferred.

Douglas Johnstone

Sandy

A few words about Christian terrorism. And I suppose the first words should be about “those” words: “Christian terrorism.” The term will seem jarring to those who have grown comfortable regarding terrorism as something exclusive to Islam.

Leonard Pitts, Jr. , who writes for the Miami Herald, is a marvelous journalist with the willingness to speak clearly on touchy subjects. This article refers to the terrorism incited by radical Christians. Religion seems to bring out the best and the worst in human behavior, and Christianity is no different. The death and destruction wrought by Christian zealots is well documented for nearly twenty centuries now. What began with The Word to often ends up with an s in front of it–The Sword.

Murder in the name of God is very common among most religions. It is promoted glamorously so in the Book of Mormon, and in fact is specifically encouraged and condoned.

That this is a self-deluding fallacy should have long since been apparent to anyone who’s been paying attention. From Eric Rudolph’s bombing of the Atlanta Olympics, a gay nightclub and two abortion clinics, to the so-called Phineas Priests who bombed banks, a newspaper and a Planned Parenthood Office in Spokane, Wash., from Matt Hale soliciting the murder of a federal judge in Chicago, to Scott Roeder’s assassination of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, from brothers Matthew and Tyler Williams murdering a gay couple near Redding, Calif., to Timothy McVeigh destroying a federal building and 168 lives in Oklahoma City, we have seen no shortage of “Christians” who believe Jesus requires — or at least allows — them to commit murder.

If federal officials are correct, we now have one more name to add to the dishonor roll. That name would be Hutaree, a self-styled Christian militia in Michigan, nine members of which have been arrested and accused of plotting to kill police officers in hopes of sparking an anti-government uprising.

Many of us would doubtless resist referring to plots like this as Christian terrorism, feeling it unfair to tar the great body of Christendom with the actions of its fringe radicals. And here, we will pause for Muslim readers to clear their throats loudly.

While they do, let the rest of us note that there is a larger moral to this story and it has less to do with terminologies than similarities.

We are conditioned to think of terror wrought by Islamic fundamentalists as something strange and alien and other. It is the violence of men with long beards who jabber in weird (more…)

By Lynn M. Hansen (Guest commentary printed in Ogden Standard-Examiner, April 5, 2010)

Last Edit: Apr 5 2010 – 2:31pm

As an American and a resident of Weber County, I salute President Obama, Sen. Harry Reid, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi for pushing the health care reform bill through the legislative process. Until the administration of George W. Bush, I was an avid Republican and served in the Reagan and Bush (senior) administrations as a political appointee. But I will not allow Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh to define conservatism for me, nor will I accept the half-truths and invectives with which they pollute the airways.

Here’s a stand up conservative who is still willing to engage his brain, to actually read something and add two and two together rather than just repeat the deliberately distorted drivel they hear on Fox.

Those who listen to these hate-mongers should realize that they have become millionaires by peddling the views they do. I recall Limbaugh frequently stating that he hoped Obama would fail. That is tantamount to wishing America would fail for Obama is our freely elected president.

What has happened to civility in this country? I did not vote for Obama but we, the American people, did. I consider myself an American, not a Utahn. I served 23 years in the United States Air Force and repeat the Pledge of Allegiance to one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

For as long as he is president, I will respect the office of president and the person who occupies it. It is pure hypocrisy or worse for those who legislate (many, if not most of whom are millionaires) to try to deny basic insurance coverage to middle- and lower-class Americans. We must understand that each member of the House of Representatives and each senator — Republican and Democrat — has health insurance with the major portion of their premiums being paid by the taxpayer. I know because I having worked in the government also have such a policy. Where is the “justice for all” in this?

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the legislation would extend coverage to 32 million Americans who lack it and cut deficits by an estimated $138 billion over a decade. If realized, the expansion of coverage would include 95 percent of all eligible individuals under age 65.

For the first 10 years, it will cost about $100 billion a year. This is about the yearly cost of the Iraq War. Why is providing health (more…)

The gentleman from Ohio – the last man standing on health care, as he put it in this conversation with Esquire.com just before Sunday’s vote – reveals the personal moments behind his decision, and how the fate of a nation, if not a presidency, could have turned out a lot differently had he said “no.”

By: Dennis Kucinich – as told to Mark Warren, Sunday, March 21, 2010
From Esquire.com – March 22, 2010, 2:35 pm

This is truly a touching piece. Please read it to the end. It’s worth every minute invested.

Kucinich was the last man standing in holding out for what is right for health care in America, a single payer system, but in the end it was his compassion and respect for the president, for the country, and for the process. He hasn’t given up his fight for a better health care system for America. His vote for this horribly faulty piece of patchwork was the only way to keep alive his dream of good health care for all Americans.

The meeting that took place on Air Force One was the fourth in a series of meetings that I had attended with the president in the last few months. There was a meeting on March 4 where the president called nine members to the Roosevelt Room at the White House, and eight of the members had voted for the bill when it passed the House last fall. I was the only one who voted against the bill. I thanked the president for inviting me even though I was a “no” vote. And in the more than hour-long meeting, the president covered a lot of territory about what he thought was important to consider. I sat quietly and listened carefully and took some notes. And at the end of the meeting, you know, we thanked each other, and I left.

When I arrived home that evening – March 4 – I still had this deep sense of compassion for the president for what he was struggling with in trying to pass the bill. And it was very clear to me that there was a lot on the line here – that he didn’t say. I was just thinking about the scope of American history, and here’s a president who’s trying to do something, even if I don’t agree with him. I told my wife, “You know I kinda feel bad about the situation he’s in here. This is really a tough situation – his presidency is on the line.” And I had a sense of sadness about what I saw him grappling with. I still maintained my position, still went forward in debates, arguing in meetings, arguing against the bill because it didn’t have a public option, didn’t have an opening for the states to pursue single-payer in a free manner. But at the same time I kinda remember the feeling that I had about watching him as he was dealing with this and, you know, trying to do what he felt was best for the nation.

Now keep something in mind about my relationship with President Obama: He and I campaigned together. A meeting with the president is always important – he and I have met dozens of times, during the campaign and since he became president – but we’ve met on many occasions. Four or five times about health care. So the relationship I have with him is a little bit different than other members who weren’t on the campaign trail with him and who hadn’t developed a relationship with him apart from the relationship that members of Congress ordinarily have with the president.

So I was really looking at Barack Obama the man, and thinking about his presidency. I’ve had differences of opinion with him (more…)

Published on Friday, March 12, 2010 by Salon

The ‘Public Option’: Democrats’ Scam Becomes More Transparent

by Glenn Greenwald

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about [1] what seemed to be a glaring (and quite typical) scam perpetrated by Congressional Democrats:  all year long, they insisted that the White House and a majority of Democratic Senators [2] vigorously supported a public option, but the only thing oh-so-unfortunately preventing its enactment was the filibuster:  sadly, we have 50 but not 60 votes for it, they insisted.  Democratic pundits used that claim to push for “filibuster reform,” arguing that if only majority rule were required in the Senate, then the noble Democrats would be able to deliver all sorts of wonderful progressive reforms that they were truly eager to enact but which the evil filibuster now prevents.  In response, advocates of the public option kept arguing [3] that the public option could be accomplished by reconciliation — where only 50 votes, not 60, would be required — but Obama loyalists scorned that reconciliation proposal [4], insisting (at least before the Senate passed a bill with 60 votes) that using reconciliation was Unserious, naive, procedurally impossible, and politically disastrous.

But all those claims were put to the test — all those bluffs were called — once the White House decided that it had to use reconciliation [5] to pass a final health care reform bill.  That meant that any changes to the Senate bill (which had passed with 60 votes) — including the addition of the public option — would only require 50 votes, which Democrats assured progressives all year long that they had.  Great news for the public option, right?   (more…)

With a final vote on health care reform drawing near, former Gov. Mike Leavitt said Friday the approach preferred by House and Senate Democratic leaders is a government takeover of health care that doesn’t address the real problem — cost.

“It addresses the problem backwards. We ought to be dealing with the cost so that people can continue to afford [health insurance],” said Leavitt, who served as secretary of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush until last year.

In a speech to the Utah chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth, Leavitt laid out his vision of economic Armageddon if health care isn’t fixed soon.

For how many years was Leavitt the secretary of Health and Human Services? So how much got done in reforming health care under his administration? WC will look into that question, but for now at least, welcome to the discussion Mr. Leavitt. However, please put your self-interest in protecting health insurance on the shelf. You are not going to be a constructive voice if your first goal is to protect the insurance industry from which you gained your enormous wealth.

The country, he said, could end up like Argentina, which crippled itself (more…)

by Matt Canham

Salt Lake Tribune

Washington » The question from the counselor was simple and straightforward: Did anyone need help dealing with the violence they encountered on the front lines in Iraq?

No one in the Marine unit raised their hand, especially not Daniel Hanson, who thought he didn’t even have the “right” to ask for a therapist’s help since he experienced far less death and destruction than did his friends in the infantry.

But he did need help — and after a two-year struggle with depression, drugs and alcohol Hanson received it in an intense in-patient treatment center. But not before his marriage ended and he became estranged from his kids. Not before he attempted to end his own life.

“I was pretty much a monster,” he said. “I thought I had to kill myself before my kids learned what a loser their dad is.”

Hanson, from Minnesota, shared his experiences with a Senate panel on Wednesday that explored the alarming rate of suicide among the nation’s newest veterans. Among the other panelists was David Rudd, a suicide expert from the University of Utah who advocated for a change in military culture and (more…)

While shopping for health insurance last year, 26-year-old Hillary McCormack was rejected because she had, for two months in 2007, taken a fertility drug. The Salt Lake City lawyer’s older husband, though, was approved.

Insurers told Leane Jensen she had three strikes against her. The 33-year-old freelance photographer had been uninsured for some time, had once suffered a minor back injury and was of child-bearing age.

They didn’t know it, but both women fell prey to “gender rating.” It’s a strategy insurers use to charge women higher premiums, or deny them coverage for pre-existing conditions such as pregnancy, a previous Caesarean section delivery and domestic violence.

Gender is among many factors, including age and address, that insurers use to predict a consumer’s “healthiness” and medical costs. Industry groups call it smart business. National women’s health advocates call it gender discrimination.

In Utah, the practice has drawn scant attention. A ban on gender rating by companies selling policies to individual consumers was struck last month from House Speaker Dave Clark’s reform bill with hardly a whimper of protest.

If signed by the governor, HB294 will still ban the practice for policies sold to small groups, which advocates say protects companies that tend to employ a lot of women, such as day care centers, dentist offices and nonprofit groups.

It’s a good first step, said Korey Capozza, senior health policy analyst with Voices for Utah Children. But the policy question of “who pays for the cost of procreating” warrants more thorough debate, she added. “Women don’t get pregnant on their own.”

Gender rating is most acutely felt by women who don’t have employer-sponsored coverage: the unemployed or independently employed, such as freelance writers and designers, real estate agents and consultants.

The practice is illegal in 11 states and tightly regulated in two others.

But not in Utah, where a 25-year-old woman will pay up to 17 percent more than a man for the same coverage, according to price quotes obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune from three (more…)

by Matt Canham

Salt Lake Tribune

Washington » Liberal commentators have pounced on Sen. Orrin Hatch, calling him a hypocrite and a liar for his attack on the legislative shortcut Democrats favor to pass health reform.

But Hatch, R-Utah, isn’t about to back down. He said left-wing TV personalities and Democratic operatives are just “whining.”

“They can’t stand to have the facts pointed out to them,” he said.

The D.C. dust-up is in reaction to a column Hatch wrote for Tuesday’s Washington Post , stating his case against relying on an infrequently used Senate rule called reconciliation to stop Republicans from talking health reform to death.

Designed for budget-related items, reconciliation bills can’t be filibustered and allow for limited debate, moving quickly to a final vote that takes only 51 senators, a simple majority, to pass.

Senator Hatch, for his own political purposes, has distorted to the point of lying about the history of reconciliation and totally ignores his own role in using reconciliation. This is pure hypocrisy—the stuff that has ruined America’s respect for its political leaders. Here is Senator Hatch, a supposed statesman, who speaks proudly of his Mormon Church, who can’t speak the truth unless it works to his advantage.

Naturally, Republicans are not keen on the idea and no one has been as outspoken in his opposition as Hatch, who first argued against this route a year ago in a letter to President Barack Obama, well before the debate turned intensely partisan and bitter.

The closer Democrats have come to a reconciliation vote, the more Hatch has turned up his rhetoric. Consider this paragraph from his Post op-ed: “This use of reconciliation to jam through this legislation, against the will of the American people, would be unprecedented in scope. And the havoc wrought would threaten our system of checks and balances, corrode the legislative process, degrade our system of government and damage the prospect of bipartisanship.”

The liberal reaction was swift and fierce, led by MSNBC personality Rachel Maddow, who spent eight minutes (more…)

by Pamela Manson

Salt Lake Tribune

A Salt Lake City woman who could lose her house over an unpaid dental bill has been granted another round in her fight to keep it.

The Utah Court of Appeals on Thursday said Capri Ramos can ask a trial court judge to void the sale of her house at a county auction in 1996.

Ramos bought the Glendale home for $51,000 in 1994 with a low-income homeowners loan from Salt Lake City. She has continued living there and making payments on the home during the fight over ownership.

In 1995, Ramos was charged $68 for dental treatment for her daughter and failed to pay the bill. Collection agency North American Recovery sued her and Ramos did not contest the action.

The Salt Lake County sheriff’s department then was ordered to sell Ramos’ real estate to pay off the debt, which had reached $958 with interest and added fees. The house was sold at auction for $1,550 and transferred to Salt Lake City-based Jarmaccc Properties LLC.

Pox on your house Jarmaccc Properties, and the associated dentist, and on our legislators if they don’t pass some laws to see that this type of injustice doesn’t ever happen again in Utah.

This is a terrible shame for all involved in the disproportionate ‘taking of property.’

Court records indicate Ramos (more…)

(This is the response made by Planned Parenthood regarding the passing of HB12 that makes women criminally liable for intention miscarriages. The response shows the votes of all senators and representatives.  Only 12 representatives and four senators voted against it.)
Earlier today, the Senate passed Representative Carl Wimmer’s
House Bill 12, which will make women criminally liable for
intentional miscarriages. During the floor debate, both Senator
Margaret Dayton and Representative Wimmer refused to support an
amendment that would provide protections for victims of domestic
violence! The bill is now going to the House of Representatives
for the signature of the Speaker and will then move to the
Governor for his signature.

Over the last few months, we worked with the ACLU of Utah to
amend the legislation to protect women who seek legal abortion
services. Even with these amendments, however, we are extremely
disappointed that Utah’s legislators would opt to punish women
instead of providing practical options to prevent (more…)

From the webpage, UnknownNews.org. Democracy depends on an informed public discourse, and it’s imperiled when lies and misinformation are multiplied by mass media, or by bloggers or panicked emailers. Please — our nation and our world face very serious, very real problems, and you can help, by being a little skeptical about all the phony, non-existent problems that are only distractions. —H&HH

This seemingly unending list of lies vomited up by pathological liars is so long you won’t have the patience to read it all. Sadly, this is what the Republican Party has come to. A ridiculousness that should result in an almost complete abandonment by anyone with a brain. Oh, the awful embarrassment of being associated with this stuff.

Latest update: Feb. 14, 2010

No, it’s not true that global warming stopped in 1998 and the world has been cooling ever since. This video does a good job tracking down the single wingnut who made that bogus claim, which has been repeated ceaselessly by climate change deniers ever since.  #

No, Republicans are just lying when they claim that prosecuting terrorists in ordinary American courtrooms is something unusual or dangerous. There’s nothing outrageous or even out of the ordinry about how the Obama administration is prosecuting the so-called underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.  #

No, contrary to conservatives’ claims, big snowstorms don’t disprove global climate change. A snowstorm doesn’t mean science is a fraud. As explained briefly, we’re going to see more snow, not less, because more precipitation — including heavy snowstorms — is a sign of global warming, as atmospheric moisture levels have increased with warmer temperatures, meaning more storms with heavy snow or rain.  #

No, it’s not true that Sen Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) has proposed legislation the would establish universal voter registration, including votes for ex-felons and welfare recipients and oh my!
It sounds like a great idea to me. I believe people should be encouraged to vote and voting should be as easy as is practically possible — but for their own reasons, other people like to have a few hurdles in the way so that only people who bother to jump those hurdles get to vote. You could make reasonable arguments for the latter notion, and maybe that’s a conversation we should have.
But instead of making those reasonable arguments, right-wingers like John Fund, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck are simply lying, because Senator Frank has made no such proposal. There’s no universal voter registration legislation to oppose. When you hear or read about this proposal from Senator Frank, you’re hearing or reading a lie.  #

No, the widespread right-wing meme that the underwear bomber quit talking as soon as he was read his Miranda rights is bull.  #

No, it’s not true, despite columnist George Will’s claim, that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would “abolish workers’ rights to secret ballots”. It’s a right-wing talking point, but it’s no more true today than the last time it was debunked on this page. It’s untrue every time you hear it, which sure is often.  #

No, it’s not true that President Obama used a teleprompter to address a class of sixth-graders at an elementary school in Falls Church, Virginia.  #

No, despite Investor’s Business Daily’s hokum, the Community Reinvestment Act didn’t cause (more…)

by Noam Level

Association Press

Washington » As the nation struggled last year with rising health care costs and a recession, the five largest health insurance companies racked up combined profits of $12.2 billion — up 56 percent over 2008, according to a new report by liberal health care activists.

Based on company financial reports for 2009 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the report said insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group, Cigna Corp., Aetna and Humana Inc. covered 2.7 million fewer people than they did the year before.

It is not good news to see that the top five health insurance companies in the nation had higher profits in 2009 with fewer customers and more premium revenue being spent on salaries and administration.

Insurance companies are doing little to drive down the cost of medicine. They are declining coverage and increasing premiums and the cost of medicine continues to escalate.

Companies are abandoning coverage of their employees and this will increase the bad debts incurred by hospitals for giving required emergency care. Hospital emergency rooms will not be able to handle the increased number of uninsured people who have no alternative but to suffer until emergency care is their only option.

Insurance companies are leaving the high risk risk customers for the government, hospitals, and doctors to take care of. If we don’t get a nationalized health insurance program we will have people dying on the streets like other Third World countries—-which we will become without facing the health care issues.

Republicans who just say ‘no’ are the ‘death panels’ they fear from the government.

The report Thursday also said three of the five insurers cut the proportion of premiums they spent on their customers’ medical care, committing relatively more to salaries, administrative expenses and profits.

Prepared by Heath Care for America Now, a coalition of liberal advocacy groups and labor unions, the report was aimed at bolstering the drive by (more…)