BlogHer contributing editor Mata posted on this today – Is it a joke, or is it hatred disguised in Biblical language?

She quotes Frank Schaeffer who appeared on the Rachel Maddow show last night. Here is a video clip (you need to get about 50 seconds in)…

This is beyond disturbing, it’s down right scary.

I’m interested in knowing what others in this community think about this extreme hatred toward our president. Is it going too far? Let us know what you think in comments.

It might have been the Clinton or the Bush (41& 43) administrations that got us in to this economic mess. And the policies of the Obama administration may be: correcting the problem; making things worse; simply applying a band-aid to a knife wound; or, all of the above. Your view of today’s economic news will probably depend on how you’re affected by it and your political affiliation. But one thing is true. Wall Street may be recovering but the average American is still maneuvering on a slippery slope.

Less than two months ago U.S. President Barack Obama stated that all signs indicated that the economy was starting to grow and financial markets were starting to work again. But while sending an encouraging message to Wall Street he did add the caveat that employment statistics did not indicate improvement and, in fact, could get worse over the next couple of months. This was the message that the President reiterated today.

No one should be surprised by today’s announcement that unemployment has reached 10.2 percent.

Columnist Lynn Sweet reported on details provided by the Department of Labor:

“In October, the number of unemployed persons increased by 558,000 to 15.7 
million. The unemployment rate rose by 0.4 percentage point to 10.2 percent, 
the highest rate since April 1983. Since the start of the recession in 
December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has risen by 8.2 million, 
and the unemployment rate has grown by 5.3 percentage points.

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (10.7 per-
cent) and whites (9.5 percent) rose in October. The jobless rates for adult 
women (8.1 percent), teenagers (27.6 percent), blacks (15.7 percent), and
Hispanics (13.1 percent) were little changed over the month. The unemployment 
rate for Asians was 7.5 percent, not seasonally adjusted.

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) was 
little changed over the month at 5.6 million. In October, 35.6 percent of 
unemployed persons were jobless for 27 weeks or more.

The civilian labor force participation rate was little changed over the month 
at 65.1 percent. The employment-population ratio continued to decline in 
October, falling to 58.5 percent.

The number of persons working part time for economic reasons (sometimes refer-
red to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed in October at 9.3 
million. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been 
cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

About 2.4 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in October, 
reflecting an increase of 736,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not sea-
sonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and 
were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. 
They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in 
the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

Among the marginally attached, there were 808,000 discouraged workers in October, 
up from 484,000 a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) Dis-
couraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe 
no jobs are available for them. The other 1.6 million persons marginally attached 
to the labor force in October had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding 
the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.”

Add to these numbers: the millions of workers who lost a job and replaced it with a lower paying one; the millions whose salaries have been frozen for a few years; the millions of retirees who lost a large portion of their retirement savings when the market crashed; the millions who lost a substantial amount of the equity in their homes: and, the Social Security recipients who will not get a cost of living adjustment (COLA) in 2010, and many Americans are still wondering when things will get better for them.

However, while many Americans are holding on by a life preserver the banking industry is preparing to throw them an anchor. Yes, the financial markets are definitely working again and working in the same old way.

Earlier today, Megan Woolhouse of The Boston Globe reported:

“Credit card companies are rushing to increase interest rates to historic highs of more than 30 percent, cut credit limits, and add new fees, even for customers who pay their bills on time.

Lenders are making the moves in advance of tougher federal regulations for credit cards scheduled to take effect on Feb. 22. The new rules will limit how companies can modify credit card agreements, specifically prohibiting them from retroactively raising interest rates and fees on existing balances.

US Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the Financial Services Committee and is a leader in the effort to revamp credit card policies, said banks have ‘abused’’ the nine-month period granted them to re-tool their practices.

‘I didn’t think they would be as blatant as they were about doing this,’ he said. ‘There’s no justification for raising rates retroactively. This is really just a way for them to make more money.’ “

And by the way, have you noticed that gasoline prices are inching up?

Ok, I’m not going to say, “I told you….”

No I’m not going to say it. If you’re reading this blog, I’d just be preaching to the choir.

Related posts:

Bill Moyers’ Interview with Bill Black and How They Got Away With It

Saying “No One Saw This Coming”, Just Doesn’t Ring True.

Why So Many American Want Wall Street & The Banks to Suffer
originally posted on Pam’s Coffee Conversation

Health care costs wouldn’t be so high and there wouldn’t be so much concern about the cost of a public health care plan if so many Americans weren’t so sick.

Right?

On Monday, the New York Times reported on the hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic waste being dumping into the nation’s water supply by coal-fired power plants. In the article, “Cleansing the Air at the Expense of the Waterways“, Charles Duhigg reported:

“For years, residents here complained about the yellow smoke pouring from the tall chimneys of the nearby coal-fired power plant, which left a film on their cars and pebbles of coal waste in their yards. Five states — including New York and New Jersey — sued the plant’s owner, Allegheny Energy, claiming the air pollution was causing respiratory diseases and acid rain.

So three years ago, when Allegheny Energy decided to install scrubbers to clean the plant’s air emissions, environmentalists were overjoyed. The technology would spray water and chemicals through the plant’s chimneys, trapping more than 150,000 tons of pollutants each year before they escaped into the sky.

But the cleaner air has come at a cost. Each day since the equipment was switched on in June, the company has dumped tens of thousands of gallons of waste water containing chemicals from the scrubbing process into the Monongahela River, which provides drinking water to 350,000 people and flows into Pittsburgh, 40 miles to the north.

‘It’s like they decided to spare us having to breathe in these poisons, but now we have to drink them instead,’ said Philip Coleman, who lives about 15 miles from the plant and has asked a state judge to toughen the facility’s pollution regulations. ‘We can’t escape.’

Even as a growing number of coal-burning power plants around the nation have moved to reduce their air emissions, many of them are creating another problem: water pollution. Power plants are the nation’s biggest producer of toxic waste, surpassing industries like plastic and paint manufacturing and chemical plants, according to a New York Times analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data.”

If the air pollution caused by coal-fired plants has already been linked to chronic asthma and COPD, just imagine the result of ingesting large quantities of the same toxins in your drinking water.

In an article for Care2.com, Melissa Breyer reported on the link between pesticides and Parkinson’s Disease.

A study by eminent oncologists Dr. Leonard Hardell and Dr. Mikael Eriksson of Sweden concludes that there is a link between “the world’s biggest selling herbicide, glyphosate (commonly known as Roundup, marketed by Monsanto), to non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a form of cancer.”

The following video clip is from the documentary “The World According to Monsanto” which took an in-depth look into the bio-chemical companies impact on agriculture, the environment and health.

And while we’re discussing Monsanto we certainly can’t forget their efforts to bury the truth about rBGH (bovine growth hormone) in milk.

There are many, many more instances of links between toxic waste and disease but I think that you get the picture.

Corporations have been dumping toxins in the water, air and food supply with impunity. The American public has grown sicker which has in turn driven up health care costs. Health care insurers are profiting from this illness. And now the corporate lobbyists and insurance industry spin machine are waging a full scale assault on health care reform.

Dear Members of Congress and President Obama,

if you really want to reform health care please take a comprehensive approach to this problem. How can you not pass health care reform with a public option when the government agencies which were supposed to protect the environment, agriculture and public health have failed us so miserably.

The previously cited New York Time article shows that the Riverhead International Coal Plant in Macon GA has been cited for 124 violations, paid $0 in fines and hasn’t been inspected since 1979. 1979 – 30 years ago.

Let the teabaggers and birthers rant, rave and spread lies about “death panels” but don’t give in to the insanity.

Americans can diet, exercise, visit the doctor and take all the pills we want. But if the biochemical and power industries continue to poision the air, water & food, we will grow sicker and sicker. Health care costs will both bankrupt consumers and increase the federal deficit. And in the end, we will die. Those without health care coverage will just die much quicker.

Congress must pass health care with a public option and if you want to reduce costs take on the corporations that have contributed to this crisis. Fine them. Shame them if you have to. Expose them for the greedy, heartless profiteers that they have become.

How dare Wellpoint sue the State of Maine to ensure that it is guaranteed a profit!

Enough is enough.

originally posted on Pam’s Coffee Conversation

Finally, the health insurance reform debate turned its focus — albeit briefly — on women and girls. About time. Women make most of the health care decisions in American families, and because of our longevity we tend to use more health care services as well. Further, because a persistent wage gap deprives many women of fair pay, women also have a harder time paying for health care and health insurance. And, to add insult to injury, insurance is typically more expensive for women. Without commonsense reform, insurance companies could continue the discriminatory practice of gender rating, and women could continue to pay monthly premiums ranging from four percent to 48 percent higher for individually-purchased health care plans than men. FLOTUS Michelle Obama’s first foray into the health care debate was quite welcome, and could not have come at a better time.

Enjoy a clip, and read the full text below.

[If you would like to be a guest blogger on The Political Voices of Women, just join our community, and start posting.]

With First Lady Michelle Obama leading the charge to put the struggle for work/life balance front and center, the issue is finally getting top-level attention. Although both men and women in American society are overstretched (working two weeks longer per year than their Japanese counterparts and several weeks more than Europeans), it is women who bear the greatest burden of trying to be all things to all people. Stress is prevalent as women strive to parcel out portions of time to the spouse, children, aging parents, their communities, and lastly…themselves.

A whopping 87 percent of polled women would like more equilibrium between the competing areas of their lives. Two professionals, at the highest echelon of achievement, have entered the conversation with their new book Womenomics. Co-authors Katty Kay (BBC) and Claire Shipman (Good Morning America) have subtitled their insights, Write your own rules for success; How to stop juggling and struggling and finally start living and working the way you really want.

The writers posit that “womenomics” will benefit the “entire working world,” and that there is a “brewing workplace revolution.” They point to the benefit of flexibility over promotions, the value of time as the “new currency,” and espouse a phrase redefining the old “having it all” as “The New All.” Kay, the Washington correspondent and anchor for BBC World News America, is the mother of four. Shipman, the senior national correspondent for ABC News’ Good Morning America, is the mother of two. The women undertook the book in response to a confluence of factors. It was a reaction to The Harvard Business Review article “Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success” by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce, “The Opt Out Revolution” by Lisa Belkin, and their own career conflicts.

The genesis of the book was explained to me when I spoke to Kay by telephone. We discussed if the book’s pointers could be relevant to women who did not have college degrees and were not climbing the “corporate ladder.” Kay maintained that all women are looking for more control over their schedules. For her and Shipman the “New All” took on the meaning of enough professional success balanced by time and freedom.

Most of the statistics in the book reflect the demographic that Kay and Shipman set out to interview and study. Nationally, women hold 57 percent of the Bachelor’s Degrees and 58 percent of all graduate degrees. 46 percent of management is comprised of women. As for the overall workforce, women are approaching the 50 percent mark.

Women stepping up to the plate and asking for what they want, and getting employed on their terms is the ideal. A frequently quoted authority in the book is Dr. Kathleen E. Christensen of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which funds studies on families and the workplace. Christensen has given the modern women’s role in family life a new nomenclature: “The meaning maker.” She explains, “It’s the women who basically cultivate and sustain the rituals in the family.” This applies to women whether they are climbing a corporate ladder or working in lower paying service jobs. Christensen said, “Employed women increasingly feel more entitled to say, ‘I need and I want to work in a certain way.’” She pointed to the fact that “the one-size-fits-all workplace doesn’t work.”

Some employers are getting the picture. The Continental Airlines reservations department in Houston has allowed 600 agents to work form home. 25 percent of the staff gets an extra day off per week, on a rotating basis. Studies have shown that a majority of flextime workers have improved productivity and greater commitment to the job.

Regardless of a women’s level or field, the commonality lies in how to handle the stress that comes with juggling combined responsibilities. The Mayo Clinic’s article, ”Work-life balance: Ways to restore harmony and reduce stress” includes many of the same pointers outlined in Womenomics. Following are some of the quandaries that Kay and Shipman believe are problematic, and their proposed remedies.

• The inability to say no because of the need to please.
Women should keep a list of top commitments, and let go of saying yes to avoid conflict. Buzz phrases such as, “My schedule won’t let me take that on” or invoking the “family policy” clause (which includes the sanctity of date night, child’s rehearsal, parent birthday) are simple ways to side step unwanted obligations.

• Work Smarter
Recognize that time is a critical commodity. Use it to zone in on top concerns. When you compile a list, it must reflect what is most essential. Focus on the top five, and accept that you can’t get it all done. Set a big picture goal for the month, and even for the year. Make “assume control of your schedule” a mantra.

• The Tyranny of “Professional and Domestic Perfection”
Delegate, and be aware of when what you are achieving is “good enough.” Set limits. That includes tech boundaries as well. Cutting back on constant e-mail perusal and Blackberry usage can free up time for relationships.

During the election, candidate Obama frequently reflected on the strong females in his life. As Kay said to me, “You have a President whose wife gets it.” Since taking up residence in the White House, Michelle Obama has publically advocated for sick leave for parents, flexible work hours, and on-site childcare.

The “womenomics” theory of “writing our own rules for success” and getting past “internal obstacles” can give us a foothold on ratcheting down the pressure. In the meantime, let’s hope the marketplace gets in step with the realization that productivity, loyalty, and retention goes up with family-friendly policies.

This article previously appeared on Empowher.

From Reuters – Senator Edward Kennedy Dies at 77…

U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, a towering figure in the Democratic Party who took the helm of one of America’s most fabled political families after two older brothers were assassinated, has died at age 77, his family said on Wednesday.

Below is a DNC video that I recently was sent a link to.  And this is some of how I feel about it…

I don’t claim to have any answers – just questions.  So, here goes.

I could understand the Republicans being against Obama’s healthcare plan if they at least had a plan of their own.  Do they?

Sometimes I wonder if our elected government  has forgotten that they represent The “United” States of America…and that this issue is about LIVES not elections.

Okay, that wasn’t really a question, more like a statement.

And I’m totally NOT for taxing the top 2% of Americans to subsidize the 15% without insurance. But just out of curiosity…

Who are these people?  The top 2% people?  Are you one of them?

And how many of them would be totally against donating some of their wealth or business savvy (at least temporarily) to finding a way to help the uninsured of their own country?

Seriously. Did anyone think to ask? Maybe this population of our country isn’t as heartless and greedy as some people would like us to believe?

Anyway…Here’s the video from the DNC.  What do you think about all of this?  Dare I ask?