Mountain Sage

I’m not buying that Palin is stepping down for the “good of Alaska” and stated in my earlier post that I think there is a scandal brewing.  If in fact federal investigators are seizing documents from SBS this might very well be the scandal.  I know this was rumored earlier during the election but there was no solid proof but it appears the feds may have found that proof.  Time will tell.

The suddenness of Sarah Palin’s resignation raises questions about whether a coming scandal caused her to leave office. Max Blumenthal looks at one possibility.

CNN and other major news outlets have reported that Sarah Palin has abruptly resigned as governor of Alaska. The suddenness of her announcement raises the question about whether Palin resigned to avert a major scandal. One logical place to start looking is the affair that has Alaska political circles buzzing: an alleged scandal centered around a building contractor, Spenard Building Supplies (SBS), with close ties to Palin and her husband, Todd.

Many political observers in Alaska are fixated on rumors that federal investigators have been seizing paperwork from SBS in recent months, searching for evidence that Palin and her husband Todd steered lucrative contracts to the well-connected company in exchange for gifts like the construction of their home on pristine Lake Lucille in 2002. The home was built just two months before Palin began campaigning for governor, a job which would have provided her enhanced power to grant building contracts in the wide open state.

SBS has close ties to the Palins. The company has not only sponsored Todd Palin’s snowmobile team, according to the Village Voice’s Wayne Barrett, it hired Sarah Palin to do a statewide television commercial in 2004.

Though Todd Palin told Fox News he built his Lake Lucille home with the help of a few “buddies,” according to Barrett’s report, public records revealed that SBS supplied the materials for the house. While serving as mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin blocked an initiative that would have required the public filing of building permits—thus momentarily preventing the revelation of such suspicious information.

Just months before Palin left city hall to campaign for governor, she awarded a contract to SBS to help build the $13 million Wasilla Sports Complex. The most expensive building project in Wasilla history, the complex cost the city an addition $1.3 million in legal fees and threw it into severe long-term debt. For SBS, however, the bloated and bungled project was a cash cow.

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CNN is reporting that Sarah Palin will be resigning as Governor of Alaska within the month which would be 18 months ahead of time. She will be handing the position over to the Lieutenant Governor, Sean Parnell. Speculation for her reason for resigning runs the gamut of possibilities from she is pregnant again, a scandal is brewing, etc.

A news reporter in Alaska, Andrew Wellner, the Frontiersman, reports that Sarah Palin said she could do more outside of government. Wellner went on to say that he believes she might be aligning to run for senator. Palin did not take any questions from reporters after the announcement. Wellner said Palin also commented, “you are naive if you don’t see a full court press from the national level picking away right now a good point guard.”

If I had to guess the real reason I would guess a scandal is brewing. I’m watching the video and she is obviously agitated.
She went on to say that the decision has been in the making for awhile. She talked about Trig being mocked and ridiculed….I don’t know what she’s talking about. She almost sounds like she’s hyperventilating. She rambled on and on about the troops and doing the right thing for Alaska. All in all, in my opinion, a very strange announcement.

Below is an excerpt from the Vanity Fair article with a link to the complete article:

It Came from Wasilla

Despite her disastrous performance in the 2008 election, Sarah Palin is still the sexiest brand in Republican politics, with a lucrative book contract for her story. But what Alaska’s charismatic governor wants the public to know about herself doesn’t always jibe with reality. As John McCain’s top campaign officials talk more candidly than ever before about the meltdown of his vice-presidential pick, the author tracks the signs—political and personal—that Palin was big trouble, and checks the forecast for her future.

By Todd S. Purdum August 2009

The crowds begin streaming into the Evansville Auditorium and Convention Centre a couple of hours before the arrival of the “special guest speaker” at the Vanderburgh County Right to Life dinner on a soft Indiana spring evening—nearly 2,200 people in the banquet hall, 800 more in an adjacent auditorium watching the proceedings on a live video feed. The menu is thick slices of roast pork and red velvet cake, washed down with pitchers of iced tea, and when Sarah Palin finally enters, escorted by a phalanx of sheriff’s deputies and local police, she is mobbed. The organizers of the dinner, billed as “the largest pro-life banquet in the world,” have courted Palin for weeks with care packages of locally made chocolates, doughnuts, barbecue, and pastries, and she has requited by choosing Evansville, a conservative stronghold in southern Indiana, as the site of her first public speech outside Alaska in 2009. Like Richard M. Nixon, who chose the coalfield town of Hyden, Kentucky, for his first post-resignation public appearance, Palin has come to a place where she is guaranteed a hero’s reception. She is not only a staunch foe of abortion but also the mother of a boy, Trig, who was born with Down syndrome just a few months before John McCain chose Palin as his running mate. The souvenir program for this evening’s dinner is full of displays for local politicians and businesses, attesting to their pro-life bona fides. An ad for Hahn Realty Corporation reads, “If you need commercial real estate, call Joe Kiefer! Joe is pro-life and a proud supporter of the Vanderburgh County Right to Life.” REST OF ARTICLE

A insurance industry insider speaks out against the for profit insurers and gives his take on why we need a public option. And in a reversal of position the AMA now says it is open to a public option. The AMA suggests an expansion of the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program, the program that is offered to Congress and other federal employees. Under the FEHBP there is an abundance of plans to choose from but it is yet to be seen if those plans would be cost effective for lower income families.

Democrats on a key Senate committee have devised a new plan with a public option that reduces the cost of the plan from the earlier proposed plan that cost $1 trillion and left millions uninsured.

The Obama administration took the health care reform show on the road yesterday with a town hall meeting in Virginia. President Obama made it clear in that meeting that doing nothing is not an option and that health care reform is imperative if the country is to have a full economic recovery.

The Health Care Industry vs. Health Reform

By Wendell Potter

I’m the former insurance industry insider now speaking out about how big for-profit insurers have hijacked our health care system and turned it into a giant ATM for Wall Street investors, and how the industry is using its massive wealth and influence to determine what is (and is not) included in the health care reform legislation members of Congress are now writing.

Although by most measures I had a great career in the insurance industry (four years at Humana and nearly 15 at CIGNA), in recent years I had grown increasingly uncomfortable serving as one of the industry’s top PR executives. In addition to my responsibilities at CIGNA, which included serving as the company’s chief spokesman to the media on all corporate and financial matters, I also served on a lot of trade association committees and industry-financed coalitions, many of which were essentially front groups for insurers. So I was in a unique position to see not only how Wall Street analysts and investors influence decisions insurance company executives make but also how the industry has carried out behind-the-scenes PR and lobbying campaigns to kill or weaken any health care reform efforts that threatened insurers’ profitability.

I also have seen how the industry’s practices — especially those of the for-profit insurers that are under constant pressure from Wall Street to meet their profit expectations — have contributed to the tragedy of nearly 50 million people being uninsured as well as to the growing number of Americans who, because insurers now require them to pay thousands of dollars out of their own pockets before their coverage kicks in — are underinsured. An estimated 25 million of us now fall into that category.

What I saw happening over the past few years was a steady movement away from the concept of insurance and toward “individual responsibility,” a term used a lot by insurers and their ideological allies. This is playing out as a continuous shifting of the financial burden of health care costs away from insurers and employers and onto the backs of individuals. As a result, more and more sick people are not going to the doctor or picking up their prescriptions because of costs. If they are unfortunate enough to become seriously ill or injured, many people enrolled in these plans find themselves on the hook for such high medical bills that they are losing their homes to foreclosure or being forced into bankruptcy.

What I saw happening over the past few years was a steady movement away from the concept of insurance and toward “individual responsibility,” a term used a lot by insurers and their ideological allies. This is playing out as a continuous shifting of the financial burden of health care costs away from insurers and employers and onto the backs of individuals. As a result, more and more sick people are not going to the doctor or picking up their prescriptions because of costs. If they are unfortunate enough to become seriously ill or injured, many people enrolled in these plans find themselves on the hook for such high medical bills that they are losing their homes to foreclosure or being forced into bankruptcy.

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I’m so stunned I just don’t know what to say.

Let’s face it, most of us just can’t afford to be sick much less have a chronic physical problem that requires continuing health care.  I know I can’t.

I had a discussion with a doctor’s nurse today about whether or not I had followed up with a specialist for one of my physical conditions I’ve been dealing with for 20 years.  They obviously have no concept of not being able to afford a specialist.  With a $3500 deductible along with being unemployed a specialist isn’t a necessity but a luxury.

I don’t claim to know the perfect solution to fix our broken health care system but I do know a change must come before more and more Americans find themselves with chronic illnesses they can’t afford to treat.

By Kyung M. Song

Medical bankruptcies

Illnesses — and the attendant loss of job and insurance — are a major reason behind personal bankruptcies in the United States.

In a random national survey published online in June of 2,314 bankruptcy filings, researchers from Harvard University and Ohio University found that 62 percent of the debtors had experienced an illness, high medical bills or loss of income.

Key findings about the medical bankruptcies:

• Seventy-eight percent of those debtors had health insurance at the onset of their illnesses.

• Debtors with no insurance had medical bills averaging $26,971, compared with $17,749 for those with private coverage.

• Of those who owned homes, 5.7 percent borrowed against the house to pay medical bills.

• People with neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis and those with diabetes had the highest bills, averaging $34,167 and $22,568, respectively.

(Source: “Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study,” August 2009 issue of The American Journal of Medicine)

When Mark Moody and Glenda Krull could no longer afford both health insurance and mortgage payments, the Edmonds couple knew which had to go.

They sold their house.

Moody, 60, had a liver transplant four years ago and may need another. He alone pays $1,345 a month for the most generous policy he can buy from Premera Blue Cross.

And he’s desperate to hang on to it — even though the costly premiums drove his wife to downgrade her own coverage, decimated their retirement savings and, just this month, forced them out of their well-appointed home into a newly purchased house half its size.

For Americans with serious illnesses, even good insurance is no guarantee they won’t go broke and they will get all the medical care they need.

In 2007, nearly two-thirds of all personal bankruptcies filed across the country were linked to illnesses, loss of income or high medical bills, according to a survey published in June by researchers at Harvard University and Ohio University. Of those cases, 78 percent of the debtors had health insurance when they first got sick.

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No matter how despicable I think the KKK is the freedom of speech covers them as well. I wouldn’t be averse to the people who live in the neighborhood letting a Doberman or Pit Bull loose on them though. Of course, the people with the dogs would be the ones to spend time in jail or they would get sued. I honestly don’t get the kind of hatred some people have toward people just because of the color of their skin.

Local police say racist fliers on black homeowners’ doorsteps is protected speech, though “possibly” littering

A collection of black homeowners in a Tennessee town are upset and fearful after the Ku Klux Klan targeted their neighborhood with hate-filled fliers, dropped on their lawns in the dead of night.

The fliers call for whites to secure the future for “white, Christian children,” denounce interracial marriage and homosexuality, along with calling for an end to “white discrimination.”

Complaints to the police in Greeneville, Tennessee did not help. In an interview with local news channel WJHL, Greenville police officer Terry Webb said that the fliers, perceived by residents to be threatening in nature, “possibly” rise to the criminal level of littering. However, he claimed, it’s their First Amendment right to advertise racially-motivated hatred on a person’s doorstep.

via Rest of article.

I’ve always noticed that when discussing teen pregnancy we almost always hear about the girl being careless and how teenage girls have babies in order to feel loved.  What we don’t hear about is the responsibility and motivations of the boyfriends of these girls.  I think viewing an unwanted pregnancy as part of a cycle of abuse is long overdue and is an area of teenage pregnancy that needs further investigation and attention.

We often depend on anecdotes to make or break our cases, a practice that is over-rated.  Anecdotes are just that and not valid for determining cause and effect, but anecdotes sometimes give us insight we might not otherwise have had.  I have a personal friend who found herself with an unwanted pregnancy after the boyfriend talked her into quitting the pill (for her health, of course) and who “forgot” to use a condom after a New Year’s celebration that included a lot of drinking, especially on the girl’s part.  When he was told by my friend that she was pregnant his reply was “now you’re stuck with me.”  She couldn’t help but feel that she was set up and she may very well have been.

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All I can say is GOOD.

By TOM HAYS and LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press

NEW YORK – Convicted Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison Monday for a fraud so extensive that the judge said he needed to send a message to potential imitators and to victims who demanded harsh punishment.

Scattered applause and whoops broke out in the crowded Manhattan courtroom after U.S. District Judge Denny Chin issued the maximum sentence to the 71-year-old defendant, who said he lives “in a tormented state now, knowing all the pain and suffering I’ve created.”

Chin rejected a request by Madoff’s lawyer for leniency and said he disagreed that victims of the Ponzi scheme were seeking mob vengeance.

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Walking down the street, my 84 year old uncle happened to glimpse at a store window and in that window he saw the reflection of a thin, rather fragile stooped over elderly gentleman.  He thought to himself, “there but for the grace of God go I.”  After another moment of reflection on the reflection he exclaimed, “Oh my God, that IS me.”

He’s a funny kind of guy who loves to tell a joke, but underneath the exterior is a man who has endured some of the most painful events life can dish out.  His daughter who was born just months before I was, was born with Down syndrome and with a hole in her heart.  Despite everything the doctors could do at that time and the fact her mother, my aunt was a nurse, my cousin died at the age of 7.  Unable to have more children, my aunt and uncle adopted two children.  Twenty years ago, their only granddaughter, age 3, fell down a flight of stairs and died. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Fear is insidious, it grabs hold and holds on for dear life and it not only makes us irrational, it also makes us just plain stupid.  Using fear to control the masses isn’t just a conservative thing, although we saw it in abundance after 9/11, it’s just as evident from the liberals…..lots of fear but over different things.

Conservative fear includes:  fear of terrorists, fear of communists, fear of socialist, fear of foreigners, fear of gays, fear of things that go bump in the night.   Conservative fear tells us that they are all out to get us and we must hold onto our guns, kowtow to corporations and have a cop on every corner.  Conservative fear tells us that if it’s fun it’s bad.

Ah, liberal fear is a little more subtle.  Liberal fear tells us that the wafting smoke from a cigarette might break through the exhaust of the much favored by liberals public transit bus that is belching fumes into the air and kill us.  Liberal fear tells us that if mommy government doesn’t  make it illegal to ride a motorcycle without a helmet, bicycle or skateboard we will all fall victim to brain damage.  Liberal fear tells us that Johnny Shotgun  will one day burst out in rage and commit a mass murder .  And liberal fear tells us that the government must regulate how many twinkies a week we are allowed to have lest we die of a massive coronary and cost the health care system more money.

So, you know what makes me crazy?

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