American workers are overpaid, relative to equally productive employees elsewhere doing the same work. If the global economy is to get into balance, that gap must close.

Of course, workers in the United States should earn more than their peers in China, Moldova or Vietnam. Americans take advantage of the higher productivity that makes their country rich: better education and infrastructure, abundant capital and a strong work ethic. But how much higher should American wages be?

The answer depends in large part on two measures: the difference in productivity in making goods that can be traded across borders, and the quantity of such goods. Both measures point to a narrowing wage gap.

Many factors are raising productivity in poor countries. Fast development, cheap capital and more efficient shipping all help. Cheap communication via the Internet reduces costs and makes it easy to trade many more goods and especially services.

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How shortsighted is it to not require birth control coverage in insurance plans while at the same time claiming to want to cut the number of abortions performed each year?  Are women really expected to give up sex or have a baby every year or so?

Why must women always have to fight to get the rights men take for granted?  Insurance companies regularly discriminate against women:

• A 22-year-old woman can be charged one and a half times the premium of a 22-year-old man.
• Many insurers also consider pregnancy and Cesarean sections a pre-existing condition.
• 52% of women reported trouble accessing needed health care because of cost, versus only 39% of men.
• 27% of employed women work part time and are thus excluded from their employers’ health insurance plan, versus only 13% of men.¹

It seems that the younger women who the issues of birth control and abortion rights effect are missing in action when it comes to fighting for those issues.  It may be that we will have to go back to the days of backstreet abortions and lack of birth control for them to wake up and smell the coffee.

None of the bills emerging from the House and Senate require insurers to cover all the elements of a standard gynecological “well visit,” leaving essential care such as pelvic exams, domestic violence screening, counseling about sexually transmitted diseases, and, perhaps most startlingly, the provision of birth control off the list of basic benefits all insurers must cover. Nor are these services protected from “cost sharing,” which means that, depending on what’s in the bill that emerges from the Senate, and, later, the contents of a final bill, women could wind up having to pay for some of these services out of their own pockets. So far, mammograms and Pap tests are covered in every version of the legislation.

Granted, Congress can’t–and shouldn’t–get into the business of spelling out every possible cause for a trip to the doctor. No one wants the process to collapse under a mountain of requests from special interest groups à la the Clinton mess in 1993. But women, half of all adult patients, are not a special interest group. And since both the House and Senate bills include lists of specific services that must be covered by health insurance companies and be provided without asking patients for additional money, it’s hard to understand why all the services provided in a basic well-woman visit to the gynecologist isn’t on them along with maternity care, newborn care, pediatric dental and vision services, and substance use disorder services.

The fault for the initial omission can be laid at the feet of Democrats, who shied away from the issue, not wanting to invite controversy, according to women’s health advocates who tried unsuccessfully to get women’s preventive health care included in the basic benefits package. Some of the concern had to do with cost. Adding any required service to the basic benefits package would mean the Congressional Budget Office would give the bill a higher score, or price tag, leaving it more vulnerable to attack by budget hawks. But another part of the problem clearly stems from the fact that women’s bodies have become political lightening rods, even when abortion is not the issue.
SOURCE.

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I have no idea what Obama will eventually decide to do, but taking the time to make a well thought out decision is a good thing.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

That stance comes in the midst of forceful reservations about a possible troop buildup from the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, according to a second top administration official.

In strongly worded classified cables to Washington, Eikenberry said he had misgivings about sending in new troops while there are still so many questions about the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Obama is still close to announcing his revamped war strategy — most likely shortly after he returns from a trip to Asia that ends on Nov. 19.

But the president raised questions at a war council meeting Wednesday that could alter the dynamic of both how many additional troops are sent to Afghanistan and what the timeline would be for their presence in the war zone, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Obama’s thinking.

REST OF ARTICLE.

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“The Daily Show,” which has become one of the media’s prime monitors when it comes to calling out misuse or manipulation of video, caught the Fox News Channel and one of its hosts, Sean Hannity, Tuesday night, in what appeared to be a blatant example of doctoring a report with inappropriate video to enhance an argument. SOURCE

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Skyagunsta was known to me for a number of years under the screen name/pen name Skyagunsta.  It just made sense for us to use that name here on her articles.   In one of her earlier posts, I included this information about Skyagunsta:

About the author:

Skyagunsta is a long line descendant of Andrew Pickens ,who fought in the Revolutionary War, alongside Francis Marion better known as the Swamp Fox. He is credited with the victory of the Battle of the Cowpens … a crucial victory for the colonies in their fight against the Crown.

It is said of Andrew Pickens that he defended, many times over and in many situations, the voice of the Underdog.

A trait Skyagunsta applied to own life. One, which, once upon a time had her facing her own danger in Santiago de Cuba, where she was born, as she, alongside some of her friends, distributed leaflets opposing Fidel Castro soon after his revolutionary victory was turning the Country into a Communist regime.

For many years, Skyagunsta … worked as a mental health professional bringing light to darkness and peace to the inner turmoil of many troubled minds.

These days Skyagunsta wonders if she should have made writing her main profession, although she has dabbed at it all of her life.

She is a liberal at heart, therefore, a true opposer of the Bushes, their policies, their politics, and their derivatives. She opposes corporatism, the stealing of elections and she believes in the rights of ordinary, every day Americans.

Below is information about Elena Dumas from the website where her writing appears as Elena Dumas:

elena dumas is a fictional name. the real person behind the fictional name is a computer activist. She is a former mental health clinician. A poet and a freelance writer. Her work has been published in several online publications.

If any reader ever has questions regarding an author or a source, please feel free to use the Contact Sage at the top of the page to email me and ask questions.

If you have any questions for Skyagunsta you can comment here and they will be passed on to her.

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In 2007, Rep. Henry Waxman a vocal critic of the Iraq war, released details from Blackwater’s own reports of multiple incidents involving Iraqi casualties.

Reuters claims it contains reports of 195 shooting incidents from the start of 2005 until September 12 of this year, an average of 1.4 per week.

“In 32 of those incidents, Blackwater were returning fire after an attack while on 163 occasions (84 percent of the shooting incidents), Blackwater personnel were the first to fire,” Waxman said.
SOURCE

And the question that begs to be answered is where is the oversight of these contractors?

WASHINGTON, Nov 10 (Reuters) – Top Blackwater executives authorized about $1 million in payments to Iraqi officials to buy support and silence criticism of the private security firm after a deadly shooting in Baghdad in 2007, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.

In September 2007, Blackwater workers fatally shot at least 14 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, an incident that provoked protests in Iraq and prompted the Iraqi government to deny Blackwater a license.

Four former executives said in interviews that Blackwater approved the payments in December 2007 but they did not know whether the cash was delivered to Iraqi officials or the identities of potential recipients, the Times reported.

Blackwater’s strategy, which would have been illegal under U.S. law, created a deep rift inside the company, the sources told the newspaper.

A spokesman for the company, now known as Xe Services, was not immediately available to comment on the report.

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Chuck Todd: “That’s going to be a speech that’s remembered and quoted from for quite some time; struck a balance of commander and consoler; not easy.”SOURCE

Here, at Fort Hood, we pay tribute to thirteen men and women who were not able to escape the horror of war, even in the comfort of home. President Obama 11/10/09

President Obama’s Fort Hood Memorial Speech. Part 1 Of 3. 11/10/09

President Obama’s Fort Hood Memorial Speech. Part 2 Of 3. 11/10/09

President Obama’s Fort Hood Memorial Speech. Part 3 Of 3. 11/10/09

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release November 10, 2009

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT

AT MEMORIAL SERVICE AT FORT HOOD

Fort Hood – III Corps
Fort Hood, Texas
1:55 P.M. CST

THE PRESIDENT: To the Fort Hood community; to Admiral Mullen; General Casey; General Cone; Secretary McHugh; Secretary Gates; most importantly, to family, friends and members of our Armed Forces. We come together filled with sorrow for the 13 Americans that we have lost; with gratitude for the lives that they led; and with a determination to honor them through the work we carry on.

This is a time of war. Yet these Americans did not die on a foreign field of battle. They were killed here, on American soil, in the heart of this great state and the heart of this great American community. This is the fact that makes the tragedy even more painful, even more incomprehensible.

For those families who have lost a loved one, no words can fill the void that’s been left. We knew these men and women as soldiers and caregivers. You knew them as mothers and fathers; sons and daughters; sisters and brothers.

But here is what you must also know: Your loved ones endure through the life of our nation. Their memory will be honored in the places they lived and by the people they touched. Their life’s work is our security, and the freedom that we all too often take for granted. Every evening that the sun sets on a tranquil town; every dawn that a flag is unfurled; every moment that an American enjoys life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — that is their legacy.

Neither this country — nor the values upon which we were founded — could exist without men and women like these 13 Americans. And that is why we must pay tribute to their stories.
Chief Warrant Officer Michael Cahill had served in the National Guard and worked as a physician’s assistant for decades. A husband and father of three, he was so committed to his patients that on the day he died, he was back at work just weeks after having had a heart attack.

Major Libardo Eduardo Caraveo spoke little English when he came to America as a teenager. But he put himself through college, earned a PhD, and was helping combat units cope with the stress of deployment. He’s survived by his wife, sons and step-daughters.

Staff Sergeant Justin DeCrow joined the Army right after high school, married his high school sweetheart, and had served as a light wheeled mechanic and satellite communications operator. He was known as an optimist, a mentor, and a loving husband and loving father.

After retiring from the Army as a major, John Gaffaney cared for society’s most vulnerable during two decades as a psychiatric nurse. He spent three years trying to return to active duty in this time of war, and he was preparing to deploy to Iraq as a captain. He leaves behind a wife and son.

Specialist Frederick Greene was a Tennessean who wanted to join the Army for a long time, and did so in 2008, with the support of his family. As a combat engineer he was a natural leader, and he is survived by his wife and two daughters.

Specialist Jason Hunt was also recently married, with three children to care for. He joined the Army after high school. He did a tour in Iraq, and it was there that he reenlisted for six more years on his 21st birthday so that he could continue to serve.

Staff Sergeant Amy Krueger was an athlete in high school, joined the Army shortly after 9/11, and had since returned home to speak to students about her experience. When her mother told her she couldn’t take on Osama bin Laden by herself, Amy replied: “Watch me.”

Private First Class Aaron Nemelka was an Eagle Scout who just recently signed up to do one of the most dangerous jobs in the service — diffuse bombs — so that he could help save lives. He was proudly carrying on a tradition of military service that runs deep within his family.

Private First Class Michael Pearson loved his family and loved his music, and his goal was to be a music teacher. He excelled at playing the guitar, and could create songs on the spot and show others how to play. He joined the military a year ago, and was preparing for his first deployment.

Captain Russell Seager worked as a nurse for the VA, helping veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress. He had extraordinary respect for the military, and signed up to serve so that he could help soldiers cope with the stress of combat and return to civilian life. He leaves behind a wife and son.

Private Francheska Velez, daughter of a father from Colombia and a Puerto Rican mother, had recently served in Korea and in Iraq, and was pursuing a career in the Army. When she was killed she was pregnant with her first child, and was excited about becoming a mother.

Lieutenant Colonel Juanita Warman was the daughter and granddaughter of Army veterans. She was a single mom who put herself through college and graduate school, and served as a nurse practitioner while raising her two daughters. She also left behind a loving husband.

Private First Class Kham Xiong came to America from Thailand as a small child. He was a husband and father who followed his brother into the military because his family had a strong history of service. He was preparing for his first deployment to Afghanistan.

These men and women came from all parts of the country. Some had long careers in the military. Some had signed up to serve in the shadow of 9/11. Some had known intense combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some cared for those did. Their lives speak to the strength, the dignity, the decency of those who serve, and that’s how they will be remembered.

For that same spirit is embodied in the community here at Fort Hood, and in the many wounded who are still recovering. As was already mentioned, in those terrible minutes during the attack, soldiers made makeshift tourniquets out of their clothes. They braved gunfire to reach the wounded, and ferried them to safety in the backs of cars and a pickup truck.

One young soldier, Amber Bahr, was so intent on helping others, she did not realize for some time that she, herself, had been shot in the back. Two police officers — Mark Todd and Kim Munley — saved countless lives by risking their own. One medic — Francisco de la Serna — treated both Officer Munley and the gunman who shot her.

It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy. But this much we do know — no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor. For what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice — in this world, and the next.

These are trying times for our country. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, the same extremists who killed nearly 3,000 Americans continue to endanger America, our allies, and innocent Afghans and Pakistanis. In Iraq, we’re working to bring a war to a successful end, as there are still those who would deny the Iraqi people the future that Americans and Iraqis have sacrificed so much for.

As we face these challenges, the stories of those at Fort Hood reaffirm the core values that we are fighting for, and the strength that we must draw upon. Theirs are the tales of American men and women answering an extraordinary call — the call to serve their comrades, their communities, and their country. In an age of selfishness, they embody responsibility. In an era of division, they call upon us to come together. In a time of cynicism, they remind us of who we are as Americans.

We are a nation that endures because of the courage of those who defend it. We saw that valor in those who braved bullets here at Fort Hood, just as surely as we see it in those who signed up knowing that they would serve in harm’s way.

We are a nation of laws whose commitment to justice is so enduring that we would treat a gunman and give him due process, just as surely as we will see that he pays for his crimes.

We’re a nation that guarantees the freedom to worship as one chooses. And instead of claiming God for our side, we remember Lincoln’s words, and always pray to be on the side of God.

We’re a nation that is dedicated to the proposition that all men and women are created equal. We live that truth within our military, and see it in the varied backgrounds of those we lay to rest today. We defend that truth at home and abroad, and we know that Americans will always be found on the side of liberty and equality. That’s who we are as a people.

Tomorrow is Veterans Day. It’s a chance to pause, and to pay tribute — for students to learn the struggles that preceded them; for families to honor the service of parents and grandparents; for citizens to reflect upon the sacrifices that have been made in pursuit of a more perfect union.

For history is filled with heroes. You may remember the stories of a grandfather who marched across Europe; an uncle who fought in Vietnam; a sister who served in the Gulf. But as we honor the many generations who have served, all of us — every single American — must acknowledge that this generation has more than proved itself the equal of those who’ve come before.

We need not look to the past for greatness, because it is before our very eyes.

This generation of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen have volunteered in the time of certain danger. They are part of the finest fighting force that the world has ever known. They have served tour after tour of duty in distant, different and difficult places. They have stood watch in blinding deserts and on snowy mountains. They have extended the opportunity of self-government to peoples that have suffered tyranny and war. They are man and woman; white, black, and brown; of all faiths and all stations — all Americans, serving together to protect our people, while giving others half a world away the chance to lead a better life.

In today’s wars, there’s not always a simple ceremony that signals our troops’ success — no surrender papers to be signed, or capital to be claimed. But the measure of the impact of these young men and women is no less great — in a world of threats that no know borders, their legacy will be marked in the safety of our cities and towns, and the security and opportunity that’s extended abroad. It will serve as testimony to the character of those who served, and the example that all of you in uniform set for America and for the world.

Here, at Fort Hood, we pay tribute to 13 men and women who were not able to escape the horror of war, even in the comfort of home. Later today, at Fort Lewis, one community will gather to remember so many in one Stryker Brigade who have fallen in Afghanistan.

Long after they are laid to rest — when the fighting has finished, and our nation has endured; when today’s servicemen and women are veterans, and their children have grown — it will be said that this generation believed under the most trying of tests; believed in perseverance — not just when it was easy, but when it was hard; that they paid the price and bore the burden to secure this nation, and stood up for the values that live in the hearts of all free peoples.

So we say goodbye to those who now belong to eternity. We press ahead in pursuit of the peace that guided their service. May God bless the memory of those that we have lost. And may God bless the United States of America. SOURCE

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Not only has KBR made a lot of money for performing shoddy work, it has avoided paying millions of dollars in social security and Medicare taxes by using shell companies in the Cayman Islands to hire workers.

Just to refresh your memory, KBR is the company who tried to cover up the rape of one of their employees, Jamie Leigh Jones, who was raped by fellow employees.

In 2007, an executive for an air freight company subcontracted to KBR pled guilty to dispensing bribes and then lying to federal investigators in a case involving a network of kickbacks, fraud and bribes….the network was comprised of at least 8 KBR employees and subcontractors. I’m sure I could find more incidences of KBR misdeeds, but you get the picture.

Why, with all of it’s wrongdoing, is KBR still holding contracts from the U.S. government?

KBR may have poisoned 100,000 people in Iraq: lawsuit

By Daniel Tencer

Monday, November 9th, 2009 — 10:33 am

Defense contractor KBR may have exposed as many as 100,000 people, including US troops, to cancer-causing toxins by burning waste in open-air pits in Iraq, says a series of class-action lawsuits filed against the company.

At least 22 separate lawsuits claiming KBR poisoned American soldiers in Iraq have been combined into a single massive lawsuit that says KBR, which until not long ago was a subsidiary of Halliburton, sought to save money by disposing of toxic waste and incinerating numerous potentially harmful substances in open-air “burn pits.”

According to one of the lawsuits (PDF), filed in a federal court in Nashville, KBR burned “tires, lithium batteries … biohazard materials (including human corpses), medical supplies (including those used during smallpox inoculations), paints, solvents, asbestos insulation, items containing pesticides, polyvinyl chloride pipes, animal carcasses, dangerous chemicals, and hundreds of thousands of plastic water bottles.”

And they did so within plain sight of US troops operating in Iraq, the lawsuit states. “In some instances, the burn pit smoke was so bad that it interfered with the military mission,” the Nashville lawsuit states. “For example, the military located at Camp Bucca, a detention facility, had difficulty guarding the facility as a result of the smoke.”

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What the Democrats seem to never get is that it is the more liberal electorate that puts them into office and for some reason the Democrats after getting into office take a right turn and collude with the conservatives to water down liberal efforts.  This is exactly what they have done by voting for the Stupak Amendment.  We should have known this would happen…..taking single payer health care off the table before the debate had even begun should have been our first clue that the Democrats don’t really stand for liberal ideas.

There has been a lot of commentary about the splitting of the Republican Party but I think the Democrats are going to face the same issue…liberals put Democrats into office and Democrats all of a sudden don’t need their liberal base any more.  Ask the gay community.  Many of them worked hard for candidate Obama and other Democrats and yet we still have the Defense of Marriage Act and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  Women in large measure worked for Democratic candidates and now it is their turn to find themselves thrown under the bus of the Democratic Party.

If Democrats cannot support their own platform, then why are they in the Democratic Party?

A big thumbs down to those who voted for the Stupak Amendment:

Bishop (GA)

Cardoza

Cooper

Costa

Costello

Cuellar

Dahlkemper

Donnelly (IN)

Doyle

Driehaus

Ellsworth

Ethridge

Hill

Kanjorski

Kaptur

Kildee

Lipinski

Lynch

Mollohan

Reyes

Murtha

Neal (CA)

Oberstar

Obey

Ortiz

Perriello

Pomeroy

Rahall

Rodriguez

Ryan (OH)

Salazar

Snyder

Spratt

Stupak

Wilson (OH)
Yes, it may be an old country saying, but it still stands true…..you’ve got to dance with the one that brung you or you may just find yourself as a wall flower.

Choice from the THE 2008 DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL PLATFORM, RENEWING AMERICA’S PROMISE

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right
to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all
efforts to weaken or undermine that right. SOURCE .pdf

Apparently the parties platform means little to nothing to House Democrats.

After months of work by House Democrats on major health care legislation, the floor debate on the bill was at risk of being overshadowed by an internal dispute among Democrats over the issue of abortion. In the end, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi decided that abortion opponents would be allowed to offer an amendment that would impose tight restrictions on abortions that could be offered through a new government-run insurance plan and through private insurance that is bought using government subsidies. Sponsored primarily by Michigan Representative Bart Stupakhe, the amendment to the legislation passed 240 – 194.SOURCE

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