For some reason, Washington is afraid to push reform onto Wall St. It doesn't make any sense, and now probably won't happen. Incidentally, Wall St has determined they have more to gain propping up Republicans than they do donating to Democrats, who, you know, are actually nominally in charge. At least until 2010.
The big guns on Wall Street increased their political donations last month after increasing their lobbying muscle. Morgan Stanley's Political Action Committee donated $110,000 in September, for example, of which Democrats got $43,000.
It's going to be so awesome when this happens again and it's worse!
Two links from two weeks ago that you may or may not have seen, but I had saved to share and not gotten around to it yet.
The Yes Men sent out a hoax press release from the US Chamber of Commerce saying they had changed their position on climate change. Obviously the media was interested in this so the Yes Men rented a room at the DC Press Club and gave a fake press conference. Then it gets really awesome when a representative of the Chamber shows up and shuts down the presser. And now, they're getting sued for it
If you saw the profits made by the big banks last quarter and wondered how they were doing it, Philip Greenspun has an answer:
Because of the Collapse of 2008 financial reforms, the big investment banks are able to borrow money from the U.S. government at 0 percent interest. Then they can turn around and buy short-term bonds that pay 2 or 3 percent annual interest. Now they’re making 2 percent on whatever they borrowed. They can use leverage to increase this number, by pledging some of the bonds that they’ve already bought as collateral on additional bonds.
20 years ago, East German officials made the decision that East German citizens would be allowed to visit West Germany and West Berlin. East Berliners streamed to the Berlin Wall and West Berliners greeted them warmly on the other side.
10 years ago, I was in Berlin on the anniversary, and saw The Scorpions play 'Winds of Change' at the Brandenburg Gate accompanied by Mstislav Rostropovich and 165 other cellists. It was the most metal moment of my life. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find any video or photos of the event.
This year, they celebrated with U2, for whom, ironically, a wall was PUT UP.
Last year, I spent about a month putting together this 2008 Election Round Up of reactions, articles, thoughts, videos, etc. It's fun looking back at it now and actually using it the way it was intended. It seems like a year was a long time ago and yet not that long ago. I'm not sure how many of the links are broken now, but take a look through it and pass it on.
Photo by Flickr user define23Back in the beginning of February, I posted about bill H-2932 in the Massachusetts legislature. The bill aimed to make the fluffernutter the official sandwich of the Commonwealth. According to the Globe, there will be a hearing tomorrow to determine whether Marshmallow Fluff, Necco Wafers, and Charleston Chews will make the cut as state foods.
Massachusetts already has five official state foods, among the most in the country: the baked navy bean, corn muffin, chocolate chip cookie, Boston cream pie, and Boston cream doughnut.
After my initial post about this in February, I emailed everyone in both the House and the Senate, as well as several Somerville politicos. Only a few responded (but I'll email everyone again regarding this matter) and their responses are below the fold. I'll continue to add responses as they come in. Read the rest of this entry »
In his latest Op-Ed for the Times, Michael Pollan sounds an optimistic note that even the worst case health care reforms will result in positive changes to the diets, and health, of most Americans. It will be a hard fight, but it's expected that the bare minimum health care reform will make it harder for insurance companies to drop you when you get sick, while also not allowing them to decide to cover you or not based on preexisting conditions. This means, that for the first time, health insurance providers will actually be financially rewarded for keeping you healthy. If they have to face the consequences ($$$) of your soda drinking ass getting diabetes, they're going to do what they can to make sure you don't get diabetes, and they're going to use their friends in Congress to help them.
But these rules may well be about to change — and, when it comes to reforming the American diet and food system, that step alone could be a game changer. Even under the weaker versions of health care reform now on offer, health insurers would be required to take everyone at the same rates, provide a standard level of coverage and keep people on their rolls regardless of their health. Terms like “pre-existing conditions” and “underwriting” would vanish from the health insurance rulebook — and, when they do, the relationship between the health insurance industry and the food industry will undergo a sea change.
The most populous district in America right now, according to the latest Census data, is Nevada’s 3rd District, where 960,000 people are represented in the House by just one member. All of Montana’s 958,000 people likewise have just one vote in the House. By contrast, 523,000 in Wyoming get the same voting power, as do the 527,000 in one of Rhode Island’s two districts and the 531,000 in the other.
That 400,000-person disparity between top and bottom has generated a federal court challenge that is set to be filed Thursday in Mississippi, charging that the system effectively disenfranchises people in certain states. The lawsuit asks the courts to order the House to fix the problem by increasing its size from 435 seats to at least 932, or perhaps as many as 1,761. That way, the plaintiffs argue, every state can have districts that are close to parity.
“When you look at the data, those are pretty wide disparities,” said Scott Scharpen, a former health care financial consultant from California who has organized the court challenge. “As an American looking at it objectively, how can we continue with a system where certain voters’ voting power is substantially smaller than others’?”
As Emdash said last week some folks are boycotting Whole Foods for some dumb things that Whole Foods CEO John Mackey said regarding the current health care debate. To completely destroy my credibility, I don't think I actually read what he wrote, so take this with a bag of salt (that you may or may not buy at Whole Foods). I'll only reiterate that I'm not boycotting Whole Foods, I don't shop there because I don't like it. You know who else isn't boycotting Whole Foods? Michael Pollan:
So Mackey is wrong on health care, but Whole Foods is often right about food, and their support for the farmers matters more to me than the political views of their founder. I haven’t examined the political views of all the retailers who feed me, but I can imagine having a lot of eating problems if I make them a litmus test.
In the Esquire article about Roger Ebert a few weeks back, Ebert mentioned his interview interview with Lee Marvin as one of his favorites, and now they've republished it online.
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