Las Vegas Review-Journal

I just came across the LVJournal Review today. It has always been apparent that the Las Vegas Review-Journal is a conservative newspaper. Viewed through a political lens the RJ would be Republican; the Las Vegas Sun would be Democratic. Sort of live comparing Fox News with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow.

LVJournal Review is taking the LV Review-Journal to task for its slanted news reporting.

Today’s LVJournal Review takes on today’s issue of the Review-Journal. I don’t know if the LVJR will cover every issue of the LVRJ or not, but it appears that may be the case.

In any event a daily check of LVJR will help put the LVRJ into perspective.

I recommend you take a look at the LVJR and bookmark it for daily perusal.

Of further note and interest is the fact you can also become a fan of LVJR on Facebook and follow it on Twitter.

I’ve signed up for both Facebook and Twitter and bookmarked the LVJR for my own daily consulting.

If you have been watching Keith Olbermann on Countdown on MSNBC TV you will be aware of his Special Comment about healthcare yesterday and that he is sponsoring The National Association of Free Clinics.

If you haven’t you can watch his hour long Special Comment delivered yesterday on this blog at Keith Olbermann: Special Comment of Wednesday October 7 2009. At the closing of his Special Comment he made us a proposition:

So I propose tonight one act with two purposes. I propose we, all of us, embrace the selfless individuals at the National Association of Free Clinics. You know them, they conducted the mass health care free clinic in Houston that served 1,500 people. I want a mass health care free clinic every week in the principle cities of the states of the six senators key to defeating a filibuster against health care reform in the Senate.

I want Sens. Lincoln [D-AR] and Pryor [D-AR] to see what health care poverty is really like in Little Rock. I want Sen. Baucus [D-MT] to see it in Butte. I want Sen. Ben Nelson [D-NE] to see it in Lincoln. I want Sen. Landrieu [D-LA] to see it in Baton Rouge. I want Sen. Reid to see it in Las Vegas.

I’ll donate. How much will you donate? We enable thousands of our neighbors to have just a portion of the bounty of good health, and we make a statement to the politicians, forgive me, William Jennings Bryan, “you shall not press down upon the brow of America this crown of insurance, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of blue.”

He reiterated his sponsorship the the National Association of Free Clinics again tonight by donating $50,000 as seed money to finance the free clinics. If you don’t know anything about the National Association of Free Clinics your can check out their website here.

The National Association of Free Clinics (NAFC) is the only nonprofit 501c(3) organization whose mission is solely focused on the issues and needs of the more than 1,200 free clinics and the people they serve in the United States.
Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., the NAFC is an effective advocate for the issues and concerns of free clinics, their volunteer workforce of doctors, dentists, nurses, therapists, pharmacists, nurse practitioners, technicians and other health care professionals, and the patients served by free clinics in communities throughout the nation.

I just made a $50 donation. If you have been keeping up with you news. The object of the Free Clinics is to show the six Senators the face of poverty and the need for a public option in the healthcare reform bill being bantered about the Congress. It is a hell of a note that such efforts have to be exerted just to get the eye of these Senators, but they don’t really know any poor people up close and personal.

Perhaps, if any of them actually show up at these clinics, they’ll learn something. We’ll see what they do, and if any of it soaks into their hard heads. If it doesn’t there is always the next election to find someone who does understand and will do something about the atrocious stranglehold health insurance and pharmaceutical companies have on people. Remember what Olbermann said about his visit to the drug store:

The woman who needed the prescription spoke even more slowly than the pharmacist had. She had almost no hope in her voice. “Try the Cigna. Please.” Another drug store, late at night. The pharmacist was a friend of mine. “You have to do something about this,” he said as he handed me my refill and then reached for somebody else’s prescription. “You see this? Anti-fungal cream. I just filled this. You know what this costs wholesale? Four dollars. You know what I have to sell it for? Two hundred and sixty-three dollars. I sell it for less and I get fired and maybe we lose our license.”

Now is you chance to do a good deed, to help get the attention of those Senators, to help get a decent health care bill passed WITH A PUBLIC OPTION that will combat the predatory insurance practices perpetrated on us all. Please make your donation today. There aren’t many days left to act, don’t let them slip away.

Being a member of the peasant class and having watched Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story wherein the phrase “dead peasant insurance” was used my interest was piqued. The widow of a man who worked in a bank in Texas died. Turned out the bank had bought and owned a life insurance policy on the woman’s husband. The bank was the sole beneficiary of the insurance policy. The widow, unaware of the policy, received nothing, the bank got it all. The proceeds of the policy added to the banks profits, apparently tax free. Moore’s movie declared that many more corporations engage in the “dead peasant” practice.

Then last night watching Keith Olbermann’s hour long special comment he referred to the “dead peasant” matter again.

So I decided to see if I could learn some more. I start with Wikipedia.

Corporate-owned life insurance (COLI) is life insurance on employees’ lives that is owned by the employer corporation, with benefits payable to the corporation. COLI was originally purchased on the lives of key employees and executives by a company to hedge against the financial cost of losing key employees to unexpected death, the risk of recruiting and training replacements of necessary or highly-trained personnel, or to fund corporate obligations to redeem stock upon the death of an owner. This use is commonly known as “key man” or “key person” insurance. Once, COLI was used for masses of non-key employees in order to get tax benefits, a practice known as “janitor insurance” or “dead peasant insurance”.

Congress and the IRS set some guidelines and limits on this practice. Today, COLI is most common for senior executives of a firm, but its use for general employees is still practiced. Recouping the cost of losing an employee versus actually profiting from their death at a level higher than their earning potential in particular raises questions. Estimating the value of an employee to a company is difficult. Recent questions have been raised in Michael Moore’s 2009 film Capitalism: A Love Story.

Under the Internal Revenue Code (“IRC”) dealing with life insurance benefits paid due to the death of the insured, the benefits are usually excluded from the taxable income of the beneficiary.

Because of the tax-free nature of death benefits, the IRC prohibits the deduction of the premiums paid for life insurance when the premium payor is also the owner of the insurance. In addition, loans from insurers secured by policy values are not income and earnings credited to an owner’s policy values (known as “inside buildup”) by the insurance company are not currently taxed (and may escape taxation altogether if such earnings are not distributed other than as part of the death benefits paid upon the death of the insured).

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Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment on October 7, 2009: Part 1 of 4:

Part 2 of 4:

Part 3 of 4:

Part 4 of 4:

Whip it!

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Olbermann and Wendell Potter are talking about the Baucus health reform bill. Democratic Senator Max Baucus [Wikipedia] [SmartVote] [OpenSecrets], in my view, has sold out the American people, particularly Democrats, with his proposed health care reform bill. He is so embedded with the health insurance industry and their financial support of him that he has forsaken his constituents (which in a broad sense includes us all) in favor his personal concern to retain his position of power. In short, being owned by the for-profit insurance industry, he believes he can retain his Senate seat.

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Legislators for Sale <Click to see the video
Here is a transcript of Olbermann’s Special Comment: (Note: I have added links to Project VoteSmart,  OpenSecrets and Wikipedia as to each legislator Olbermann mentions so you can easily learn about them yourself.)

Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment on Health Care Reform in this country, and in particular, the “public insurance option.” In March of 1911, after a wave of minor factory fires in New York City, the City’s Fire Commissioner issued emergency rules about fire prevention, protection, escape, sprinklers. The City’s Manufacturers Association in turn called an emergency meeting to attack the Fire Commissioner and his ‘interference with commerce.’

The new rules were delayed. Just days later, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The door to the fire escape was bolted shut to keep the employees from leaving prematurely. One hundred and fifty of those employees died, many by jumping from the seventh floor windows to avoid the flames. Firefighters setting up their ladders literally had to dodge the falling, often burning, women. This was the spirit of the American corporation then. It is the spirit of the American corporation now. It is what the corporation will do, when it is left alone, for a week. You know the drill. We all know the drill.

You get something done, at a doctor’s, at a dentist’s, at an emergency room and the bills are in your hands before the pain medication wears off. And if you’re one of the lucky ones, and you have insurance, you submit the endless paperwork and no matter whether it’s insurance through your company, or your union, or your non-profit, or on your own dime, you then get your turn… at the roulette wheel.

How much of it is the insurance company going to pay this time? How much of it is the insurance company — about which you have next to no choice, and against which you have virtually no appeal — how much is this giant corporation going to give you back? What small percentage of what they told you they were going to pay you, will they actually pay you?

You know the answer. And, you know the answer if you don’t have insurance. But do you know why that’s the answer?

Because the insurance industry owns the Republican Party. Not exclusively. Pharma owns part of it, too. Hospitals and HMO’s, another part. Nursing homes — they have a share. You name a Republican, any Republican, and he is literally brought to you by… campaign donations from the Health Sector. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota? (Project VoteSmart)  (Open Secrets)(Wikipedia) You gave the Republican rebuttal to the President’s weekly address day before yesterday. You said the Democrats’ plan was for…

“…government run health care that would disrupt our current system, and force millions of Americans who currently enjoy their employer-based coverage into a new health care plan run by government bureaucrats.”

That’s a bald-faced lie, Senator. And you’re a bald-faced liar, whose bald face is covered by…your own health care plan run by government bureaucrats. Nobody would be forced into anything; and the Public Insurance Option is no more a disruption than letting the government sell you water, and not just Poland Spring and Sparkletts. But, as corrupt hypocrites go, Senator, at least you’re well paid. What was that one statement worth to you in contributions from the Health Sector, Sen. Thune?

Five thousand dollars? Ten? We know what you are, Sir, we’re arguing about the price. What about your other quote? “We can accomplish health care reform while keeping patients and their doctors in charge, not bureaucrats and politicians.” Wow, Senator — this illustrates how desperate you and the other Republicans are, right? Because Sen. Thune, if you really think “bureaucrats and politicians” need to get out of the way of “patients and their doctors,” then you support a woman patient’s right to get an abortion, and you supported Michael Schiavo’s right to take his wife off life support, and you oppose “bureaucrats and politicians” getting in the way, and we’ll just mark you down on the pro-choice list. That’s a rare misstep for you Sen. Thune.  No twelve-thousand dollar payoff for that statement! I am not being hyperbolic, am I, Senator? On the money?

Sen. Thune has thus far received from the Health Sector, campaign contributions — and all these numbers tonight are from “The Center For Responsive Politics” — campaign contributions amounting to one million, $206,176. So much for Sen. Thune. How about Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (Project VoteSmart) (OpenSecrets) (Wikipedia)? Good evening Ma’am. You are the Florida representative who claimed on the Floor that Democrats had…”…released a health care bill which essentially said to America’s seniors: drop dead.”

Now those are strong, terrorizing, words — that’s exactly what your Insurance and Medical Overlords wanted to hear. But are you truly worth every dollar of the $369,000,255 of them you have received over the years from the Health Sector? I’d reed the rest of the operative part of your speech myself, but your rendition actually cannot be matched:

Listen up, America, seniors have special needs. This bill ignored the, ignores the needs of Florida’s health care system. We should be fixing what is broke. Not disseminate, disseminating, decimating, the care of our senior population. — July 21, 2009

You can always tell, can’t you, Congresswoman, when the hostage is reading her own ransom note, and when she is reading one written for her? So much for Rep. Brown-Waite. There are so many other Republicans, bought and sold — like the unfortunate Congresswoman there —by the Health Sector. Minority Leader McConnell of the Senate? (Project VoteSmart) (OpenSecrets) (Wikipedia)

Rep. Bart Gordon (Project VoteSmart) (OpenSecrets) (Wikipedia) of Tennessee. Congressman? Undecided on the public option? At $1,173,000 in donations from the Health Sector, I’m surprised. You should have already said no — and loudly. The only thing you should be “undecided” about, is whether or not you’re really a Democrat. So much for Rep. Gordon. Sen. Max Baucus of Montana. (Project VoteSmart) (OpenSecrets) (Wikipedia) Good evening, Senator.

So you’re supposed to be negotiating all this out with the Republicans and hesitant Democrats? To gain bi-partisanship with a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Health Sector? Bi-partisanship that will get you, what? A total of no votes? And your price has been, let’s see $414,000 in donations from Hospitals. About $667,000 from the insurance companies and just over a million from Big Pharma. There was a $1,300,000 from other health professional and $237,000 from Nursing Homes.

When you think of getting $237,000 in campaign contributions from nursing homes, Sen. Baucus, do you ever think about whether they subtract that amount of money evenly from all the patients suffering and dying in the lousy ones, or just from a few of the lousy ones? So much for Sen. Baucus. Sadly, this list could go on almost all night, too.

I could ask Blue Dog Congressman, Democrat John Tanner of Tennessee, (Project VoteSmart) (OpenSecrets) (Wikipedia) if, since he’s gotten $215,000 from hospitals over the years, if I and the appropriate number of my friends were willing to make it $216,000, if we could buy his vote — or would there have to be an auction?

We could bring up Senator Hagan, (ProjectVoteSmart) (OpenSecrets) (Wikipedia) and Congressman Pomeroy (ProjectVoteSmart) (OpenSecrets) (Wikipedia), who, at 628-thousand, appears to represent the Insurance Industry and not North Dakota.  I could bring up Sen. Carper (ProjectVoteSmart) (OpenSecrets) (Wikipedia), and Sen. Blanche Lincoln (ProjectVoteSmart) (OpenSecrets) (Wikipedia).

Senator Lincoln? By the way, considering how you’re obstructing health care reform, how do you feel… every time you actually see Sen. Kennedy (ProjectVoteSmart) (OpenSecrets) (Wikipedia)? I could bring up all the other Democrats doing their masters’ bidding in the House or the Senate, all the others who will get an extra thousand from somebody if they just postpone the vote another year, another month, another week, because right now without the competition of a government-funded insurance company, in one hour the health care industries can make so much money that they’d kill you for that extra hour of profit, I could call them all out by name.

But I think you get the point. We don’t need to call the Democrats holding this up Blue Dogs. That one word “Dogs” is perfectly sufficient. But let me speak to them collectively, anyway. I warn you all. You were not elected to create a Democratic majority. You were elected to restore this country. You were not elected to serve the corporations and the trusts who the government has enabled for the last eight years.

You were elected to serve the people. And if you fail to pass or support this legislation, the full wrath of the progressive and the moderate movements in this country will come down on your heads. Explain yourselves not to me, but to them. They elected you, and in the blink of an eye, they will replace you.

If you will behave as if you are Republicans — as if you are the prostitutes of our system —you will be judged as such.  And you will lose not merely our respect. You will lose your jobs!

Every poll, every analysis, every vote, every region of this country supports health care reform, and the essential great leveling agent of a government-funded alternative to the unchecked duopoly of profiteering private insurance corporations. Cross us all at your peril.

Because, Rep. Ross (ProjectVoteSmart) (OpenSecrets) (Wikipedia), you are not the Representative from Blue Cross.

And Mr. Baucus, you are not the Senator from Schering-Plough Global Health Care even if they have already given you $76,000 towards your re-election. And Ms. Lincoln, you are not the Senator from DaVita Dialysis.

Because, ladies and gentlemen, President Lincoln did not promise that this nation shall have a new death of freedom, and that government of the corporation, by the corporation, for the corporation, shall not perish from this earth.
Good night and good luck.

A Chicago conservative talk radio host, Erich “Mancow” Muller, decided he’d silence critics of waterboarding once and for all. He would undergo the procedure himself, and then he would be able to confidently convince others that it is not, in fact, torture. Sean Hannity of FOX won’t do it, though challenged by MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann.

Muller came out of it convinced it is torture.

“It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that’s no joke,” Mancow said. “It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back… It was instantaneous… and I don’t want to say this: absolutely torture.”

“I wanted to prove it wasn’t torture,” Mancow said. “They cut off our heads, we put water on their face… I got voted to do this but I really thought ‘I’m going to laugh this off.’ “

Here’s video of Muller getting waterboarded:

Now, where did Sean Hannity go?

Olbermann\’s Special Comment on Dick Cheney

Here is the transcript text of Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment on former Vice-President Dick Cheney’s speech today. I haven’t been successful in putting up the video:

Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment about Mr. Cheney’s speech. Neurotic. Paranoid. False to fact and false to reason. Forever self-rationalizing. His inner rage at his own impotence and failure dripping from every word and as irrational, as separated from the real world, as dishonest, as insane, as any terrorist.

The former vice president has today humiliated himself beyond redemption.
The delusional claims he has made this day could be proved by documentation and first-hand testimony to be the literal truth, and still he himself would be wrong, because the America he sought to impose upon the world and upon its own citizens, the dark hateful place of Dick Cheney’s own soul, the place he to this hour defends and to this day prefers, is a repudiation of all that our ancestors, all that for which our brave troops of 200 years ago and two minutes ago, have sacrificed and fought.
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Nevada’s junior Senator, Republican John Ensign “earned” a WTF award on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown on MSNBC.

Desert Beacon has the video you can watch.

Keith Olbermann, of Countdown on MSNBC, offered to put Olbermann’s money where Hannity’s mouth is.

Olbermann followed up his challenge to Hannity on DailyKos. Using Dr. Albert Sabin’s experience in opposing Dr. Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine, to illustrate a point, Olbermann attacks Hannity’s trivializing of the waterboarding torture technique.

Hannity’s acceptance of Charles Grodin’s offer to endure waterboarding led to Olbermann to offer Hannity:

I will donate $1,000 (one thousand dollars) for every second of water-boarding Hannity endures. We will start the clock the moment the first water is poured on him. The clock will stop when Hannity confesses or begins to shout or scream on a prolonged basis, or the medical supervisor determines he is danger of organ failure.

Interesting. Think Hannity will do it? He is between a rock and a hard place. Put up or shut up. Be interesting to see how it unfolds.