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May 2nd, 2009:

A Second Look | Unfair to Private Insurance Plans. Huh?

May 2nd, 2009
by Tom.
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via Ben Nelson Plans To Oppose Public Health Plan.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) said Friday that he will oppose legislation that would give people the option of a public health insurance plan. The move put

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.)

s him on the opposite side of two-thirds of Americans.

A poll released this week by Consumer Reports National Research Center showed that 66 percent of Americans back the creation of a public health plan that would compete with private plans. Nelson, in comments made to CQ, joins the 16 percent of poll respondents who said they oppose the plan.

Nelson also said that not only does he oppose a public health system, but he intends to go out and recruit other Democratic Senators to stand with him against the will of the majority.

Nelson’s problem, he told CQ, is that the public plan would be too attractive and would hurt the private insurance plans. “At the end of the day, the publ

ic plan wins the game,” Nelson said. Including a public option in a health plan, he said, was a “deal breaker.”

He said that it would be too attractive. That it would “hurt the private insurance plans”. There are 40 million uninsured, and at least 30 million more under-insured that right now do not give a damn about hurting the private insurance plans.These are not individuals that are uninsured, but entire families. Families that could not get check-ups for their kids without SCHIP.

Nelson’s protection of the right-wing corporatist’s interests is the same kind of thinking that won over the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore - and look where that got us.

Nelson is forcing Obama’s hand. Obama will have no choice

but to use the reconciliation process in negotiating the health care reform bill since Nelson will filibuster the vote himself. The way I understand it, the reconciliation process may be used to bypass the filibuster and go straight to cloture. It is used only for budgetary matters. Nelson must gain enough votes for a simple majority to kill public health, and looking around, he may not have such a hard time doing that. Including himself he only needs nine more, counting Al Frankin.

Lets see. Which conservative Democratic Senators might vote with him?

Mary Landrieu (LA), Mark Pryor (AR),  Bill Nelson (FL),  Blanch Lincoln (AR), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Arlan Spector (PA), Tom Carper (DE), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Evan Bayh (IN), Michael Bennet (CO), Mark Begich (AK), Kay Hagan (NC), Herb Kohl (WI), Claire McCaskill (MO), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Mark Udall (CO), and Mark Warner (VA)

That’s 17 Senators that might jump on the bandwagon with Ben Nelson. Blatantly backing the insurance industry and stating that any private insurance plan would hurt them is an attempt to limit the debate and is an outrage to the millions of Americans unable to obtain even simple preventive care.

Folks, we need to get ahead of this issue and fast.  A public health system will not only raise up the poor, but it will add jobs and help revive our economy. Please write or call your Senators to persuade them that we absolutely need a public health system now.

Contact information for all U.S. Senators can be found at U.S. Senate: Senate Home.

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A Second Look | Abu Ghraib Convictions Must be Overturned

May 2nd, 2009
by Tom.
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via ‘Abu Ghraib US prison guards were scapegoats for Bush’ lawyers claim – Times Online.

Prison guards jailed for abusing inmates at the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq are planning to appeal against their convictions on the ground that recently released CIA torture memos prove that they were scapegoats for the Bush Administration.

The photographs of prisoner abuse at the Baghdad jail in 2004 sparked worldwide outrage but the previous administration, from President Bush down, blamed the incident on a few low-ranking “bad apples” who were acting on their own.

The decision by President Obama to release the memos showed that the harsh interrogation tactics were approved and authorized at the highest levels of the White House.

(snip)Charles Gittins, a lawyer who represents Charles Graner, the ringleader of the guards who is serving a ten-year sentence, said that the memos proved his long-held contention that Graner and the other defendants, including his former lover Lynndie England, could never have invented tactics such as stress positions and the use of dogs on their own.

I have written on several occasions concerning the unjust convictions of the lower enlisted at Abu Ghraib. Those posts can be found here, and here, and here.

Charles Graner and Lynndie England

In light of the release of the torture memos that show, undisputedly, that the directions for how and when to commit torture came from the highest levels, then the scapegoating of Graner and England must be fixed. The soldiers’ convictions must be overturned, the records of the Courts Martial must be expunged, and they must be issued new DD214 forms showing the conduct of their service as honorable. They must be treated with the same considerations as the CIA operatives that Obama said would not be punished.

This nation has taken much from Graner and England and we can at least give them back thier honor. We must set the goddess of justice back upright on her pedistal. We can’t totally erase the past for them, but we can make their futures a bit brighter.

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