Apparently, professional radical right whiners are not happy when the truth is told about Joe Heck and what he's doing in Washington. Apparently I'm "embarrassing myself daily for the entire world to watch".
Wait, so telling the truth is now "embarrassing"? Lordy, someone needs to call the WHAAAAAA-MBULENCE!
They're even taking the crybaby act to the local teabagger propaganda rag "newspaper" to whine about "big, bad, unemployed people stalking!!!" poor little rich Joe Heck. OK, so maybe Heck's feelings are hurt when he sits in his hilltop McMansion and staffers notify him of constituents saying not-so-nice things about him.
Well, guess what? Those "big, bad, unemployed people" have lost their jobs, are losing their (far more modest) homes, and are worried about how they'll put food on the family table in the next week. Nevadans are suffering, yet all Heck and his Republican colleagues in Congress want to do is lie about consumer safeguards...
Politicians and business groups often blame excessive regulation and fear of higher taxes for tepid hiring in the economy. However, little evidence of that emerged when McClatchy canvassed a random sample of small business owners across the nation. [...]
McClatchy reached out to owners of small businesses, many of them mom-and-pop operations, to find out whether they indeed were being choked by regulation, whether uncertainty over taxes affected their hiring plans and whether the health care overhaul was helping or hurting their business.
Their response was surprising.
None of the business owners complained about regulation in their particular industries, and most seemed to welcome it. Some pointed to the lack of regulation in mortgage lending as a principal cause of the financial crisis that brought about the Great Recession of 2007-09 and its grim aftermath.
Last week, Reno News & Review had an interesting article on Nevada experiencing more of the dangerous effects of climate change without us previously realizing it.
A string of tornados. Major international floods. Record-breaking wildfires across the Southwest. And—far less destructive but more noticeable to Northern Nevada residents—a freakishly wet and chilly May, making it the spring that never was. It’s left many to scratch their heads and say, “Maybe there’s something to this climate change thing.” If climate change were happening in Nevada, what would it look like, and are we seeing it now?
To the second question, the Desert Research Institute’s Dr. Kelly Redmond, says, “Yes, I think we probably are.” Redmond is deputy director of the Western Regional Climate Center. He compares recognizing climate change to noticing signs of aging. Every once in awhile, we have some episode—we discover we can’t party as hard as we used to, or we have a wrinkle, a gray hair, an illness—and we realize that while we don’t see it every day, we are undoubtedly aging. We don’t notice global warming every day, either, but a vast amount of data shows the Earth is warming, and the effects of it are both subtle and blunt. Sometimes climate change looks like a raging wildfire, sometimes like a butterfly where it never was before. [...]
Redmond says everybody should be skeptical of data by itself. When he first saw temperatures on research thermometers rising, he thought something was wrong with the thermometers. But even with new thermometers and placement of them, evidence of warming remained. He’s also seen evidence of snowmelt occurring one to three weeks earlier than it did 50 years ago. Lilacs and honeysuckles are blooming earlier. The biggest fires in the history of the Western U.S. have been in the past 10 years. Pine beetles in Canada, previously kept in check by cold snaps, have jumped the continental divide and are headed down the East coast. Chipmunks, mice and voles have moved up in elevation from where they lived 100 years ago. Most butterflies are also slowly moving north.
“All these bits and pieces of evidence, all these compasses, are basically pointing in the same direction. Maybe one or two of the compasses are broken. But if they’re all pointing in the same direction, you pay attention. This is very much like solving a crime. There’s a standard of proof in criminology, and we should have some kind of standard of proof in our head for when we decide to believe something or not. And then, are you willing to change your mind based on the evidence you see? I think most people’s minds can be changed by what they see. If we listen to what the world’s telling us, we’ll get it. The question is, will we get it fast enough?”
It's becoming increasingly difficult to deny the sobering reality of the coming climate crisis... Except apparently if one wants the endorsement of the Nevada Republican Party. If we're to accept the "energy policy" prescriptions coming from the Republicans (including Nevada Republican Party endorsed candidate, Mark Amodei) running in Nevada's 2nd Congressional District, we may actually never get it! Go ahead and listen for yourself as they refuse to even acknowledge the realities of climate change and deride "green energy" as "not responsible".
[...] The candidates differed in no appreciable way on issues. They predictably answered litmus questions from the party faithful on the gamut of right wing nut job topics, but I found their comments on “Green Energy” the most telling. Here is the exact question: “It is often touted that Nevada is the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy. Address the cost to the consumer and reconcile the political versus that cost.” What’s not well hidden in this poorly worded question is an inherent denial of human caused climate change. There is no reason to develop more expensive renewable energy if climate change is a myth concocted by left wing scientists. We want the cheapest energy source possible to be most economically competitive. Corporations can be trusted to not grossly pollute for profit, can’t they? [...]
If the scientific realty of human caused climate change is not front and center when setting energy policy and priorities, these are not the people we should be sending to Washington, at least to represent me. From their “green energy” responses we do not know how the candidates stand on climate change, but apparently these fellows need to pander to flat earth Nevada Republicans who are still in a tizzy President Obama was not actually born in this country. All three candidates seem to value science if it makes money or war, but not when science points out pollution and environmental destruction on a global scale.
Clearly Mark Amodei, Kirk Lippold, and Greg Brower don't want to recognize real science. So instead, they run to the hocus pocus "magic" of dirty coal, oil, nuclear, and the rest of the failed fossil fuel industry. Lovely.
Yesterday, I attended the health care reform forum just up the street from my house in Henderson. Reps. Dina Titus (D-Henderson) and Shelley Berkley (D-Las Vegas) were there to discuss why they voted for health care reform, and two local constituents shared their compelling personal stories that made me realize why we had to get the ball rolling on this.
Las Vegas resident Jeff Walters said during the event that he supported the federal health care overhaul. He said his son, 4-year-old Preston, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma and was treated at a Tucson hospital, where he received a stem cell transplant.
Because his insurance only covered $100,000 of the transplant costs, he said his family had to come up with $20,000. The $100,000 cap is a lifetime cap, Walters said, which means any other transplant would be paid out-of-pocket.
“There’s a high chance of relapse,” said Paula Walters, while holding her son.
Neuroblastoma can be a very frightening nerve cancer for young ones. And even with treatment, it can still reoccur. $100,000 may seem like "a lot of money", but when it comes to treating cancer, it may not be enough... Especially if it ever reoccurs.
Under the new Affordable Care Act, insurance companies can no longer set lifetime coverage caps. Annual coverage limits are also starting to be phased out. Hopefully, this means we won't have to hear more stories like the Walters'.
Preston is doing fine today, and even attended the forum. But that wasn’t the case for Kelly Kosters‘s sister, [Christy]. [Christy Annett] beat leukemia more than a decade ago, only to have a re-lapse and see her new insurance company refuse to cover her, claiming she’d lied on her application. She struggled to get care, only to see a bone marrow transplant performed at the City of Hope facility fail. A final blow: The decision by UMC managers to close the outpatient cancer treatment center at the valley’s only public hospital.
[Christy Annett] died in January 2009, just shy of her 31st birthday.
Christy Annett had already run past her lifetime limit with her previous insurer. And even though she told about her past leukemia bout and the insurance company didn't raise a stink then, they later denied her coverage when she relapsed and the leukemia came back. That led to the desperate search for someone, anyone, who could help, then the failed City of Hope bone marrow transplant, then being shut out of everywhere but UMC, then that final blow of UMC shutting down its outpatient cancer treatment center due to budget cuts. (And we'll talk about that issue later!)
Kelly Kosters' sister died, and the insurance industry yet again had blood on its hands.
And she's not alone.
And there are many more stories like theirs throughout Nevada and across America. That's why the Affordable Care Act was passed, to allow for third party appeals, so that the same insurance company bureaucrats can't keep denying people the care they need. Of course, there's far more in the Affordable Care Act that's now going into effect that helps consumers.
Adult children may remain as dependents on their parents’ policy until their 27th birthday
Children under age 19 may not be excluded for pre-existing conditions
No more lifetime or annual caps on coverage
Free preventative care for all
Adults with pre-existing conditions may buy into a national high-risk pool until the exchanges come online.
While these will not be cheap, they’re still better than total exclusion and get some benefit from a wider pool of insureds.
Small businesses will be entitled to a tax credit for 2009 and 2010, which could be as much as 50% of what they pay for employees’ health insurance.
The “donut hole” closes for Medicare patients, making prescription medications more affordable for seniors.
Requirement that all insurers must post their balance sheets on the Internet and fully disclose administrative costs, executive compensation packages, and benefit payments.
Authorizes early funding of community health centers in all 50 states (Bernie Sanders’ amendment). Community health centers provide primary, dental and vision services to people in the community, based on a sliding scale for payment according to ability to pay.
AND no more rescissions. Effective immediately, you can't lose your insurance because you get sick.
However, the Republicans running for Congress here in Nevada are promising to repeal the Affordable Care Act. And not just that, they want to coddle the insurance industry even more than they had been before health care reform passed!
And one of the problems is unfunded, well they are unfunded, but these mandates on insurance companies to provide coverage for things that people don’t even really need! And what we need to do is get rid of those mandates, let you provide a comprehensive coverage that takes care of what people need and allows them to buy them the things that they have to have, not things that are mandated by the government. A similar policy, as the things that people write for car insurance, and life insurance, you know you write something that fits the need of a person rather than fitting what the government has done for some politically correct special interest and that’s how we got those mandates.” [emphasis mine]
Angle: Insurance mandates are product of government bowing to “politically correct special interest” [...]
Such as Big Autism or Big Colonoscopies or Big Pregnant Women, perhaps?
That last one may be politically incorrect, but it is political correctness Angle cited last month in a speech to the Association of Health Underwriters on August 10 in explaining her opposition to mandates on insurance companies.
Recent revelations about Angle's disdain for mandates -- her vote against including colon cancer screenings and her deriding autism coverage -- reflect a consistent belief that government should not tell insurance companies what they have to cover. I suppose, on the day that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is here promoting health care reform, that opposition would include mandating insurers not boot folks for having pre-existing conditions.
After all, how could we ever forget this?
Or this!
Or this!
Joe Heck, the teabagger darling running against Dina Titus, was all too often the insurance industry's best friend in the legislature. Just like Angle, he often opposed requiring insurance companies to cover such basic preventive care as prostate cancer screenings and vaccination to prevent HPV and cervical cancer!
Because their bigcorporate buddies at "Tea Party, Inc." are supporting them, Angle and Heck do as they're told... Including denying much needed health care to Nevada's working families if the "Tea Party, Inc." powers that be think it's "too much".
But in case anyone was still wondering just how alike their views are and just how dangerous their teabagger approved agenda is, this confirms it. Neither cares one bit about the many benefits Nevadans will see from health care reform, and both have no problem picking big corporate profits over what's best for us. And neither one gets it.
But you know who does? Dina Titus does. She held numerous town halls throughout the district last year. She listened to us the constituents and what we needed out of health care reform. And despite the corporate lobby spending $1.3 million to intimidate her, she did the right thing and made sure reform worked for Nevadans.
And of course, health care reform wouldn't have happened if it weren't for Harry Reid making it happen in Congress! And of course, he made it happen so that more Nevadans can access quality, affordable care.
Former Gov. Kenny Guinn, who served during Nevada’s most explosive growth, leading with a pragmatic streak and fierce determination to do what was right rather than what more partisan elements in his party thought, has died.
Guinn guided Nevada from January 1999 through the end of his second term in 2006. He died this morning in Las Vegas after a fall from a roof after suffering a possible heart attack. He was 73. [...]
Guinn, a Republican, helped push through Nevada's popular Millennium Scholarship program, which made it easier for high school graduates in this state to attend Nevada colleges. [...]
After Guinn left office, he laughed about being labeled a RINO – Republican in Name Only. He pointed to conservative acts like cutting $350 million in spending when he first took office in 1999 and accomplishments like privatizing the states workers' compensation system. But he was equally proud of the Millennium Scholarship program now named after him and for the tax increase he advocated in 2003, which was then the largest in state history.
Stories of Guinn and his policy knowledge, particularly when it came to details of the budget, were legendary. He would be in his office on weekends crunching numbers. He would corner reporters to discuss looming unfunded liabilities in the pension system until they begged off.
Farewell, Governor Guinn. I may be a proud "Yellow Dog Democrat", but I respected Kenny Guinn for being willing to "tell it like it is" and make the right decisions for Nevada regardless of party lines or rigid ideology. He was a true gentleman, a proud Nevadan, and an all around good guy. Yes, he was a Republican, but he was one of those politicians who knew how to be practical and how to make things work.
If only Jim Gibbons, Brian Sandoval, and Sharron Angle could understand...
Former Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, a Democrat from Henderson, called Guinn the consummate gentleman. "He was the type of public servant we would all like to be. He didn't play partisan politics. He had a great love for the state and that's what drove him.
"I remember a lot of times sitting in the den at the mansion and that's the way we worked things out -- such as saving the Millennium Scholarship." Despite the difference in parties, Perkins said, "I call him my friend. He really cared about people and the services for people in the state. The guy was truly a robust man. It will be a great loss for the state."
Perkins said Guinn's wife, Dema, "had such an influence over him and how he governed. She was a true partner in the office and how the state was governed."
In case you're not one of my Twitter friends, here's a quick rundown of what happened earlier today at Harry Reid's and NARA's fabulous luncheon and training. We talked about the issues we're facing, especially issues that Nevada's seniors are talking about, like Social Security, Medicare, and what will happen now with health care reform becoming law. Oh yes, and let's not forget all the long-time Nevadans who know Harry Reid quite well and know what he's been doing to help his fellow Nevadans.
In fact, I met a number of wonderful folks today, long-time Nevadans who I will be talking with more in the coming days so I can share with you what they know about Harry Reid and what he's been doing for us here in Nevada. And really, that's also what we talked about today. We talked about sharing our stories, our stories of Nevada and our experiences of working with Senator Reid.
Danny Thompson, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Nevada AFL-CIO, shared his story (and you can read all about it on my Twitter page). So did a number of other good union workers and retired Nevadans who were there. And again, in the coming days and weeks you'll hear more of their stories.
So why am I going on and on about this crazy sh*t? Here's why. When I moved to Nevada last year, I wasn't really all that gung-ho for Reid. I knew he was Senate Majority Leader, but I found him a little too milquetoast and centrist for my personal taste.
But you know what? This last year has been my "crash course" on Nevada politics and how this state works. And believe it or not, this state wouldn't work if it weren't for all of Harry Reid's hard work for us in the Senate.
Think about it. We got the stimulus pumping much needed money back into our state's economy. We got the Travel Promotion Act, which will help bring more international tourists to Las Vegas. We got CityCenter opened. We got Harrah's debt restructured. We got health care reform passed. And now, we're getting jobs programs passed and on line. And if it weren't for Harry Reid, none of this would have happened.
This is what I remember whenever I'm griping at him over any of my usual minor complaints. He may not be perfect, but he's really the best public servant Nevada has... And we really can't afford to lose him.
That's what all of us at the luncheon were realizing as we were talking about the campaign, about reaching out to our neighbors, and about how to refute the radical right's ridiculous lies. We're not just doing this so that Harry Reid can be reelected, but we're doing this to make sure Nevada still has a powerful advocate speaking up for us working class folks in DC.
So again, be on the lookout for more true stories from real Nevadans coming soon. And in the mean time, here are a few more pics from the luncheon and training. Oh yes, and you can always find more of my pics at Twitpic.
Except that Washington (State) and South Carolina apparently want to throw a fit and file a law suit. Fortunately, it probably won't go all that far. The Department of Energy withdrew the Yucca Mountain with prejudice, so it can't be refiled ever again.
And our electeds in Washington are feeling much better now.
The move “marks the final stage of a battle that I’ve fought since arriving in Congress,” [Harry] Reid said.
[John] Ensign commended Obama administration officials “for holding up their end of the bargain.”
Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley was deep in conversation with a constituent who had stopped by her office on an unrelated topic when the word came down.
Berkley, who has promised to lie down on railroad tracks to stop nuclear waste from being shipped to Nevada, said “Obama was 100 percent right to dump Yucca Mountain.
“President Obama pledged to Nevadans that he would end efforts to turn our state into a radioactive garbage dump, and now his blue-ribbon commission will begin its work to find an alternative,” she said. [...]
Democratic Rep. Dina Titus pledged to remain vigilant in fighting the dump. “While those who have their own interests in mind, not those of Nevada, will undoubtedly seek to slow down this process, we are well on our way to killing Yucca Mountain,” she said.
And we in Nevada can feel much better now. Yucca is finally coming to an end, and so is Nevada's long, horrid nuclear nightmare.
(Btw, The Ventura Star also has a great editorial today debunking the myths unfortunately being perpetuated by the NDA.)
I knew this would happen. Why won't the Nevada Development Authority think up real ways to promote Nevada instead of this crap? Our neighbors to the West really aren't happy, and they're calling the NDA out on their BS.
Our neighbors to the East are substantially different to us. They have different goals, and a different world view on how we should treat our citizens, how we should educate our children, and what kind of services we should provide. Usually, it's no big deal. They do their thing, we do ours. Of course, times are different now. For a long time, we have had many advantages that come from a more progressive government: better educated workers and better services available to businesses. It's hard to claim much of an advantage in that realm now that we've gone ahead and slashed pretty much everything.
But this works really, really well for the CalChamber [California Chamber of Commerce]. It sets them up so well, you might even begin to wonder if the Chambers of Commerce all across the country are coordinating a race to the bottom. One state Chamber of Commerce (or in this case, Development Authority) tosses a little stink bomb like this little ad into another state, and the recipient state gets to argue how taxes are too high.
Great! Thanks, NDA! You may end up f**king up California even more by giving "Arnold Antoinette" & his big corporate buddies ammo to block the tax reforms needed to fix that state. And by the way, doesn't the NDA realize that we need California tourists to boost our tourist-driven Nevada economy?
Cheese louise, and these boneheads really think they're helping us?
I must say it's been interesting seeing "what happens in Vegas" in the last month. However, I don't really get this.
Are California’s lawmakers pigs?
A new video campaign designed to draw businesses unhappy with California to relocate to Southern Nevada portrays lawmakers as morphing into pigs.
It is being launched by Nevada Development Authority, which has tried other ad campaigns in the past with the same goal, but not featuring the actions of the California Legislature.
The NDA says it’s sure many California businesses are considering relocation due to the state's current troubles.
The campaign stresses that business owners pay no corporate or personal income tax in Nevada and have much lower workers' compensation rates.
According to The Las Vegas Sun, our local ABC station (KABC 7) has already refused to run any of the Nevada Development Authority ads. (Btw, The Sun also has all the ad videos should you want to watch them.) I wouldn't be surprised if more California stations also turn down these ads. While it may be a great PR stunt to lure businesses from one troubled state to another, it does both a great disservice.
Why? It continues to push the false meme of "overtaxed businesses needing to flee California". It's offensive enough for the NDA to call California lawmakers "pigs" and "monkeys", but I'm even further offended by their lack of knowledge on the real reasons why the state is failing. All they had to do was read here or Calitics to see that corporate tax loopholes, property tax laws that favor big corporations, 2/3 budget rules, and other fiscal deforms are the culprits bringing the state down! Trust me. I just moved here from California, so I know what's really wrong with the state.
And frankly, they're not doing Nevada a favor, either. Yes, I said it. Nevada is also victim to a failed tax structure that depends on regressive sales taxes (especially in times like these with casino revenue down) as the big corporations enjoy even more tax loopholes and the mining industry pays virtually no taxes! Nevada has suffered massive budget woes this year, so it baffles me why the state development agency would want to continue on this failed path by begging businesses to come here and perpetuate what's throwing us into fiscal chaos.
So kiss my assets goodbye? Nope, more like I'd rather not kiss a fool by buying into this unsustainable model of "no bidness taxes". It doesn't work in California and it doesn't work in Nevada, and both states really need to rethink their fiscal thinking.
