The One About Better Protecting The Welfare Of Animals Is An Important Step In Improving Our Humanity!
(Stay tuned immediately after today's article for a special announcement)
Every once in a while I get to read and share with you my loyal readers some genuinely happy news. This article in the New York Times, is a perfect example.
"I'm going to have all the [health care] negotiations around a big table. And it will be televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies." - Barack Obama, 2008
2008 was the Year of Change - when voters ushered in a new progressive era. But a year later, health care has been hijacked by extortionists - just so we can "cut a deal" to get 60 U.S. Senators. In Sacramento, a back-room state budget deal likewise sold progressives down the river. And in San Francisco, the City and Muni budgets were also made behind closed doors - letting the powerful still call the shots. We can't elect candidates who promise "change" - unless it also comes with a public and transparent decision-making process.
Gavin Newsom's Channel 5 interview last week revealed a Mayor defensive about his recent behavior, and it suggested he will lash out against critics by making vindictive budget moves. It's only November, but Newsom has already ordered every Department Head to propose 30% in cuts - alarming those who rely on City contracts to provide front-line services to the poor. At the same time, the Mayor and his spokesman both said they will avoid touching the Police and Fire Departments - neither of whom got cut this year, while Health and Human Services were slashed. Rather than react to another round of cuts, now is the time for progressives to step up and offer their solutions to a very real budget crisis. With Newsom not running for Governor, why does he still need five press secretaries - or his "pet projects"? And if the Mayor is really thinking about quitting politics (as the Wall Street Journal implied), why is he still sucking up to the Police and Firefighters Union - or the real estate lobby by pushing a dangerous proposal that will lead to mass evictions?
(Originally published on Wednesday, I promoted this for weekend frontpage viewing because I think the last 7 months have clearly shown the limits of what can be done on the national stage if we don't significantly beef up our scrutiny from the bottom up. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
It's Wednesday morning, and I have packed my bags for a long flight to Pittsburgh to attend Netroots Nation. It will be my third year going as a blogger from Beyond Chron - but my first as a speaker. Evan Coren, who parlayed his blog activism to win a seat on the City Council in Columbia, Maryland has recruited me for a panel discussion on Friday afternoon called Local Blogs: Covering City and County Government and Empowering Activism. We will be joined by panelists from Philadelphia, Chicago and New Orleans - for a superb line-up of bloggers who play a key role in their local governments. The following is my story about covering San Francisco politics ...
Access to quality health care isn't something that affects us as individuals; it impacts us as families, friends, neighbors, and coworkers. Health care is fundamental to the well-being of us as persons and equally fundamental to the well-being of communities, cities, states and the country. It was with this understanding that the City and County of San Francisco undertook a bold and audacious effort to ensure that everyone in the City By The Bay has not just the promise of health care in the form of insurance, but actual, delivered health care.
The program, Healthy San Francisco, currently provides health care to over 27,000 uninsured San Franciscans, including an estimated 37% of the City's uninsured adults, and looks to triple in participation by the end of 2009.
The program is funded in part by a per employee health care tax, levied by the City upon local businesses, requiring them to spend a certain amount on employee's health care or to pay into a City fund if they spend less than the requirement. By establishing a tax rather than creating a "mandate" for employers to provide health care to their, Healthy San Francisco avoids a federal law--the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, known by the acronym ERISA--that prohibits states and localities from regulating or interfering with employer-based health insurance or pension benefits.
As with any innovative program, however, Healthy San Francisco faces some challenges to its continuation, one being the question of whether the program does actually escape running afoul of ERISA. Yesterday, the entire federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (the federal appeals court that includes California) upheld the ruling of an earlier panel of the appellate court's judges, finding that Healthy San Francisco can continue without running into ERISA problems.
The case will now likely go before the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision by the Supreme Court may have a major impact on the ability of states and cities to attempt health care reform absent Congressional action.
At a time when the relationship between Iran and America is tense, films like A World Between, (Nezam Manoucheri) and Young Republic, (Nooshin Navidi) provide a personal connection between the people of each country. Both films, which were shown at a Screening Liberally event in San Francisco, Tuesday 04 December, successfully depict the complexity of what is currently going on in Iran, which is not an easy feat.
Jason Rezaian, the subject of the one hour documentary, A World Between, uses his unique relationship to both America and Iran as the lens through which he returns to his father's homeland. Rezaian's mother was raised in Wheaton, Illinois during Billy Graham's evangelical movement and his dad in Shiite Islam's holiest city, Mashhad, Iran. His parents met in San Francisco in the Sixties, and raised Jason and his brother just north of the city.
Everyone who gives a damn about the U.S Constitution is buzzing this week about Democratic legislators' craven capitulation on the Bush administration's new FISA law that has immunized invasions of our private communications by their "national security surveillance" spooks. Yes, that is what the law effectively does; see this. The Bushies yelped "terror, terror"; the Dems caved -- again. Pissing on the people seems to come too easily to elected Dems ...
The more folks look at the debacle, the more comes out about the tactical blunders (or possible perfidy) of the Democratic leadership, especially Majority Leader Harry Reid in the Senate and Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the House.
As a long time Pelosi constituent, I'd like to explore the terrible possibility that this episode shows that my congresscritter has, in being elected Speaker, demonstrated the truth of the Peter Principle.
What's the Peter Principle? Propounded by Laurence J. Peter in his 1968 book, this tidbit of pop sociological and business wisdom says:
"In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."
Or her incompetence. Simply put, I think Pelosi has worked very hard to rise very far in an insiders' system -- and truly mastered the art of such an ascent. Unfortunately, the very skills and instincts honed on the way to becoming the first ever woman to be Speaker of the House make her unable to lead effectively on contentious issues.
