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The Consumer Federation of America's insurance director, J. Robert Hunter, accused the biggest players in the industry of "gouging" the public on their way to an estimated combined after-tax profit of nearly $60 billion in 2006. Full Story

Unlike our counterparts in most developed nations, American workers are not allowed to get sick. Many American workers, especially the middle-class and working-class, have no paid sick days under their employment policies, because they are not mandated by law.

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By David Swanson

This article helps explain why I spend so much time trying to lobby other people's Congress Members, hoping that perhaps I share the same century with them. If you can return the favor and are inspired by this article to give Virgil Goode a call, here's his number: (202) 225-4711.

Goode makes complete ass of self
Anti-Muslim letter goes out to hundreds - not all are amused
BY ERIKA HOWSARE, Cville Weekly

Our congressman, Virgil Goode, stands by his anti-Islamic rhetoric: "...If American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran."

Brace yourself for the following letter, shared with C-VILLE by John Cruickshank, chair of the local Sierra Club chapter. Representative Virgil Goode (www.house.gov/goode ) told us, through his press secretary, “I wrote the letter. I think it speaks for itself.”

Congress of the United States
House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515-4605

December 7, 2006

Mr. John Cruickshank
7—— S—————————— Dr. Earlysville, VA 22936

Dear Mr. Cruickshank:

Thank you for your recent communication. When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way. The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran. We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country. I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.

The Ten Commandments and “In God We Trust” are on the wall in my office. A Muslim student came by the office and asked why I did not have anything on my wall about the Koran. My response was clear, “As long as I have the honor of representing the citizens of the 5th District of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives, The Koran is not going to be on the wall of my office.” Thank you again for your email and thoughts.

Sincerely yours,
Virgil H. Goode, Jr.
70 East Court Street Suite 215 Rocky Mount, Virginia 24151

Cruickshank had never communicated with Goode’s office about Muslim immigration or official uses of the Koran. According to Goode’s office, Goode had received a flood of e-mails from constituents in response to newly elected Minnesota Representative Keith Ellison’s declaration that he would use the Koran, not the Bible, when being sworn into Congress next month. This letter was Goode’s response to those e-mails; Goode’s office says Cruickshank received the letter in error.

___________

Remember, Goode's number is (202) 225-4711 and his name is pronounced BIG-uht.

Below is a letter sent from Rep. Louise Slaughter to President Bush:


December 19, 2006

The President
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

I am writing to seek clarification of the processes and policies employed by your Administration in determining whether materials contain classified information and when to withhold information from the public.

According to an article published in the Washington Post today, Flynt Leverett, a former National Security Council Advisory, who left the Administration in 2003, suggested that the White House had redacted substantial passages of an opinion article on Iran. According to Mr. Leverett, this article was "only a summary of a longer paper" he had written a few weeks earlier which the CIA had cleared as "containing no classified information."

I am concerned that your Administration is employing inconsistent policies when classifying information. If, indeed, redacting the information from the op-ed was necessary for national security purposes, then the CIA’s failure to deem the information in the previously published version of the article as classified may have put our security at risk. If classifying information in the previously published version of the article was not necessary, then I am left to believe that your Administration redacted information for political purposes.

I would also appreciate an explanation behind your Administration’s decision to redact substantial passages from Mr. Leverett’s op-ed, even though reportedly the CIA had already cleared the information based on which Mr. Leverett had drafted those passages

Given the questions this incident raises about your Administration’s consistency in applying policies and processes to reviewing classified information and your willingness to allow criticism by the national security and intelligence communities that disagree with your policies, I ask that you clarify and explain policies pertaining to how and when information is deemed classified and also your decision to intervene in the publication of the article written by Mr. Leverett.

Thank you for reviewing my request, and I await your response.

Sincerely,

Louise M. Slaughter
Member of Congress

From ProgressiveStates.org:

With a change in party control of Indiana's legislature, one shift may be new resistance to Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniel's pell-mell movement to privatize all public services.

"Our caucus basically does not support privatization," said Speaker-elect Patrick Bauer. "We don't support making profit out of poor people or mentally ill people," referring to the new proposal to give a $1 billion, 10-year control to a consortium to take over welfare-eligibility processing. This follows a slew of recent privatization initiatives in the state:

• Outsourcing the Department of Corrections' food services
• Giving a 75-year lease of the Indiana Toll Road to an Australian-Spanish consortium
• Beginning the privatization of state developmental centers

These have been matched by unsuccessful attempts to privatize state park inns and other proposals that are on the drawing board.

Despite the magnitude of change involved in privatizing social services in the state, the Governor scheduled just one hearing at 9am last Friday-- which didn't stop community members such as Cornell Burris from the NAACP from denouncing the corporate contracting out as a "sham" that was excluding community input.

As we noted earlier this year, one problem with these kinds of privatization deals are the incestuous deals that threaten to corrupt politics. For example, the consortium, Affiliated Computer Systems, vying to run these social services is the former employer of Indiana's Family and Social Services Administration, Secretary Mitchell Roob, just par for the course for a scandal-plagued company that had to oust its CEO and CFO last week over improprieties surrounding its stock option plans.

Instead of such rushed privatization, states should enact rules that require careful evaluation of the costs of contracting out and whether in-house alternatives are more cost-effective. Hopefully, Indiana will be moving in that direction with its new legislative leadership.