Former East German secret police captain says NSA spying ‘a dream come true’ (via Raw Story )A former agent of the Stasi, the much-feared East German communist secret police, has said that the recently revealed NSA spying program would have been his agency’s “dream come true” because it has collected “so much information, on so many…
Wisconsin GOP pushing law to spy on and seize bank accounts of unemployed (via Raw Story )A law is advancing through the Wisconsin state legislature that would double the job-seeking requirements for people collecting unemployment and which would allow the government to peer into their bank accounts and freeze them if they believe the account holder has received overpayments in their benefits…
‘Birther’ Arpaio supporter’s lawsuit reveals ignorance of election law (via Raw Story )“Birther” activist and attorney Larry Klayman is threatening to sue Respect Arizona, the group behind a recall effort aimed at controversial Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. According to the Associated Press, Klayman’s freshly established group, Citizens To Protect Fair Election Results,…
In September 2005, a senior Wal-Mart lawyer received an alarming e-mail from a former executive at the company’s largest foreign subsidiary, Wal-Mart de Mexico. In the e-mail and follow-up conversations, the former executive described how Wal-Mart de Mexico had orchestrated a campaign of bribery to win market dominance. In its rush to build stores, he said, the company had paid bribes to obtain permits in virtually every corner of the country.There is more to this story. I find it particularly disturbing. It is just another example of a major U.S. corporation doing "whatever it takes" to make a buck. Read the rest of the twisted tale at The New York Times...
The former executive gave names, dates and bribe amounts. He knew so much, he explained, because for years he had been the lawyer in charge of obtaining construction permits for Wal-Mart de Mexico.
The doctor and nurse were professional and kind, and it was clear that they understood our sorrow. They too apologized for what they had to do next. For the third time that day, I exposed my stomach to an ultrasound machine, and we saw images of our sick child forming in blurred outlines on the screen.
“I’m so sorry that I have to do this,” the doctor told us, “but if I don’t, I can lose my license.” Before he could even start to describe our baby, I began to sob until I could barely breathe. Somewhere, a nurse cranked up the volume on a radio, allowing the inane pronouncements of a DJ to dull the doctor’s voice. Still, despite the noise, I heard him. His unwelcome words echoed off sterile walls while I, trapped on a bed, my feet in stirrups, twisted away from his voice.Did you catch the lie in the diatribe doctors are forced, by law, to spread. Abortions do not cause an increased risk of breast cancer. Just the fact that lie is in there proves this is nothing but a scare tactic. These attacks of hate and vitriol should not be allowed to continue. And maybe, one day, enough people will have enough and it will end!
“Here I see a well-developed diaphragm and here I see four healthy chambers of the heart...”
I closed my eyes and waited for it to end, as one waits for the car to stop rolling at the end of a terrible accident.
When the description was finally over, the doctor held up a script and said he was legally obliged to read me information provided by the state. It was about the health dangers of having an abortion, the risks of infection or hemorrhage, the potential for infertility and my increased chance of getting breast cancer. I was reminded that medical benefits may be available for my maternity care and that the baby’s father was liable to provide support, whether he’d agreed to pay for the abortion or not.
The proposed law "mandates that the Tennessee Department of Health make detailed demographic information about every woman who has an abortion available to the public, including her age, race, county, marital status, education level, number of children, the location of the procedure and how many times she has been pregnant. Each report would also have to include the name of the doctor who performed the procedure."
The concept of support for universal health care is taboo among Republicans who scrutinize the Affordable Care Act -- dubbing it the "Job-Killing Health Care Law Act" -- and call for its repeal. But a new UC Irvine study challenges the GOP argument that the health care law is too costly, with data illustrating that health care costs on the whole fall when poorer, uninsured patients are provided with insurance.
"In a case study involving low-income people enrolled in a community-based health insurance program, we found that use of primary care increased but use of emergency services fell, and -- over time -- total health care costs declined," David Neumark, a co-author of the study, said in a release accompanying the findings.
