Michael Moore Today

http://www.michaelmoore.com/


Listen to Democracy for America's 'SiCKO' conference call with Michael Moore

November 14th, 2007 - Sicko House Parties

http://democracyforamerica.com/sicko


"I saw the hose double looped around his neck."
-- Jeff's dad

Suicide Epidemic Among Veterans
A CBS News Investigation Uncovers A Suicide Rate For Veterans Twice That Of Other Americans
(CBS) They are the casualties of wars you don’t often hear about - soldiers who die of self-inflicted wounds. Little is known about the true scope of suicides among those who have served in the military.
But a five-month CBS News investigation discovered data that shows a startling rate of suicide, what some call a hidden epidemic, Chief Investigative Reporter Armen Keteyian reports exclusively.
“I just felt like this silent scream inside of me,” said Jessica Harrell, the sister of a soldier who took his own life.
"I opened up the door and there he was," recalled Mike Bowman, the father of an Army reservist.
"I saw the hose double looped around his neck,” said Kevin Lucey, another military father.
"He was gone,” said Mia Sagahon, whose soldier boyfriend committed suicide.
Keteyian spoke with the families of five former soldiers who each served in Iraq - only to die battling an enemy they could not conquer. Their loved ones are now speaking out in their names.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/13/cbsnews_investigates/main3496471.shtml


KVMR's Program Director Steve Baker speaks with Oscar winning director Michael Moore
Oscar winning director Michael Moore helped kick off KVMR’s "Autumn of Love" with an exclusive interview Oct. 29th, Mon. with KVMR's Program Director Steve Baker. Michael spoke passionately about the value and need for independent media like KVMR as well as his new film SiCKO and some of the 80 extra minutes in the DVD release.
Click here to listen to KVMR's exclusive interview with Oscar winning Michael Moore

http://kvmr.org/programs/talkies.html


November 16th, 2007 2:35 am
Anti-Bush Sign Has Bridge World in an Uproar
By Stephanie Strom / New York Times
In the genteel world of bridge, disputes are usually handled quietly and rarely involve issues of national policy. But in a fight reminiscent of the brouhaha over an anti-Bush statement by Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks in 2003, a team of women who represented the United States at the world bridge championships in Shanghai last month is facing sanctions, including a yearlong ban from competition, for a spur-of-the-moment protest.
At issue is a crudely lettered sign, scribbled on the back of a menu, that was held up at an awards dinner and read, “We did not vote for Bush.”

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=10522



Big Brother Spying on Americans' Internet Data?
AT&T Whistleblower Describes Secret Room That Sends Internet Data to Government
By Z. BYRON WOLF
Nov. 7, 2007 —
It would be difficult to say whose e-mail, text messages or Internet phone calls the government is monitoring at any given time, but according to a former AT&T employee, the government has warrantless access to a great deal of Internet traffic should they care to take a peek.
As information is traded between users it flows also into a locked, secret room on the sixth floor of AT&T's San Francisco offices and other rooms around the country -- where the U.S. government can sift through and find the information it wants, former AT&T employee Mark Klein alleged Wednesday at a press conference on Capitol Hill.
"An exact copy of all Internet traffic that flowed through critical AT&T cables -- e-mails, documents, pictures, Web browsing, voice-over-Internet phone conversations, everything -- was being diverted to equipment inside the secret room," he said.

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=3833172



AT&T whistleblower: I was forced to connect 'big brother machine'
David Edwards and Jason Rhyne
Published: Wednesday November 7, 2007
A former technician at AT&T, who alleges that the telecom forwards virtually all of its internet traffic into a "secret room" to facilitate government spying, says the whole operation reminds him of something out of Orwell's 1984.
Appearing on MSNBC's Countdown program, whistleblower Mark Klein told Keith Olbermann that a copy of all internet traffic passing over AT&T lines was copied into a locked room at the company's San Francisco office -- to which only employees with National Security Agency clearance had access -- via a cable splitting device.

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Countdown_Telcom_whistleblower_describes_secret_room_1107.html



Michael Moore Talks SiCKO & Tobacco on Keith Olbermann

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhG92MI8Z5Y&eurl=http://www.michaelmoore.com/



Artist on Artist: Tom Morello & Michael Moore

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=8272191



Is America getting serious about health insurance?

Clinton strikes back at rivals in debate
Sounds a caution on 'throwing mud'
By Susan Milligan
Globe Staff / November 16, 2007
Hillary Clinton swung back at her two main rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination last night, rebuking them for changing their positions on healthcare and portraying herself as the most experienced and qualified candidate for her party's nomination.
The New York senator's pointed criticisms of her opponents - unusual for a front-runner seeking to remain above the fray - followed two shaky weeks for her campaign. She had been forced to defend herself against charges that she had changed positions on key issues, that she had played the gender card, and that her staff had planted friendly questions at campaign events.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/11/16/clinton_strikes_back_at_rivals_in_debate/



That’ll Cost a Kidney: How a Little-Noticed Vote in Congress Could Raise Workers’ Healthcare Costs Even Higher
By Juan Basile, AlterNet. Posted November 17, 2007.
Congress is on the verge of letting corporate lobbyists change how a critical treatment is delivered, reducing access to affordable care just so two corporations can boost their bottom line.
For the past eight years, three times a week, I've had to go to a clinic for four and a half hours after work to get connected to a kidney dialysis machine to get my blood cleaned.
Like hundreds of thousands of Americans who are dealing with my kind of kidney disease, I rely on dialysis to keep my body functioning.
Thanks to a smart decision Congress made a generation ago, most kidney patients can count on affordable access to dialysis care when the need is most dire.
But now Congress is thinking about undoing that progress. Amazingly, Congress could be on the verge of letting corporate lobbyists change how kidney care is delivered, reducing access to affordable care so two corporations that dominate kidney dialysis can boost their bottom line.
Obviously, this change would affect kidney patients like me directly. But it would also ripple across the healthcare system and drive up costs for ordinary consumers like you. What Congress decides on this issue will say a lot about which way our healthcare system is headed.

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/68187/




WHAT'S OBAMA'S HEALTH CARE POSITION?

From NBC/NJ's Aswini Anburajan
Obama regularly reminds supporters on the stump, the plans of the three major Democratic candidates running for party’s nomination for president are “95 percent” the same. Which makes Hillary Clinton's attacks all that more pointed. The difference, Obama stresses, is who can unite the country and stand up to the drug and health insurance industry to actually get it passed.
So what is the real difference between Obama and Clinton's health care plans? Like Clinton and Edwards, Obama would subsidize care for those Americans who cannot afford it; unlike the Clinton and Edwards plan, Obama would only require mandatory health coverage for children.
Obama has pledged, repeatedly, on the stump to pass universal healthcare by the end of his first term in office. He promises to do so through a mixture of bravado, “If Harry and Louise get up on TV, I’ll dip into my campaign fund and run my own ads saying Harry and Louise are wrong;” and by running an open process in which every party will have a seat at the table.
However, Obama knows though that the health care and pharma companies are an integral part of the American health care system. He stresses that Americans will have individual choice when it comes to choosing either a private plan or buying into the government plan and that instituting a government plan is not a move towards “socialized medicine.” He also warns his audiences that passing universal health care will be an “eked out” victory, similar to the slim margin of votes that allowed Lyndon Johnson to pass Medicare and FDR to pass Social Security.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/11/15/469203.aspx



(BPRW) Overhauling American Healthcare
( BLACK PR WIRE)( November 14, 2007) Every candidate in the coming year’s presidential race is sure to have a “health care plan.” A well thought out strategy for overhauling the failing and flailing American health care conundrum that gives too little too late to sick people and simply ignores millions of uninsured individuals every year. Yet how did we get here and why is healthcare now so sub-par in the “richest” nation on earth?
It has been common over the past five or six decades for Americans of working age to receive their health insurance from employers. Prior to World War II, however, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) few Americans had health insurance and most policies covered only hospital room and board. In the midst of World War II employers began to offer workers healthcare benefits to maneuver around government wage controls. Furthermore, worker’s health benefits were not subject to income tax or Social Security payroll taxes, as were cash wages.
The statistics vary on the number of African Americans and other ethnicities living without health insurance at any point in time throughout the year. Numbers taken from the year 2000 onwards, however, indicate a downward spiral. The number of uninsured grows larger each year. What follows is common sense, the more Americans in general living without health insurance, the higher the premiums for those companies and employees receiving health benefits.
So what is the solution? Lawmakers and candidates on both sides of the bipartisan divide intend to overhaul the current system to ensure that all American citizens have health insurance. Many are even lobbying to allow tax breaks to individuals purchasing their own healthcare plans for themselves and family members.
The question remains which system will provide the best care for the majority of people? If benefits are taken out of the employers hands will that make it easier for employees to manage and monitor their own benefits and to switch jobs while maintaining the same insurance plan? Will employers have an easier time as well? This is an issue we’ll all need to become involved with in the coming year to insure that the healthcare system is improved for all people, especially children.

http://www.blackprwire.com/display-news.asp?id=3626



Local examines racism in health care
The seeds of national change to combat racism may be growing in a cozy dwelling on Pendleton Street.
While racism has been, and continues to be, a pressing issue in New Haven and beyond, local documentary filmmaker Crystal Emery said there are underlying elements of racism in everyday life. Emery is currently filming “Disparities in American Health Care: The Audacity of Hope” — a firsthand look into the realities of racism in health care.
The issue is of national importance, but it has effects on a local level here on Yale’s campus, especially given the diversity of the student population, Emery said.
Emery set out to create the documentary in respone to her own experiences, she said. As a black woman confined to a wheelchair, Emery said people make assumptions about her even before she has a chance to speak.
“I face disparities in health care everyday,” she said. “I’m a black woman in a wheelchair with a chronic disease. I have to fight for my Medicare prescriptions. I have to fight for the right to exist.”

http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/22454



Readers Write: John Edwards' Plan to Get Serious About Healthcare
AlterNet readers had much to say about Edwards' threat to strip health coverage from Congress if its members didn't pass his plan.
AlterNet readers had an animated discussion following a recent piece looking at Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards' new campaign ads, airing in Iowa, that promise to take away the health insurance members of Congress enjoy unless they enact his proposal for universal healthcare ("Edwards: If Members of Congress Won't Give Americans a Healthcare Plan, I'll Take Away Theirs.")
Vox Persona, while approving of Edwards' strategy for bringing about universal coverage, also had some words of caution: "Being from N.C., I can give you the heads up on our former illustrious senator. Serving in his one term, he spent most of his time running for president. How would you feel? The word opportunism comes to mind. He seems to say some of the right things, and I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but his kind of raw ambition makes me uneasy."
Jefferson's Guardian, disagreeing, replied: "It has to start with someone, Vox Persona, doesn't it?
"Quite possibly what you view as "raw ambition" in John Edwards might also be interpreted as someone who sees that time is running out for the American people.
"Someone has to take the bull by the horns. Aside Kucinich, who else is out there speaking for the American people?
"None."

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/68178/

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