(VIDEO) In a speech broadcast on Canadian television, Michael Moore blasted the Democrats' healthcare bill as a gift to the health insurance industry, which he argued will make billions more as a result. "The health insurance companies are going to make an extra 70 billion dollars...What company wouldn't love this bill?"

In pitting the 10-year cost of Democrats' health care bill against the 10-year projected cost of the bloated Pentagon budget, my newspaper column last week made a simple comparison rarely ever made in politics today - a comparison that might provide citizens with much needed context, but a comparison that is ignored. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2010270762_sirota16.html. Is the comparison's omission deliberate? It's hard to say, but when you read this typical New York Times piece, it's hard to argue that it isn't being irresponsibly ignored:---Kudos, of course, to the Times for even reporting on the unfathomably large costs of intensifying militarism and adventurism. But as you'll see in the story, there's no attempt to put the costs into any context - specifically, there's no mention that an escalation in Afghanistan would mean outlays for the one-year Pentagon budget is approaching the total outlays of the entire 10-year health care bill.

if [Daley] is tempted to dangle Chicago's vast water system as his next lease deal, he might want to first consult Atlanta, which is still smarting from a botched experiment with privatizing a big-city water supply. Or the mayor could look someplace closer to home, like Bolingbrook, one of dozens of suburbs and downstate communities furious about steep rate increases imposed by a private water operator. Daley is searching for more jackpots as his administration draws heavily on the money it reaped from leasing parking meters and the Chicago Skyway to ease the city through the recession. The mayor recently told the Tribune editorial board that he has met with consultants who outlined new privatization deals, but he would not provide details.

Overwhelmingly approved on Sunday by the California Democratic Party's 300-member statewide executive board, the resolution is titled "End the U.S. Occupation and Air War in Afghanistan." The resolution supports "a timetable for withdrawal of our military personnel" and calls for "an end to the use of mercenary contractors as well as an end to air strikes that cause heavy civilian casualties." Advocating multiparty talks inside Afghanistan, the resolution also urges Obama "to oversee a redirection of our funding and resources to include an increase in humanitarian and developmental aid."

The ongoing absolutism in Congress in trying to prevent women--or at least poor women--from obtaining abortions is one of the more shameful spectacles in America. The sanctimonious Blue Dog Democrats and the Republicans, who almost unanimously opposed any right to abortion, present two basic arguments. One is that abortion is murder, and therefore must be illegal, or, in more nuanced form, they say that they or their constituents oppose abortion and therefore it is wrong to have their tax money paying for the procedure. Of course, for most of those who argue that abortion is murder, there is a towering hypocrisy in the fact that with rare exceptions, those who argue this view also support capital punishment, which is also murder.

Two major left-leaning activist groups are threatening to work against Democrats who vote against a public option or for abortion restrictions in healthcare reform legislation. Three days after the House’s historic passage of comprehensive healthcare reform, Democrats are grappling with the downside of being a “big tent” party: Their coalition is diverse, and internal tensions rise to the boiling point when major legislation is on the line. MoveOn.org Political Action, a key organizer on the left, is now taking aim at conservative House Democrats who voted against health reform. The group is spending $500,000 on ads against several such Democrats, who represent Republican-leaning districts and are seen as highly vulnerable to a GOP challenge in the 2010 midterms.[Note: Isn't this called clubbing oneself to death?]

At least two provisions in the House health reform bill are very troubling, the de facto repeal of Roe v. Wade and this. In a powerful post on the Welcome Back to Pottersville, poster Jurassicpork laid it out. This is as clear and logical a statement as I've seen on the utter contempt that Congress has for the people. We're creating a new criminal class, people who can't afford health insurance. The solution - fines and prison. All thanks to the Money Party which has reached depths previously unimaginable. Well worth a read. Michael Collins. Congress Pulls the Trigger. From: Welcome Back to Pottersville blog. Posted by jurassicpork. In the dead of Saturday night, the House passed their version of a health reform bill that, frankly, makes Max Baucus’ first health care proposal look like a bleeding heart liberal/socialist piece of legislation by conspicuous relief. One of the most alarming aspects of HR 3962, that passed 220-215 (219 Democrats and one Republican voted for it) are the purely evil sections 7203 and 7201. The less evil of these sections, 7203, calls for $25,000 in fines and up to a year imprisonment for “defying” the federal mandate for getting insurance. That's the misdemeanor. The felony? A quarter of a million dollars in fines and up to five years in prison. [Note: Link http://www.examiner.com/x-16500-Lake-County-Independent-Examiner~y2009m11d7-Maintain-acceptable-health-care-insurance-or-go-to-jail

All of the Congressional Democrats and even the successor to George Bush himself recognize that universal single-payer health care (Medicare For All) is the only meaningful solution to the health care crisis in America. But these Democrats have decided that keeping their jobs is much more important than saving the lives of 45,000 Americans. By passing this most cynical piece of legislation they have put their thumbs in the eyes of the American people while the silk tongued oratory of the successor to George Bush will praise this bill even as he delights in the idea of how many people will live in misery.

21 out of the 39 Democrats who voted for Stupak then proceeded to vote against the health care reform bill. In other words, women’s reproductive rights were severely compromised to appease 18 members of Congress. The final vote on the health care bill was 220-215, so only a few of those votes were needed in the first place to secure the vote. For this, in the 11th hour, Nancy Pelosi made a deal with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Many reproductive justice advocates watched the final train wreck on C Span last night in stunned anger, trying to understand how this happened.

Democrats took it on the chin in this year's off-off-year gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, but the Dems can find a silver lining in the high-profile Democratic victory in a traditionally Republican upstate New York district. The lesson in that contest: National Republican leaders are taking the title for infighting away from the traditionally fractious national Democrats. Here are two more lesson[s] to come out of this year's contests: -- The magical Obamamania that energized young voters, in particular, last year was historic but not easily lent out to other Democrats -- Colorful extremists fire up a party's base and raise a lot of money, but moderate swing voters tend to decide who wins. The GOP's angry tea-party conservatives can raise money and whip up excitement in the discontented Republican base. But when big problems like jobs and the economy are at stake, voters care less about who's right or who's left than with what's going to work.

When Democrats lost races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia this week, officials in both parties suggested that the outcome could undermine President Obama’s push for a health care bill, scaring off politically vulnerable moderate Democrats at the very moment the White House needed them to get the bill through. As Congress prepares to vote on a health care bill this weekend, however, there were indications on Capitol Hill that the Democratic setbacks on Tuesday were not high on the list of factors influencing even politically vulnerable Democrats as they decided what to do this weekend. In many cases, the results Tuesday came too late to be a major factor in the deliberations of both supporters and opponents of the health care bill.

Remember those Republican boasts that they would turn health care into President Obama’s Waterloo? Well, exit polls suggest that to the extent that health care was an issue in Tuesday’s elections, it worked in Democrats’ favor. But while health care won’t be Mr. Obama’s Waterloo, economic policy is starting to look like his Anzio. There was a national element to the election. Voters across America are in a bad mood, largely because of the still-grim economic situation. This bodes ill for the Democrats in the midterm elections next year — not because voters will reject their agenda, but because all indications are that a year from now unemployment will still be painfully high. Which brings me to the Anzio analogy.The World War II battle of Anzio was a classic example of the perils of being too cautious. The stimulus bill fell far short of what many economists considered appropriate. And more is needed. Yes, the economy grew fairly fast in the third quarter — but not fast enough to make significant progress on jobs. If the Democrats lose badly in the midterms, the talking heads will say that Mr. Obama tried to do too much, this is a center-right nation, and so on. But the truth is that Mr. Obama put his agenda at risk by doing too little. The fateful decision, early this year, to go for economic half-measures may haunt Democrats for years to come.

n Washington, "health care reform" has degenerated into a sick joke. At this point, only spinners who've succumbed to their own vertigo could use the word "robust" to describe the public option in the health care bill that the House Democratic leadership has sent to the floor. "A main argument was that a public plan would save people money," The New York Times has noted. But the insurance industry - claiming to want a level playing field - has gotten the Obama administration to bulldoze the plan. "After House Democratic leaders unveiled their health care bill [on October 29], the Congressional Budget Office said the public plan would cost more than private plans and only 6 million people would sign up." At its best, "the public option" was a weak remedy for the disastrous ailments of the health care system in the United States. But whatever virtues the public option may have offered were stripped from the bill en route to the House floor. What remains is a Rube Goldberg contraption that will launch this country into a new phase of health care apartheid.

L. KING: You seem to look back, and look at both of these parties with askance look. VENTURA: To me, Larry -- and I have said it before, and I know I'll get a laugh out of this. But I wish they would pass a law where all Democrats and Republicans had to wear Nascar racing suits, because if you look at the Nascar drivers, it tells who their sponsors are. And if they do that, we could then become informed voters, because we would know who owns them.

Republicans wrested political control of Virginia from the Democrats on Tuesday and New Jersey's unpopular Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine was fighting for his political life as independent voters swung behind the GOP in both states. It was a troubling sign for President Barack Obama and his party heading into an important midterm election year. Republican Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell's victory in Virginia over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds was a triumph for a GOP looking to rebuild after being booted from power in national elections in 2006 and 2008. It also was a setback for the White House in a swing state that was a crucial part of Obama's electoral landslide just a year ago. In New Jersey, exit polls showed Corzine locked in a close race, with independents heavily favoring his Republican challenger Chris Christie in a three-way contest with independent Chris Daggett.

critics say the bill exempts some transactions involving the very institutions -- big banks -- most responsible for the collapse. These contracts, which can act either as insurance (to transfer risk) or as a simple bet (like what many say brought down AIG), have been blamed for accelerating what was a credit crisis into a full-blown financial crisis and subsequent recession. They brought down the likes of AIG and the Wall Street investment houses Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. "[Peterson's] amendment now provides a broad exemption for contracts where one party to the contract is using the derivative to 'manage risk.' Mandatory central clearing is the basic reform that is essential to eliminate the potential for the failure of a single institution - such as Lehman Brothers or AIG - to bring down the entire financial system," Roper said in a statement.

One of America's wealthiest men was among six hedge fund managers and corporate executives arrested Friday in a hedge fund insider trading case that authorities say generated more than $25 million in illegal profits and was a wake-up call for Wall Street. Raj Rajaratnam, a portfolio manager for Galleon Group, a hedge fund with up to $7 billion in assets under management, was accused of conspiring with others to use insider information to trade securities in several publicly traded companies, including Google Inc.--- According to the Federal Election Commission, he is a generous contributor to Democratic candidates and causes. The FEC said he made over $87,000 in contributions to President Barack Obama's campaign, the Democratic National Committee and various campaigns on behalf of Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer and New Jersey U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez in the past five years. The Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group, said he has given a total of $118,000 since 2004 -- all but one contribution, for $5,000, to Democrats. The Associated Press has learned that even before his arrest, Rajaratnam was under scrutiny for helping bankroll Sri Lankan militants notorious for suicide bombings.

I don't get it. I know that's the simplistic refrain of every 10-year-old, but I'm 33 and I mean it: I just don't get it. Specifically, I don't get why Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) - or any Republican senator, for that matter - is attracting so much attention. In the last few months, Democratic senators eliminated the public option and substantially weakened their health care proposals in order to buy insurance industry acquiescence and, thus, Snowe's vote. Now, based on the deafening media noise, all of American politics is focused on this unaccomplished backbencher and whether or not she will endorse the final bill. It is as if Republicans control Congress - as if Snowe, not Barack Obama, won the biggest presidential landslide since Ronald Reagan. This is bizarre for what should be obvious reasons.

Democrats are now at risk of post-Bush stress disorder (PBSD), a trauma that can cripple their efforts to adjust to everyday life in a new era. Their longtime enemy—potent Republicans—is gone, a mere memory of pain. But Republican ways of thinking have infected the minds of too many Democrats. More than a few have fallen into the GOP habit of selling out to corporate interests (the $1.5 million that health-related lobbies contributed to Max Baucus in 2007–08 goes a long way in Montana), pandering to banks, and reflexively assuming that just because the Pentagon recommends escalation in Afghanistan, it must be necessary. These habits will have to be broken if the Democrats are to stay in power. The key to a political victory on health care isn't just passing a bill, it's controlling insurance premiums. After much-ballyhooed reform, Massachusetts failed to restrain premiums, which are set to increase another 10 percent next year.

Bowing to political pressure from community bankers, the House Financial Services Committee approved an exemption on Thursday for more than 98 percent of the nation’s banks from oversight by a new agency created to protect consumers from abusive or deceptive credit cards, mortgages and other loans. The carve-out in legislation overhauling the regulatory system would prevent the new consumer financial protection agency from conducting annual examinations of the lending practices at more than 8,000 of the nation’s 8,200 banks, leaving only the largest banks and other lenders subject to the agency’s examiners.