christine's blog

By Anthony Wright
Health Access

The California Legislature ended their session last week after passing over a dozen patient protection measures. If signed by the Governor, these bills will implement and improve a number of provisions of federal health care reform law, enacting a number of new consumer protections.

A lists of the measures related to implementing federal health reform, and how they fared in the California Legislature, is available on the front page of the Health Access website.

These bills that passed are now on the desk of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

By Dave Johnson

"Who could have known?" That's the cry from the big-corporate and DC elite as the economy and the environment and so many imporant things crash around us. (Around us, not them, they're doing just fine and taking good care of each other.)

Who could have known that 25%-per-year house price increases was a bubble?
Who could have known that a housing bubble could burst?
Who could have known that deregulating the financial industry could lead to a financial meltdown?
Who could have known that concentration of wealth could cause consumer demand to dry up?
Who could have known that huge tax cuts for the rich combined with huge military spending increases could cause massive budget deficits?
Who could have known that the Social Security trust fund needed a "lockbox" so it wouldn't be given away as tax cuts?

By Dan Bacher

In the most absurd episode in the bad action flick that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has starred in since being elected Governor in 2003, the "Fish Terminator" on Saturday morning spouted off about the need for "transparent" government in his weekly radio address.

"Ever since I became Governor, I have pushed to make California government more transparent," Schwarzenegger claimed. "Now, I don’t have to tell you that this is a time of deep recession, all around the world."

"It is more critical than ever that government be held accountable for every dollar it spends, that it live within its means, and that it show total transparency at all levels: at the local level, the state level and the federal level," said Schwarzenegger.
 

By Peter Schrag

It’s hardly news that, like Arizona, many states and scores of cities have been looking for ways to drive illegal immigrants out – ordering cops to detain people who can’t show documents verifying their right to be here, passing measures to fine landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and employers who hire them. And there are the Republicans who want to fiddle with the Constitution to deny children born to illegal aliens birthright citizenship.

So obviously Americans must be panicking because illegal immigration has been spiking, right?

By Deborah Burger
California Nurses Association

Republican candidates from coast to coast are fond of branding their opponents the Nancy Pelosi Democrats. Maybe it’s time to talk about the Joe Miller Republicans.

Miller is the Sarah Palin-backed Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Alaska who toppled incumbent Republican Lisa Murkowski because she was not conservative enough.  Miller gained notoriety, in part, by proposing elimination of two of the most popular reforms in U.S. history, Social Security and Medicare, and calling unemployment insurance “unconstitutional”.

Even after his primary upset, Miller did not change his tune. Asked by CNN’s John King September 1 if someone born today should “grow up in an America where there is not a federal Social Security program if you got your way,” Miller replied, “absolutely.”

By Viji Sundaram
New America Media

For 22 days earlier this year, Gilbert Aguilar lived without gas and electricity in his one-bedroom rental apartment here in East Oakland. The building went into foreclosure and the bank that took it over was his new landlord.

“The banks have to be good landlords,” Aguilar, 50, said at a press conference outside his home Thursday. “They have to make sure that properties are safe and habitable.”

He was among other tenants of foreclosed housing in Oakland and San Francisco at the press conference, organized by community group Causa Justa/ Just Cause (CJJC) and the Alameda County Public Health Department.

Dozens of mostly African Americans and Latinos stood in the sweltering heat, holding signs in English and Spanish that said, “Protect Tenants Right to Stay,” and “Foreclosure is a Health Issue.” They chanted, “Cough, cough, achoo, achoo, foreclosure is bad for you.”

By Sam Gold

Realities of life are what the occupationally injured of America deal with on a daily basis. I know, I see and hear about them every day as the volunteer director of the only national injured workers advocacy organization in the US. I talk to, aid and assist injured workers every day in all 50 states and the message is always the same; Workers’ Compensation DOES NOT WORK!

America’s Workers’ Compensation systems ARE NOT performing the jobs that they were designed for due to the political interference and influence of big business, the Chambers of Commerce and the insurance industry. All of that special interest cash has a very loud voice in the legislatures of America’s 50 states especially when legislators are running for re-election.

By Robin Swanson
Education Coalition

On Wednesday the Governor's May Revision proposal to cut billions more from California's public schools was overwhelmingly rejected by the California State Legislature, falling 29 votes short of what was needed for passage.

With $17 billion in cuts already made to public schools over the past two years, nearly 30,000 educators in California's public schools have been laid off - driving up class sizes, denying students individualized instruction and leaving sparse adult supervision on school campuses.

The Governor's failed budget proposal would have further reduced revenue limit funding -general purpose support for schools - by $1.5 billion.  This represents a cut of about $250 per student.  The Governor also proposes cuts of $1.4 billion to child development programs, $28 million to county offices of education, $550 million from the K-3 Class Size Reduction program, and $206 million from virtually all K-12 programs to impose a negative cost-of-living adjustment.

By Paul Hogarth

When Markos Moulitsas asked me to review his new book, (after I had reviewed his two earlier ones), he said he had the most fun writing it. And it’s abundantly clear why. American Taliban hit the bookstores yesterday, and it’s a very entertaining and enjoyable read. The founder of Daily Kos is now a well-known personality, and his new book reads very much like he speaks – and blogs.

My one major criticism is that it reads too much like a blog – with over-the-top rhetoric that is not appropriate for a 233-page book with a serious message. But that should not deflect from Moulitsas’ thesis – which is powerful and devastating. Despite all the ranting right-wingers make about “terrorists” and how much they accuse liberals of being “un-American,” their worldview has far more in common with Islamic fundamentalism – from a violent jingoism, to the treatment of gays and women, to a rejection of science. American Taliban is a much-needed dose of reality for the upcoming election, as Republicans magnify the non-issue of a proposed Islamic community center in Manhattan.

By Patrick Porgans of Planetary Solutionaries and author Lloyd Carter

The Golden State’s agricultural earnings have reached historic highs during the so-called three-year drought.

According to U.S. Department of Agriculture, (USDA), California’s cash receipts from crop and livestock sales, in billions of dollars, are as follows: 2009- $34.841; 2008- $38.407; 2007- $36.386; 2006- $31.426; 2005 - $32.4; 2004- $30.939; 2003- $28.232; 2002- $26.544; 2000 - $26.206; and 2000- $25.185.

California’s Governor Schwarzenegger, state water officials, 60 Minutes’ Leslie Stahl, and Fox Cable TV host Sean Hannity, were among those espousing their “Dust Bowl” drought rhetoric for the past three years, depicting images or fallow fields, orchards being ripped out and projections of the state’s agricultural industry going under. It appears their doomsday predictions were all wet.