AlterPolitics

WATCH: Insurance Company Aetna Sues Out-Of-Network Surgeons For Price Gauging Their Patients By 2,500%

Stan — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:44:48 +0000

Bloomberg reports that health insurer Aetna is now suing seven ‘out-of-network’ California surgery centers, for over-billing them by as much as 2,500% for standard medical procedures. A few examples of the excessive charges include:

$66,000 to treat a bunion (normally costs $3,600),

$56,980 for a ‘bedside consultation,’

$99,750 to get earwax removed,

$119,671 for lower back disc-surgery (normally $6,000)

WATCH:

Click here to view the embedded video.

This serves as a perfect example of how the U.S. ‘for-profit’ healthcare industry price gauges, not only at the payer level, but also at the provider level.

Watch: Dylan Ratigan Blasts Debbie Wasserman-Schultz For Spinning Health Care Bill

WATCH: Max Blumenthal Discusses Israel And The American Elections

Stan — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:02:15 +0000

Max Blumenthal discusses the significant roles several key right-wing, pro-Israel political donors have played, and continue to play, in American elections:

On Haim Saban:

He got rich with this show Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and now he has established an entire, you know, wing within the establishment, the major establishment think tank in Washington, Brookings Institute.

He funded the construction of the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters.

He was the largest individual donor to President Bill Clinton and came forward to support Clinton’s campaign during the impeachment crisis. He was the largest individual donor, I think, to President Barack Obama’s campaign. And Haim Saban says he’s also a donor to the Israeli army. Every year he gives millions of dollars to the Friends of the IDF. And Saban has said, I’m a single issue guy; my issue is Israel. He is funding the Democratic Party to make sure that the Democratic Party remains in the pro-Israel camp.

On Sheldon Adelson:

He’s sort of just like the Jewish Donald Trump. He got into Israel after he broke up with his first wife. He had a divorce, and he decided that he wanted to meet Israeli women. And he’s sort of a hovercraft elite who can go around the world and pretty much get whatever he wants. So he went to Israel and met a woman who is extremely right-wing, became his wife, and she’s pumping money into Gingrich’s campaign. And now Adelson has said, according to Gingrich, that his life’s mission is supporting Israel. And he’s one of the key donors to the Republican Party, as well as to the Israel lobby.

WATCH:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Transcript

Gallup Poll: More Americans Identify As ‘Independent’ Than At Any Time In Over Sixty Years

Stan — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:07:24 +0000

A new Gallup poll helps to quantify the American electorate’s increasing disenchantment with the nation’s two-party electoral system.

Gallup has been polling Americans’ political identification for over 60 years, and for the first time a staggering 40% of all Americans now identify as Independent, versus 31% who identify as Democrat, and 27% who identify as Republican.

Fourteen percent of those who identify as independents reported leaning to the Left, whereas eighteen percent reported leaning to the right.

At a time of near-unprecedented economic turbulence, and when more Americans feel negative towards their government than at any other time in history, there appears to be a real opportunity for a Third Party to enter the fold and to offer the country real solutions that neither of the two major parties appear capable of delivering.

Mossad Frames The C.I.A. For Terrorist Attacks In Iran, As Israel Drags The U.S. Into War

Stan — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 20:06:23 +0000

Despite what has been described as a full-court press by the Obama Administration to convince Israel not to attack Iran, the Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. is now in fact preparing for such an attack.

The Administration fears a range of possible Iranian reprisals directed at American targets, including “assaults by pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq against the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, according to U.S. officials.”

As a deterrence, the U.S. has deployed 15,000 troops to Kuwait, and has now ordered a second aircraft carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf.

The Obama Administration had most recently begun to engage in a more diplomatic tact with Iran, hoping to diffuse the situation:

The U.S. and Iran, however, have taken steps in recent days apparently designed to ease tensions. Iran has agreed to host a delegation of United Nations nuclear inspectors this month. The U.S., meanwhile, has twice this month rescued Iranian sailors in the region’s seas.

But today, The Guardian reports that Iran’s Foreign Ministry sent a diplomatic letter to the Obama Administration citing “evidence and reliable information” that C.I.A. agents provided “guidance, support and planning” to those who lobbed a magnetic bomb at the car of 32-year old Iranian nuclear scientist, Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, killing him in Wednesday morning’s rush-hour traffic.

The U.S. not only denies the charges, it has forcefully condemned the civilian assassination:

The assassination drew an unusually strong condemnation from the White House and the State Department, which disavowed any American complicity. The statements by the United States appeared to reflect serious concern about the growing number of lethal attacks, which some experts believe could backfire by undercutting future negotiations and prompting Iran to redouble what the West suspects is a quest for a nuclear capacity.

“The United States had absolutely nothing to do with this,” said Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared to expand the denial beyond Wednesday’s killing, “categorically” denying “any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran.”

“We believe that there has to be an understanding between Iran, its neighbors and the international community that finds a way forward for it to end its provocative behavior, end its search for nuclear weapons and rejoin the international community,” Mrs. Clinton said.

The Israelis have not denied their own involvement. The Israeli Defense Force Spokesman stated on Facebook, as reported by ABC: ”I don’t know who settled the score with the Iranian Scientist, but I am certainly not shedding a tear.”

A bombshell story broke yesterday, written by Mark Perry for Foreign Policy Magazine, which appears to shed light on these assassinations, as well as the Iranians’ insistence the C.I.A. was involved.

It reveals that the Israeli Mossad, has been engaged in a false-flag operation, in which they posed as C.I.A. agents right “under the nose of U.S. intelligence officers, most notably in London,” and recruited members of the anti-Iran militant group, Jundallah, to commit terrorist attacks against the Persian nation. Jundallah, a Pakistan-based Sunni terror group, “according to the U.S. government and published reports, is responsible for assassinating Iranian government officials and killing Iranian women and children.”

The revelations in Perry’s article were garnered from a series of C.I.A. memos, written in the final years of the Bush Administration. These memos show that U.S. intelligence officials were barred from “even the most incidental contact with Jundallah, …[though] the same was not true for Israel’s Mossad.” The U.S. intelligence community was described as “stunned by the brazenness of the Mossad’s efforts.”

These intelligence memos found their way to the highest levels of the Bush Administration, who became infuriated that their supposed ally was putting American lives at risk:

According to one retired CIA officer, information about the false-flag operation was reported up the U.S. intelligence chain of command. It reached CIA Director of Operations Stephen Kappes, his deputy Michael Sulick, and the head of the Counterintelligence Center. All three of these officials are now retired. The Counterintelligence Center, according to its website, is tasked with investigating “threats posed by foreign intelligence services.”

The report then made its way to the White House, according to the currently serving U.S. intelligence officer. The officer said that Bush “went absolutely ballistic” when briefed on its contents.

“The report sparked White House concerns that Israel’s program was putting Americans at risk,” the intelligence officer told me. “There’s no question that the U.S. has cooperated with Israel in intelligence-gathering operations against the Iranians, but this was different. No matter what anyone thinks, we’re not in the business of assassinating Iranian officials or killing Iranian civilians.”

Israel’s relationship with Jundallah continued to roil the Bush administration until the day it left office, this same intelligence officer noted. Israel’s activities jeopardized the administration’s fragile relationship with Pakistan, which was coming under intense pressure from Iran to crack down on Jundallah. It also undermined U.S. claims that it would never fight terror with terror, and invited attacks in kind on U.S. personnel.

“It’s easy to understand why Bush was so angry,” a former intelligence officer said. “After all, it’s hard to engage with a foreign government if they’re convinced you’re killing their people. Once you start doing that, they feel they can do the same.”

As furious as the Bush Administration and the Intelligence Community became with its largest foreign aid recipient, they feared political backlash by the Israel Lobby, and thus, did absolutely nothing:

A senior administration official vowed to “take the gloves off” with Israel, according to a U.S. intelligence officer. But the United States did nothing — a result that the officer attributed to “political and bureaucratic inertia.”

“In the end,” the officer noted, “it was just easier to do nothing than to, you know, rock the boat.”

Had they actually exposed the Israeli false-flag op, we wouldn’t have Iran — now on war-footing — blaming the C.I.A. for aiding and abetting terrorist bombings which continue to target their civilians.

An unnamed Senior Israeli government official, today, issued a statement to Ha’aretz, calling the U.S. intelligence report “absolute nonsense.” But in 2010, the Mossad was exposed for conducting similar false-flag operations against their European allies, when they assassinated a Hamas member in Dubai, while using forged passports from various European countries and Australia.

With all of this now out in the open, it should come as no surprise that a recent internal C.I.A. poll revealed U.S. intelligence officials consider Israeli spies to be the very worst U.S. allies — dead last on the list — among friendly spy services.

WATCH: The Go-Betweens Perform “Streets of Your Town”

Stan — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 20:17:32 +0000

In 1977, in Brisbane, Australia, songwriters Robert Forster and Grant McLennan — two Queensland University students enamored with the U.S. punk scene — met and formed The Go-Betweens.

Over the course of ten years, the band released a succession of memorable albums, culminating in their final LP for the 80′s era, 16 Lover’s Lane (released in 1988 by Beggars Banquet Records).

Their music has been described as something “Lou Reed could have written if he had fallen for Brian Wilson, not David Bowie.” (The Guardian)

The band called it quits shortly after 16 Lover’s Lane, and would remain apart until 2000, when Forster and McLennan reformed the group. Their 2005 release, Oceans Apart, duly won the ARIA award for “Best Adult Contemporary Album,” and garnered a five-star rating from Mojo Magazine.

On May 6, 2006, Grant McLennan died from a heart attack, which effectively ended The Go-Betweens. Robert Forster continues to record and perform to critical acclaim as a solo artist.

The single, “Streets of Your Town,” from 1988′s 16 Lover’s Lane, is perhaps one of the band’s most recognized songs. It became their biggest chart hit to date in both the UK and Australia, mixing upbeat guitar rhythms with lyrics that shift between ‘dreamy’ to lights-out-dark.

Filmed on the streets of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, here is the video for “Streets of Your Town.”

ENJOY:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The following are links for those interested in downloading the final two releases of The Go-Betweens (Oceans Apart, and their live CD/DVD release That Striped Sunlight Sound), as well as Robert Forster’s 2008 release, The Evangelist, all at YepRoc Records.

Green Party Presidential Candidate Jill Stein Addresses The 5 Most Important Issues Facing The U.S.

Stan — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 23:05:35 +0000

On October 24, at the historic State House in Boston, The Green Party’s Dr. Jill Stein announced her candidacy for President of the United States. She is running as the alternative to the two ‘Wall Street’ parties that have remained steadfast in selling out the interests of the American people for the enrichment of the corporatocracy.

A couple months before her Presidential announcement, Dr. Stein was asked to identify five pressing issues facing our nation, and how she would resolve them as President of the United States:

Jobs:

CREATE JOBS THROUGH A GREEN NEW DEAL – an emergency program to achieve full employment and jump start a green economic recovery. This would provide a Manhattan Project/WWII scale mobilization to transition to clean renewables and related green sectors of the economy (including local food and recycling manufacturing) to avert climate catastrophe while achieving energy independence, improving trade balances and meeting urgent transportation, energy, housing and environmental infrastructure needs for the 21st century.

It will be funded by taxing the rich and large corporations, through trillion dollar savings from single payer health care and the associated reduction of health care inflation, and through downsizing the bloated military.

The Green New Deal will get economic help directly to people – and end the Obama/Bush trickle-down philosophy that forces ordinary people to subsidize the massive transfer of wealth and power to the super-rich.

Restoring the American Dream:

The Green New Deal will include an ECONOMIC BILL OF RIGHTS, including the right to living wage jobs, health care, quality education, retirement security, and affordable housing.

Endless Wars:

PEACE NOW – End the needless wars that have drained America of the resources we need to fund our communities. Bring the troops and war dollars home now. Reduce the bloated military budget to provide defense not empire building.

Imperiled U.S. Democracy & Civil Liberties:

RESCUE DEMOCRACY — Restore our freedom of political expression, our imperiled civil liberties, and protections from government surveillance by the swollen Homeland Security complex.

End the hijacking of political speech by the biggest spender, (resulting from the Citizens United and Buckley v Valeo supreme court decisions).

Create real freedom of political expression, full public participation, and informed voter choice – free from fear and intimidation – at the polls through policy reforms including: publicly funded elections, free access to public airwaves for all legitimate candidates, instant runoff voting and proportional representation, fair ballot access for all political parties and candidates, safeguards against electronic election fraud, and an end to voter suppression schemes, the corporate-electoral revolving door, and rampant influence-peddling by lobbyists.

Health Care:

SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE (improved Medicare-for-all) to provide quality, comprehensive health care to all as a human right.

Single payer saves money by ending the 30% administrative overhead of private insurance and by controlling the runaway health care inflation that is bankrupting families, business, and all levels of government. And it puts an end to insurance company meddling in personal health care decisions and choice of doctor.

For those who wish to learn more about Dr. Stein’s policy positions, she did a Q&A session this week with the CA Independent Voter Network, where she expounds on her vision for a new America. In the interview, she addresses the importance of the Occupy Wall Street movement, the commonalities between the Green Party and the Ron Paul wing of the Tea Party, RomneyCare and ObamaCare, how Bush and Obama have egregiously abused their executive powers, and how both Presidents have violated our civil liberties in ways that signal the beginnings of a ‘proto-fascist state.’

More information on Jill Stein can be found on her website, and by following her on Twitter.

WATCH: Press Corps Hammers U.S. State Dept Spokesperson On U.S. Impotence In Middle East

Stan — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:00:09 +0000

This U.S. State Department press briefing exemplifies how the United States’ foreign policy in the Middle East is both nonsensical and indefensible.

State Dept. Spokesperson Victoria Nuland (the wife of Neocon Robert Kagan) could not give a sound and plausible answer to a single question she fielded. The press corp questions continued to come back to one central theme: Why is the U.S. impotent in its ability to influence Israel to stop its illegal settlement expansions, and to engage with the Palestinians for peace, when it gives this tiny country $3 billion per year in military aid — which could clearly be used to pressure them?

Two reporters asked her outright if the Israel Lobby’s influence, as it pertains to President Obama’s 2012 reelection prospects, has made it impossible for the United States to act as an honest broker in the ‘peace process.’

One reporter, when referring to U.S. legislation which automatically defunded UNESCO this week for accepting Palestine as a member, thus harming America’s own national security interests in the process, asked Nuland about the lobbying required to force Congress to change the two laws:

Does the Administration find it unpalatable that it has to go to another government [Israel], to other government officials, to lobby members of its own legislature?

WATCH:

TRANSCRIPT

How The U.S. Has Undermined Its Own Vital Interests To Appease Israel At The UN

Stan — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:13:03 +0000

Yesterday, the Palestinians’ bid for full membership at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was approved by a vote of 107-14, with 52 abstentions.

This move will help to prevent the Palestinians’ cultural-heritage sites and artifacts from being plundered, as Israel continues its efforts to Judaize the occupied territory.

But what might come as a surprise to many in the United States, is that the U.S. Congress created virtual ‘UN poison pills’ in past legislation that automatically damages the U.S.’s own strategic interests the moment Palestinians gain membership at any UN agency:

Legislation dating from 1990 and 1994 mandates a complete cutoff of American financing to any United Nations agency that accepts the Palestinians as a full member. State Department lawyers judged that there was no leeway in the legislation, and no possibility of a waiver, so the United States contribution for 2011 and future years will not be paid.

This means the U.S. (as confirmed by the State Department) will withhold its $80 million annual commitment to UNESCO’s funding (with a $60 million portion of this total being stopped immediately). The U.S. is responsible for 22% of the organization’s total funding.

The Palestinians are reported to be seeking membership in other UN organizations as well, which too would face U.S. funding cuts. These include: UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), World Health Organization (WHO), International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and others.

How will this damage U.S. strategic interests?

President of the UN Foundation and former U.S. Senator (D-CO) Timothy Wirth writes that the U.S. will lose its leverage over these international bodies, and with it, the ability to advance America’s interests and ideals around the world. He believes some of America’s global rivals might even volunteer to cover America’s reneged financial commitments, filling its leadership void in the process.

Sen. Wirth explains the significance of UNESCO’s work:

To Americans, UNESCO is best known for designating World Heritage Sites. It also leads global efforts to bring clean water to the poor, promotes educational and curriculum building in the developing world, and manages a tsunami early warning system in the Pacific, among other important tasks. This critical work would be jeopardized if UNESCO’s top funder stops paying its bills.

UNESCO’s director general, Irena Bokova, reveals that the U.S. funding cut will directly impact America’s security interests in Afghanistan and Iraq, where UNESCO is ”helping governments and communities prepare for life after the withdrawal of U.S. military forces.”

Sen. Wirth details how U.S. economic interests abroad will be negatively impacted when it cuts its funding for WIPO:

This is a lesser known UN agency that serves American businesses and brands by setting global standards for copyrights and adjudicating cross border patent disputes. In the last year alone, dozens of major American companies brought cases before WIPO — the American Automobile Association, Apple, The North Face, Costco and Facebook to name just a few. If Palestine joins WIPO, the United States will have to pull out, limiting its ability to steer policies in ways that advance American economic interests and create jobs here at home.

He explains how IAEA is critical to U.S. national security interests:

In recent years the IAEA has been a critical part of American attempts to constrain the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea. In 2006, the Bush administration successfully lobbied other members of the IAEA executive board to refer Iran’s nuclear program to the Security Council for sanctions. Should the United States stop paying membership dues to the IAEA–which it could be forced to do under current legislation if Palestine is admitted as a member — the United States would give up our vote on the executive board. It would literally lose a seat at the table during the next nuclear crisis.

And he stresses the importance of WHO:

The WHO works closely with the United States–particularly the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — to keep infectious diseases like the Avian Flu from reaching our shores. If the Palestinians are admitted to the WHO, that cooperation would have to stop under the current law.

Here is the irony: These legislative ‘poison pills,’ so harmful to U.S. interests, were passed entirely for the benefit of Israel, and yet Israel has no similar legislation of its own to trigger a cut in funding for UNESCO (Israel contributes 3% of the organization’s funding). In fact, while U.S. international interests have been marred by this automatic funding cut, Israel is rationally mulling over what it might do. Because, of course, only a fool would rush to action, and risk harming his own vital interests in the process.

When the U.S. State Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland was asked why the Administration felt it was even necessary to vote against this Palestinian membership bid at UNESCO, she stated that it undermines the ‘peace process.’

The peace process?

The U.S.-lead Israeli-Palestinian peace process was effectively buried in December 2010 after Benjamin Netanyahu refused Obama’s unprecedented offer of an additional $3B in military aid, plus a guarantee that the U.S. would veto any UN Security Council Resolutions against Israel for 1 year, regardless of what Israel might do; all this for a mere 3-month extension of a partial moratorium on Israel’s illegal settlement expansions.

This rejection made it clear to the entire world that Israel has no intentions of ever ceding any part of the occupied territories to the Palestinians to foment peace. No one, outside the Obama Administration, pretends the U.S.-led Middle East peace process is still a legitimate undertaking. Yet, this is the only excuse the Administration can come up with to explain why it continues to sabotage America’s own vital interests in the name of Israel.

Just as banking lobbyists have seized control of our political establishment, making it impossible for politicians to regulate them, or to hold them to account for bringing the entire U.S. economy to its knees, the Israel Lobby has effectively hijacked our political establishment with regards to U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Will it take an #OccupyAIPAC movement to ensure that U.S. politicians put the national security interests of American citizens — all 100% of us — above the interests of a foreign country?

VP and Assist. General Counsel Of NY Times: How Can Corporations Blacklist WikiLeaks, But Not The NY Times?

Stan — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:17:54 +0000

At the ‘Media Law in the Digital Age‘ conference at Kennesaw State University last weekend, the Vice President and General Counsel of the New York Times, David McGraw, addressed the disturbing trend in which private for-profit corporations have been doing governments’ bidding by shutting down publishers like WikiLeaks:

Lucy Dalglish, Exec. Dir. RCFP: Even organizations like WikiLeaks need money to survive, and one of the reactions wasn’t so much the governments trying to shut them down, but the vehicles by which they got their funding have tried to shut them down: Paypal, Amazon, Visa, all of these folks, have basically said “We don’t want to have anything to do with you.”

And my understanding is that WikiLeaks has been suffering because of that. Do you have any thoughts about basically good old fashioned Capitalism having a role in whether or not the public gets access to this information?

McGraw: … It is a hard question, but a very very troubling development that people who are private actors on the financial side are going to be making these decisions. Whether its Mastercard and Visa cutting off donations; whether it’s Amazon shutting people out of the cloud — preventing access to books they disapprove of — if they were to go down that route.

Unfortunately, at this point, it is legal for them to do that, it appears — absent some restraint on trade concerns which haven’t surfaced — for them to make that decision. I think it puts a great deal of power in the hands of people who — while they probably have cash registers for brains, as Russell Baker once said — that making that call is, putting that power in their hands, is troubling.

It’s odd of course, and WikiLeaks was quick to point this out, that while Amazon is throwing them off of their server storage and asking them to find a home elsewhere, that they continue to offer the New York Times through Kindle. How do they justify the difference between those two things when both were publishing these documents? I don’t know what the answer is, but I do think it raises a scary proposition when private companies not in the publishing industry, not part of the marketplace of ideas, are controlling that marketplace.

WATCH:

Click here to view the embedded video.

WATCH: The Origins Of #OccupyWallStreet: An Interview With Adbusters’ Micah White

Stan — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 05:35:56 +0000

For those wondering how the revolutionary #OccupyWallStreet movement — which now spans the entire globe — came into being, look no further than Vancouver’s activist magazine & website, Adbusters, and its Senior Editor, Micah White.

In this interview, White discusses the movement’s origins, its leaderless (general assembly) decision-making model — vital to ensuring it doesn’t get co-opted, and its underlying goal: economic justice.

WATCH:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The original concept behind the #OccupyWallStreet movement, was outlined in a July 13, 2011 Adbusters post entitled: #OCCUPYWALLSTREET: A shift in revolutionary tactics.

This post was followed by a succession of Tweets (the first few shown here) which would go on to “launch a thousand ships:”