According to T.R. Reid of the Frontline show "Sick Around the World," the US's health care system acts—uniquely—as an anti-example:

[FRESH AIR'S TERRY] GROSS: Is that the worst thing that you can say, we're going to institute American-style corporate medicine?

Mr. REID: All over the world, people say that. If you complain about health care, they say, well, you want to move to America? You think that's better?

Link at sig

Now that we've cleared up everything on that front, let's move on to something simple, like health care reform.

Where, um, China is involved as well. This from Ian Welsh back in July:

Why can’t we get a good healthcare bill?

Because the US is a debtor nation, and China isn’t willing to pay for Americans to have healthcare. That’s why it has been declared that the health reform bill must be deficit neutral (or close). On the other hand, since bailing out the financial system meant bailing out the value of a lot of Chinese assets, the Chinese were (grudgingly) willing to go along with that, since they benefited. They do not benefit from Americans getting health care.

Link to the whole post at sig.

I'm with you, NRI1969, on this. What the hell is that purported "rationale" supposed to mean?

That the people who are upset by the idea of investigations and possible prosecutions will be upset by actual investigations and possible prosecutions?

Isn't an orderly administration of justice and the "rule of law" supposed to preclude exactly this type of consideration?

And it's not as if some cost external to the system is being invoked—say, a threatening neighboring power might invade or some mythical giant might be roused from its slumber to attack us—if investigations go forth.

The people who are bizarrely invoking this vacuous cost "rationale" are the very people who would seek to extract the cost—the right-wing and the media: "Nice justice system you have there. Shame if something happened to it."

"Fascist America: Are We There Yet?"

Sara, at Orcinus, takes a look at the work of Robert Paxton, who, she says, "is probably the world's pre-eminent scholar on the subject of how countries turn fascist" and how it relates to what's going on in the US now.

Link at sig

Russell Tice, former intelligence analyst for the National Security Agency, on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on 21 January 2009 [transcript at sig, emphasis added below]:

TICE: Well, I don‘t know what our former president knew or didn‘t know. I‘m sort of down in the weeds. But the National Security Agency had access to all Americans‘ communications, faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications. And that doesn‘t—it didn‘t matter whether you were in Kansas, you know, in the middle of the country, and you never made a communication—foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications.

To damnthatxanadu and im on ur bord:

There is a National Rally for Health Care For All Now on June 25 at the Washington Monument on the National Mall.

http://www.1payer.net/

Link at sig also.

I know nothing more about it than what appears on that site.

Just today I listened to a well-known host (who shall go unamed) on a cable news channel, in response to a remark from his guest about a "single payer system" respond by saying something to the effect of, "Yes, but will Americans really go for socialized medicine like Canada and England?"

The answer to that question for that unnamed, well-known cable news host would be yes.

A poll [link at sig] by the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Harris Interactive a little over a year ago showed that "[a]mong those who say they have at least some understanding of the phrase ["socialized medicine"] (82% of the respondents), a plurality (45%) says such a system would be better [than the current system] while 39 percent say it would be worse. Twelve percent say they do not know and four percent say about the same."

When 49% of Americans say that "socialized medicine" (using that term) would be the same or better than the current system, it is not an enormous leap to a majority, especially when the economic situation has become more dire and more people are losing their health insurance due to unemployment.

And many health care systems in the world, while single-payer, are not even socialized as in the UK. The case for a single-payer health care system, given the mood of the country, would be surprisingly easy to make.

Never forget that, if for some stupid reason, the people CAN re-alter the Constitution to allow for slavery. This country IS set up for rule by the people. The People can always modify the Constitution "at will" with a majority. It is our right.

The California constitution cannot be "revised" without a two-thirds vote of the state legislature. (Presumably, even changing that requirement would require a two-thirds vote of the state legislature as part of the process.) The California constitution can be "amended" by a simple majority vote by the people without a two-thirds vote of the state legislature. Whether the change brought about by Proposition 8 is an amendment (and, therefore, valid) or a revision (and, therefore, invalid) to the California constitution is the key issue (but not the only one) before the California Supreme Court.