R-ISLANDER

UNITED HEALTH CAUGHT STEALING FROM PENSION FUNDS

OUR HEALTH COVERAGE VENDOR is one of those MANY corporate giants who like steal...now they are paying millions in fines.  Gee, I wonder why our costs for health coverage go up?  Do you think it might be to pay fines such as this?  This system sucks ... ...eggs.  In the era of corporatism, ballooning since 9/11, we have a government that protects these robbers while we continue to pay higher and higher costs for health coverage.  I once thought that Obama and previously Hillary might do something about this...but lately, Obama seems to be moving to a position on the political spectrum that continues to protect these insurance scam artists and at our expense.  John McCain is even worse. 

 

NEWS ALERT
from The Wall Street Journal

July 2, 2008

UnitedHealth reached a $895 million settlement with California Public Employees' Retirement System and Alaska Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry Pension Trust in a federal securities class-action lawsuit related to stock-options backdating.

The health-insurance titan was one of the largest corporations to become ensnared in the backdating scandal, in which dozens of companies manipulated the dates that options were awarded, in order to give recipients a chance to reap additional compensation.

UnitedHealth also scaled back its earnings forecasts for 2008.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, please see: http://www.wsj.com?mod=djemalertNEWS

URI ENDS ARTS AND MUSIC PROGRAMS FOR CARCIERI BUDGET

The Projo this A.M. has an article that criticizes, rightfully so, the decision by URI to cut the art galleries and the Great Performances series.  Both are vital to a well rounded undergraduate education...now they've cut sports that undergraduates can really participate in, but not the Big Daddy of the money--users on this campus...Football and Basketball.  I love football, but let's get our priorities straight...keep the art galleries, the great performance series, and those sports that undergraduates can actually expect to join and cut just a small percentage of football and basketball funding to keep them...here's the link to the article critical of URI and its position on the arts, music, and sports.  Actually the Basketball and Football programs should themselves offer up part of their budgets to protect the art galleries and Great Performances.  It would speak well of their concern for the education of undergraduates...How about it guys?????

Rhode Island Children Thrown to the Wolves

Today it is reported that the state budget built by Gov. Don Carcieri, tweaked by Rep. Steve Costantino, and passed by a so-called Democratic legislature has thrown RI Children to the wolves...the first to feel the cuts in state services are over a thousand poor, needy children.  They chose to kill medical services so that they could preserve the tax cuts for RI's richest citizens.  SHAME....

Here's how today's story reads:

Some, in fact, are very sick children. Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island, the HMO that cares for about 60 percent of RIte Care enrollees, including 50,000 children, has tallied the number of its patients who were affected by the RIte Care change. Among those dropped from RIte Care are 54 children with asthma, 50 with attention deficit disorder and eight with diabetes. One is in the midst of treatment for bone cancer and has already lost a leg. One needs a ventilator to breathe and is currently living at the state-run Tavares Center. Several have cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, depression or sickle cell anemia.

What will happen to them? “I don’t know,” said Dr. Mack Johnston, the plan’s chief medical officer. “We are kidding ourselves if we think there’s somebody out there, some charitable pots of money, that’s going to pick up the responsibility. … The bottom line is that many will get sicker.”

And over 500 corporations don't pay any RI tax or less than $400.  Where is the compassion in that?  Where is the social justice?  Were are Catholic values?  Fight abortion and then when the poor children get sick...IGNORE them...cut their medical support...shame, shame, shame....

VOTE OBAMA???

It has been an exciting primary season.  The first woman to run for the presidency (not withstanding Margaret Chase Smth who was nominated for a laugh by the Reps.)!  The first African American to get the democratic nomination for the presidency!

 

Those of us who were supporting Hillary Clinton for the nomination...in the face of unbelievable sexism will now support the other good candidate in the run, Sen. Barack Obama.

 

He is a good man, open to the idea of helping us get universal healthcare, lowering taxes for the poor and working classes, the middle class, the retired.  His agenda is the reason most Americans should vote for him in november.  He wants to end the killing in

Iraq

finally, while McCain wants a socalled "victory"--after 100 years...

 

McCain on the other hand will continue the Bush War in

Iraq

.  I war we were lied to about by Bush/Cheney.  McCain admits he knows nothing about the economy and the economy is tanking.  Why would a voter make his X for a man who admits he doesn't know how to improve our economic plight?

 

Anyone who was supporting Hillary, as I was, and doesn't vote for Barack, is a fool.  Hillary knows that...Obama is the by-far preferred candidate for all of interested in those issues she talked about:  ending the war, healthcare for every american, improving our image in the world, improving our desperate economic condition....

 

LIKE ME, I HOPE EVERYONE WILL VOTE FOR OBAMA.  HE HAS THE AGENDA WE WANT AND NEED.  The first African American president!!!  How exciting is that??????

ORGANIZED LABOR IS IN TROUBLE IN THE OCEAN STATE

The Democratic Legislature in RI now supports cutting benefits for unionized workers. And a growing chorus of critics — Governor Carcieri among them — blames unions, at least in part, for the state’s mounting fiscal problems.

Organized labor is in trouble in the Ocean State.

There is no crisis.  It is just that the Democrats in the legislature fell for the Governor's theory that all we need to do is cut taxes for the rich.  Democrats privileging the richest among us at the expense of the working man, higher property taxes, and the poor.

How is that for a sad situation?  Time to rethink who is supporting the agenda most effective for the working and middle classes and see which legislators are voting Republican even tho they call themselves Democrats.

Democans..that is what we can call them...these Judas'.  RAISE THE TAXES....

IT IS TIME RHODE ISLAND--SAME SEX MARRIAGE

The California courts said bans against same sex marriage is unconstitutional and permits California to join our sister state of Massachusetts in marrying same sex couples.  Here's a piece of the decision:

The California Supreme Court has overturned the state's ban on same-sex marriage in a 4-3 decision. The opinion is lengthy, and I'm just getting through it, but here's an excerpt: "Furthermore, in contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual’s sexual orientation — like a person’s race or gender — does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights. We therefore conclude that in view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship, the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples."

Maybe this decision by one of the country's most prestigious courts will convince an otherwise disappointing Democratic legislature here in Rhode Island to give the "okay" to same sex marriage in Rhode Island.

WHERE IS JACK REED? ALL RI WANTS TO KNOW

All the other RI super delegates have made their choice.  RI went overwhelmingly for Hillary...NOT OBAMA...why isn't Jack Reed backing the citizens of RI and endorsing Hillary Clinton?  Come on Jack...Obama may get the nomination, but it is not over yet....ENDORSE HILLARY....

MORE DETERMINED THAN EVER FOR HILLARY

Wherever Hillary leads, like millions of other Americans, I will follow.  I will vote for Obama if he makes the nomination grade and if she indicates i should. 

A sure vote from me for Obama is if Hillary is VP on the Democratic ticket.  The Super Delegates must know that and should be moving the senator from Illinois in that direction.

If Hillary is not the VP choice and she wants it, and Obama doesn't give the "ok"...I'll need to rethink my support for whomever the Democratic nominee is...

It is time to wed Hillary's experience and Obama's call for change...if it doesn't happen, many democrats like me will not be happy and very disappointed that this woman who gets more of the popular vote is denied her rightful place as the vp candidate if not the candidate for my party.....

RI STATE BUDGET: OTHER TRUTHS

Here are some truths about the budget we are not hearing in RI: (from URI economist R. McIntyre)

It is true that health care costs, pension costs, and education spending,
especially on special ed, have risen in RI (and nationally). But the attention
to these issues in the media is way out of line with their relative
importance. Consider the following, all taken from Tom Sgouras's wonderful
publication, "Rhode Island Policy reporter" (www.whatcheer.net):

Corporate taxes have declined from 14% of the general
revenue in 1990 to less than 7% today. In today's
dollars, this is around $200 million in lost revenue.

We've cut the capital gains tax twice at a cost of about $40 million.

The personal income tax was cut 9% between 1997
and 2002, costing us about $110 million this year.

The phaseout of the car tax is costing $140 million
this year.

We've cut taxes on the richest taxpayers to a degree
that will eventually cost us $100 million.

So as the governor, the supposedly democratic legislature, and the supposedly
independent media, tell their story as if it were the only truth, there are
certainly others.

PENSIONERS AND POOR CHILDREN ARE DESTROYING RHODE ISLAND

Yes, the problem with the RI budget problems and we do have those, are the pensioners and poor children.  That's what Sen. Stephen Alves, Senate finance chair, URI Professor Maureen Moakley, and RI rich kid and corp. executive John Hazen White, Jr. (wearing all his gold "bling" to make sure we know he's "cool" and he's rich) said this morning on PBS' "Lively Experiment".

Imagine.  These people all think it is a hard thing to do, that is cutting services and pensions of RI's neediest, but they are advocating, indeed proposed, that we do it.  Hazen White was beside himself praising Carcieri and the Democratic legislature coming together to finally screw children and pensioners and balancing the budget on their backs rather than raise taxes...on corporations.

Even Alves noted that there are HUNDREDS of RI corporations making profits of over $10M per year who pay the minimum tax of $500.00.  Yet these people pass laws (Alves) or support passing laws (Moakley, Layman, Hazen White of Tacky, Inc.) that will reduce pensions for pensioners and cut THOUSANDS of poor children from the RI Ritecare (health insurance) roles.

RI constituencies, voters, unions, Hispanics, academics (Hazen White flaunts his money by donating to places like URI), public workers, and firefighters and policemen ( whom this group of VERY UNREPRESENTATIVE Rhode Islanders attack unmercifully as underserving of pensions and health care they negotiated in good faith with the state and or cities and towns) should come out in force to make sure they are all "thanked" for their concern about our first defenders and Rhode Island's working classes and the poorest of our children.

What is wrong with these people?  Heartless ... what is government for anyway, if not to help those in need...and yet they support corporations and the state's wealthiest by cutting their taxes and adding to the burdens of our citizens...who actually work for a living.