Breast Pumps Not Covered Under Health Care, But Denture Adhesive Is & more stupid ass crap in the USA

• Breast Pumps Not Covered Under Health Care, But Denture Adhesive Is: “Another way that the new and improved health care system has hung women out to dry. Thanks to health care reform, individuals can now take care of personal health needs with IRS-sheltered flex accounts. Unless they’re breast-feeding moms. While the accounts cover things like denture adhesive, acne medication, and astroturf for allergy-prone kids, they exclude breast pumps, a groundbreaking innovation which has allowed countless working moms to feed their infants healthy breast milk.”

• Media Matters: The real story of the 2010 election: ” By most accounts, the Democrats stand to lose seats in both the House and Senate this coming Tuesday. There are, of course, a wide range of explanations for why this is the case. However, in endeavoring to explain how the GOP has seemingly managed to reverse its political fortunes in such a short amount of time, media outlets would be remiss not to mention one of the most important factors. In fact, we don’t need to wait for Tuesday’s results to pinpoint perhaps the most significant development in the country’s political landscape over the past two years. One of the two major political parties in the country is run by a “news” network.”

• Just Some Actions From the “Right” (Source: People For the American Way):

In Kentucky a campaign supporter of Senate candidate Rand Paul’s knocked a woman to the cement, and stomped on her head, landing her in the hospital with a concussion and multiple sprains.

In Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller’s paramilitary security team manhandled, handcuffed, and illegally detained a journalist who was trying to ask the candidate a question.

In Florida a violent motorcycle gang was hired by Republican Congressional candidate Allen West, leading to the harassment and bullying of Democratic staffer attempting to video a public event.

• Why Conservative Women Like Sarah Palin and Christine O’Donnell Are Giant Hypocrites: “There is a huge double standard for Sarah Palin and the “Mama Grizzlies” between the policies they want to impose on other women and the choices they want for themselves.”

• One factor will determine the outcome on Nov. 2: Who votes. That’s why Presente.org and ColorOfChange.org teamed up to make this video, reminding us of all the people who will be going to the polls on Tuesday — and why you should be one of them:

• Rightwing Multi-Millionaires Seek Take-over of Congress: “An activist group called SpeechNow.Org is running ads against Senator Russ Feingold. It blames him for the deficit and claims that clean election laws he spearheaded are “attacking free speech.” But who’s really behind SpeechNow’s folksy, cartoon attack ads? The Money Bags: One funder is multi-millionaire Fred Young, the heir of the Young Radiator fortune in Racine. He sold his Wisconsin company for over $70 million in 1998 to a group that quickly merged with Wabtec Corporation, a multinational with a history of outsourcing jobs to make goods in China and elsewhere. But even before Young sold the company, he worked to ship well-paying Wisconsin jobs out of state. Back in 1991, Young Radiator closed its Racine plant and fired 120 Wisconsin workers in order to boost his profits by outsourcing work to Iowa and Tennessee plants that did not give union-negotiated benefits. Young donated over $100,000 last month to fund attacks against Feingold, constituting the bulk of the funding. With millions in profits from helping to sell out Wisconsin’s industrial base and time on his hands, Young has become involved in Washington, D.C.-based groups, like SpeechNow.”

• How Tea Party Candidates Like Joe Miller and Rand Paul Benefit From Armed, Right-Wing Militia Groups: “Conservative candidates walk a fine line between getting the political support of militias, while avoiding charges of extremism unpalatable to the mainstream. Throughout the election, members of Alaska’s Citizen Militia have rallied behind Tea Party-backed GOP nominee Joe Miller. They’ve shown up at his town hall meetings, and posted “Vote for Miller” signs around town. Norm Olson, a prominent Michigan militia leader in the ’90s who now commands Alaska’s militia, explains they have to walk a tightrope. “If we put on uniforms and do a parade, it might look like 1936 Germany,” Olson told AlterNet. They avoid “stomping around in uniform” under their militia banner.”

• America’s Army, A Tale Of Misuse And Abuse: “American troops, raring to go, punish the terrorists, find the weapons of mass destruction, root Al Qaeda out of Iraq are older now, wiser, many are dead, hundreds of thousands damaged, many beyond repair and most of all, they feel exploited, misused and abused. American troops didn’t sign up to be part of a force of occupation, there is no honor in that.  A key component, in fact the primary component of these “wars” has been “counter-insurgency” or “irregular warfare” or whatever buzzword the Pentagon is using today to describe people fighting against Americans exactly the same way Americans fought against the British at Lexington and Concord.  If the Minutemen had IEDs and RPGs, they would have used them and been seen as heroes for it.  Anyone who thinks our own troops aren’t faced by this irony on a daily basis are underestimating their intellect.”

• The Supreme Court Sold Out Our Democracy — How to Fight the Corporate Takeover of Our Elections: “The history of corruption that led up to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling. Election 2010 is being fought on a wave of campaign dollars unleashed on the American people by the Supreme Court in its Citizens United v. FEC decision. The court, led by a majority of staunch right-wingers, struck down limits on third-party “electioneering” ads based on a tortured interpretation of the First Amendment guarantee of free speech. Thomas Mann, a Brookings Institution scholar, wrote that the decision “will likely go down in history as one of the Supreme Court’s most egregious exercises of judicial activism.“ Rep. Peter Fazio, D-Oregon, told the Huffington Post last week that “the Supreme Court has done a tremendous disservice to the United States of America… They have done more to undermine our democracy with their Citizens United decision than all of the Republican operatives in the world in this campaign.” DeFazio said he is “investigating articles of impeachment” against Chief Justice John Roberts for committing perjury when he promised he wouldn’t be a judicial activist during his Senate confirmation hearings.”

• U.S. Army says: It’s not war; the “risky behavior” of our troops at home drives them to suicide (Source: Army Searching for Suicide Prevention Program)
  

• Irrational Anger vs. Courage: Tiller Documentary Showed Faces of “Culture Wars” : “Rachel Maddow’s documentary, “The Assassination of Dr. Tiller,” was a very rare hour of prime-time coverage which was sympathetic to the pro-choice position in “the culture wars.” It accomplished this by attempting to clearly show how extremists on the anti-choice fringe choose to make those culture wars, as Maddow herself put it, into an actual war by turning their rhetoric into violence–or more perniciously by allowing more deranged members of their movement to do their violence for them.”

• Monsanto and Agent Orange Kill On : “For those of you who do not know, Monsanto was not only the largest producer of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, but the components of Agent Orange Monsanto produced are composed of the highest concentration of dioxin – which is one of the deadliest poisons known to man. Monsanto is the maker of Round-up. Monsanto was the maker of Aspartame. Monsanto is now the world’s largest producers of GM (Genetically Modified) seeds in the world.  Aside from trying to play God and manipulating life at its very core, Monsanto strong-arms farmers to buy their seeds, and if they do not, the farmers are sued, taken to court, caused to file bankruptcy – and in the case of India, hundreds have committed suicide as a result.”