YouTube views of Rise of the Tea Bags, as of right now, since we posted it on Wednesday: 3,936 4,711 5,691 6,843 7,851 8,072 10,639 (Be the 4,000th 5,000th 6,000th 7,000th 8,000th 9,000th 11,000th!)

Followers of The BRAD BLOG on Twitter, as of right now: 497 539
(Be the 500th! Thanks to #500, @silver02suby. Be the 600th!)

Cost of national defense authorization bill for 2010 only, as signed by Obama on Wednesday without objection from tea baggers: $680 billion

Approximate cost of proposed U.S. House health insurance bill per year (though not reported this way by media): $90 billion

Cost of U.S. House health insurance bill over next ten years, as always reported by the media and vigorously objected to by tea baggers, despite CBO finding that it will actually reduce the deficit: Just under $900 billion

Approximate cost of defense authorization over next ten years (though never reported this way by media): $7 trillion

Approximate savings to tax-payers from U.S. House health insurance bill over next ten years: $100 billion

People killed by U.S. defense operations each year: n/a

Americans who die for lack of health insurance each year: 45,000

Cost of misplaced tea bagger/media priorities: priceless

Guest editorial by Ernest A. Canning

Last July we reported on a Small Victory for Long-Term Single-Payer Strategy when the "House Labor and Education Committee voted 27 - 19 to adopt an amendment offered by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) to HR 3200, the hybrid 'public option' health care legislation that leaves in place the current multi-payer system. The Kucinich amendment was supported by 13 of the Committee's Republicans. It was opposed by the Committee's chairman, George Miller (D-CA)."

As we noted at the time, "If it survives a House floor vote...the Kucinich amendment would insure that efforts to secure single-payer systems at the state level would not be preempted by federal law." The measure would thus allow advocates of a single-payer health care system to pursue the same local democratic strategy used in Canada, where single-payer was achieved first at the Province level; then extended nationally.

On Thursday, the Pelosi-led House Leadership unveiled their so-called health care "reform" bill which presents an emasculated public insurance option to provide a populist fig-leaf as cover for what David Swanson aptly described as "a catastrophically bad law" and as a "Healthcare Hoax from Hell." Not only does this legislative obscenity permit states to deprive all of their citizens of even this watered-down version by opting out of the public option, but these Democratic "leaders" stripped the Kucinich amendment out of H.R. 3200.

In acting to shield the obscene profits of a handful of insurance cartel CEOs and their Wall Street investors, the Pelosi-led House Leadership has attacked not only basic principles of federalism embodied in the U.S. Constitution but democracy itself. Stripped of the Kucinich amendment, H.R. 3200 would prevent the adoption of state or local single-payer health care systems, even if those systems are overwhelmingly approved by voters by way of initiative or referendum. In the bargain, the insurance cartel would thus be permitted to block state and local efforts to protect the health and very lives of their citizens.

Is this "change we can believe in?"

UPDATE 10/30/09: Appearing on MSNBC's Ed Schultz Show, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) revealed that he and other progressive members of Congress, including John Conyers (D-MI) were attempting to reinstate the Kucinich amendment through a "manager's amendment"; that we should know by Monday whether their effort to restore the only measure for holding the insurance cartel accountable will be included.

The video of that appearance and a list of the "managers" whom concerned citizens can call, follows...

So we went out to Griffith Park out here in L.A. on Sunday to check out the kick-off day for the new "Tea Party Express II" national tour. Thought we might meet some interesting people and file a quick video report. Met a lot of interesting people, and so ended up making a short film of sorts. Enjoy. Spread the word. Go tell the story ("both sides")...

UPDATE 10/29/09: Boy, it's tough to compete with the Tea Baggers in the satire department, even when they're not actually trying to be satirical. As God is my witness, coming to you with a straight face this Thanksgiving --- Tea Party: The Documentary Film!...

UPDATE 11/9/09: As of today, we've had more than 11,000 views of Rise of the Tea Bags at YouTube. By Tea Bagger math, that's more than 3 million views! And yet, the media refuses to report it!!! Also, here's my interview on Air America Radio's Ring of Fire discussing the video...

More details on the ingenious musical outburst, which took place at the American Health Insurance Plan's (AHIP) annual state issues conference in D.C. on Friday, right here...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

Coinciding with an internal Senate Democratic Caucus debate over health care reform that Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) described as only “slightly less raucous than the town hall meetings,” the non-affiliated progressive activist group Democrats.com has launched a petition campaign aimed at curtailing donations to official Democratic fundraising organizations [emphasis in original] until "the Democratic Congress passes --- and President Obama signs --- healthcare reform with a robust public option."

That "robust public option" is defined in the petition as being "based on Medicare rates, not negotiated rates," available "nation-wide, with no state opt-outs," "administered by Medicare, not a for-profit insurance company." and "available immediately."

The idea that the public option would be managed by a private insurance company has recently emerged in reports of Congressional negotiations aimed at merging various versions of the legislation passed by separate committees in the House and Senate, as noted by RAW STORY's John Byrne today.

The progressive activists campaign calls for signatories to respond to requests for donations from the three major Democratic campaign/fundraising organizations --- the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) --- with a http://www.democrats.com...rike-for-public-option\">link to the petition, instead of funds, until such legislation has been passed and signed by the President.

"Until then," the petition states, "I will only support individual Democrats who support single-payer Medicare for All (the 88 sponsors of HR 676)."

"We elected solid Democratic majorities in Congress and a Democratic President to fulfill Democratic promises of progressive change," the statement continues, "We did not elect Republican Senator Olympia Snowe to break those promises."

The complete short petition follows in full below...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

As recounted in a front-page article in The New York Times, on the strength of a single "yes" from a member of the Party of No, President Barack Obama described the 14 to 9 Senate Finance Committee vote in favor of the Baucus health care bill as "a critical milestone," adding, "We are now closer than ever to passing health care reform."

With all due respect, Mr. President, it is nothing of the sort. To the contrary, the Senate Finance Committee has produced nothing less than a legislative obscenity.

After nearly a year of back room deals and unending propaganda, which has included extensive corporate media coverage of insurance industry sponsored, wing-nut assaults on town halls, fabricated issues about "death panels," the exclusion of single-payer advocates from the White House and the Senate Finance Committee, and a deafening corporate media silence about the widespread public support* for a single-payer (Medicare for All) system, the time has come to pierce through the confusion by asking and answering a few simple questions...

How queer. With 75,000 protesters --- about the same number that turned out for the "gigantic" Teabagger rally on 9/12 in D.C. --- turning out last Sunday in D.C. to rally for equal protection under the law for all Americans (yes, even gay ones), Fox "News," and all the others, seem to have forgotten to send out anybody to cover it.

No outrage from you teabaggers about that? Glenn Beck? Really? Nothing? Hmm. Video courtesy of RAW STORY...

Given that Obama ran on ending "Don't Ask Don't Tell" and repealing the "Defense of Marriage Act," those who believe in equal justice under the law --- as per the Constitution --- are justifiably none too happy about the fact that he hasn't gotten around to doing either yet.

He did give a rousing speech to the Human Rights Campaign over the weekend, however, re-promising to do all of the above, even if he failed to give a timetable for either of them.

Both DADT and DOMA are federal law, so he can't just change them unitarily over night....

In advance of tomorrow's related story [Update: That story now posted here], I thought you might appreciate a quick look at the following if you've never seen it before. Diane Sawyer narrates the story of FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds as she was awarded the 2006 PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award.

In the bargain, it's also worth remembering that Sawyer herself is at least aware of Edmonds, who she is, and some of what she's had to go through, further begging the question of why ABC News has failed to even note --- much less investigate and/or cover --- the recent revelations of bribery and blackmail of current and former U.S. Congressmembers and high-ranking State and Defense Department officials, and the theft and sale of nuclear secrets by agents of Turkey and Israel, as detailed in her sworn deposition in August, and remarkable AmCon cover-story interview which followed it late last month...

A New York judge rules the CIA can torture, destroy the video tape evidence of it whenever they want, and there's nothing any American citizen can do about it, apparently. Are we now the USSA?

Guest editorial by Ernest A. Canning

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi

In "ObamaCare: Right Diagnosis, Wrong Prescription" I noted that it was virtually impossible to mount an honest defense of the current U.S. health care system. Doing so would amount to suggesting that the obscene wealth of a few health care insurance company CEOs and their Wall Street investors has a greater social value than the lives of 18,000 of our fellow citizens whom the current system annually sentences to death simply because they are too poor to purchase insurance coverage.

Today, as I mulled over the legislative obscenity that Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) and a former vice president of WellPoint spent months preparing --- an insurance carrier wish-list that contains no public option, no means for controlling costs or abuse; a measure that does not merely protect but expands the already obscene wealth of the few by mandating that every citizen purchase insurance, with massive subsidies flowing into carrier coffers --- I learned that I was wrong...

-- Brad Friedman

[While I was off the grid for a brief vacation for a week in August, a short Op-Ed version of a piece I wrote for Commonweal Institute, where I am a Fellow, was published at CommonDreams.org. Unfortunately, I was off the grid, so couldn't respond to some of the off-base coments left on the piece over there. In any case, here now is the full-length version of that Op-Ed. -BF]

Last March, the country's highest court found that secret, computerized vote counting was unconstitutional. Unfortunately, the country was Germany, and the Constitution violated by e-voting systems was the one that the U.S. wrote and insisted Germans ratify as part of their terms of surrender following WWII.

Paul Lehto, a U.S. election attorney and Constitutional rights expert, summarized the German court's unambiguous, landmark finding:

• "No 'specialized technical knowledge' can be required of citizens to vote or to monitor vote counts."
• There is a "constitutional requirement of a publicly observed count."
• "[T]he government substitution of its own check or what we’d probably call an 'audit' is no substitute at all for public observation."
• "A paper trail simply does not suffice to meet the above standards.
• "As a result of these principles,...'all independent observers' conclude that 'electronic voting machines are totally banned in Germany' because no conceivable computerized voting system can cast and count votes that meet the twin requirements of...being both 'observable' and also not requiring specialized technical knowledge.

After the verdict in the case --- filed by a computer expert and his political scientist son --- Lehto wondered how it could be that open, observable democracy is seemingly an inviolable right for "conquered Nazis," but not, apparently, for citizens of the United States...

Guest Blogged by Sue Wilson

I was strolling through my local county fair this summer, a small fair, a friendly fair, where cows, sheep, and pigs outnumber food vendors.

The Republican booth caught my eye, but not because of the red, white, and blue decorations. What caught my eye was the sign they'd posted, the sign that summed up the one key issue of importance to local Republicans.

What would it be, in this raucous political summer of 2009? Anger over bailouts, fear over death panels? No. The number one issue for Amador County Republicans: "Save Talk Radio."

I hadn't realized that the industry that just signed a $400 million contract with Rush Limbaugh needed saving, but they thought so; they even had a petition to save it...

As we recently noted in some detail, Diebold's election division (now calling themselves Premier Election Solutions) has been purchased by their larger rival ES&S who, as we described at the time, has a well-established record for being tops in the election industry, both in size, and when it comes to thuggish, mafioso-like business tactics.

Saturday's Evansville Courier & Press highlighted just one minor example of such tactics:

While that one case is fairly small potatoes, it's fairly representative of the way this company does business. In the meantime, while the teabaggers have their panties in a collective wad about imaginary things they fear may someday happen to take away their rights, right now, immediately under their noses --- the same noses which failed to notice the stench of the unprecedented raping and looting of the federal government by their own Republican pals over the last eight years --- their right to a transparent, verifiable, citizen-overseen public election has also been stolen from them. Yet they're too busy watching Fox "News" and drawing pictures of Barack Obama as The Joker to notice.

With the ES&S takeover of Diebold/Premier, their nearest competitor, the privately-run election Goliath now has an un-overseeable lock on virtually every election in the United States of America.

Take a look at these two startling maps --- showing control of U.S. elections, before and after the takeover --- which Glenn Beck has yet to instruct his brain-dead zombies to give a damn about...

Guest editorial by Ernest A. Canning

Last week, in his address to a joint session of Congress, President Obama correctly noted:

That was the easy part. Anyone who has paid attention understands that the core problem lies in the profit motives of the private insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

Thus, the President's diagnosis of the U.S. health care system was accurate, but did he prescribe "change we can believe in?"...