I don't know why, it was as if the humiliation the frustration suddenly overwhelmed my ability to remain unemotional or even get angry at a call center employee. I started crying. I said I had no work. I said that I had huge medical and dental bills. Then, the young man on the other end of the line, a half a world away, quietly said, "I am so sorry. I will pray for you. I will pray that you find work." I was stunned, too stunned to speak for a moment.

Focusing solely on health care insurance and the overall national spending on health care will not get us the reform we need. The New England Journal of Medicine recently published a piece by Michael Porter, Ph.D., arguing that true reform requires not just universal coverage, but "restructuring the care delivery system." While the author is, within his own framework, still making a cost argument, he points us toward not just his stated need for a "value-based system," but also toward a "values-based system" rooted in our common human dignity and human right to the highest attainable standard of health.

Representative George Miller is waging a lonely war against powerful enemies. He's trying to reform the 401(k) system, a system that most on Wall Street don't want reformed. The key to Miller's plan is to force 401(k) providers to disclose their fees in plain English. If you don't think this is important, consider that those fees can eat up 75% of your potential retirement savings.

The question most frequently asked by progressive activists at last week's America's Future Now conference was this: We hear Obama and congressional Democrats talking about a public health insurance option, but why aren't they talking about a single-payer system like H.R. 676 sponsored by Rep. John Conyers? Why is single-payer "off the table"?

The Republican message guru Arthur Finkelstein built a successful career on one simple idea. If his candidate was trailing in the polls, he would call the opponent a liberal. His formula had two main advantages: simplicity and portability: FILL IN YOUR OPPONENT'S NAME HERE is too liberal for FILL IN YOUR STATE HERE. With this advice, he helped Republicans win many elections, because the liberal label meant favoring big government and higher taxes, being soft on crime, and social permissiveness. Today you see these ads far less often. Even though the opinion polls have consistently shown almost no increase in the number of Americans who describe themselves as politically "liberal," I believe there is solid evidence that the liberal bashing has lost its punch because over the last two decades.

With renewable energy looking to be the wave of the future, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers is letting everyone know that its members are the best-trained green-work force around. During the Memorial Day break, local International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers training centers opened its doors to policy makers and members of the public to learn more about the union's extensive green job-training programs. "I hope I saw the future and I believe that I did," Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman said after touring New Haven Local 90's training center. Legislators were in their home districts for Congress's Memorial Day recess and many eagerly accepted the IBEW's and the National Electrical Contractors Association's invitation to tour their local joint apprenticeship training facilities. More than 90 members of Congress

I count myself lucky. Mostly. I live in a state in which my two Senators and Congressman are generally on the side of the angels and I rarely lose sleep over their votes in Congress. Many of you are not in this position however. I found myself wondering what I would be saying to my elected representatives if they were on the wrong side of the single payer debate...and that is the genesis of this diary. For those of you gearing up to have such a conversation, I hope this helps. Generally, I would be responding to their already articulated position on the issue and would want them to know the following: Please do not tell me that "we don't need this because we already have the best health care system in the world." The US health care system ranks first on one dimension and one dimension only: cost. No matter how you slice the apple--total costs, per-capita costs, proportion of GDP spent

Now, the right wing tells us the way to get that is to lower the taxes on the rich. Specifically, the Republican alternative budget replaces Obama's stimulus plan with a "holiday" on Capital-Gains taxes. If you want more saving, lower taxes on the rich; if you want more consumption, lower taxes on the rich. Their prescription for any situation.

I was flipping through the channels today, and I saw a "Mentalist" on the Today Show bending spoons. I had to smirk, as it seems like Uri Geller's old routine is still worthy of show business. For those of you unaware of Uri or those of you, who actually believed he had psychic powers, it was and still is a trick. Before the trick ever happened, Uri had already bent the medal of a key or spoon to an angle, and presented the object at a visual angle, which hid the bend from the viewers sight. Slowly he would reveal the bend over the course of the trick. This created the illusion of bending. It crossed my mind that we are seeing the same thing with the upcoming health care legislation. Follow me below the fold, if you want me to reveal the trick. We are in the preparation phase of this trick right now. The illusionists in politics are framing the debate in such

In the West the image of the Tank Man is well-known, as photographs and video footage of his actions that day were widely disseminated throughout the media at the time. However, in China the image is largely unrecognized, due to the government's attempts to erase the June 4 events from public memory.

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