In the weeks ahead, Congress will take up one of the most pressing and glaring problems facing our nation -- our broken and dysfunctional health care system. As most of you already know, while American taxpayers spend more per capita on health care than anyone in the world, we have a health care system which leaves nearly 50 million people without access to a doctor. Even those with coverage are never more than one accident away from bankruptcy, or one job loss away from losing the coverage that they and their family rely on. The current situation is disgraceful, and at a time of economic turmoil, it's a threat to our nation's livelihood. That's why our nation must move towards a system of universal coverage.

The 20th annual Human Rights Watch International Film Festival has come to New York's Lincoln Center and runs until June 25th. The festival brings together 23 films with stories from around the world. The festival is very well-curated, presenting a broad range of difficult and disturbing themes in ways we first-worlders can handle.

In April, the Department of Homeland Security issued a report (PDF) warning that the shifting political climate and tanking economy was spurring a resurgence of violent right-wing extremism (known as "terrorism" when applied to those holding other political views) in the United States. At the time, a number of right-wing commentators lambasted the report as a politically motivated attack on mainstream conservatism rather than what it was: an early warning on the dangers posed by a violent, fringe minority within their movement. Under pressure from GOP lawmakers, Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano apologized for the report. But in the short weeks since, the department's warnings have proved prescient.

Abandoning emerging economies to the assistance of the International Monetary Fund is like assigning a child to a tutor who is not only failing, but bullying other children and selling drugs on the side. However, leaders at home and abroad have failed to realize the disservice they are committing and have promised the IMF $1.1 trillion dollars.

A former Holocaust Museum staffer: "The entire time I worked there, we always expected something terrible to happen. I was very lucky it didn't while I was there -- but it wasn't for lack of trying. Our head of security was a former FBI guy and he said we would not believe the volume of threats. ... Working at the Holocaust Museum in the first years of the Clinton administration was like having a front-row seat to right-wing hate groups. They are a peculiar American pathology, and they are not going anywhere."

On Saturday last, my husband began complaining of shortness of breath and chest pain. I immediately called 911, because we live so far from medical care, and I hoped that our local emergency service would be able to provide oxygen and stabilize him during transport to the hospital 45 miles away. It's been a rough 5 days, and nights. And we both made it through because medical science, and her practitioners, can be truly amazing.

I'm not a healthcare wonk. Of course, I want the 46 million uninsured Americans to get coverage, but they have not been my primary concern in healthcare reform (even though I have been among the uninsured many times in my life). I have to admit I'm being a bit selfish here because I mainly want to have less expensive health insurance that still gives me decent coverage. Why? Because these healthcare costs are killing us. It significantly impacts our family's life. We're just like everyone else, getting crushed under these bills.

I went to the Arlen Spector "No Apology" tour tonight in Doylestown, Pennsylvania where he spoke before the Executive Committee of the Bucks County Democratic Party. I was amazed at some of his responses to questions. Out of the 25 questions or so that were asked, he answered only two or three with any type of response that could be considered definitive.

Although there is no formal definition, most economists agree a depression is a prolonged slump with a 10% or more decline in real GDP. By that definition, California is entering a depression, a locomotive engine plunging off a missing bridge, pulling 49 hapless states behind it.

This is what losing your kidney function looks like. This is what a diabetic who didn't have health care for a year and a half looks like. This is what our glorious "uniquely American" system of health insurance looks like. I don't want sympathy; I want single payer universal health care. I want people in this country to get the preventive care they need to keep this from happening.

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