LAURA BASSETT, - The Huffington Post
Stephan: More on the war on women. I continue to be amazed that women all over the United States have not risen up in protest. Nothing is going to stop this but the coming elections and two million women on the Mall in Washington. All the rights that women have fought for since suffrage in 1918 are being unraveled. If this continues, as it will unless the American public comes out en masse and votes these right wing ideologues out of office, America will be a country to pity not admire. Sadly, I think it is very problematic as to whether this degradation of women will stop.
Until July 1, a low-income New Hampshire woman paid an average of $5 to fill a birth control pill prescription at any of the state’s six Planned Parenthood clinics. She might have even gotten the birth control for free, depending on her poverty level.
But since the New Hampshire Executive Council voted to cancel the state’s contract with Planned Parenthood, a woman now has to pay anywhere from $40 to over $100 for birth control pills at a regular pharmacy.
The Council, a constitutionally empowered group of elected officials, rejected up to $1.8 million in state funding for the family planning-provider — about 20 percent of its total annual funding — and stripped its authority to dispense low-cost birth control and antibiotics to uninsured patients.
‘We can’t even provide patients with antibiotics for urinary tract infections or STDs anymore,’ said Jennifer Frizzell, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. She said Planned Parenthood has had to turn away 20 to 30 patients a day who are showing up to refill their prescriptions.
‘We have to send them away with a prescription knowing that without insurance, they have to pay the full cost of that at a local pharmacy, and many patients have […]
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Stephan: This is how deep into fantasy Americans have become. Is it any wonder we are in the shape we are in?
Half of Americans who receive government aid in the form of social services believe that they have not ‘used a government social program.
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DAVID EDWARDS, - The Raw Story
Stephan: This is why nothing is getting done, and tens of millions of Americans are being put through a completely unnecessary wringer. I do not understand how any working person can vote Republican. I just do not get it at all.
Even with the country on the brink of default, the Senate’s highest ranking Republican says his ‘single most important’ goal is to make Barack Obama a one-term president.
‘The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,’ Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told National Journal’s Major Garrett in October.
Fox News’ Bret Baier asked McConnell Sunday if that was still his major objective.
‘Well, that is true,’ McConnell replied. ‘That’s my single most important political goal, along with every active Republican in the country.’
‘But that is in 2012,’ he added. ‘Our biggest goal for this year is get this country straightened out and we can’t get this country straightened out if we don’t do something about spending, about deficit, about debt and get the economy moving again. So our goal is to have a robust vibrant economy to benefit all Americans.’
McConnell told Baier that a ‘Grand Bargain,’ where Republicans agree to tax hikes in exchange for cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits, was likely off the table.
‘I think it is. Everything they told me and the Speaker is to get a big package would require big tax increases in the middle of the economic […]
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LAUREN GOODRICH, - Stratfor Global Intelligence
Stephan: Must of what you read and hear about Russia today is so ill-informed, and biased as to be useless. This, however, is an excellent analytical argument that will give you real insight.
Thanks to Anya Kucharev.
Russia has entered election season, with parliamentary elections in December and presidential elections in March 2012. Typically, this is not an issue of concern, as most Russian elections have been designed to usher a chosen candidate and political party into office since 2000. Interesting shifts are under way this election season, however. While on the surface they may resemble political squabbles and instability, they actually represent the next step in the Russian leadership’s consolidation of the state.
In the past decade, one person has consolidated and run Russia’s political system: former president and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Putin’s ascension to the leadership of the Kremlin marked the start of the reconsolidation of the Russian state after the decade of chaos that followed the fall of the Soviet Union. Under Putin’s presidential predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s strategic economic assets were pillaged, the core strength of the country - the KGB, now known as the Federal Security Service (FSB), and the military - fell into decay, and the political system was in disarray. Though Russia was considered a democracy and a new friend to the West, this was only because Russia had no other option - it was a broken country.
Perceptions of […]
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SUSANNE LUNDIN, - Aljazeera (Qatar)
Stephan: As you read this please remember the recent article in SR on the growth of a human trachea using the patient's own stem cells.
This is one of the reasons this research, notably all done outside of the U.S., is so important and such good news. In addition to making organs available, and eliminating the rejection problem that current transplant technology cannot resolve, it will end, or at least strongly diminish, the human organ gray market which preys on the poor.
Susanne Lundin is Professor of Ethnology at Lund University, Sweden.
Thanks to Kevin Kelley.
A few days ago, a friend of mine, a medical scientist and physician in a Swedish hospital, received an astounding offer in her email box.
In poorly written English, the missive read: ‘My name is Alex. I am [a] 31 years [old] European man. I never drank alcohol and did not smoke cigarettes. My blood is O and I have a good health. If you need [a] liver transplant I am ready to give part of my liver, but I want to receive a big compensation for that.’
Such offers are hardly uncommon. Similar pleas to sell body parts appear in different forums and websites, such as Mahmnud75.
This advertisement is typical: ‘I am an Indian. My native place [is] Brahmpur, districtÂ-Ganjam, Odisha. My age is 37 (17-08-1974). My blood group [is] O . I am fully vegetarian. I am interested to sell to an American my left kidney for 80,000 US dollar. I am interested to sell to a Chinese – [my] right kidney for 80,000 US dollar. I am interested to sell to a Russian [my] heart for 100,000 US dollar. I am interested to sell to a Japanese [my] brain for 100,000 US dollar.’
Offers of this type could, just a […]
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