Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Stop Tea Party Racism!

 

via BlackPerspective.net by D. Yobachi Boswell on 3/29/10

Tell Republican Party to stop supporting Tea Party Racism.

You can Tweet the National Republican National Congressional Committee at http://twitter.com/nrcc/

Directly email your own Congressmen here for your representative and here for your senator.

Chinky

Wetback

Faggot

Nigger

Obomicide

Kill the Socialist

These are the words and character of the Klu Klux Tea Party.


Pols, cons fight Census Bureau to include prisoners as residents of city, not upstate jails

clipped from www.nydailynews.com

Pols, cons fight Census Bureau to include prisoners as residents of city, not upstate jails

The last time the census was done - in 2000 - Brooklynite Ramon Velasquez was locked up in Attica state prison for robbery.

According to the Census Bureau, Velasquez lived not in hardscrabble Bushwick, but in rural Attica Village, 264 miles away.

"Knowing that they counted me in Attica was a shock to me," said Velasquez, 50, a volunteer with the New York City AIDS Housing Network.

"It's not fair because we don't use their services. We're being counted just for a political purpose. You don't have many people up there in those counties."

Velasquez is the face of a long-running battle between the Census Bureau, which counts prisoners in the areas they are incarcerated, and big-city politicians who want them counted where they really live. It's not about money: Subtracting the 29,000 New York City inmates wouldn't cut deeply into the city's federal funding.

F.D.A. to Examine Menthol Cigarettes

clipped from www.nytimes.com
F.D.A. to Examine Menthol Cigarettes


For the cigarette industry, the menthol debate is about to flare up again.


The new federal advisory board for tobacco regulation plans to meet for the first time Tuesday in Washington. Topping the agenda is one of the most contentious, and racially charged, health issues that Congress deferred last year when it empowered the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco for the first time.


The question: what to do about menthol flavorings in cigarettes, which account for almost a third of the nation’s $70 billion cigarette market?


Menthol brands are preferred by 75 percent of African-American smokers. And while studies indicate that blacks smoke fewer cigarettes a day than other categories of smokers, they have greater rates of lung cancer, heart disease and strokes. The Congressional Black Caucus, complaining of predatory marketing, was among the groups that had urged stronger action against menthol in the legislation.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Dental clinics recruit Medicaid patients off the streets with promises of cash - NYPOST.com


Dental clinics recruit Medicaid patients off the streets with promises of cash

By DOUGLAS MONTERO, KEVIN FASICK and CHUCK BENNETT

Last Updated: 5:57 AM, March 29, 2010


Dentists are using hawkers on the streets of Harlem to lure Medicaid cardholders to their clinics with promises of cash, The Post has learned.

The practice is illegal and often a sign of fraud, according to the New York State Office of the Medicaid Inspector General, which oversees the state's cash-strapped public insurance fund.

The hawkers unwittingly gave two Post reporters an inside peek at their operations.

"Dentist, dentist, dentist! Get paid $20 to $40! Medicaid!" barked Victor Sotille on the corner of 123rd Street and Lexington Avenue on Friday.

Sotille told a Post reporter that if he has a Medicaid card, he'll receive $20 cash if he sits for a dental cleaning and $40 for partial denture work.

"There's a white van around the corner by the Salvation Army ready to take you and bring you right back," he said.

Approximately 10 people were loaded onto the white Ford Econoline van and driven to Dental Plaza at 2741 Morris Ave. in The Bronx.

A man took the reporter into the bare-bones waiting room of Dental Plaza.

While waiting for the patients to fill out paperwork, the man boasted to the room: "I'm getting them all today. People standing around; I'm bringing them in. It's money today!"

Sotille -- reached later on his cellphone -- claimed he was misunderstood.

"I never said anything about money, boss!" Sotille said. "I said you get a free toothbrush worth $20."

Dr. Frederick Fisher, one of the three dentists at Dental Plaza, denied knowing anything about the hawkers.

"Look at the position you are putting me in. You are going to expose me to a lot of notoriety. I've done nothing wrong, and I'm really not comfortable talking to you," he said.

He referred questions to his parent company, MB Globus, which is the registered owner of the van that brought the people to Dental Plaza.

A former Globus employee told The Post that the company is run out of the Kew Gardens home of David Ibragmov.

Ibragmov, who did not return calls for comment, was indicted in 2005 for allegedly ripping off millions from Medicaid when he was a bookkeeper for Fulton Gentle Family Dentistry in Brooklyn.

MB Globus has between 10 and 20 dentists on its payroll, the former employee said.

Employees were told payments to patients were to cover transportation and meals, as per Medicaid rules, the former staffer said.

But Medicaid doesn't mandate such benefits, said Wanda Fischer from the state Inspector General.

A second medical dental operation observed by The Post was local to Harlem.

"Money, money, money! Make some money! Go to the dentist!" a hawker told a Post reporter on Lexington Avenue near 124th Street. "You got a Medicaid card?"

The tout told the reporter he'd get $15 for a checkup.

He brought the reporter to East Harlem Community Dental at 2022 Lexington Ave.

The clinic's sole dentist, Dr. Oleg Charanov, said there are many hawkers outside his office but that the person he employs only hands out fliers.

He said he doesn't know why anyone would offer $15 and bring a patient to his clinic.

"It doesn't mean he works for me," Charanov said, then suggested someone had set him up to "run me out of business."

douglas.montero@nypost.com

Dental clinics recruit Medicaid patients off the streets with promises of cash - NYPOST.com.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Who’s White?

Books / Sunday Book Review


Who’s White?


By LINDA GORDON


Published: March 28, 2010

Nell Irvin Painter’s accessible study shows that deciding who is white has always been heavily influenced by class and culture.

Permalink.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL ARTICLE

Sen. Eric Adams fights 'crack' epidemic by launching ads urging youth to pull up saggy pants

clipped from www.nydailynews.com

Sen. Eric Adams fights 'crack' epidemic by launching ads urging youth to pull up saggy pants

Sen. Eric Adams is urging kids to clean up their look - and pick up their pants - with six new billboards targeting the saggy trend.

Kristopher Radder

Sen. Eric Adams is urging kids to clean up their look - and pick up their pants - with six new billboards targeting the saggy trend.

State Sen. Eric Adams will announce Sunday the posting of six giant billboards in Brooklyn targeting the saggy trend.

The billboards go up Monday.

"This whole sagging pants culture seems to have swept the city and the country," said Adams, a Democrat.

"Children will be children. But as adults, we need to be on record and tell them they're doing something wrong."

The 22-foot-tall billboards will be erected along heavily traveled streets, primarily in Crown Heights.

Each billboard features two male models whose pants are hanging so low their underwear is showing.

The message: "Stop the Sag!" and "We are better than this!"

Adams says he used $2,000 in campaign funds to launch his new ads, set to go up Monday.
Kristopher Radder

Bloomberg lets his 'Hair' down in hippie garb

Don’t Let Lawmakers Draw Their Districts

clipped from www.nytimes.com

Don’t Let Lawmakers Draw Their Districts

In 2004, at the end of my fourth term as a New York state senator, I heard that the Senate majority leader, Joseph Bruno, wanted to talk to me. It was the beginning of the decennial state redistricting, and Mr. Bruno showed me a map of his plan for Brooklyn — which had my district cut into pieces and allocated to other senators.

“We’ll give you the safest seat in Brooklyn,” he said, along with about $2 million in member items — discretionary money that senators get to dole out to constituents — considerably more than the $130,000 a year I had been receiving. All I had to do was become a Republican, or at least support him as the majority leader.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

GOP Continues to Fan the Flames of Hate

GOP Continues to Fan the Flames of Hate

posted by: Jessica Pieklo 20 hours ago
GOP Continues to Fan the Flames of Hate
 
Yesterday Rep. Eric Cantor (R, VA) announced his office had been shot at and pointed fingers at Democrats for escalating political rhetoric to the point of inciting violence.  When asked if she was going to denounce the attacks on members of Congress, Michelle Bachmann (R, MN) balked, blaming Democrats for pushing an "unpopular" and "anti-American" health care bill.  Now Rep. Cantor's claim has unravelled.  It turns out the office in question was neither shot at nor even in his Congressional district.  So who is escalating the rhetoric now?

The recent rise of domestic terrorism and extremist violence has been well documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and in an interview yesterday on National Public Radio, the connection between GOP lawmakers and the extremest right came into even greater focus.  According to Mark Potok, editor of the investigative journal Intelligence Report mainstream GOP leaders are creating a very scary situation.  A new poll from Harris interactive shows that 40% of Americans believe President Obama is a socialist while 14% say he may be the Antichrist. 

The modern Tea Party movement may not be to blame, but they are certainly at the center of this renewed vigor by right wing extremist groups.  Potok mentioned the number of conspiracy theories circulating in their ranks, such as the Reconquista- a secret plan by Mexico to re-conquer the American Southwest or of FEMA secretly building a series of concentration camps for Americans who resist the coming martial law.  The concentration camp theory was spun by Glenn Beck on three episodes of his show before he finally decided it was just a rumor.  Follow that up with an off-the-cuff comment by Michelle Bachmann about President Obama and plans for "reeducation camps" and its easy to see how these ideas start to gain political traction.

Not only is this situation spinning dangerously out of control, but ultimately, it is the American public that stands to lose the most.  Democracy works best with a multitude of policy opinions, with an open and honest debate over the issues.  The Republicans, currently lacking in any real policy initiatives other than to continue to bleed the country dry at the expense of the middle and working class, seem set to sit back and let the radical right drive the conversation.  That means a return of racially tinged "literacy tests" for voting, flirtations with secession, and, worst of all, passive suggestions that violence against members of Congress is not only acceptable, but justified.
 
photo courtesy of escapedtowisconsin via Flickr
 
Courtesy of Care2
 

Friday, March 26, 2010

Lawmaker Is Acquitted of Drunken Driving but Convicted of Lesser Charge

clipped from www.nytimes.com
Lawmaker Is Acquitted of Drunken Driving but Convicted of Lesser Charge


A Manhattan jury acquitted Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV on Thursday of drunken driving but found him guilty of a lesser charge, driving while ability impaired.


Because that charge is only a violation, akin to a speeding ticket, Mr. Powell, 47, will not have a criminal record.


Judge Larry Stephen, who presided over the case in Manhattan Criminal Court, fined Mr. Powell $300, suspended his license for 90 days and required him to participate in an educational program.


“I respect the verdict, but I do disagree,” Mr. Powell said outside the courthouse.



John Marshall Mantel for The New York Times

Adam Clayton Powell IV

Council Approves Legislation to Hold Process Servers Accountable

clipped from www.nytimes.com
Council Approves Legislation to Hold Process Servers Accountable


It is a fairly unglamorous and lightly regulated task: serving legal papers to people who have been sued. Debt collection agencies and lawyers often farm out the work to private companies, which deliver the papers in person or by mail. They are known, in legal parlance, as process servers.


But, according to the City Council, too many of them have been shirking their duties. So on Thursday, the Council overwhelmingly passed a bill that aims to stop what members called a growing and alarming trend: instances in which the papers never reach their intended destination, leaving people unaware that they are being sued.

Black marriage campaign is growing

Black marriage campaign is growing

Less likely to marry, more likely to divorce

Friday, 26 Mar 2010, 4:55 AM MDT

NEW YORK (AP) - For Kenny and Lynette Seymour, last weekend's black marriage gala was about celebrating their seven-year marriage. They got to meet other black couples while spending a romantic evening together.

"Every time you meet another couple, you learn something new about yourself and relationships in general," said Kenny Seymour, a 39-year-old Broadway music director who lives in Queens. "It was beautiful to be around a bunch of married people in love."

Other black couples will be marking the eighth annual Black Marriage Day this weekend, by attending workshops, black-tie dinners and other activities. Some groups have held events throughout the month, although Black Marriage Day, which celebrates matrimony in the black community, falls on the fourth Sunday in March.

The founder estimates more than 300 celebrations are being held this weekend. The aim is to try to stabilize, if not reverse, the trend of non-commitment within the black community. Studies show blacks are less likely to marry than other ethnic groups and more likely to divorce and bear children out of wedlock.

Experts blame the disparities in part on high black male unemployment, high black male imprisonment and the moderate performance of black men in college compared with black women.

They also note the lack of positive images of black marriage in the media and several misperceptions about matrimony — that it's for white people, that it's a ball and chain, that fatherhood and marriage are not linked.

"They have either seen really bad examples of what marriage looks like or no examples at all," said Yolanda "Yanni" Brown, 42, a divorced mother of two in Chicago, who is hosting black marriage events. "They are saying, 'Why bother? This works for us,' not knowing there are so many other benefits of being married."

Brown says she wishes she had fought for her marriage.

Joseph Arrington II, a 38-year-old black entertainment attorney in Atlanta, said there was a time when he wanted to get married, but his interest has waned. He hasn't had a girlfriend in 15 years. His parents celebrated their 50th anniversary last year. He said he focuses on his work.

"It's a combination of two things," he said. "I haven't found anyone, and I'm not actively seeking someone."

Gerard Abdul, 45, a who lives in East Orange, N.J., and runs an entertainment company, has never seen himself as the marrying type. He has nine children by five women. He said he cared about them all, and each wanted to marry him. But he wasn't interested.

"Because I'm so independent and on my own, I really didn't see the science of marrying them when I really didn't have to," Abdul said.

"I'm a great father," he added. "But I probably would have been a lousy husband."

Despite those attitudes toward marriage, there are a handful of campaigns to get blacks to walk down the aisle, from the federal government's African American Healthy Marriage Initiative to Marry Your Baby Daddy Day, with 10 unwed couples with children tying the knot later this year in New York.

"You Saved Me," a documentary that explores the marriages of eight black couples, will be screened in more than 20 cities this weekend as part of a Black Marriage Day premiere.

"We want people to take away that successful positive (black) marriages do exist," said Lamar Tyler of Waldorf, Md., who produced "You Saved Me" with his wife, Ronnie. The Tylers started their blog "Black and Married With Kids" in 2007 and released "Happily Ever After: A Positive Image of Black Marriage" last year.

Don Lee and his wife, Joan Griffith-Lee, of New York's Staten Island, who have three children, will be watching "Happily Ever After" Friday night and participating in a discussion at a coffeehouse. The couple have been married almost 20 years.

Several of their friends are divorced, and Griffith-Lee, 45, who works at Columbia University, said she and her husband often talk about why.

"We hope to leave there with a new awareness and maybe some tools that can help as we get older," she said.

Black Marriage Day founder Nisa Islam Muhammad is encouraging couples to renew their vows in front of friends and family in honor of Tyler Perry's movie "Why Did I Get Married Too?" which opens April 2.

Muhammad points out that many black children come from single-parent households and contends that the media are not helping. There's never been a black "Bachelor" on the popular TV show, and the star of the 2008 movie "27 Dresses," about a 27-time bridesmaid, was white.

"We're going to focus on the positives," said Muhammad, executive director of Wedded Bliss Foundation, which helps people develop healthy relationships and marriages. "We're going to show ourselves and our community that marriage does matter and we have some fabulous marriages in our community worth celebrating."

Those include the marriage of President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, said Roland Warren, president of the National Fatherhood Initiative in Germantown, Md. He credits the couple with setting

a positive example and creating more discussion about the issue. In a way, their marriage is evidence of the importance of marriage in the African-American community, he said.

Most blacks already think that marriage is a good thing, said Andrew Cherlin, a professor of sociology and public policy at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. But many can't find anyone they think would make a good spouse.

But at least Black Marriage Day will get people thinking about marriage, says Tammy Greer Brown, 43, executive director of Celebrating Real Family Life and organizer of the Staten Island event, who said she hopes to spark a discussion about marriage. She said she grew up in a single-parent home and didn't want that for her kids. She has been married for more than 10 years.

"My daughter is already talking about getting married," she said. "She wants to be like my husband and I."
 

Thursday, March 25, 2010

New York Increases Spending on Minority-Owned Bond Underwriters

New York Increases Spending on Minority-Owned Bond Underwriters

By Michael Quint

March 24 (Bloomberg) -- New York, which plans to sell $5.9 billion of debt in the coming year, increased the share of bond underwriting fees going to minority-owned firms to 28 percent in 2009 from 4 percent two years earlier, according to Paul Williams, chairman of a task force to promote those firms.

Governor David Paterson, who signed an executive order to promote the use of minority firms in bond sales after taking office in 2008, said the state wants to broaden minority participation on other spending for professional services.

The task force’s policies will lead to the hiring of more minority- and women-owned firms for legal advice, investments and insurance services, said Williams, executive director of the Dormitory Authority, which has issued $22.8 billion of the state’s $60 billion of debt.

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Quint in Albany, New York, at mquint@bloomberg.net.

HARLEMS RETAIL ROW

clipped from ny.curbed.com

Slow Going on Transformation of Harlem's Retail Row

2010_3_125thstreet.jpg

It's been exactly two years since the controversial rezoning of 125th Street ushered in a new era of balls-to-the-wall gentrification for the famed Harlem artery, or so we were told. It played out a bit differently, at least in the short term, as the credit crunch deflated a number of high-profile projects—like Harlem Park on the east side, and a long six-story office/retail development on the west side, the stalling of which gets broken down by the Wall Street Journal today. Shopping mall developer Kimco snapped up a strip of buildings on the corner of 125th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, home to many longtime retail tenants, and served up evictions to make way for demolition. Tenants sued and settled for more than $1 million, but they still had to clear out. The empty stores are still standing, and Kimco has invited at least one old tenant back. Wha happen?

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Actor Robert Culp dies after fall

clipped from us.cnn.com

Actor Robert Culp dies after fall

By Todd Leopold, CNN
Robert Culp's career included movies and television and spanned decades.
Robert Culp's career included movies and television and spanned decades.

Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- Robert Culp, the actor who rose to fame as secret agent Kelly Robinson on the groundbreaking 1960s TV series "I Spy" and later played Ray Romano's father-in-law on "Everybody Loves Raymond," has died. He was 79.

The versatile Culp not only acted in "I Spy," which aired on NBC from 1965 to 1968, he also wrote several episodes. The series, which also starred Bill Cosby as Robinson's partner (and, as their covers, trainer to Culp's globe-trotting tennis player), was the first to feature an African-American in a lead role; Cosby won three Emmys for his work.

Culp and Cosby remained good friends after the series left air.

Culp died of a fall in a Los Angeles park, said his publicist, Dick Delson. Delson had no further details.

Massive Infantino baby sling recall; 3 dead

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Black Woman Cake

Black Woman Cake...Written by a Black Man

(It's a Great Message)
Never Forget!
There Were Special Ingredients God Used In Making A Good Woman.

Black Woman Cake


 

I'm making a black woman cake cause I'm hungry as hell.

And with the sweet tooth I have only a sistah can break the spell.

Let me reach into my spice rack to see what I can get.

To make a mix that will stick to my stomach you can bet.

2 cups of intelligence
1 cup of sugar brown (Cause she's got to be sweet, mental, sound & deep)
Cinnamon is always good to accent the taste
A few cups of culture, so she's down for her race (You see I won't bite into anything that's not conscious of its own, that's why I stick to chocolate and leave angel food alone)
I am adding butter cause she must be smooth
2 raisins for the dimples will also be cool
I must add eggs so she can reproduce (Can't leave her hanging cause I like children too)
I think I'll add a little salt, to balance her out
And a dominant profile, to show she has clout
For a responsible woman, I'll throw in some yeast (So she'll swell with juices, when I'm ready to feast)
I'll add 7 cups of courage and into the oven to bake
Turn it to 360 degrees, to balance out her mental state.

Now that it's done brothas, I won't share her wealth,
but I'm sharing the recipe as I'm consuming this Black Woman all by myself...

Good Black Women are indeed all around us, we pass them on the streets, in the malls, in captivity behind the walls, and in the hall at work. Most we can't see because we don't know what a good woman really looks like. She usually isn't flashy enough or rich enough to turn our heads. She might not wear a fur coat or push a Lexus. She might not have a "body by Fisher" or a face for "Ebony." But as you mature, you realize it's better to find someone who's got your back than someone who turns your head.

A Good Black Woman doesn't agree whole-heartedly with everything you say. She doesn't just tell you what you want to hear and do the opposite. She doesn't have to declare how sensitive, sweet, caring, sincere, yada, yada, yada, she is (she won't have to...because it shows). She has her own opinions, and you may clash, but she doesn't have to degrade you to prove she's right. She even admits at times to being wrong, especially if you are willing to do the same.

A Good Black Woman is not going to meet every item on your checklist. She is human with frailties & faults mixed in with all of her wonderful, sensual attributes. She needs your love & respect. She needs to feel that you don't have to catch her doing something wrong so you can declare "Aha I knew all along"

A Good Black Woman doesn't necessarily give you a huge Birthday or Valentine gift. She shows her love in the ways that are comfortable to her. Don't judge her by TV standards. No one is living that Fairy tale--for real.

Black Women We Salute You...

And Thank You For Who You Are, And All You've Done & Continue To Do!!!!

Pass this along to the "Good Black Women" you know!
And the
Black Men that desperately need to be aware...

Court set to drop NYC case against Sharpton kin

clipped from www.google.com
Court set to drop NYC case against Sharpton kin

NEW YORK — Prosecutors have agreed to drop resisting-arrest charges against the Rev. Al Sharpton's ex-wife and daughter.

The civil rights activist's relatives were accused of refusing to comply with officers after a Manhattan traffic stop. A court Tuesday put the case on track to be dismissed in six months if the two stay out of trouble.

Police had said Kathy Sharpton and her daughter Dominique Sharpton cursed at officers and balked at being handcuffed after being pulled over in October.

Defense lawyer Michael Hardy says they committed no crime and were prosecuted merely for complaining. Prosecutors called the arrest legitimate but agreed to the planned dismissal.

Al Sharpton criticized the arrest via Twitter last fall. He didn't attend court Tuesday.

Zoning and New Housing

Today's Report...
Zoning and New Housing
The massive rezoning carried out by the Bloomberg administration between 2003 and 2007 has created some new housing in the city but the effects vary from borough to borough, according to a new report by NYU’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. The zoning changes increased the city’s capacity for new residential building by 1.7 percent, or roughly 100 million square feet of residential capacity, with Queens gaining the most and the Bronx showing no change. The report also found discrepancies in which areas were upzoned, allowing for greater density, and which ones were downzoned. The administration has tended to allow greater density in black and Hispanic areas while reducing or maintaining it in white neighborhoods.

For the full report, visit here.

Americas Development Bank Forgives Much of Haiti’s Debt

Black Writers Ponder Role and Seek Wider Attention

Rabies in New York City and Human Rabies Prevention

City Health Information March 22, 2010

Rabies in New York City and Human Rabies Prevention

City Health InformationIn this issue:

  • When a patient presents with an animal bite, assess the need for rabies postexposure prophylaxis (PEP) and ensure that PEP is given properly when needed.
  • Be aware that PEP is indicated only in particular circumstances, depending on whether a true exposure has occurred, the type of animal, and its availability for observation or testing. Raccoons and bats are the primary vectors of rabies in NYC.
  • Report every animal bite to the NYC Health Department.

Learn more

City Health Information is a publication produced by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene as a primary means of communicating public health information to the City's medical care community.

Monday, March 22, 2010

City to Pay $33 Million to Inmates Who Were Illegally Strip Searched

City to Pay $33 Million to Inmates Who Were Illegally Strip Searched

The city announced Monday that it had agreed to settle a lawsuit stemming from the illegal strip search of thousands of nonviolent inmates who were taken to Rikers Island on misdemeanor charges.

The lead lawyer representing the inmates said the city agreed to pay $33 million in damages to cover the roughly 100,000 instances in which inmates were illegally strip searched.

The announcement marks the third time in a decade that the city has agreed to pay inmates for illegal strip searches. In 2007, the city’s Department of Correction conceded in federal court that the strip searches of the inmates violated a 2002 court settlement.

The settlement provides that inmates receive between $1,800 and $2,900, depending on how many times they were strip searched.

How to Prepare for Health-Care Changes - WSJ.com

Steps You Can Take Ahead of Changes in Coverage, Taxes


By ANNA WILDE MATHEWS

After years of debate, a health overhaul is finally becoming a reality. Now what?

Many big provisions don't kick in until 2014, including the mandate for most folks to have health insurance and many new requirements for health-plan designs. Before then, you'll see a mishmash of other things go into effect at various times—and of course some of the changes depend on the Senate passing the House's so-called sidecar, or reconciliation, bill of changes.

Taylor Wilhite and her mom, Amy, visited Capitol Hill in May 2009 with American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network volunteers.

Here are some ways you can start dealing with the new health-care landscape.

Do your homework. This legislation will almost certainly affect your wallet and your health coverage, so you need to understand it. The Kaiser Family Foundation's site, kff.org, has a side-by-side bill comparison tool featured on the main page, and you can choose the Senate and reconciliation bills, selecting only the parts you care about.

Congressional Democrats offer their own explainers, including a timeline, at energycommerce.house.gov. Click on the "Affordable health care for America" button on the right.

Much of the bill will be implemented only once federal regulators write rules. One place to look for tools and information in coming months will be the Department of Health and Human Services' Web site, hhs.gov, along with associated sites like healthreform.gov and medicare.gov.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Conference Chairman Rep. John Larson addressed the media at the stakeout position.

Watch for coverage changes. If you're uninsured and have health problems, you may become eligible for a special new federal high-risk insurance pool this year. This is likely to be a good deal, so don't miss out: Watch for more information on hhs.gov and associated sites.

If you have coverage, insurance that was in effect before the bill becomes law is grandfathered in. Still, some provisions in the sidecar bill, like bans on lifetime benefit caps, would apply even to those plans.

That would solve a big problem for people such as Amy Wilhite of Marblehead, Ohio. Her family is insured through her husband's employer, but her 12-year-old daughter, Taylor, a leukemia survivor, has already gone through more than $1 million of medical care in her life and is approaching a $1.5 million cap. Taylor has been delaying or forgoing some care to stretch out coverage as long as possible.

"We shouldn't have to pick and choose what we want to do," Ms. Wilhite said.

This change, as well as rules against insurers' yanking policies if you get sick, and forcing family policies to generally include kids up to age 26, takes effect six months after the bill becomes law.
Journal Community

Find a doctor. There could be shortages. Including the reconciliation package, the bill is ultimately expected to add around 32 million people to the insured population, with the big influx starting in 2014. Provisions aimed at boosting the supply of primary-care physicians likely won't kick in fast enough to keep up with the flood of new patients, at least in certain parts of the country. Make sure you are on a doctor's dance card before he or she stops taking new patients.

Consider long-term-care coverage. One of the underlying bill's biggest and least-understood provisions is a new voluntary long-term care benefit that would pay cash to people who become disabled. You get the benefit only if you pay premiums into the program for at least five years. You will likely not be able to opt to do this until 2011 at the earliest, but start factoring it into your planning now and watch for information on the hhs.gov sites. Insurers will likely develop supplemental products for the benefit, which isn't expected to cover round-the-clock care, says John Rother, executive vice president of AARP, the big seniors group.

Plan for new tax rules. One of the earliest is a new 10% levy on indoor tanning services, starting in July, under the sidecar package. For those making more than $200,000, or $250,000 for a couple, the Senate bill means a boost in the Medicare payroll tax beginning in 2013. That same year, the reconciliation bill adds a tax of 3.8% on unearned income, which includes interest and dividends, above those same thresholds.
Health Overhaul in Congress


Also, the sidecar package caps the amount you can put in a tax-free flexible spending account at $2,500 a year in 2013 (it's 2011 in the original Senate bill). There is currently no legal cap on the amount that people can put in their flexible spending accounts, although many employers impose their own limits.

Prepare for Medicare changes. If you are a beneficiary, the bill has sweeteners for your budget. Under the sidecar package, those who pay for drugs in the doughnut-hole coverage gap are eligible for a $250 rebate in 2010.

In 2011, that group gets a 50% discount on brand-name drugs, and after that the hole will get a little smaller each year, until in 2020 it's effectively zeroed out. Starting next year, certain preventive care is free.

Retiree Daniel O'Connell of Greenville, S.C., said closing the doughnut hole was "very beneficial to me." Mr. O'Connell—who lives on a fixed income of about $40,000 a year—hit the coverage gap in August last year, and said he incurred about $1,500 in out-of-pocket costs.

"At a certain point you're not covered, even though you're paying the premium," he said.

Brace for 2014. If you are uninsured, know that starting in 2014, you will likely be required to have insurance or pay a penalty—and you should start planning now for the cost, though many details aren't yet clear. Medicaid will expand to include more of those with the lowest incomes. For those who make less than around $43,000, or about $88,000 for a family of four, there will be government help to buy a plan. The kff.org site has a calculator that estimates what you might pay. The bill summary on the same site spells out penalties under the sidecar package, which start out at $95 or 1% of income, whichever is greater.

In 2014, insurance will have to meet new requirements that will result in plans that are richer than many available today, particularly in the individual market. These include caps on out-of-pocket costs. If you're buying a new plan for yourself, these nice extras may come with a cost: higher premiums.


—Amy Dockser Marcus and Louise Radnofsky contributed to this article.

Write to Anna Wilde Mathews at anna.mathews@wsj.com

How to Prepare for Health-Care Changes - WSJ.com.

Web Breathes New Life Into Failed Retailers

Untitled

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Help End Racist Felony Crack/Cocaine Law!

Help End Racist Felony Crack/Cocaine Law!

Posted by: "nathaniel x vance" broali4xa@yahoo.com   broali4xa

Sat Mar 20, 2010 2:02 pm (PDT)



Please take a moment and sign this petition!!
Dear Group,
The crack hysteria of the 1980s brought about one of the most discriminatory laws on our books — a law that treats every gram of crack cocaine as equivalent to 100 grams of powder cocaine.
There's no good reason for this disparity. But in the decades it has persisted, the weight of this unjust law has fallen heavily upon the African American community, whose members are disproportionately targeted for arrest and convicted of crack offenses.
President Obama supported ending the crack/powder sentencing disparity when campaigning for office, but there are now indications that he'll support a Senate bill that placates the political concerns of "moderates" by only reducing the sentencing disparity to roughly 20-to-1.

<http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/unjust_disparity/

Arrest in Racial Case at N.J. Wal-Mart

clipped from www.nytimes.com
Arrest in Racial Case at N.J. Wal-Mart


WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, N.J. — The authorities in southern New Jersey said Saturday that they had arrested a 16-year-old boy for activating a public-address system at a Wal-Mart store last week and ordering “all black people” to leave.


The boy, from Atlantic County, was charged by Gloucester County authorities with bias and intimidation and harassment in connection with the episode last Sunday. If convicted, he could face up to a year in a juvenile detention center, officials said. His name was not released because he is a minor.


According to the police, the boy picked up a public-address telephone in the Wal-Mart in Washington Township, one of two dozen accessible to the store’s customers, and said, “All black people, leave the store now.”

Promised Land

clipped from www.nytimes.com



Promised Land


Heading north, July 1940.

My parents bought their first house in 1960, six years after emigrating from Ireland. They’d grown up with a fierce sense of place — of land, family, history — and they were determined to recreate that sense for their children. That little house in the middle of a non­descript block on Detroit’s East Side was going to be their home forever.

It didn’t work out that way. In the early 1970s the first African-American couple moved into the neighborhood. They were young teachers, I think, though I don’t remember that anyone asked them. Immediately the “for sale” signs began to appear, one or two at first, then more and more until the panic was complete. Within a year or so whites were selling their homes for whatever they could get, running for the suburbs as fast as they could. My parents waited awhile before joining the rush. They sold their house in 1977, their cherished sense of place swept aside by the terrible power of race.