September 19, 2009

Vol 1 No 10

Nye-Gateway to Nevada’s Rurals Newsletter

P o l i t i c a l N e w s a n d C o m m e n t a r y

Wasting millions of stimulus money on remote

Montana-Canada border posts
This is disgusting! Hasn’t
Inside been a very happy week DHS to give these towns
considering the Baucus millions for border cross-
A m e r i c a ‟ s Plan for health care/ ings, bragging in a joint
H e a l t h y 2
F u t u r e A c t insurance reform. press release that they
pressured the agency.
Read this and then go hug your
banker This post is about Max
2
Baucus (again) and Jon Just makes me furious.
Wendell Potter Slams Baucus Tester, the two Democ-
Democrat Sen. Byron
Plan 2 ratic Senators from Mon-
Dorgan, from the
tana.
Insurers Have Given $4 Million neighboring state of North Senator Max Baucus (D-Mt)
to Committees
3 Baucus and Tester plans
Dakota, sent out a news
to spend $31 million of release urging DHS Sec-
Giving Single-Payer a Second stimulus money to en- retary Janet Napolitano to
Look 3 hance two remote cross- suspend the stimulus pro-

ings on the b o r - gram. He said that spend-

der between the United ing the money on such
Judge Rejects Settlement
Over Merrill Lynch Bonuses 3
States and Canada. remote ports — including
the nine in his state —
Advertisements 4 Baucus is chairman of the was ―just nuts.‖ Dorgan
Senate Finance Commit- said the plan ―just defied
tee; Tester is on the Sen- common sense.‖
Upcoming Events 6
ate’s Homeland Security
Committee. Both took Watch the video and read
Senator Jon Tester (D-Mt)
credit for convincing the more.

C R E W : T h e 1 5 M o s t C o r r u p t M e m b e r s o f
C o n g r e s s

As if the posting about the CREW is Citizens for Re- tion — who sacrifice the ethical conduct to the
Montana-Canada waste of sponsibility and Ethics in common good to special public’s attention.
money wasn’t enough there Washington (CREW) is a interests. CREW advances
is also this that came out this nonprofit 501(c)(3) organiza- its mission using a combina- 8 Democrats and 7 Re-
week. tion dedicated to promoting tion of research, litigation and publicans on the list which
ethics and accountability in media outreach. CREW em- includes Nevada’s Sena-
CREW has issued its government and public life by ploys the law as a tool to tor John Ensign.
5th Annual Report on the 15 targeting government officials force officials to act ethically
Most Corrupt Members of Read more.
— regardless of party affilia- and lawfully and to bring un-
Congress.
Page 2 Nye-Gateway to Nevada’s Rurals

A m e r i c a ‟ s H e a l t h y F u t u r e A c t o f 2 0 0 9

This is the Baucus Plan. It contains no public op- problem with the health
Wendell Potter charac- tion. No Republican sup- care system is the for-
terizes the plan, pro- port (which isn’t surpris- profit health insurance
duced by the infamous ing). industry and Wall Street.
―Gang of Six" as a “gift
to the health care in- I am intensely interested Look it over and judge
surance industry.” in whether President for yourself. I recom-
Obama will adopt the mend you also read what
I’ve posted the entire plan and sign it into law. Wendell Porter says
plan here so you can about it.
read it all for yourselves. It will surely get ―marked
up" a lot with amend- Montana needs to get rid
It is 223 pages long. It is ments when the markup of Baucus and Tester. Sen. Max Baucus (D-
scheduled for markup on starts on September 22. Mt)
September 22, 2009. Read more.
In my opinion the core

R e a d t h i s a n d t h e n g o h u g y o u r b a n k e r

Merchants want to negoti- chant an ―interchange‖ fee of 1 the fees, as required by a law
ate credit card fees they’re – 2% of the purchase. signed by President Obama in
charged by banks. May that bans many un-
That cuts into the merchants fair credit card indus-
When you go to your local profit margin of course and
try practices. Can you imagine
convenience store to buy a increases the bank’s profits. a Republican Congress or the
jug of wine or six-pack of Merchants don’t like it. They’re Bush Administration enacting
beer or even a loaf of bread fighting back. Banks increased and enforcing such a law? I
and hand the clerk their income by $48 billion in didn’t think so.
your Bank of America Visa 2008. That isn’t chicken feed.
Card or debit card to pay for Read more.
it the bank charges the mer- The Government Accountabil-
ity Office is doing a study of

W e n d e l l P o t t e r S l a m s B a u c u s B i l l : „ A n
A b s o l u t e G i f t T o T h e I n s u r a n c e I n d u s t r y ‟

Wendell Potter — the [America’s Health Insur- American to purchase change or the now-
insurance industry ance Plans chief] Karen qualified health insur- regulated individual
whistle blower and for- Ignagni will surely get a ance coverage by 2013. health insurance.
mer communications huge bonus,‖ Potter Americans with em- The bill would cover
director of health insur- said at a briefing for ployer-sponsored insur- 94% of Americans
ance giant Cigna — reporters. ance can stay in their and cost $880 billion
called the Baucus existing plans, while the over 10 years.
framework ―an absolute The bill establishes a uninsured would have
gift to the industry.‖ new regulated health to enroll in an expanded Read more.
―And if that is what we insurance exchange Medicaid program, a
see in the legislation, and compels every new plan in the Ex-
Vol 1 No 10 Page 3

I n s u r e r s H a v e G i v e n $ 4 M i l l i o n t o
C o m m i t t e e s
52 insurance companies or their some comfort in that collectively ―Money is the mother’s milk of
subsidiaries have an assignment they enjoy a relatively politics.‖
due today: they must disclose strong financial bond with the
their financial records, including current committee members. Here are the current members of
details on executive pay and en- The members have collected the House Energy and Com-
tertainment expenditures, $2.9 million from the employees merce to collect the most from
to House Energy and Com- and political action committees the 52 insurers required to re-
merce Chairman Henry Wax- of the insurers that received let- spond to Waxman’s request,
man (D-Calif.) ters from Waxman in August. including contributions to the
Fifty-three percent of those do- lawmakers’ leadership PACs and
i n s u r e r s s u c h nations has gone to Republi- candidate committees back to
as AFLAC and Blue Cross/Blue cans. 1989.
Shield on alert, they might find
Read more.

G i v i n g S i n g l e - P a y e r a S e c o n d L o o k
As President Obama pre- forgotten the universal hypocrisy of our Republi- If Medicare has
pares to address the na- rule of successful lawmak- can friends who have been such a suc-
tion about his vision ing: ―keep it simple.‖ built their party on a 44- cess, why not
for health care reform, we year record of undermin- extend it?
should not overlook the These words were spoken
ing this popular program.
last, best truly transforma- by Representative An- Yes, why not in-
And now their Chairman
tive change to our health thony Weiner (D-NY) who deed.
sees no irony in ripping
care system: Medicare. is a sponsor of HR 676,
―government run‖ health- Read more.
We have been staring so the ―Medicare for All" plan.
care while publishing an
intently at the lessons of Medicare also provides us op-ed opposing changes
1993 that we may have with a case study in the to Medicare.

Judge Rejects Settlement Over Merrill Lynch Bonuses

The case involved $3.6 billion in end of 2008, just prior to sion over bonuses paid
bonuses that were paid by Merrill Bank of America’s acquisi- to Merrill Lynch executives just
Lynch late last year, just as that tion of the company became before the bank took over
firm was about to be merged with final. Merrill last year.
Bank of America. Neither company
provided details of the bonuses to Thain allegedly did not dis-The judge focused much of his
their shareholders, who voted on close the bonus payouts criticism on the fact that the fine
Dec. 5 to approve the merger. to Bank of Amer- in the case would be paid by
ica negotiators. the bank’s shareholders, who
On January 22, 2009 John were the ones that were sup-
Thain resigned as CEO of Merrill A Federal District judge on posed to have been injured by
Lynch after it was disclosed that Monday overturned a settle- the lack of disclosure.
he had rushed to pay out $3–4 ment between the Bank of
billion dollars in fourth quarter bo- America and the Securities Read more.
nuses to Merrill employees by the and Exchange Commis-
Page 4

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 Page 5

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Visit the K-7 blog Open

Air Cinema here.

Enjoy authentic Mexican

Food at Rubalcaba’s >>
 Page 6

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September 2009 September (Continued)

Republican Central Committee Nye County Democratic Central Committee

When: September 26 When: Monday, September 28

Time: 6:30 p.m.
What: Fundraiser for Governor Jim Gibbons
Where: Ruud Community Center, Pah-
Where: Republican office, Highway 160 next to rump
Saddle West Casino Information: nyedemchair@yahoo.com

The Republican Central Committee is looking for

volunteers to make and hold signs at the Fall Fes-
tival parade in Support of Governor Jim Gibbons.

Call 513-8447 for more information.

I am unaware of any Nye County Democratic

Central Committee events or other events
except for regular monthly meeting on Sep-
tember 28 of the Central Committee.

If Democrats are doing anything anywhere

please let me know and I’ll happily post a no-
tice in this section.