Recent News and Commentary: Health Reform, Corruption–and Mustard

Been spending some time on Huffington Post this morning, always a fascinating place. Here’s some of what I’ve been reading:

Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley on Republican strategist Frank Luntz’s plan to derail health reform. What he doesn’t talk about is single-payer, which I believe could engage the strong support of the American people and roll right over all the roadblocks put there by industry lobbyists–while piecemeal “reform” would gain no such support. I do not understand why mainstream Democrats aren’t pushing this issue. It’s key to a raft of economic boosts that would help, for instance, both US automakers and labor. It’s little-talked-about that because most governments around the world, at least in developed nations, provide a real health care service, foreign competitors to GM, Ford, and Chrysler aren’t stuck with that enormous cost.

Robert Borosage on the general climate of business corruption in Washington. And on how that corruption has caused us to fail in such areas as mandatory sick leave, which then in turn makes the “stay home” response to swine flu impractical for those at the bottom of the ladder, who might lose their jobs and would certainly lose their pay.

Apparently some right-wing pundits have nothing better to do than attack Obama as elitist because–are you sitting down?–he likes Grey Poupon or Dijon mustard on his burgers! Give me a break! You can buy the stuff for two dollars a bottle at a discount store, and it sure does taste a lot better than the yellow glop that’s largely turmeric. I say unto them: get a life!

Stephen Colbert’s very funny video spoofing the big too-big-to-fail bailouts; no commentary necessary from me