DEAR REP. GREEN, I SUPPORT YOUR NAY VOTE ON BOEHNER’S DEBT BILL

A letter to My Representative
Re-tweeted this evening:  Congress Sucks. 
Short, simple, to the point, and right now, probably about all you need to say.  But who can keep the outrage from spilling out? 
You already know that I can’t!
I wrote it after many Notebook scribbles and news searches, hours of blog surfing and comment reading, as we paced through the day in Boehner’s clutches.  I wonder if his fellow Republicans are angry about being brow-beaten into changing their votes.  Some even made conciliatory comments as to why they wimped.  In the end, it was wasted time. 
Boehner is intent on making a name for himself, of being the next “Newt”.  He is flush with power, and will only be happy if the bill has his name on it.  Pandering to the Tea Party faction may get him temporary fame; historically, elite factions rarely last longer than a generation, and few are looked upon favorably.  At one time, McCarthy was popular among some people.  So was Hitler.   
DEAR REP. AL GREEN (Dem.- District 9 Texas)

I am writing IN SUPPORT of YOUR RECENT NO VOTE on John Boehner's Debt Limit Bill. Boehner, drunk with Power at winning the Speaker seat, and is blackmailing President Obama by holding the Congress and The American People hostage.  
Thankfully, the Senate also realized that those who can least afford it are asked to do the most.  The argument that reinstating the Bush tax cuts will hurt new job growth, reminds me of a similar failed Republican policy of the 1980’s:  The “Trickle Down Theory”.   The Corporate CEOs and small business owners who support the Boehner plan are counting on no one remembering the tragic results of that policy.
Stay strong in your support for a passage of an increased debt limit.  How the Budget is to be paid should be decided when the budget is passed.  Not when the bills are due.
Respectfully,

K. Marie Rojas

Crystal Ball Required to Earn ARRA Medicare EHR Incentives

Who Will Benefit from ARRA Medicare Incentives?


In 2011, Medicare and Medicaid incentive payments will start flowing to hospitals, clinics, and physicians. In addition, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) appropriates $2 billion in funds intended to begin implementing healthcare IT, before the incentives take place, and clear requirements of “Meaningful Use” for the receipt of these payments has yet to be definitively identified, although drafts have been identified as probable definitions. (See link to CSC Update of Meaningful Use below).

This expensive endeavor by private physicians may turn out to be a risky and premature proposition, as long as the details of the promised massive health care reform are also undefined. It is also premature in that an IT infrastructure is being built prior to defining the grand new American healthcare design. Physicians are being asked to implement an expensive and complicated system with a large learning curve prior to knowing what type of health care system will eventually be in place.

According to CSC Update of Meaningful Use, physicians or groups implementing an EHR program solely for the Medicare Incentives may be making an expensive mistake, and the ROI of system implementation should be closely examined. In addition, the “meaningful use” requirements become more stringent every year, requiring vendors to guarantee that their system will meet all of the requirements for incentives (Health Data Management, April, 2009). The table of incentive payments is listed below, with nearly half of the payments available in years 1 and 2 (2011 and 2012), leaving little incentive for small practice physicians to make such a large investment in time and money.

Another concern is that simply implementing technology will not reverse the current healthcare crisis, or provide healthcare for the millions of uninsured/underinsured. A new healthcare system is imminent, and as some of the best minds in the country study foreign healthcare models, alternative business models, and even government models, we know very little of what health care in America will look like 5 to 10 years from now. Undoubtedly, it is time to implement healthcare technology into the system, and bring U.S. healthcare into the 21st century, reduce medical errors, and lower healthcare costs with IT.

Estimates of the time it will take to recoup the costs of implementing EHRs vary from 5 to 10 years, perhaps less for those who have already begun, and more for those who have not. Analysts also believe that it will be the small practice and rural physicians who will have the most difficulty implementing EHRs. During this same time period, discourses on various health plans, including a national plan, loom over the current free-market health care system. Implementation of EHRs before a healthcare reform plan has been created may be a waste of physicians resources that will never be recouped. Yet with so much change yet to come into the healthcare arena, planning the future of a small private practice may require a crystal ball.

MEDICARE/MEDICAID EHR INCENTIVE AMOUNTS
Year
Amount
Note
1
$18,000.00
15,000 if after 2012
2
12,000.00

3
8,000.00

4
4,000.00

5
2,000.00

LOOKING TO ENVIRONMENTALISTS FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH MODELS

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: Growing the U.S. Economy


Of the many diagrams for maintaining the global ecosystem, the term "Sustainable Development" has often erroneously been used to refer to all environmental ideologies, when it is in reality a single discourse. Out of the many solutions proffered for saving the world, the concept of Sustainable Development has risen to the top of viable ecological discourses. Why? What is it about Sustainable Development that has made it the buzzword of these environmentally unsure times?


Sustainable Development grew from the work of the World Commission on Environmental Development (WCED)[i], at a 1987 conference mandated by the United Nations to accomplish three objectives:


1. Re-examine critical environment and development issues and formulate realistic procedures for dealing with them.

2. Propose new forms of international cooperation on these issues; and,

3. Raise the levels of understanding and commitment to action.

Contemporary definitions of Sustainable Development are mostly a product of this conference and their published report, Our Common Future (1987), a document promising a combined prescription to issues of ecology, economy, development and growth, social justice, and intergenerational equity. According to these definitional benchmarks, Sustainable Development requires that poverty and global inequalities be eliminated before environmental issues can be resolved.

Growth is an essential concept of Sustainable Development. Economy has become inextricably connected with ecology. As it becomes increasingly apparent that environmental problems have global effects, this interdependence effectively eliminates the old political systems of national compartmentalization. According to the WCED, social, economic and political inequalities among nations are the main culprits of environmental problems. In light of these concepts, the WCED proposed the following prescriptive:

1) global democratization;

2) effective limits management;

3) population growth in harmony with the productivity of the ecosystem;

4) global equalization through “fair-sharing” of resources; and,

5) management on an international civic levels rather than the local or state level.

Most importantly, the WCED cautions that Sustainable Development requires global cooperation—not hierarchies and competition.

Sustainable development concepts are also based on the premise that the economy and the environment can be brought into global harmonic cooperation. As the World Commission on Environment and Development reported:

…We have in the more recent past been forced to face up to a sharp increase in
economic interdependence among nations. We are now forced to accustom ourselves
to an accelerating ecological interdependence among nations. Ecology and economy
are becoming ever more interwoven—locally, regionally, nationally, and
globally—into a seamless net of causes and effects.

The recession of 08/09 has made clear global economic interdependence. An example of how Sustainable Development theories are congruent with economic theories is apparent in the issues of dependence on foreign oil supplies and Western societies unquenchable thirst for oil. Under the Obama Administration, this has prompted the creation of new regulations regarding fuel usage and alternate fuels in the auto industry. New regulations, such as a 35mpg minimum requirement on new vehicles within the next few years, are not only important to the economics and future in the global market for US automakers, but also addresses all related environmental issues of procuring, processing, storing, distrubuting, and consuming gasoline. At the same time, it encourages the growth and development of sustainable industry and a sustainable world.

Works Cited in this blog:
[i] Copyright © World Commission on Environment and Development 1987. Reprinted from Our Common Future (1987).
Retired Generals, Admirals Consider Oil Dependence A Security Risk http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/19/retired-generals-admirals_n_205432.html
c 2009 kimmarie rojas

RACIST, SEXIST AND CONSTITIONALLY IGNORANT?

Right Wing detractors are scraping the barrel to bar Sotomayor's appointment...but her appointment is a shoe-in according to Washington analysts.

In response to/support of an article in Salon.com by Micke Madden, "The white man is being oppressed!" (Salon, May 29, 09). Read my take on the article, and additional comments as to why America is ready for Sonia Sotomayor's liberal philosophy of judicial activism rather than the choking constructionalism we have been enduring.

The white man is being oppressed! By Mike Madden, Salon.com, May 29, 2009.

Kudos to Madden and his explicit claim that Right Wing Bosses Gingrich-Limbaugh have a Freudian personality disorder. Their attack on Sotomayor on issues of racism, sexism, and constitutional incompetence are as Madden says, simply “projection by aging white right-wingers”.

Their fears of oppression are wolf cries, and are simply reflections of their guilt and greed, having brought down the richest country in the world. The oppositions’ claim of constitutional ignorance is simply fear of diluting even more the strangling hold any strict-constructionalism may have on the bench.

Although the two schools of strict constitutionalism and liberal interpretation have been an issue of the judiciary since its inception, this is the issue that may cause the most scrutiny during congressional hearings for the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Republican political thought is more consistent with strict-constructionalism, and to them, Sotomayor’s judicial activism and liberal interpretation of Statutory law is nothing more than pure disregard for the Constitution.

Others disagree, claiming that the Constitution is a living document, and was meant to be interpreted according to the times. Sotomayor makes no excuses for her interpretation of the law. In 2001, the NY born Puertorriqueña lectured at UC Berkley where she acknowledged that her life experiences have influenced how she sees her judicial duty to interpret the law. Her belief in experience, wisdom, and analysis is a cornerstone of her judicial philosophy. In a You-Tube clip posted by a blogger meant to discourage support, Sotomayor admits to “judicial policymaking”, acknowledging that “we’re not supposed to” make law, and then quickly adding “I do not promote it or advocate it…”, but the chuckles in the back of the room verify the reality of the judiciary.

In reality, the Legislative Branch, Congress, is not the only law-making body in U.S. Government. Judicial precedents have routinely been upheld in courts. Miranda v. Arizona (to be informed of your rights upon arrest) and Gideon v. Wainwright (that counsel will be provided at no cost) are two examples of Supreme Court law that has been implemented and enforced by the States. Administrative organizations, a non-legislative part of the Executive branch, are charged with creating rules and regulations which carry the force of law behind them. Paradoxically, they also hold hearings that have the weight of the judiciary behind them, allowing Administrations to create, implement and judicially enforce the rules and regulations they create. Again in the Executive Branch, although rare, the President does have the power to make law through an Executive Order. Although the framers were cautious to create a tri-partite government, the branches often slip into another’s constitutional territory, making Constructionalism a discourse, not a constitutional requirement.

Sotomayor will become the next Supreme Court Justice, and the largest minority group in the Country will at last have judicial representation in the Highest Court. Congress will examine the issue of Sotomayor’s constitutional interpretation with a microscope, and still, she will be appointed: As Madden points out, any Republican who is interested in being re-elected, will not fight a tide that the GOP has no power to turn (with 40 seats). But in the meantime, we can watch the old white guys scratch and scramble to turn every rock, and try to convince a nation that has been hit square in the head, heart and pocketbook with the reality of the right wing bankers and war-mongers, that the Constitution, like the Bible, should be interpreted word for word. After so much harsh reality, Americans are ready for some liberal interpretation.

The Green Association for Sustainability

c 2009 Kim Rojas

Obama Validates Federal Unsustainability

As Obama targets wasteful spending and pet projects, with strong words he validates the basic premise of Green Associations for Sustainable Society..."OUR CURRENT SOCIETY IS UNSUSTAINABLE UNDER THE FEDERAL ADMINISTRATIONS OF THE LAST CENTURY"

Said Obama:
"As surely as our future depends on building a new energy economy, controlling healthcare costs and ensuring that our kids are once again the best educated in the world, it also depends on restoring a sense of responsibility and accountability to our federal budget," Obama said. "Without significant change to steer away from ever-expanding deficits and debt, we are on an unsustainable course."
(emphasis added)

Stop the War: Begin the Healing