BCBS tricks for Halloween

Happy Halloween from Blue Cross Blue Shield: How apropos that we received our notification from BCBS on Halloween. There were certainly no treats anywhere in the letter, only tricks.

The scary fact is that the American dream of being middle class is in the process of slipping though our hands, unless the ignorant among us stop listening to the corporate lackeys that are spewing the propaganda that allow an oligarchy to take root in the land that was made for you and me.

To BCBS I am "valued subscriber." This bloodthirsty corporation had the audacity to thank me for choosing them for my health insurance needs. Then I sat there amazed with their trickery. It wasn't that our individual claims impacted the increase, it was factors such as where I reside, my age and gender that MAY have an impact.

These marketing wizards have certainly mastered the art of prestidigitation. The treat I will be giving them starting in January -- a premium adjustment that will jump over $100/month. The looters and moochers are not the populace that Ayn Rand suggested in her famous novel, "Atlas Shrugged." It's the neo-corporatist of the 21st century that has nothing to offer the populace.

RICH MACLEOD

Durham

Missing the point

Jamie Huff misses my point ["Fox a Lone Voice," Oct. 27].

ACORN is newsworthy. Just how much news are they worth?

Since 1998 ACORN employees have been accused numerous times and been convicted at least twice for creating bogus voter registration forms. I cannot find any evidence their activity led to actual bogus votes.

This hardly warrants the play they get in the right-wing press.

Last week, news broke of the 3.5 percent growth in US GDP. Some economists declared the Great Recession, the greatest worldwide economic calamity since the Great Depression, was over. That day on Fox and Friends the GDP story was mentioned twice while ACORN was mentioned 23 times.

That day on Fox News, ACORN was roughly 12 times more important than recovery from the worst economy in 80 years!

Fox viewers know little of Jamie Leigh Jones, the former KBR employee gang raped and denied justice in the courts. You cannot find stories of the recent Franken Amendment, which attempts to redress the lack of constitutional rights KBR contractors endure, on the Fox News site. What do Fox viewers know of the KBR convoy drivers that died after being sent into known hot combat zones and the status of their families' court battles?

Halliburton / KBR gets billions in "no-bid" federal contracts. They can get immunity from prosecution in the execution of their contracts. ACORN cannot imagine such power and influence -- except with Fox News.

DEAN RIDDICK

Durham