Open Thread
By Heather Wednesday Jul 15, 2009 7:30pmYou can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!
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From The Late Show July 13, 2009. I wonder if Liz Cheney will be complaining like Sarah Palin did about how mean David Letterman is and her family should be "off-limits."
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Dick Cheney: Worst VP EVER!!
(while I still think Nixon was the worst POTUS ever - Bush, Jr. was just dumb, probably an insult to Millard Fillmore on the intelligence front)
of Apollo 11, 40 years ago today.
www.wechoosethemoon.org
has the entire flight with radio transmissions, pics and great stuff. This is from the JFK Library.
noxin should not be impeached.
Bush-Cheney are Nixonazi leftovers. Supreme Vice Leader Cheney is unfinished "business" from the Nixon days. Behold the tree that was seeded back then. This is what happens when the DOJ and Congress lets things "go". Bush-Cheney went back to lawlessness in a huge flair-up, now it's time to extinguish them, smoldering embers and all, once and for all, or be plagued by corruption well into the 21st century.
(YouTube - AP) Sotomayor, Franken Both Perry Mason Fans
That was quite funny. Very human.
Am I the only one who's starting to feel like Bush didn't have anything to do with how this Banana Republic was run for the last 8 years?
Well, Cheney seemed to be calling all the shots over those past 8 years as a shadow-POTUS.
Bush was the Front Man.
Cheney had him by the leash.
And I assume Cheney was the Inside Man for a much larger group of people.
So, is it really possible to investigate Cheney, Rove, et al even though they are out of office, or do they really go scot-free like Nixon's Watergate and Reagan's Iran-Contra?
Chris Matthews asks Sen WhiteHouse: Did Cheney Break the Law?
nixon may not have gone to jail...but he was a broken man
did you see what happened when bush appeared at the as game in that vid? they cheered him....they fucking cheered him...and there were a smattering of boos directed at both clinton and obama
there is something seriously wrong with many people in this country
i say we round them up and send them to the fema camps
*sigh* :(
TV sure has a way of editing soundbytes, but at least one can get closer to the truth online with raw footage of what really happened (to some degree).
is right...
i noticed a new bumper sticker on my oldest sister's car:
Thank you, George W. Bush
( i can't remember if it said 'president' also )
s.central illinois, btw...
.
It was all peaches and cream for the 'middle classes' during the Bushco years, rising house prices and DOW going through the roof. Obama And the Democrats inherited a mess, for a large chunk of the US population its now Obama's problem and he will get the blame.
Don't be going all soft on Bush. He was in on it up to his eyeballs, just didn't do any of the thinking. Cheney was busy and disntereted in feeding the GOP-base their red meat. Bush used all his charisma to keep the base rapt and drooling, and wanting more.
deer in the headlights look when Andy Card told him the World Trade Center had been attacked.
Remember when he was at the get together with some kids a few months later and a boy asked him what he thought when he found out about the plane hitting the building? He said, "You know, I was a pilot once and I was standing out in the school hall waiting to go in the classroom when I saw the first pilot hit the trade center and I thought to myself, "Man, that guy is one lousy pilot."
The only problem is that the first plane wasn't shown hitting the trade center until the NEXT DAY. It was impossible for him to see the first plane hit the trade center that morning.
Things regarding 9/11 just keep getting curiouser and curiouser.
But Cheney was right on the job in the bunker with Condi, right??
Could someone, anyone, please show me where in the Constitution former Vice President Dick Cheney had the authority to do anything other than ask that President if he was alive?
I'd like to know where the proof is that the torture he likely authorized did work to help prevent a terrorist attack on US soil as indicated in any existing memos. Keith Olbermann suggests that Cheney didn't really save anyone since 4000+ soldiers died in Iraq, as well as thousands of/countless Iraqis, and thousands more in Afghanistan - all for the sake of protecting against another terrorist attack on US soil!! It's amazing he is able to justify such tactics by hiding behind 9/11!
This is deadly serious - the CIA is at risk - the CIA cannot function as designed without Congress.
Bush-Cheney is why these things are made illegal. Cheney may be why these things were made illegal in the first place. If so, then Cheney has failed his probation and he should be hauled away, like he should have been the first time. what?
and no one (as i know of) has been prosecuted for all the malware and adware that is on the net?
The RIAA bought legislation and political favors to allow them to act as police and judges and jury. You might want to talk to Orifice Hatch and DiFi as they are their best employees.
Plus there's this thing that there's no such thing as a free market.
and a fucking advert for stopzilla pops up....fucking scam program that tells you, you have more infections than you really do (and comes up with cute names for each) but makes you pay to remove them
fuck the man
this just in... Woo opens up about how and why he lost his principles and honor, and why he sold out and broke the system of government.
Of coarse he is making a case for torture but it won't matter. People can recognize a confession when they read it.
This is good news as they will start blaming and implicating others soon. The truth will be out soon.
They know what happened to Libby and the grunts of Abu Gharib.
you all...does anyone else here start planning for the November/December holidays super early? Like right now, in July?
Half the people I talk to about this will say things like "Stop, you're exhausting me already!" ;)
You're exhausting me already!
I knew it! :D
I think I'll go hunting for my tree this weekend. Maybe go over to Frankenmuth and find some decorations for it.
so I would be much happier with some snow.
be one season a year: Christmas.
People's lives will revolve around a single activity: work to produce or to make enough money to buy christmas presents. Any human activity will be framed to revolve around that purpose.
You hear it here first. People in the future will dig through our digital archives and will find this post. I expect people in the future to refer to me with reverence and respect for my forward thinking. A few statues will celebrate yours truly. I expect them to include markees which direct people to use more soap. Thank you.
I boycott Christmas/New Years.
I make little things for my sons and maybe send a few cards. I DO NOT SHOP!!!
choose to DIY most if not all of what I give, rather than shop, and if I shopped, it was from small handmade businesses rather than the no-soul of Wal-Mart or anything like that. I got tired of the soullessness of the holiday.
NOW - paul mccartney on david letterman...
:-)
he will be playing outside on the top of the marquee
of the Ed Sullivan Theater.
cool.
just went to his live show last Saturday, 2 hrs 40 minutes nonstop!
folks outside the venue half KM away were clapping after every song ...
Check out the pipe band ...60,000 people went NUTS!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvO5NwxqPuY
Too bad the rouge conspiracy between Cheney and the CIA that Panetta informed congress about and shut down immediately isn't about Al Qaeda at all. now who the hell suggested it was about Al Qaeda again...? Other than the "Cheney Bunch" and various republicanazi or republicanazi news outlets that is.
you gotta believe the story because the WSJ printed it and Fox backed it up with BillO and Karl Rove on Fox which as is the WSJ, owned by Murdach. Who ya gonna believe, the WSJ or your lying eyes.
We assume that the CIA is purely about foreign nastiness, that would be a duplication of effort as there is a large SF army group and private contractors to do the outside stuff.
There was that tidyup operation down in Florida a year or more ago.
Will the Senate Dems stop being obstructionists on health care reform? The "liberal" media asks a conservative columnist's opinion on Sotomayor. Arnie's a family's values guy, in that he's following his father's path of dealing with the less fortunate. Tony Alamo's a fan of David Koresh. Obama considers going color-blind on the Terror Alert. Tenet tried to stop the CIA hit squad-or so he claims. The House plans to tax the rich back to 1980s levels, thus discrediting the whole Reagan myth in the process. Atheists sue over a "In God We Trust" engraving, while a guy who got booted out of Yankee Stadium for ignoring the Pledge gets a settlement. Anti-abortion protesters at Sotomayor's hearing are too much, even for Senator Cockburn. Even "moderate" Dems don't like Palindrone. Tony Villaraigosa doesn't care about poor people. Wagoner the Dick gets a cool 10 mil for running GM into the ground. China eagerly embraces capitalism. Sotomayor's tired of hiding behind 9/11. The Khmer Rouge has a lot in common with neo-cons. An Arizona Repug Governor hates her own gender, as she makes it harder for women to get abortions and even birth control. Another fan of FOX News.
Thanks Tequila.
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cnn/susan...
Karma!
Big trouble south of the border. I'm Talkin BIG!
Obama got the DEA, CIA etc to go along with the rhetoric doesn't it? Ie he should tell them to stop funding the drug cartels. Ending the bs war on some drugs wouldn't be a bad idea either.
Yeah, this is bad.
End the war on drugs. Legalize pot and take away the large profit margins from the cartels. Violence will decrease dramatically in Mexico. It's as simple as that.
would most certainly offset most benefits that the "war on drugs complex" reaps from a war that is by definition not winnable.
In other words, we're sinking billions each year on a futile effort... that has little to no value added for our society. When we could not only, save all that money... but to actually make a reverse profit from the increased tax revenue. I.e. spend less, and collect more...
Again, we're ransom to a cartel of corporation that provide a product that has little to no market merit. Which is funny, because these so-called hard core free-marketers are usually in charge of corporations which depend directly from public funding. Since they provide a product that would sink in a free market place otherwise. I.e. they shell something that has no market, and thus the government generates an artificial demand.
I saw someone say on a documentary about the drug war say that the reason that pot is classed as a dangerous narcotic comes from the Nixon regime. It seems that Nixon and Kissinger were discussing the protesters of the war and how to get rid of them. It was suggested that people who smoke pot, generally sit around and think of things. Things like how badly they're getting fucked by the government and being used as cannon fodder in war after war. Whereas people who drink alcohol just want to fight and make fools of themselves. It was a no-brainer, pot had to go and alcohol had to become every teenagers favorite thing.
We can't possible end the war on drugs because our own gov. secret involvement and slush fund $$$$$$$ comes from there. The gov. is in on it!! All the gov. are involved the so-called 'War On Drugs'
Poor little Calderón protege of Bush, gets beat up for Bush's anti-drug program. Urribe, another stooge in Colombia, his country is bankrupt because of following The Leader. How's that 'con'servative stuff working out for ya???
Dick and Liz need to remember the old saying, let they who haven't committed war crimes (or tried to excuse them) cast the first stone. And then get ready to be pelted by rocks.
...wait til you get a load of Romney/Gingrich.
Same great product in a brand new package.
but not fucking funny dude. (Me thinks Cheney's a war criminal....).
I'm East Coastin' it, so I'll leave ya'll with these little tid bits from today:
(In no particular order....):
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D99F5...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090715/ap_on_re_...
That's it for me troops...
Good night and....
Carry on!!!
The SEC nails 11 more inside traders. Thanks to "free" trade with China, Iran might be able to get around sanctions. Speaking of the free market, a guy's CC company charged his ass in the quadrillions.
Profits for second quarter up 36% for JP Morgan Chase.
And how much of this is due to foreclosures and calling in people's debts, thats the way banks thrive in recessions.
Have you heard about the C Street conspiracy, and the C Street cells?
Organized political criminals.
... you don't talk about C Street.
Seriously though, Rachel Maddow has been exposing them right and left lately. Well, mostly right.
Don't remember anything about "cells" though.
I was able to participate in the live discussion with Speaker Pelosi for part of the discussion. I only saw where she only responded about one dozen times. She said that the public option wouldn't be in process until January 2013. I don't think she realized how unacceptable that would be to most of us. My opinion is that most of the middle class would be stripped of any disposable income by then. Also they are counting on small businesses with over 25 employees to offer healthcare insurance to their employees. With many of these small businesses operating on a shoestring now, it will force many of them to shut down. This is not a good bill and I'm hoping that Obama will vetoe it and tell them to go back to negotiations.
I'm glad I missed it. I don't think I could have stayed polite with that enabler who refused to impeach the worst president in history.
"...she only responded about one dozen times," doesn't say anything about anything. Barney Frank didn't make a hundred comments- probably replied at the same rate as Pelosi did, actually- and I didn't see anyone griping about that.
Commenting at a blog isn't an in-born human trait. I'll bet that for a busy woman in her 60's who hasn't had a lot of experience with it, it was probably a bit discombobulating.
Hell, I remember when ysb only posted once per minute. It took him a while before he could post five times in the same span of time. :D
BTW, "discombobulating" FTW! Spellcheck didn't underline it!
always go back and review the whole thread if you want to.
There were a few times when I thought Barney had been called to the floor to vote. Turned out that he was banging out some longer comments. Still, he didn't post too many replies.
Again, it's a non-issue, imo.
And I agree with what you said about the date that the plan would be fully operational. But I should point out that SHE brought it up, not you, not Alice. You'd think that as concerned (I mean that in a positive context) as all of us supposedly are, not one of us brought it up first. That's how important it was.
by 2013, they will hope that nobody remembers that there was a bill passed to bring the costs under control.
Why is it not going into full effect until 2013? Is there a switch that can be flipped that would generate the workers with the knowledge of how to process the new forms and who know what the rules are? Does that switch build the offices where those people work?
Let's say this thing passes on October 31, 2009, signed, sealed and delivered to go fully operational on the next day. Do you think things will run fluidly, or do you think that there would be a myriad of problems? And if you answer "myriad of problems", how easily do you think those problems are brushed off in the next debate, the one over single payer?
... in a matter of weeks. Unlike health care, where there are already acceptable models (e.g. Medicare or the Federal plan Spkr. Pelosi herself has) which need only be expanded, there was not even an existing framework for the bank bailout.
Yet it was done almost overnight.
But a health care plan needs four years to implement?
And even the debate about single payer has been kicked down the road for nearly half a decade - after the next presidential election.
Something smells.
They weren't transitioning tens of millions of people into an insurance program.
And it isn't Medicare. It's its own program.
Even if it was Medicare, they'd have to train hundreds of thousands of new workers.
And it's just over three years (January 2013), if it's passed in the fall as Pelosi said they were hoping for.
And with my third edit, I'm thinking of changing my handle to Andy X Chavez-Kucinich.
But if you think it should take a shorter time to seamlessly implement such a massive program, tell me how it's done so we can try to get it fast-tracked.
... but, fine, write us some checks. Or at least write our doctors some checks. That's all a health plan really does.
Of course, there do need to to be some protections against fraud, but that was not in anyway a concern for the bankers. Still isn't.
But four years?
Anyway, good devil's advocacy. I hope we can pick this up another time. I got the real world tomorrow.
GN
bailout involved orders of magnitude more money than this transition to decent health care, and yet it only took congress a few weeks to see it going from zero to fruition. What there is not to get?
The infrastructure is already there, it is not that we don't have hospitals and tons of healthcare professionals. Most of the transition involves funding and transition the management, i.e. the paperwork aspects of healthcare. In comparison with the bank bailout, that process is almost trivial esp. in terms of funding required.
Mrs. Pelosi sort of implied that there won't be a serious reform on the table until 2013. Meaning they are going to sit in their asses and wait for Obama's 2nd term to start a serious debate regarding implementation. So that makes it almost 1 decade before we can even start to experience an actual reform as patients. Compare 1 decade with just a few weeks, and if you don't get the picture.... good luck!
You telling me that the federal government will be pulling the management from existing insurers? Is that all it takes?
... the clerical employers from the insurers need minimal training. The management from the insurers needs to be recycled with non-profit people, since now they don't need to answer to shareholders since the government provides both the funding and the obligations/regulations for accountability/responsibility.
The only ones this change affects adversely are the top management teams, but I don't feel sorry for them. Since it seems a few hundred top executives are, literally, holding a whole country ransom... due to their entitlement to ridiculous compensations for little to no value added to the consumer/patient.
... the clerical employers from the insurers need minimal training.
I thought most of their training was how to stamp "claim denied."
that the legislative process is not taking long enough. Of course it's taking too long.
And they aren't talking about waiting for Obama's 2nd term to start a serious debate regarding implementation. Pelosi said fully operational in January 2013. What we're asking here is why would it take that long? Are there ways to make it happen in less time so that everyone processing the paperwork knows what the hell they're doing?
But I did find this. Apparently Medicare was implemented in less than a year for over 19 million people.
3 1/2 years seems a long time.
Like about the same as WWII.
If there's a will there's a way (which could be the problem).
Medicare was implemented in one year and one day.
I remember when Medicare came out....there was one woman in the office who got stuck with it...and she about lost her mind.
She talked to herself....a lot! But yes, I remember quite well how 'quickly' it got into the system.
for 40 plus million people, this included bringing in all the staff, all the hospital and clinic buildings, and all the GP offices. This was pre computer, pre modern administration, card indexes and human sweat and ingenuity.
... besides the hand-wavy nature of the answers she gave. She pretty much made it look as if no serious reform would take place before 2013... not by 2013.
The thing I don't understand is why the Dems are not pushing hard for a meaningful and successful reform. If implemented correctly, this would get the country united and normalize the situation... stability usually translates into economic growth. Furthermore, any successful reform before 2012 would translate into a virtual electoral guarantee for the Dems for at least a generation.
I am not saying it will be an easy task, but it is far from impossible... and some of the obstacles become trivial with common sense and a clear will to enforce the common good. But that requires a leadership with a minimal degree of skill and commitment. And frankly, I am less than confident in the skills,never mind, commitment from the dynamic Pelosi/Reid duo, and mister bipartisanship über alles Obama.
I understand the capacity for compromise is a necessary quality for any great statesman. However, one needs a strong position from which to compromise later on once the opposition has made a meaningful case... since the GOP is the minority, it is their duty to work for a compromise not the other way around. Instead, it seems the Dem's MO is to do the job of the opposition already for the GOP and start compromising even before we begin. Put a strong case, and let the GOP make their own... it seems the Dems are way too concerned about the feeling of the GOP to focus on the public interests. That is unacceptable...
Dems must be the world's worst hagglers...
Wed, 07/15/2009 - 11:00 — Speaker Nancy Pelosi
[emphasis added]
from what I understand by a law going into "effect" usually implies/means that the system then stars to get implemented, not that the whole system is already implemented by then.
In any case, the public option is a scam, anything other than universal or single payer is a scam. So it really makes little difference if it goes into effect tomorrow or in 1 year.
Oh, I dunno...How long has it been since the suffragettes started their fight for equal footing? 160 years? I haven't seen anyone rushing to get an Equal Rights Amendment passed since the last attempt expired. And talk about bargaining positions: Slightly over 50% of the population...capitulating.
The Dems will never get a strong popular support, until they start to strengthen their stands on their positions.
But there's at least one very powerful politician under 50- Obama. And he's a boomer, as is every person born in this country from 1946 to 1964 (iirc, the peak was 1955).
As an early Gen Xer (born in July of '65), I don't blame the boomers for the upcoming problems as much as I blame their parents. Grandma and grandpa must have foreseen the problems, but instead of addressing them just took their pensions and moved to the Sun Belt, figuring they'd be dead or close enough to it by the time the shit hit the fan.
"greed is good" into a form of art, didn't help either. Regardless of the blame, the boomers will be the first generation in this country to pass a country in worse shape they found it in. After having grown up in the 80s and 90s when the boomers were getting in charge of things, I did not feel like being lectured...
Hey, I was stoned. Don't blame me. ;)
Actually the boomers' parents made a tidy $$killing$$. Why would they stop anything? My Dad was saying, last summer, he was born in the best year ever-- he read (1929). Too young to understand the depression, too young to go to WWII, graduated into the post-war boom, with full employment and high growth, while Europe and Asia were destroyed and N. America was the world's factory. Too old for Vietnam (even though Canada did not go there), etc., etc.
The egg came first if you accept evolution.
The chicken came first if you accept creationism.
In other words: the egg came first.
which involved an intermediate form that did not involve eggs during evolution ;-) And/or the egg being a mutation from the world's first chicken...
Yeah, it is almost 2 am and I am still writing a paper. Research, gotta love it...
Aha! So anything looks better than hitting the books. Is your apartment super clean too?
not reading them. ;-)
That being said, my home is spotless... due to yet another writer's block.
... proto chicken... :)
'target date' of 2013...
too much work. They need all their vacations and junkets, doncha know.
these things take time, and they 1st must go through the ministry of information.
Its not rocket science to have a young staffer who is a good typist to type what somebody dictates, or a team.
The slow response is more likely to be considered opinion and not wanting to say the wrong thing, or be caught out.
.
When will we charge him? And the military officers who reported to him instead of the President, when the VP is not even IN the sacred chain of command? Hm?
These and many other interesting questions are discussed on this months' Cosie award winning blogs. All female this month, in honor of wise Latina's. And wise-asses in general.
.
Thought this may be of some interest. Not only is the Obama administration arguing the wiretapping program is legal, but also that it's not even legal to sue the government. I should have seen this coming after the shameful FISA vote.
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/pcworld/20090716/t...
Is it just me, or is Obama starting to look good, or at least better, again. Some important issues seem to be moving. They stalled for a while, but look at all the info seeping out about these war criminals, and health care is front and centre and actually being discussed nationally. How long has that been kicked around; 30~40 years?
Don't get your hopes up. I don't think Obama was kidding about the "looking ahead, not back" line. The only hope is that Holder has enough guts to investigate anyway.
I'm thinking, or hoping. the gloves are really going to come off in Obama's second term when he doesn't have to worry about re-election. It's a shame it has to be that way in the political environment but it just is. After 2012 here's hoping he's going to kick some Rushthugliklan ass because up to now he's often appeared to be a George Bush in blackface.
Franken asks about net neutrality.
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/5524937/14528499
I love Letterman because he clearly loathes the Rushthugliklans, which is why all the faux outrage from Winking Hockeymom and the rabid right over Letterman's joke when Leno made the same joke about Palin's daughter without a peep from wingnuts. Letterman has been more in their face since he doesn't back down from the wingnuts.
Letterman rocks!!
I enjoyed watching McCartney on Letterman tonight and it was probably the first time I've watched an entire episode in years. My only complaint is that the amount of ads in the hour was UNBELIEVABLE! Has it always been this way? Or has my lack of TV watching lately made me more intolerant to advertising?
Are they putting all kinds of other --non-entertainment-- crap on your TV screens too. They do in Korea, and it drives me nuts. I'm sure they're playing more ads. Why wouldn't they? Sell, sell, sell. I find it disturbing, so I mute them and close my eyes. I give my eyes a little (much needed) rest too. Win/win.
At least, over here, they do ads every half hour or hour, not every 5 mintutes. Sometimes you get a whole hour of TV without an ad. I like that.
PS The big drive these days is AIG selling health insurance (using fear, of course). Oh joy! They're everywhere. Korea has health care, but it only covers about 70~80%. Still better than a lot of Americans with NONE. And a visit to the doctor is not expensive (affordable), even without insurance, but that's changing.
Free Trade with the U$A = kill the public insurance here and push AIG??? Looks like.
The first time I ever went to a doctor here, I didn't have insurance. I woke up and blood had come out of my ear overnight (never happened before or since, and was a bit scary.) The doctor didn't charge me a thing. It was free. I think they remember back when they were all poor and how hard they worked to get the country rich, so they have hearts. Koreans do have amazing hearts.
Wingnut Wingnutterson (aka Erik Erikson) refers to Obama as "Pinocchiobama"
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2009/07/15/pino...
To this I have 6 words "Saddam has weapons of mass distruction"
UK Announces Low Carbon Transition Plan - 34% Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions by 2020
- http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/07/uk-an...
I'm so glad we have idiot Deniers/Extinctionists in the House & Senate, aren't you? Falling behind yet again, because republicans & con-servatives turn everything into politics...
Greenland Glacier About to Lose Manhattan-sized Ice Chunk (Video) - http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/07/green...
It appears that the largest Arctic glacier, the Petermann glacier in Greenland, is about to get a bit smaller. Reports from scientists monitoring the situation indicate that a chuck of ice the size of Manhattan (100 sq. kilometers) is about the fall off.
ACTION ALERT: Tell the FCC: We Want a Fast, Affordable and Open Internet - http://www.freepress.net/node/62059
You know how China does their Internet....well just replace China with megacorporations here...and that's what we'll have.....it takes 5 seconds to keep the Internet the last bastion of free speech & access to all information....
Good News: Health Care Reform May Not Pass House Without Public Option as Progressive Representatives Threaten Revolt
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/15/leak...
They'll do this if they want to be re elected in 2010
DO IT ALREADY: Key Obama advisers indicate openness to pushing health care reform through with just Democratic votes.
- http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/15/axelrod-r...
Bloomberg’s Ed Chen reports that two of Obama’s top advisers — Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod – “may rely only on Democrats to push health-care legislation through the U.S. Congress if Republican resistance doesn’t eventually give way.” For months, the White House has underscored its interest in achieving bipartisan health care reform.
But as con-servatives remained wedded to an obstructionist agenda, the White House is now conceding that it may have to rely on Democratic votes to pass reform.
F the Republicans/con-servatives...they don't want change, then tell them to get the F out of the way...because we have a 'mandate' unlike Bush's pretend one...
Obama’s Good Move on Student Loans - http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/o...
"It’s not often that we have good things to say about President Obama. It is even more rare that the good news about his administration has to do with banks. So it is welcome to hear that the White House is making good on its commitment to eliminate the multi-billion-dollar banking boondoggle in dispensing college loans.
For decades the bankers have been getting risk-free federal money at taxpayer and student expense, by handling student loans already guaranteed by the federal government, collecting fees and then selling the loans to the U.S. Treasury. It is a shameless, $15 billion a year gift to the banking industry for risking literally nothing while siphoning off money that should have gone to students’ education.
The Obama White House first promised to cut the bank middlemen out back in February. But we have all learned to take Obama’s political promises with several spoonfuls of salt, since he often fails to follow through with pressures on Democrats in Congress. This time appears to be different.
The chairman of the House Education Committee, California Representative George Miller, is introducing legislation to enable the government to loan money directly to students, thus theoretically freeing up $87 billion over the next ten years for direct distribution to students. President Obama says he wants the savings directed to Pell grants for low-income students."
Hillary Clinton: 'Clear-eyed' handling of foes-willingness to talk not sign of weakness to be exploited - http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/249...
WP: "CIA officials were proposing to activate a plan to train anti-terrorist assassination teams overseas when agency managers brought the secret program to the attention of CIA Director Leon Panetta last month, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter." Remember, this is a leak from the CIA, so is this a cover for a cover?
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/...
Los Angeles accused of criminalizing homelessness - http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/i...
An estimated 40,000 people live on the streets, in abandoned buildings or in temporary shelters throughout Los Angeles, more than 5,000 of them in Skid Row. Another 8,000 make their home in that area's short-term residential hotels, or flop houses as they were once called.
Becky Dennison, co-director of the Los Angeles Community Action Network, said the homeless population in Los Angeles has ballooned due to a lack of affordable housing, a high poverty rate and "long-standing lack of local resources."
Tuesday's report cited a 2007 University of California study that found L.A. was spending $6 million a year to pay for the 50 extra police officers who patrol Skid Row while budgeting just $5.7 million for homeless services.
Cardinal Roger Mahony (1998): "Any society, any nation, is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members ; the last, the least, the littlest."
Republicans always bite the hand that feeds them: Obama administration is firing back at Sen. Jon Kyl for calling for an end to economic stimulus spending and they're aiming for where it hurts the most — at home in Arizona.
- http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/A...
I'd love to have seen the states of Texas & South Carolina make good on their BS bluff not to take stimulus money...then watch those states fall into the sea of debt and have those GOP schmucks run home crying to mama (Fed Govt) for the money...
E. coli and Campylobacteriosis: Why Obama's USDA food-safety pick is so important - http://www.grist.org/article/2009-07-14-obama...
One thing that helps is stop eating meat.... But the USDA food pick is in charge of so much more....and with so few multinationals running our food system, we need someone to look out for us...
Please see the documentary: FOOD, INC....
CNN's 'journalism' on the Cheney story - Glenn Greenwald - http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/0...
Con-servative 'News' Network....
Amy Goodman: Health Insurance Whistle-Blower Knows Where the Bodies Are Buried - http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090714_...
Wendell Potter is the health insurance industry’s worst nightmare. He’s a whistle-blower. Potter, the former chief spokesperson for insurance giant CIGNA, recently testified before Congress, “I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick—all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors.”
The insurance industry and other health care interests are lobbying hard against a government-sponsored, nonprofit, public health insurance option, and are spending, according to The Washington Post, up to $1.4 million per day to sway Congress and public opinion. Don’t be fooled.
Profit-driven insurance claim denials actually kill people, and Wendell Potter knows where the bodies are buried. His whistle-blowing may be just what’s needed to dump what’s sick in our health care system.
Dodd: A Good Health Care Bill More Important Than A Bipartisan One - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/15/sena...
There is nothing bi-partisan about the con-servatives....
Why Silk Soy Milk's Parent Company Is Throwing American Farmers and Consumers Under the Bus - http://www.alternet.org/environment/141134/wh...
Since Dean Foods acquired Silk it has ditched support of domestic organic farms. When megacorporation Dean Foods acquired Silk soy milk the prospects looked good for American organic soy farmers.
Silk had always been committed to supporting domestic organic farmers, and with the new might of Dean Foods behind it, Silk would likely grow. Silk did grow, but it also dropped its commitment to domestic soy.
Multiple Midwestern farmers and farmers cooperatives in the heart of American soy country were told by Silk they had to match the rock-bottom cost of Chinese organic soybeans -- a price they simply could not meet. Organic agriculture is labor-intensive, and China's edge comes largely from its abundance of cheap labor.
Time to buy other brands folks....
After Viewing Levi Johnston Interview, All Parties Say Palin Was Not Honest About Reasons for Resignation
- http://www.mediacurves.com/Politics/J7461-Lev...
Details are coming out about how hard SC Gov. Mark Sanford's staff tried to reach me during his rendezvous in Argentina. "Gov. Mark Sanford’s chief of staff, Scott English, called the governor’s cell phones 15 times during the governor’s secret trip to Argentina to visit his lover last month. But the governor never picked up."
- http://www.thestate.com/local/story/862957.ht...
What's really sad is South Carolina will re-elect him
According to an official analysis released by tax officials, California could get nearly $1.4 billion in revenue from taxing and regulating marijuana. Such a bill has been introduced in the CA Assembly.
- http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/A...
The Third Rachel Maddow Report (July 15th) on the C Street "Mafia" Cabal of Fundamentalist Senators and Congressmen Who Subscribe to an Ubermensch Theory That They are Chosen by God to be Leaders and Are Only Responsible to Each Other, Because the Masses are Weak and Not Divinely Selected.
- http://hoffmania.com/2009/07/c-street-no-long...
US and China to Create Cooperative Clean Energy Research Center - http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/07/us-ch...
Ontario to Offer up to $10,000 in Incentives for Plug-In Hybrids and Battery Electric Cars - http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/07/ontar...
Political Irony: TOM TOMORROW! - http://politicalirony.com/2009/07/16/handing-...
the citizens of enterprise, alabama erected a tribute to how something disastrous can be a catalyst for change.
it is still the only known monument to an agricultural pest.
i know it's old news (december 11th, 1919) but i just thought you might like to know!
Cheney is an American traitor that should die in prison where he belongs.
you know you're right. Terrorism comes in many forms. Terrorism is a tactic. The war on terrorism is a war on tactics. Yet Bush-Cheney resorted to these highly dishonorable tactics that are essentially indistinguishable from terrorism, even if the other side started first. "Which side started first" will only be known if and when there is an unstaged investigation of the events that led to 9/11.
Commenting on Jeff Sessions' performance in the current judicial hearings, people have been accusing him of racism. I don't think that's accurate in this instance.
The U.S. Census distinguishes between race (biology) and ethnicity (culture). For example, in race Fidel Castro is White and the Cuban heavyweight martial arts champion is Black. But in culture they both are Hispanic.
The distinction matters in the Census, because it affects such stuff as allocation of federal resources and opportunities. It matters generally because sloppiness in language always leads to misunderstanding; and it matters more particularly because racism vs. ethnic and other kinds of bigotry are often manifested in different ways.
Now admittedly these negatives aren't mutually exclusive. For example, Jeff Sessions is manifestly a racist–on the record, which is a big part of the reason he himself was not confirmed as a judge. And he's also bigoted against Hispanics. A versatile guy!
P.S. I just clicked-on the local news channel, and the announcer was saying that some organization contained fewer minorities than it wished. She said that this is bad because we need ethnic diversity.
sloppiness in language always leads to misunderstanding
Good point.
race vs. ethnicity
Good point.
we need ethnic diversity
Ya, sloppy. Plus we don't nessesarily need ethnic diversity, but we shouldn't fear biological diversity either.
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