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Thursday, March 11, 2010

Mother Jones: The Supreme Court recently freed corporations to spend more money on aggressive election ads. But if businesses take advantage of this new freedom, the public probably won't know it, because it's easy for them to legally hide their political spending. Under current disclosure laws for federal elections, it's virtually impossible for the public to track how much a business spends, what it's spending on, or who ultimately benefits. Experts say the transparency problem extends to state and local races as well. read more


Earlier this week, a new poll and accompanying "strategic analysis" was released by Democracy Corps (the Democratic firm founded by James Carville, Stan Greenberg and Bob Shrum), co-sponsored by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner ("GQR") and the "centrist" Third Way. It spat out decades-old, warmed-over, fear-driven conventional wisdom: Democrats were in danger of being seen as Weak on National Security and Terrorism, etc. etc., and specifically warned of the dangers from abandoning Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies (while suggesting ways for Democrats to appear Strong).


Wednesday, March 10, 2010

A Senate committee has taken steps to blacklist the Drudge Report on Capitol Hill computers over concerns that the site may be distributing malware in ads on the site. Late Monday night, the Senate's Committee on Environment and Public Works sent out a letter urging employees to steer clear of the highly-trafficked news aggregating web site as well as whitepages.org after a wave of virus attacks. "Please avoid using these sites until the Senate resolves this issue," a committee e-mail read.


Hate radio host Rush Limbaugh has been one of health care reform's most vociferous opponents, warning that "human beings will die earlier than normal" under the "freedom killing" and "life threatening" plan, and calling for it to be "aborted." Yesterday, Limbaugh put his money where his mouth is, saying that if health care passes and all his fears are realized, he'll leave the country:


Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Self-proclaimed waterboarding fan Dick Cheney called it a no-brainer in a 2006 radio interview: Terror suspects should get a "a dunk in the water." But recently released CIA internal documents show how Dick Cheney's proscribed techniques for waterboarding prisoners was even crueller than previously thought and much more brutal than he described. read more


Comments

Refusing to accept Jeremy Rosner's self-serving revisionist history on behalf of his good friends Rahm, James and Stan is particularly critical now because Democrats are poised to do this yet again, and this same tired faction is providing the "intellectual and strategic" ammunition. When running for President, Barack Obama emphatically pledged again and again to overturn -- not continue -- the Bush/Cheney template on Terrorism and civil liberties. He railed against the notion that we need to abandon our "values" (due process, the rule of law, civilian courts, habeas corpus, transparency) in order to stay safe. And he won -- resoundingly.

Yet from the start, he takes a half-step forward in that direction followed by two fearful steps back. He grants civilian trials to a handful of detainees while ordering military commissions and indefinite detention for most. He trumpets new transparency guidelines while invoking "secrecy" to block courts from reviewing Bush crimes and re-writing FOIA to allow the suppression of torture photos. He vows to close GITMO and then plans to re-locate its core injustices to Illinois. He praises habeas review for GITMO detainees while seeking to deny it to those shipped from around the world to Bagram. He lauds the beauty of due process while compiling hit lists of American citizens to be murdered with no due process, far from any battlefield. He hails the centrality of the Rule of Law while demanding that Bush crimes be suppressed in the name of Looking Forward, etc. etc.


THIS!

Be Well.

This country is capable of great change during moments of great leadership.

That's a little naive.

America is a country that is ruled by a corporate duopoly posing as a functioning representative democratic republic.

This has been true fer generations now.

The two parties are both dependent on donations from the 400 richest families in the country and corporate dough, both domestic and international, in order to get elected and then re-elected.

Last election over 100 major corporations gave huge wads of cash to BOTH parties.

The will of the people and their long term needs and wants are given short shrift in order to facilitate a corporate agenda.

In light of that grim reality any change that comes to America through legislation is doomed to mediocrity. Doomed to be either crushed coming out the gate or de-clawed through lobbied loopholes and demonized in the MSM.

The way they are able to get away with is because the country is divided by social issues that never seem to find resolution.

The pro-life, anti-gay right point fingers at the pro-choice, pro-equal rights left thus ensuring that the politicians never find an electorate united against them.

Obviously the information age has helped matters somewhat. The low approval numbers of the Legislative branch of government bear out the idea that more folks are waking up to the untenable situation they find themselves in.

Within that context the idea that a single leader can change everything single-handedly is preposterous.

Spud holds to the idea that Obama is a well intentioned leader who is being stymied by the realities of his own need to please the powers-that-be as well as by the thoroughly corrupted congress and senate.

He's a good actor in a bad play.

Until corporate money is removed from the electoral process there can be no real change. The latest BS decision by the SCOTUS that money equals free speech dictates that things will only get worse from here on in.

Spud's 2 cents.

/Don't you just hate Canadian change?

Be Well.

Why the rush to pass it before recess?

Because realistically a POTUS only has 18 months from innaugeration to pass legislation before the mid term campaigning starts and nothing can get done.

Wait ... people went bankrupt because 18 million couldn't buy insurance???

The people went bankrupt were not only the uninsured and under-insured but the insured as well.

BACKGROUND: Our 2001 study in 5 states found that medical problems contributed to at least 46.2% of
all bankruptcies. Since then, health costs and the numbers of un- and underinsured have increased, and
bankruptcy laws have tightened.
METHODS: We surveyed a random national sample of 2314 bankruptcy filers in 2007, abstracted their court
records, and interviewed 1032 of them. We designated bankruptcies as "medical" based on debtors' stated
reasons for filing, income loss due to illness, and the magnitude of their medical debts.
RESULTS: Using a conservative definition, 62.1% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92% of these
medical debtors had medical debts over $5000, or 10% of pretax family income. The rest met criteria for
medical bankruptcy because they had lost significant income due to illness or mortgaged a home to pay medical
bills. Most medical debtors were well educated, owned homes, and had middle-class occupations. Three
quarters had health insurance.
Using identical definitions in 2001 and 2007, the share of bankruptcies attributable
to medical problems rose by 49.6%. In logistic regression analysis controlling for demographic factors,
the odds that a bankruptcy had a medical cause was 2.38-fold higher in 2007 than in 2001.
CONCLUSIONS: Illness and medical bills contribute to a large and increasing share of US bankruptcies.

www.pnhp.org

People don't want an aspirin for their headache while they are gushing blood from the brain.

Agreed this bill doesn't do enough but to argue that it's gonna make things worse as Jeff continually asserts is asinine.

Be Well.

Hey, FOXNews said she was a Democrat!

~KBM

Sure yer not thinking of Mark Foley?

Corrupt pols need to do time for financial malfeasance.

Doesn't matter wot party they are from.

If Mrs. Conyers got 37 months for this imagine wot Dumbya and Cheney should get for losing literally billions of dollars in Iraq.

Consecutive life sentences till the end of time.

Be Well.

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