Spintested: 03/10/11

House Dems Open To Compromise On 99ers Bill

Thursday, March 10, 2011

The economy isn't getting better.

3 million foreclosures down, 11 million more in the pipeline. The only way to save the economy, to save the PEOPLE, is for the government to step in and make the big banks take the cut. 15 million families are about to face foreclosure. <-- Blue highlighting means it's a link to be clicked.

The "thinning of the herd" is what's happening. Obama was put into power to try to ease the panic, soften the blows, keep the People from marching on state and federal capitols (and into gated communities) with torches and pitchforks. To keep us 'frogs' in the pot until it boils us to deth.

Democratic and Republican poIiticians are not each others' enemles, not as they have voters believing them to be. Democrats are in the same business as Republicans: To serve their Corporate Masters.

Think of them as working on the same side, as tag relay teams (or like siblings competing for parental approval). 'Good cop/bad cop'. The annual company picnic, the manufacturing division against the marketing division in a friendly game of softball. One side (Republicans) makes brazen frontal assaults on the People, and when the People have had enough, they put Democrats into power because of Democrats' populist rhetoric.

Once in power, Democrats consolidate Republicans' gains from previous years, continue on with Republican policies but renamed, with new advertising campaigns. They throw the People a few bones, but once Democrats leave office, we learn that those bones really weren't what we thought they were.

Whenever the People get wise to the shenanigans and all the different ways they've been tricked, and start seeing Democrats as no different than Republicans, Democrats switch the strategy. They invent new reasons for failing to achieve the People's business.

Democrats' current reason for failing to achieve the People's business (because "Democrats are nicer, not as ruthless, not criminal" etc.) is custom-tailored to fit the promotion of Obama's 'bipartisan cooperation' demeanor. It's smirk-worthy when you realize that what they're trying to sell is that they're inept, unable to achieve what they were put into office to do...And their ineptitude, like that's somehow "a good thing".
About Unemployment Extension
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama's Afghan Legacy: More Civilian Deaths

What Obama's surge has wrought - Amputations and genitaI injuries increase sharply among soldiers in Afghanistan:

Doctors and nurses treating soldiers injured in Afghanistan have begun speaking of a new "signature wound" - two legs blown off at the knee or higher, accompanied by damage to the genitals and pelvic injuries requiring at least a temporary colostomy.

More here.

Obama doesn't need anyone, not Republicans, not Democrats, to end this. Obama can do it at any time.

One more minute of this madness is a crime.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Patriot Act Extensions Approved By Senate Panel

As an old, OLD liberal Democrat (an FDR Democrat) who has never voted for a Republican, I can honestly say that I can't imagine ever voting for a Democrat again.

I never advise people to sit out elections, because if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. It's what p!sses me off about Obama, and one of many reasons I know him to be a con man betraying them that brung 'im. Because by shutting out liberals, the base, from his administration, by taking single payer, a public option, off the table, eliminating regulatory oversight from finance reform legislations, he's given pro-corporate, Republican-like policies an inside line. The People's advocates can't even get in the door of this government.

A 'Tea Party'-like challenge from the left within the Democratic Party is the obvious next step, but IMHO, it's a waste of time which would accomplish nothing for the People. To begin with, no one in the Democratic Party will do it. It would be su!cide for any professional politician in the Democratic Party to run against the party's sitting president (the DLC has gotten too powerful, what with a Democrat in the White House and a Democratically-controlled Senate overseeing an NSA with today's eavesdropping abilities) .

Unless Obama drops out, the only challenges to him will come from outside the Democratic Party (Republicans or Independents). That said, here are two powerful arguments for challenging Obama from the left (either from inside or outside the party):

Michael Lerner's very powerful case for primarying Obama.

Ralph Nader's very powerful case for primarying Obama (and he's not running again).

Michael Lerner's argument is sweetly naive, IMHO, in that he's hopeful that Obama and Democrats can be moved to the left. I don't think that's true anymore. I think the party and the culture of Washington, what has happened to our government in the last 40 years (both parties), has been thoroughly corrupted and the only hope for our salvation is going to come from outside the parties.

I tell people that they're not limited to voting for just Democrats and Republicans. There are other alternatives besides sitting out the election or voting for Republicans. There are other candidates running as independents, from Green to Libertarian, in just about every race.

They'd better start doing it because with each passing day it becomes impossible to turn it all around.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama's Afghan Legacy: More Civilian Deaths

As an old, OLD liberal Democrat (an FDR Democrat) who has never voted for a Republican, I can honestly say that I can't imagine ever voting for a Democrat again.

I never advise people to sit out elections, because if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. It's what p!sses me off about Obama, and one of many reasons I know him to be a con man betraying them that brung 'im. Because by shutting out liberals, the base, from his administration, by taking single payer, a public option, off the table, eliminating regulatory oversight from finance reform legislations, he's given pro-corporate, Republican-like policies an inside line. The People's advocates can't even get in the door of this government.

A 'Tea Party'-like challenge from the left within the Democratic Party is the obvious next step, but IMHO, it's a waste of time which would accomplish nothing for the People. To begin with, no one in the Democratic Party will do it. It would be su!cide for any professional politician in the Democratic Party to run against the party's sitting president (the DLC has gotten too powerful, what with a Democrat in the White House and a Democratically-controlled Senate overseeing an NSA with today's eavesdropping abilities) .

Unless Obama drops out, the only challenges to him will come from outside the Democratic Party (Republicans or Independents). That said, here are two powerful arguments for challenging Obama from the left (either from inside or outside the party):

Michael Lerner's very powerful case for primarying Obama.

Ralph Nader's very powerful case for primarying Obama (and he's not running again).

Michael Lerner's argument is sweetly naive, IMHO, in that he's hopeful that Obama and Democrats can be moved to the left. I don't think that's true anymore. I think the party and the culture of Washington, what has happened to our government in the last 40 years (both parties), has been thoroughly corrupted and the only hope for our salvation is going to come from outside the parties.

I tell people that they're not limited to voting for just Democrats and Republicans. There are other alternatives besides sitting out the election or voting for Republicans. There are other candidates running as independents, from Green to Libertarian, in just about every race.

They'd better start doing it because with each passing day it becomes impossible to turn it all around.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Fed Report Finds No Wrongful Foreclosures By Banks, Consumer Advocates Slam Methodology

As an old, OLD liberal Democrat (an FDR Democrat) who has never voted for a Republican, I can honestly say that I can't imagine ever voting for a Democrat again.

I never advise people to sit out elections, because if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. It's what p!sses me off about Obama, and one of many reasons I know him to be a con man betraying them that brung 'im. Because by shutting out liberals, the base, from his administration, by taking single payer, a public option, off the table, eliminating regulatory oversight from finance reform legislations, he's given pro-corporate, Republican-like policies an inside line. The People's advocates can't even get in the door of this government.

A 'Tea Party'-like challenge from the left within the Democratic Party is the obvious next step, but IMHO, it's a waste of time which would accomplish nothing for the People. To begin with, no one in the Democratic Party will do it. It would be su!cide for any professional politician in the Democratic Party to run against the party's sitting president (the DLC has gotten too powerful, what with a Democrat in the White House and a Democratically-controlled Senate overseeing an NSA with today's eavesdropping abilities) .

Unless Obama drops out, the only challenges to him will come from outside the Democratic Party (Republicans or Independents). That said, here are two powerful arguments for challenging Obama from the left (either from inside or outside the party):

Michael Lerner's very powerful case for primarying Obama.

Ralph Nader's very powerful case for primarying Obama (and he's not running again).

Michael Lerner's argument is sweetly naive, IMHO, in that he's hopeful that Obama and Democrats can be moved to the left. I don't think that's true anymore. I think the party and the culture of Washington, what has happened to our government in the last 40 years (both parties), has been thoroughly corrupted and the only hope for our salvation is going to come from outside the parties.

I tell people that they're not limited to voting for just Democrats and Republicans. There are other alternatives besides sitting out the election or voting for Republicans. There are other candidates running as independents, from Green to Libertarian, in just about every race.

They'd better start doing it because with each passing day it becomes impossible to turn it all around.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Approval Bump Receding

I begun asking young people, those under 26ers living at home and still on their parents' insurance policies, where they're moving to once their parents evict them in order to give their elderly grandparents (and even great-grandparents) a place to live.

If it's a choice between providing shelter for an able-bodied 20-something or their own parents who have nowhere to go and no ability whatsoever to earn a living, which would you choose?

There are going to be millions facing a Sophie's Choice across America in the coming years. If we do nothing to prevent it. If we keep voting in the status quo, Democrats and Republicans.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

House Dems Open To Compromise On 99ers Bill

Once again, Democrats let Republicans dictate the agenda and control the discussion.

Obama's stimulus was weak tea, and the real shame, the real tragedy for all of us is that Obama could have been a transcendent president, good for both business AND the People. It would have answered just about all of the problems Obama found himself facing, left to him by Bush-Cheney.

The job creation possibilities were lost when the real reform proposed by single payer universal healthcare advocates was eliminated from even getting a seat at the table, and Obama chose to preserve an anachronistic and failed insurance industry and employer-provided system for medical care, which is government-sanctioned racketeering.

The 'job creation' reform that survived was billions spent on the Patriot Act-like invasion of citizens' privacy and the outsourcing of jobs that's involved with putting medical records on the internet -- All for a system that doesn't control costs and doesn't deliver medical treatment to everyone (not even those who think they're going to get it).

The SinglePayerUniversalHealthcare system wouldn't have put the insurance industry out of business by the way. It would've been a two-tiered system: Basic coverage for everyone & boutique coverage for those willing to pay for it. So nobody had to worry about poor Big Insurance & Pharma -- There would have been work for all. Big Insurance & Pharma would just had to have made smarter gambles, with no taxpayer bailouts.

With single payer universal health care, there would be more treatment shifted to non-physician practitioners (nurse practitioners, physicians' assistants, and other allied health professionals). Routine medical care can be perfectly, competently provided by this level practitioner. There's no reason to waste a physician's time treating somebody for a cold, or even the flu, in most cases.

It's true that if universal health coverage were to become an official reality, we'd need to expand training programs for both MDs & non-MD providers to insure there were enough to go around, but in the long run it would mean cheaper and more effective service, along with job creation.

These are all good things, but Obama and Democrats have chosen the dark side. The corporate side.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

House Dems Open To Compromise On 99ers Bill

I yearn for leadership that protects and defends living, breathing human beings' needs and interests instead of legal fictions (corporations) that, if they were people, would be diagnosed as sociopathic character disorders.

Back at the founding of the the US, a corporation's charter was required to be dissolved after 40 years, so suspicious and cautious were the earliest Americans about corporations.

Now, corporations are immortal, which is another abzurdity about their being considered 'persons' under the law.

Following the reducto ad absurdum of corporations as people, if you look at them as people, the vast majority of them could be diagnosed as sociopaths. They're completely self-absorbed, their only motivation is profit and destroying competition (other corporations or by the same legal definition other people), they have no conscience, no capacity for empathy. The only time they do something that could be construed as generous or for the greater good is when their consultants tell them it's good for business. It's like they display all of the lower qualities of human beings - greed avarice predatory nature. The same behavior in a flesh and blood human being would elicit cries of shame in the community and considered appalling, but somehow it's just fine for a corporation to behave that way. And they can't be criminally prosecuted.

We're not going to get the kind of leadership to end this travesty from either the Democratic or Republican Parties.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

'Junk' Insurer Owned By Goldman Sachs Gets First Exemption From Health Care Provision

I yearn for leadership that protects and defends living, breathing human beings' needs and interests instead of legal fictions (corporations) that, if they were people, would be diagnosed as sociopathic character disorders.

Back at the founding of the the US, a corporation's charter was required to be dissolved after 40 years, so suspicious and cautious were the earliest Americans about corporations.

Now, corporations are immortal, which is another abzurdity about their being considered 'persons' under the law.

Following the reducto ad absurdum of corporations as people, if you look at them as people, the vast majority of them could be diagnosed as sociopaths. They're completely self-absorbed, their only motivation is profit and destroying competition (other corporations or by the same legal definition other people), they have no conscience, no capacity for empathy. The only time they do something that could be construed as generous or for the greater good is when their consultants tell them it's good for business. It's like they display all of the lower qualities of human beings - greed avarice predatory nature. The same behavior in a flesh and blood human being would elicit cries of shame in the community and considered appalling, but somehow it's just fine for a corporation to behave that way. And they can't be criminally prosecuted.

We're not going to get the kind of leadership to end this travesty from either the Democratic or Republican Parties.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Timothy Geithner: U.S. Must Help 'Nurture' Emerging Markets

I yearn for leadership that protects and defends living, breathing human beings' needs and interests instead of legal fictions (corporations) that, if they were people, would be diagnosed as sociopathic character disorders.

Back at the founding of the the US, a corporation's charter was required to be dissolved after 40 years, so suspicious and cautious were the earliest Americans about corporations.

Now, corporations are immortal, which is another abzurdity about their being considered 'persons' under the law.

Following the reducto ad absurdum of corporations as people, if you look at them as people, the vast majority of them could be diagnosed as sociopaths. They're completely self-absorbed, their only motivation is profit and destroying competition (other corporations or by the same legal definition other people), they have no conscience, no capacity for empathy. The only time they do something that could be construed as generous or for the greater good is when their consultants tell them it's good for business. It's like they display all of the lower qualities of human beings - greed avarice predatory nature. The same behavior in a flesh and blood human being would elicit cries of shame in the community and considered appalling, but somehow it's just fine for a corporation to behave that way. And they can't be criminally prosecuted.

We're not going to get the kind of leadership to end this travesty from either the Democratic or Republican Parties.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Unemployment Rate Rises In Ten States, In Spite Of Optimistic Jobs Report

I yearn for leadership that protects and defends living, breathing human beings' needs and interests instead of legal fictions (corporations) that, if they were people, would be diagnosed as sociopathic character disorders.

Back at the founding of the the US, a corporation's charter was required to be dissolved after 40 years, so suspicious and cautious were the earliest Americans about corporations.

Now, corporations are immortal, which is another abzurdity about their being considered 'persons' under the law.

Following the reducto ad absurdum of corporations as people, if you look at them as people, the vast majority of them could be diagnosed as sociopaths. They're completely self-absorbed, their only motivation is profit and destroying competition (other corporations or by the same legal definition other people), they have no conscience, no capacity for empathy. The only time they do something that could be construed as generous or for the greater good is when their consultants tell them it's good for business. It's like they display all of the lower qualities of human beings - greed avarice predatory nature. The same behavior in a flesh and blood human being would elicit cries of shame in the community and considered appalling, but somehow it's just fine for a corporation to behave that way. And they can't be criminally prosecuted.

We're not going to get the kind of leadership to end this travesty from either the Democratic or Republican Parties.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Your Competitors Are Hiding In Plain Sight

I yearn for leadership that protects and defends living, breathing human beings' needs and interests instead of legal fictions (corporations) that, if they were people, would be diagnosed as sociopathic character disorders.

Back at the founding of the the US, a corporation's charter was required to be dissolved after 40 years, so suspicious and cautious were the earliest Americans about corporations.

Now, corporations are immortal, which is another abzurdity about their being considered 'persons' under the law.

Following the reducto ad absurdum of corporations as people, if you look at them as people, the vast majority of them could be diagnosed as sociopaths. They're completely self-absorbed, their only motivation is profit and destroying competition (other corporations or by the same legal definition other people), they have no conscience, no capacity for empathy. The only time they do something that could be construed as generous or for the greater good is when their consultants tell them it's good for business. It's like they display all of the lower qualities of human beings - greed avarice predatory nature. The same behavior in a flesh and blood human being would elicit cries of shame in the community and considered appalling, but somehow it's just fine for a corporation to behave that way. And they can't be criminally prosecuted.

We're not going to get the kind of leadership to end this travesty from either the Democratic or Republican Parties.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

John Rowe, Exelon CEO, On Clean Energy: 'I'm Asking That Congress Do Nothing'

I yearn for leadership that protects and defends living, breathing human beings' needs and interests instead of legal fictions (corporations) that, if they were people, would be diagnosed as sociopathic character disorders.

Back at the founding of the the US, a corporation's charter was required to be dissolved after 40 years, so suspicious and cautious were the earliest Americans about corporations.

Now, corporations are immortal, which is another abzurdity about their being considered 'persons' under the law.

Following the reducto ad absurdum of corporations as people, if you look at them as people, the vast majority of them could be diagnosed as sociopaths. They're completely self-absorbed, their only motivation is profit and destroying competition (other corporations or by the same legal definition other people), they have no conscience, no capacity for empathy. The only time they do something that could be construed as generous or for the greater good is when their consultants tell them it's good for business. It's like they display all of the lower qualities of human beings - greed avarice predatory nature. The same behavior in a flesh and blood human being would elicit cries of shame in the community and considered appalling, but somehow it's just fine for a corporation to behave that way. And they can't be criminally prosecuted.

We're not going to get the kind of leadership to end this travesty from either the Democratic or Republican Parties.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Approval Bump Receding

How does eliminating personhood status from corporations prevent your job happiness?
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Approval Bump Receding

It's how I vote in the next election that you should be concerned with.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Approval Bump Receding

The nature of capitalism is to eliminate all competition, to become a monopoly. So once the poor are gone, the next up the rung are targeted, until only the rich are left standing. Only one rich person is left standing (a monopoly).

"First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the J#ws,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a J#w.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me."

About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Commanders Expect A 'Significant' U.S. Presence In Afghanistan For 8 To 10 More Years: Dem Rep

We are there for the oil.

'Hijacking Catastrophe' (a 2004 documentary):

"The war in Iraq was very very clearly about oil, as was the war in Afghanistan. The oil pipeline that was planned (in Afghanistan), the best security for that was an occupation."

"If you map the proposed pipeline route across Afghanistan and you look at our bases? Matches perfectly. Our bases are there to solve a problem that the Taliban couldn't solve. Taliban couldn't provide security in that part of Afghanistan -- Well now that's where our bases are. So, does that have to do with Osama Bin Laden? It has nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden. It has everything to do with the longer plan, in this case a strategy which I wouldn't necessarily call neoconservative, however it fits perfectly in with the neoconservative ideology which says, 'If you have military force and you need something from a weaker country, then you need to deploy that force and take what you need because your country's needs are paramount'. It's the whole idea of unilateralism, of using force to achieve your aims."

- Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel whose assignments included a variety of roles for the National Security Agency and who spent her last 4 1/2 years working at the Pentagon with Donald Rumsfeld

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUxI3rSLDO8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SltOy_F6ZII

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Commanders Expect A 'Significant' U.S. Presence In Afghanistan For 8 To 10 More Years: Dem Rep

Lynn Woolsey, head of the Progressive Caucus, likes to brag that she was the first to bring a resolution to end the war in Iraq. She, and congressional Democrats, and Obama, ran on ending the practice of paying for the wars through supplemental emergency spending bills, and putting the wars on budget (see why that is significant here).

Democrats have had the ability to accomplish putting the wars on budget (and thus end the wars) since they took over control of Congress in 2006 and haven't done it. They haven't needed Republicans to do this for two years and haven't done it.

As the head of the Progressive Caucus, Lynn Woolsey led 79 of the 82 members of the caucus to pledge that they would not vote for any healthcare reform legislation that didn't include a public option.

Woolsey then led the 79 to renege on the pledge.

Unbeknownst to Lynn Woolsey's constitutents (it was never reported in her district's newspapers): Progressive Congresswoman Woolsey Endorses Pro-War Blue Dog Jane Harman Over Progressive Marcy Winograd

Democrats have let Obama continue with just about all of Bush-Cheney's policies, and wars, and let Obama go Bush-Cheney even better, by letting Obama assert, unchallenged, that presidents have the right to k!ll Americans with no due process or oversight, push for 'preventive detention' and no transparency of anything a president asserts should be his secret.

Democrats have abdicated their Constitutionally-required role of oversight of the executive branch; they failed to perform it during the Bush-Cheney administration, and still don't with one of their own in the White House.
About Veterans
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Commanders Expect A 'Significant' U.S. Presence In Afghanistan For 8 To 10 More Years: Dem Rep

Democrats are not going to get us out of Afghanistan anymore or sooner than Republicans would.

Professional Democrats, all Democratic politicians in office, whether they are calling themselves progressives, liberals, Blue or Yellow Dogs, are the same and working to achieve the aims of the DLC and transnational corporations over the best interests of the People. If they are a professional political and member of the Democratic Party, and in Washington, they have bought into and are supporting the culture of transnational corporations/military industrial complex (defense contractors) as their real constituents.

Their only problem with this is that corporations don't vote, and politicians need votes to get into office. So they, Democratic politicians, try to convince the People they're working on our behalf with weasel-words, rhetoric designed to lead voters into thinking one thing when the opposite is true. Obama can say things like, "I got health insurance for the People", but having health insurance isn't what Americans wanted and isn't what Democratic voters put Obama and Democrats into power to get for them. Having health insurance isn't the same thing as everyone being able to get affordable, quality medical treatment.

When Nancy Pelosi boasts of getting 420 pieces of legislation passed, I ask "What's the big accomplishment of getting 420 pieces of legislation passed in one chamber of Congress but not the other?" It only becomes law when both chambers pass it.

Democrats in both chambers of Congress work as a team. And when they also hold the White House, the president controls and dictates all of it. They identify what they hope to achieve (pro-corporate legislation) and then strategize how to get it while saving each other's hides with constituents come election time.

Those in liberal districts get to talk a good game about being champions of the People, but when push comes to shove, if their votes are needed to cross over and k!ll liberal legislation (like a public option or access to ab0rtion), the DNC will make sure they are covered come election time, with massive infusions of money into their campaign war chests and crushing any principled challenges to them from the left in their primaries.

Here's an example of how they tag team us:

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Commanders Expect A 'Significant' U.S. Presence In Afghanistan For 8 To 10 More Years: Dem Rep

"US foreign policy had been hijacked by a cabal of neoconservative "crusaders" in the former vice president's office and now in the special operations community."

"What I'm really talking about is how eight or nine neoconservative, radicals* if you will, overthrew the American government. Took it over," he said of his forthcoming book. "It's not only that the neocons took it over but how easily they did it -- how Congress disappeared, how the press became part of it, how the public acquiesced."

"Hersh then brought up the widespread looting that took place in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. "In the Cheney shop, the attitude was, ‘What's this? What are they all worried about, the politicians and the press, they're all worried about some looting? ... Don't they get it? We're gonna change mosques into cathedrals. And when we get all the oil, nobody's gonna give a damn.'"

"That's the attitude," he continued. "We're gonna change mosques into cathedrals. That's an attitude that pervades, I'm here to say, a large percentage of the Joint Special Operations Command."

"He then alleged that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who headed JSOC before briefly becoming the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and his successor, Vice Adm. William McRaven, as well as many within JSOC, "are all members of, or at least supporters of, Knights of Malta."

"Hersh may have been referring to the Sovereign Order of Malta, a Roman Catholic organization commited to "defence of the Faith and assistance to the poor and the suffering," according to its website."

"Many of them are members of Opus Dei," Hersh continued. "They do see what they're doing -- and this is not an atypical attitude among some military -- it's a crusade, literally. They see themselves as the protectors of the Christians. They're protecting them from the Muslims [as in] the 13th century. And this is their function."

"They have little insignias, these coins they pass among each other, which are crusader coins," he continued. "They have insignia that reflect the whole notion that this is a culture war. … Right now, there’s a tremendous, tremendous amount of anti-Muslim feeling in the military community."

About Veterans
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Commanders Expect A 'Significant' U.S. Presence In Afghanistan For 8 To 10 More Years: Dem Rep

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh spoke at the Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Qatar on Monday, January 17, 2011, where he said that a group of radical neoconservatives, "overthrew the American government. Took it over." He added, "It's not only that the neocons took it over but how easily they did it -- how Congress disappeared, how the press became part of it, how the public acquiesced."

Expressing his disappointment with President Barack Obama and his dissatisfaction with the direction of U.S. foreign policy, "Just when we needed an angry black man," he began, "we didn't get one."

"I've given up being disillusioned about the CIA," Hersh said. "They're trained to lie, period. They will lie to their president, they will lie certainly to the Congress, and they will lie to the American people. That's all there is to it."

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Commanders Expect A 'Significant' U.S. Presence In Afghanistan For 8 To 10 More Years: Dem Rep

I know that the Taliban consistently refused to hand over bin Laden to the U.S. for trial. They offered two alternatives. First, the Taliban said that, if the U.S. gave evidence the Taliban decided was convincing, then the Taliban would let their Islamic courts in Afghanistan try bin Laden. After the U.S. started bombing al Qaeda in Afghanistan, the Taliban said that if the U.S. stopped bombing, and gave the Taliban convincing evidence, then the Taliban would be ready to hand bin Laden over to some neutral 3rd party country, as long as it was a country that would never "come under pressure from the United States".

===========================================

Not exactly true.

We'll probably never know the precise facts, but bombing a sovereign nation to get one resident and a handful of his lieutenants is not the act of a great nation or a great people.

Would the US government b/omb England to get Julian Assange?

Would American citizens think it a rational act if Iran had b/ombed the US because we gave safe harbor to the Shah and refused to hand him over?

How about the Marcos's?

http://www.accuracy.org/release/2136-are-obama-and-clinton-being-honest-about-how-afghan-war-began/

Without evidence, Taliban will not turn over OBL

http://www.infowars.com/saved%20pages/Prior_Knowledge/US_met_taliban.htm

http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=80481&page=1

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/bush-rejects-taliban-offer-to-surrender-bin-laden-631436.html
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Commanders Expect A 'Significant' U.S. Presence In Afghanistan For 8 To 10 More Years: Dem Rep

What Obama's surge has wrought - Amputations and genitaI injuries increase sharply among soldiers in Afghanistan:

Doctors and nurses treating soldiers injured in Afghanistan have begun speaking of a new "signature wound" - two legs blown off at the knee or higher, accompanied by damage to the genitals and pelvic injuries requiring at least a temporary colostomy.

More here.

Obama doesn't need anyone, not Republicans, not Democrats, to end this. Obama can do it at any time.

One more minute of this madness is a crime.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Commanders Expect A 'Significant' U.S. Presence In Afghanistan For 8 To 10 More Years: Dem Rep

Americans are losing our jobs, our homes, our Social Security, Medicare, police, firemen, teachers, and going into debt to China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, (even our grandchildren won't be able to pay it off), for wars to protect and increase riches for the top elites (an oil pipeline & mineral riches in Afghanistan, not to mention the oil contracts in Iraq). These are riches that ordinary Americans don't get profits from, but that the Establishment Elites (Dick Cheney & the Bush family among them) all are getting rich(er) from.

The American people derive only increased risk to our personal safety because those Afghans and Iraqis frustrated over the k!lling of their families and friends and of being occupied turn terr0r!st because they can't get at the political leaders ordering the bombing and occupation of their country (Obama doesn't fly commercial, doesn't have to be gr0pe-searched to travel for his job or visit family on Thanksgiving).

Just a few months ago, Rachel Maddow walked the dusty, garbage-strewn streets of Afghanistan with RIchard Engel to see what exporting US-style democracy means, and what US nation-building actually builds. Watch this to see where are our tax dollars going, and learn how we are not "nation-building", not making us safer, and not helping the Afghans or building their nation at all (or a democracy). Learn how this has all been just a huge rip-off of the American people:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR5BHnN__5M

This has been going on under Obama and a Democratically-controlled Congress that has had a bigger arsenal of tools available to them as the majority in power, controlling both chambers of Congress and the White House, than Republicans had as the minority.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

'Junk' Insurer Owned By Goldman Sachs Gets First Exemption From Health Care Provision

Welcome to our new blog, "The Watchdog," which will keep a close eye on regulatory agencies and how their actions impact the lives of everyday Americans. Though the rules and regulations they write -- from determining how much arsenic is allowable in your drinking water to whether your favorite TV show can drop the F-bomb in primetime -- affect all of us, their deliberations and the way that lobbyists influence their decisions receives very little coverage.

=====================================================================

Another soporific to lull the People into complacency. Like while the house is on fire (burning down), we should discuss the fire extinguisher, and if regulators inspected it to see if it was in working order.

Why doesn't Aytch-P start a 'WHAT THE PEOPLE CAN DO'-blog?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Foreclosures Fall To 3-Year Low In February

And today it was announced that jobless claims for the last month are up by 26,000.

3 million foreclosures down, 11 million more in the pipeline. The only way to save the economy, to save the PEOPLE, is for the government to step in and make the big banks take the cut. 15 million families are about to face foreclosure. <-- Blue highlighting means it's a link to be clicked.

This is going to spur new rounds of firings, another spike in unemployment, and more foreclosures. Then there's Obama's NAFTA-like treaty with S. Korea; more Americans' jobs will be outsourced overseas.

The economy isn't improving. What Obama's doing is presiding over the end game of America, letting the 'Haves' pick the (our) bones clean. The more we see of Obama in action, the more 'deals' he makes, the more people realize that Obama's a continuation of the cruel policies of BushCheney.

We need another FDR.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Fed Report Finds No Wrongful Foreclosures By Banks, Consumer Advocates Slam Methodology

The Fed reviewed just 500 loan files, said Rashmi Rangan, a member of the panel and the executive director of the Delaware Community Reinvestment Action Council.

Last year, foreclosure notices were filed on more than 3 million properties, according to data provider Realtytrac. More than one million homes were repossesed, a record. More than 11 million Americans currently owe more than their home is worth, according to CoreLogic, a real estate data provider.

==========================================================================

It's reminiscent of the 9/11 Commission and how the fix was in not to have an accurate investigation and determination from the very beginning when, in order to be on the Commission you had to agree that there would be only one report. No dissenting opinions or reports. AND, that one report would only include material and opinions that all members could agree upon.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

© Blogger templates Newspaper by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP