Spintested: 03/12/11

Japan Earthquake 2011: Nuclear Meltdown Looms As New Threat

Saturday, March 12, 2011

You're talking about coal ash, and it's not at all the same thing.
About Japan Earthquake
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Japan Earthquake 2011: Nuclear Meltdown Looms As New Threat

Can coal, oil, electric do this?
About Japan Earthquake
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Japan Earthquake 2011: Nuclear Meltdown Looms As New Threat

Another picture, another MILLION words.
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Endangered Monkeys Invent New Fishing Method

LOL!

That was what crossed my mind, too, when I saw the headline.
About Animals
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Japan Earthquake 2011: Battered Country Faces Threat Of Nuclear Meltdown As Death Toll Rises

Take a look at the lifestyle of Haitians.

Take a look at what's going on in Japan.

The people in Tokyo can demand food and water all they want, but that doesn't mean they're going to get it.

Can you live as they're going to have to?
About Most Popular
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Japan Earthquake 2011: Battered Country Faces Threat Of Nuclear Meltdown As Death Toll Rises

I repeat: Demand does NOT equal NEED.

Want doesn't mean NEED.
About Most Popular
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Japan Earthquake 2011: Battered Country Faces Threat Of Nuclear Meltdown As Death Toll Rises

Demand ≠ Need
About Japan
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Japan Earthquake 2011: Battered Country Faces Threat Of Nuclear Meltdown As Death Toll Rises

A picture is worth a thousand words.
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Meltdown: The Japanese Earthquake and Fukushima Reactors

A picture is worth a thousand words.
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Obama Shies Away From Union Protests

If you don't make at least $1 million a year, politicians on both sides of the aisle aren't interested in you.
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Obama Shies Away From Union Protests

Democratic voters have mistakenly believed that Obama and Democrats want what they want. The DLC-controlled Democratic Party gives lip service to all populist issues (like civil rights protections, restoring habeas corpus, ending the wars, public healthcare, Wall Street reform, environmental & energy issues, etc.).

If the Bush years taught us anything, it's that anyone can sell anything to Americans, if you're stolid and relentless in your sales pitch and tactics. It's not that Bush and R0ve were geniuses and knew something that nobody else knew; Bush & R0ve were just more ruthless in doing what politicians and the parties had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans -- If you keep at it, escalate your attacks, don't take 'no' for an answer and never back away, you will wear the opposition down.

Obama didn't get to be the first black president, vanquish the Clinton machine (to get the Democratic Party's nomination) and the oldest, most experienced politicians in US history (including the R0ve machine) by not having mastered these skills. Nor do Democratic politicians (more incumbents than ever, in office longer) not know how to do it. How do you think Democrats managed to keep impeaching Bush and Cheney off the table, have us still reelecting them and not marching on Washington with torches and pitchforks?

Obama and Democrats know how to do it -- They don't want to do it.

The trick for them has been to keep the many different populist groups believing that they really do support our issues, but they're merely inept. And to get us to keep voting for them despite their failure to achieve our alleged shared objectives.

Getting Democratic voters (and Obama's 'most ardent supporters') to understand that Democratic politicians have been taking us all for suckers and patsies is the most immediate problem and the challenge.
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Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

Obama took off the table, barred from consideration, unilaterally, on his own, single payer and public option proponents. Obama did it because if the goal is to get affordable quality medical care for all then everything else pales in comparison.

Do you remember when we were all told, "Relaaaaaaax, it's a first step...We'll put a public option in..Real soon"?:

Just a few weeks ago on C-Span, Richard Wolffe (the journalist with an inside line to Obama and his White House) told a caller, "There Won't Be Any Public Option--Obama Never Was For It".

Obama's legislation leads to eliminating insurance coverage for all a.b.0.r.t.!.o.n.s.

Then once the legislation passed, Obama then appointed former WellPoint executive Liz Fowler to write and enforce the regulations. A fox in charge of this chicken coop. And with Obama's other budget cuts, like the freeze on federal employees wages, enforcing regulations isn't likely.

As of early November, 2010, 111 corporations were issued waivers. Big corporations. And just this past week, we saw another waiver to Obama's biggest benefactor.

Obama's a real piece of work -- A Republican-in-Democrats'-clothing. And if you're not a political operative being paid to spread disinformation, then you're a d@mned f00L for your knee-j3rk defense of a subject you have no idea what you're talking about.
About Health Care Reform
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Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

It's irrelevant what Republicans want. They are scvm, we're agreed, but Democrats aren't any better.

You're mistaking words for action. I don't give a chit what politicians say; the proof is in the pudding. The proof is what they use actually mean, and we invariably learn what their words meant when we see how the legislation actually works. With Obama's healthcare legislation, we're going to see it years from now. And we're not going to see a public option or anything that's going to keep costs down.

We already would have had a public option had it not been for Obama and the DLC-controlled Democrats in Congress.

The week before and the week after the healthcare bill passed in the Senate was the one and only time a public option had any chance of happening until at least another generation passes.

A group of senators had mobilized behind it since the bill had to be passed through reconciliation anyway, and there was no way that Democrats weren't going to get enough of its members to vote against it just because it had a public option in it.

Obama nixxed it.

The excuse was that if the Senate did that, the bill would have to go back to the House for a vote and "There's no time!"

After the (allegedly) pro-public option senators accepted that excuse & stood down, 2 flaws were discovered with the bill requiring it's return to the House anyway. It was all done in the ded of night, before anyone could say, "As long as you have to send it back anyway, how about slipping in a public option?"

Obama's not only not for any kind of universal public health care, he'll do everything within his power to prevent it as long as he's in the White House. Because that was the deal that he made.

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About Health Care Reform
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Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

How?

How is your state "starting to work on it" (how?) getting single payer or a public option?

Step-by-step. In detail. Explain exactly what is happening in your state, how you think it would work in your state and then the rest of the nation.
About Health Care Reform
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Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

Republicans haven't been filibustering anything; they've only been threatening to filibuster.

Harry Reid could've actually forced Republicans and turncoat Democratic senators to filibuster. He didn't and doesn't.

Harry Reid has had no problem forcing the GOP to actually filibuster when it's something that the DLC wants and perceives it needs. For example, when Democrats needed unemployment benefits to continue because the masses were becoming 'critical', Reid had no problem calling Republican Jim Bunning's bluff to filibuster. Reid said, "Bring in the cots, do it" and Bunning and the GOP caved. Benefits for unemployed workers continued.

Democrats could even have changed the supermajority rule (it does NOT have to be done at the beginning of a new Congress, as some argued). It can be done at any time (see page 6 - http://fpc .state.gov/documents/organization/45448. pdf ].

But Democrats put off their critics for not forcing the Republicans to actually filibuster and changing Senate Rule 22 during the session by assuring fed-up Democratic voters, "We'll change the rule come the beginning of the next Congress".

They didn't.

There's not just one way (or even two) for Democrats to get bills passed without Republican votes.

http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid='0E%2C*P%2C%3B%3F %22%20%20%20%0A

http://yglesias.thinkprogress. org/2009/08/hertzberg-on-the-constitutionality-of- the-filibuster/

But Obama and the DLC-controlled DemocraticParty didn't and aren't doing that. Because it might actually work to get Democratic voters' legislative agenda made into the law of the land and do good for the People. And that's not what Obama&Company are there for. They're there to do the work of the transnational corporations. Along with the Republicans, as was clearly evidenced the time that Harry Reid kept the Senate open (pro forma) so that Obama couldn't make recess appointments, collaborating with Republicans to keep progressives and liberals out of government. It was another tag-teaming by Democrats with their partners across the aisle to scr3w over the American people on behalf of the corporations.

Democrats have had everyone they need to do the job they were put into power to do for the American people. They don't want to do it.
About Health Care Reform
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Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

Just to show you where Obama's and the DLC's real heart lies, there are so many things he and the DLC/DNC could have done, could be doing, to get real Democratic legislation through, but don't.

Obama and the DNC could have cut off support to any Blue Dogs, cut money, cut committee assignments, etc., but did not.

There is plenty that a President and a Speaker of the House and a Senate Majority Leader can do to pressure representatives and senators into voting as you want them to vote. We saw that Obama had no problem doing it when he wanted and needed Blue Dogs like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu's votes -- He literally bought them.

There is nothing that the Blue Dogs are doing that Obama and the DLC doesn't want them to do.

Before the midterms of 2010, I asked, facetiously, if Obama's 'most ardent supporters' believed that if Democrats lost control of Congress, would they be as effective at preventing the Republicans' agenda from moving forward as Republicans have been at stymieing Democrats. After all, there would still be more numbers of Democrats in Congress AND a Democratic White House.

Not one of Obama's 'most ardent fans' replied.
About Health Care Reform
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Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

Obama and the DLC worked their butts off to PREVENT "better Dems" getting elected.

Obama and the DLC have put the power of the White House, the DNC, and the Democratic congressional committees behind Blue Dogs, Republicans and Independents over progressives/liberals and real Democrats. Some, but not all, examples:

Blue Dog Blanche Lincoln over progressive Democrat Lt. Governor Bill Halter.

Republican-turned-Independent Arlen Specter over progressive Democrat Joe Sestak.

Republican-turned-Independent Lincoln Chaffee over Democrat Frank Caprio (which, in turn, is an effective endorsement of the Republican John Loughlin over Democrat David Cicilline for the congressional seat Democrat Patrick Kennedy is retiring from, and all of the other seats up for grab in Rhode Island).

Republican-turned-Independent Charlie Crist over liberal Democrat Kendrick Meek.

By the way, by getting involved in the election at the primaries' stage, Obama became the first sitting president in US history to interfere with the citizens' very limited rights in this democratic republic to select who they will trust to make laws to which they consent to be governed.

Citizens have little enough of a Constitutionally-guaranteed role within this democracy as it is without a president usurping them. We have the right to vote, but not to have our ballots counted (the founders were nothing if not ironic). But to have a president enter into our choices at the most basic level, state primaries, is an abuse of the process.
About Health Care Reform
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

Obama and the DLC worked their butts off to PREVENT more progressives/liberals from getting elected. Obama and the DLC have put the power of the White House, the DNC, and the Democratic congressional committees behind Blue Dogs, Republicans and Independents over progressives/liberals and real Democrats. Some, but not all, examples:

Blue Dog Blanche Lincoln over progressive Democrat Lt. Governor Bill Halter.

Republican-turned-Independent Arlen Specter over progressive Democrat Joe Sestak.

Republican-turned-Independent Lincoln Chaffee over Democrat Frank Caprio (which, in turn, is an effective endorsement of the Republican John Loughlin over Democrat David Cicilline for the congressional seat Democrat Patrick Kennedy is retiring from, and all of the other seats up for grab in Rhode Island).

Republican-turned-Independent Charlie Crist over liberal Democrat Kendrick Meek.

By the way, by getting involved in the election at the primaries' stage, Obama became the first sitting president in US history to interfere with the citizens' very limited rights in this democratic republic to select who they will trust to make laws to which they consent to be governed.

Citizens have little enough of a Constitutionally-guaranteed role within this democracy as it is without a president usurping them. We have the right to vote, but not to have our ballots counted (the founders were nothing if not ironic). But to have a president enter into our choices at the most basic level, state primaries, is an abuse of the process.

Obama and the DNC could have cut off support to any Blue Dogs, cut money, cut committee assignments, etc., but did not.

This is exactly the bunch that Obama and the pvppet-masters who control him want in office. On both sides of the aisle. Obama, Ds & Rs in office, working on behalf of transnational corporations.

New faces within the Democratic Party wouldn't be any different from those already there. The party machinery recruits and backs those who will carry the same torch, and that's true for both the Republican and Democratic Parties.
About Health Care Reform
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

Forget about the Republicans -- Don't YOU want transparency?
About Health Care Reform
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

“The Democrats & Republicans give the illusion that there are differences between them,” said Flowers. “This keeps the public divided. It weakens opposition. We fight over whether a Democrat or a Republican will get elected. We vote for the lesser evil, but meanwhile the policies the two parties enact aren't significantly different. There were no Democrats willing to hold the line on SinglePayer. Not one. I don’t see this changing until we radically shift the balance of power by creating a larger & broader social movement.”

The corporate control of every aspect of American life is mirrored in the corporate control of healthcare. And there are no barriers to prevent corporate domination of every sector of our lives.

“We're at a crisis,” Flowers said. “Healthcare providers, particularly those in primary care, are finding it very difficult to sustain an independent practice. We're seeing greater corporatization of our healthcare. Practices are being taken over by these large corporations. You have absolutely no voice when it comes to dealing with the InsuranceCompany. They tell you what your reimbursements will be. They make it incredibly difficult & complex to get reimbursed. The rules are arbitrary & change frequently.”

“This new legislation doesn't change any of that. It doesn't make it easier for doctors. It adds more administrative complexity. We're going to continue to have a shortage of doctors. As the new law rolls out they're giving waivers as the provisions kick in because corporations like McDonald’s say they can’t comply. Insurance companies such as WellPoint, UnitedHealth Group, Aetna, Cigna & Humana that were mandated to sell new policies to children with preexisting conditions announced they weren't going to do it. They said they were going to stop selling new policies to children. So they got waivers from the ObamaAdministration allowing them to charge higher premiums. Healthcare costs are going to rise faster.

The CenterForMedicare & MedicaidServices estimated that after the legislation passed, our healthcare costs would rise more steeply than if we'd done nothing. The CensusBureau reports that the number of uninsured in the US jumped 10 percent to 51 million people in 2009. About 5.8 million were able to go on public programs, but a third of our population under the age of 65 was uninsured for some portion of 2009. The NationalHealthInsuranceSurvey estimates that we now have 58 or 59 million uninsured. And the trend is toward underinsurance. These faulty insurance products leave people financially vulnerable if they have a serious accident or illness. They also have financial barriers to care. Co-pays & deductibles cause people to delay or avoid getting the care they need. And all these trends will worsen.”

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/power_and_the_tiny_acts_of_rebellion_20101122/
About Health Care Reform
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Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

“You can’t effect change from the inside,” she has concluded. “We have a huge imbalance of power. Until we have a shift in power we won’t get effective change in any area, whether financial, climate, you name it. With the wealth inequalities, with the road we are headed down, we face serious problems. Those who work and advocate for social and economic justice have to now join together. We have to be independent of political parties and the major funders. The revolution will not be funded. This is very true.”

“Those who are working for effective change are not going to get foundation dollars,” she stated. “Once a foundation or a wealthy individual agrees to give money they control how that money is used. You have to report to them how you spend that money. They control what you can and cannot do. Robert Wood Johnson [the foundation], for example, funds many public health departments. They fund groups that advocate for health care reform, but those groups are not allowed to pursue or talk about single-payer. Robert Wood Johnson only supports work that is done to create what they call public/private partnership. And we know this is totally ineffective. We tried this before. It is allowing private insurers to exist but developing programs to fill the gaps. Robert Wood Johnson actually works against a single-payer health care system. The Health Care for America Now coalition was another example. It only supported what the Democrats supported.

There are a lot of activist groups controlled by the Democratic Party, including Families USA and MoveOn. MoveOn is a very good example. If you look at polls of Democrats on single-payer, about 80 percent support it. But at MoveOn meetings, which is made up mostly of Democrats, when people raised the idea of working for single-payer they were told by MoveOn leaders that the organization was not doing that. And this took place while the Democrats were busy selling out women’s rights, immigrant rights to health care and abandoning the public option. Yet all these groups continued to work for the bill. They argued, in the end, that the health care bill had to be supported because it was not really about health care. It was about the viability of President Obama and the Democratic Party. This is why, in the end, we had to pass it.”

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About Health Care Reform
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Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

Dr. Margaret Flowers, a pediatrician from Maryland who volunteers for Physicians for a National Health Program, knows what it is like to challenge the corporate leviathan. She was blacklisted by the corporate media. She was locked out of the debate on health care reform by the Democratic Party and liberal organizations such as MoveOn. She was abandoned by those in Congress who had once backed calls for a rational health care policy. And when she and seven other activists demanded that the argument for universal health care be considered at the hearings held by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, they were forcibly removed from the hearing room.

“The reform process exposed how broken our system is,” Flowers said when we spoke a few days ago. “The health reform debate was never an actual debate. Those in power were very reluctant to have single-payer advocates testify or come to the table. They would not seriously consider our proposal because it was based on evidence of what works. And they did not want this evidence placed before the public. They needed the reform to be based on what they thought was politically feasible and acceptable to the industries that fund their campaigns.”

“There was nobody in the House or the Senate who held fast on universal health care,” she lamented. “Sen. [Bernie] Sanders from Vermont introduced a single-payer bill, S 703. He introduced an amendment that would have substituted S 703 for what the Senate was putting together. We had to push pretty hard to get that to the Senate floor, but in the end he was forced by the leadership to withdraw it. He was our strongest person. In the House we saw Chairman John Conyers, who is the lead sponsor for the House single-payer bill, give up pushing for single-payer very early in the process in 2009. Dennis Kucinich pushed to get an amendment that would help give states the ability to pass single-payer. He was not successful in getting that kept in the final House bill. He held out for the longest, but in the end he caved.”

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Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

The legislation almost did not pass as it was. We knew there would need to be changes. We knew the vile ones would want to do away with it.

Now, we let the states have their way. The we get public option/single payer.

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

How?

Step-by-step, explain how you see that happening.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

Obama and the DLC have worked their butts off to PREVENT more progressives/liberals from getting elected. Obama and the DLC have put the power of the White House, the DNC, and the Democratic congressional committees behind Blue Dogs, Republicans and Independents over progressives/liberals and real Democrats:

Blue Dog Blanche Lincoln over progressive Democrat Lt. Governor Bill Halter.

Republican-turned-Independent Arlen Specter over progressive Democrat Joe Sestak.

Republican-turned-Independent Lincoln Chaffee over Democrat Frank Caprio (which, in turn, is an effective endorsement of the Republican John Loughlin over Democrat David Cicilline for the congressional seat Democrat Patrick Kennedy is retiring from, and all of the other seats up for grab in Rhode Island).

Republican-turned-Independent Charlie Crist over liberal Democrat Kendrick Meek.

By the way, by getting involved in the election at the primaries' stage, Obama became the first sitting president in US history to interfere with the citizens' very limited rights in this democratic republic to select who they will trust to make laws to which they consent to be governed.

Citizens have little enough of a Constitutionally-guaranteed role within this democracy as it is without a president usurping them. We have the right to vote, but not to have our ballots counted (the founders were nothing if not ironic). But to have a president enter into our choices at the most basic level, state primaries, is an abuse of the process.

Stop making it about Republicans vs. Democrats -- They've all got to go.

Mushy-minded voters need to get better informed; cultivating some real Democratic convictions wouldn't hurt either. Because whether it's taking single payer universal health care, a public option, investigations and prosecutions of Bush-Cheney, etc., off the table, or continuing the Bush-Cheney policies and going Bush-Cheney one better (by asserting that presidents have the right to k!ll American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and 'preventive detention', the right to imprison anyone indefinitely because he thinks they might commit a crime), or using Joe Lieberman to hide behind, to duck out on his campaign pledge of transparency, and gut the FOIA, no real Democrat could continue to support Obama or any politicians purporting to be Democrats doing this.
About Health Care Reform
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Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

Check this thread here and be sure to follow the links for the complete story:

Outgoing Democratic congressman Paul Kanjorski is one of several witnesses (4 or 5 other congressmen who Kanjorski hasn't specificallly identified, but has stated were present with him at a meeting in the White House) who can directly place George W. Bush and Condoleeza Rice at the scene of the conspiracy to deceive Congress into backing the attack on Iraq with evidence falsified by the CIA.

It's through Kanjorski's account that we learn the Bush-Cheney administration's scheme, which included the CIA's fabricating photographs for the explicit purpose of deceiving Congress into authorizating the use of military force in Iraq.

You'll also learn in the thread just how Cheney's expertise, his knowledge of Congress and the subcommittee process from his firsthand experience as a member of Congress, was the vehicle for hiding the t0rture from Nancy Pelosi and Congress, and most interesting is how John Murtha was utilized.

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About Health Care Reform
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Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

There's plenty to rail against Democrats for and call into question their real political bent and intentions, beginning with those who refused to read the NIE that was made available to them in a locked and guarded room in Congress. Hillary Clinton, even after being advised by Bob Graham to go to the room and read it before she voted, didn't. She also claims that she didn't talk her vote to authorize Bush to use military force in Iraq over with her husband, who as a former president got the same daily intelligence briefing that Bush got, and knew that it was trumped up twattle.

But here's the real smoking gvn, about the true nature of Democrats, and their not being any different than Republicans:

Obama & Democrats ran on putting the wars on the budget, with no more supplemental emergency spending bills to pay for these wars. Funding the wars through supplementals was how Bush & Cheney managed to avoid congressional oversight & public scrutiny.

After close to two years of controlling both Houses of Congress & the WhiteHouse, Democrats are continuing the funding of the wars through supplementals.

What's significant about this?:

When the funding of wars goes 'on budget', congressional committees & subcommittees then hold hearings & investigations into US policies, about US interests around the world, from which the UnitedState's overall foreign & military policies are derived. That's how civilian-control over the US military takes place: Through the citizens' chosen representatives choosing weapons systems & overseeing US military operations & installations, plans & policies, etc.

This doesn't happen with supplemental spending bills.

The nature of them is, "It's an emergency, we're running out of money, give us $80 billion now (that's the magic sum, invariably $80 billion) or you won't be 'supporting the troops'...We'll talk about it later".

"Later" doesn't happen.

The $80 billion ploy is so the American people think they're always talking about the same $80 billion.

I know, I know, "How is that possible that the average American wouldn't realize it's not the same $80 billion when it's year in& year out?" The average American is just barely keeping it all together as it is & fighting for his life(style).

Committees in both Houses of Congress have either never begun investigations into fraud and abuse, or dropped investigations (both on what happened during the Bush administration and afterwards), yet Congress is doing no oversight, & thieving criminal private contractors are still being awarded government contracts.

But that's not even the half of it.

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About Health Care Reform
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Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

Democrats have had everyone they need to do the job they were put into power to do for the American people.

During the Bush years, Democrats said if the People wanted change, they had to put Democrats in the majority in Congress. So in 2006, we did.

Nothing changed.

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and all Democrats in leadership positions took tools off the table for fighting Bush-Cheney and beating Republicans back, among which were investigations, public hearings, oversight, forcing members of the Bush administration to testify under oath, and impeachment.

They said, "You have to give us more Democrats -- 60 in the Senate".

In 2008, we did. We gave them 60 for the Democratic Caucus. And we gave them the White House.

Obama came into office with the wind at his back. More people voted for him, a black man in good old raclst America, than ever voted for any other presidential candidate in the history of the US. They did it because of his ability to persuade that he was going to change the system, end the corporatocracy, lobbyism in government -- He was going to be the People's president, not a corporate t00I.

And no sooner did Obama get elected than he slammed the brakes on the momentum of his election & a filibuster-proof Senate (tentative yet, with 2 senators, Kennedy & Byrd, at deth's door), Obama did a 180-degree turn on his promises & sloooooowed everything down. To "work in a bipartisan manner with Republicans", after Republicans had already announced they were going to block everything Democrats wanted to do, vote no on everything, in lockstep.

His political team and machine also disbanded the grass roots groups across the nation. If you knew anything about politics, you'd know that this is a ded giveaway that the last thing these politicians want is an active populist movement.

I'll cut to the chase:

Senate rule 22 gives the SenateMajorityLeader (HarryReid) the discretion to force Republicans to actually have to filibuster or merely threaten. Reid lets them merely threaten. Still. All that talk about changing filibuster rules, and nothing has come of it.

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About Health Care Reform
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Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

The House passed a healthcare bill, a real women-h8ting boondoggle with the Stupak amendment, and it was then that Obama really showed his true colors and skills as a treacherist: How to reconcile the House bill with what was going to be the Senate's healthcare bill (what came out of the Senate Finance Committee).

Finesse-ing ability doesn't begin to cover what was going to be necessary, to get one bill from the House version that threw women under the bus (the Stupak amendment) and the Senate version (no public option, no cost controls -- Just a great big corporate giveaway bill that throws all of the American people under the bus), and spin it as Democrats delivering on their promise to get affordable quality medical treatment for everyone when it doesn't do any of that.

Obama took care of the Stupak amendment first (with an executive order and the White House spin machine making assurances that weren't accurate ).

Then, the White House went after the Progressive Caucus, and got all but two of the 79 (out of 82) members that had pledged not to vote for legislation that didn't contain a public option to back down. The last two (Dennis Kucinich andEric Massa) folded after some unique pressure was brought to bear on them.

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About Health Care Reform
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

Back to business, and how Obama went to work making sure that there would be no public healthcare options to control Big Insurance's profit-making:

Through the Senate Finance Committee's chairman, Max Baucus, Obama set the terms for the bill that would ultimately be adopted into law, by eliminating single payer universal health care from consideration and all advocates of public health care. No seat at the table.

And THEN, Obama cut secret deals with hospitals, insurance companies and PhRma on profits, and L!ED about it when it was discovered:

http://www.nbc11news.com/home/headlines/53311447.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31464689/ns/politics-white_house

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124567211118336815.html

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/health/jan-june09/pharma_06-22.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/13/internal-memo-confirms-bi_n_258285.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/health/policy/13health.html?_r=3&hp

http://www.alternet.org/story/141856/obama's_$80_billion_deal_with_pharma_is_a_very_bad_deal_for_us/

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About Health Care Reform
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Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

Speaking of transparency, Obama in his own words:

"Transparency Will Be Touchstone"

"On transparency", "About inviting the people back into their government again", and "Part of the job of the next American president is making Americans believe that our government is working for them, because right now they don't feel like it's working for them. They feel like it's working for special interests and it's working for corporations"

"We need a president who sees the government not as a tool to enrich well connected friends and high-priced lobbyists, but as a defender of fairness and opportunity for every single American. That's what this country's been about and that's the kind of president I intend to be"

"Meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public, no more secrecy.....No more secrecy....."

"Clintons did health care the wrong way, behind closed doors":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU0m6Rxm9vU

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

"The American people are the answer"

Obama's Transparency Problem

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About Health Care Reform
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Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

"There's no evidence at all to support the idea that Obama took the PO off the table before the debate even began."

=============================================
Obama didn't take "the public option off the table before the debate even began" -- Before the debate even began, Obama made sure that there would be no public option, no single payer universal health care, no means for Americans to choose a public healthcare system, no means for containing costs through public healthcare programs.
In hindsight, it's easy for all to see, but it was seen by many engaged in the process.
Not only did Obama campaign on "a public option", he campaigned on single payer, universal health care.

Here's a campaign ad featuring Obama himself.

See the part where he says he has a plan to "cover everyone'? That's 'universal coverage'. There's even a graphic in the ad that says "The Obama Plan - UNIVERSAL coverage for all Americans".
Obama ran against mandates, and criticized Hillary for them in her campaign promises. Here is Candidate Obama on mandates.

Here again -- Obama campaigned on public option. Obama provided the different congressional committees working on healthcare bills with specifics that he wanted to see in the legislation ("doesn't add to the deficit", for example), but how Congress achieved it was up to Congress, so said Obama.

People began to notice that Obama was waffling on his pledges (a public option, no mandates) just about the time that Obama began walking back from the public debate on healthcare, saying "it was Congress's job to write the legislation" and "a public option wasn't the only means of controlling costs". Then Obama disappeared from the debate, threw his "transparency"-pledge under the bus, and went to work undercutting all of the congressional committees working on healthcare reform legislation except one: The Senate Finance Committee.

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Shies Away From Union Protests

“One year from now, we have the chance to tell all those corporate lobbyists that the days of them setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more to take on lobbyists than any other candidate in this race - and I've won. I don't take a dime of their money, and when I am President, they won't find a job in my White House. Because real change isn't another four years of defending lobbyists who don't represent real Americans - it's standing with working Americans who have seen their jobs disappear and their wages decline and their hope for the future slip further and further away. That's the change we can offer in 2008.

When I am President, I will end the tax giveaways to companies that ship our jobs overseas, and I will put the money in the pockets of working Americans, and seniors, and homeowners who deserve a break. I won't wait ten years to raise the minimum wage - I'll raise it to keep pace every single year. And if American workers are being denied their right to organize when I'm in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes and I will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States."

-Candidate Obama, November 3, 2007 in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Watch the clip here.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Tells Republicans Nice Try On Push For Health Care Records

It took a lawsuit to get the Obama administration to release those visitors' logs.

The contents of those meetings are still secret.

All the while Obama disappeared from the public debate, refused to get behind a public option, refusing to take to the bully pulpit to pressure members of Congress on a public option, all the while he and Democrats were barring single payer advocates from the table, all the while Obama was saying that it's "Congress's job to write the legislation", Obama was undercutting those very Congressional committees writing the legislation (all committees but one, the Senate Finance committee) and making secret deals with Big Insurance, PhRma, and hospitals and the AMA.
About Health Care Reform
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Japan Earthquake 2011: Explosion At Nuclear Plant Tears Down Walls Of Building

Cesium has been detected at the Fukushima plant which indicates a reactor meltdown is occurring. At least a partial meltdown.

We tend to think of "them", government officials, as all-knowing and perfect automatons. I think it's important to remember that "they" are people just like you, me, our friends and family. They Iie, they obfuscate, not just to us but to themselves. They've bought into an 'establishment'-group think, that there are grown-ups running the show who know what they're doing, omniscient beings in charge -- If it's not them, themselves, then the next rung up the ladder.

If the powers-that-be have told them that nuclear reactors are safe, that all safeguards are fail-safe, that's good enough for them even if it's not their expertise. They take the 'establishment elites' word for it, "because who would Iie about something so potentially devastating?".

They look around at the others at their level who are doing the same thing, and it has the effect of reinforcement. It's a circle-jerk (which is why I keep saying that the solutions to our problems aren't going to come from the people who created the problems).
About Japan Earthquake
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Japan Earthquake 2011: Explosion At Nuclear Plant Tears Down Walls Of Building

It's of little value when the electricity that runs the pumps is down, as is this case due to the damage done by the earthquakes.

What we're seeing is that the back-up to the fail-safe mechanisms (back-up generators) have failed (batteries) and they've been scrambling to get more in. In the course of that, reports are that the core got exposed, which is what occurred at Chernobyl.

The reports are conflicting, but the little that we know that is accurate isn't good news and isn't license to license building new nuclear plants.
About Japan Earthquake
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Japan Earthquake 2011: Explosion At Nuclear Plant Tears Down Walls Of Building

Yes, this is why nuclear power plants are located on the banks of bodies of water, like oceans, rivers, etc.
About Japan Earthquake
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Japan Earthquake 2011: Explosion At Nuclear Plant Tears Down Walls Of Building

It means that the cancer rates of those exposed and/or in the path of the released radiation are going to increase dramatically.

Those at the plant who were exposed will have more immediate health concerns.
About Japan Earthquake
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Japan Earthquake 2011: Explosion At Nuclear Plant Tears Down Walls Of Building

This isn't a tough call at all, except if you're a Iobbyist for the nuclear industry paid to spread disinformation..

Japanese nuclear facilities had failsafe systems on top of failsafe systems, and they failed.

While most reactors are located next to water sources (oceans, rivers, etc.), it's of little value when the electricity that runs the pumps is down, as is this case due to the damage done by the earthquakes.

Japan is no stranger to earthquakes and responded to the possibilities across the board, with stringent requirements for building and support services in the event of a disaster.

What we're seeing is that the back-up to the fail-safe mechanisms (back-up generators to run the pumps) have failed (batteries) and they've been scrambling to get more in. In the course of that, reports are that the core got exposed, which is what occurred at Chernobyl. Cesium has been detected, and that ain't good. That indicates core meltdown.

The reports are conflicting, but the little that we know that is accurate isn't good news and isn't license to license building new nuclear plants.
About Japan Earthquake
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Japan Earthquake 2011: Explosion At Nuclear Plant Tears Down Walls Of Building

Most reactors are located next to water sources (oceans, rivers, etc.).

It's of little value when the electricity that runs the pumps is down, as is this case due to the damage done by the earthquakes.

What we're seeing is that the back-up to the fail-safe mechanisms (back-up generators) have failed (batteries) and they've been scrambling to get more in. In the course of that, reports are that the core got exposed, which is what occurred at Chernobyl.

The reports are conflicting, but the little that we know that is accurate isn't good news and isn't license to license building new nuclear plants.
About Japan Earthquake
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Japan Earthquake 2011: Explosion At Nuclear Plant Tears Down Walls Of Building

Cesium has been detected at the Fukushima plant which indicates a reactor meltdown is occurring. At least partial.

The evacuation has been expanded beyond the initial 6 miles to 12, which is still inadequate.
About Japan Earthquake
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Saturday, March 12, 2011

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