I fell through

dan,

You commented earlier about our problems in trade. Did you see the ABC article from a little noticed post earlier in the month about the Obama administration firing the Trade IG? It is on the comment I made with a picture of the shrunken heads on the wall (click on the image). He is the third or fifth Bush IG to be fired. He is alleged to be blocking the release of information, if I read the story correctly. IG's are appointed by another Bush appointee. There really is much yet to do. There are a lot of Bush clones in office still. -

Got Health Insurance? Fighting for a Public Option Might Just Get You a Raise!

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted June 29, 2009.

Controlling health care costs isn't just necessary for the health of our economy -- it'd also be likely to boost personal incomes.

The best argument for overhauling our ridiculously expensive and dysfunctional health care system -- an argument one doesn't often hear in the corporate media -- is that fixing it would put more dollars in your pocket, even if you already have health coverage.

If there's enough pressure on Congress, we'll add a well-designed public insurance option to the current mix of private insurance and government health care programs. It would be like (the highly popular) Medicare program, but open to all comers. We'd end up with a very large insurance pool that would lower costs through efficiencies of scale. The plan would be able to drive a hard bargain with providers and cut down on overhead costs, which amount to about 30 percent of spending in the U.S. right now.

And it wouldn't just contain costs. A publicly administered insurance program would also protect Americans from the kind of health insurance nightmares we hear about so frequently, with families bankrupted by out-of-pocket expenses or stuck in jobs and relationships they hate in order to hold on to their insurance.

But at the end of the day, people are most interested in the heft of their wallets. Ezra Klein argues that if people understood the health care debate in these terms -- reform the system and control costs; get a handle on costs and get a pay raise! -- it'd be a political game-changer.

"Most workers think stagnant wages mean their employer is paying them less," he writes. "They don't know that the main reason for stagnant wages is that their wage increases are going to pay for their health insurance premiums."

Over the past 30 years, economic growth hasn't made its way into most working people's paychecks. But -- and this is key -- the amount businesses have to pay for an hour of work has increased.

Looking just at the George W. Bush years -- and before the current recession gained steam -- economists Lawrence Mishel and Jared Bernstein found that while average weekly wages for (nonsupervisory) workers increased by a paltry 1.7 percent annually, average compensation -- including health care and other benefits -- increased by 5.1 percent per year.

If we stay on our current trajectory -- driving fast toward a cliff, as the baby boomers hit their "golden years" -- it's going to get much worse.

A picture can be worth a thousand words, and this graph, based on projections by the Council of Economic Advisors, shows that Americans' incomes will remain flat long into the future if rising health costs aren't better controlled. More:

LINK

I would call Obama an Idealist
Submitted by toniD on Mon, 06/29/2009 - 12:13pm.
who is now having to deal with realism.

I think he wants bi-partisanism so that the repubs can't use the excuse that the Dems rammed in all these new reforms...
----------
My guess is that Obama's idealism extends to trying to provide the Republicans with a way to become part of the solution instead of continuing along the path blazed by Tom DeLay.

In other words, Obama hopes to change the tone of politics in Congress from what it has become to something that functions more for the nation and less for the parties.

Thanks to the Republicans who are slow to evolve, it doesn't look like Obama will realize his dream.

i enjoyed the ROF segment Sam.

Your not-hot link is a stretcher:

Submitted by toniD on Mon, 06/29/2009 - 12:45pm.

All fixed, I hope!

Submitted by Crank Bait on Mon, 06/29/2009 - 12:49pm.

"I'm better now, I'm O.K."

and he is paying for it.

Also, an experiment in political altruism does not explain everything.

Extolling false virtue is as damaging as condemning false vice...but we have already been here...

Time will tell...but in the meantime, we are losing ground....

***

Get off your asses AND FIGHT!!!

"The America Hating tactics of Al Qaeda should not be the tactics of our own citizens. Peaceful civil disobedience has been the American way. All of a sudden you see it in Iran and it's like nobody recognizes what it is."

Submitted by Fernando on Fri, 06/26/2009 - 11:12pm.

In the context of the conversation, that seemed to me to be directed towards certain citizens on this blog. And just what America hating tactics are you referring to, and whose? Maybe you can clear this up for me.

You also went into an "I'm proud to be an American" diatribe, that seemed to imply that the bloggers you were addressing aren't, and not in a good way.

You wrote these things, I am not putting words in your mouth. To read the posts in context, it's difficult to see what else you might have meant by them. Maybe I've misunderstood your intentions.

Mind givin me a ring if ya feel up to it eh

By William Fisher

"They did things that you would not do against animals let alone to humans," said one inmate

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22925.htm

********************************

Change.. What Change?

White House Weighs Order on Detention

By Dafna Linzer and Peter Finn

Officials: Move Would Reassert Power To Hold Terror Suspects Indefinitely

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22927.htm

Damn, this was fixin to get good too.....

bbl
***

Get off your asses AND FIGHT!!!

By Lord Baltimore

The Western press has clearly taken a side and has successfully managed to drag its uninformed audience along with it. News reports all refer to the continuing groundswell of protest to the election results as an "unprecedented" show of courage, resistance, and people power against the government not seen in Iran since the 1979 revolution. But what we have seen this past week seems to have far more in common with the events of fifty-six years ago, rather than just thirty

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22930.htm

http://chomsky.info/articles/20090607.htm

Evolve? Don't you mean capitulate? The majority of people in this country tend to be conservative. Obama knows this and governs accordingly, what choice does he have? When he pull a crazy stunt like closing Gitmo, congress shuts him down, just as they should.

Obama has four years to experiment with "change", then he will have to deal with the backlash. Conservative values work, the rest of the this is unproven speculation. The shifting poll numbers tell the story.

"I believe all these things because freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is the Almighty God's gift to every man and woman in this world."

George W. Bush

that does not call anyone a terrorist. That speaks to the tactics in use. Tactics such as misrepresenting one side of a story while pretending there is no other side simply to incite sympathy has been used. I wonder the value of that.

Inciting against Obama is a losing tactic. Republican leaders even know better. We have real problems making progress happen with our Senate. I'm not defending our president. I'm simply saying it's a waste of time to criticize him when we can't even get a serious climate bill out. I have my own serious problems with things he is doing, saying, and the appointments he's made. None of that matters if Congress is full of limp spit wads.

"the whole Revolution turned upon, asserted, and, in theory, established, the right of each and every man, at his discretion, to release himself from the support of the government under which he had lived. And this principle was asserted, not as a right peculiar to themselves, or to that time, or as applicable only to the government then existing; but as a universal right of all men, at all times, and under all circumstances.

George the Third called our ancestors traitors for what they did at that time. But they were not traitors in fact, whatever he or his laws may have called them. They were not traitors in fact, because they betrayed nobody, and broke faith with nobody. They were his equals, owing him no allegiance, obedience, nor any other duty, except such as they owed to mankind at large. Their political relations with him had been purely voluntary. They had never pledged their faith to him that they would continue these relations any longer than it should please them to do so; and therefore they broke no faith in parting with him. They simply exercised their natural right of saying to him, and to the English people, that they were under no obligation to continue their political connexion with them, and that, for reasons of their own, they chose to dissolve it.

What was true of our ancestors, is true of revolutionists in general. The monarchs and governments, from whom they choose to separate, attempt to stigmatize them as traitors. But they are not traitors in fact; in-much they betray, and break faith with, no one. Having pledged no faith, they break none. They are simply men, who, for reasons of their own --- whether good or bad, wise or unwise, is immaterial --- choose to exercise their natural right of dissolving their connexion with the governments under which they have lived. In doing this, they no more commit the crime of treason --- which necessarily implies treachery, deceit, breach of faith --- than a man commits treason when he chooses to leave a church, or any other voluntary association, with which he has been connected.

This principle was a true one in 1776. It is a true one now. It is the only one on which any rightful government can rest. It is the one on which the Constitution itself professes to rest. If it does not really rest on that basis, it has no right to exist; and it is the duty of every man to raise his hand against it.

If the men of the Revolution designed to incorporate in the Constitution the absurd ideas of allegiance and treason, which they had once repudiated, against which they had fought, and by which the world had been enslaved, they thereby established for themselves an indisputable claim to the disgust and detestation of all mankind." - Spooner

What I see is a vast right wing conspiracy to completely rape america. Like squeezing blood out of an allready in badk shap rock. DO you realize that ONLY 70B went to infrasture and the civil engineers gives our infra a rating of a D..... If we dont oust these fuckers who dont believe that Gov has a function.... To serve the ppl, then we are fucked.

Also this right wing radio is out of hand, nothing but hate speech and racism.

Top CIA lawyers to face legal complaints related to torture of detainees

By Larisa Alexandrovna

Published: June 29, 2009
Updated 1 hour ago

A grassroots coalition will file complaints today with the Washington, D.C. bar against two Central Intelligence Agency lawyers for their involvement in authorizing the use of controversial interrogation techniques against detainees in US custody.

Velvet Revolution, a coalition of over 150 grassroots groups, will register complaints against CIA lawyers Jonathan M. Fredman and John A. Rizzo. Fredmen, who is currently counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, served as the Associate General counsel for the CIA from 2001-2004. Rizzo is the current Acting General Counsel for the CIA but is retiring this month. His nomination to become full General Counsel has been held up for years over his alleged role in enabling the CIA’s controversial interrogation program.

DC lawyer and activist Kevin Zeese, along with a former Reagan administration Associate Attorney General Bruce Fein, held a press conference this morning at the National Press Club in which they discussed the complaints they will be filing later today.

The complaints to be filed against Fredmen and Rizzo describe the role both men played in authorizing the CIA to use techniques generally considered torture against detainees in US custody, captured during the Bush administration.

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/06/29/top-cia-lawyers-legal-complaints

June 29 (Bloomberg) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley are extending their dominance in underwriting equity offerings -- helped by the sale of shares of financial firms, including their own.

The three New York-based banks together control 42 percent of the global market so far this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s up from 30.7 percent for the three top underwriters in the first six months of 2008 and the highest concentration for any first half in at least a decade.

“Those three firms have weathered the crisis better than anyone,” said Charles Geisst, a finance professor at Manhattan College in New York and author of a history of Wall Street. “In this market, companies will go looking for an underwriter whose financial position is better than others.”

Banks sold about $73 billion of stock globally this year, excluding rights offerings, accounting for 37 percent of the world’s $196.9 billion in equity issues, Bloomberg data show. More than $43 billion of that was by U.S. banks, partly in response to government stress tests or to meet requirements for repaying funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aYlWNEyLQzPk

"that does not call anyone a terrorist. That speaks to the tactics in use. Tactics such as misrepresenting one side of a story while pretending there is no other side simply to incite sympathy has been used. I wonder the value of that."

I'm still not understanding what it is you're saying, but ok.

We have different outlooks. I have a problem with the entire system. I think it is broken.

I'm so angry that Daschel is our HHS director and not Dean. But what's the point with such a messed up system? I guess I'm just beat down by the whores who are selling us out every day. We are all indentured servants now.

That 1% of Americans own a hamster?

That would be about 3 million hamsters. That's alot of hamsters. There were about 3 million Americans in 1776.

Watch out for the hamster revolution!

Now that is a hidden factory!

"Conservative values work, the rest of the this is unproven speculation. The shifting poll numbers tell the story."

Conservative values work so well, for the rich, that it pushed the world into a recession.

Eliminating checks and balances is a Value?

Delusions!! Mind poisoning! Get yourself to an intervention!!

Me too. Our system has enabled this to happen. Or at least it hasn't been able to stop it.

BAGHDAD, June 29 (Reuters) - Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi will boycott an auction on Tuesday to award contracts for eight oil and gas fields, saying parliament needs more time to study the country's first major oil tender since 2003.

Some of the world's biggest energy firms, including Exxon Mobil, Total and Royal Dutch Shell, are competing to develop the six oilfields and two gas fields in the tender, which has drawn opposition from some legislators.
"There are many existing reservations over this vital issue concerning Iraq's oil resources," Hashemi said in a letter, posted on his website, to Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani.

He urged the minister to "hold off on awarding bids to the winning companies and give parliament enough time to study these bids," said the letter, released by Hashemi's office.

Iraq has the world's third largest proven oil reserves, estimated at 115 billion barrels, and Tuesday's tenders will unveil the war-battered nation's first major oil round since the U.S. sent troops six years ago to topple Saddam Hussein.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/8582543

I love the bunny wearing the pirate hat

http://www.petsinfo.net/pets/petsinfo/magazine/index.vm

I'm proud of you!

Sometimes we read things wrong or the writer isn't clear but they were on the same side all along.

It pays to talk things out. :)

to find out who the assholes are!

They are trying to beat us down with their words and lack of action, but, so far most of us haven't really been beaten down like the Iranian protest.

Keep on fighting! Take a deep breath and start again.

I think if Obama confronted the corporate nature of our government head on, we would spin into a chaos. I am frustrated by the approach he has taken, opting for tiny incremental "achievements" that sound better than they really are. But then I see how he gets attacked by both sides so violently that I wonder if ANY progress will happen. That's when I settle for the tiny incremental change. I'm flat out astounded at how slow he's been on the LGBT civil rights though. I think the Republican's are positioned to flip on their platform and make many gains there.

Hampsters? They were Lionel Hampton groupies. They are all dead now.

Liberty Rally: TN Teabaggers Unite Today at Noon at Legislative Plaza

To paraphrase one of America's great founding terrorists, Patrick Henry: "Give me liberty or give me tea!"

In that quintessentially American spirit, today there's another teabagger conclave, "The Middle Tennessee Liberty Rally," brought to you by the Tennessee Tea Party. And what better time to push back against the communist infiltrators than the week of Independence Day. To wit(less):

...The Middle Tennessee Liberty Rally will offer Tennesseans an event where they can voice their opposition to America's mad dash towards Socialism. In addition to out of control government spending and the $3.7 trillion budget, issues such as States' rights, cap-and-trade, and Nationalized Healthcare will be hot topics.

snip

Among the featured guest are conservative radio talk show hosts Steve Gill (duh) and Phil Valentine (double duh). Despite the barely coherent ramblings of their followers, Gill and Valentine are pretty savvy. Like all of the best conservative talkies, they not only manage to snow the impressionable throngs into accepting government policies that work against them, but they convince them to mobilize and protest against programs that are in their best interests.

http://blogs.nashvillescene.com/pitw/2009/06/give_me_liberty_or_give_me_...

i love it when people think globally and act locally.

by now it should be evident that there aren't going to be any top down solutions for the lower classes (us).

Just look at how demonstrators (in Honduras) are portrayed when they don't fit the foreign policy agenda of the US empire: "Hundreds of pro-Zelaya protesters, some of them masked and wielding sticks, set up barricades in the center of the capital, Tegucigalpa, and sealed off road access to the presidential palace." This is a popular movement that wishes to preserve democracy. Why isn't it not getting the twitter and attention? (from angryarab)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31594944/ns/world_news-americas/

The Israeli military attacks Bil'in weekly protest
28/06/2009

Israeli occupation soldiers attacked Palestinian villagers along with their international and Israeli peace supporters during the weekly non-violent protest against the wall in Ni'lin village, west of the central West Bank city of Ramallah, on Friday.

International and Israeli supporters joined the villagers of Bil'in and marched from the village center after the Friday midday prayers.

Joining the protest on Friday was the the Canadian writer and Journalist Naomi Klein.

The protesters demanded the halt of the Israeli illegal settlements and the construction of the wall.

As the protesters arrived at the wall, Israeli occupation troops stationed at its gate fired a barrage of sound bombs, tear gas and rubber-coated bullets.

Dozens were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation. This week the Israeli occupation military attacked the village on a number of occasions and kidnapped six people among them two children.

http://www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=1&id=2534

Iran becomes a lesson in "look how much better we are then they are." But what about the occupation.
That's an incredible double standard.

Selective outrage. Ignore-ance. It undermines the integrity of our position.

no Presidential candidate would have adequately provided the leadership that we really need. I thought we all understood that when the elections were taking place. We all work in the art of the possible not the required.

digby has a good column about honduras up on her site. what a surprise that the army general who led the coup was a graduate of the school of the amerikas.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/huey-lewis-news-must-be-on-radio-...

disagreement between Left and Center
new
Submitted by dada on Mon, 06/29/2009 - 1:45pm.
"that does not call anyone a terrorist. That speaks to the tactics in use. Tactics such as misrepresenting one side of a story while pretending there is no other side simply to incite sympathy has been used. I wonder the value of that."

I'm still not understanding what it is you're saying, but ok.

We have different outlooks. I have a problem with the entire system. I think it is broken.

» ================================

The "Center" has suspiciously become right of Center as we knew it.

How could that happen, if not by plan?

Key suspects, from my standpoint, are

o the DLC, and the corporations behind them; their mutual goal of favoritism for corporate capitalism logically leads to fascism.

o the rightwingers who usurped the Republican Party; they intimidated/squeezed-out Republican moderation and replaced it with a rightwing agenda we know about most specificly from the shocking results of their "achievements".

"Another major source of funding in Honduras is USAID, providing over US$ 50 millon annually for "democracy promotion" programs, which generally supports NGOs and political parties favorable to U.S. interests, as has been the case in Venezuela, Bolivia and other nations in the region. The Pentagon also maintains a military base in Honduras in Soto Cano, equipped with approximately 500 troops and numerous air force combat planes and helicopters. Foreign Minister Rodas has stated that she has repeatedly tried to make contact with the U.S. Ambassador in Honduras, Hugo Llorens, who has not responded to any of her calls thus far. The modus operandi of the coup makes clear that Washington is involved. Neither the Honduran military, which is majority trained by U.S. forces, nor the political and economic elite, would act to oust a democratically elected president without the backing and support of the U.S. government."

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4554

Well. I would say that if the behemoth just to the north has a military base in your country, and funds your military and major pro-US parties, then you probably do have to get their permission before overthrowing the government. The Honduran army will presumably now have a brief to deal with the protesters, the social movements, the labour organisations, and everyone else who has been inconvenient in backing Zelaya and might now try to resist the coup

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/06/coup-detat-in-honduras.html

the DLC invaded the Democratic party and corporatized it and Fascists have taken over the Republican party.

I think you're on to something there, nora. The shift to the right by the center is a part of of an attempt to shore up power by the capitalist class.

This is what the Oligarchy thinks of us:

o Easily manipulated and distracted
o Even if victimized in acts of state-sponsored-terrorism, will be slow to catch on
o Ever avaliable to carry the costs of production AND the costs of government

bombings. Segments previous to this one also very interesting...Terrorstorm Final Cut...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut5neyzoS9s&NR=1

I'm headed back to see the rest....

[P.S. What happened to that merry little old England one would want to spend too much to vacation to?]

now.

As if any of the squares in here got that old joke.

Hey Ono, CrankBait said that you consider your work in here to be art. That was funny! Blow me, OK?

The choice! If Obama tries to raise taxes to pay for health care he will further bury the economy and in the end there will be even less tax money collected. I am so glad the Dems won complete control of the government. No more bullshit and excuses. No one to blame! Put-up or shut-up!

"I believe all these things because freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is the Almighty God's gift to every man and woman in this world."

George W. Bush

As Obama has been given each choice, Iran, Afghanistan, FISA, NSA wire taps Obama has reinforced Presidents Bush's decisions. And the best part is that the left goes happily along as we stay the course. It's all in the packaging!

"I believe all these things because freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is the Almighty God's gift to every man and woman in this world."

George W. Bush

-Iran, Afghanistan, FISA, NSA wire taps Obama has reinforced Presidents Bush's decisions. And the best part is that the left goes happily along as we stay the course. It's all in the packaging!-

Ring of Fire is such a good show.I am glad to see Sam with quality progressive thinkers.He looks happy in the picture.

(ring of fire is an important term in accupuncture by the way)

How does “democracy” work in the United States? How are candidates selected to appear on the ballot? How are issues framed for presentation to the electorate? What processes, conversations, institutions, and laws interact to determine how democracy “works”? How do new politicians learn to deal with all of this?There is a large and growing literature about these issues, some of which is reviewed in Chapter Two. This book examines selected facts of these issues through the lens of learning theory. It turns out that viewing political parties as “communities of practice” is a very useful organizing principle. Within this point of view, and research presented in this book is examined how “partisans” (people who got involved beyond voting and letter-writing) learn how to function within these communities of practice. While this is formally interesting from a learning theory point of view, it turns out that the by-products of this inquiry say a lot about what is happening to “democracy” in the United States and how it got that way. The core of the book is a set of interviews with partisans. This book examines the factors that operate in political parties as communities of practice to maintain or discourage partisanship.
...

Learning Democratic Practices: Political Parties, Media and American Political Development

Author: Janet Youngblood

Date Of Publication: Sep 2008

_______________

In Janet Youngblood’s book, Learning Democratic Practices: Political Parties, Media and American Political Development, Youngblood goes beyond the traditional third party analysis of the Democratic and Republican Parties of both being corporate parties because they are funded by the same corporate masters. Youngblood redefines the Republican and Democratic Parties as corporations themselves, whose sole function is to provide political leadership to serve the other corporations that run our society. Undertaking that analysis, it is clear that Dennis Kucinich is nothing more than a sweet-talking manager at a War-Mart store whose loyalty at the end of the day is to his employer.

King iffy on NY Senate after intel appointment

House Minority Leader John Boehner has tapped Rep. Pete King (R-Long Island) for a slot on the intelligence committee -- a move that is likely to put the outspoken security hawk on the sidelines for the 2010 GOP Senate primary in New York.

King, who has been considering a run, is already ranking member on the Homeland Security Committee and is deeply interested in intelligence issues -- as a representative of a New York City suburban district that suffered dozens of death in the Sept. 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks.

"Yes, it makes it much less likely I'm running for the Senate," said King, who fills a slot vacated by John Kline (R-Minn.). "It's a very important assignment for me. It's very difficult to walk away for it."

Boehner, King told me, "has been talking to me for a while about not leaving the House" to keep the seat from flipping Democrat. The leader approached King on the floor to discern his interest last week and then sealed the deal at the White House luau.

His departure from the race, while not definite, leaves Republicans with no clear candidate to run against Gillibrand, who was appointed earlier this year. Manhattan Rep. Carolyn Maloney is gearing up for a possible run against Gillibrand, whose low approval ratings make her a tempting target.

Nor is King's own political future entirely clear: New York is almost certain to lose at least one Congressional seat, possibly King's.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/

I think you meant to say...War Dog reeks.

Biding time in Honduras

My colleague Josh Gerstein flags a story that shows just how delicate the Obama administration's position is, as it formulates a response to the turbulence in Honduras. While the president has called the country's transfer of power "not legal" and Hillary Clinton has dubbed it a "coup," it turns out there are some 600 U.S. military personnel in the country -- more or less biding their time.

The Miami Herald reports:

No American forces were called back from the Soto Cano air base in Honduras, 60 miles from the capital of Tegucigalpa, where the U.S. has leased space and maintains a runway with helicopters and about 600 U.S. military, including mechanics.

...

''There are no changes there,'' reported Jose Ruiz, spokesman for the Pentagon's Southern Command in Miami, which directs the U.S. military in Latin America and the Caribbean. ``We see no indication of a security threat at Joint Task Force Bravo.''

Likewise, Ruiz said, Southcom has kept its contingent of U.S. military officers at the U.S. Embassy in the capital, with no reinforcements nor plans to decrease their presence in response to the military ouster of President Manuel Zelaya.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0609/Biding_time_in_Honduras.html...

It's Tea Party Time, now.
V
or a girl/(woman now) in a mask/masque...
kewl & cute. i have said "dramatis personae" since high school...... and collected further symbols of :):(

kewl ... {more actions with Attitude at 4years} Again, when I was 5years old girl (protecting a 5year old BOY)...whatev

ACTIONS speak louder than words...

Anyone contact Prez O.? Anyone contact Senators? (just to name a few) ...

Baucus Stays in Washington to Draft Health Bill

Janet Adamy reports on health care.

Congress is in recess this week, but not Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus. He’s staying in town to work on a massive health bill after missing a deadline to unveil the legislation earlier this month.

The Montana Democrat is sticking around to talk to staff, health-care advocates and other stakeholders, according to an aide. July’s expected to be a marathon month for legislation to overhaul the health care system and cover most of the 46 milllion people who are uninsured.

Lawmakers have two other bills aside from Baucus’s to tackle: one in the House and the other in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. They’re racing against a tight deadline set by President Barack Obama, who has asked Congress to pass the health bill by October.

By staying in Washington, Baucus will miss out on a series of television advertisements aimed at swaying his pen as he drafts the health bill. The Laborers’ International Union of North America, which represents construction workers, is running ads in Montana urging Baucus not to begin taxing health-care benefits. The Finance Committee is considering taxing employees with particularly generous health plans, a move that could have a disproportionate impact on unionized workers.

As for the top Republican on the Finance Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley, he’s back in Iowa, where he plans to hold meetings in 12 counties with constituents. Visits include a Coca-Cola Co. sales facility in Cedar Rapids and a farmers’ co-op in Keota.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/06/29/baucus-stays-in-washington-to-d...

West Point graduate to stand trial Tuesday for being gay

By David Edwards

Published: June 29, 2009
Updated 4 hours ago

U.S. Army Lieutenant Dan Choi, a graduate of the West Point military academy and an Arabic translator, will face a military panel on Tuesday which may discharge him for admitting he is gay.

His case was mentioned in a letter to President Barack Obama, signed by 77 Democratic members of Congress. They called the 10-year veteran an “exceptional” soldier. Some have even referred to him as “the de facto face of the movement to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

“I face a discharge tomorrow morning, simply for being honorable and telling who I am, in truth” he told CNN host John Roberts on Monday morning.

Should he be discharged, it would “strip away a lot of the veterans benefits, and that can include education, home loan, and even veterans hospital and medical benefits,” he added. “These benefits that I’ve earned being a combat veteran of the Iraq war"

Link

***

Get off your asses AND FIGHT!!!

Could Census fear-mongering cost Bachmann her seat?

bachmannWhile noting that “conspiracy theories have been a constant in Rep. Michele Bachmann’s political career since she first ran for the Stillwater school board in the late 1990s,” the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune’s editorial page called into question the collateral damage that could stem from Bachmann’s irrational 2010 Census fear-mongering. The Star-Tribune points out that not only is Bachmann “a politician interested more in being the face of the fringe element than solving the real-life problems of her north-suburban district,” but that “she may be setting in motion events that could substantially hurt her home state and potentially cost her the office she occupies.” The Star-Tribune writes:

The 2010 census will likely determine whether Minnesota loses one of its eight U.S. House seats; population determines seat allocation. Political experts agree that a few thousand people not filling out census forms may be all it takes for the state to lose a congressional advocate in the nation’s capital. If Minnesota were to lose a congressional seat, Bachmann’s district appears to be candidate for absorption. Bachmann has been careful to say that she’s willing to tell the census how many people live in her household, the basic information that will determine whether Minnesota keeps a congressional seat. But that’s a message that’s easily lost in her fear-mongering; Beck didn’t help when he pantomimed flushing census documents down the toilet.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/29/bachmann-census-tribune/

Tea Time :):(

Fox Nation Pushes ‘Satire’ Site’s Article About Ridge Attacking Limbaugh As Fact-Based Truth

Last Thursday, while appearing on C-Span’s Washington Journal, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge (R) was asked about former Vice President Dick Cheney’s statement that “Rush Limbaugh is Republican and Colin Powell is not.” “Colin Powell was a Republican as far as I’m concerned,” said Ridge, adding that “it’s that mindset” displayed by Cheney that is hurting the GOP’s “unity.” Watch it: at link

On his radio show, Limbaugh responded to Ridge, saying, “I must have missed something, because I remember that Colin Powell endorsed the Democrat, Barack Obama, at a strategic point in the campaign in 2008.” The blog, Elective Decisions, which features “the satire of Chris Davis,” then wrote up a post saying that Ridge responded to Rush by challenging him to a fight:

So this morning, Ridge went back on Washington Journal, responding to Limbaugh’s rhetoric. “I’m so sick of Rush Limbaugh. He’s the reason we lose elections. He needs to get the hell out of the Republican Party. As far as I’m concerned, he isn’t a Republican anymore. The man’s running. The man’s hiding. He’s too scared to face me!”

Ridge continued his rant, threatening Limbaugh. “Meanwhile, he sits there in his ‘Southern Command Post,’ and destroys the Republican Party! I’d like to just have three rounds in a boxing ring with that guy so I could shut him up! I’m caling (sic) you out, Limbaugh. Let’s see if you have a big enough set of marbles to back up your crap!”

Though the “Elective Decisions” blog is clearly marked as “satire,” the Fox Nation linked to the post and promoted it as if it were based on reported facts:

This isn’t the first time Fox News has promoted a parody as truth. In 2007, the network aired at least eight segments on a purported “news” story that was actually a parody article written by a publication similar to The Onion.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/29/fox-nation-ridge-satire/

Update
The Fox Nation post appears to have been taken down. If you follow the above link, it will lead you to a page saying that "The requested page could not be found."

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/27/fox-parody/

-Show me da money....
Submitted by cent on Mon, 06/29/2009 - 5:59pm.
West Point graduate to stand trial Tuesday for being gay-

If so, I agree...this can't happen...it's too wrong to let stand...If he is their boss, he needs to stop this

Screw that! - tell and fight for your right to be yourself...

is in the entire military? I guess it can never be counted...

He can not repeal DADT. Only Congress can. But he could, if he were so motivated, submit a bill to get the process started....but he hasn't...and he won't...cause he is chickenshit, or he just doesn't believe it should be repealed...

some will say "Oh, but he does. Obama is a good man". To them I say "SHOW ME DA MONEY!!!"

***

Get off your asses AND FIGHT!!!

Wanna wrassle?? ;-)

I got my Ellie Mae jeans on!

Maybe after I clean my guns..... ;)

***

Get off your asses AND FIGHT!!!

Don't know if this is just a coincidence or if I'm getting paranoid, but ....

2007 - Chinese year of the Chicken - Bird Flu Pandemic devastates parts of Asia

2008 - Chinese year of the Horse - Equine Influenza decimates Australian racing

2009 - Chinese year of the Pig - Swine Flu Pandemic kills hundreds of pigs/humans around the globe.

It gets worse........

Next year......

2010 - Chinese year of the Cock - what could possibly go wrong?

This Here's what I call The Clampett Clamp.

Editorial
Insurance Company Schemes

Congressional committees heard a lot this month about the devious schemes used by health insurance companies to drop or shortchange sick patients. It was a damning portrait — and one Americans know from painful personal experience — of an industry that all too often puts profits ahead of patients.

As health care reform moves forward, Congress must impose tighter regulation of companies that clearly are not doing enough to regulate themselves. Creating a public plan could also help restrain the worst practices, by providing competition and an alternative.

A House oversight subcommittee took a close look at a particularly shameful practice known as “rescission,” in which insurance companies cancel coverage for some sick policyholders rather than pay an expensive claim. The companies contend that rescissions are rare. But Congressional investigators found that three big insurers canceled about 20,000 individual policies over a five-year period — allowing them to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims.

The companies typically argue that the policyholders withheld information about pre-existing conditions that would have disqualified them from coverage. But the subcommittee unearthed cases where the pre-existing conditions were trivial, or unrelated to the claim, or not known to the patient. When executives for the three companies were asked if they would be willing to limit rescissions to cases where the policyholder deliberately lied on an application form, all said they would not. This tactic will not be ended voluntarily.

Meanwhile, the Senate Commerce Committee was getting an earful from a former head of corporate communications for Cigna, a big health insurer. He charged that the industry deliberately confuses its customers by making it hard to obtain information about its practices and issuing incomprehensible documents.

He also charged that the companies “dump the sick,” through rescissions and by purging small businesses whose employees’ claims exceed what underwriters expected. They are often hit with huge rate increases intended to force them to drop coverage.

The Commerce Committee also released a staff report elaborating on how insurance companies operating in every region of the country have used statistically manipulated databases to reduce their payments for services provided by doctors outside their networks. Patients must then pay the often considerable difference.

Any legislation to reform the health care system, and extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans, must stop these practices.

One way to do that is by creating insurance exchanges where individuals and small businesses could buy policies from insurers that would be required to accept all applicants without regard to pre-existing conditions and charge them premiums unrelated to their health status, and would be barred from dropping them no matter what illnesses they developed.

If health care reform requires virtually all Americans to carry health insurance — as it should — industry leaders acknowledge that there would be enough healthy people paying premiums to offset the higher costs of covering the sick and the need for rescissions and other such practices would disappear.

No matter what happens, strong regulatory oversight will be a must to ensure that insurers skilled in denying coverage don’t find new ways to evade just claims.

Competition from a new public plan could provide a benchmark for judging how well private plans are performing. And clear evaluations of both public and private plans would be a boon for consumers. Senator Jay Rockefeller has proposed creating a nonprofit organization to grade all plans offered on a national exchange based on such factors as adequacy of coverage, affordability, customer and health provider satisfaction, and transparency of procedures and decision-making.

The health insurance industry has pledged to assist in the reform effort. Congress will have to be tough and vigilant to ensure that it does.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/opinion/29mon1.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&pa...

are you wearin daisy dukes too dan?

uh...nevermind... ;)

***

Get off your asses AND FIGHT!!!

Obama Seeks Popular Support for Health Reform

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: June 29, 2009

WASHINGTON — With Democrats deeply divided over health legislation, President Obama is trying to enlist the nation’s governors and his own army of grass-roots supporters in a bid to ratchet up pressure on lawmakers without getting himself mired in the messy battle playing out on Capitol Hill.

In a meeting last week with five governors — including Republicans who may be more sympathetic to health legislation than those on Capitol Hill — Mr. Obama privately urged them to serve as his emissaries to Congress. He even coached them on the language they should use with lawmakers, advising them to steer clear of terms like “rationing” and “managed care,” which evoke bitter memories of the Clintons’ ill-fated health initiative.

[...]

Some Democrats are privately pushing the president to do more to bring his party in line. When Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, went to Capitol Hill last week, the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, pressed for the president to intervene more directly to settle Democrats’ disputes over Mr. Obama’s call for a government-run insurance plan to compete with the private sector, two people familiar with the session said.

Mr. Emanuel, in an e-mail message, acknowledged that some Democrats “wanted more direct and specific involvement,” but said others were happy with the president’s level of engagement, adding, “We received a lot of advice.”

[...]

Whether Mr. Obama can have a different outcome with health care remains unclear. He has invested so much political capital in a health care bill that not to have legislation would be politically disastrous for him. If that means passing a bill without Republican support, some Democrats say, Mr. Obama will do it.

“His instinct is to try, if he can, to find an honorable compromise with Republicans,” Mr. Podesta said. “But ultimately what he cares about at the end of the day is sitting there, pen in hand, signing a bill that’s a good bill, and that he believes in. When all is said and done, that’s what I think they will drive toward.”

NYT

Right Rahm...and your advice to Obama so far is working SO well....

What an asshat!

***

Get off your asses AND FIGHT!!!

naw. still my money's on ellie may.

now pass the rheumatiz medicine.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you support President Obama expanding the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan?

PRESIDENT RAFAEL CORREA: [translated] Well, I’m a pacifist by nature. I would hope that the Afghanistan problem could be solved as quickly as possible. I also think the strategy there, as in Iraq, was totally mistaken, that the United States has a big problem on its hands that’s going to be very complex to resolve. But I’m practically convinced that it’s not going to be resolved by more war.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/6/29/ecuadoran_president_rafael_correa_...

I began by asking him to comment on the absence of so many heads of state at the UN conference. According to press reports, Western diplomats said the conference was just a platform to attack capitalism.

PRESIDENT RAFAEL CORREA: [translated] Well, if this is an attack on capitalism, I think it’s well deserved. Look at the problem it’s got us into. So I don’t understand those who say they’re not here because it might descend into an attack on capitalism. They must have a strong ideological bias, because certainly if they thought maybe there would be an attack on socialism, or had they thought it was going to be an attack on socialism, they would have been delighted to have come.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about why you think at this point capitalism should be criticized, what you think needs to happen now.

PRESIDENT RAFAEL CORREA: [translated] Well, what we’ve undergone in recent decades worldwide has been totally insane, and all of this in function of capitalism. If you look at what was done with the workforce in Latin America, it was treated as a vulgar instrument for capital accumulation. Mechanism of exploitation were imposed, such as outsourcing, labor intermediation and the like. Efforts were made to destroy nation states, or at least to minimize nation states, especially in key areas such as the economy, on grounds that were closer to religion than to science, that everything would be resolved by the marketplace.

I could speak at much greater length on this, but the results are plain to see: greater inequality in Latin America. We haven’t resolved the unemployment problem. Indeed, unemployment is higher than in previous decades. We haven’t resolved the problem of poverty. We’ve lost a great deal of sovereignty by implementing policies that didn’t answer to our international reality.

And finally, we’re facing a crisis that we have not provoked, yet we are the main victims, the greatest crisis since the 1930s of last century, where there was a crisis in global capitalism. But it’s not been generated by factors external to the system, but by factors that are of the very essence of the system: exacerbated individualism, deregulation, competition and so on. This clearly shows us that something has to change.

there's no podcast...so far...

our local conservative newspaper blog is full of individuals writing in about the clean energy act. there is an awful lot of foaming at the mouth, this is the end of civilization as we know it.

personally i don't get it.

the actual text is at:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-2454

a good summary is at:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-2454&tab=summary

whats most notable in the summary is that the 1st goals aren't until 2012 and that for the most part the bill sets a direction / vision.

Sorry for the repost, but his Constitutional Bushisms are my biggest problem, and why my faith in his word is somewhat diminished.

Will someone please let me know when it is safe enough to call him a liar....I wouldn't want to be seen as being unfair.

***

Get off your asses AND FIGHT!!!

todays mail brought a batch of explanation of benefits from our healthcare provider for routine lab work. what makes no sense to me at all is that the labs bills are being discounted close to 75%. in other words if it says they are charging 100, the insurance company says their negotiated payment is 25.

i can understand that an insurance company might get a 5, 10 or even 20% discount because of volume and other efficiencys but 75% is ludicrous.

heh - mine too....

but what a way to go...

love me somma dem ozark women....

***

Get off your asses AND FIGHT!!!

Good Luck, Savers and Investors!
The Holes in Obama's Financial Regulation Plan

By RALPH NADER

It's good that Barack Obama is an agile basketball player because on financial regulatory reform he?s having to straddle an ever-widening chasm between his words and his deeds.

Obama said: “Millions of Americans who have worked hard and behaved responsibility have seen their life dreams eroded by the irresponsibility of others and by the failure of their government to provide adequate oversight. Our entire economy has been undermined by that failure.”

“Over the past two decades, we have seen, time and again, cycles of precipitous booms and busts. In each case, millions of people have had their lives profoundly disrupted by developments in the financial system, most severely in our recent crisis.”

Strong words, even though he didn’t include “corporate crime, fraud and abuse” to replace the euphemism “irresponsibility.” One would think that his 88 page reform proposal to Congress would be up to his words. Instead he provides Washington aspirins for Wall Street brain cancer.

The anemic nature of these reforms ostensibly designed to prevent or deter another big bust on Wall Street and its hostage grip on the nation’s savings and investments immediately drew the ire of well-regarded business columnists.

Joe Nocera of the New York Times wrote the “the Obama plan is little more than an attempt to stick some new regulatory fingers into a very leaky financial dam rather than rebuild the dam itself.” Nocera asserts that the reforms do not “attempt to diminish the use” of the customized type of derivatives which trillions of risky dollars generated “enormous damage to the financial system” ala A.I.G?s collapse. He notes President Roosevelt’s far more fundamental reforms, included the Glass-Steagall Act, which “separated banking from investment.” It prevented a lot of banking mischief until Clinton, his Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Citigroup got Glass-Steagall repealed in 1999. Obama is not proposing to re-instate this critical safeguard. Nocera said, firms “will have to put up a little more capital, and deal with a little more oversight, but, in all likelihood, [it will] be back to business as usual.”

[...]

CounterPunch

***

Get off your asses AND FIGHT!!!

Honduras torn between
ousted leader, replacement
Honduras is now torn between two presidents: one legally recognized by world bodies after he was deposed and forced from the country by his own soldiers, and another supported by the Central American nation's congress, courts and military.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090629/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_honduras_coup

Tim Russert:: Senator Obama . . . Simple question: Will you, as president, say to Canada and Mexico, "This has not worked for us; we are out"?

Obama: “I will make sure that we renegotiate, in the same way that Senator Clinton talked about. And I think actually Senator Clinton's answer on this one is right. I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced. And that is not what has been happening so far.” February 23, 2008

Obama Reaffirms Promise to Renegotiate NAFTA
Laura Carlsen | January 12, 2009

The courtesy call between President-elect Barack Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon turned out to be a little more revealing than anticipated.

"On trade and the economy, President-elect Obama said that with both countries facing very difficult economic times, it's important to work together to maintain a constructive and comprehensive dialogue. He expressed his continued commitment to upgrading NAFTA to strengthen labor and environmental provisions to reflect the values that are widely shared in both of our countries....
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5784

For the second time in a week, the Obama administration has discarded a major campaign pledge on international economic policy. In its decision last week not to name China a currency manipulator, and now to forswear renegotiation of NAFTA,

In the case of NAFTA, Obama said in a primary debate: "I will make sure that we renegotiate... I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage..." He differentiated himself from his current secretary of state by arguing that he had been a consistent opponent of NAFTA while she had occasionally seemed to favor the agreement.

These vows were not trivial. Key battleground states such as Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania had suffered substantial manufacturing job losses...
http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/21/obama_flips_on_china_an...

He's a liar. Flat out.

Ishmael Reed

Excerpt:
Former Calfornia poet laureate Al Young called to inform me that CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin, another O. J. alumni, and a man who said that blacks shouldn’t be “patted on the head” or “patronized” for believing in O. J. Simpson’s innocence, had made some ugly comments about Jackson. (A star who has had at least a dozen facelifts called into the “Larry King Show”to comment about MJ’s altering his appearance).

Also weird was MSBC’s Savanah Guthries’ air-headed depiction of the trial. ( For a list of Ms. Guthries’ false reportings see Media Matters. com). She said that the evidence against Jackson in the trial was “devastating. ” So devastating that some legal experts said that Jackson should never have been brought to trial and that the aim of the trial was to seek a pound of flesh from Jackson for being uppity and for putting the name of Thomas W. Sneddon Jr., a vindictive District Attorney, into a song. In my opinion it was the prosecution of Jackson by this District Attorney, who, among other things, violated Jackson’s fourth amendment rights, and made disparaging remarks about the star, during a press conference, and the side-show pro prosecution media coverage that killed Jackson.
www.counterpunch.org

Now Feinstein has hit back at the criticism from the left in an article about lefty groups targeting Dems for waffling on key components of health care reform:

"I do not think this is helpful. It doesn’t move me one whit," she said. "They are spending a lot of money on something that is not productive."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/6/29/748020/-Feinstein:-Critcism-from...!

Feinstein herself has directly profiteered from the U.S. imposed misery in Iraq. Her husband, Richard Blum, is a billionaire investor that together with CEO Ronald Tutor own investment companies that hold 75% of the voting stock in a company called Perini. On March 12, 2004 Perini was awarded a $500,000,000 contract for rebuilding the electrical infrastructure of southern Iraq. So Feinstein is profiting from the U.S. bombing of the Iraqi infrastructure as well as its inefficient rebuilding by private U.S. contractors. Perini also received the contract for the construction of facilities to support the First Brigade of the Afghan National Army. These include barracks, dining facilities, a power plant, a water treatment facility and a wastewater treatment plant. Diane Feinstein not only voted for the wars and occupations that made these contracts possible, she also sits on the Appropriations Committee and the Select Committee on Intelligence.

http://tribes.tribe.net/c4590ae7-4b54-4473-a7a3-bbdff7506e91/thread/d1eb...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_operations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_U.S._regime_change_actions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cointelpro

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Chiquita death squad attorney Eric Holder floated for U.S. Attorney General!

It raises the gravest question about Obama Latin American foreign policy: Is he going to repeat the mistakes of the last two hundred years, and the horrors of the Reagan and Bush regimes, and try to bludgeon Latin America--and particularly South America--into submission? Is he going to defy the peaceful, democratic aspirations of the poor majority, which are finally being realized on the most of the continent, but notably not in Colombia? Does he have no understanding of the bleak irony that this hideous, fascist regime in Colombia is virtually the only U.S. ally on the continent
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&add...

"Carl H. Lindner Jr., the billionaire Cincinnati [Ohio] businessman, was CEO [Chief Executive Officer] of Chiquita Brands International from 1984 to 2001, and remained on the company's board of directors until May 2002. Beginning under his tenure, Chiquita executives paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by the Spanish acronym AUC), which is described by George Washington University's National Security Archive as an "illegal right-wing anti-guerrilla group tied to many of the country's most notorious civilian massacres."" ... "Following a Justice Department indictment [pdf] last year, Chiquita admitted to illegally funding the paramilitaries and agreed to pay a $25 million fine. Chiquita's payments to the AUC began in 1997 and lasted seven years; roughly half of the funds came after the group was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department in 2001." ..
http://www.havenworks.com/people/a-z/l/lindner-carl-h-jr/

("It raises the gravest question..." I think we can answer that question.)

U.S. forces hang tight in Hondurus

BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com
It was business as usual Monday for hundreds of U.S. troops at two sites in Honduras, despite a military coup that ousted the nation's president and sent him to Costa Rica in his pajamas.

On Monday, the Southern Command also confirmed that the alleged coup leader, Honduran Gen. Romeo Orlando Vasquez Velasquez, had been invited to last week's change-of-command ceremony in which Air Force Gen. Douglas ''Skeet'' Fraser took charge at Southcom's Doral headquarters.

Vasquez did not attend but instead sent a more junior officer -- Brig. Gen. José Gerardo Fuentes, director of Honduras' Defense University.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1119793.html

Florine Stettheimer "Family Portrait II" 1933

Kenneth Anger was a fan of Florine, his short film "Puce Moment" was inspired by her paintings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRm3B4T5SkU

How have you been> :)

Malloy's on.

Got a link?

Groovy....and you?

Been a while since I listened to Malloy. What do ya make of him sweetie.

Is he for real?

Personally, I like him... Quite possibly the best Lib radio personality. Factuality and all ;)

on this Air America thing...none of the other shows on Nova or what not...

If Janeane came back to radio..... I'd drop those dudes like a hot docile potato.... :)

;)

Brilliant.

she was just GREAT!

No Sex, No Peace ;)

a bit behind...

? :)

latest Democracy now....

I think...she said the 4th show, but I guess she means Friday...

I'm still mad at Noam for his dumb Obama statement...Zinn made one as well..but Zinn took it back and changed his vote....I don't know who Chomsky voted for...just what he told people - Vote for Obama without illusions...

Just because of the hope that he will somewhat change american foreign policy.

So Max Baucus has received about 13,263,986 from the industries affected by the health care industry. But Blue Dogs like him & the Republicans certainly receive more money from we the people than any corporation. Never mind the perks they enjoy via the taxpayer. So why do they feel compelled to do the bidding of the corporation -but ignore their constituents. Surely, corporate money alone cannot elect a candidate.

Simply put, they are a group of folks that use the congress to enrich themselves, their families, and their friends. To hell with us. Of course I'm not saying anything that you don't already know. However, to say they are indebted to the corporation over the people appears to be hype. It's a debt they want. They are merely keeping their eyes on the prize. That would be the millions they will be able to make as lobbyists.

He could have made a change by speaking out THEN..at the time of the election...

By David Usborne

Venezuelan leader vows to 'act militarily' after leftist ally Manuel Zelaya is overthrown and exiled to Costa Rica.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22936.htm

via Les Enragés

From:Gov. Howard Dean, Democracy for America" info@democracyforamerica.com
Subject : 350,000
Date : Mon, Jun 22, 2009 12:59 PM
Even while Republicans fight tooth and nail against allowing Americans the choice of a universally available public healthcare option; the American people continue to show overwhelming support -- 8 out of 10 Americans in the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.

But for-profit insurance companies and HMO's are working hard to strip it from any upcoming healthcare bill. They don't want Americans to have a choice because they know they'll have to lower costs and provide better care. They will stop at nothing to kill real reform and there are a lot of Senators in Congress looking for ways to help them.

Republicans have insurance companies on their side. We have the American people on ours. Now that we have the momentum for real reform, we need to make it clear we won't accept anything less than a strong public option.

We're at 350,000 signatures as of this morning. How many more can we get before I present the signatures this Thursday in Washington D.C.? Please add your name right now or -- if you have already signed -- forward this message to a friend, family member or likeminded co-worker and ask them to join you.

www.StandwithDrDean.com/LastChance

We can guarantee healthcare for all if we give every American the freedom to choose between keeping their private insurance - if they have any - and a universally available public healthcare option like Medicare. A public option is the only way to guarantee healthcare for all Americans and its inclusion in any healthcare reform bill passed this year is non-negotiable.

Our friends in the Congressional Progressive Caucus have stood strong and united, insisting they will vote against any legislation without the choice of a public option. They are working hard to beat back pressure in the House to "compromise" for right-wing special interests. Now's the time to make it clear we back members of the Progressive Caucus up. First we led the way, now we'll have their backs.

But for the rest of Congress, they still need to decide. Do they stand with the 76% of the American people who want the choice of a public health insurance option? Or are they working for the health insurance industry that will deny Americans the choice of a public health insurance option?

They will decide. We will hold them accountable.

Let's see if we can get another 10,000 signatures this week before I present them Thursday morning at the Capital.
ADD YOUR NAME NOW THEN PASS IT ON

Working together, we will get healthcare for all Americans. Thank you for everything you do to make it happen.

-Howard

Gov. Howard Dean, M.D.
Founder, Democracy for America

=============================
it's up to 389,000 now

a documentary on the 1st Amendment is running on HBO...it was pretty good...

***

Get off your asses AND FIGHT!!!

I saw this show in Dallas and I found a youtube of it performed elsewhere, and the show was virtually identical.

It's like they rehearsed.

enjoy

The Truth, Wingnut Variety

by Abby Zimet

Pat Boone at the 1997 American Music Awards promoting his heavy metal album, "In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy."

Proving again that right-wingers need to get a life – or accept that times are changing – 50's crooner Pat Boone, who made black R&B classics palatable to white America, has joined the so-called birthers, demanding "in the name of decency and equality" that President Obama produce a REAL U.S. birth certificate, not his "supposed copy" of one. In a surmise-ridden rant, Boone suggests history will blame the (illegitimate) Obama for taxing the middle class "into despondency," "throttling religious speech with phony 'hate crimes' legislation," enacting "crippling and fraudulent 'global warming' laws" and other crimes that, clearly, only someone foreign-born could commit.

Alas, his fervor did not help the latest wingnut effort to buy an ad in a Honolulu paper to help document Obama's birth there, "as he claims in his autobiography." The paper became the latest to decline to touch the issue, "even for money."

"One thing for sure: This is not going away. More and more people are determined to get the truth, and will press to get it."

Link

***

Get off your asses AND FIGHT!!!

Brookings Publication mentions possibility of ‘Horrific Provocation’ to Trigger Iran Invasion

By Jurriaan Maessen

In a recent policy paper published by the influential Brookings Institute, the authors propose almost anything to guarantee dominance of Persia by the new world order, including bribery, lying, cheating and mass murdering by an all-out military assault of Iran. The paper ‘Which path to Persia: Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran’ is just one of many recent and not so recent examples of the firm intent of the globalists to engage Iran militarily and acquire its natural resources in the same effort.

The group of authors- a cozy little convergence of globalists- contemplate four separate options on ‘how to deal with Iran’ in the cold bureaucratic language that poses as scientific but is really nothing more than the intelligent musings of a calculating psychopath. The first option, ‘Dissuading Tehran’ through diplomatic means is being discussed as something tried, tested and discarded. The second option, ‘Disarming Tehran’ covers several ways of rallying the ‘international community’ around the globalists’ intentions. In the third part, ‘Toppling Tehran’ the warmongering increases as the writers contemplate both covert and overt military action against the Islamic republic of Iran. In the fourth and last section, ‘Deterring Tehran’ the option of ‘containment’ is elaborated upon. The proposed final strategy predictably involves all of the above mentioned options, in roughly the same order of appearance.

To ensure the cooperation of surrounding countries, the authors propose bribery as an effective tool. After the authors assert that ‘it may be necessary to cut some deals in order to secure Moscow’s support for a tougher Iran policy’, the authors continue with their ‘brainstorming’, advising a widespread bribery campaign in order to ensure international cooperation in regards to Iran:

‘Other countries also will want payoffs from the United States in return for their assistance on Iran. Such deals may be distasteful, but many will be unavoidable if the Persuasion approach is to have a reasonable chance of succeeding.’ And further on: ‘To be successful, a Persuasion approach would invariably require unpleasant compromises with third-party countries to secure their cooperation against Iran.’
...

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2009/06_iran_strategy/0...

In an email Monday, the conservative Club for Growth has asked members to help identify potential primary opponents for Republicans who crossed party lines and voted for Waxman-Markey, the so-called "cap and trade" bill which passed 219-212. It would not have passed without Republican support.

The prodigal Republicans identified in the email were:

Bono Mack, Mary (CA-45)
Castle, Mike (DE-AL)
Kirk, Mark (IL-10)
Lance, Leonard (NJ-07)
LoBiondo, Frank (NJ-02)
McHugh, John (NY-23)
Reichert, Dave (WA-08)
Smith, Chris (NJ-04)

The Club for Growth is a fiscally conservative organization, known for its willingness to support conservatives who challenge liberal Republicans in primary campaigns.

Former Congressman Chris Chocola, who now heads The Club, blasted out the following message Monday:

...

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/06/29/club-for-growth-targets-republic...

.

Where's Chubbs? I think he's avoiding the Blog...

Nothing like a little lite reading before bedtime.

(got a cliffs notes version?) :)

Just skimming the first ten pages of that Brookings report told me I need to be awake, and preferably sober when reading it....

Another time...

***

Get off your asses AND FIGHT!!!

brighten our lives...

No person who works has time to read that fucking thing...

Sad.

Hows the roller girl doin?
***

Get off your asses AND FIGHT!!!

US soldiers leaving Iraq's cities

"Save us Howard save us...."

***

Get off your asses AND FIGHT!!!

Seeing the overworked reference librarian having an ice cream social for the summer reading program, while trying to work the reference desk at the same time....

the happy thing ('heart warming')....was one of the Fla** children...there are about 5 of them..they come in once a week...they are a LARGE family in this area...

So grandma Fla** was with them today (not on their normal Thursday visit), and one of the twin girls said, "Grandma! Can you push me on the tire swing? Can you push me on the tire swing?"..Grandma said yes I guess and the girl ran out the front door of the library screaming "I LOVE THE TIRE SWING!!!"...

That was nice.

The way to make sweet potato fries crispy is in a cast iron grill.

Why doesn't anyone explain these simple things?

It's bad enough Alice. The long hours, the runts that terrorize the joint, the monotony of a freaking reference desk. Having to put up with ice cream socials and a summer reading program is over the line. Your working conditions suck. How do you ever keep from throwing books with all of those crazy crazy ideas screaming at you from the pages? You work in a mad house.

Ya got any happy to share...cuz I would seriously gladly repay you on Tuesday for a happy story today...

...

Those people are lucky I have no time to look up lest I recall their face in the actual Public... :)

Hell they should probably make them standard issue for all state employees now...

Sounds like you guys need them...

Very cool to imagine whole tribes storming the library...gives a vision of mayhem and librarians running amok shushing everyone...

Cute. :)

I don't think I could do it Alice. You should be allowed to insert a leaflet with the definition of a moron in the book jacket.

Have all of these sweet potato fries. I could only have a couple. But for decades I've tried to figure out how to make them crispy and I just figured it out. I had a V8 moment.

Taking care of "the toothless" is a part of my job I like to do...that was a bad joke...

they're very good...Cast iron is the trick ya think?

Man houses smell after frying things...but I likes em krispy too...

I was on my way to a remote cell tower this afternoon. I new I was running on fumes when I left, but the phone rang when I was on my way out and I completely spaced the gas station....my reflexes just took over while I was on the phone and I just kept on going....I ran out of gas on a back service road in the middle of nowhere...

Took me over an hour to hike out and get someone to give me a ride for gas...I felt like a total idiot...

I did the required 20 laps in 5 minutes with 50 seconds to spare..I thought it would be harder..and that my endurance might not be so good...but with that much time to spare it's not that hard to see that they have low standards... ;)

you must have been engrossed in what you were doing...I think about running out of gas as soon as the light comes on in this newer car...and it's hard to ignore...Were you helping someone on the phone?

heh - they can't catch what they can't see... :)

my ol' land...sniff sniff} Handsome Pretty Handsome

(need 2 Brew more} Tea Cheers {and I might "call" for a "Cab..." soon perhaps}
Doesn't a double negative make a positive? teehee mwah haha
;)

No, just jibjabbing...and being a friggin flake...

The guy I was talking with was laughing his ass off too...kept making missing persons jokes...got to be careful in the back country around here...you could end up in someones soup pot....

by being out of gas...?

Could be...

And a good jibbajab is fun once it gets a'rollin.... :)

...

*

Hi Ms_teA... !

...

Madoff Is Sentenced to 150 Years for Ponzi Scheme
James Estrin/The New York Times

Article Tools Sponsored By
By DIANA B. HENRIQUES
Published: June 29, 2009

A criminal saga that began in December with a string of superlatives — the largest, longest and most widespread Ponzi scheme in history — ended the same way on Monday as Bernard L. Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison, the maximum for his crimes.

[...]

NYT

I know one person will be happy...

After 911 the number was 50%

Noodles is right..."It doesn't take much of a crisis to find out who the assholes are."

today and also to NPR, she was not satisfied with 150 yrs....which I can understand...because she is unmarried, and 65...She didn't say not satisfied exactly..she said kinda like that he might be better off than her still in this situation...

-After 911 the number was 50%-

Thanks....

Tomorrow is the last day with all the employees..it's going to be sad...doesn't matter how many "parties" we've had for the last couple months to try to deal with this...tomorrow is the last day...

Goodnight, cent & Blog...xoxo

150 years...He is gone for all day...

They should put him in the stocks and put him in times square for just one day....

Sounds like you've got a tough day tomorrow...

After the way you describe work at the Library, I am not sure who the lucky ones are....

Justices to Review Campaign Finance Law Constraints

By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 30, 2009

The Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will consider whether to uphold a ban on corporate spending in federal elections, a move that campaign finance experts said could have a dramatic effect on the 2010 and 2012 federal elections.

In a surprise move, the court said it would delay a decision on whether a conservative group's film criticizing then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton ran afoul of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance act.

Instead, the court scheduled a rare September hearing on whether the law itself raised constitutional questions and it said it would reexamine a 1990 decision that said restricting corporations from spending money from their general treasuries to support or oppose political candidates did not violate constitutional guarantees of free speech.

"This has the potential to be a blockbuster," said Michael E. Toner, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission. He said the issues have implications for "the whole architecture of the federal campaign financing system."

The court said it would withhold its decision about "Hillary: The Movie" until it received briefings this summer about the larger issues. It will hear arguments Sept. 9. The court begins its new term Oct. 5.
ad_icon

The court will be without Justice David H. Souter, who has been one of the most consistent supporters of the McCain-Feingold Act, formally called the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. Its main sponsors were Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russell Feingold (D-Wis.).

The White House and supporters of court nominee Sonia Sotomayor said the September hearing should be additional motivation for the Senate to vote on her confirmation before it adjourns for its August recess.

It is unclear whether Sotomayor's replacement of Souter would make a difference in the case's outcome.

At issue in the case is a part of the law that forbids corporations, unions and special interest groups from using money from their general treasuries for "any broadcast, cable or satellite communications" that refer to a candidate for federal office within a certain time frame before an election.

In the past, that has meant 30-second to one-minute campaign ads. But a lower court said the same rule applied to the conservative group Citizens United's production of a scathing 90-minute movie on Clinton as she pursued the Democratic presidential nomination.

The three-judge panel applied a ruling written in 2007 by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. that an ad is covered by the law when it is "susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate."

Citizens United's attorney, former solicitor general Theodore B. Olson, had told the court that it should use the case to overturn the corporate spending ban the court recognized in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, as well as its decision in 2003 to uphold McCain-Feingold as constitutional.

WaPo

;)

Sleep well and Have A Grand Happy/Sad day ...
:)

hug hug kiss kiss
;) *poof*
******
That's some factoid..
Submitted by Alice on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 1:27am.
-After 911 the number was 50%-

Thanks....

Tomorrow is the last day with all the employees..it's going to be sad...doesn't matter how many "parties" we've had for the last couple months to try to deal with this...tomorrow is the last day...

Goodnight, cent & Blog...xoxo

the longer they are drawn out.
(that could be b.s.,just sounded good.)

g'night and have a pleasant manana, anna thropicanana.

i guess thats the problem with the bars here being open til 4, i'm always too late.

another nice thing is that 60% of the folks who play at open mic nights are good in this town.

I'm used to 10%.

"I'm covered in cats now, I'm O.K."

re: ... and have a pleasant manana, anna thropicanana
;)

a show tomorrow w/ one of the people who taught me strummin.
His bands been doing pretty dang good, and i thought you might want the chance to support him if he's coming through your town. JIM!!!! I know you should have a shot, and i think you'll be a fan of their stuf.

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

July 1 Bugjar - Rochester, NY w/John Ludington
July 2 Funk ‘N’ Waffles - Syracuse, NY w/John Ludington
July 3 The Spot - Ithaca, NY w/John Ludington
July 4 60 Main - New Paltz, NY
July 5 IWAA BINA - Philadelphia, PA
July 6 Cakeshop - NYC, NY
August 12 Goodbye Blue Monday - Brooklyn, NY
August 13 Sidewalk Cafe Antifolk Fest - New York, NY

WEST COAST TOUR
Sept. 11 Seattle, WA
Sept. 12 Vancouver, Canada - BLIM
Sept. 13 Vancouver, Canada - The Railway Club
Sept. 14 Olympia, WA
Sept. 15 Portland, OR
Sept. 16 Eugene, OR
Sept. 17 Arcata, CA
Sept. 18 Sacramento, CA - The Fox and Goose
Sept. 19 Sacramento / Davis
Sept. 20 San Fran / Oakland / Berkeley
Sept. 21 San Fran / Oakland / Berkeley
Sept. 22 Santa Cruz, CA
Sept. 23 Los Angeles, CA
Sept. 24 12 South - Flagstaff, AZ
Sept. 25 Colorado
Sept. 26 Denver, CO

"I'm o.k. now I'm better"

after i posted it, to add the extra ana.
the ghost of patrioterer spoke to me through the ages.

hope that "cab" offered smooth,curbside service to snoozeville.

and remember, no matterer what happens,
you rock.

"I'm better now, I'm O.K."

I still might. :D
a sipp'n tea 4 now
;)

Sipping coffee & trying to wake up.

not really. morning sandy. its a new dawn.

just finished having some breakfast. goetta and fried eggs. mmmm.

U.S., Britain Part Company in the Poppy Fields
The U.S. has decided to stop funding poppy field eradication in Afghanistan, declaring the policy a failure and a waste of money. Since 2003, opium production has gone up 40-fold in Afghanistan, making it the producer of 90 percent of the world’s heroin. But Britain, backed by the Afghan government, will continue destroying poppy fields as a way to stem the drug trade.

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20090629_us_to_stop_tramplin...

How goes it??
I hope things r going well for u & yours. :)
4 some odd reason - I just cannot get into
going to work this summer. I know I shouldn't
be like this... when there r so many peeps
out of work. 10 yrs. of cleaning up after
high school kids I think has taken its toll.
I struggle with this day after day.
Otherwise things with me r okay..

By Eugene Robinson

Many performers can impress or delight, but only a few can astonish. Michael Jackson did it twice. The first time was October 1969, when the hit single “I Want You Back” introduced a cherubic 11-year-old boy who sang with unbelievable maturity, soulfulness and swing. The second was March 1983, when the prodigy—now grown tall, thin and angular—moonwalked through an electrifying “Billie Jean,” leaving a national television audience slack-jawed at how effortlessly he defied the laws of physics.

Jackson’s personal trajectory, though, was excruciating to watch. I’ve never put much stock in the idea that genius always devours those whom it favors. Jackson had flaws and weaknesses, to put it mildly, but so do we all. Money and celebrity make it possible for the rich and famous to succumb to their worst instincts. The blood-sucking parasites who surrounded Jackson all his life made that surrender not just possible but inevitable.

http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/20090627_perils_of_a_prodigy/

I'm back to sleeping in shifts. 3 hrs sleep, 3 hrs up and 3 hrs sleep again.

I was playing solitaire to make myself sleepy.

I'm having issues with sleeping myself.
I hate when that happens.....
beautiful day today - 70's - u couldn't
ask 4 a nicer day..

thats's funny, i would think summer would be an ideal time to work with the kids out of the way.

CNBC Editor: if you just smile, the recession will be gone!
by Chris in Paris on 6/30/2009 06:24:00 AM
For the umpteenth time, CNBC is declaring an end to the recession. That's right, we've turned the corner again. For those following CNBC we've turned so many corners that some might say we're going in circles. In the minds of the Wall Street cheerleaders, a few positive signs are enough to stand up and say "mission accomplished" and start promoting the next run. It's really cute and the new varsity letter that CNBC will receive from Wall Street will surely look nice but there's a lot more reason for concern than celebration these days.

This ongoing theory that the economy is can be magically improved with a few smiles is ridiculous. Absolutely, the market can be moved with sentiment but to cherry pick a few small positive points and overlook the fact that the banks were on life-support a few months ago is quite a stretch. They are only alive because of massive government intervention and the pumped up numbers by a few may not last. The market needs more than a smile to move forward in any meaningful way.

The global central bankers have delivered their updated report and there's plenty to suggest a double dip recession is a likely outcome. We still have banks that aren't lending and while consumers are feeling more confident, anyone who thinks they will return to the credit bubble days is deluding themselves. It is not going to happen anytime soon. For 2009 the best we can expect is a leveling off and no more surprises but with unemployment sniffing 10% in the autumn, that will be a challenging psychological barrier for everyone. Everyone except CNBC who failed to see the recession coming despite being the self-proclaimed experts.

Maybe, just maybe investor Wilbur Ross is more accurate when we pushes out the recovery until deep into 2010. Even that sounds like a best case scenario.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/31614470

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Four banks in Georgia, Minnesota and California were closed by regulators Friday, as the ongoing credit crisis continued to claim victims.

Villa Rica, Ga.-based Community Bank of West Georgia and Newman, Ga.-based Neighborhood Community Bank were closed, as were Irvine, Calif.-based MetroPacific Bank and Pine City, Minn.-based Horizon Bank. The closures brought the national tally this year to 44, and marked the ninth so far in Georgia.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said in a statement that it will mail checks to insured depositors at Community Bank of West Georgia on Monday. An institution able to assume the failed bank's deposits could not be found, the FDIC added.

Community Bank of West Georgia had $199.4 million in assets and $182.5 million in deposits as of May 15, according to the regulator, which said that at the time of the closing the bank had roughly $1.1 million in deposits that exceeded the $250,000 limit for insurance.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/georgia-banks-fail-bringing-2009-tally-...

2 work @ the school.
One of my sections (library)
is torn up... re-doing the whole
section. Change, change, change.
I'm a little bored @ work. But it is
a good time 2 catch up on my reading.
He-he-he :)

Plus - (I know I'm projecting here)
when school does start up again I will
have my work cut out 4 me.. this new
section is so large that it's a section
all by itself. I also have the music section
of the school. So I have the 2 biggest sections
of the school to do by myself. I don't know
how I'm going 2 get it all done.
The people @ the school (not all but most)
would have us wipe their asses if they could get that in their contract. U talk about "entitlement"

how bout... if I smile money
will appear????

Four US soldiers died in Baghdad from injuries sustained in fighting on Monday, the US military has said.

US forces withdrew from Iraqi towns and cities ahead of a midnight deadline on Monday, handing over security duties to Iraqi police and military forces.

There has been a recent rise in violence with several large bombings targeting markets.

More than 4,300 US soldiers have died in Iraq since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003.

(CNN) -- Rescuers were searching the wreckage of a downed Yemeni jet Tuesday after the "miracle" discovery of a young child in the Indian Ocean.
The child is the only known survivor from the downed Yemenia Airways flight, which was carrying 153 people en route to the island nation of Comoros from Yemen's capital, Sanaa.

The child was found in the waters and taken to a hospital, said Captain Abdulkhalek al-Kadi, chairman of Yemenia Airways.

"One child is alive and we hope to find more," the chairman said. Video Watch as child found »

A reconnaissance plane spotted traces of the Airbus A310-300 in waters off the town of Mitsamiouli early Tuesday, said Comoros Vice President Idi Nadhoim. Comoros is located off the coast of the east African nation of Tanzania.

At first, Comoros officials said there were no signs of survivors among the dead bodies floating in the choppy waters. But then rescuers found the young child.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/30/yemen.plane.crash/index.html

with apologies to trees falling over:

if a bank fails on a friday night and nobody knows it did it really fail?

and goodmorning blog! New day here.

Have a great one, off to work for me.

Honduran military detains journalists under gunpoint
by Chris in Paris on 6/30/2009 05:22:00 AM
Intimidating journalists using guns is so retro, but there's a lot of that retro behavior going around these days. Meanwhile, world leaders continue to protest the military coup that removed Manuel Zelaya from office.

Honduran troops detained seven international journalists covering the aftermath of a military coup Monday, freeing them unhurt a short time later. The government also took at least two television stations off the air and interrupted the broadcasts of others.

At least 10 soldiers, most with rifles drawn, arrived at the hotel where journalists from The Associated Press and the Venezuela-based television network Telesur were staying and unplugged their editing equipment in an apparent attempt to stop their coverage of protests in support of deposed President Manuel Zelaya.

One of the Telesur journalists was speaking on a telephone at the time of the detention, and AP's Nicolas Garcia saw a soldier lightly slapping her hand so she would hang up.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/lt_honduras_journalists

Exxon agrees to pay interest on Valdez oil spill
by Chris in Paris on 6/30/2009 03:36:00 AM
And it only took them twenty years to come around.

Oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. has decided not to appeal hundreds of millions of dollars in interest on punitive damages resulting from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

The Irving, Texas-based company will pay about $470 million in interest on more than $507.5 million in punitive damages following the 11 million gallon spill of crude in Prince William Sound, company spokesman Tony Cudmore said Monday.

The company expects to make payment on the interest in the next few days, said plaintiffs' lawyer David Oesting. Exxon's decision was first reported Monday by the Anchorage Daily News.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090630/ap_on_re_us/us_exxon_valdez

UK economy shrinks most in 50 years

The UK economy shrank by 2.4 per cent and the most in more than half a century in the first quarter, according to revised figures which were much weaker than originally estimated

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/971b65f6-6551-11de-8e34-00144feabdc0.html

---

Eurozone inflation turns negative

Complicates ECB rate setting decision

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e52098b2-655a-11de-8e34-00144feabdc0.html

---

Japanese jobless data jumps to new high

Stimulus prompts rise in household spending

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fcbeaefa-652d-11de-a13f-00144feabdc0.html

---

Oil watchdog cuts demand forecasts

Recession hits world’s energy needs (And yet prices still rise)

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dffed620-648b-11de-a13f-00144feabdc0.html

Now the chattering class have their excuse.

"That ousted Honduran president must have deserved it. He's a friend of Chavez."

Just watch.

“Nearly three-quarters of all Americans support the plan to withdraw most U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities and towns, even though most believe that the troop movements will lead to an increase in violence in that country,” according to a new CNN/Opinion Research poll. “This plan has widespread bipartisan support,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/30/cnn-poll-americans-overw...

The health insurance lobby plans to hold more than 75 townhall and other events around the country this week to rally their supporters on health care reform. “We have really ramped up our efforts to engage the health plan community,” said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for AHIP. “We are encouraging health plan employees from across the country to get involved, reach out to their Member of Congress, talk about what they do and the value they’re adding to the health care system.”

http://www.rollcall.com/issues/54_153/vested/36356-1.html

"talk about what they do and the value they’re adding to the health care system.”

Like turn down payment for procedures and cancel coverage on people and not cover people with pre-existing conditions?

The House Intelligence Committee approved legislation meant to strengthen congressional oversight of sensitive intelligence matters. The committee “proposed doing away with provisions that allowed a president to limit disclosure of sensitive intelligence activities to the ‘Gang of Eight.’” Instead, the committee “gave each intelligence committee, rather than the president, the legal authority to limit briefings to its own members.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/29/AR200906...

After “quickly finishing a partial vote count,” Iran’s Guardian Council “formally certified the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a second four-year term, saying there was no validity to charges of voting fraud.” The decision “touched off scattered protests in Tehren” last night. “It is a divided country now,” said an unnamed Iranian political analyst.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/world/middleeast/30iran.html?ref=today...

Conservatives Attack Sotomayor For Not Having A Crystal Ball

SotomayorWithin minutes of today’s decision in Ricci the right-wing opened a new assault on President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, claiming that all nine justices disagreed with Judge Sotomayor. The claim featured prominently in a Federalist Society press call held just over an hour after the decision was handed down; right-wing law professor Jonathan Adler made the claim on his blog; and the same claim is all over the National Review’s website. By lunch, even Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) had picked up the spin.

The basis of this claim is the fact that both Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion and Justice Ginsburg’s dissent created new legal standards which are different than the twenty-five year old rule Sotomayor was required to follow in Ricci. Under the Second Circuit’s 1984 decision in Bushey v. New York State Civil Service Commission employers have almost carte blanche authority to reconsider a hiring or promotion test if minorities underperform white applicants who take that test. The newly-announced rule created by today’s majority opinion says that employers must have a “strong basis in evidence” showing that the test was in fact illegal before they can throw out a promotion test. Justice Ginsburg’s dissent would have carved a middle ground, allowing employers to reconsider a test when they have “good cause to believe” that the test was illegal.

So Cornyn and his co-ideologues are right that Sotomayor failed to predict that both Kennedy and Ginsburg would create never-before-imagined legal standards in their dueling opinions in Ricci, but this is hardly a legitimate attack on Sotomayor. As legendary Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse explains, Sotomayor’s crime was that she simply followed the rules that were in place when Ricci was before her court:

This is a substantial weakening of the disparate-impact prong of Title VII. [T]he 2nd Circuit (and the 6th Circuit, which had handled a similar case in a nearly identical way) was playing by the old rules, and the Supreme Court changed those rules. Don’t we want our appellate judges to play by the rules they are given and to refrain from the activism that would be involved in crafting new ones? Does it seem to you, as it does to me, that Judge Sotomayor’s critics are now kind of stuck?

The lovely thing about being the nation’s highest court is that you aren’t bound by lower-court decisions, and can create new rules on the fly. Judge Sotomayor did not have this luxury, and she shouldn’t be attacked for doing nothing more than following a binding precedent.

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/06/29/sotomayor-reversal/

Private Banker Moved Funds Undetected
By LYNNLEY BROWNING and DIANA B. HENRIQUES

He grew up in elite circles in Buenos Aires, acquiring the polish and privileged connections that paved the way for him to become a star private banker in New York to wealthy clients at UBS and JPMorgan Chase.

But as Hernán E. Arbizu tended the fortunes of his gilded South American clients, he says he also illegally took millions of dollars from them for years while at both banks, without being detected.

What is more, Mr. Arbizu said he regularly dipped into UBS client accounts — and even visited the Swiss giant’s offices in Manhattan to ensure that the illicit transactions went through — for at least a year after he left UBS for a new job at Chase in the fall of 2006.

The fast-lane world of private banking has hit some serious speed bumps in recent months, its affluent clientele hit by Ponzi schemers, failed hedge funds and tax evasion investigations from Washington to Europe.

Several big European banks stumbled into the Madoff swindle, for example. More recently, UBS agreed to a $780 million settlement with the Justice Department to address accusations that it had helped wealthy Americans hide billions of dollars in taxes in secret offshore bank accounts.

The curious case of Mr. Arbizu, whose career exploded when a Chase customer discovered and reported his crime in May 2007, offers a rare window into this well-shielded world, and raises questions about how carefully some of its largest institutions monitor their bankers.

In telephone and e-mail interviews held in the last eight months, Mr. Arbizu put himself in what he said was the “3 percent of bankers who at some point get confused because of the pressure. We feel like we can take risks that other people don’t even dream to do, and that we can manage that risk — I don’t know why.”

But he also said that UBS “didn’t have proper control over its bankers” and he accused the bank of creating an atmosphere of pressure to keep clients and reel in new ones. A spokesman for UBS declined repeated requests for comment on the case.

Mr. Arbizu, an Argentine native, fled the United States for Argentina in May 2008, just before he was to be indicted by federal authorities in New York on federal bank fraud charges. He insisted that he had not personally profited from his actions, but rather had shifted money between accounts to make good on unrealistic investment promises he made to keep important clients. “Of course I made a huge mistake — I feel really bad,” he said.

Yet while his actions pale in comparison with Bernard L. Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme, Mr. Arbizu’s tale contains the same “rob Peter to pay Paul” logic that apparently guided Mr. Madoff.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/business/30banker.html?_r=1&partner=rs...

Military Coup in Honduras

A military coup has taken place in Honduras this morning (Sunday, June 28), led by SOA graduate Romeo Vasquez. In the early hours of the day, members of the Honduran military surrounded the presidential palace and forced the democratically elected president, Manuel Zelaya, into custody. He was immediately flown to Costa Rica.

A national vote had been scheduled to take place today in Honduras to consult the electorate on a proposal of holding a Constitutional Assembly in November. General Vasquez had refused to comply with this vote and was deposed by the president, only to later be reinstated by the Congress and Supreme Court.

The Honduran state television was taken off the air. The electricity supply to the capital Tegucigalpa, as well telephone and cellphone lines were cut. Government institutions were taken over by the military. While the traditional political parties, Catholic church and military have not issued any statements, the people of Honduras are going into the streets, in spite of the fact that the streets are militarized. From Costa Rica, President Zelaya has called for a non-violent response from the people of Honduras, and for international solidarity for the Honduran democracy.

While the European Union and several Latin American governments just came out in support of President Zelaya and spoke out against the coup, a statement that was just issued by Barack Obama fell short of calling for the reinstatement of Zelaya as the legitimate president.
Call the State Department and the White House

Demand that they call for the immediate reinstatement of Honduran President Zelaya.

State Department: 202-647-4000 or 1-800-877-8339
White House: Comments: 202-456-1111, Switchboard: 202-456-1414

Visit www.SOAW.org and www.SOAW.org/presente for articles and updated information.

He is a SOA graduate, therefore WE [the good ol' US of A] trained him with our tax dollars with the intent of him taking over the government.

So, when our President [currently Obama] "fell short of calling for the reinstatement of Honduran President Zelaya", it is intentional. He doesn't want Zelaya, a democratically elected president to stay in power.

Period.

Submitted by toniD on Tue, 06/30/2009 - 9:28am.
Conservatives Attack
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I keep saying it, and I'm about to say it again. As long as Public Enemy #1 insist on echoing the madness of the Right-wing, nothing will move forward in this country. We should be planning a march to Washington to demand media reform.

http://samsedershow.com/node/4964

Manuel Zelaya Vows To Return To Honduras To Regain Control

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Honduras' ousted president, bolstered by international support, said he will return home to regain control and he urged soldiers to stop cracking down on thousands of supporters who have protested his overthrow.

The military coup on Sunday provoked nearly universal condemnation from governments of the Western Hemisphere, from President Barack Obama to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, and it sparked clashes in the Honduran capital that have left dozens of people injured.

Flanked by Latin American leaders who have vowed to help him regain power, Manuel Zelaya said late Monday that he would accept an offer by Organization of American States Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza to accompany him back to Honduras.

Zelaya, a wealthy rancher who has forged close ties with Chavez, said he wanted to return to Tegucigalpa on Thursday after attending a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday to seek support from its 192 member nations.

"I want the support of whoever thinks I have the right to finish my presidency," Zelaya said at a late night news conference in Nicaragua, where he earlier received a standing ovation during a meeting of Latin American leaders.

Just as significant was the support of the U.S. president.

"We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the democratically elected president there," Obama said in Washington. "It would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition rather than democratic elections."

It was unclear how Honduras' current leaders would react to Zelaya's return. They say he was lawfully ousted because he was sponsoring a referendum that illegally called for an assembly to write a new constitution. Many saw the foiled vote as a step toward eliminating barriers to his re-election, as other Latin American leaders have done in recent years. More...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/30/manuel-zelaya-vows-to-ret_n_222...

that sounds good and all, but please consider that it might not actually be the truth. As news coming out of Latin America has been saying that Vasquez would not have moved forward without the support of the US government. It would not be the first time we said one thing publically and did another. Nor would it be the first time for Obama. I give you FISA and secrecy practices as just two very important examples.

bloggerati
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