Congressmen Seek To Lift Propaganda Ban
(Rumsfeld: “We Will Lie to You.”)
Girl Commits Suicide After Being Forced to Marry Rapist
“They said that they were pressured to push more debt onto people than they could handle. . . .” Sound familiar?
First Dead Birds, then Dead Fish … Now Crickets
Dome of the Rock: Certain Lights?
Amazing Germany’s Declining Unemployment: How Do They Do It?
“After the war a group of prominent German economists . . . proposed what they called the ‘social market economy’ in the belief that the market should serve broader social goals. And it was conservative Christian Democrats, not the leftish Social Democrats, who introduced this idea.”
“We are spending — just on the military and not counting allied force commitments or NGO and other non-military aid — more than three times the entire GDP of the country.”
Exposing U.S.-backed Indonesian Military Assassinations –
U.S. and Murderous Military in Indonesia
Unchecked Authority to Kill Americans: “The executive’s targeted killing authority is a ‘political question‘ that should not be subject to judicial review.”
“Damn Right”: “Briefly, if your aim is to extract untruthful information (like ‘intelligence’ on those non-existent but close ties between al-Qaeda and Iraq, remember?), nothing works better than torture.”
Americans Who Tell the Truth: Wendell Berry’s “Free”
“[Thomas Jefferson] believed that young people should be able to go to college regardless of their ability to pay, regardless of their station in life, regardless of how rich or poor their parents were. He thought that an educated populace was the best defense of liberty and democracy in the new nation he’d helped birth. So the University of Virginia that he started was free. Ronald Reagan, in contrast, did away with free college in California, saying that the role of the state ‘should not be to subsidize intellectual curiosity.’”
US agencies have trillions in investments while crying budget deficits
Administration Targeting Record Number of Whistleblowers: “Daniel Ellsberg, famous for leaking the Pentagon Papers, in the New York Times recently said that the criminal investigations under Obama of three Americans (Bradley Manning [the alleged source of the WikiLeaks documents], Thomas Drake, and Shamai Leibowitz) accused of leaking government secrets represented a new low. In both the Manning and Drake cases, America is projecting its sins onto the men who brought American crimes to light.”
Telling the Truth: “Ellsberg warned that the very things that set him free – government wiretapping and burglarizing – are now legal under The Patriot Act.”
Too Pig to Jail? : “Even if you don’t care about common decency or social stability, consider the cause of justice: The banks are criminal enterprises. Their executives are gangsters who think nothing of charging 40 percent interest on credit cards and lines of credit.”
Invention Secrecy Still Going Strong: “[T]he 1971 list indicates that patents for solar photovoltaic generators were subject to review and possible restriction if the photovoltaics were more than 20% efficient.”
Tides Foundation CEO Letter to Fox News Advertisers
In Gitmo Opinion, Two Versions of Reality
Eureka: A Prose Poem “What I here propound is true:—therefore it cannot die:—or if by any means it be now trodden down so that it die, it will ‘rise again to the Life Everlasting.’ Nevertheless it is as a Poem only that I wish this work to be judged after I am dead.”
Restoring Honor, One Lie at a Time: “The message of the prosperity gospel is that Jesus, and the Bible are simply wrong about some core precepts.”
PRA: Researching the Right for Progressive Changemakers
U.S. Apologizes for Guatemala STD Experiments
Protests Against Austerity in Europe
Kissinger at State Dept. — U.S. Repeating Vietnam Policy . . . ?
National Lawyers Guild Hotline and “Know Your Rights” Materials Available for Activists Targeted by the FBI
State Secrets vs. the Rule of Law
Secret Evidence. Secret Accusers. Secret Locations. Secret (Tortured Confession) Methods. Secret Sentences. Secrets of the State.
David Ray Griffin
The CIA’s Shocking Experiments on Children Exposed
How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned: “I could not believe that the president of the United States, staged by Karl Rove himself, had come down to the city of New Orleans and basically put up a stage prop. It was like you had gone to a studio in California and filmed a movie. … They put the props up and the minute we were gone they took them down. All the dump trucks were gone. All the Coast Guard people were gone. It was an empty spot with one little crane. It was the saddest thing I have ever seen in my life. At that moment I knew what was going on and I’ve been a changed woman ever since. It truly changed my life.”
Veteran Testifies About His “Torture” by U.S. Military
Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats
Yes, to inspire more confidence in the secret services of our governments, they should “fight back by infiltrating internet sites.” The sheer Orwellian sickness of the assertion has certain stomachs heaving. Obviously, the same type of “transparenc[ies]” are continuing – while eliciting the same type of “confidence.” See Obama Confidant’s Spine-Chilling Proposal and New Book by David Ray Griffin: Cognitive Infiltration. In relation: When Political Activism Gets Treated as Potential Terrorism — Blackwater’s Black Ops – Israeli Company Hired by State Government to Spy on Pennsylvanians and Other Americans
Janitors Protest: A Rally Against Economic Justice or . . . Nuisance?
Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence
Apple Seeking to Patent Spyware: “The system can record the user’s voice, whether or not a phone call is even being made.” (A similar system would also be able to listen in – “whether or not a phone call is even being made.” Note: systems more advanced than Apple’s already exist, and are used – beyond the public realm.) (Update: “Cellphones using the Chinese networks . . . could have their microphones remotely activated, meaning they could operate as permanent listening devices.”) 2011: Governments Turn to Hacking Techniques for Citizen Surveillance
SBA’s Katrina Loans Criticized: “One supervisor . . . said that on weekends fellow supervisors and other managers would order pizza and just empty the queue of applications.”
Labor Says Mott’s Apples Are Rotten to the Core: “When we talked about how the company’s demands would cause our members to lose their homes or have their cars repossessed, they looked right at us and said, ‘You are living beyond your means.’”
“That’s part of why we’re so concerned. The Obama administration, rather than investigate the abuses of the last eight years, has increasingly become an obstacle to accountability.”
Economic forecaster: ‘Greatest Depression’ coming: “We went from a country that used to be merchants, craftspeople, manufacturers, to clerks and cashiers.” (And, once the level is reached where only college graduates fill all clerk and cashier positions, there will be no road back.)
Richard Jewell (“Trial by Media”)
“The resolution [HR 1553] is a demagogue’s dream of bogus collective security. It declares American support, in advance, for an Israeli attack on Iran, and gives the unheard-of approval by the U.S. to a foreign power to use ‘all means necessary’ to advance its own interests, and to follow its own definition of those interests.”
Massive Censorship Of Digg Uncovered
Obama Warned Israel May Bomb Iran
H. R. 6010: To prohibit the Extrajudicial Killing of U. S. Citizens
If you look into the history of the FBI and Martin Luther King . . . the FBI attempted to neutralize, perhaps kill him, perhaps get him to commit suicide. . . .
Time Magazine: We Cannot Leave Afghanistan
“The idea that the way to respond to the WikiLeaks documents is to highlight atrocities committed by the Taliban is precisely what CBS correspondent Lara Logan called for. And it’s also more propaganda than it is journalism.”
UPDATE: Did Its Reporter Profit?
Of course, that kind of war could not be launched out of the blue. It would have required a casus belli to justify a limited initial attack that would then allow a rapid escalation of U.S. military force. (False Flag Iran?) (New Pearl Harbor?) (“If you get the right incident, the American public will support.”)
Obama’s ‘Race to the Top’ is now the prime example of equating ‘change’ . . . with privatizing public education.
The Unemployed, Organized Online, Look to the Midterms
Obama Going After Whistleblowers: “The Obama administration is detaining Bradley Manning in Kuwait. It is prosecuting Thomas Drake [formerly of the National Security Agency] for blowing the whistle on aspects of the illegal spying program Bush started. It is threatening Thomas Tamm (a former lawyer in the Department of Justice) with the same, as well as New York Times reporter James Risen. Even the Bush administration was careful not to go this far to repress truthful disclosures involving government/corporate fraud, waste, abuse, illegality and/or risks to public safety. Now, Obama — who promised transparency and more whistleblower protection — is.” Un-gagging the Whistleblowers
Portraits of Courage: “Any person acting with courage for justice, becomes a teacher, becomes a light in the darkness, encourages all of us to become our own lights. Just as fear is infectious, so is courage.”
California Enshrines Duopoly: “Supporters of a ‘top two’ scheme want to spread it throughout the country, with Michigan as the next stop.”
The Millions of Unemployed are Just LAZY. (Translation: we are playing politics with, and further manipulating, your lives. We are the Elite. We create, then reap – from crisis after crisis. And eventually, you will get in a certain line, or, you will simply starve to death.)
How Goldman Gambled on Starvation:
[Think Enron, $4.00 a Gallon Gas, and Multi-Trillion $ Bailouts]
“Then, in spring 2008, prices just as mysteriously fell back to their previous level. Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, calls it ‘a silent mass murder,’ entirely due to ‘man-made actions.’”
Winona LaDuke Pledges Help for Native Tribes Facing BP
Freelance Photographer: ‘I Was Followed by BP Security
We Could Not Pass Up Those Fees!
Death by Stoning for Iranian Woman
The Fate of the Internet. Decided in a Back Room: “This is what a failed democracy looks like: After years of avid public support for Net Neutrality – involving millions of people from across the political spectrum – the federal regulator quietly huddles with industry lobbyists to eliminate basic protections and serve Wall Street’s bottom line.”
Taxes on cigarettes sold off the reservation by Indian tribes: The next encroachment and override of Native American sovereign rights and their territories.
“‘Certainly we are going to stand up and fight and do everything possible for that not to happen,’ J. C. Seneca, a tribal councilor for the Seneca Nation and co-chairman of their foreign relations committee, said Friday. ‘We have to protect and honor the treaties that were made by our ancestors, and that’s what we’re going to do.’”
Mr. Megna (NY state budget director): “‘We’re trying to . . . make it clear that their product for their consumption is tax-free. The only thing we’re trying to tax is New York State residents’ consumption of taxable products.’”
Of course, because it’s NOT about interfering with the commerce of those who are self-governed, breaking more treaties, or purposely taxing a Legal product out of availability and existence (goal of modern-day Prohibition) — at all.
Al Franken Slams Supreme Court
Suspicious Activity Reporting to go Nationwide
Testimony of a Bangladeshi Garment Worker
Egyptians Beaten While Protesting Police Brutality
Human Experimentation by the CIA
Flashback: More Fake, Niger-type, Letters
Federal Judge Finds N.S.A. Wiretaps Were Illegal
Flashback: Speculators Dominate Market for Oil Trading
What’s Driving Up Oil Prices Again? Wall Street
Rise & Fall of The Washington Times (Sun Myung Moon)
Lieberman’s Citizen-Stripping Bill “Unconstitutional”
Combine with the following: H.R. 1955: Homegrown Terrorists
Coca Cola’s Role in the Assassinations of Union Leaders Explored
Whistleblowers Fear CIA Stalkers
Banks Making Big Profits From Tiny Loans
Croatian Teenager Wakes from Coma Speaking Fluent German
Evolution Presupposes Design, So Why the Controversy?
Questioning the Bible
Supreme Court Pick: Kagan “Loves” the Federalist Society: Francis Boyle (Professor of law, University of Illinois): “As dean of the Harvard Law School, Kagan hired Bush’s outgoing director of the Office of Legal Counsel, Jack Goldsmith, as a law professor. Goldsmith is regarded by myself and many others in the field as a war criminal. He wrote some of the memos that attempted to make violations of the Geneva Conventions appear legal. Kagan actually bragged about ‘how proud’ she was to have hired Goldsmith after one of his criminal Department of Justice memoranda was written up in the Washington Post.”
Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld Knew They Were Innocent
Clarity and Realism on “Socialistic” Health Care: “As the Socialists note: The bill passed by the House (March 21) would mandate all Americans to purchase health insurance coverage or face a fine. It would also create health insurance exchanges, an idea crafted by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, where people would purchase insurance from private companies. Those not eligible for Medicaid but who still could not afford to purchase insurance would receive public funds from the federal government to purchase bare bones coverage insurance plans from private insurers.”
“(Socialists) oppose this restructuring on the grounds that the mandates allow private insurers to use the coercive power of the state to enhance their private profits. Insurance credits will serve as a public subsidy to private companies.”
The Myth of a “Green Economy”
“BP announced it’s moving production to India, China and elsewhere.”
Obama Packs Debt Commission with Social Security Looters
Celebrating (Mourning) a Culture of Lies: “Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran theologian who led underground resistance to the Nazis in World War II, wrote once, ‘In a time of pervasive lying, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.’”
Whistle-blower Had to Fight NSA, LA Times to Tell Story
Behind the Eavesdropping Story, a Loud Silence
Letter to Thomas Kean from Sibel Edmonds
Corporate Death Squads: “We would also get calls from the Chiquita and Dole plantations identifying specific people as ‘”security problems”‘ or just ‘”problems.”‘ Everyone knew that this meant we were to execute the identified person. In most cases those executed were union leaders or members or individuals seeking to hold or reclaim land that Dole or Chiquita wanted for banana cultivation, and the Dole or Chiquita administrators would report to the AUC that these individuals were suspected guerillas or criminals.”‘
When a Majority Allows a Hypocritical Minority to Rule:
“In testimony this week before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Director . . . Dennis C. Blair declared unequivocally that Al Qaeda would attack the United States within the next six months.”
Thom Hartmann: “Paleoconservative Ben Stein is suggesting that James O’Keefe – the young conservative who made his name with video stings on ACORN offices – shouldn’t be charged for tampering with the phones at Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office . . . because two New Black Panthers who stood outside a Philly polling station on Election Day 2008 and weren’t charged with any crimes. Of course, they didn’t commit any crimes – they were there as election observers, just like thousands of Republicans nationwide. Hmmm…Let’s see. O’Keefe posed as a telephone employee and tampered with a US Senator’s phone and that’s the same as election observers? Somebody needs to check out what Ben Stein’s been smoking.”
Greg Palast: “There’s no way to wipe the fuck off this smeared planet. I’m supposed to try.”
The Creed of Objectivity Killed the News: “Our elite oversaw the dismantling of the country’s manufacturing base and the betrayal of the working class with the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the press dutifully trumpeted this as a form of growth. Our elite deregulated the banking industry, leading to nationwide bank collapses, and the press extolled the value of the free market. Our elite corrupted the levers of power to advance the interests of corporations and the press naively conflated freedom with the free market.”
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission: “What Roberts, Thomas, Scalia, Alito and Kennedy are guilty of is treason.” “After years of bad headlines and unflattering news reports the corporations bought the headlines and news reports. . . .” “From that moment on, anyone who talked about what was going on became a crazy unpatriotic liberal. . . . “ “Benito Mussolini created the word ‘fascism.’ He defined it as ‘the merging of the state and the corporation.’ He also said a more accurate word would be ‘corporatism.’ This was the definition in Webster’s up until 1987 when a corporation bought Webster’s and changed it to exclude any mention of corporations.” Justice Stevens’ Dissenting Opinion: “At bottom, the Court’s opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt.”
Matt Taibbi: “a new mission that involves not creating wealth for all but simply absconding with whatever wealth is remaining.” Exemplified by Dick Cheney (the 1% view): “This is our due.”
Where’s the Outrage Over Obama’s Health Care Propagandist? “US News and World Report blogger Peter Roff is comparing the Obama Administration’s payments to Jonathan Gruber to the the pundit payola scandal of the Bush Administration paying Armstrong Williams.”
Imagine the Outcry if this had been done by Democrats: Amateur Filmmaker Accused of Entrapping ACORN Employees Arrested By Federal Agents: “‘Witness 1 stated that upon entering Senator Landrieu’s office, Flanagan and Basel represented to her that they were repair technicians from the telephone company . . . .’”
The True Heart and Eyes of a (supposedly Christian) Republican: People on Public Assistance = Stray Animals: “Bauer said giving food to needy people means encouraging dependence. It also gives the recipients a license to have children who will also be dependent on public aid.” “My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals.” “You know why? Because they breed.” “You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better.”
Haiti: When the Media Is the Disaster: “The media are another matter. They tend to arrive obsessed with property (and the headlines that assaults on property can make). Media outlets often call everything looting and thereby incite hostility toward the sufferers as well as a hysterical overreaction on the part of the armed authorities.”
Watchdog Says FBI Broke Law, Made Up Phony Terrorist Threats to Obtain Phone Records: “The report found that between 2002 and 2006, exigent letters were issued to improperly access phone records in three media leak investigations, including the phone records of reporters at The Washington Post and The New York Times.”
Obama Confidant’s Spine-Chilling Proposal: “In 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Sunstein co-wrote a truly pernicious paper proposing that the U.S. Government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-”independent” advocates to “cognitively infiltrate” online groups and websites — as well as other activist groups — which advocate views that Sunstein deems “false conspiracy theories“ about the Government.”
Apartheid Crimes: “Ford and General Motors built manufacturing centers in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, where Dennis Brutus grew up. He told me, ‘”They were using . . . very cheap black labor, because there was a law in South Africa which said blacks are not allowed to join trade unions, and they’re not allowed to strike, so that they were forced to accept whatever wages they were given. They lived in ghettos . . . actually in the boxes in which the parts had been shipped from the U.S. to be assembled in South Africa.”‘
Haitian Earthquake: Made in the USA: “American companies like Disney generously pay wages to their sweatshop workers of 28 cents an hour. What more do these ingrates want?”
Losing the Internet as We Know It
Cort Guitar Workers ACTION!
Washington Post Lets Pete Peterson Write The News On The Deficit Washington Post Lets Lobbyists Write Its Stories
Conservative Mogul Buying Up Reporters
“Have you left no sense of decency?”
15 Horrifying Reasons (McDonald’s): “1. Real food is perishable. With time, it begins to decay. It’s a natural process, it just happens. Beef will rot, bread will mold. But what about a McDonald’s burger? Karen Hanrahan saved a McDonald’s burger from 1996 and, oddly enough, it looks just as “appetizing” and “fresh” as a burger you might buy today. Is this real food?”
McBurger
Bush’s U.S.D.A. also allowed these “innovators” to get away with listing the ammonia as “a processing agent” instead of by name.
Attack Obama Relentlessly from the Left
Senate Bill Isn’t Health Reform
The Rational Case For ‘Kill The Bill’: “If you want to know who is really drug-addled, it’s anyone who seriously believes that the John Harwoods, Chris Matthewses, Jon Meachams and Fred Hiatts of the world give a tinned shit about how this legislation actually affects real Americans. If you don’t stand to gain or lose political capital, you just don’t show up in their reporting.”
Sheriff Arpaio Incites . . . Anger for implicating Judges In Alleged Conspiracy: “When the guys with all of the guns stop listening to the guys in black robes, they stop participating in our Constitutionally-formed government and become no better than warlords.”
Bush WMD: Worldwide Hoax Joke Material
Blair WMD: Preplanned Cover for Rising Tides
The Weapons Inspectors were allowed full access. Every demand was met. Nothing was ever found. Yet, the entire world would still be constantly barraged with complete rewritings of History through outright LIES and Orwellian Manipulation: “We gave him [Hussein] a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power,” Bush told reporters on July 14, 2003 – and then repeated this LIE, over and over throughout the following years.
I am God’s ambassador, sent to earth with his full authority.
The Land Mines Obama Won’t Touch
The Truth Reveals: “The White House, aided by Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), is working hard to crush an amendment being pushed by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) to allow for the reimportation of pharmaceutical drugs from Canada.”
Naomi Klein: HopeOver, HopeLash, HopeBreak
Restore the Glass-Steagall Act? Obama Administration: No Way.
We Need a Change at the Federal Reserve
“The president campaigned on . . . ‘Change we can believe in.’ He then chose as advisors — in the economic sphere as well, where a similar record of gross error, narrow and unimaginative thinking, and over-identification with the powerful could easily be compiled — a crew who had never seen a significant change, or an out-of-the-ordinary thought it could live with — and still can’t.”
Addicted to Nonsense: “The chatter that passes for news, the gossip that is peddled by the windbags on the airwaves, the noise that drowns out rational discourse, and the timidity and cowardice of what is left of the newspaper industry reflect our flight into collective insanity.”
Scripture: Sound Doctrine Forum
Inside The Lives Of Amazon.com: “Made to work a compulsory 10-hour overnight shift at the end of a five-day week. The overnight shift, which runs from Saturday evening to 5am on Sunday, means they have to work every day of the week.”
Forced Labour and Rape, the New Face of Slavery
Torture Still Qualified at NY Times
One FBI agent threatened to send him to Egypt, where the Egyptians “had ways of making him talk.” Another FBI agent threatened to send Mr. Meshal to Israel, where—the interrogator said—the Israelis would “make him disappear.” (True and “Minitrue”)
Societal Control (Manipulation) Via Taxation: “The Dutch government is planning an annual road tax for their cars – drivers will soon pay a few cents for every mile on the road – in a plan aimed at breaking chronic traffic jams and cutting carbon emissions.”
Sarah Palin: A Reality Show President
Our Dominant Media Format: Infomercials
Bestowing Credibility Upon a Puppeted Clown:
Hillary Clinton Looking Forward To Coffee With Sarah Palin
Drug Makers Raise Prices in Face of Health Care Reform
“In the last year, the industry has raised the wholesale prices of brand-name prescription drugs by about 9 percent. . . .” That will add more than $10 billion to the nation’s drug bill. . . .” Promise $80 billion in savings. Raise $80 billion in prices – Before new measures take place. Hey, It’s Just Corporate Business and Politics – As Usual. Greg Palast: “The Big Pharma kingpins did not actually agree to cut their prices. Their promise with Obama is something a little oilier: they apparently promised that, over ten years, they will reduce the amount at which they would otherwise raise drug prices.”
How “a voluntary discussion with a doctor once every five years about living wills, power of attorney and end-of-life treatment preferences” became a “Death Panel.”
“It’s because there are psychotics ‘from states as far away was California’ who want to use you and your vote to ‘control the sun.’”
Leaderless: Senate Pushes For Public Option W/O Obama’s Support
8 Reasons Fox Is Not a News Organization
What a wonderful article. It is extremely rare to see such a positive view imparted in our media. Throughout history, some of the most fascinating and creative people were, during their lifetimes, stigmatized as mentally unstable. Posthumously, many became highly respected models worthy of adulation – for their inspired works, unique movements created, and the (thankfully) unusual lives they lived. In the present, efforts such as these can greatly enhance possibilities that current (hidden) geniuses, “oddballs,” and falsely-labeled “lunatics” might have significantly more chances to succeed – without the crushing weight of an uninformed society’s glare.
A Goldman Sachs International adviser: “We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity & opportunity for all.”
Rape Victim’s Choice: Risk AIDS or Health Insurance?
Meet the Senators in the Creepy Right-Wing Cult
“(In their secret theology, the leadership model of Adolf Hitler is one of which Jesus would approve.)”
Supreme Court Delay May Help Keep Abuse Pics Forever Sealed
“The decision to delay comes as Congress and the Obama administration appear to have agreed on the passage of a new law that would delegate all authority over the photos to the Secretary of Defense, effectively removing the courts from the process.”
Egypt’s Christians Uphold Tattoo Tradition
The Cornwall Alliance, a conservative Christian organization that has opposed climate legislation, had this reaction to DaySix.org: “The best thing we can do to help the poor around the world is to stop trying to fight climate change.”
30 Republicans Voted Against Franken Rape Amendment
Michael Moore’s Grapes of Wrath
Tax Dodger Crackdown Shelved By Obama Administration
“In May, President Obama announced a big initiative to raise $210 billion in tax revenue over the next ten years by cracking down on the use of tax havens by U.S. corporations. The Wall Street Journal reports Tuesday that the Obama administration has shelved the proposal in the face of intense pressure from business.” (Remind anyone of the Health Care sellout?)
US Chamber claims corporate tax loophole “required” by treaties
“In Washington, the Big Lie works. You make a claim that is so outrageous, no one will think you are making it up. In this case, the U.S. Chamber is claiming (The Hill) that unless we encourage offshore tax cheats by widening a loophole that encourages companies to set up a chair on the beach of a tax haven country and call it your headquarters, we will be in violation of our treaties and other trade agreements. Meanwhile, U.S. PIRG’s tax reform advocate Nicole Tichon continues her efforts to get the special interest loophole that could cost taxpayers billions out of a spending bill. Only in Washington.”
John McMurtry: “To universalize God’s laws of global freedom and prosperity under money-capital rule is America’s providential function.”
Howard Dean [before selling out on co-ops, then later redeeming himself with "Kill the Bill"] went after the Baucus bill while speaking at a health care town hall: “The Baucus bill is the worst piece of healthcare legislation I’ve seen in 30 years. In fact, it’s a $60 billion giveaway to the health insurance industry every year. It was written by healthcare lobbyists, so that’s not a surprise. It’s an outrage.”
Speaking before the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee Tuesday, former health insurance industry executive-turned-whistleblower Wendell Potter warned that if Congress “fails to create a public insurance option to compete with private insurers, the bill it sends to the president might as well be called the Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act.” (In December, he sold out on an Individual Mandate – Without a Public Option.)
Vanity Fair article on Levi Johnston, in which the father of Bristol Palin’s baby claims Sarah wanted to keep her daughter’s pregnancy a secret: ‘Sarah told me she had a great idea: we would keep it a secret–nobody would know that Bristol was pregnant. She told me that once Bristol had the baby she and Todd would adopt him. . . . She was nagging–she wouldn’t give up. She would say, ‘So, are you gonna let me adopt him?’ We both kept telling her we were definitely not going to let her adopt the baby.’
Michele Bachmann‘s theory as to why Democrats want her out of office: They don’t want her to become the first woman president.
Olbermann Offers Proof of Fake Bush Terror Alerts
“The Nexus of Politics and Terror“
“Toying with Terror Alerts“
American Diplomats Advocated “Nuremberg Defense“
Bush White House Interference With Renzi Probe
“With the 2006 mid-term congressional elections rapidly approaching, a top aide to Karl Rove warned Harriet Miers that Republican Rep. Rick Renzi’s re-election was in serious jeopardy because of rumors that Renzi was the target of a federal criminal investigation. Later the same day, Miers, then the White House counsel, called the Justice Department’s second highest ranking official and pressed him to issue a statement that would vindicate the Arizona Republican. As chronicled in a series of White House e-mails that were part of a massive trove of documents Web-published by the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Miers was initially rebuffed in her efforts to get then-deputy attorney general Paul McNulty to issue a statement clearing Renzi. Justice Department policy is ordinarily not to comment on ongoing investigations. But on the very next day, news stories simultaneously appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Associated Press saying that although there was an ongoing probe of Renzi, the investigation was in a preliminary stage and there had been no evidence uncovered to date that Renzi had done anything wrong at all. The AP similarly quoted its source saying that the Renzi probe was ‘in the very early stages,’ citing a ‘law enforcement official in Washington.’ For good measure, the day after those three news stories, on Oct. 26, the Arizona Republic also published a story saying that the Renzi probe was much ado about nothing.”
Torture: CIA interrogations not relevant to 9/11 accused’s sanity
The Obama Administration is asking the Supreme Court to block the public release of detainee abuse photos that were the subject of a high-profile reversal by President Barack Obama earlier this year.
US Still Paying Blackwater Millions
Obama’s Embrace of a Bush Tactic Riles Congress
Historian’s Account of Democrats and Bush-Era War Crimes
“If a historian were to write about the events of the first nine months of 2009 when it came to transparency issues as they relate to the war crimes of the Bush years, the following would be written. Just remember this was all done with an overwhelming Democratic majority in both houses of Congress and a Democratic President elected on a promise to usher in ‘an unprecedented level of openness in Government’ and ‘a new era of openness in our country.’”
Objective Media: David Gregory of NBC News tried to get an interview with the sleazy governor by reassuring him that “Meet the Press’ allows you to frame the conversation how you really want to.”
Bob Cesca Challenge: In regard to the ongoing health care debacle, you wove in a reference to “Birthers” as wackaloons, which they are. In the same instance, you equated “Truthers” (a group you deride often) with them, as if they are equal in lunacy. Since this is obviously an area in which you hold fiercely negative opinions, how about going further into the subject on your next post? You could interview/debate someone of stature and prominence from that movement, like David Ray Griffin, then make it an article. In turn, he might do the same. Send him a list of questions, and, let him answer – without censorship. Try to refute his answers – beyond emotion. Then, maybe more of us will come to understand – on both sides. (Brave Enough?)
David Ray Griffin: “One dimension of the Roman imperial order that particularly offended Jesus and his fellow Jews was Rome’s claim that its empire was divinely authorized.”
Thom Hartman: Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture
“Today’s modern transnational corporate CEOs-who live in a private-jet-and-limousine world entirely apart from the rest of us-are remnants from the times of kings, queens, and lords. They reflect the dysfunctional cultural (and Calvinist/Darwinian) belief that wealth is proof of goodness, and that that goodness then justifies taking more of the wealth.”
“The investor class would always be protected, in the Greenspan world, but the working class – regardless of skill level – should always be the working poor. In September of 2007, in an interview on C-SPAN for Book TV, Greenspan said: ‘We pay the highest skilled labor wages in the world. If we would open up our borders to skilled labor far more than we do, we would attract a very substantial quantity of skilled labor which would suppress the wage levels of the skilled, because the skilled are essentially being subsidized by the government, meaning our competition is being kept outside the country.’”
My Womb for God’s Purposes: Childbirth in the Quiverfull Movement
“Chief among the lessons of the book were Balizet’s claims, based in Pentecostal Word-Faith theology, that all physical ills have spiritual origins. She taught that difficult and painful labors were potentially due to disagreements between the parents over child discipline, while perfect childbirths were the result of proper spiritual preparation. She reportedly has walked out on women in labor on receipt of a prophetic message from God that Satan was deceitfully creating the impression of a troubled birth, and argued that ‘Ineffective labor can also be caused by words of opposition and death spoken by others about the couple’s decision to trust God.”’
Palin’s Faith, Instant Forgiveness and God-Ordained Prosperity
“When God is like ‘on-demand cable’—standing by to provide instant forgiveness and prosperity—it is very hard to convince the most fervent believers to adhere to basic rules of propriety, let alone values. The new generation of prosperity preachers—Creflo Dollar, Paula White, Joel Osteen, and a host of other ‘luminaries’—took the humble Health and Wealth Gospel to another level. Rather than focus on audience healings and testimonies, the leaders themselves became advertisements for the movement: highlighting their expensive cars, airplanes, homes, and perfectly-toned bodies as a way to show their parishioners and followers across the world that prosperity was the way.”
UFOs: “[P]sychological warfare purposes both for and against the U. S.”