September 11, 2009 archive

What is a robust public option now?

This diary notes a shift in definitions: A “robust public option” used to mean a public option available to all, on the first day of mandates.

What does it mean now?

(crossposted at Orange)  

Four at Four

  1. The CS Monitor reports Eight years after 9/11, Taliban roils 80 percent of Afghanistan. “Long considered one of the most stable and peaceful parts of the country, the northern provinces have seen rising violence as heavy insurgent activity has spread to 80 percent of the country – up from 54 percent two years ago. (See map.) Under increasing pressure in southern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, militants who have long sought to extend their reach have turned their attention to the north, where NATO has established a second supply route in the wake of debilitating attacks on its southern” supply route.

    Meanwhile, the LA Times reports Doubt raised on troop boost in Afghanistan war. “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she sees little support in Congress or elsewhere in the country for sending more troops to Afghanistan, signaling trouble for President Obama’s new strategy at a critical point in the war.”

    “I don’t think there’s a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan in the country or the Congress,” Pelosi said.

    Since today marks the eighth anniversary of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, I just want to note that Obama has kept the U.S. safer than Bush did up to this point in the comparative time in office.

Four at Four continues with Obama supposedly unites Democrats on health care, Some Dems are surprised that Buffett thinks the rich don’t pay their share in taxes, EPA slows 79 mountaintop mining projects, U.S. must act on climate change legislation, and hippos in Columbia.

An Option for 5%, Mandates For All, InsCo’s Rejoice

Simulposted at Daily Kos

Let’s be blunt. The current “plan” for Health Care Reform is Bullshit.

After cutting through all the Bullshit, what is the real effect of the current “plan?”

The effect is to force 95% of Americans to give the InsCo’s a portion of their paycheck.

Without a true Public Option this is a Health Care Bill that mandates, by law, that every American HAS to, is forced to, must, buy insurance……from the very industry that has caused the Health Care Crisis.

By Law.

With no alternative.

Without a true Option, this Health Care Plan is a REWARD for the Insurance Companies that are the villains in the Health Care Crisis.

Let me say that one more time.

Without the choice to opt out of buying Health Insurance from the Insurance Companies that are making huge profits off of America’s misery, the current plan is a REWARD for the very Corporations that have caused the crisis.

Health Care Insurance Corporation stock went UP after the Presidents speech….where he announced that only 5% of Americans would be eligible for the currently planned, and thus mis-identified, Public Option.

The Conspiracy Theorist Label

The conspiracy theorist label is the cleverest tool the conspirators have come up with to deter the people from investigating and questioning their (the people’s) own government.

The truth is, the greatest threat to our national security is not an external foe, but the secrecy of our own government. Secrecy mis-justified by the claim that it is in the interest of national security. How convenient for the profiteers of the national security state.

The threat obtains in two fundamental ways: direct subversion of our constitution and the will of the people, and blowback.

Subversion is on clear display not just with Bushco, but the entire congress’s passage of the Patriot Act and their failure to retaliate against the tapping of our phones by the Bush NSA and ATT.

Blowback is also on clear display throughout the world, not just with terrorism, but severe geopolitical realignments as a result of the neocon pax Americana agenda.

The American people have been brainwashed into thinking that secrecy is required to keep us safe. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The 50th anniversary of the 1947 National Security Act just passed us (July 26, 1947). These last fifty years have seen this establishment of what Bill Moyers called the “Secret Government” bring, not expanded peace and security in the world, but the exploitation of this secrecy to effectively subvert the institutions of democracy and the rule of law.

The release of a few of the CIA’s “family jewels” is testimony to a mere glimpse of this secret government in action.

And so concerned Americans attempt to investigate.  With scant information they attempt to connect the dots. They dig out documents with FOIA requests, datamine MSM reports, and catalog whistleblower accounts to try to get an accurate image to emerge.

And for this they get mocked and ridiculed, venomously attacked, lied about and even their rights violated. Some, indeed, go to prison. Sadly, these attacks come from the left as the cowards who don’t have the courage to fight, bow to the “conventional wisdom” of the corporate controlled media – the big infomercial for the status quo – that citizens investigating their own government are “conspiracy theorists” who are somehow not credible.

Indeed, there is a certain segment of the population that will believe almost anything, from bigfoot to alien abductions. Serious evidence is an obstacle for these folks because they want to believe in the extraordinary, the supernatural, a myth.

But the use of these people to discredit serious, objective citizen researchers is nothing but a propaganda technique. And the cowards on the left who cry “tinfoil” and mock legitimate research are accomplices. They, through their weakness of mind, are enemies of the people’s right to question their government.

They would have you believe that powerful people never conspire and that trying to piece together the speckled evidence of these conspiracies is only  for the realm of nuttery.

But they are fools. We know for a fact that powerful people conspire constantly and in secret. US Attorney-gate was a conspiracy. Iran Contra was a conspiracy. Watergate was a conspiracy. The plan to take our country to war in Iraq was a conspiracy. The program to illegally spy tap America’s phones was a conspiracy.

Hell, the entire Bush administration agenda was a conspiracy.

But we are somehow supposed to believe that these are aberrations. That when Dick Cheney and his pals in the oil cartel get together, they talk about the Yankees.

But secrecy creates a vacuum of hard evidence. And whenever there’s a vacuum, people tend to fill it in with imagination. This is not the X-Files. There is no freakin Illuminati pulling all the strings. The best way for us plebes to visualize the networking structure of conspirators of the national security state, the corporatist class, and the wealthy and powerful in general is the the mafia. Complete with crime families and godfathers. Feudal lords works too but most people don’t know what the hell that means. We know a lot more about the mafia because, at various times, our government has chosen not to protect them.

Of course, you can take the analogy only so far. But one analog is persistent – they’re all a bunch of murdering, thieving criminals. And they all conspire. In fact, one of the most successful prosecutions for mobsters is conspiracy.

Personally, I somewhat support the ban on CTs at this site. But only because I have no interest in anyone’s theory about anything. I want facts.

But the greatest failure of Democrats and the progressive left in the last 8 years has been to allow the delusional ravings of a few to inoculate the Bush junta on 911. Just because some think that space beams destroyed the Twin Towers is no reason to believe the depiction of 911 presented by Bush/Cheney or the fraud that is the 911 Commission. There’s nothing realistic about believing the Bush administration has lied about everything except 911.

One doesn’t need to to theorize about 911 to prove that the story we’ve been told doesn’t ad up. And if we can invest 1000 man-hours investigating Jeff Gannon, don’t you think the sole source of Bush’s power to destroy our nation deserves a little attention?

Watch ‘9/11 Press for Truth’. This fact based, high quality documentary doesn’t propose a conspiracy. But it raises some serious freakin questions. And it’s all the result of data mining MSM reports.

Watch the BBC’s ‘Power of Nightmares.’ It shows how the neocons needed a new devil after the fall of the USSR. It has nothing to do with 911 conspiracy theories. But it will probably completely change your view of al Qaeda and all these terror hypes the Big Infomercial is always selling.

Over 40% of the public doesn’t believe Bushco on 911. That doesn’t mean they all think it was an inside job. But if you think that doesn’t help Democrats politically then you should keep your day job. If those numbers got up to 65%, I’m not sure a Republican could ever be elected again.

I just want people to understand they let it happen. Because that is the proven truth, so far. Whether they let it happen on purpose is a legitimate line of investigation. But because of the left’s phobia with 911, we can’t even get the message out that Bushco let 911 happen through incompetence. And that pisses me off.

Is Anybody Home?

The End Stage of Western Civilization

Referendum For new 9/11 Investigation passes the signature hurdle

September 10, 2009

New York – In a last minute decision, lawyers for the City of New York have conceded that the New York City Coalition for Accountability Now (NYC CAN), a group comprising 9/11 family members, first responders and survivors, indeed did submit over 30,000 valid signatures to put the referendum for a new 9/11 investigation before the voters of New York City this November.

Senator Gillibrand (D, NY) supports a new 9/11 Investigation:



HAPPY SAPPY 911 DAY

Spare me the sappyness of yet another year of “in this post 911 world” rememberances.  I don’t know why I shouldn’t just get euthanized with the swine flu bioweapon.  Oh, and nice touch NSA assholes on frying my computer again, this time but real good.  I had pictures of my grandson on that machine I had not backed up so you suck big time.

Docudharma Times friday September 11




Friday’s Headlines:

Abortion foes aren’t buying Obama’s assurances

For Muslims, backlash fear builds each 9/11

Sri Lanka’s top envoy hits out at EU as cut in £1bn trade concession looms

Afghan warlord General Atta Mohammad Nur warning raises fear of election violence

Robert Fisk: Saddam revisited as Iraq accuses Syria of sheltering Baathist bombers

Welcome awaits Iraq shoe thrower

Can he fix it? Sarkozy’s carbon-tax plan derided by environmentalists

Thatcher told Gorbachev Britain did not want German reunification

Homing pigeon faster than Internet? In S. Africa, the answer’s yes.

Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez recognizes breakaway Georgia republics

Details Still Lacking On Obama Proposal

White House Unclear on How Some Far-Reaching Goals Would Be Met

By Ceci Connolly

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, September 11, 2009


One day after President Obama pitched his plan for comprehensive health-care reform to a joint session of Congress, administration officials struggled Thursday to detail how he would achieve his goal of extending coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans without increasing the deficit.

In two public appearances and private meetings with a dozen lawmakers, Obama promised a “full-court press,” saying, “We have talked this issue to death.” He also argued that new Census Bureau figures showing a slight uptick in the number of uninsured Americans only underscores the urgency of enacting major legislation this year.

Al-Qaida: Tales from Bin Laden’s volunteers

Eight years after the attack on New York, intelligence reports from captured western recruits suggest the terror network is weakening

 Jason Burke and Ian Black

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 10 September 2009 20.04 BST


The meeting was tense. The six recruits, from immigrant communities in France and Belgium, had decided to confront their al-Qaida handler. Before leaving their homes, they had watched al-Qaida videos on the internet and seen massed battalions of mujahideen training on assault courses, exciting ambushes and inspiring speeches by Osama bin Laden.

Now they had spent months in Pakistan’s rugged frontier zones and had done nothing more than basic small arms training, some physical exercise and religious instruction.

They had been deceived, they complained to the Syrian militant looking after them. The videos had lied.

Happy 8th Anniversary – Now Investigate 9/11!

Last night when I was watching the NFL grand kickoff festivities it just amazed me on how much more extravagant that the bread and circuses become as the American empire enters the stage of terminal rot. Eaten from within by looters using the full power of the state to confiscate the tax dollars of the American citizens for their financial gambling schemes and to throw anyone into a for profit prison gulag system who dares to complain about it as well as the termites and maggots like Rep. Joe Wilson who proudly serve as the guardians of the fascist oligarchy. Of course there is the menace of rising demagogue Glenn Beck and the full might of the shadow government that is all too happy to have a money loser as an ace propagandist, liberals extol the virtues of the boycotts by Beck advertisers but it doesn’t mean jack fucking shit – the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Washington Times has been a huge money loser practically since its inception but it’s true value is as a forum to distort and mold public opiniong, a launching pad for the slime, swill, sleaze and lies that reverberate throughout the right wing echo chamber media. Former Vice President Henry A. Wallace said it best:

The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism.

Muse in the Morning

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry XIII

Art Link

In Pairs

New Tricks
riffs on a theme

Discontinuity

Total refusal

to be who I was

balked at the concept

finally stood up

New environment

Learn to fit in

or face rejection

Is it ever enough?

There are always bigots

“Learning to fly

but I ain’t got wings”

And coming down

can smash your face

into the ground

It’s like trying

to pair up old socks

only much more serious

What portion is me

and what part pretense?

Non-vital essence

What only exists

for the sake of appearance

for convenience

for comfort, safety?

Being dead is safe

eventually

Learning is so hard

Learning how to exist

painfully harder

There is no blueprint

no textbook to consult

nor guide on this trail

I am a teacher

I must lead myself

–Robyn Serven

–January 25, 2006

◊  ◊  ◊

One of what I called my sand paintings, with a jazzed up background.

Good morning.  Be excellent to one another.

Writing, the Skill that makes us Human 20090911

Many lifeforms communicate.  Whether it is from pheromones, like the insects (and to a smaller extent, us) to verbal language, there is some sort of communication.

Other than the opposed thumb, the thing that makes us unique is that we not only communicate, we write it down.  That is a seminal difference.  Here is why.

Translator’s Take on Medical Care Reform 20090911

First, let me go on record as being a supporter of a single payer approach to medical care.  I think that, in time, we will become enlightened enough to get there, but not this year.

With that said, here is what that I think is possible to attain, and it is much better than nothing.  Please help me to punch holes in my approach, because this is an extremely complex subject and even I (LOL!) can not get it all correct.

Load more