March 12, 2010 archive

Lie Alert: Senate Blames House; House Blames Senate

We are now entering the final insult phase of Health Care by the Democratic Party.

Dick Durbin went on record to state that he would whip the Senate against any consideration for “public option” related amendments to be brought up in that chamber — even though over 40+ Senators are already formally on record in favor of supporting having it added during reconcilliation.  His excuse?  The House would never agree to it.  The same House that had already passed it last year. Keep in mind that the original reason why the Senate dropped the public option, was because it did not have 60 votes — not 50. Simply getting 50 was never (originally) a problem.

Durbin has since said that he will strongly support the public option if (and only if) the House moves to add it back first (before the Senate acts) during the reconcillation process. So Durbin is trying to fool people into thinking that we would have a public option — but it is just the House that is the obstacle  (the same House that had already passed it last year). In fact, Durbin could allow the public option amendment, and whip the Senate in favor of it..and then make the House vote on that.

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Meanwhile, over in the House, Nancy Pelosi is now saying that she will never take up the public option because the U.S. Senate could not ever pass the bill. But the Senate never had a problem with 50 people (it had been 60 that was the original problem), and already 40+ Senators have come out on their own and publically signed a statement pledging support for a Senate public option. Given Durbin’s artifical and phony requirement that the House must act first, Nancy Pelosi could add the public option, if she really wanted to, into the House version — as we know the House had already passed a bill last year with the public option included.

But now Nancy Pelosi (like Joe Lieberman) only supports a gutted House bill that is completely stripped of the public option.   See:   Pelosi Blocks Public Option.  Of course, Pelosi wants to just blame it all on the Senate, where getting 60 votes had been the
problem — not getting 50.


“We’re talking about something that is not going to be part of the legislation.”

         —NancyImpeachment is off the tablePelosi,   March 12, 2010

Afternoon Edition

Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Twin suicide attacks kill 45 in Pakistan’s Lahore

by Sajjad Qureshi, AFP

1 hr 15 mins ago

LAHORE, Pakistan (AFP) – Twin suicide attacks seconds apart targeted the Pakistani military Friday, killing up to 45 people in the second attack to hit security forces in the country’s cultural capital this week.

The bombers walked up to army vehicles in the crowded R A Bazaar area of Lahore, blowing themselves up as people sat down to eat before the main Muslim weekly prayers were to begin, a senior official said.

Lahore, a city of eight million near Pakistan’s border with India, has been increasingly subject to Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked attacks in a nationwide bombing campaign that has killed more than 3,000 people in three years.

Three Hemp-Huffing Presidents, and the New Jim Crow

Anybody who ever reflected on the evidence for as much as a minute knows that Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush all smoked pot. Obama admitted it, Bush never really denied it, and Clinton (ha ha!) “didn’t inhale.”

So if smoking pot doesn’t mess you up too much to be President, then what’s the problem with pot?

The problem is shameles and hypocritical politicians sucking up to tight-assed low-IQ no-info hoodoos in Alabama and South Dakota, who fear that their little Barbies and Kens will end up in the gutter if they sample the demon weed, although…

Since 1992, your chance of getting elected President without a whole lotta preliminary tokin’ has been zero.

But while Obama is prancing around the Oval Office and laughing at the net-roots because they made legalizing marijuana and ending the “War on Drugs” #1 and #2 on Obama’s own bullshit website Ideas for Change in America…

While Obama is prancing around the Oval Office and enforcing even the very few drug-laws that he promised not to enforce…

Meanwhile the “War on Drugs” continues to decimate black communities, as described in a excellent new book by legal scholar Michelle Alexander…

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

AMY GOODMAN: Nearly half of America’s young black men are behind bars or have been labeled felons for life? That’s an astounding figure. Also, what does it mean in terms of their rights for the rest of their lives?

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Yes, thanks largely to the war on drugs, a war that has been waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color, even though studies have consistently shown that people of color are no more likely to use or sell illegal drugs than whites. The war on drugs waged in these ghetto communities has managed to brand as felons millions of people of color for relatively minor, nonviolent drug offenses. And once branded a felon, they’re ushered into a permanent second-class status, not unlike the one we supposedly left behind. Those labeled felons may be denied the right to vote, are automatically excluded from juries, and my be legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, public benefits, much like their grandparents or great grandparents may have been discriminated against during the Jim Crow era.

In fact, in 2005, four out of five drug arrests were for possession. Only one out of five were for sales.

AMY GOODMAN: Yes, I just wanted to bring it up to President Obama, because this piece you wrote, very interesting, at tomdispatch.com called “The Age of Obama as Racial Nightmare.” Explain.

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: What is the system designed to do? The system is designed to send you right back to prison, which is, in fact, what happens to the vast majority of people who are released. About 70 percent of former prisoners are returned within three years. And the majority of those who are returned are returned within three months, because the obstacles, the legal barriers to just surviving on the outside, are so great. I’m often-you know, people often say to me, “Well, I know somebody who is a felon and who managed to get a job. You know, it’s possible to get a job,” they say.

Well, it may be possible, but what kind of job? Why is it that, you know, our young kids, young black and brown kids, are expected to be locked into low-wage jobs for life, if they’re lucky enough to get them, but kids in other communities are given the opportunity to go on to college, to compete for a full range of job opportunities? During the Jim Crow era, the problem wasn’t that black people couldn’t get jobs; it was that they were locked permanently in a lower tier of jobs. And that’s the reality.

Considering the shameless hypocrisy and downright idiocy of politics in America, maybe it isn’t surprising that after 40 years of failure, the “War on Drugs” is still fully funded and still destroying the lives of hundreds of thousands of black Americans…

But how many people who voted for “Hope and Change” with Barack Obama foresaw that they were only electing a new Enforcer-in-Chief of the new Jim Crow?

Opening Up

Photobucket

A progressive coffee party! Let’s do it!

The drupal software used to create their website is opensource.  

We just need some webspace, and some people willing to do promotion on the other blogs like metamars does only in a less condescending way.  We also need someone to start a youtube and facebook group for us. http://drupal.org/

I thought the green tea party would be a good name. No you don’t have to be a green, or a democrat.  You just have to be a progressive.   Our goal will be results on things like government supported universal healthcare, ending the wars, and civil rights.   We don’t  advocate violence, but our main concern is not civility, either.  Our slogan would be something  like “real change!” or “results not hope!”  I don’t think the ofaers  or the kossacks could coopt something like that.

Let’s work together on this.  Many people here have different talents.   I have already created one drupal website  for my linux disto u-lite.  http://u-lite.org .  I don’t have the time to write though, and I know nothing about making youtube videos.

Lord knows I’m not village party shill, so it would be real grassroots, unlike the tea or coffee parties!

Oh, I guess in order to get attention on this blog one needs a music video!

enjoy!

Take Action to Keep America Safe from Wall Street

We've got to stop Wall Street from bringing us another economic disaster — before it happens.

Tell your U.S. Senators to crack down on Wall Street now.

A real financial reform package must include an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency, restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act, and strict new limits on the derivatives market.

To protect citizens from rapacious banks, we need a Consumer Financial Protection Agency to stop abusive mortgages and credit card terms, and other predatory financial schemes.

The Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial and investment banking, was enacted after the financial crash of 1929, but it was repealed in 1999. It is crucial to preventing the reckless investing by commercial banks that caused some of the greatest financial disasters in U.S. history.

Rampant speculation in the unregulated derivatives market was a major factor in the collapse of the global financial system. We need tough new restrictions on the derivatives market, or speculators will continue to imperil our country's economic stability for short-term profit.

Tell your U.S. Senators today: support strong financial reform now!

Lexus Owners = Teh Stupid

Even though a Lexus ES 350 was involved in a widely publicized accident before the recalls, Lexus sales are up about 5 percent so far in 2010 compared with last year. That is close to the average for other luxury brands.

By contrast, sales of models with the Toyota nameplate fell 15 percent.

Analysts said that sales of Lexus have held up partly because the brand is not included in the most serious recall for sticking accelerator pedals.

Lexus must therefore not have as many problems, right?

Yet on a per-vehicle basis, Lexus is responsible for more reports of unintended acceleration than the rest of Toyota, federal records show. And more than half of the roughly 300 such complaints to regulators since 2000 about Lexus ES and IS series models – the only two models subject to recall – involve vehicles from years that have not been recalled.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03…

The Brits Honoring Their Fallen {and thoughts of a Memorial}

I started this out this morning just collecting a few reports to post at my site on new news of the Iraq War Inquiries. I quickly ran into a number of reports of a moving re-dedication of a memorial that once stood in Basra Iraq and started there to Honor the Fallen British Soldiers by their brothers serving in that occupation.

The reason my first intention grew was what these reports spoke as to that Honor and those, the families of as well as friends and advocates, who wanted that Iraq Memorial moved back to Britain and placed where all can visit and dwell on these recent years, over for the British Soldiers in Iraq but not our soldiers there nor for the Brits, Ours and the NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Wild Wild Left Radio # 56 – Policing Protesters: From Preschoolers to Politicians

Tonight at 6PM Eastern Time, WWL Radio!!!!!

Gottlieb and Diane G. will be live and in color (or is that off color?) on WWL radio tonight at 6pm Eastern Time to guide you through Current Events taken from a Wildly Left Prospective.

Hear the Unreported & Under Reported Headlines stories you should be paying attention to, from US Politics, to the farthest reaches of the Earth.


Welcome to the State of No Dissent in the Land of Discontent.

From “Peace Officers” brutalizing 5 year olds, to so-called “Left bloggers” like dKouchebag Markos Moulitsas attacking Kucinich, we are in a world where advocacy for People’s rights or self-determination is now verboten.

Peaceful protesters from U.C. Davis were beaten and dragged last week, to nary an outcry from the public; a public now inured to being monitored from cradle to grave. We have given up our right to privacy, free speech and that “rugged individualism” in order to have a false sense of security.

This is not entirely a new thing in our history of repression and division, what is new is the conditions under which it takes place. At least 50 million people are ill-fed — up from 37 million just a year ago, and because of the Jim Crow Drug Laws, a black child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery! As the discontent among the oppressed grows, so grows the industry of repression: Tasers, sound cannons, advanced riot-control devices like micro-waves and drones dropping prozac bombs. As the “enemies” (read free-thinkers) rebel, our very educational means are being stripped from us, whole school districts shutting down, teachers fired and students are being economically barred from attending Universities. They want us compliant, dumb and afraid.

Sinclair Lewis said, “When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.

We think he is right. Welcome to the Police State.

Controversy? We face it. Cutting Edge? We step over it. Revolutions start with information, and The Wild Wild Left Radio brings you the best in information and op/eds from a position that others on the Left fear to tread.

Call In!

Join Gottlieb and Diane every Friday at 6pm EDT on Wild Wild Left Radio, via BlogtalkRadio, for News from the Real Left. No hand-wringing, no PC, just straight talk from reality based politics.

WWL Radio: Free Speech in Practice.

The call in number is 646-929-1264

Listen to The Wild Wild Left on internet talk radio

The live chat link will go live around 5:20.

CHAT LINK:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/F…

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Quietly Sanctioning Prison Beatings

Clarence Thomas may not have spoken in oral arguments at the Supreme Court in more than four years, but this morning Linda Greenhouse writes in the New York Times about Thomas’s consistent, twice repeated argument that the Eighth Amendment does not proscribe “harsh treatment”, including beatings of prisoners.  You read that correctly.  Prison beatings, according to Justice Thomas, aren’t forbidden by the Eighth Amendment. And presumably, neither are stress positions, sleep deprivation and other forms of torture.  And as if that position were not repulsive enough, Thomas apparently wants it to be adopted by the new majority of the Supreme Court.

Good Morning America

EEwww, they cancelled the prom because you can’t be openly gay.

Oh, really.

I should add a disclaimer.  It is my intention to pick on the zombinality, the you Vill think this Vey aspect of the American Propaganda Delivery System and not the plight of the LGBT community.

Docudharma Times Thursday March 12




Friday’s Headlines:

Torture, terror and table tennis: Iraq hostage Peter Moore tells of ordeal

Ground Zero workers win $657m settlement for health problems

USA

Report Details How Lehman Hid Its Woes as It Collapsed

Europe

Scientologists try to ban critical German feature film

Anti-austerity protests in Greece turn violent

Middle East

Johann Hari: Palestinians should now declare their independence

Iraq election: Nuri al-Maliki in close fight with rival as fraud allegations fly

Asia

Burmese dictator lives like a king, laments the nation’s last royal

Thai protest march starts with Buddhist chants

Africa

Ex-wife criticizes Nelson Mandela – and many South Africans agree

Latin America

Mexico City hosts nation’s first gay marriages

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