God and War

A shocking article by ABC News reports that U.S. military weapons are being inscribed with secret 'Jesus' biblical codes.

Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.

The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.

U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious "Crusade" in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.

One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

Other references include citations from the books of Revelation, Matthew and John dealing with Jesus as "the light of the world." John 8:12, referred to on the gun sights as JN8:12, reads, "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

Trijicon confirmed to ABCNews.com that it adds the biblical codes to the sights sold to the U.S. military. Tom Munson, director of sales and marketing for Trijicon, which is based in Wixom, Michigan, said the inscriptions "have always been there" and said there was nothing wrong or illegal with adding them. Munson said the issue was being raised by a group that is "not Christian." The company has said the practice began under its founder, Glyn Bindon, a devout Christian from South Africa who was killed in a 2003 plane crash.

'It violates the Constitution'

The company's vision is described on its Web site: "Guided by our values, we endeavor to have our products used wherever precision aiming solutions are required to protect individual freedom." [...]

"It's wrong, it violates the Constitution, it violates a number of federal laws," said Michael "Mikey" Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group that seeks to preserve the separation of church and state in the military.

'Firearms of Jesus Christ'

Weinstein, an attorney and former Air Force officer, said many members of his group who currently serve in the military have complained about the markings on the sights. He also claims they've told him that commanders have referred to weapons with the sights as "spiritually transformed firearm[s] of Jesus Christ."

He said coded biblical inscriptions play into the hands of "those who are calling this a Crusade."

"This is probably the best example of violation of the separation of church and state in this country," said Weinstein. "It's literally pushing fundamentalist Christianity at the point of a gun against the people that we're fighting. We're emboldening an enemy."

It is time to get religion out of the military and out of the government!

Hell Yes!

Retribution comes in many forms.

Pat Robertson had some biting words about the Haitian people and the cause of the recent earthquake which has caused devastating destruction. "[The people of Haiti] got together and swore a pact to the devil."

WATCH:

In response to Pat Robertson's condemnation of the Haitian people, a Pat Robertson voodoo doll is being sold on Ebay, 100% of proceeds to benefit the Red Cross:

Finally! What you've all been asking for! A one of a kind, handmade PAT ROBERTSON VOODOO DOLL.

After an exclusive deal with devil, we are finally able to bring black magic into your very own home! The lucky winner of this auction will attain the soul of Televangelist PAT ROBERTSON in a hand held figurine comprised of the finest straw, cloth, and other organic natural materials!

Ever wanted to cause Pat Robertson a massive headache? give him back pain? jab him in the crotch? Of course you have! Well then BID NOW to own your very own physical representation of the dark, dark soul of Pat Robertson.

'Atonement' for Pat Robertson.

Palin Hits the Jackpot

The New York Post reports that Sarah Palin received $100 for her magazine photo. Sarah Palin and her daughter, Bristol, earned an eye-popping $100,000 for their new In Touch Weekly cover, sources say.

For just eight hours' work at her own home, Palin pocketed nearly as much as her $125,000-a-year salary as Alaska governor. It seems her decision to quit her political role is making big financial sense. Palin also reportedly earns $100,000 per public-speaking engagement, while she has a multiyear deal as a Fox News Channel analyst.

Gottafaff at The Political Carnival has a tongue-in-cheek analysis of the Palin family.

Tripp, Trigg, Trak, Truck, Trek, Drek, Heck. They're all just one big happy family living off of their Paris Hiltonesque fame.

All Bristol had to do was give birth and stand next to her mom at conventions and such.

All Barbie had to do was talk about Bristol giving birth, speak in tongues, fail at potential Veepitude, acquire an odd accent that doesn't represent Alaska, talk about her lipstick, forget O'Biden's real last name, incite hatred, have her ghost writer write, and then charge a whole bunch of money for talking incessantly about all of that and other stuff.

The family that exploits together is maladroit together.

Watch out Sarah, too much exposure could be damaging.

Lies, Truth and Newspeak

Glenn Greenwald has a compelling article in Salon, The Fundamental Unreliability of America's Media. Greenwald laments about the role journalists now play in the dissemination of false information.

Consider the record of the American media over the last two weeks alone. Justin Elliott of TPM documents how an absolute falsehood about the attempted Christmas Day airline bombing -- that Abdulmutallab purchased a "one-way ticket" to the U.S., when it was actually a round-trip ticket -- has been repeated far and wide by U.S. media outlets as fact. Two weeks ago, Elliott similarly documented how an equally false claim from ABC News -- that two of the Al Qaeda leaders behind that airliner attack had been released from Guantanamo -- became entrenched as fact in media reports (at most, it was one, not two). This week, Dan Froomkin chronicles how completely discredited claims about Guantanamo recidivism rates continue to be uncritically "reported" by The New York Times and then inserted into our debates as fact.

As I documented two weeks ago, government claims about which "top Al Qaeda fighters" were killed by our airstrikes turn out to be untrue far more often than not, yet are always mindlessly featured by our media, ensuring little questioning of those actions; and now, at least two of the three Top Terrorists claimed to have been killed by our recent airstrikes in Yemen -- and possibly all three -- are quite likely alive. As Greg Sargent writes, one of the most provocative and inflammatory claims of the trashy Halperin/Heilemann gossip book -- that Bill Clinton told Ted Kennedy that Obama would have been "getting us coffee" just a couple years earlier -- is not only completely unsourced (like virtually every one of their sleazy claims), but also "paraphrased."

Aside from falsity -- and the fact that they become irreversibly lodged in our political culture as fact -- what do all of these deceitful reports have in common? They're all the by-product of granting anonymity to people and then repeating what they claim as fact, with the falsehood-disseminators protected by "journalists" from any and all accountability for their falsehoods.

Greenwald claims that "unjustified anonymity -- especially when mindlessly repeating what shielded government sources claim in secret -- is the single greatest enabler of false and deceitful "reporting."

David Sirota in his article, Right is not Center, but 2010 resemble 1984, has another perspective of the problem of truth in journalism when he says, "newspeak can destructively alter the public’s perception of acceptable and unacceptable, possible and impossible."

“War is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength” — more than a quarter century after those oxymorons were supposed to pervade an Orwellian 1984, today’s media make such newspeak even more preposterous: On economic issues, we are often told that right is center, center is left, and left is fringe.

For a year, national reporters (with help from conservative talk-radio goons) have depicted the center-right Obama administration and its corporatist policies as quasi-Marxist. We’ve heard that a government-run public health care option is a “liberal” cause, even as polls confirm that most Americans — not just liberals — support the idea. We’re told that legislators backing no-strings-attached bank bailouts are mainstream “centrists,” while bailout opponents are extremists — even as public opinion surveys say the opposite.

This is Washington’s “fair and balanced” journalism (or “journalism,” as it were) and as two of the most respected metro newspapers show this week, its distortions can bleed into local coverage.

The problem of false information is really more pervasive. Even without journalists, lies get disseminated through the web at the speed of light.

Matt Taibbi on Obama’s Economy

Obama’s Big Sellout




Via Rolling Stone

In “Obama’s Big Sellout”, Matt Taibbi argues that President Obama has packed his economic team with Wall Street insiders intent on turning the bailout into an all-out giveaway. Rather than keeping his progressive campaign advisers on board, Taibbi says Obama gave key economic positions in the White House to the very people who caused the economic crisis in the first place. Taibbi also points to the ties Obama’s appointees have to one main in particular: Bob Rubin, the former Goldman Sachs co-chairman who served as Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton.

The full story is now available online here. — Rolling Stone

The Hope of Change has Fizzled....

Draconian Security Measures vs Civil Liberties

The news media, news pundits, talking heads and politicians are all yaking about fear, terrorism, racial profiling and full-body scanners. Gavin Dahl at Raw Story focuses on the issue of, "'Experts' justify profiling, body scanners with familiar paranoid rhetoric."

In the wake of the failed Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound flight, a large number of so-called experts have raised the ire of civil libertarians in their pursuit of increasingly draconian security measures.

Appearing on Fox News Saturday, a retired U.S. general called for "very serious, harsh profiling," singling out in particular all 18-28 year old Muslim men, calling for them to be "strip searched" at airports.

As new TSA regulations take effect, passengers flying into the country from abroad will be subject to random screening or so-called "threat-based" screens.

Retired Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney set up his egregious recommendation by claiming first that "in the next 30-100 days," there is "very high probability a US airliner will come down."

When the host blandly objected that racial profiling would not go over in the United States, he replied, "I agree, that's the problem."

The issue of civil liberties.

The desire to violate American ethical and legal standards, supported by alarmist rhetoric, is reminiscent of the scandalous domestic Pentagon propaganda carried out over the US airwaves under Defense Secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates.

Turns out McInerney is not even the first surveillance advocate this week seen hawking serious violations of civil liberties on cable news under the guise of expertise and authority.

What is missing in this conversation is a discussion about alternative means of screening.

In fact, there are currently at least two other known alternatives to full-body scanners up for consideration.

American Civil Liberties Union is advocating the use of the “Puffer,” a machine that analyzes puffs of chemically-sensitive air blown around an individual. Greg Soule, a spokesman for TSA told The Christian Science-Monitor 18 Puffer machines, originally developed by General Electric, across the US but are being phased out due to maintenance issues.

Another potential alternative is the “Guardian,” an “explosive trace-detection portal machine” more advanced than the Puffer. Chris McBee, director of sales and marketing for Syagen Technology, told CS Monitor, "We have a better mousetrap. There are solutions out there that are viable alternatives to whole body imaging and that have superior detection characteristics."

Conflict of interest has become an issue in this debate.

Last week Michael Chertoff played "a little fast and loose with the public trust" using his former government credentials to advocate for a product that benefits his clients. He was talking up whole-body-imaging technology as an airline security solution when the conflict of interest came up in a Wednesday interview on CNN. His Washington Post editorial cautions against, "privacy ideologues, for whom every security measure is unacceptable."

Reporters in Britain have discovered that new airport scanners touted by PM Gordon Brown would not have detected the underwear bomber, leading The Independent to ask if the entire plan is a scam. "The solution is to acknowledge that there isn't a single technology out there that is an answer to the whole problem," security expert Kevin Murphy told the paper.

...Current Defense Secretary Robert Gates oversaw the continuation of a domestic propaganda program created to build support for the US invasion of Iraq. Donald Rumsfeld recruited military analysts with US taxdollars to espouse optimism and spin on unquestioning TV networks and NPR, even when the analysts suspected the information was false or stood to profit from weapons contracts, according to a bombshell report in The New York Times.

The message is to slow down and evaluate this situation without fear tactics while maintaining our basic civil liberties.

The ABC's of Brit Hume

Brit Hume gives advice to Tiger Woods on Fox News Sunday and shows how arrogant and bombastic he truly is.

The extent to which he can recover seems to me depends on his faith. He is said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. My message to Tiger would, 'Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world."

Arrogant, Bombastic and a xenophobic Creep! Shame on Fox News...

Make a Resolution!

Arianna Hoffington and Rob Johnson think you should Move Your Money To Community Banks.

Too-big-to-fail banks are profiting from bailout dollars and government guarantees, growing bigger.

The big banks on Wall Street, propped up by taxpayer money and government guarantees, have had a record year, making record profits while returning to the highly leveraged activities that brought our economy to the brink of disaster. In a slap in the face to taxpayers, they have also cut back on the money they are lending, even though the need to get credit flowing again was one of the main points used in selling the public the bank bailout. But since April, the Big Four banks -- JP Morgan/Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo -- all of which took billions in taxpayer money, have cut lending to businesses by $100 billion.

Meanwhile, America's Main Street community banks -- the vast majority of which avoided the banquet of greed and corruption that created the toxic economic swamp we are still fighting to get ourselves out of -- are struggling. Many of them have closed down (or been taken over by the FDIC) over the last 12 months. The government policy of protecting the Too Big and Politically Connected to Fail is badly hurting the small banks, which are having a much harder time competing in the financial marketplace. As a result, a system which was already dangerously concentrated at the top has only become more so. [...]

The idea is simple: If enough people who have money in one of the big four banks move it into smaller, more local, more traditional community banks, then collectively we, the people, will have taken a big step toward re-rigging the financial system so it becomes again the productive, stable engine for growth it's meant to be. It's neither Left nor Right -- it's populism at its best.

Consider it a withdrawal tax on the big banks for the negative service they provide by consistently ignoring the public interest. It's time for Americans to move their money out of these reckless behemoths. And you don't have to worry, there is zero risk: deposit insurance is just as good at small banks -- and unlike the big banks they don't provide the toxic dividend of derivatives trading in a heads-they-win, tails-we-lose fashion.

So WATCH filmmaker/author Eugene Jarecki's amazing video, then go to www.moveyourmoney.info to learn more about how easy it is to move your money. And pass the idea on to your friends (help make this video -- and this idea -- go viral!).

Put action into your hands! Support the George Bailey's of this world.

Big Banks Helping Only Themselves

The nation's banks will be bombarding customers with new fees and products in 2010.

The nation's banks will be bombarding customers with new fees and products in 2010 as they try to replace more than $50 billion in revenue wiped out by new rules that clamp down on certain business practices.

So far, the changes are mostly concentrated in checking accounts and credit cards. In addition to attaching new fees to old products, banks are introducing new types of accounts that they hope will reel in new customers and reduce their funding costs. [...]

In addition to the credit-card rules, the government will crack down next year on ways banks charge overdraft fees, which are assessed when a customer overdraws an account. [...]

Other banks are expected to eliminate free checking completely, raise fees on safe-deposit boxes and charge customers more for issuing a stop-payment on a check.

Arianna Hoffington and Rob Johnson think you should Move Your Money To Community Banks.

It's still a Jungle in the Food Industry

Jennifer Poole at Daily Kos has the story about how the Bush Administration and the meat industry lobbyists turned ground beef into a slime of chemicals.

You're not going to believe what you've been eating the last few years (thanks, Bush! thanks meat industry lobbyists!) when you eat a McDonald's burger (or the hamburger patties in kids' school lunches) or buy conventional ground meat at your supermarket:

According to today's New York Times, The "majority of hamburger" now sold in the U.S. now contains fatty slaughterhouse trimmings "the industry once relegated to pet food and cooking oil," "typically including most of the material from the outer surfaces of the carcass" that contains "larger microbiological populations."

This "nasty pink slime," as one FDA microbiologist called it, is now wrung in a centrifuge to remove the fat, and then treated with AMMONIA to "retard spoilage," and turned into "a mashlike substance frozen into blocks or chips".

Thus saving THREE CENTS a pound off production costs. And making the company, Beef Products Inc., a fortune. $440 million/year in revenue. Ain't that something?[...]

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. And they also OKd the processing method -- and later exempted the hamburger from routine testing of meat sold to the general public -- strictly based on the company's claims of safety, which were not backed by any independent testing.[...]

U.S.D.A. department microbiologist, Gerald Zirnstein, who called the processed beef "pink slime" in a 2002 e-mail message to colleagues, represents the situation better: "I do not consider the stuff to be ground beef, and I consider allowing it in ground beef to be a form of fraudulent labeling."

What does Poole offer as a advice?

I've been thinking about an action item on this issue, and I've got three ideas:

1. Write Michelle Obama through this web form: http://www.whitehouse.gov/... or snail mail: The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500;

2. Print out the NY Times article and give it to the manager of your local supermarket, and ask them if they sell any kind of ground beef that doesn't contain this "pink slime" or if their butchers will grind meat fresh for you;

3. Just stop buying the damned stuff altogether.

For those beef lovers, try organic meat.

Politically Correct Food in Britian

Is a new trend developing?

 

From foie gras produced without making birds suffer to “sustainable” fish, British retailers and restaurants are fast embracing politically correct food, helped by celebrity-fueled pressure.

Faux (false) gras is the ethical answer to the foodstuff which has been the bane of campaigners for decades for the way it’s produced: force-feeding ducks or geese to create engorged livers that yield the creamy pate.

A darker colour than the real thing, faux gras is made from about 50 percent liver from free-range poultry blended with goose or duck fat.

“It is only a matter of time before foie gras is relegated to the history books where it belongs,” said Sam Glover of lobby group PETA.

While the day that five-star establishments abandon such foods seems some way off, restaurants in England do seem to be turning towards “green” alternatives.

Acorn House, in the King’s Cross district of London, claims to be the “first truly eco-friendly” restaurant in the capital.

The duck it serves comes from birds raised in a “positive” way, without cages and without antibiotics added to their food; its food deliveries are made in vehicles using biofuel, 80 percent of its waste is recycled, and its roof is a herb garden.

French celebrity chef Raymond Blanc, the holder of two Michelin stars at his renowned restaurant Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons near Oxford, has embraced a campaign to use fish certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC).

This label guarantees that the fish has been obtained from sustainable stocks.

Those are just a few ways restaurants can "adopt a more ethical approach to their food." When will the US follow this trend?

It Looks Like a Conflict, Smells Like Conflict...

It is a Conflict of Interest!

Elaine Thompson/Associated Press

The Washington Post has an article about Michael Chertoff, the former Homeland Security secretary, and his relationship with the Chertoff Group, his security consulting agency.

Since the attempted bombing of a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day, former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff has given dozens of media interviews touting the need for the federal government to buy more full-body scanners for airports.

What he has made little mention of is that the Chertoff Group, his security consulting agency, includes a client that manufactures the machines. The relationship drew attention after Chertoff disclosed it on a CNN program Wednesday, in response to a question.

The only criticism of Chertoff comes from the group FlyersRights.org.

An airport passengers' rights group on Thursday criticized Chertoff, who left office less than a year ago, for using his former government credentials to advocate for a product that benefits his clients.

"Mr. Chertoff should not be allowed to abuse the trust the public has placed in him as a former public servant to privately gain from the sale of full-body scanners under the pretense that the scanners would have detected this particular type of explosive," said Kate Hanni, founder of FlyersRights.org, which opposes the use of the scanners.

In the name of 'Homeland Security,' money is a mighty motivator.

Are We at the Point of Accepting the Unacceptable?*

Health insurance coverage is only one aspect of the health care crisis that Americans are facing. The healthcare legislation passed by Congress mandates insurance for every citizen. But questions still remain regarding what will be covered and if it is affordable.

Marcy Wheeler at FireDogLake looks at how this legislation will affect a family of four making around $66,000 a year (three times the poverty line).

Here’s a version of one family’s total household costs under the plan: a middle class family with two cars and some child care costs. Note, in this scenario, I’m assuming the middle class family will pay 7.9% of its income for health insurance premium, significantly less than the 9.8% the plan assumes that family could pay to get the subsidies available. This, then, shows what a family would be required to pay (or incur a penalty) under the 8% opt-out rule.

301% of Poverty Level: $66,370

Federal Taxes (estimate from this page, includes FICA): $8,628 (13% of income)

State Taxes (using MI rates on $30,000 of income): $1,305 (2% of income)

Food (using “low-cost USDA plan” for family of four): $7,712 (12% of income)

Home (assume a straight 30% of income): $19,275 (30% of income)

Child care (average cost for just one pre-school child in MI): $6,216

Health insurance premium: $5,243 (7.9% of income, max amount before opt-out w/o penalty allowed)

Transportation (assume 2 cars, 12,000 miles each, @IRS deductible cost of $.55/mile): $13,200*

Heat, electricity, water: $1,500

Phone, cable, internet: $1,200

Total: $64,276 (97% of income)

Remainder (for health care out-of-pocket, debt, clothing, etc.): $2,091

In other words, assuming this family had no debt (except for that related to the two cars), no clothing costs, and no other necessary costs–all completely unrealistic assumptions–it would be able to incur just $6,970 of medical care out-of-pocket costs before spending all that $2,091 and going into debt (the opt-out is based on an insurance plan that provides 70% of costs, so this assumes the family will pay 30% of health care costs). Yet that family would be expected to spend up to $5,882 more out of pocket before the “subsidies” started picking up its out-of-pocket expenses. (If the family paid the full 9.8% of its income on premiums–at which point it would become eligible for subsidies under the plan–it would have just $825 left to spend on all other expenses, including health care out-of-pocket expenses.)

This family couldn’t even go through a normal childbirth without going into debt.

Nate Silver at Five-Thirty-Eight takes issue with Marcy's analysis. He believes the healthcare plan passed by Congress will be beneficial to most low or middle income families.

First of all, several of of Marcy's cost estimates are on the high side.

As Marcy points out, her assumptions may be favorable to this family in other ways -- her family doesn't have any debt, for example. Nor do I doubt that there are some families who would fit Marcy's template almost perfectly (although they should still be able to take advantage of the significant tax breaks that Marcy hasn't accounted for). But in general, this is significantly more than most two-child families will be spending on these services -- probably by a margin of $10,000 or so.

Nevertheless, that's not really the most important point. Rather, what is this family spending on health care now? ...if the family isn't buying insurance, their health care costs certainly shouldn't be figured as zero.

Frankly, unless they're living in New York or the San Francisco Bay or some other place where the cost of housing is very high, the family that Marcy draws from -- one which pays $1,600 per month for rent but does not buy health insurance for themselves or for their children -- does not have a reasonable and responsible gameplan to begin with. If they can't figure out how to squeeze out $430 per month in insurance premiums, what are they supposed to do in the status quo when somebody actually gets sick? You can object to the Senate's health care bill on libertarian/paternalism grounds, but it will leave the overwhelming majority of low- and middle-income families better off.

Yet Jonathan Cohn at The New Republic looks at what families can actually afford. He believes that the Senate bill is worth passing yet the reform is not good enough. He supports his position by acknowledging the dichotomy of his assessment.

Without reform, this family would either be uninsured altogether or paying high premiums for coverage that is, most likely, far less comprehensive that what the Senate bill would guarantee them. [...]

Families dealing with serious medical problems, particularly chronic diseases that require ongoing care, have enough problems without having to sweat out every penny. And even the best insurance policies leave people on the hook for expenses that fall outside of covered benefits and, as a result, don’t even count towards out-of-pocket limits.

Making those two arguments simultaneously is not easy. It's the political equivalent of walking and chewing gum at the same time. But if progressives can figure out a way to do it, the people that already stand to benefit from reform will benefit even more.

The sad part about all this analytic journalism is that if you need to pick through and parse out the benefits versus the disadvantages of the bill, then maybe the complexity is itself a detriment of this legislation.

For progressives, the answer lies in the clarity and simplicity of a single-payer, not-for-profit system. Of course, a public option or Medicare for all would be acceptable. No matter how many ways you look at it, this healthcare bill is not!

*UPDATE!!!

J. Lester Feder at the Nation has a review of the pro & cons of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed by the Senate. The Senate's draft of the bill must be merged with the much more progressive version passed by the House. Feder believes that despite very serious shortcomings of the Senate bill, it is necessary to pass healthcare reform now otherwise "another generation may pass before another chance will come to try again."

Despite these very serious shortcomings, however, the bill the Senate passed would reduce the number of uninsured Americans by 31 million by 2019. The Medicaid program will be open to new ranks of the country's poorest residents, and the near-poor and middle class will get subsidies to buy insurance. The Senate also advanced some important delivery system reforms that could chart a path towards reining in costs.

As disappointed as progressives are with the compromises Democratic leaders made to get this bill through the Senate--and as tempting it is to believe they may have gotten a better deal if they'd pursued a more aggressive strategy--they are on the verge of doing many other lawmakers have tried and failed to do. And if this effort fails, another generation may pass before another chance will come to try again.

Lester's view is common among people who feel defeated on the healthcare issue but who think this is the best that could be achieved. The attitude is "something is better than nothing."

Was that Ben Nelson's attitude when he fought against abortion funding? Was that Joe Lieberman's attitude or Max Baucus' position when they fought against the public option?

Hell NO!!!

They stood their ground and fought for the position they were espousing.

There wasn't one Senator that stood his/her ground on support of the public option. They all caved in. Do you really think any of the Representatives in the House will fight for 'The People'? Or will they allow the bullies of Congress to dictate from the moneyed corporate pulpit?

Politicizing National Security

In the after-math of an attempted terrorism attack on a a trans-Atlantic flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day, the Republicans are lining up to slam the Obama Administration on its soft stand on terror.

Republicans Pete Hoekstra, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Peter King of New York joined Sen Jim DeMint of South Carolina to lay some blame on the Obama administration.

The attack should remind everyone “that soft talk about engagement, closing Gitmo, these things are not going to appease the terrorists,” DeMint said on “Fox News Sunday.” “They’re going to keep coming after us, and we can’t have politics as usual in Washington, and I’m afraid that’s what we’ve got right now with airport security.”

Wouldn't these Republican Congressmen also be critical of the the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration? Probably they would, if there was an administrator to hold accountable. But that position remains vacant because of Sen. Jim DeMint.

Obama nominated Erroll Southers — a former FBI special agent, the Los Angeles World Airports Police Department assistant chief for homeland security and intelligence, and the associate director of the University of Southern California’s Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events — to run TSA in September. Southers’ nomination was approved by two Senate committees, but Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) has placed a hold on Southers “in an effort to prevent TSA workers from joining a labor union."

The post remains vacant because Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., has held up President Barack Obama's nominee in opposition to the prospect of TSA workers joining a labor union.

Thom Hartmann asks if there is really a choice between terrorists and unions?

The TSA – which keeps us safe from airplane bombers – is without a director. Why would one of our most vital security agencies be headless?

Well, it’s actually quite simple.

President Obama nominated a very highly qualified candidate, former FBI special agent Erroll Southers, but Southers has expressed his support for federal employees being able to be members of unions – which most are.

Senator Jim DeMint, the Republican from South Carolina who’s also a member of the notorious Washington DC Christian Taliban cult “The Family,” thinks that having our baggage screeners have better pay and working conditions is a bad thing, so he put a hold on Southers nomination, effectively blocking it in the Senate.

Jim DeMint is more concerned with destroying unions and good wages for working people than he is with whether or not your next flight is blown out of the air.

You may want to consider calling his office and letting him know what you think of that, after you write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper and tell everybody you know what an enemy of the American working class multimillionaire DeMint is.

Do Republicans really want to politicize national security?

Steve Benen notes that a "variety of congressional Republicans seem awfully anxious to play partisan games with the terrorist threat, and exploit the Abdulmutallab plot for electoral gain."

However, if the Republicans want to "turn the attempted terrorist attack into a partisan fight" then the Democrats should "welcome the opportunity."

There is, for example, the fact that the nominated head of the TSA can't get confirmed because of Republican obstructionism. Then there's the fact that congressional Republicans also opposed funding for the TSA, including money for screening operations and explosives detection systems.

And then there's this unpleasant tidbit.

Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Northwest bombing in a Monday statement that vowed more attacks on Americans.

American officials agreed to send the two terrorists from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia, where they entered into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.

As Ron Chusid put it, "Just imagine the Republican response if Barack Obama or Bill Clinton had released prisoners to enter an 'art therapy rehabilitation program.' This sounds almost as silly as an American president sitting and reading a children's book while the country is under attack."

Yes, just imagine....

What We'll Get...

From Thom Hartmann's blog, Healthcare: First They Came For The Banksters

With apologies to Pastor Niemöller*:

First they came for the banksters, and showered them with money and put them in the Administration in a way that was not change we could believe in.

Then they came for the military industrial complex, and sent more and more of our children to die in faraway lands that had never attacked us in a way that was not change we could believe in.

And now they’ve sold out our hope for a national health care system not run by millionaire gangsters in suits. And who is left to speak for us?

President Obama is playing the Bill Clinton game of throwing people a bone and telling them it’s steak. Perhaps he’s doing it because he thinks it’s his only choice; perhaps it’s because he’s surrounded himself with Bill Clinton advisors (and Hillary as Secretary of State); whatever the reason, while it worked for Clinton, it won’t work for Obama.

It worked for Reagan, and for the first Bush, and even worked somewhat for George W. Bush.

But it won’t work anymore. Here’s why. [...]

He’s betting that he can do like Bill Clinton did to us with NAFTA and the World Trade Organization – hand us a turd and tell us it’s gonna blossom beautifully if we’ll just wait a year or three or five. Rahm’s betting that if he can “deliver health care reform” – even if the fundamental system of gangster corporations standing between us and our doctors while skimming 40 percent off the top for their mansions and private jets is intact – we’ll be all excited at his “victory” and elect more Democrats in 2010 and reelect Obama in 2012.

Ditto for cosmetic repairs of the banks, which is really just trickle-down Reaganomics on steroids. Rahm and his DLC buddies truly believe that this “change” brought to us by Bush’s man Tim Geithner or Clinton’s man Larry Summers is something we’ll “believe in.”

We don’t.

We oldsters of the Vietnam era, and the youngsters coming up who see how college loan banksters are screwing them as badly as their Clinton-era parents were screwed by the mortgage scammers, are all now fully awake.

President Obama, sir: Meet what is in large part your own creation – the High Information Voters of 2009/2010.

We’re awake, we’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it any more. Natalie Portman to Matt Taibbi to Arianna Huffington to Bill Moyers represent the span of our four awakened generations; generations who have figured out how the game is played. And don’t like it.

First Obama continued Bush’s policy of giving the banksters money, and we protested feebly.

Then he expanded Bush’s wars, and we protested more loudly.

Now he’s going to force us to give trillions to the gangsters who run the “health insurance” companies (while they promise to behave nicely in return) and thinks we’re going to go along with it and it’ll get him re-elected.

He’s wrong.

Please, President Obama, step up and lead. We’d like some that “change we can believe in” that’s actually the real thing.

Kill the bill.

*"First they came ..." is a popular poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984):

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.