Punk Patriot: Is the GOP racist? + Wall St + Exxon sabotages their own wells

Dandelion Salad

trichenosis
July 23, 2009

Read this dumb blog I wrote:

Disturbing the Universe: Holocaust Denial, Revisionism, Religion, Censorship and War By Gary Corseri

By Gary Corseri
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
July 23, 2009

“They will take evil and call it good.  They will take the lie and call it truth.” –Isaiah

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”  –Socrates

“War is always finally about betrayal.” –Chris Hedges

“A static universe isn’t physically self-consistent.  The sun can’t shine forever.” —James Peebles, Physics Professor Emeritus, Princeton University

“Do I dare
disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.” –T.S. Eliot

On July 11^th, author William Blum e-mailed me a Washington Post article about Ken Meyercord.  Fredrick Kunkle, a Post staff writer, described Meyercord as a 65-year old with a “high tech job at Freddie Mac, a local public-access cable television show … and a long history of writing about what he says are ‘myths’ of the Holocaust.”  Meyercord, the article continued, hoped to win “an at-large seat on the board of the Reston Citizens Association, a quasi-government body … for the community of 60,000, which is not officially a municipality.”  Reston is basically a D.C. suburb in Virginia.

Andy Worthington discusses the closure of Guantánamo on Al-Jazeera

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
23 July 2009

Yesterday I was delighted to be invited to take part in an edition of “Inside Story” on Al-Jazeera English, to discuss the closure of Guantánamo in light of the recent concession, by President Obama’s Detention Policy Task Force, that it had missed its six-month deadline to issue recommendations about how to close Guantánamo, which has made observers wonder if the President will now miss his deadline of January 21, 2010 for the closure of the prison.

This was a lively show, hosted by Hashem Ahelbarra in Doha, and also featuring Cori Crider, an attorney with the legal action charity Reprieve, whose lawyers represent over 40 current and former Guantánamo prisoners, and Nile Gardiner, the director of the Heritage Foundation’s implausibly-named Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. As you might expect, there was a certain amount of friction between Mr. Gardiner, channeling Dick Cheney, and Cori and I, whose knowledge of Guantánamo and its prisoners is based less on groundless rhetoric and rather more on research and first-hand experience.

A video of the show is available below (via YouTube):

Guantanamo review report delayed

AlJazeeraEnglish
July 22, 2009

A key report ordered by the Obama administration on the future of Guantanamo Bay detainees has been delayed for six months. Is the US president backtracking on his pledges to shut down the infamous jail?

more about “Guantanamo review report delayed“, posted with vodpod

Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK). To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed, and see here for my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, published in March 2009. Visit his website at: www.andyworthington.co.uk.

see

Blueprint for Accountability: Working the Dark Side

Rideh after horrific suicide attempt by Andy Worthington

Obama Task Force To Delay Report On Detainee Policy

Predictable Chaos As Guantánamo Trials Resume by Andy Worthington

Guantánamo And The Courts Part One: Exposing The Bush Administration’s Lies by Andy Worthington

Torture on Dandelion Salad

Rendition

Gitmo

Blueprint for Accountability: Working the Dark Side

Dandelion Salad

linktv
July 23, 2009

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow launched Culture Project’s “Blueprint for Accountability” series on May 31 with a gripping evening on accountability and the U.S. policy of torture in the War on Terror. This first episode is titled “Working The Dark Side.”
“Working The Dark Side” was produced for television by Link TV, which is proud to be Culture Project’s media partner on the “Blueprint for Accountability” series.
http://www.linktv.org/blueprint

more about “Blueprint for Accountability: Working…“, posted with vodpod

see

Torture on Dandelion Salad

Rendition

Gitmo

Colombia: US Escalates War Plans In Latin America by Rick Rozoff

by Rick Rozoff
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/40838
July 23, 2009

On June 29 US President Barack Obama hosted his Colombian counterpart Alvaro Uribe at the White House and weeks later it was announced that the Pentagon plans to deploy troops to five air and naval bases in Colombia, the largest recipient of American military assistance in Latin America and the third largest in the world, having received over $5 billion from the Pentagon since the launching of Plan Colombia nine years ago.

Six months before the Obama-Uribe meeting outgoing US President George W. Bush bestowed the US’s highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom, on Uribe as well as on former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

A press account of the time expressed both shock and indignation at the White House’s honoring of Uribe in writing that “Despite extra-judicial killings, paramilitaries and murdered unionists, Colombia’s President Uribe has won the US’s highest honor for human rights.” [1]

Kucinich keeps Single-Payer healthcare alive by Michael Carmichael

[Note: This post was picked up by http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h676/.  Info on the bill H. R. 676 or to follow its progress: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h676/show.  Vote it up, too, as it's lagging far behind the "no" votes.]

by Michael Carmichael
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
PlanetaryMovement.org
July 23, 2009

The congressional healthcare reform bill, H.R. 3200, now contains the Kucinich amendment thus keeping hope alive for a single-payer system.

Two weeks ago, Dennis Kucinich proposed an amendment to the healthcare reform bill that keeps the single-payer option alive.  Kucinich’s amendment will permit states the power to introduce single-payer healthcare systems.  Importantly, Kucinich’s amendment drew bipartisan support by uniting proponents of single-payer healthcare with states rights advocates, and it is now the crucial part of the landmark bill that is due to be voted on by the end of this month.

Tax the rich to pay for health care? + Weiner Blasts the Critics of Health Reform

Dandelion Salad

TheRealNews
July 22, 2009

Wolff: Rich people do not make an economy strong. What makes the country wealthy is its people.

more about “Tax the rich to pay for health care?“, posted with vodpod

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Weiner Blasts the Critics of Health Reform

AskAnthonyWeiner
July 21, 2009

more about “Weiner Blasts the Critics of Health R…“, posted with vodpod

h/t: After Downing Street

see

Bait and switch: How the “public option” was sold + Take Action

Obama’s Press Conference: Health care key to economy

Kucinich on States and Single Payer Health Care

Health Care Is Not The Only Socialized Thing We Need To Stop – Here Are 20 More!!

Kucinich Secures Congressional Victory for States’ Single Payer Drive

single payer healthcare HR 676 S 703

Bait and switch: How the “public option” was sold + Take Action

Dandelion Salad

by Kip Sullivan – PNHP’s official Blog
Monday, Jul 20, 2009

The people who brought us the “public option” began their campaign promising one thing but now promote something entirely different. To make matters worse, they have not told the public they have backpedalled. The campaign for the “public option” resembles the classic bait-and-switch scam: tell your customers you’ve got one thing for sale when in fact you’re selling something very different.

When the “public option” campaign began, its leaders promoted a huge “Medicare-like” program that would enroll about 130 million people. Such a program would dwarf even Medicare, which, with its 45 million enrollees, is the nation’s largest health insurer, public or private. But today “public option” advocates sing the praises of tiny “public options” contained in congressional legislation sponsored by leading Democrats that bear no resemblance to the original model.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the “public options” described in the Democrats’ legislation might enroll 10 million people and will have virtually no effect on health care costs, which means the “public options” cannot, by themselves, have any effect on the number of uninsured. But the leaders of the “public option” movement haven’t told the public they have abandoned their original vision. It’s high time they did.

via Bait and switch: How the “public option” was sold – PNHP’s official Blog

h/t: grinrevere

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Take Action

AfterDowningStreet.org | Bush-Cheney Trials in ’09

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See also:

CYRANO’S JOURNAL ONLINE | A healthcare reform for suckers – Obama Health Care Plan Really Better Than Nothing?

see

Tax the rich to pay for health care? + Weiner Blasts the Critics of Health Reform

Obama’s Press Conference: Health care key to economy

Kucinich on States and Single Payer Health Care

Health Care Is Not The Only Socialized Thing We Need To Stop – Here Are 20 More!!

Kucinich Secures Congressional Victory for States’ Single Payer Drive

single payer healthcare HR 676 S 703

Obama’s Press Conference: Health care key to economy

Dandelion Salad

msnbc.com

July 22, 2009

more about “Obama: Health care key to economy“, posted with vodpod

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Transcript

Obama’s Remarks on Health Care – Text – NYTimes.com h/t: CLG

see also:

President Obama’s Longtime Physician Opposes White House Health Plan, Advocates Single Payer – Democracy Now!

see

Kucinich on States and Single Payer Health Care

Health Care Is Not The Only Socialized Thing We Need To Stop – Here Are 20 More!!

Kucinich Secures Congressional Victory for States’ Single Payer Drive

single payer healthcare HR 676 S 703

A Chancellor, Two Presidents, and Early Crises by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted on Buzzflash.com
July 23, 2009

A month into his reign that began on January 30, 1933, things are not going so well for Adolf Hitler. He has already made his first roundups, of known Communists and left-wing labor leaders. But, the Depression is still on, he still has Reichs President Paul von Hindenburg to deal with, the army is on the fence (in fact, many of the Old Prussians can’t stand the “Little Corporal,” an enlisted man and an Austrian to boot), and there is still a functioning Reichstag (Parliament) to deal with. It does not have the Communist elected deputies, but does have enough Socialists and other Nazi-opponents to deny him the two-thirds majority he needs to change the Constitution. What to do?

He gets a half-wit ex-Communist to either really set the fire or let himself get set up as the scapegoat. He blames everything on the “Communist terrorists.” He then manipulates the remaining membership of the Reichstag in his favor by scaring off some of the Socialists who are still there and intimidating a few other opponents, and gets the “Enabling Act,” giving him dictatorial powers, passed by the two-thirds vote it needs, since it is a Constitutional amendment. The rest is history.

Wall Street’s Love Affair with Ben Bernanke by Mike Whitney

Dandelion Salad

by Mike Whitney
Global Research, July 21, 2009

A careful reading of Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke’s op-ed in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, shows that Bernanke thinks the economy is in a deflationary spiral that will last for some time. Ben Bernanke:

The depth and breadth of the global recession has required a highly accommodative monetary policy. Since the onset of the financial crisis nearly two years ago, the Federal Reserve has reduced the interest-rate target for overnight lending between banks (the federal-funds rate) nearly to zero. We have also greatly expanded the size of the Fed’s balance sheet through purchases of longer-term securities and through targeted lending programs aimed at restarting the flow of credit….My colleagues and I believe that accommodative policies will likely be warranted for an extended period.”

No talk of recovery here; just a continuation of the same radical policies that were adopted after the collapse of Lehman Bros. The only sign of improvement has been in the stock market, where Bernanke’s liquidity injections have jolted equities back to life. The S&P 500 is up 40% since March. Conditions in the broader economy have continued to deteriorate as unemployment rises, the states find it harder to balance their budgets, and the real estate bubble (commercial and residential) continues to unwind. The Fed’s policies are Bernanke’s way of saying, “The states are not the country. The banks are the country.” The public seems slow to grasp this message.