Blackwater/Xe still the go-to outfit for covert murder squads....I guess "change we can believe in" means if the murder and mayhem changes it's name, the Obama crew thinks it is just the ticket?
via

Who Owns Who? Health Insurance Giant UNITED HEALTH CARE or AARP ?

As a member of the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons, though you only need to be over 50 and not particularly retired to join), and a critical thinking liberal, I have often wondered if the insurance big United Health Care which is lobbying hard to defeat any health care insurance reforms owns AARP, or possibly the other way around.

Today, I found what may be the answer.

According to United Health Care:

"About UnitedHealthcare - Ovations Insurance Solutions
Ovations Insurance Solutions, a UnitedHealth Group business unit, is the nation's largest provider of Medicare supplemental insurance programs for Medicare beneficiaries. The portfolio of insurance plans offers affordable and accessible health care products and services to members of AARP through plans that carry the AARP name, which are underwritten by UnitedHealthcare. UnitedHealthcare pays a fee to AARP and its affiliate for use of the AARP trademark and other services. Amounts paid are used for the general purposes of AARP and its members. Neither AARP nor its affiliate is the insurer."LINK

Sign our petition to Harry Reid: Reconciliation = Majority Rule

During debate in the Senate this weekend, a handful of corrupt Democratic senators like Blanche Lincoln and Mary Landrieu, who have taken big donations from insurance companies, promised to vote against health care if it included a public option.[1]
If Harry Reid can't get them in line for a simple procedural vote, then he can use "reconciliation" and call for a majority vote on the public option.  Otherwise, Harry Reid is using his power as Majority Leader to allow a handful of corrupt senators thwart the democratic process.  We can't let that happen.

Let Harry Reid know the public option rests on his shoulders.  Click here to sign our petition:http://action.firedoglake.com/reconciliation

We know who the corrupt Democrats are working for -- the insurance companies want to kill the public option once and for all.  Goldman Sachs expects insurance stocks to rise by 59% in 10 years if there is no public option, but drop by 36% if there is one.  That's what happens when nobody likes your product.  Their fat profits depend on being the only game in town.[2]
The American people understand that.  That's why 72% support a public option, to end insurance monopolies, increase competition and control the crushing burden of health care costs for American families.[3]  A majority in the Senate understands that, too -- that's why 51 have said they will vote for a bill with a public option.[4]
It comes down to a simple question: will Harry Reid allow for majority rule?  Or will he let corrupt members of his own caucus block a majority of the public and Congress who want a public option?

Sign our petition to Reid: whip the corrupt ConservaDems into line, or use reconciliation to give Americans what they want and pass a public option. 

Sources:

1. Campaign Contributions From Insurance Companies to Senators Blocking the Public Option2.  Goldman Sachs: Insurance Stocks Would Drop 36% By 2019 With House Public Option3.  October 27 NBC News Poll: Public Option Has 72% support 4.  Jon Tester Would Vote For Schumer's Public Option: That's 51

ALL PRISONERS HAVE IT, ALL ACTIVE DUTY MILITARY PERSONNEL HAVE IT, ALL SENATORS AND CONGRESSMEN HAVE IT, ALL EX-PRESIDENTS HAVE IT, ALL GOVERNORS HAVE IT - WHY DON'T ALL AMERICANS HAVE IT?  IT IS SHAMEFUL THAT OUR SOCIETY EVEN HAS TO DISCUSS SUCH A BASIC RIGHT OF CITIZENSHIP!

Special Report: Is the Army fixing recruitment goal numbers to justify SURGE in Afghanistan?

Abuse of the Reserve and National Guard to sustain Multiple Combat Tours

Repeated deployment increases the risk of PTSD, and thus suicide, by 50 percent. 

I'm tellin' ya folks, I am a vet (hon. disch. 1972) and this business of continual poorly managed and discretionary wars is rotten - just plain rotten and corrupt.  It is a horror, and I hope that President Obama, who is the best President we have had in DECADES can find a way to end it all and re-think America as a war-making country.

CLICK~N~READ about how Bill Clinton says he couldn’t attend health clinic in Arkansas because of Olbermann

Kieth Olbermann of MSNBC was instrumental in creating and raising money for these free clinics, which is more than Bill Clinton, the new bestest buddy of the Bush family has done.  Bill Clinton is a lying asshole, to put it succinctly...

House Passes Measure Threatening Women's Access to Abortion >>Take action: Urge our country's leaders to reject anti-choice efforts to hijack health care by signing our petition today.

We are Americans who are concerned about the health of the women of the United States, and we applaud your efforts to ensure affordable, quality health care coverage for all.

We call upon you to use the powers of your office and your powers of persuasion to ensure that women’s health is treated fairly in health care reform. Abortion is part of basic health care for women, and coverage of this important service is critical for women and their families. 

>>Take action: 

WHAT THE HELL MAKES THESE RICH WHITE MEN AND "MODERATE DEMOCRATS" THINK IT IS ANY OF THEIR GODDAMNED BUSINESS WHAT ANY WOMAN CHOOSES TO DO WITH HER BODY?  assholes

BARACK OBAMA IS THE BEST PRESIDENT
WE HAVE HAD IN DECADES. R-E-S-P-E-C-T

LEAD ON, MY PRESIDENT...LEAD ON.

republican hypocrites?  Say it aint so!

VIA Jesus' General

More here

SOME news:

Report: Bush Officials Knew AIG Would Use Bailout Funds to Pay Counterparties

by: Mary Susan Littlepage

Showdown: Ron Paul, Alan Grayson Take On Fed in House Committee Today

by: Art Levine

LBJ's Path to War

by: Bill Moyers Journal

Army Suicides Hit Record and Will Likely Continue to Rise

by: Yana Kunichoff

Afghanistan President Karzai Inaugurated

by: Ben Arnoldy

Army Corps Liable for Katrina Damage, US Court Finds

by: Patrik Jonsson

2 Typical Foot Soldiers in Sarah Palin's Army of Geniuses:

VIA

New Orleans: Where Accountability Failed, Liability Follows

Posted: by HARRY SHEARER on HuffPo November 19, 2009 12:30 AM

Okay, now it's official, or as official as the considered ruling of a Federal district judge can make it.  The United States Army Corps of Engineers has been found by Judge Stanwood Duval liable for the damages inflicted on at least three plaintiffs by its failure to mitigate the damage its construction and operation of the MR-GO channel caused to the wetlands and, ultimately to the Lower Ninth Ward and St. Bernard Parish on August 29, 2005. 
One of the plaintiffs' co-lead attorneys, Pierce O'Donnell of Los Angeles voiced the hope for change:

"We're hoping the new administration and the new Congress will view this decision in a new light," O'Donnell said. "This decision should act as a catalyst to finally work out a settlement for all the people of New Orleans."

So far, unfortunately, the Administration is sending unhopeful signs of non-change.  They're reviewing the decision, apparently leaning toward appeal.  But the last word, so far, belongs to Judge Duval...

Duval dismissed Justice Department lawyers' arguments that the corps' decisions were discretionary policy judgements of their professional staff and thus protected under federal law.
"Ignoring safety and poor engineering are not policy, and clearly the Corps engaged in such activities," he said.

UPDATE (THURSDAY A.M.): Mainstream media, deep in Palin and health-bill mode, largely ignore this ruling.  Maddow (who at least covered it): ruling "suggests that Hurricane Katrina was in part a man-made disaster".   The ruling didn't suggest Corps culpability; it declared it.  As for "in part", that's an interesting phrase, because federal law didn't allow the judge to consider the Corps' culpability (admitted, nine months later, by the Corps' own commander) for the failures along the flood-control structures.  As for npr, Robert Siegel last night said "I know the people in New Orleans don't regard the damage inflicted by Katrina as an act of God so much as an act of Government negligence...what's their argument?"  Nice in-depth work, Robert.  Their "argument" might more properly be called the findings of two exhaustive, independent forensic engineering investigations of the disaster.  The co-author of one of those reports called what happened to New Orleans "the greatest man-made engineering disaster since Chernobyl".  Google is your friend, npr.

KUDOS TO LEVEES.ORG AND THE MANY OTHERS WHO HELPED BRING THIS BEGINNING OF ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS!

Joe Hill - murdered by the capitalist class, November 19, 1915.

It's the story of a man who told his IWW comrades, just before stepping in front of the firing squad: "Don't waste any time in mourning. Organize!"
GO.READ.LEARN

Rep. DeFazio: Fire "Timmy" Geithner - I COULDN'T AGREE MORE - MR. NATURAL FOR LEFT EDGE NORTH

Rep. Peter DeFazio called for the firing of President Barack Obama's top two economic aides on Wednesday for pursuing a recovery plan skewed too heavily towards Wall Street's favor.
The Oregon Democrat told MSNBC's Ed Schultz that he was dismayed with the administration's lack of focus on job creation and insisted it was time to dismiss both White House economic adviser Larry Summers and Treasury Secretary "Timmy Geithner."
"We think it is time, maybe, that we turn our focus to Main Street -- we reclaim some of the unspent funds, we reclaim some of the funds that are being paid back, which will not be paid back in full, and we use it to put people back to work. Rebuilding America's infrastructure is a tried and true way to put people back to work," said DeFazio.
"Unfortunately, the President has an adviser from Wall Street, Larry Summers, and a Treasury Secretary from Wall Street, Timmy Geithner, who don't like that idea," he added. "They want to keep the TARP money either to continue to bail out Wall Street...or to pay down the deficit. That's absurd."
Asked specifically whether Geithner should stay in his job, DeFazio replied: "No.
GO.READ

"Especially if you look back at the AIG scandal," he added, "and Goldman and others who got their bets paid off in full...with taxpayer money through AIG. We channeled the money through them. Geithner would not answer my question when I said, 'Were those naked credit default swaps by Goldman or were they a counter-party?' He would not answer that question."
DeFazio said that among he and others in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, there was a growing consensus that Geithner needed to be removed. He added that some lawmakers were "considering questions regarding him and other economic advisers" -- though a petition calling for the Treasury Secretary's removal had not been drafted, he said.
"[Obama] is being failed by his economic team," DeFazio concluded. "We may have to sacrifice just two more jobs to get millions back for Americans."
Neither the White House or the Treasury Department immediately returned a request for comment.
GO.READ

Washington state DSHS Proposes 50% Cut to Benefits For Low-Wage Caregivers – But Not For DSHS Management!

Tues in Seattle & Olympia:

Home Care Workers To Protest DSHS Cuts To Health Benefits

DSHS Proposes 50% Cut to Benefits For Low-Wage Caregivers – But Not For DSHS Management!

For more information, contact:
Adam Glickman, 206-295-9613

Seattle – Home care workers will rally at DSHS offices in Seattle and Olympia on Tuesday, protesting deep cuts to health benefits for low-wage caregivers. DSHS has proposed a 50% cut to funding for health care for thousands of home care workers, which would make health care unaffordable for these direct care workers. Home care workers already have worse health insurance than politicians and agency management – who would not be impacted by this dramatic reduction.

Workers will be picketing and will be delivering a letter to DSHS Secretary Susan Dreyfus protesting the proposed health care reduction.

Seattle

Tuesday, 11:00 AM
DSHS office, 2106 2nd Avenue. Seattle

Olympia

Tuesday, 2:00 PM
DSHS Headquarters, OB2, 1115 Washington St. SE, Olympia

THEN ON THAT SAME VEIN OF DISCUSSION, ALONG COMES THIS ARTICLE BY NOTED GERENTOLOGIST5 DR. KEN DYCHTWALD ENTITLED 

"CAREGIVER CRUNCH - HOW TO FIND AFFORDABLE CARE"

I suggest Dr Dychtwald read the above story to add to his extensive knowledge of the subject.

HOW THE U.S. FUNDS THE TALIBAN
By Aram Roston, The Nation
The U.S. government is funding the very forces its troops
are fighting -- funds that add up to a huge amount of money
for the Taliban.
http://www.alternet.org/story/143898/how_the_u.s._funds_the_taliban_

Only Bush/Cheney could have left behind this big of a fuckup

MEET ONE OF THE LUCKIEST CHOPPER CREWS IN US SERVICE:

MEET ONE OF THE LUCKIEST CHOPPER CREWS IN US SERVICE:

Chuck Liddy/Raleigh News & Observer/MCT

The US spends more money on mothers' health than any other nation in the world, yet women in America are more likely to die during childbirth than they are in most other developed countries

But you republicans and other dipshit beurocrats, politicians, and wingnut fools just keep dicking around with health care insurance reform...who the fuck cares?

Except maybe about four thousand dead people this year for lack of insurance....

Those dead mothers give not one single shit if it is called socialist or goddamned glenn beck's asshole...it makes no difference to them now, does it?

Obama urged to turn successful state job program national

By Tony Pugh | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — As job losses continue to slow the nation's economic recovery, labor experts and economists are urging Congress and the Obama administration to boost funding for a little-known program that 17 states are using to avert layoffs and keep workers in their jobs.GO.READ

What did RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) have to say about the war Pres. Obama is presently puzzling about?

"...there is no peace, human rights, democracy and reconstruction in Afghanistan. On the contrary, the destitution and suffering of our people has doubled everyday..."

Mr. Obama - PLEASE READ. Please think of the phrase "FIRST DO NO HARM".

via

Why I voted NO by Dennis Kucinich

"We have been led to believe that we must make our health care choices only within the current structure of a predatory, for-profit insurance system which makes money not providing health care."


GO.READ.THINK 


Why can't Brian Baird speak out so persuasivly?

Bungee Jump Truck Has Last Second Change Of Heart

Lady-Hating Congress Creep Lives In Famous Sin Dorm

Bart Stupak lives in the C Street townhouse owned by The Family, the famous secretive Christian cult.

TOO TROO! GO.READ

This lying cheating bush bussing bag of babbling bullshit is chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs,and on the Armed Services, and Small Business committees at the allowance of the Democrats in Congress.   

DEAR DEMOCRATS: WE OWE THIS BAG OF SHIT NOTHING.  STRIP HIM OF THE CHARIMANSHIP AND MEMBERSHIPS OF THE COMMITTEES NOW. NOT LATER - NOW.

House of Representatives passes it now tough road ahead in Senate for health care bill

THE HEALTH CARE INSURANCE OVERHAUL DISCUSSION CAN NOW BEGIN IN EARNEST:

HERE is your list of the 39 Democrats who voted NAY:

WHILE THE LYING REPUBLICAN IRAQ WAR CONTINUES TO SUCK MONEY AND LIVES:


SO WHEN YOU HEAR REPUBLICAN WINGNUTS AND OTHER INSURANCE COMPANY REPRESENTATIVES WHINING ABOUT THE COST OF THIS THING, REMEMBER THEY WERE THE ONES WHO FOUGHT THE ORIGINAL MEDICARE WHICH PROVIDES SUCH A GREAT SERVICE TODAY, AND THEY WERE/ARE THE ONES WHO CONTINUE TO BRING YOU THE HORROR OF UN-NECESSARY WAR.

BRIAN BAIRD ($353,368 from health care industry) VOTES NO ON HEALTH CARE BILL click~n~read

I will be working with other progressives to try to round up another candidate who WILL vote the will of the people of this district (Washington 3).

ADDED 11/09/09:  MAYBE Baird and others voted against this thing because of the Stupak amendment??  If so, I would like it if Mr. Baird would ANSWER his emails instead of letting his robot do it.

Schumer Seeks to Block Stimulus Money for Chinese-Backed Texas Wind Farm:

Senator Charles Schumer, the New York Democrat, is calling on the Obama administration to block the use of stimulus funds for a utility-scale wind farm in West Texas that would make use of turbines manufactured largely in China.

AND HE'S RIGHT - WE SHOULD NOT BE SENDING STIMULUS MONIES TO CHINA. BUY AMERICAN MADE, OR DON'T BE SPENDING MY TAX MONEY ON THE SONSABITCHES.

LINK

CANADA'S HIGHWAY TO HELL:

Before and After: 

The first step in preparing the ground 

for open-pit mining 

is to raze the virgin forest.

Every day approximately 50 new fortune seekers travel north on Canada's Highway 63 to the tar sands of Alberta, to join what may be the world's last great oil rush. The two-lane all-weather highway starts about 100 miles north of the provincial capital, Edmonton, and ends at Fort McMurray, a sprawling city hastily carved out of swampy groves of spruce. The road was originally built in the 1970s to connect a marginal and experimental source of heavy oil with the rest of the country. It has since become a continental artery to a modern-day Klondike that has made Canada the number-one supplier of oil to the United States. That's right -- Canada.  GO.READ

 

GO.READ

The health care bill in the House of Representatives has a death sentence for patients with AIDS, breast cancer, and other serious illnesses.

Members of Congress owned by PhRMA - the lobbying arm of the pharmaceutical industry - pushed for a dangerous provision about "biologics" drugs that will make it virtually impossible for patients to have access to affordable medication.

We can't fix it before the House passes its bill this weekend, but we can make sure it's fixed in the Senate bill.

Sign our petition to key Senators now: make generic drugs available for patients and stop protecting the pharmaceutical industry's profits.

Click here to add your name: http://publicoptionplease.com/biologics/petition/

Several members of Congress - like Rep. Anna Eshoo and Sen. Kay Hagan, both Democrats - want to make sure people with serious medical conditions don't ever have access to affordable medication that can save their lives.

Diseases like AIDS, breast cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and Crohn's disease all require advanced, expensive medication that most people can't afford.  Biologics cost on average 22 times more than other medicines.  For example, Herceptin for breast cancer costs $48,000 per patient per year, and Humira, used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's disease, costs about $50,000 annually.

But we can turn this around.  Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer, Sherrod Brown, and Debbie Stabenow and Republican Senators Susan Collins and David Vitter all agree on a fix that would make generic drugs more accessible.

We need these senators to offer their plan.  Sign our petition asking these senators to introduce their amendment to make generic drugs available.

We can't let PhRMA and the members of Congress they've bought off hijack the health care bill and potentially kill patients in the process.  Please join us in the fight for generic drugs in health care reform.

Thanks so much.

Jane Hamsher
Public Option Please

I sure hope the republican shrinking shack doesn't catch fire...um...well...

SENATE PANEL TO BYPASS REPUBLICAN CLIMATE CHANGE BOYCOTT

"...Republicans want more analysis from the Environmental Protection Agency of the economic impact of legislation that would require utilities, factories and oil refineries to cut their carbon pollution 20 percent by 2020, from 2005 levels..."

WHILE THE ICE CAPS DISAPPEAR, AND ICE SHEETS BEGIN TO SLIDE OFF THE GREENLAND LAND MASS, THE WORLD'S WORST DITHERERS FIDDLE AND FUCK AROUND OVER THEIR OWN INVESTMENT PORTFOLIOS...

$2.3 billion down the CIT BANK RATHOLE.  Let them choke.  Thieving lying motherfuckers...

SEC TREAS TIMMY GEITHNER $ HANK PAULSON BEFORE HIM = Goldman now seizing homes subprime mortgages bought

GOLDMAN-SACHS-WALL STREET
IN THE WHITE HOUSE.
CHANGE?
DON'T COUNT ON IT

A five-month McClatchy investigation reveals

how Wall Street colossus Goldman Sachs

peddled billions of dollars in shaky securities

tied to subprime mortgages on unsuspecting pension funds,

insurance companies and other investors

when it concluded that the housing bubble would burst.

• Goldman takes on new role: taking away people's homes
• How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash
• Why haven't any Wall Street tycoons been sent to the slammer?
• How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash 

CHANGE?  NOT SO MUCH AS TWO NICKELS TO RUB TOGETHER!

Senior Official in Bush Domestic Propaganda Program Remains Obama’s Pentagon Spokesman

"change"?  Not so much...

WE COULD HAS SOME ALBERT COLLINS FOR TODAY'S CHURCH MUSIC?

MY GOODNESS YES!



SEE THERE?  NOW AND THEN SOMETHING GOOD DOES COME OUT OF TEXAS...

A fall harvest at the White House kitchen garden

First lady Michelle Obama led groups of fifth graders from Bancroft Elementary and Kimball Elementary schools in the fall harvesting of the White House Kitchen Garden Thursday afternoon:

What a lovely story, and a lovely thing to do...GO.READ

Bill Moyers Essay: Restoring Accountability for Washington's Wars:

PLEASE WATCH THIS.  PLEASE COPY/PASTE IT, PASS IT AROUND, FORWARD IT, QUOTE IT AND OTHERWISE SPREAD THE WORD.  MOYERS HAS, ONCE AGAIN,  FOUND A HARD TRUTH THAT WE, AS AMERICANS NEED TO SEE.

SOME NEWS:

The Full Story
Of How Tim Geithner
Secretly Bailed Out
Wall Street
And Screwed The
Taxpayer Last Fall >

Dear President Obama -

how about you fire that

weasely
little motherfucker?

Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel
siding with Republicans 

for political gain
at the expense of good
public policy >

Speaking of
firing weasely motherfuckers...

I could haz this guys
head on a dish?

Members of the
congressional elite,

they and their families
are governmentally blessed

with their very own
gold-plated, taxpayer-financed,

government-run health care system.>

I suppose this means
THEY GOT THEIRS

AND WE
AINT GETTIN ANY.  

More weasels in high places.

I hope they choke!

Al Franken Thinks Fewer Medical Bankruptcies Are Better, Conservatives Disagree

Lieberman Vows Health Care Reform Filibuster Over Public Option

WHAT SORT OF SOCIETY EVEN NEEDS TO DISCUSS WHETHER TO PROVIDE HEALTH CARE TO IT'S CITIZENS?  PLEASE BUY OUR HOME LISTED OVER IN THE RIGHT SIDE-BAR SO MY WIFE AND I CAN BE ON OUR WAY TO NEW ZEALAND.  Thank you.