This Health Reform Bill Is Political Suicide
The public does not yet understand that the government is about to order people to buy health insurance, with their own money. Yes, the government is about to order people to cough up hundreds of dollars a month each.
When the Republicans start using their toxic message-machine magic on this, and the public starts to understand that they are being ordered by the government to cough up a huge amount of money every month, Democrats had better have good hiding places, because things are going to get really bad out there.
Unprincipled Joe
With Joe Lieberman making such an obstructionist spectacle of himself in the health care debate, pundits are laboring to analyze his motives: catering to insurance interests, strategizing for re-election? Another possibility: He's an unprincipled, neurotic, power-hungry asshole who should be booted out of public life.
Andy Borowitz reports: A majority of those surveyed agreed with the statement, "I want an asshole to represent me in the Senate, and there is no bigger asshole out there than Joe Lieberman."
Free-Range Escalation
With Obama's surge, private and historically undisciplined contractors will continue to make up over half of the mililtary workforce in Afghanistan, with their numbers totalling up to 160,000, says a new Congressional study. No breakdown yet on how many will be the kinds of thugs, bandits and psycopaths made famous by Blackwater.
Health Care 'Reform': This Isn't What We Were Promised
We the people handed this President and this Congress control of the White House, the US House of Representatives, and filibuster-proof control of the US Senate. We handed them a GOP that was in tatters, and a populace that desperately wanted change. And they blew it. They gave us weakness and cowardice and fear in return...
Fornication in Minnesota
In Minnesota, local wingnuts want to change laws still on the books that make it illegal for a married woman to have sex with anyone but her husband and for a single woman to have sex, period. How over the top, you say. Not far enough, say the Minnesota Family Council, who want not to kill the laws but expand them to include men. Which would admittedly make them fairer, but still insane.
Gaza Is Hard to Break
Tens of thousands of Palestinians turned out in Gaza City to mark the 22nd anniversary of Hamas with green flags and defiant speeches denunciating Israel's attack on and four-year-siege of Gaza. They pledged to fight on.
"We are the future," said Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas leader in Gaza.
Canada’s Tar Sands – 'Dirty, Toxic and Huge'
A small band of protesters stood in the cold outside the Canadian Embassy in Copenhagen Saturday night to shine a small spotlight of attention on the fact that Canada is home to the Alberta tar sands, the world’s largest and possibly most polluting industrial project on the planet.
Katrina: "Necessary Action Taken," Or Not
In the week after Katrina, New Orleans police killed and wounded as many people as they do in a typical year, according to a joint investigation by ProPublica, The New Orleans Times-Picayune, and PBS Frontline. The actions of police in the chaotic post-Katrina days have already prompted a Justice Department inquiry; now, critics are citing "abysmal" work by police who barely investigated many alleged instances of excessive force.
