Monday, October 26, 2009

Headlines - Monday

 
Almost seven years after the United States liberated Iraq,
the celebration continues.
 
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Yesterday in Iraq: 149 Iraqis killed; 718 Iraqis wounded, 3 US contractors wounded.
 
And over in the other war, helicopter crashes killed 14 Americans today in the deadliest day for the U.S. mission in Afghanistan in more than four years.
 
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Value of privately funded junkets reported by our Congress and their staff. Be sure to check out Israel, and then click here to see how the AIPAC does it.
 
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Leaderless: Senate pushes for public option without Obama's support: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/10/25-3
 
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What Digby says about plumbing.
 
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We have watches, they have time

This speech by Paul McGeough, senior correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald, is a must read if you are trying to get a handle on the current situation in Afghanistan and possibilities for the future. McGeough has been writing from Afghanistan since 2001. Here's just a short excerpt:

After eight years, Washington finds itself in the same position that the Soviet Union was in Year 8 of its occupation of Afghanistan, seemingly having learnt nothing from history - until McChrystal's bombshell assessment.

I want to read from a defence official's letter dated August 17. He calls for an honest admission of failure after eight years, citing the squandering of huge material resources and considerable casualties and a failure to stabilise the country - militarily or politically. Most of the population has lost trust, because the campaign is bogged down and a strategic breakthrough is unlikely.
 
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Sean Hannity is a twit.
 
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Skippy rounds up the environmental stories you "might not have seen in your local corporate controlled infotainment delivery systems (once known as the news outlets)."
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Grayson notices Cheney's Halloween costume
 
Oh wait ....that would be the "Dick's" daily costume of vampiric ilk.
Controversial freshman Rep. Alan Grayson, who has become famous for attacking the Republicans' health care plan, went on the attack again Friday night, calling former vice president Dick Cheney a vampire for his recent criticism of the Obama administration's handling of the war in Afghanistan.

"I have trouble listening to what [Cheney] says sometimes because of the blood that drips from his teeth while he's talking," the Florida Democrat said on
MSNBC's Hardball Friday night. "but my response is this: he's just angry because the president doesn't shoot old men in the face. But by the way, when he was done speaking, did he just then turn into a bat and fly away?" - CNN.)
 
I think, though, that "Captain Cajones" does owe an apology to vampires...giving them a really bad rap linking them in with the "Dick."

Grayson has started another website..."
congressmanwithguts.com"...stop by and pledge your support for his testicular fortitude.
 
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h/t Dick
 
One more sure sign the 'recession' is finally over. 
 
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Greenwald: America's Priorities - by the Beltway elite
 
Excerpt:
So according to The Washington Post, dropping bombs on, controlling and occupying Afghanistan - all while simultaneously ensuring "effective governance, economic development, education, the elimination of corruption, the protection of women's rights" to Afghan citizens in Afghanistan -- is an absolutely vital necessity that must be done no matter the cost.  But providing basic services (such as health care) to American citizens, in the U.S., is a secondary priority at best, something totally unnecessary that should wait for a few years or a couple decades until we can afford it and until our various wars are finished, if that ever happens.  "U.S. interests in South Asia" are paramount; U.S. interests in the welfare of those in American cities, suburbs and rural areas are an afterthought.
 
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Sucking it up while the sucking is good
 
Health insurance companies are whacking small business owners with a whopping increase in premiums. This is not solely due to rises in the cost of health care, but is, in large measure, due to the prospect of health insurance reform.

The health insurers are making one last rapacious pass through the wallets of small businesses and their workers, many of whom have to pay a significant share of the premiums.

Health insurers are turning out to be the true villains of the reform debate. The GOP is just a set of reflexive villains; they'd be against a proposal to cure cancer if the current administration sought to fund a project in that regard.

To be fair, other industries are doing the same thing. The consumer price index has slid, but
colleges are on their march to put the cost of a college education back where it was 100 years ago: Affordable only to the wealthy. Higher education needs to re-think its operation and reducing costs, which they haven't done. But they are still not the single-minded greedy swine that the insurance industry is. I can think of one insurance company that touts its "low rates", which they can offer because if you ever have to press a claim against them, they will fight you bitterly to the last nickel, you may have to sue them and that is if you are one of their customers.
 
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Tengrain: We must destroy the village to save the village

carebear-blingee

This has got to be the dumbest thing yet from the Citizen of Kenya, Language-of-the-Koran-speaking, Closet-Muslim, socialist, magic-negro overlord, re-education camp counselor, and Nobel laureate, The Carebear yet, and that takes some doing.

He's now fighting against the public option in the healthcare reform bill. because it may impact the political careers of the Blue Dog Dims, who, you know, have been fighting The Carebear tooth and nail on everything.

Why?

Well, without a solid majority, The Carebear might not be able to enact his bold agenda, like, oh, I don't know HAVING A PUBLIC OPTION?

He's an idiot, and as I said way back in the primaries, he's going to be a one-term president.

Carebear, here's a hint: you only need a solid majority if you intend to do something with it. I mean, something other than run against your own best interests.

Sweet Jeebus, he makes me wish the GOP had won, so at least we would know who are enemies are.

Not one dime, and not one vote for him. Ever. Is it 2012 yet?

UPDATE 1: The White House says, in a carefully worded statement, that this is a false rumor:

A rumor is making the rounds that the White House and Senator Reid are pursuing different strategies on the public option. Those rumors are absolutely false.

In his September 9th address to Congress, President Obama made clear that he supports the public option because it has the potential to play an essential role in holding insurance companies accountable through choice and competition. That continues to be the President's position.

Senator Reid and his leadership team are now working to get the most effective bill possible approved by the Senate. President Obama completely supports their efforts and has full confidence they will succeed and continue the unprecedented progress that is being made in both the House and Senate.

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A new report from Thomson Reuters has found that the U.S. health care system wastes up to $800 billion ever year. "The average U.S. hospital spends one-quarter of its budget on billing and administration, nearly twice the average in Canada," the report notes.
 
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Bush administration only spent one hour on Afghanistan report it handed off to Obama.
 
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Newt Gingrich is as excited as everyone else is about Newt Gingrich running for president

It is a fact of Washington politics and future Washington politics that Newt Gingrich will be forced to run as the GOP's Presidential candidate in 2012. You can tell this is most definitely the case because, um, A. Tim Pawlenty B. Bobby Jindal, C. Mitt Romney and D. Others (??). Anyway, how stoked is Newt Gingrich?? "Callista and I are going to think about this in February 2011. And we are going to reach out to all of our friends around the country. And we'll decide, if there's a requirement as citizens that we run, I suspect we probably will. And if there's not a requirement, if other people have filled the vaccum, I suspect we won't." No one tell Sarah Palin about Gingrich's funsy new campaign slogan: "If You Insist!" [Political Wire]

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If we don't do that, we'll be insulting democracy

Interviewed by Fareed Zakaria on CNN, Hamid Karzai asserted that the first round of the presidential election had been "defamed, was called a fraud," and that he had, in fact, won 54% of the vote in a "clean" election. The decision to have a run-off anyway was his and his alone: "I decided -- for peace, for stability and for the future of democracy in Afghanistan and for the future of institutional order in Afghanistan -- to call for a runoff." The runoff must now go ahead, he says (i.e., no power-sharing deal), because "If we don't do that, we'll be insulting democracy".

And if there's one thing Karzai hates, it's an insult to democracy.