Leadership aides say progressives are prepared to take it on the chin and will vote for a final bill without a public option. But they say pro-life Democrats will seek direction from the U.S. Conference of Bishops as to whether they can support an amendment weaker than Rep. Bart Stupak's, thus setting up what will likely be the most difficult negotiation before a final vote.I don't expect much out of any of the organized churches anymore. They seem to be very comfortable playing the game of politics and, to my mind, they are now just lobbying groups. They are no different than the AMA, AOPA, NRA, NOW, or the health insurance lobby in that regard. After financial scandal after financial scandal and the conversion of the Catholic church hierarchy into the Society for the Protection of Child Molesters, nothing much surprises me.
So no, I am not surprised that there are politicians who bounce legislation off the Conference of Bishops, just as they would off of any other lobbying or special interest group to whom they are beholden.
And given all of the above (and the advisory, below), I am not bothered by the fact that a German pope is pushing forward saintifying Pope Pius the 12th. If the Vatican wants to take the position that "Pius was a good Christian, even if he didn't do or say jack-shit during the Holocaust", that's their right.[1]
The report, released by Judiciary Chairman John Conyers' (D-Mich.) staff Tuesday evening, also reports that the undercover filmmakers that allegedly caught employees of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now breaking the law may have violated state law in their filming operation.
Weren't we promised change?
Link Excerpt:
Obama just can't quit Blackwater.
A Blackwater official told the Commission on Wartime Contracting Friday that the company has contracts for security as well as for training Afghan police and a "drug interdiction unit." They are also in the running for more work in Afghanistan. The comments of Blackwater President Fred Roitz were first reported by the Virginia Pilot...
Now, the Pilot reports on the potentially expanding role Blackwater will play for the DoD in Afghanistan:
Blackwater is also is one of five pre-qualified companies competing for a new DoD contract to train Afghan police.
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Rex Rammell
Candidate for Governor of Idaho
Dear Mr. Rammell,
I think it's wonderful you're excluding gentiles and women from your campaign events. It'll be great for the sisters. They can spend the time away from us exploring the use of various combinations of cottage cheese, shredded carrots, and green Jello to pursue their highest calling: perfecting Jello salad. Imagine it, a Jello salad so good, even the sons of perdition will scream, "Oh my heck!"
As for the Non-Mormons, they'd add nothing worthy to the discussion. I'm tired of them asking questions that make me feel silly and uncomfortable. How many times do I have to tell the story about how Uncle Lavere's sacred undergarments saved him* from being emasculated by a hay bailer before I finally find a gentile who doesn't shriek with laughter upon hearing it? It's best they're not there.
I can't wait for the rallies. It'll be just like General Priesthood Meeting, but without some ancient elder telling the 12 yr old deacons and 14 yr old teachers to think about worms when they're tempted to pound their rameumptoms. Hopefully, there'll be a lot of anointing with oil while we're denouncing homosexual acts, because sometimes garments don't offer all the protection against temptation one needs. I'll bring a couple of gallons just in case.
One last thing. Rexburg can be very cold this time of year. It's hard on car batteries. I don't want to buy jumper cables if I don't have to. Will the Three Nephites** be on hand to provide jump starts to those who need it?
Heterosexually yours,
Gen. JC Christian, patriot
Elsewhere: Rex Rammell, Master of Elk
*Stories about LDS underwear (garments) saving lives are common. Here are a few examples:
To this day, stories abound of Saints who have been miraculously saved from harm by the temple garment. Perhaps the most famous example comes from a 1996 feature on Mormons for 60 Minutes, in which hotel magnate Willard Marriott told Mike Wallace of a boat fire that had consumed his pants yet left him unscathed above the knee, where his garment was. As a missionary, I read a typescript account about an elder from that same mission who had been the victim of a drive-by shooting a year before (during the 1990 Gulf War): according to his mother's account, bullets shredded his shirt without piercing his garments, while the only wound he received was from a bullet that hit him below the knee.
Just the facts, from the LA Times:
For the first quarter ever, the number of homes in foreclosure with mortgages serviced by U.S. national banks and savings and loans topped the 1-million mark, according to figures released Monday by the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.The percentage of prime borrowers whose loans were 60 or more days past due doubled from the July-to-September period a year earlier. And more than half of all homeowners whose payments had been lowered through modification plans defaulted again.
The report, which covers about 34 million loans, or about 65% of all U.S. mortgages, underscores the obstacles to strengthening the nation's rickety housing market. Stubborn unemployment is making it tough for millions of homeowners to pay their debts. In addition, many people whose monthly installments have been lowered still are unable to keep up with their payments.
This is the second wave that many economists predicted. The first was from bad loans. This one is from no jobs. Not surprisingly, hunger and family homelessness also are on the rise.
The old Afghan claims to remember a day - it was either a Tuesday or a Friday - when his country wasn't at war. But nobody believes him.
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Welcome to our new corporate masters
While our backs are turned as we are engrossed with the health-care debate, there is a Supreme Court case looming on the horizon that could upend our entire political system. The Roberts court must be salivating to get the chance to help their right wing Big Corp base as they wait to render their decision on the Citizens United case which will for all purposes allow BigCorp. to dump as much money as they can into any election they want.
The most excellent Dahlia Lithwick writes:
Citizens United released the film in six theaters and on DVD, actions not subject to federal regulation. But when they sought to distribute the film by paying $1.2 million to sell it through a video-on-demand service, the Federal Election Commission contended that the film was no different from the kind of "electioneering communication" regulated under the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. That was the 2002 statute that tried to limit the influence of big money on elections. If subject to the constraints of McCain-Feingold, the film could not be financed by corporate treasuries or broadcast within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election. The federal court of appeals agreed with the FEC, finding that the movie could be interpreted as nothing but an effort to "inform the electorate that Senator Clinton is unfit for office." Citizens United appealed.With their limitless resources, they can corrupt our system like never before and destroy our democratic process.
In Bush v Gore, the United States Supreme Court, in an unprecedented ruling that proclaimed it should not be used as precedent, decided the 2000 presidential election by a 5-4 decision. Bush v Gore stands as one of the most legally dishonest and the most politically partisan opinion ever issued by the Court....read onThat is, until the Court hands down its decision in Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, involving a ruling by the FEC that barred a rightwing hit group, partially financed by a corporation, from running a hatchet-job film about Hillary Clinton in the days prior to an election in violation of the McCain-Feingold law.
By another 5-4 decision the Supreme Court will effectively turn the United States government over to corporations, i.e., back to the Republican Party, this time for keeps. The major corporations -- total profits of more than $600 billion per year for the top Fortune 100 -- will be permitted to advertise without limitation in Congressional, Senate and Presidential elections.
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Moreover, corporations often have foreign shareholders. Although barred as individuals from participating either through financial contribution or voting, foreigners will now be able to use the corporate fiction of a 'legal person' to influence profoundly the outcome of US elections.The Supreme Court will soon allow corporate profits to be spent without limits to "preserve, protect and defend" not the Constitution, but those profits.
Swiftboats will be the fastest growing industry in the United States.
Sen. Dick Durbin is saying that if the Supreme Court rules in favor of Citizens United, that prove the catalyst for creating new campaign-finance legislation:
As a Supreme Court decision that could weaken campaign finance laws looms, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said that a ruling giving an upper hand to corporations and labor unions could be the catalyst needed to pass election-reform legislation.Do we really want that to happen? No, the Court must not rule in favor of the wingnut film makers. Something will have to be done, because a single corporation could bully any member of the House or Senate to vote for their profitable benefit or they will unleash their pocketbooks against them and that is a nightmare scenario.He and Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., spoke at a Center for American Progress event on Friday to promote their legislation, the Fair Elections Now Act, and discuss the impact of the pending decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
That decision could open the door for unrestricted spending on campaign advertising. "It takes a major scandal to create a major reform," Durbin said. "I don't know that we've reached the level in the Senate or in the nation where people are going to demand this of us.... But if they think that the Supreme Court has tipped the scales so dramatically that they don't have a fighting chance any more, they may be open to this.
Read more about real campaign finance reform here.
Hype? maybe. But in terms of the depravity of the people committing it? Maybe not so much.
We've been talking about our congresscritters... and especially our senators whoring themselves out to the insurance industry and the money industry. We've seen how large numbers of "conservative" and "moderate/centrist" congresscritters would deny the young, the infirm and the elderly the basics of life itself, decrying "entitlements" and "welfare queens" while all the time taking HUGE globs of welfare for themselves in the form of farm subsidies and other government giveaways all of them "entitlements" and forms of "welfare".
It's pretty well established that they are... in no indefinite terms... whores and "welfare queens" themselves but are they also outright crooks? Are they not only whoring themselves out to big business and Wall street, but truly picking the pockets of their johns... who just happen to be you and I? Short answer... you betcha!
Found this article over at Project Censored where they post all of the stories that should have been plastered all over the M$M but were roundly ignored by same. Pretty much explains why "our" congress allowed Bush to get us into our latest quagmires and why they allow Obama to keep right on keeping on with them. If you're looking to Congress to right the wrongs of any previous administration or even the present administration I wouldn't count on it as long as so many of them are making money from it.
http://www.theygaveusarepublic.com/diary/4494/the-worst-insider-trading-scheme-in-history
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With Vice President Biden presiding, the Senate has passed its version of the health insurance bill by a vote of 60 - 39. A simple majority was need for final passage. Every single member of the Democratic caucus voted yes. The no votes were, of course, all Republicans. Senator Bunning (R-KY) didn't vote.
I think their constituents should be exempt from the benefits of the bill - if there are any.
From The Nation's "The Beat" blog:
"Health care investors find themselves having confronted their greatest fear, and, while there will be legislation, it will be significantly watered down ..." declared Mike O'Rourke, a leading market strategist.
That news have proven to be the gift that keeps on giving, according to industry analysts.
Aetna stock shares gained 4.7 percent.
Cigna shares rose 3.9 percent.
United Health and Wellpoint "rallied to 52-week highs," according to an insider report that is being highlighted by Congressman Dennis Kucinich, the Ohio Democrat who has long advocated for single-payer health care and during the current debate has argued that, at the very least, any reform measure must include a robust public option.
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Sir Ian McKellen shares his acting secrets with Ricky Gervais in a scene from "Extras": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK0ghI8Ykas&feature=player_embedded
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10 Ways to Screw Over the Corporate Jackals Who've Been Screwing You.
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The Festivus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS7-jcsB_WQ&feature=player_embedded#
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On the night of September 9, Bowman was on his way to meet Braun, a Bush administration political appointee, at the National Republican Club on First Street, SE when he was stopped by Capitol Police around 7:45 p.m.—minutes before Obama was scheduled to deliver a major address to Congress pushing his health care initiative. Bowman had driven up to a security checkpoint and told officers he wanted to park, but his lack of a permit for the area aroused their suspicions, and they asked to search his car.
Keep reading: http://motherjones.com/mojo/2009/12/joshua-bowman-gun-charges-bush-white-house-employee
And if a bow tie demonstrates "élan", I wonder how you explain this and this.
"The simultaneous selling of securities to customers and shorting them because they believed they were going to default is the most cynical use of credit information that I have ever seen," said Sylvain R. Raynes, an expert in structured finance at R & R Consulting in New York. "When you buy protection against an event that you have a hand in causing, you are buying fire insurance on someone else's house and then committing arson."The financial arson allegedly committed by Goldman Sachs did not just burn down a house. It burned down the global economy.
Let me put it plainly: Those f**kers at Goldman Sachs (and other banks) are alleged to have deliberately created the housing bubble. They pumped up the housing market by artificially creating a huge demand for CDOs, which made sub-prime and adjustable-rate mortgages ridiculously cheap. That flood of cheap money then drove up housing prices. And when it crashed, the very same evil bastards who drove up the housing market profited immensely from its collapse.
Don't expect much from the Federal government as far as investigating this global act of financial arson, as administration after administration has been riddled/infiltrated/infected/contaminated with people who worked at Goldman Sachs. They will do what they always have done, protect their friends and screw over the American people. If anyone from those fraudulent operations ever goes to jail for this, it will be because a state attorney general or a county prosecutor went after them.
The article in the NY Times is a long one, but it is worth reading as it names some of the douchebags who were behind this giant global fraud. If you have a house that you cannot sell because you are underwater on the mortgage, if you have already lost your home, if you are paying on a mortgage that will soon reset to a much higher rate (and which you cannot refinance because the mortgage amount far exceeds the value of the house), if you are one of the millions of people who have lost their jobs in the Goldman Sachs Recession or if you are one of the millions more who have had their pay slashed (whether by reduction in your hours worked or by an outright pay cut), you ought to read the article.
No wonder those fuckers at Goldman Sachs are buying guns.
Why look who's here, America's "Commander of Cheer," Mister President Obama! And he's got plenty to laugh about! Just think, when this millennium began just 10 years ago, people like Barack Obama were still legally considered slaves. And now it's the white people who are HIS slaves. Haw haw!
More here: http://wonkette.com/412903/years-of-painful-laughter-the-decade-in-funny-pictures#more-412903
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History's narrator
THE BUSH DECADE: "I couldn't imagine somebody like Osama bin Laden understanding the joy of Hanukkah." — George W. Bush at a White House menorah lighting ceremony, December 10, 2001. Audio
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The most recent Senate health care bill includes a 10% tax on indoor tanning sessions. This replaced a cosmetic surgery tax as a new revenue stream, because plastic surgeons have something resembling a lobby, and therefore Congress can do nothing except give them everything they want.
John Boehner wept at the news.
As did George Hamilton.
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Play him off, keyboard cat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_9HghQG5tM&feature=player_embedded
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Palin – or Stalin? Chickenshit "rogue" calls on her armed brownshirts to eject bloggers, reporters from book-signing photo-op.
Almost as soon as I had my picture taken I felt a hand on my shoulder.
I turned around and came face to face with a local police officer who quickly informed me that I was on the "banned list".
"I am on the WHAT list?" I asked.
"The banned list sir, I am going to have to escort you off of the property."
Sarah Palin has done everything she could to keep the media as far away as possible during this book tour, however I do believe that this is the first time she actually had anybody listed by name.
Sounds vaguely communist to me… Of course, she CAN see them from her house, but still.
Bonus: the reader comments from the Frontiersman, Failin's local noozepaper.
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Have some eggnog tonight and forget about the news. I'm going to!
