http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum984.php
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As you can see, not only is the United States spending well over double the combined defense budgets of Russia and China, but America's close allies constitute the bulk of the other big spenders. Indeed, if you add all the European countries together, they spend about 50 percent more than Russia and China combined.
A US drone fired two missiles at a religious school (madrassa) in Pakistan's North Waziristan Agency today, killing at least 40 and wounding an as yet undetermined number of others. Villagers are reportedly still recovering people from the debris of the destroyed school, and several of the wounded are in critical condition, so the final death toll may yet rise.
###Draper reports that Rumsfeld's monomaniacal determination to protect his Pentagon turf led him to hobble and antagonize America's most willing allies in Iraq, Britain and Australia, and even to undermine his own soldiers. But Draper's biggest find is a collection of daily cover sheets that Rumsfeld approved for the Secretary of Defense Worldwide Intelligence Update, a highly classified digest prepared for a tiny audience, including the president, and often delivered by hand to the White House by the defense secretary himself. These cover sheets greeted Bush each day with triumphal color photos of the war headlined by biblical quotations. GQ is posting 11 of them, and they are seriously creepy.
Take the one dated April 3, 2003, two weeks into the invasion, just as Shock and Awe hit its first potholes. Two days earlier, on April 1, a panicky Pentagon had begun spreading its hyped, fictional account of the rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch to distract from troubling news of setbacks. On April 2, Gen. Joseph Hoar, the commander in chief of the United States Central Command from 1991-94, had declared on the Times Op-Ed page that Rumsfeld had sent too few troops to Iraq. And so the Worldwide Intelligence Update for April 3 bullied Bush with Joshua 1:9: "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." (Including, as it happened, into a quagmire.)
I don't expect this to receive too much attention in the media, not with Sykesgate and Pelosigate going on. But it looks like what happened was that the Secretary of Defense bullied a weak-minded president with biblical quotations while the vice-president was trying to torture people into saying there was a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
###"A government takeover of health care will put bureaucrats in charge of health care decisions that should be made by families and doctors. It will limit treatment options and lead to rationed care."I don't know what reality Boustany is living in, but in the real-world, the health care decisions already are being made by bureaucrats: The ones who work for the insurance companies and who are hard-wired to say "no".
It doesn't matter what you or your doctor think is best; if the insurance company says "no, that is not approved", then you are shit out of luck. Your choices are to appeal the denial (good luck with that), do without, or find a way to pay for the course of treatment you need. "Medical tourism" started because people who needed procedures traveled to cheaper places, such as Thailand or India, to have medical procedures done that their insurance companies refused to pay for.
If this is the level of deep thought and real-world concern that the Hoover Party is bringing to the debate on health care, then they are as "willing to work with President Obama" as rust is willing to work with an engine.
Which is the exact same thing the tighty righties are doing now about the current collapse of the U.S. health insurance system, a system which is astoundingly inefficient (here's an example) and which doesn't even cover half of all Americans (who either receive government-provided health care via Medicare, Medicaid, VA, Tricare, etc. or don't have any insurance at all). A supposed "health funding" system that can't even manage to cover half of Americans, and which is astoundingly inefficient at covering even that half, has to be said to have failed. Note that Medicare/Medicaid/VA/TriCare/etc. don't exist because Congress lurves them some socialism, they exist because private insurers wouldn't cover prunes/poor people/veterans with service-related problems/families of veterans/etc. and government (i.e. "we the people") had to step in to keep them from dying. So the very *existence* of these government programs is because private health insurance has failed as a mechanism for funding health care in America. It's time to admit reality, and end this failed experiment in private health insurance that everybody else in the world has given up on except America, where, apparently, Republicans couldn't care less about the health of America and Americans...
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When we last visited the surgically augmented under-aged soft core porn model and good Xristian, Carrie Prejean, she had triumphed over her critics that seeked to de-crown the noted under-aged topless model for many violations of her contract. But thanks to the short fingered vulgarian, Donald Trump, Prejean kept her title and Donald kept the evidence.
All was looking up. And then disaster struck again: the San Diego area city of Vista, Prejean's hometown was going to have a "Carrie Prejean Day" but when it got to council, only one person voted for it.
One argument against "C.P.D." came from Steve Lily, VP of the school board, who said the district had never honored a former student and didn't want to start with someone who "had breast implants, posed semi-nude" and whose goal was to be a Victoria's Secret model.
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Human rights groups reacted with anger and disappointment Friday to President Barack Obama's revival of special military trials of terror suspects, saying the system was flawed beyond repair.
In announcing the return of the military commission system devised by former president George W. Bush, Obama also proposed reforms that he said would restore them "as a legitimate forum for prosecution, while bringing them in line with the rule of law."
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/05/16/aclu-obamas-revival-of-tribunals-strikes-blow-to-rule-of-law/
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According to the Israeli daily, Haaretz, the budget proposed to Congress for 2010 includes $2.775 billion in aid to Israel, compared to $2.5 billon budgeted for 2009. This is more than a 10% increase in total U.S. aid to Israel.
The budget also includes an increase in the assistance to the production of weapons systems, such as the missile Hetz-3.
The U.S. Congress proposed to raise the amount of aid to Israel for the development of the Hetz-3 missile—the Arrow "Interceptor" in English—from $30 million to $37.5 million. Israel considers continuous support in the development of this anti-missile missile a victory for the Israeli security establishment.
Hetz-3 is a theater missile defense (TMD) system first built by Israel and the United States. It was specifically designed to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles on a national level.
The Hetz-3 intercepts its targets high in the stratosphere and is in direct competition with similar systems developed in the United States. Lockheed Martin's THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) also intercepts ballistic missiles, but also has the capability to intercept targets coming from further distances.
The U.S. budget proposed to congress for year 2010 also calls for the administration to respect Israel's claims on Jerusalem. This contradicts international law, which does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the occupied territories of East Jerusalem. It also contradicts the Oslo Agreements, which defines all of Jerusalem as a territory to be discussed during the final stages of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
The proposed budget prohibits the establishment of new U.S. offices, departments, or agencies in East Jerusalem for conducting official government business with the Palestinian Authority. Moreover, the proposed budget stipulates that U.S .officers should not meet representatives of the Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem, including its occupied areas.
All assistance to the Palestinian Authority is left to the discretion of the U.S. Secretary of State (currently Hillary Clinton), who is empowered to determine and certify to Congress that the PA recognizes Israel, is prepared to fight terrorism, and is ready to end the state of war with Israel.
Finally, the budget imposes a boycott on the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation, prohibiting any form of assistance to this institution.
No conditions regarding developments on the peace process or recognition of an independent Palestinian State were imposed on Israel.
Find a copy of the budget here.
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