Although Democrats won the elections last year mostly because they weren't Republicans, not all Democrats are alike. Many of them are still in the pockets of the insurance companies rather than representing the people who elected them. It is up to us, the People, to keep the pressure on the Democrats to ensure that health care reform focuses on the People first
and not what the insurance companies want. We want a choice between public and private health care plans rather that give the insurance companies an exclusive monopoly for health coverage. We want to be able to choose to get the same plan that members of Congress get for themselves.
Marc Perkel
San Bruno, CA.
Marc's blog: http://marc.perkel.com
Founder of the Church of Reality
http://www.churchofreality.org
"Reality Based Voter"
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Few words are more abused and over-exposed than "terrorism." It's an interesting quirk of this society that, unlike with most words suffering this fate, terrorism has actually narrowed in meaning, instead of expanding to the point of uselessness. For far too many Americans - something approaching 100% of those infecting our TV and print media, with the percentage of politicians of either party not far behind - terrorism means something done by a Muslim, preferably brown-skinned, or at least heavily bearded.
http://www.cogitamusblog.com/2009/06/terrorism.html#more
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Inheriting Bush's smoke and mirrors: http://griperblade.blogspot.com/2009/06/inheriting-bushs-smoke-and-mirrors.html
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Harry's Secret
Bishop Harry L. Jackson Jr
High Impact Leadership Assn.
Dear Bishop Jackson,
You're probably aware that love segregation opponents are questioning your standing as a leader of the war against DC's marriage equality law. People for The American Way, for instance, is saying that you weren't even registered to vote in DC until very recently and are likely a resident of Maryland, not DC.
You have to admit that it seems a little suspicious. What are people going to think about your claim to be some guy's roommate in a DC condo? "Why aren't you living with your wife in in Silver Spring, MD?" they might ask.
Well, the answer is obvious I think. Your marriage has become the first casualty of DC's new marriage provisions. Is that the case?
I understand why you may not want to publicly acknowledge the possible crumbling of your marriage, but this is important. It's exactly the kind of thing we've been warning people about. I mean, hey, DC ends love segregation and suddenly you're out of your marital home and sharing a condo with some guy. You need to speak out about it.
It'd be an even more compelling condemnation of marriage equality if you could prove another claim we often make: that the gay must be opposed at every avenue, because its siren song is irresistible. Can you help us out with that? It is a little strange that the moment DC gets marriage equality you move into to a condo with some guy, isn't it? The force is strong, Harry. It's understandable. Use it as a teaching moment.
Heterosexually yours,
Gen. JC Christian, patriot
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Sotomayor refused to consider appeal of man based on technicality - man later found innocent based on DNA
Civil libertarians have been complaining that many liberals are ignoring that Judge Sonia Sotomayor has been viewed as hostile to core liberal values and has a fairly conservative voting record in many areas, including free speech, student rights, and criminal procedure: http://jonathanturley.org/2009/06/11/meaning-of-empathy-sotomayor-refused-to-consider-appeal-of-man-based-on-technicality-man-later-found-innocent-based-on-dna/#more-11759
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The Walt Disney Co. for decades has contaminated groundwater with toxic chemicals, including cancer-causing chromium 6, according to a lawsuit filed last week in Los Angeles Superior Court: http://www.burbankleader.com/articles/2009/06/10/business/blr-disney10.txt
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Wingnuts are claiming that the holocaust museum shooter is a lefty!
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War Inc. - New Top Afghan Commander Assembles Team For Long Haul
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Chastity is no longer. Call him Chaz.
I hope he finds peace and happiness and is given the respect he deserves.
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For more than a year, Virginia's largest women's prison rounded up inmates who had loose-fitting clothes, short hair or otherwise masculine looks, sending them to a unit officers dubbed the "butch wing," prisoners and guards say.
How about putting those cowardly little homophobes in the "studs wing" for a day or twelve? And if they complain about their treatment, it can just be attributed to a figment of their effing imaginations.
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It's official: the killer pig death virus is now a pandemic.
GENEVA – The World Health Organization declared a swine flu pandemic Thursday — the first global flu epidemic in 41 years — as infections in the United States, Europe, Australia, South America and elsewhere climbed to nearly 30,000 cases.
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Dobson and disgraced White House staffer pay tribute to Bush: he was the instrument in God's hand that kept us safe (if you don't count 9/11):
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/11/dobson-goeglein-bush/
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An acquaintance of von Brunn's, John de Nugent, "who describes himself as a white separatist," told the Post that von Brunn had been paranoid recently that "someone in Washington" cut his Social Security after "looking at his Web site." De Nugent also tried to distance von Brunn from what he deemed "the responsible white separatist community":
De Nugent called von Brunn a genius but described the shooting as the act of "a loner and a hothead."
"The responsible white separatist community condemns this," he said. "It makes us look bad."
The Southern Poverty Law Center describes de Nugent as "a frequent contributor to virulently anti-Semitic and racist online forums," who was banned from the racist online forum Stormfront after he apparently threatened a moderator who requested that he "tone down the implied threats of violence in his posts."
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"... the GOP will not survive if it doesn't accept the fact that the Democrats are its enemy and that it must begin to play for keeps. That means finding another Lee Atwater - only meaner - and not apologizing when we get him."
Yeah, that guy Karl Rove was a complete pussy.
Jeebus. So instead of coming up with ideas and working to fix things, rethugs have come to the conclusion that in order to make a better impression on voters, they have to become even slimier.
Good idea. Because what people in this new era of hope and change want right now is more devisiveness and more hateful, malicious, meanspirited attacks. The last election showed us that. WTF is wrong with these assclowns??
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The military will phase out its "stop-loss" program, the contentious practice of holding troops beyond the end of their enlistments, and will pay soldiers affected by the program a $500-a-month bonus while they are in extended service.
Currently, the Army is the only service that uses the stop-loss program. As of January, 13,217 soldiers had tours extended under the stop-loss policy.
$534 million was allocated for this bonus program.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/18/pentagon.stoploss.ending/index.html
Meanwhile, we're still winning hearts and minds ...
Another US airstrike in Afghanistan kills civilians and children: http://news.antiwar.com/2009/06/11/us-says-investigating-reports-of-afghan-civilians-killed-in-wednesday-air-strike/
Iranian elections are today.
John Bolton, who has called for a war against Iran over and over and over again has taken to the pages of the WSJ to advocate for allowing, nay encouraging, Israel to attack Iran. What a surprise. Not.
Bolton's arguments boil down to: Do it soon, everything will be OK. There's a slam-dunk intelligence case for the threat, the war itself will be a cakewalk and we'll be greeted as liberators.
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OMG - a friendship with a woman? How will the church ever recover from such a scandal?
In the cloistered universe of the Vatican, Pope John Paul II had a woman friend with whom he shared spiritual thoughts in a series of letters that spanned the decades. Now she is defending her recent book of correspondence with the pope against criticism from church officials that she "exaggerated" her friendship with the late pontiff and could delay his beatification.
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Obama caves on bringing Guantanamo Bay detainees who have been cleared for release to live in the United States.
At least his wife has nice arms.
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More info on Mohammad Ahmed Abdullah Saleh Al Hanashi (that's all one person), the Guantanamo prisoner who the Pentagon says committed suicide but won't say how (when a prisoner being forcibly fed abruptly dies, we need more information before we just accept a claim of suicide). Evidently he was asked by Gitmo's commanders to represent the prisoners in talks with them. Only he never come back from the first of those talks: they sent him to the psychiatric wing, where he died five months later.
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