"I don't dictate how people vote. If it's an important vote, I try to tell them how important it is... But I'm not very good at twisting arms. I try to be more verbal and non-threatening. So people who have different opinions not to vote the way that I think they should. But that's the way it is. I hold no grudges." Harry Reid, (D-Surrender) The King of Pitiful, explaining why he's such a sorry leader Link
Pharmacists are obliged to dispense the Plan B pill, even if they are personally opposed to the "morning after" contraceptive on religious grounds, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.In a case that could affect policy across the western U.S., a supermarket pharmacy owner in Olympia, Wash., failed in a bid to block 2007 regulations that required all Washington pharmacies to stock and dispense the pills.
Family-owned Ralph's Thriftway and two pharmacists employed elsewhere sued Washington state officials over the requirement. The plaintiffs asserted that their Christian beliefs prevented them from dispensing the pills, which can prevent implantation of a recently fertilized egg. They said that the new regulations would force them to choose between keeping their jobs and heeding their religious objections to a medication they regard as a form of abortion.
Obviously, I support this ruling.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3963357
By JAMES RISEN
WASHINGTON — After a mass killing of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Taliban prisoners of war by the forces of an American-backed warlord during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, Bush administration officials repeatedly discouraged efforts to investigate the episode, according to government officials and human rights organizations.
American officials had been reluctant to pursue an investigation — sought by officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department, the Red Cross and other human rights groups — because the warlord, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, was on the payroll of the Central Intelligence Agency and his militia worked closely with United States Special Forces in 2001, several officials said. They said the United States also worried about undermining the American-supported Karzai government, in which General Dostum has served as a defense official.
"At the White House, nobody said 'no' to an investigation, but nobody ever said 'yes,' either," said Pierre Prosper, the former war crimes ambassador for the United States. "The first reaction of everybody there was 'Oh, this is a sensitive issue. This is a touchy issue politically.' "
It is not clear how — or if — the Obama administration will address the issue. But in recent weeks, State Department officials have quietly tried to thwart General Dostum's reappointment as military chief of staff to the president, according to several senior officials, and suggested that the administration may not be hostile to an inquiry.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/world/asia/11afghan.h...
US military occupation forces in Iraq under Commander-in-Chief Obama suffered 26 combat casualties in the week ending July 7 as the official total rose to at least 72,377. The total includes 34,890 dead and wounded from what the Pentagon classifies as "hostile" causes and more than 37,487 dead and medically evacuated (last reported April 4) from "non-hostile" causes.*
The actual total is over 100,000 because the Pentagon chooses not to count as "Iraq casualties" the more than 30,000 veterans whose injuries-mainly brain trauma from explosions - were diagnosed only after they had left Iraq.**
US media divert attention from the actual cost in American life and limb by occasionally reporting only the total killed (4,325 as of July 7) but rarely mentioning the 31,430 wounded in combat. To further minimize public perception of the cost, they cover for the Pentagon by ignoring the 36,624 (as of April 4))*** military victims of accidents and illness serious enough to require medical air evacuation, although the 4,325 reported deaths include 865 (no change) who died from those same causes, including at least 18 from faulty electrical work by KBR and 177 suicides through 2008.****
* The number of wounded is updated weekly by the Pentagon at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/casualty.pdf.
** the number of "non combat" injured is reported irregularily by the Pentagon at http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/CASUALTY/OIF-Total.pdf.
In fact, THE REPUBLICANS WANT THE PARTY AND OBAMA TO FAIL. How I wish it was a huge banner that's flown over the White House every hour, I am deadly serious, the never was and never will be a "new" way forward with a "new" politics. Right. The Republicans will do everything they can, of course, to impede Obama, and if that means screwing the country and the little people oh well.
More: http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/014266.php
###
Morford: Don't go, Sarah Palin!
A nation turns its lonely eyes to your ditzy insufferable ramblings
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/07/10/notes071009.DTL
###
###
"I would rather he had been here and it was still his seat, you know? That's what I really wish."
— Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), in answer to a supporter who asked him what Sen. Paul Wellstone would have said after listening to one of Franken's first speeches as a senator. Wellstone was killed in a plane crash in 2002 during his campaign against Norm Coleman, whom Franken defeated in 2008.
###
Betcha you've been peeling your bananas wrong.
###
Signing statements are not good
The House rebuked president Obama for trying to ignore restrictions to international aid payments, voting overwhelmingly for an amendment forcing the administration to abide by its constraints.
House members approved an amendment by a 429-2 vote to have the Obama administration pressure the world bank to strengthen labor and environmental standards and require a treasury department report on World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) activities. - the hill
Here's Barack during the campaign, telling us he won't use signing statements: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seAR1S1Mjkc&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fxnerg%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded
###
Gays: bad; Nazis: good?
Nazis in the U.S. military: SPLC will ask Congress for action:
In his "about me" section, "SoldatAMG" describes himself as a "Sergeant in USMC stationed at Camp Lejeune. I recently returned from my 3rd trip to Iraq. I fight every day to stem the tide of multicultturalism and to ensure that my children have a better world. SIEG HEIL!" - Stars and Stripes
Why, it feels like only yesterday that every right-wing talker on the planet - from Michael Savage to Greta Van Susteren -- was denouncing the DHS for supposedly "smearing our veterans" by issuing a bulletin for law-enforcement officers warning that right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis intended to recruit members of the military and returning veterans.
Keep reading: http://crooksandliars.com/node/29533
###
Children taking part in a study to measure how much exercise they do fooled researchers by attaching their pedometers to their pet dogs.
###
Former Bush 'domestic policy czar' Karl Rove now rips czars as a 'giant expansion of presidential power.' http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/10/rove-czars/
###
GOP Rep. introduces bill to deny U.S. funding for Nobel winning IPCC because of its "junk science" http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/10/gop-bill-ipcc/
###
Citing national security concerns, prison officials ban Obama's books: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/10/obama-book-ban/
###
Barack Obama will keep Dick Cheney safe forever: Government teat-suckler Dick Cheney is such a pussy that he became one of the first — if not the first — vice presidents in history to accept Secret Service protection after his reign of terror in office expired, a move requiring the president's authorization. Cheney then ran around Washington going on teevee everyday saying that Obama wanted Americans to die, constantly. And as payback for that, Obama has extended Cheney's Secret Service protectio: US News
####
h/t Dick
Bipartisan compromise = "the people are about to get screwed": http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/6230
BAGHDAD – Bombs killed nearly 60 people in Iraq on Thursday in the worst violence since U.S. combat troops withdrew from urban areas last week, and American forces released five Iranian officials suspected of aiding Shiite insurgents.
No comments:
Post a Comment