This will be our last chance to experience one of these thrills for awhile, at least until 11:11:11 on 11/11/11.
Hmm. There's a country this correspondent — and many others who denounce "socialized medicine" — should look at. It's a country where there is, indeed, a substantial private health insurance industry, which pays 35 percent of medical bills. But the government pays a larger share — 46 percent. (Most of the rest is out-of-pocket spending.)
The country is called the United States of America.
Former Bush White House counsel and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — whose great political achievements include conspiring with John Yoo to destroy the U.S. Constitution with MEMOS, chasing down then-AG John Ashcroft in the hospital to get him to authorize illegal domestic warrantless wiretapping programs while he was hopped up on anesthetics, and firing tons of U.S. Attorneys for not prosecuting enough Democrats during election years — has been hired to teach college students about government. This is definitely not what Thomas Jefferson & Ben Franklin had in mind when they founded Texas Tech University. [Austin American-Statesman]
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A new GAO report has found that "many states are using the federal [stimulus] funds for short-term projects and to fill budget gaps rather than spending on long-term improvements." The report also says "many states aren't meeting some goals and requirements of the economic recovery program" such as "using education funds to prevent layoffs rather than fund innovative new programs."
Great. Time for a second stimulus so the states can waste that money too.
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Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) today defended Honduran President Manuel Zelaya's recent removal from office by the Honduran military. In the course of defending the military coup, DeMint attacked President Obama for having what he called an "ad hoc and personalized foreign policy that seems less about supporting the rule of law than it is about supporting particular rulers." Zelaya's "removal from office was no more a coup than was Gerald Ford's ascendence to the Oval Office or our newest colleague Al Franken's election to the Senate," DeMint claimed.
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In the first Senate hearing today on clean energy legislation supported by President Barack Obama, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) compared the Senate to the "ExxonMobil board room." Whitehouse expressed his concern that the United States would be left behind in the clean energy race, saying, "I do not want to see American industries at the back of that parade with a broom." Addressing the Obama Cabinet members before him — Ken Salazar, Stephen Chu, Tom Vilsack, and Lisa Jackson — Whitehouse apologized for the denial of man-made climate change by his fellow senators:
We know that this is probably — along with the ExxonMobil board room — the last place that sober people debate whether or not these problems are real, but we intend to work with you anyway, and we hope to give you strong legislative support if we can.
ExxonMobil, the world's largest company, is still directing money to climate-denial front groups, and has spent more than $9.3 million lobbying Congress this year alone. Sen. Whitehouse has previously noted the insidious influence of polluter spending on the Senate's willingness to take the threat of climate change seriously.
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Obama has to correct Joe Biden, again, for saying something true: http://wonkette.com/409715/obama-has-to-correct-joe-biden-again-for-saying-something-true#more-409715
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From the ministry of moron
Middle school civics, Mooselini style:
"I think on a national level, your department of law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we've been charged with and automatically throw them out," she said.There is no "Department of Law" at the White House.
We killed another 40 with our drones in Pakistan: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8139739.stm
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4,321 soldiers killed in Iraq; 726 in Afghanistan.
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Israel kept Gazans in ditches without food and water: http://news.antiwar.com/2009/07/07/israel-kept-palestinian-detainees-in-ditches-without-food-and-water/
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As long as the GOP tolerates this sort of racist crap they are doomed to be a rump regional party. And don't you love that when they say they are sorry, they always come across as sorry they got caught.
The Myth of the Media Meanies Greg Mitchell has a must-read that deconstructs the 'mean ole media' myth that Sarah Palin wants you to believe is responsible for all her woes.
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Although the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled at least twice that posting the Ten Commandments in public spaces is unconstitutional, disallowed and really annoying, the dominionist freakazoids never quit.
The courthouse in Jackson County should have to take down several copies of the Ten Commandments because they are an improper governmental endorsement of religion, a federal lawsuit argues.The lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky and a county resident, Eugene Phillips Jr., seeks a ruling that nine copies of the biblical laws on the courthouse walls in McKee are unconstitutional. It also seeks an injunction ordering the county to take down the copies.
SNIP
(Jackson County Judge-Executive William O.) Smith said he had not seen a copy of the lawsuit but that most county residents would support keeping the Ten Commandments displayed in the courthouse. He said a judge might order the county to remove the Commandments, but "that doesn't mean it's right."
Thank you, Judge Smith, for reminding us that the courtesy title "Judge" given to county execs in Kentucky doesn't hide the lack of legal - or even basic educational - qualifications for the job.
The lawsuit was filed last week. The lawsuit says that Phillips and other ACLU members in Jackson County must use the courthouse to do business such as paying taxes.When they do, exposure to the Ten Commandments displays is "direct and unwelcome," because the citizens see the copies as a message of religious endorsement by the county, in violation of the First Amendment, the lawsuit says.
The plaintiffs say that the First Amendment correctly seeks to protect individual freedom by preventing undue government interference in the exercise of religious beliefs, and by barring the government from favoring one religion over another, or religion over non-religion, the lawsuit says.
The ACLU and a handful of courageous citizens like Eugene Phillips are the only things standing between the secular republic the founders risked their lives to establish and the Dominionist nightmare the freakazoids want to impose.
If you haven't joined the ACLU yet, do it today. Or at least send them a check.
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