Last night, I got my marching orders from the Obama White House. The liberal-blogger Bat Signal was sent across the internet in the form of a quote from an Obama conference call with bloggers -- health care reform is in peril and only the internets can save it."It is important just to keep the pressure on members of Congress because what happens is there is a default position of inertia here in Washington," Obama told prominent lefty bloggers in an invitation-only conference call. "And pushing against that, making sure that people feel that the desperation that ordinary families are feeling all across the country, every single day, when they are worrying about whether they can pay their premiums or not... People have to feel that in a visceral way. And you guys can help deliver that better than just about anybody."
Oui, mon capitan! Je get bloggin' right pronto!
Of course, there might have been a way to keep reform on track without calling on friendly new media to get the word out. President Obama, trying to avoid the mistakes that killed Clinton's attempt at health care reform, took a more hands-off approach to the issue by leaving the details up to congress. Imperial edicts handed down from the executive branch killed Clinton's plan, the thinking went, so letting congress take the reigns would make it easier to work out some sort of decent compromise.
But this strategy assumed the existence of something that wasn't actually there; Democratic congressional leadership that's worth a damn. This is especially true in the Senate, where Harry Reid seems in constant search of fences to sit on. Senate leadership would have to come from someplace else, because Reid's positively phobic of anything that doesn't have nearly unanimous support. And that leadership came from Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who may have almost literally been the absolute worst person in the world for the job.
In yet another failure to honor its promises to civil libertarians, the Obama Administration has failed to honor its own deadline for the submission of a report on its policy for the detention of terror suspects. The report was expected to give details on Obama's promise to shutdown the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
Obama has reportedly decided to give his Administration another six months.
The delay occurs at a time when the Administration has been adopting, and in some cases expanding, Bush terror policies. This includes the statement of Administration officials that, even if a detainee is acquitted in court, President Obama retained the right to hold the detainee indefinitely under his own authority.
Obama officials insist that they are making progress but simply need more time. However, when combined with the failure to order an investigation into the torture program (without outcome determinative limitations), the delay is seen as additional evidence of the reluctance of the Obama Administration to follow its clear legal obligations in this area. These detainees should not have been placed in a make-shift legal system in the first place. They should be transferred to our legal system and charged with any crimes alleged by the Administration. Instead, the Administration continues the Bush approach of rigging the system — creating special rules for detainees who would likely prevail in a fair trial.
For the full story, click here.
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Buzz Aldrin is awesome
This vid from CNN is interesting just for the Mythbusters guys alone. But to see Buzz Aldrin, the first guy to pee on the moon, clock a landing denier in the head, well, that's just priceless:
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Remember Iraq?
You remember Iraq. Lies. Bombs. Shock 'N' Awe. Hundreds of thousands dead. Millions displaced. Our military abused by its own government. A disastrously planned and disastrously executed human catastrophe that has accomplished nothing good, unless you're financially tied to the defense, oil and disaster capitalist industries. Well, the Bush Administration's signature accomplishment remains what it always has been: hell.
Despite the propaganda that things somehow are getting better, here are a few harsh facts: http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/014295.php
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Morford: Me and my 5,000 Facebook friends: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/07/17/notes071709.DTL
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Robert Reich: Obamacare is expensive because of all the giveaways to Big Pharma.
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This is what passes for journalism [not a slam on Newsday in particular, just a representative article] nowadays. And you wonder how the Chimp got away with everything he did?
We can finally stop talking about the first lady's penchant for showing off her toned arms and the national conversation can turn to something substantive: her husband's unflattering, baggy blue jeans.
Fashion bloggers are throwing spitballs at the high-waisted "mom jeans" President Barack Obama wore when he threw out the first pitch at baseball's All-Star Game this week.
...
Cronkite, Halberstam, and Murrow vomit ...
I'm waiting for one, just one, publication to write the sentence:
"Insurance companies are paying off members of Congress to oppose health care reform."
Because that's what's actually happening underneath all the political posturing; the kabuki put on for our benefit. You'd think, instead of wasting untold column inches, let alone the trees required, writing about a pair of pants on a middle-aged dad, they'd concentrate more on things that concern their readers, like whether or not they can sleep just a little bit easier knowing an illness won't wipe out what little they can squirrel away, and why our elected representatives oppose it so vehemently.
I tell ya what, 'journalists'. Why don't you try to figure out what's in Barry's pants? That might be a bit more interesting. The American people are being screwed nine ways from Sunday, by everybody (it's a target-rich environment) but heaven forbid our President wears the wrong number Levis. Idiots.
An aside: Were I the President, and I read this about myself, I'd walk around for a week in the white boxer shorts with red hearts that Mrs. F bought me. Care less where - in the Rose Garden, the Oval Office, with a suit jacket and tie at public functions too (with wingtips and white socks as well). That'd give 'em something to talk about.
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Michele Bachmann opposes public option because it's "cheaper".
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Fair & Balanced, and in the slammer for 10 years
The Fox News producer, Aaron Bruns was sentenced to 10 years in Federal Prison for child pornography.
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C-Span confirms that Repiglicans on the Senate Judiciary Committe canceled yesterday's vote on Judge Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation to the Supreme Court. It will be delayed until next Tuesday.
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Emma Thompson adopted one of the child soldiers from Rwanda, and he just graduated college. Good to remember there are some kind people in the universe!
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Then:
"We need to make the White House the people's house, and we need to close the revolving door that lets lobbyists come into government freely and lets them use their time in public service as a way to promote their own interests over the interests of the American people when they leave."
"Information will not be withheld just because I say so. It will be beheld - withheld because a separate authority
believes my request is well grounded in the Constitution," Obama said.
"Let me say it as simply as I can. Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency," Obama said.
Candidate Obama said that C-Span would record every word of the negotiation sessions regarding overhaul of the nation's health-care system. Over and again, he said the television cameras would be there as the White House, members of Congress and representatives of the health-care industry met.
Now: Using a Bush administration argument, the Obama White House "has turned down a request from a watchdog group for a list of health industry executives who have visited the White House to discuss the massive healthcare overhaul." CREW asked about visits from 18 executives, but the Secret Service replied that the documents "were considered presidential records exempt from public disclosure laws."
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Executives receive 1/3 of all pay in the U.S. http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/21/executive-pay-wsj/
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Senators finally grew a pair and voted against producing more of the expensive and useless F-22 Raptor fighter jet. [Los Angeles Times]
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Wonkette: Fake-boobed dingbat homophobe Carrie Prejean lands book deal
As Sarah Palin proved to a disgusted nation, you don't need to know how to write or even read to get a book deal in End Times America. All you need to be is a disgraced former beauty contestant who hates the same fruits and coloreds as Red State America, where illiteracy is no barrier to buying, say, a Glenn Beck book at the Wal-Mart. What do you call a dumb bigot with big hair, high heels and a few pounds of makeup? How about America's Next Top Author?
Carrie Prejean delighted Americans last year or whenever, because Perez Hilton made her say she simply does NOT care for the homosexuals doing the things white people do, such as have weddings. Then, of course, Miss Christianity was found to be a typical soft-porn Internet model, as most Christian teen-age girls turn out to be, if they're not too obese, which rules it out for about 96% of them. Then she got fired, by Donald Trump or California, we do not remember, and now she's got a book deal with esteemed wingnut publisher Regnery, which really needed a less used-up-looking Ann Coulter type to move units at CostCo.
Uh, let's see, Prejean's collection of ghost-written AM radio talking points will be called, sure, Still Standing. Because America's gay mafia hoped to cut off her legs and feed them to rats, but actually nobody wanted to do that at all, because who cares, right? So, there's the title. Pre-order now at World Net Daily or Human Events, we bet!
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President Carter leaves the Southern Baptist Church President Carter has been a faithful Baptist for decades, but no more. He has left the church, calling the split "unavoidable" after church leaders prohibited the ordination of women and declared that women are ordered to be subservient to their husbands. At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities. - and that is just the intro to what he had to say.
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