We Support Barack, Through Thick and Thin!

Finally The US Senate Acts

Richard — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 11:56:50 EST

Todays Senate vote 60-39 paves the way for universal healthcare. There is only one step remaining: Reconciliation of the House and Senate bills. I'm praying that both Houses will do what's right and pass this needed legislation!

OFA ===> Health Insurance Reform Legislative Update by Addisu from Washington, DC

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:26:43 EST

At approximately 4:00 P.M. this afternoon, Majority Leader Harry Reid filed for cloture on his manager's amendment to the Senate health reform bill. Folks, we are nearing the finish line.

Today's events mark a crucial first step towards having an up-or-down vote in the Senate on health insurance reform. After months of back and forth in committee and weeks of debate on the floor, this morning Senator Reid filed a motion to end debate and vote on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The Senate version of health insurance reform would achieve the goals President Obama set out at the beginning of this debate. It would provide more stability and security to people who have insurance by ending some of the insurance companies worst practices like denying someone coverage because of a pre-existing condition or canceling someone's coverage when they get sick. It will extend coverage to 31 million more Americans, providing coverage options for the uninsured through a new health insurance exchange, while making that coverage affordable through generous subsidies. And it would lower costs for families and businesses by increasing choice and competition. This legislation will reduce the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars in the next 10 years, and it will bend the cost curve downward.

What happens now? Sixty senators must vote to end debate, and then 51 Senators must vote to pass this historic bill. The exact timeline is anyone's guess, but Senate Democrats are working around the clock to pass the bill before Christmas.

Once the bill passes, the action moves to conference committee. Members of the House and Senate conference committee will create a final piece of legislation (blending elements of House and Senate bills) that will be voted on one more time by both chambers. Upon final passage, Congress will send that final bill to President Obama's desk for his signature.

While we have a few steps left to take and some twists and turns to go, here's what we can be sure of: President Obama will sign into law the most significant piece of social and economic legislation since Social Security, and the largest expansion of health care coverage since the creation of Medicare in 1965.

The work OFA volunteers and supporters have done and continue to do to ensure President Obama has the opportunity to sign this historic legislation into law is nothing short of amazing. Millions have taken action as part of OFA health insurance reform campaign since we kicked-off our effort on June 6th. And since August, Organizing for America has generated over 1,000,000 calls to members of Congress to demonstrate support for reform.

You've written, you called, you've visited, you haven't given up. Thank you. This holiday season, we're going to give America the gift of health insurance reform. We are going to get this done.

Addisu Demissie is the national political director for Organizing for America.

There is Hope!

Richard — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 11:53:31 EST

Sen. Bill Nelson has agreed to a compromise of the Senate health care bill. Hopefully the Democrats will hold together in spite of Republican opposition.

"March for Change We Still Believe In - Jan 15th, 2010"

korkie — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:19:04 EST

Please read and pass this on to as many people as you can. I also suggest you join "Countdown to JANUARY 15, 2010." This is the FaceBook group
responsible for this great event.
Korkie

On January 15th, 2010, Americans will gather, peacably, on the DC Mall to show our continued support for the progressive agenda our POTUS campaigned on. We voted for President Obama b/c we hoped for more from our government: more compassion, more diplomacy, more honesty, more protection, and more equality.

On January 15th, 2010, we will stand in opposition to the voices of fear, ignorance, and hate that have, thus far, garnered virtually all the attention of the main stream media and skewed the debate over issues that are far too important to ALL Americans. We've written and phoned our Representatives in the House and Senate. We've remained a diligent, anonymous, but silent majority. Now, is the time for America to see our faces and hear our voices.

January 15, 2010 - Supporting the Change We Still Believe In

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsyU0Rzw2LI

I want share this with you because it made me so happy...

Fire Is Born — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:13:58 EST

but I am not sure how the link will work. Let's see. fib

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"We made a holiday video just for you, Hanna. People from all around the country -- even President Obama -- helped out.

You can watch it here:

http://my.barackobama.com/holiday

It was a blast making it. Enjoy!

Happy holidays,

Mitch and the entire OFA community"

Let us all in CITA sent President Obama Holiday wishes

Fire Is Born — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:23:09 EST

I just did. I have included a personal message and even a picture of a huge redwood tree in Santa Cruz mountains with little me, fib, sitting on its roots in a red dress. That's California. Now is your turn. Thank you! FIB

From Nancy Pelosi:

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

As we celebrate the holiday season, I wanted to say thank you for making 2009 a year for the history books when it comes to America's progress.

This holiday season, let's show President Obama that we support him just as strongly as we did on Inauguration Day.

Please sign our Holiday Card to President Obama and the First Family and forward it to five of your friends. You can also include a personal message and upload a photograph of your own family.

Our extraordinary progress this year would not be possible without dedicated grassroots Democrats like you. You worked every day to put Main Street first, to create millions of clean energy jobs, and to make health care affordable for the middle class.

Unfortunately, your efforts have incited the anger of our Republican opponents who prefer to return to the failed policies of the last eight years. This year, we have seen one vicious and false attack after another, calling our agenda everything from "government rationing of health care" to even hanging effigies of our Democratic Members of Congress.

Yet each day you prove that no attack by Republicans and their special interest allies can stop the change we are delivering for America's middle class families and the hope we are bringing for brighter future for our country.

Please sign our Holiday Card to President Obama and the First Family and forward it to five of your friends. You can also include a personal message and upload a photograph of your own family.

Have a happy and healthy holiday season with your families and thank you again for making 2009 a year of historic progress for our nation and the world.

Best regards,

Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the House

P.S. Please sign our Holiday Card to President Obama and forward it to five of your friends. You can also upload a photograph for the President to see.

U.S. settles Indian trust account lawsuit

Fire Is Born — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 00:57:22 EST

atimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-indian-settlement9-2009dec09,0,6296252.story latimes.com

U.S. settles Indian trust account lawsuit

The government will pay $3.4 billion to end a battle over claims that it mismanaged tribal royalties for more than a century. The settlement is the largest Native Americans have received from the U.S.

By Nicholas Riccardi

December 9, 2009

Reporting from Denver

The Obama administration on Tuesday announced it would pay Native Americans $3.4 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit that claimed the federal government cheated tribes for more than a century of royalties for oil, mineral and other leases.

The settlement ends a 13-year legal battle that led to 3,600 filings, millions of pages of discovery documents and 11 separate appellate decisions. It is the largest settlement Native Americans have ever received from the federal government, eclipsing the sum of all previous settlements, according to the plaintiff's lawyers.

The dispute stemmed from a 19th century decision to grant parcels of land to individual Indians and place the properties in trust accounts. For more than a century, the plaintiffs contended, the account holders were cheated out of their share of revenues that the federal government collects for leasing that land.

"We are here to right a past wrong," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday at a Washington, D.C., news conference to announce the settlement, which still must be approved by Congress and the courts. He was joined by Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. and Elouise Cobell, the lead plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit.

"I expected this settlement 10 years ago," Cobell said. "Today we have an administration that is listening to us, an administration that is willing to admit the errors of the past."

The plaintiffs had estimated they were owed as much as $47 billion. Congress had considered, but did not pass, a nearly $8-billion settlement as recently as 2006.

Cobell said she had to weigh the possibility of winning a greater sum against the tough situations faced by many of the plaintiffs.

"Time takes a toll, especially on elders living in abject poverty," Cobell said. "Many of them died as we continued our struggle to settle this suit. Many more would not survive long to see a financial gain, if we had not settled now."

President Obama had specifically directed his Cabinet to settle the matter when he took office, Salazar said. The president issued a statement Tuesday praising the deal and urging Congress to swiftly finalize it and "correct this long-standing injustice."

"As a candidate, I heard from many in Indian country that the Cobell suit remained a stain on the nation-to-nation relationship I value so much," Obama said. "I pledged my commitment to resolving this issue, and I am proud that my administration has taken this step today."

The settlement, finalized Monday night after months of intense negotiations, provides a $1,000 cash payment to every individual who has a trust account and $2 billion for the federal government to buy back the land parcels, some of which have been subdivided so much over the decades as to become almost worthless.

The government would consolidate the parcels and then return them to tribes. It would also provide up to $60 million for scholarships for Native American children.

Salazar said he was also creating a commission to recommend how to manage the trusts in the future.

The trusts date back to the 1887 Dawes Act, which attempted to erode the tribal system by granting parcels of land to individual Native Americans.

The Indians were not allowed to control their new property. Instead, the land was placed in trust and the government promised to pay the owners royalties for oil and gas, grazing or recreational leases. For more than a century, however, Indians received little or no payment.

In the 1990s, Cobell, a banker and rancher in the Blackfoot Nation in Montana, decided to do something about it and filed a class-action suit, funded partly by nonprofit groups.

Now, the government and the plaintiffs will have to determine who gets paid and whose land can be bought. The records are in such disarray it is not clear how many individuals are affected by the settlement -- estimates range from 300,000 to 500,000 people.

Those affected are mainly in the western United States, with the greatest concentration in the Great Plains and Montana, attorneys said.

In Washington, both Salazar and Cobell said they hoped the settlement could help create a more trusting relationship between tribes and the government.

Carl W. Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia, noted that Native American distrust of the government long predates the tough stance the Department of Justice took in litigating the lawsuit.

Still, he said, the settlement could change attitudes.

"The Obama administration has made an effort to reach out to Native Americans in a number of ways," he said. "In modern times, this is probably the biggest piece of litigation" against the government over mistreatment of Indians.

"In that way, this has a lot of symbolic impact," he said.

nicholas.riccardi@latimes.com

Take a moment to save a life

korkie — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 13:50:57 EST

We are not going to get any support from the Republicans on passing any form of health care reform. Don't waste your valuable time trying to change their minds. Instead, go after the Democrats who are playing political games with our lives, while lining their pockets with donations form the medical corporation. Let them know you will not allow them to put a $$$ on the lives of our citizens.

Here are the Dems we should be putting the pressure on. Each day, take a couple minutes to send them a message. Let them know NOT voting for Health Care Reform is signing a death warrant for tens of thousands of American each and every year.

You do not have to fall under their constituency to let them know how you feel. Tell them if they do not do what is best for Americans, instead of themselves, you will do what ever you can to support their opponents come election time.

Thanks to Alan Paradis for the contact information.

Joe Lieberman
• Phone (202) 224-4041 Fax (202) 224-9750
• 706 Hart Office Building, Washington, DC 20510

Blanche Lincoln, AR
Phone: (202)224-4843 Fax: (202)228-1371
355 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510
http://lincoln.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm

Ben Nelson, NE
Phone: 1-202-224-6551 Fax: 1-202-228-0012
twitter - @SenBenNelson
720 Hart Senate Office Building, United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510
http://bennelson.senate.gov/contact-me.cfm

Mary Landrieu, LA
Voice: (202)224-5824 Fax:(202) 224-9735
328 Hart Senate Building,United States Senate,Washington, DC 20510
http://landrieu.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm

Here are some additional links you should take note of:

• http://lieberman.senate.gov/contact/
• http://www.facebook.com/pages/Joseph-Lieberman/7816456174
• Here's a link to some single payer supporters that were arrested for civil disobedience and are remaingin in jail demanding to meet with Senator Lieberman. Please help this support them and make this video viral: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Schemur6pbE
• Petition: http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/lieberman_po/
• Petition: http://boldprogressives.org/majorityvote/p-typ-fb

'Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope' by Nikki Grimes

Fire Is Born — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 04:03:47 EST

'Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope' by Nikki Grimes

Illustrated by Bryan Collier

$16.99

Buy From Amazon

Why give your kids yet another video game when you can open their minds? Nikki Grimes’s children’s book about President Obama comes with an educational guide and colorful illustrations. (Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, $16.99)

Obama: More troops for Afghanistan, with exit plan By STEVEN R. Hurst

Fire Is Born — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:10:17 EST

Obama: More troops for Afghanistan, with exit plan By STEVEN R. HURST and DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press Writers Steven R. Hurst And Darlene Superville, Associated Press Writers 24 mins ago

WEST POINT, N.Y. – Declaring "our security is at stake," President Barack Obama ordered an additional 30,000 U.S. troops into the long war in Afghanistan Tuesday night, nearly tripling the force he inherited as commander in chief. He promised an impatient public he would begin bringing units home in 18 months.

The buildup to about 100,000 troops will begin almost immediately — the first Marines will be in place by Christmas — and will cost $30 billion for the first year alone.

In a prime-time speech at the U.S. Military Academy, the president told the nation his new policy was designed to "bring this war to a successful conclusion," though he made no mention of defeating Taliban insurgents or capturing al-Qaida terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

"We must deny al-Qaida a safe haven," Obama said in spelling out U.S. military goals for a war that has dragged on for eight years. "We must reverse the Taliban's momentum. ... And we must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan's security forces and government."

The president said the additional forces would be deployed at "the fastest pace possible so that they can target the insurgency and secure key population centers."

Their destination: "the epicenter of the violent extremism practiced by al-Qaida."

"It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak," the president said.

It marked the second time in his young presidency that Obama has added to the American force in Afghanistan, where the Taliban has recently made significant advances. When he became president last January, there were roughly 34,000 troops on the ground; there now are 71,000.

After the speech, cadets in the audience — some of whom could end up in combat because of Obama's decision — climbed over chairs to shake hands with their commander in chief and take his picture.

Obama's announcement drew less-wholehearted support from congressional Democrats. Many of them favor a quick withdrawal, but others have already proposed higher taxes to pay for the fighting.

Republicans reacted warily, as well. Officials said Sen. John McCain, who was Obama's Republican opponent in last year's presidential campaign, told Obama at an early evening meeting attended by numerous lawmakers that declaring a timetable for a withdrawal would merely send the Taliban underground until the Americans began to leave.

As a candidate, Obama called Afghanistan a war worth fighting, as opposed to Iraq, a conflict he opposed and has since begun easing out of.

A new survey by the Gallup organization, released Tuesday, showed only 35 percent of Americans now approve of Obama's handling of the war; 55 percent disapprove.

He made no direct reference to public opinion Tuesday night, although he seemed to touch on it when he said, "The American people are understandably focused on rebuilding our economy and putting people to work here at home."

"After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home," he said flatly.

In eight years of war, 849 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan, Pakistan and neighboring Uzbekistan, according to the Pentagon.

In addition to beefing up the U.S. presence, Obama has asked NATO allies to commit between 5,000 and 10,000 additional troops. The war has even less support in Europe than in the United States, and the NATO allies and other countries currently have about 40,000 troops on the ground.

He said he was counting on Afghanistan eventually taking over its own security, and he warned, "The days of providing a blank check are over." He said the United States would support Afghan ministries that combat corruption and "deliver for the people. We expect those who are ineffective or corrupt to be held accountable."

As for neighboring Pakistan, the president said that country and the United States "share a common enemy" in Islamic terrorists. "We are in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country. But this same cancer has also taken root in the border region of Pakistan. That is why we need a strategy that works on both sides of the border."

The speech before an audience of cadets at the military academy ended a three-month review of the war, triggered by a request from the commanding general, Stanley McChrystal, for as many as 40,000 more troops. Without them, he warned, the U.S. risked failure.

The speech was still under way when the general issued a statement from Kabul. "The Afghanistan-Pakistan review led by the president has provided me with a clear military mission and the resources to accomplish our task," it said. McChrystal is expected to testify before congressional committees in the next several days.

Obama referred to a deteriorating military environment, but said, "Afghanistan is not lost."

The length of the presidential review drew mild rebukes from normally amiable NATO allies. There was sharper criticism from Republicans led by former Vice President Dick Cheney, who said the president was dithering rather than deciding.

Obama rebutted forcefully.

"Let me be clear: There has never been an option before me that called for troop deployments before 2010, so there has been no delay or denial of resources necessary for the conduct of the war," he told his audience of more than 4,000 cadets seated in Eisenhower Hall.

Most of the new forces will be combat troops. Military officials said the Army brigades were most likely to be sent from Fort Drum in New York and Fort Campbell in Kentucky; and Marines primarily from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

Officials said the additional 30,000 troops included about 5,000 dedicated trainers, underscoring the president's emphasis on preparing Afghans to take over their own security.

These aides said that by announcing a date for beginning a withdrawal, the president was not setting an end date for the war.

But that was a point on which McCain chose to engage the president at a pre-speech meeting with lawmakers before Obama departed for West Point. "The way that you win wars is to break the enemy's will, not to announce dates that you are leaving," McCain said later.

Obama's address represents the beginning of a sales job to restore support for the war effort among an American public grown increasingly pessimistic about success — and among some fellow Democrats in Congress wary of or even opposed to spending billions more dollars and putting tens of thousands more U.S. soldiers and Marines in harm's way.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and liberal House Democrats threatened to try to block funding for the troop increase.

Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who chairs a military oversight panel, said he didn't think Democrats would yank funding for the troops or try to force Obama's hand to pull them out faster. But Democrats will be looking for ways to pay for the additional troops, he said, including a tax increase on the wealthy although that hike is already being eyed to pay for health care costs. Another possibility is imposing a small gasoline tax that would be phased out if gas prices go up, he said.

The United States went to war in Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida terrorist attacks on the United States.

Bin Laden and key members of the terrorist organization were headquartered in Afghanistan at the time, taking advantage of sanctuary afforded by the Taliban government that ran the mountainous and isolated country.

Taliban forces were quickly driven from power, while bin Laden and his top deputies were believed to have fled through towering mountains into neighboring Pakistan. While the al-Qaida leadership appears to be bottled up in Pakistan's largely ungoverned tribal regions, the U.S. military strategy of targeted missile attacks from unmanned drone aircraft has yet to flush bin Laden and his cohorts from hiding.

___

Steven R. Hurst reported from Washington. AP White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven and National Security Writer Anne Gearan contributed to this report.

Live Blogging Obama’s Afghan Speech

Fire Is Born — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:45:25 EST

December 1, 2009, 6:47 pm

Live Blogging Obama’s Afghan Speech

By JEFF ZELENY

Ruth Fremson/

The New York Times West Point cadets waited for President Obama to speak on Tuesday.

Setting the Scene | 7:11 p.m. Sheryl Gay Stolberg, who is on site at West Point, reports:

Many speeches have been delivered at the military academy, but never before have cadets heard orders directly from a commander-in-chief who could send them into a war zone.

There is a sense of anticipation in the air. A West Point official brought a handful of carefully selected cadets – seniors with impressive resumes – to speak to reporters.

Alexandra Rosenberg, 22, of Manhattan, is a Rhodes and Truman Scholar with plans of becoming a doctor. Eric Bernau, 21, of Rochester Minn., is the cadet public affairs officer, who spent a semester studying in China. And Tyler Gordy, 26, came to West Point after serving as an infantryman and getting wounded in Iraq. He is First Captain, supervising 4,000 cadets.

Ruth Fremson/

The New York Times One cadet was reading “The Kite Runner,” a novel set in Afghanistan, while he waited for the president to speak.

The three will be among those seated behind the secretary of state and secretary of defense for Mr. Obama’s speech, which Mr. Bernau described as “the most momentous day in our four years of the academy.”

“I mean, he’s the commander in chief, he’s our boss,” Mr. Bernau said. “It’s kind of like a shareholders meeting where you hear the strategy of the company.”

These cadets will graduate as second lieutenants and platoon leaders.

While Ms. Rosenberg will go to Oxford in the fall, the other two fully expect to be deployed, and have chosen the infantry as where they want to serve.

“This doesn’t make me nervous, it doesn’t scare me or anything,” Mr. Gordy said. “I have known this for five years now. What it does is give me a sense of direction.”

Speech Preparations | 6:47 p.m. President Obama’s address to the nation from the United States Military Academy at West Point will begin at 8 p.m. He left the White House after a daylong series of calls to foreign leaders, followed by a late-afternoon briefing to Congressional leaders.

By now, broad outlines of the speech are known: 30,000 more American troops will be sent to Afghanistan; the goal for beginning to withdraw the first wave of forces will be July 2011; the strategy is aimed at preventing Al Qaeda from returning to Afghanistan, where the Sept. 11 attacks were planned.

It is the president’s burden, of course, to explain why he believes the war in Afghanistan should be escalated.(...)"

United States Senators Move!

Richard — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:32:31 EST

The Senate must get off it's duff and pass health care reform this year! It is what the majority of Americans want. Senators and that includes you Sen Leiberman do something for your constituency! Stop the political games and Act decisively for the American people who put you into office!

World Cup bid unites Hondurans divided by coup

Fire Is Born — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:30:58 EDT

Photo 7 of 11

Honduras' Carlos Pavon, right, and Donis Escuber hug after defeating El Salvador 1-0 and classifying for the 2010 World Cup at the end of a qualifying soccer match in San Salvador, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009. (AP Photo/Claudio Cruz)

s ago

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — A soccer victory that clinched Honduras' first trip to the World Cup in almost 30 years is giving its people an exhilarating distraction from the divisive political crisis that has gripped the country for the last 3 1/2 months.

Negotiators are continuing talks on whether to reinstate ousted President Manuel Zelaya. But right now Hondurans are more interested in celebrating Wednesday night's 1-0 defeat of neighboring El Salvador.

Thursday was declared a national holiday and hundreds of thousands of people celebrated outside, many welcoming the team at the airport and others lining the streets to a church where the players attended Mass.

Next year's World Cup in South Africa will be Honduras' first since 1982.

(This version CORRECTS that it will be Honduras' first trip to World Cup in almost 30 years, sted 30 years)

Medicare spending $1,023 higher for the previously uninsured,

Fire Is Born — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:51:07 EDT

Expanded Health Coverage Could Save Money LaterAfter 65, previously uninsured have more annual Medicare spending than continuously insured
Oct 6, 2009

TUESDAY, Oct. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Expanding health coverage to adults may result in later savings from reduced Medicare spending on these individuals after they turn 65, especially for the uninsured with cardiovascular disease, diabetes or severe arthritis, according to research published online Oct. 6 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
J. Michael McWilliams, M.D., of Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues analyzed data from 2,951 adults who were continuously insured before the age of 65, and another 1,616 who were continuously or sometimes uninsured before this age. They assessed annual Medicare spending after age 65 for each participant.
The researchers found that total annual Medicare spending was $1,023 higher for the previously uninsured, which was a significant difference. The previously uninsured had higher annual hospitalization rates for complications related to cardiovascular disease or diabetes (9.1 versus 6.4 percent) and joint replacement (2.5 versus 1.3 percent).
"There are good reasons to believe that insurance coverage in the pre-Medicare years would reduce expenditures during the Medicare years, and health reform advocates will certainly take heart from the authors' conclusions. Unfortunately, because the data and methods used in this study are not capable of supporting causal interpretations, the savings to Medicare are unlikely to be as large as this study suggests," writes the author of an accompanying editorial.
The study was supported by the Commonwealth Fund. Several co-authors reported relevant consulting work and legislative testimony.
Abstract
Full Text
Editorial
Copyright © 2009 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.

Hurray for Our Side!

Richard — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:40:21 EDT

The Baucus bill passed committee by a vote of 15-9 with only one Republican vote(Sen. Snowe). Hurray for our side. Now we must inform our representatives that we want the public option put back in during the conference commitee deliberations! We almost out of the woods!

Hope for a Restored Native America

Fire Is Born — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:39:17 EDT

"Dedicated to the seven generations that came before us
and the children of Indian Country today,
so their innocence and laughter may develop into wisdom
as they become the leaders of tomorrow."

Introduction

American Indian and Alaska Native cultures
hold children in a special place of honor. Children
are the gift of the Creator. The birth of a child is
celebrated and honored. Each tribe has its own
world view that tells the children their place
in the cosmos through stories and ceremonies.
The community has a sacred obligation to
instill in them the traditional knowledge of past
generations so their innocence and laughter may
develop into wisdom as they become the leaders
of the future.

For countless generations cradleboards were
used by Indian mothers to keep their infants
secure. Most cradleboards carry an umbilical
cord amulet to connect the child with past and
future generations throughout their life. We
know that in the same way, safe and nurturing
Indian communities enable Native children to
fully achieve their potential so we can honor and
continue the culture and traditions of the past
seven generations.

Unfortunately, all too often Native children
are born into circumstances that may be rich
in culture and love, but fail to meet their basic
needs of health, shelter, safety and education.
Every Indian child should have the right to
community-based, culturally appropriate
services that help them grow up safe, healthy,
and spiritually strong – free from abuse, neglect
and poverty. Our communities – tribal leaders,
parents, grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts,
uncles and families – have a vision of a restored,
safer, healthier Indian Country for our children.
Creating safe and supportive tribal communities
for our children today honors our ancestors as
well as the generations to come.

This FY 2009 Tribal Budget Request highlights key
aspects of the vision tribal leaders have expressed
to create a safe and healthy Indian Country for our
children. In developing these recommendations, we
recognize that addressing the years of under-funding
and backlogs that plague Indian Country will be
accomplished over time. The requests that follow do
not reflect the full need in Indian Country, but rather
are achievable first steps that we believe Congress
and the President should be able to support this year.

Their True Colors!

Richard — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:42:38 EDT

Now the insurance has come out against the Baucus Bill saying that it will lead to higher premiums. Why am I not surprised by this? I wasn't fooled by this self-serving industry. Our representatives and President Obama need to stand firm against this chicanery.

From Senator Clair McCaskill

Fire Is Born — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 11:06:18 EDT

I always liked Senator Clair McCaskill. fib

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The Twilight Zone

I feel that I’m in an alternative universe. For eight years some people called anyone who disagreed with the President’s foreign policy or war in Iraq unpatriotic. Then in the course of two weeks, those same people cheer when the United States does not get selected for the Olympics and boo when our President is the unanimous choice for the Nobel Peace Prize. Go figure.

Congratulations Mr. President for standing up to the scorn and derision of your opponents in the election when you firmly stood for the proposition that strength meant being willing to talk to your enemies, not just your allies. Thank you for the confidence and wisdom to say that a hand will be extended when their fist is unclenched. And thank you for understanding that our national security rests on our principles, the example we set for the world, and our alliances along with the excellence and strength of our military, rather than exclusively the latter. God Bless America.

http://clairecmc.tumblr.com/post/208582433/the-twilight-zone

Link to OrganizingforHealthCareBlog

Fire Is Born — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 10:52:34 EDT

I notice that the entire site has problems. There is no access to blogs of ANY group.

Hope it is some re-organization. Below is an URL to Chris Hass. fib

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/group/OrganizingforHealthCareBlog

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

President Barack Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

Fire Is Born — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:15:02 EDT

I am craying with tears of happiness. Can't say more now. Can you? fib

ps. It is "thick" today!!! Rejoyce!

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

President Barack Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

Play Video AP – 2009 Nobel Peace Prize goes to President Obama

AP – President Barack Obama speaks about winning the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, Friday, Oct. 9, 2009, in the … By KARL RITTER and MATT MOORE, Associated Press Writers Karl Ritter And Matt Moore, Associated Press Writers – 1 hr 30 mins ago

OSLO – President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision designed to build momentum behind his initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and stress diplomacy and cooperation rather than unilateralism.

Obama said he was surprised and deeply humbled by the honor, and planned to travel to Oslo to accept the prize, which he said he does not see "as a recognition of my own accomplishments," but rather as a recognition of goals he has set for the United States and the world.

"I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many transformative figures that have been honored by this prize," Obama said.

Many observers were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in the Obama presidency, which began less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline and has yet to yield concrete achievements in peacemaking.

Some around the world objected to the choice of Obama, who still oversees wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and has launched deadly counter-terror strikes in Pakistan and Somalia.

Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee said their choice could be seen as an early vote of confidence in Obama intended to build global support for his policies. They lauded the change in global mood wrought by Obama's calls for peace and cooperation, and praised his pledges to reduce the world stock of nuclear arms, ease American conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthen the U.S. role in combating climate change.

Aagot Valle, a lawmaker for the Socialist Left party who joined the committee this year, said she hoped the selection would be viewed as "support and a commitment for Obama."

"And I hope it will be an inspiration for all those that work with nuclear disarmament and disarmament," she told The Associated Press in a rare interview. Members of the Nobel peace committee usually speak only through its chairman.

The peace prize was created partly to encourage ongoing peace efforts but Obama's efforts are at far earlier stages than past winners'. The Nobel committee acknowledged that they may not bear fruit at all.

"He got the prize because he has been able to change the international climate," Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said. "Some people say, and I understand it, isn't it premature? Too early? Well, I'd say then that it could be too late to respond three years from now. It is now that we have the opportunity to respond — all of us."

After the prize was announced, Jagland compared the decision to give it to Obama to the prize was given to German Chancellor Willy Brandt in 1971 for his "Ostpolitik" policy of trying to find common ground with Eastern Europe, which was under Communist sway.

He said the same thing was true when then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev got the prize in 1990 after he had launched perestroika and glasnost, and allowed Eastern Europe to emerge from Kremlin control.

The selection to some extent reflects a trans-Atlantic divergence on Obama. In Europe and much of the world he is lionized for bringing the United States closer to mainstream global thinking on issues like climate change and multilateralism. At home, the picture is more complicated. As president, Obama is often criticized as he attempts to carry out his agenda — drawing fire over a host of issues from government spending to health care to the conduct of the war in Afghanistan.

U.S. Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele contended that Obama won the prize as a result of his "star power" rather than meaningful accomplishments.

"The real question Americans are asking is, What has President Obama actually accomplished?" Steele said.

Obama's election and foreign policy moves caused a dramatic improvement in the image of the U.S. around the world. A 25-nation poll of 27,000 people released in July by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found double-digit boosts to the percentage of people viewing the U.S. favorably in countries around the world. That indicator had plunged across the world under President George W. Bush.

Asked whether the prize could be seen as praising Obama's reversal of Bush administration policies, Inger-Marie Ytterhorn, a senior political adviser to the right-wing populist Progress Party told the AP that: "I guess you could read it like that."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has made no secret of his admiration for Obama, called the decision the embodiment of the "return of America into the hearts of the people of the world."

But Obama's work is far from done, on numerous fronts.

He said he would end the Iraq war but has been slow to bring the troops home and the real end of the U.S. military presence there won't come until at least 2012.

He's running a second war in the Muslim world, in Afghanistan — and is seriously considering ramping up the number of U.S. troops on the ground and asking for help from others, too.

"I don't think Obama deserves this. I don't know who's making all these decisions. The prize should go to someone who has done something for peace and humanity," said Ahmad Shabir, 18-year-old student in Kabul. "Since he is the president, I don't see any change in U.S. strategy in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Obama has said that battling climate change is a priority. But the U.S. seems likely to head into crucial international negotiations set for Copenhagen in December with Obama-backed legislation still stalled in Congress.

Former Polish President Lech Walesa, who won the prize in 1983, questioned whether Obama deserved it now.

"So soon? Too early. He has no contribution so far. He is still at an early stage. He is only beginning to act," Walesa said.

"This is probably an encouragement for him to act. Let's see if he perseveres. Let's give him time to act," Walesa said.

Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish institutions, the peace prize is given out by a five-member committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament. Like the Parliament, the committee has a leftist slant, with three members elected by left-of-center parties. Jagland said the decision to honor Obama was unanimous.

The award appeared to be at least partly a slap at Bush from a committee that harshly criticized Obama's predecessor for his largely unilateral military action in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

"Those who were in support of Bush in his belief in war solving problems, on rearmament, and that nuclear weapons play an important role ... probably won't be happy," said Valle, the Nobel Committee member.

The Nobel committee praised Obama's creation of "a new climate in international politics" and said he had returned multilateral diplomacy and institutions like the U.N. to the center of the world stage.

"You have to remember that the world has been in a pretty dangerous phase," Jagland said. "And anybody who can contribute to getting the world out of this situation deserves a Nobel Peace Prize."

Until seconds before the award, speculation had focused on a wide variety of candidates besides Obama: Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, a Colombian senator, a Chinese dissident and an Afghan woman's rights activist, among others. The Nobel committee received a record 205 nominations for this year's prize, though it was not immediately apparent who nominated Obama.

Obama is the third sitting U.S. president to win the award: President Theodore Roosevelt won in 1906 and President Woodrow Wilson was awarded the prize in 1919.

Wilson received the prize for his role in founding the League of Nations, the hopeful but ultimately failed precursor to the contemporary United Nations.

The Nobel committee chairman said after awarding the 2002 prize to former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, for his mediation in international conflicts, that it should be seen as a "kick in the leg" to the Bush administration's hard line in the buildup to the Iraq war.

Five years later, the committee honored Bush's adversary in the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore, for his campaign to raise awareness about global warming.

In July talks in Moscow, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed that their negotiators would work out a new limit on delivery vehicles for nuclear warheads of between 500 and 1,100. They also agreed that warhead limits would be reduced from the current range of 1,700-2,200 to as low as 1,500. The United States now has about 2,200 such warheads, compared to about 2,800 for the Russians.

But there has been no word on whether either side has started to act on the reductions.

Former Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, said Obama has already provided outstanding leadership in the effort to prevent nuclear proliferation.

"In less than a year in office, he has transformed the way we look at ourselves and the world we live in and rekindled hope for a world at peace with itself," ElBaradei said. "He has shown an unshakable commitment to diplomacy, mutual respect and dialogue as the best means of resolving conflicts."

Obama also has attempted to restart stalled talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, but just a day after Obama hosted the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in New York, Israeli officials boasted that they had fended off U.S. pressure to halt settlement construction. Moderate Palestinians said they felt undermined by Obama's failure to back up his demand for a freeze.

Obama was to meet with his top advisers on the Afghan war on Friday to consider a request by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, to send as many as 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan as the U.S war there enters its ninth year.

Obama ordered 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan earlier this year and has continued the use of unmanned drones for attacks on militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a strategy devised by the Bush administration. The attacks often kill or injure civilians living in the area.

Nominators for the prize include former laureates; current and former members of the committee and their staff; members of national governments and legislatures; university professors of law, theology, social sciences, history and philosophy; leaders of peace research and foreign affairs institutes; and members of international courts of law.

In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."

The committee has taken a wide interpretation of Nobel's guidelines, expanding the prize beyond peace mediation to include efforts to combat poverty, disease and climate change.

___

Associated Press writers Ian MacDougall in Oslo, Rahim Faiez in Kabul, Celean Jacobson in Johannesburg, George Jahn in Vienna, Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Poland, Matti Huuhtanen in Helsinki and Jennifer Loven in Washington contributed to this report.

___

On the Net:

http://www.nobelpeaceprize.org

Free Thursday at the CITA art gallery

Fire Is Born — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 01:22:00 EDT

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OAS leaders in Honduras

Fire Is Born — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:46:00 EDT

Honduras talks start, police break up protest

By Frank Jack Daniel Frank Jack Daniel – 2 hrs 17 mins ago

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) – Talks between representatives of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and the country's de facto leader began on Wednesday as top envoys insisted the ousted leftist be reinstated and police used tear gas on a protest.

Foreign ministers and diplomats including the head of the Organization of American States are overseeing the highest-level dialogue to take place in the coffee-growing nation since Zelaya was exiled at gunpoint three months ago.

Shortly before the meeting began, police fired volleys of tear gas to clear several hundred people marching past the U.S. Embassy in support of the logging magnate.

Police and soldiers armed with clubs and automatic weapons chased away demonstrators who shouted "Help us, OAS." Two people were injured, one by a rubber bullet and another by a gas canister, a local hospital said.

Zelaya and the OAS mission insist the president's return to power is a non-negotiable demand. De facto leader Roberto Micheletti previously ruled out that option but in recent days has not mentioned it, in a possible softening of his position.

"Those who thought it was possible to depose a president and normalize life in the country before starting an election campaign should realize that this has not been possible," OAS chief Jose Miguel Insulza said, flanked by the envoys.

A representative of Micheletti called for an end to the international isolation Honduras has suffered since the putsch and said sanctions had cost the poor country $400 million.

Honduras has a presidential election scheduled for November 29 but critics say curbs on media and public gatherings imposed by Micheletti mean the campaign will not be fair. The results may not be recognized without a prior agreement ending the crisis.

Zelaya said Micheletti only agreed to the talks to fend off international criticism and keep the de facto government going.

"They do not have the least intention of reverting the coup, they are just playing for time," he told the Telesur television channel from the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, where he has been holed up surrounded by troops since slipping back into Honduras two weeks ago.

ZELAYA ON CAMPING MATTRESS

Zelaya was toppled after drawing close to Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, whom powerful conservatives in Honduras say was advising Zelaya to extend his presidential term.

Micheletti took power after the June 28 putsch and wants his rival jailed. On Tuesday he said political amnesty was on the table but did not mention a return to office for Zelaya.

Peter Kent, Canada's junior foreign minister, said the OAS mission was pushing to have Zelaya live somewhere other than the embassy, where he sleeps on an inflatable camping mattress.

"We are realistic," Kent said. "This is not going to be achieved in a day or two days or perhaps even a week. But we believe there is room for progress."

The de facto government says the ouster of Zelaya, forced from his bed into exile by armed soldiers, is legal because he had violated the constitution.

Pro-Zelaya protests since his return to Honduras have led to clashes with security forces that caused dozens of injuries and the death of at least one protester.

Honduran rights group Cofadeh says 10 Zelaya supporters have been killed since June in violence linked to the coup.

Coups and military governments were common in Honduras for most of the 20th century. U.S. banana importer Sam Zemurray helped bring President Manuel Bonilla back to power in 1912 in return for favorable business conditions.

(Additional reporting by Gustavo Palencia, Miguel Angel Gutierrez and Ignacio Badal in Tegucigalpa and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Xavier Briand)

Tonight at the White House (for James)

Fire Is Born — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:36:56 EDT

I hope for all of us that the president's job, one day, will include mostly this sort of events. Wouldn't that be a wonderful and normal world? Peace!. fib

ps. Warning: the comments below are from the Earth. Educational, too.

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Obama stargazes from the South Lawn

14 Comments

Recommend

After a three-hour meeting on Afghanistan, President Obama gets to have some fun tonight by stargazing with kids and astronauts.

It's Astronomy Night on the South Lawn, and our Oval colleague Traci Watson describes tonight's proceedings (as well as budget challenges facing NASA):

The president will spend this evening not curled up with briefing books but instead studying the heavens through telescopes. This "star party" on the White House lawn is meant to encourage kids to take an interest in science, and to that end Obama and the first lady have invited 150 local middle-school students to stargaze, too.

Unusually in Washington, Wednesday evening was shaping up to be crystal-clear and cloudless -- perfect for viewing the universe.

Much murkier is what's in store for any students who are inspired to become astronauts. In the next few weeks, Obama will have to decide whether to plow billions of extra dollars into NASA's budget. Without that infusion of cash, America's manned space program could not "continue in any meaningful way," according to a September report by space experts convened by the White House.

At the end of the star party, all 21 telescopes scattered across the backyard of the White House will be trained on the moon. That was where astronauts were headed in 2020 in the space plan announced by President Bush in 2004. Now Obama is rethinking that idea.

"We will certainly go back to the moon at some point," John Holdren, the president's science adviser, said as he toured the star party facilities a few hours before sunset. But he couldn't say when.

If Holdren wanted more expert advice, it was easily available. Also on hand for Obama's astronomy night was Sally Ride, the first U.S. woman in space and one of the experts who warned the administration that without significant new funding NASA's human space program is doomed to irrelevance.

Ride, who said she hadn't been at the White House for at least a decade, was enthusiastic about Obama's initiatives.

"There's not very much doubt about the value of science again" in this administration, she said

Ride, an astrophysicist, won't be the only one at the event who knows her way around a telescope. Amateur observers from the Washington area and professional astronomers will be operating the equipment for the first family and students.

Also on hand will be two high school teachers dressed as Galileo and Newton, operating replicas of the telescopes used by those early stargazers.

"We're either really cool or really crazy," said Dean Howarth, a teacher at McLean High School in McLean, Va., who gets to play Newton. "If we're not here this evening, it's because the people at the front gate wouldn't let us in.

(Posted by Traci Watson and David Jackson; photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais, The Associated Press)

Help fight the Right-wingers with me:

Fire Is Born — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:31:11 EDT

*** DEADLINE MIDNIGHT TONIGHT -- ONLY $83,231 TO GO. CONTRIBUTE NOW. ***
They rant. Right wingers all over the country spent much of this summer trying to intimidate us by turning open forums into ugly shout-fests. Republican leaders were perfectly happy to encourage this, and while conservative politicians did not themselves exactly rant, they did distort the same, and yes, lie.

I gave my response to these ridiculous tactics at a public meeting in August, and I have since thought that I might have been too harsh -- on dining room tables.

Now you can reinforce the message I gave and send an even stronger one.

With the media closely watching both parties' third quarter fundraising totals, nothing would put fear in the hearts of the right wing extremists who are propagating this kind of nonsense than for us to out-raise them online. Right now we're just $83,231 away from our Million Dollar Goal.

Show your support for President Obama's health insurance reform. Help us raise just $83,231 more by our Midnight Deadline. For every dollar you give, a group of Democrats will match with two dollars of their own.

The lunacy we saw this summer by the right-wing fringe isn't letting up. Following his contemptible outburst at President Obama, Republican Congressman Joe Wilson raised over $2 million in contributions.

But even worse, Wilson's now taking his act on the road, traveling the country to raise money for Republican House Members and candidates. We have to respond.

This is make-or-break time for health insurance reform. With the media closely watching, President Obama needs grassroots Democrats to stand strong. Your support will help us gain the momentum we need to finish the job on health insurance reform.

Contribute $35, $50 or more by MIDNIGHT tonight and your gift will be triple matched by other Democrats.

Thank you,

Barney Frank

P.S. This is make-or-break time for health insurance reform. The media is closely watching to see which side has the momentum. Please give generously.

*A group of Democrats will match your donation today. For every dollar that you donate, these Democrats will donate two dollars of their own.
If you are having trouble with any of the links, cut and paste the following into your browser:
http://www.dccc.org/barneyfrank1

Senate Democrats

Richard — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 12:35:39 EDT

The Senate Democrats hold the key to whether we will have health care Reform this year! It's time for them to step up to the plate for all Americans! The GOP is not going to vote for this legislation no matter who proposes it! They are just using stall tactics in an effort to kill it!

Honduras: Day 86

Fire Is Born — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:51:05 EDT

I pray for all Honduran people and for the just peace in Central America. fib

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The Road to Zelaya’s Return: Money, Guns and Social Movements in Honduras

Written by Benjamin Dangl

Monday, 21 September 2009

Nearly three months after being overthrown in a violent military coup, ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya has returned to Honduras. "I am here in Tegucigalpa. I am here for the restoration of democracy, to call for dialogue," he told reporters. The embattled road to his return tested regional diplomacy, challenged Washington and galvanized Honduran social movements.

OFA ===> Host or Attend a Health Reform Phone Booth

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 04:43:57 EDT

From Organizing for America Deputy Director, Jeremy Bird:

Last week the President laid out his health reform plan and challenged Congress to act. OFA volunteers leapt into action, generating hundreds of thousands of signatures and calls to show grassroots support. Now we need to reach out in our communities, spread the facts about the President's plan, and bring new voices of support into Washington.

If you can spare your lunch hour (or a couple of hours whenever you're free), you can help make it happen. Here's how: Organize or attend a "Health Reform Phone Booth."

It's simple: Just join up with other supporters in a public area where people will pass by, distribute fact sheets about the President's plan, and help folks call their members of Congress on the spot to voice their support.
You can search online to see if there's a booth already set up near you. But if not, just host your own! We'll give you all the materials, phone numbers, and step-by-step instructions you need to make it a success -- and when you register your Phone Booth online, other OFA volunteers can join you to lend a hand:

http://my.barackobama.com/SeptPhoneBooth

Passing health reform won't be easy -- they've been talking about it in Washington for almost a century. But we know that when ordinary people who believe in change reach out, spread the facts, and help folks from all walks of life make their voices heard, we can make history.

Thanks for making it happen,

Jeremy

Jeremy Bird
Deputy Director
Organizing for America

P.S. -- In August we asked a few OFA volunteers to test out running a Health Reform Phone Booth in their area, and we got great reports -- even from folks who were pretty nervous before they began. Here are just a couple:
I will confess that I questioned my decision to host an event the instant I hit the send button. I imagined myself on a street corner, handing out fliers like the guys hand out restaurant flyers. Relief struck when the first volunteer signed up with me. Imagine how thrilled I was when 15 had signed up!... We distributed 300 phone booth sheets and 600 info sheets... The best part, one of our volunteers was 79 1/2 years old. She was remarkable. Thank you for this opportunity. I am very glad I did it, no matter how nervous I was.
-- Mark P. from New York, New York
We had two veterans tell us that they were very happy with the VA system, and one vowed to write a letter to the editor to dispel the myths that that system doesn't work. Many people thanked us for having a booth and for trying to dispel the lies being spread by opponents of reform.
-- Mike O. from Bozeman, Montana

I've had it!

Fire Is Born — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:51:26 EDT

END WAR ON DRUGS! BASTA. NO SOCIAL REFORMS WILL HELP AS LONG AS THIS GOES ON. fib

ps. as a recovering addict of alcoholic preference, i know how tough it has been to recover from my legal addiction. what hope am i going to offer to my active adict friends? this?! fib

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Gunmen kill 10 at Mexico drug treatment center By ALICIA A. CALDWELL,

Associated Press Writer Alicia A. Caldwell,

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Gunmen burst into a drug treatment center in the northern Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and shot to death 10 people, the second such mass killing this month.

Police say nine men and one woman were killed in the attack just before midnight Tuesday at the Anexo de Vida center in Mexico's most violent city. Two people were seriously wounded.

Enrique Torres, a spokesman for Chihuahua state police, said Wednesday the identities of the gunmen and the motive for the attack have not yet been established.

But officials have said in the past that drug gangs may be using treatment centers to recruit dealers, or may be targeting them to eliminate rivals.

Most of the victims are believed to have been recovering addicts staying at the facility.

"Why? Why them?" said Pilar Macias, weeping after she identified the body of her brother, Juan Carlos Macias, 39. "He was recovering, he wanted to get back on the right track and they didn't let him, they didn't give him a chance."

"This is going to kill my mother," Macias said. "She's very sick and this is going to kill her."

Macias said the mother had encouraged her son to enter the facility for treatment of his cocaine addiction three months ago.

Maria Hernandez also had come to the state prosecutor's office to identify the body of her 25-year son.

"He was good, he didn't hang out with gangs, he didn't have 'narco' friends," she said. "He just began with marijuana, and then ... they killed him."

Pools of dry blood and bloodied footprints were visible Wednesday in the courtyard of the drug and alcohol rehab center where the shooting occurred.

The center is located in a poor neighborhood with dirt streets, some of which were impassable due to recent rains.

On Sept. 2, gunmen lined patients against a wall at another rehabilitation center in Ciudad Juarez and then riddled them with bullets, killing 18.

Five men were killed at another rehabilitation center in June, and in August 2008, gunmen barged into a pastor's sermon at a rehabilitation center and opened fire, killing eight people. Authorities have not said if any of the attacks are related.

Ciudad Juarez has seen the worst of the nation's drug violence, with more than 1,300 deaths this year. The bloodshed has continued despite a buildup in troops since March.

Early Wednesday, gunmen burst into a bar in Ciudad Juarez and shot to death five men, police said. They said they knew of no motive for the attack.

Surging gang violence has claimed 13,500 lives since President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006 and deployed extra soldiers across the country to fight cartels.

Also Wednesday, police in the southern state of Guerrero reported they had found the decomposed bodies of four men by the side of a highway. Because of their poor condition, the cause of death and identity of the bodies has not yet been established.

Health Care Speech

Richard — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:11:41 EDT

President Obama's speech on Health Care was excellent! He showed a mastery of the issue! The President voiced a real comittment to this needed legislation!

Union membership in California increases despite recession

Fire Is Born — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:37:17 EDT

"It's quite amazing that the recession hasn't caused a decline in unionization," said Lauren Appelbaum, lead author of the study.

Recessions tend to batter union jobs, particularly in the manufacturing sector, experts say. In the current recession, however, California manufacturing has fared somewhat better than elsewhere in the nation. Appelbaum said the residential-construction sector, which is relatively nonunion, was hit hard.

Union growth in California has been driven by the state's emergence as a hub of grass-roots organization, especially among low-wage employees like janitors, healthcare workers and security guards, said Appelbaum and Chris Tilly, the institute's director and a professor of urban planning at UCLA.

"Unions have developed strategies that seem to be much more successful, and they're adding members," Tilly said.(...)"

Guaranteed Health Care In Iraq - But Not For You

korkie — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:28:16 EDT

You might want to sit down to read this one .......

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-dorlester/guaranteed-health-care-in_b_280528.html

How to Watch the Speech

Fire Is Born — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 07:07:26 EDT

How to Watch the Speech

By David M. Herszenhorn

Charles Dharapak/Associated Press

A meeting on health care reform in Reston, Va.

In his speech to Congress on Wednesday night, President Obama will press his case for major health care legislation, not just with lawmakers in the audience, but also with a deeply wary public watching at home.

And while Mr. Obama will probably talk in clear, plain-spoken terms, decoding his remarks and the reaction he gets will require both a careful ear and a keen eye. Here are some of the main things to listen and look for:

Will he reiterate his support for a government-run insurance plan — or finally state outright that he can accept a compromise that might disappoint liberals?

Will the president give a shout-out to influential Republicans like Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa — or threaten to barrel over opponents?

Will centrist lawmakers sit on their hands — or give him a big ovation?

Will Mr. Obama reassure elderly voters worried about Medicare cuts? Can he do that even while explaining how the country can afford to subsidize health coverage for more than 40 million Americans who currently have none?

Beyond those big questions, here’s an armchair guide to watching the president’s big speech at home.(...)"

AMERICANS UNITED FOR HEALTH CARE AND INSURANCE REFORM ~

korkie — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 07:52:56 EDT

C. Press Release Julie paulsen

AMERICANS UNITED FOR HEALTH CARE AND INSURANCE REFORM

http://www.americansunitedhcr.wordpress.com

Sioux City, Iowa 51108

Phone/Fax (712) 239-0992

Direct Questions to:

americansunitedhcr@cableone.net

Press Release

Contact: Julie Paulsen

americansunitedhcr@cableone.net

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

9 A.M. CDT, August 31, 2009

AMERICANS UNITED FOR HEALTH CARE & INSURANCE REFORM RALLY & March in Washington, D.C. Sept. 13, 2009

Sioux City, August 31, 2009: A rally/march will be held in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 13, 2009 between 12N – 5pm in support of the administrations health care and health insurance reform goals. It is the goal of Americans United for Health Care and Insurance Reform to let congress know that all Americans need health care and insurance. Over 47 million Americans are uninsured and millions more are underinsured or at risk of losing their health insurance

The rally/march will begin at the Lincoln Memorial and march to the steps of the Capitol Building via the National Mall. This rally/march will be peaceful.

Robert Reich has given his support to this rally and march, “….I just want Congress to know how many Americans want universal health care and will settle for no less than complete coverage and no less than a public insurance option, to keep private insurers honest. So I’m happy to lend my support to whatever you are doing.”

Americans have enjoyed the freedom of movement, speech and employment. It is time that American citizens have the freedom that comes from knowing they have affordable health care for themselves and their families. Health care is not just for the privileged but it is a fundamental right.

Other groups marching on September 13, 2009 for health care reform are Congressman Fattah’s “March for Healthcare”, “Medicare for All”, and “March on Washington for Health Care.”

We invite all those who wish to participate visit our web blog at http://www.americansunitedhcr.wordpress.com and register to rally.

For more information please see our web blog (address above)Please direct all questions to our committee at americansunitedhcr@cableone.net.

Americans United for Health Care and Insurance Reform is not affiliated with Organizing for America or the Democratic National Committee or affiliated with any other groups, special interests or lobbying forums

Dear Mr. President

korkie — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 07:48:32 EDT

We've worked to hard to get you here and have earned the promises you made to us.
Do you remember 'YES WE CAN.' We certainly remember, 'YES WE DID.'

We did our part, will you do yours? The Health Care Reform is worthless without Public Option. It will still allow insurance companies to control the costs, and continue to make it out of reach for many millions Americans.

There are many reasons our citizens die. One should not be because they can not afford medical insurance.
Will you write a letter to their relatives expressing your condolences and tell 'them next time around maybe we will get this right.'

Urgent: Congressman Hall 'Health Care Town Hall' Vigil in Westchester

korkie — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:46:36 EDT

Dear All,

I've been looking to attend a local Town Hall re: Health Care Reform. John Hall is calling one for tomorrow night in Mt. Kisco at Fox Lane HS from 7-8:30pm. Details below. This is your chance to participate locally. I know the last time I sent you information it was too far away. Also, MoveOn is having an orientation webcast at 9pm tonight at this link: It will only be 15 minutes.
http://www.moveon.org/augustrecess/vigils/call.html?id=17077-2335868-ZazEcux&t=1

Please come!!!!! It's so important to have a large group of rational people. See you there.

Best regards,

Carole

Carole Gersten, LMSW, CRS
cmgersten@aol.com
(914) 736-0489 office
(914) 837-4332 cell

From: DJRigg
To: istevens@bestweb.net
BCC: Cmgersten
Sent: 8/31/2009 6:23:38 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Subj: Urgent: Congressman Hall 'Health Care Town Hall' in Westchester

Congressman John Hall will be holding a Health Care Town Hall this week in Bedford.

We know that the opponents of Health Care reform will try to disrupt and muddle fair conversation. We need your help to make this a real event and not some Fox News spectacle.

Please attend! And Please bring your family and friends.

Wednesday, September 2

7:00-8:30pm

Fox Lane High School

Mary Lou Meese Theater

Route 172, Bedford

Thank you! - Darren Rigger

Washington, D.C. Rally and March, September 13, 2009

korkie — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 22:03:27 EDT

Americans United for Health Care and Insurance Reform is now on Face Book and Twitter thanks to Thomas Auzinger. Please become friends and send to all your friends and all their friends. This is the most important cause we have in 2009 … getting Congress to pass legislation to insure every single American. Health care and insurance is not just for the privileged – it’s a right for every American.

Face Book:          http://apps.facebook.com/causes/343051?m=3a78f223
Twitter:                http://twitter.com/jpcravescoffee
URL:                       http://americansunitedhcr.wordpress.com

Remember, register to rally! Pass out flyers! Twitter!

Thanks for all you do!

Julie
2012POLITICS@gmail.com

Senator Kennedy

Richard — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 08:51:30 EDT

Senator Kennedy was an inspiring politian. He examplified the American Spirit! Hopefully his spirit will translate Congress into Action on the health issue that affects all Americans!

Mexico now has one of the world's most liberal laws for drug users

Fire Is Born — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:10:06 EDT

Gracias a Dios! Thanks Obama Adminstration for not messing up with the neighbor's business.

Yes we can - too! fib

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Mexico's new drug use law worries US police By JULIE WATSON, Associated Press Writer Julie Watson, Associated Press Writer 47 mins ago MEXICO CITY – Mexico now has one of the world's most liberal laws for drug users after eliminating jail time for small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and even heroin, LSD and methamphetamine.

"All right!" said a grinning Ivan Rojas, a rail-thin 20-year-old addict who endured police harassment during the decade he has spent sleeping in Mexico City's gritty streets and subway stations.

But stunned police on the U.S. side of the border say the law contradicts President Felipe Calderon's drug war, and some fear it could make Mexico a destination for drug-fueled spring breaks and tourism.

Tens of thousands of American college students flock to Cancun and Acapulco each year to party at beachside discos offering wet T-shirt contests and all-you-can-drink deals.

"Now they will go because they can get drugs," said San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne. "For a country that has experienced thousands of deaths from warring drug cartels for many years, it defies logic why they would pass a law that will clearly encourage drug use."

Enacted last week, the Mexican law is part of a growing trend across Latin America to treat drug use as a public health problem and make room in overcrowded prisons for violent traffickers rather than small-time users.

Brazil and Uruguay have already eliminated jail time for people carrying small amounts of drugs for personal use, although possession is still considered a crime in Brazil. Argentina's Supreme Court ruled out prison for pot possession on Tuesday and officials say they plan to propose a law keeping drug consumers out of the justice system.

Colombia has decriminalized marijuana and cocaine for personal use, but kept penalties for other drugs.

Officials in those countries say they are not legalizing drugs — just drawing a line between users, dealers and traffickers amid a fierce drug war. Mexico's law toughens penalties for selling drugs even as it relaxes the law against using them.

"Latin America is disappointed with the results of the current drug policies and is exploring alternatives," said Ricardo Soberon, director of the Drug Research and Human Rights Center in Lima, Peru.

As Mexico ratcheted up its fight against cartels, drug use jumped more than 50 percent between 2002 and 2008, according to the government, and today prisons are filled with addicts, many under the age of 25.

Rojas has spent half his life snorting cocaine and sniffing paint thinner as he roamed Mexico City's streets in a daze. Most days he was roused awake by police demanding a bribe and forcing him to move along, he said.

"It's good they have this law so police don't grab you," said Rojas, whose name, I-V-A-N, is tattooed across his knuckles.

Rojas hit bottom three weeks ago when he could not score enough money for drugs by begging and found himself shaking uncontrollably. He accepted an offer for help from workers from a drug rehabilitation center who approached him on the street.

"Drugs were finishing me off," said Rojas, whose 13-year-old brother died of an overdose eight years ago. "I lost my brother. I lost my youth."

Juan Martin Perez, who runs Caracol, the nonprofit center helping Rojas, said the government has poured millions of dollars into the drug war but has done little to treat addicts. His group relies on grants from foundations.

The new law requires officials to encourage drug users to seek treatment in lieu of jail, but the government has not allocated more money for organizations like Caracol that are supposed to help them.

Treatment is mandatory for third-time offenders, but the law does not specify penalties for noncompliance.

"This was passed quickly and quietly but it's going to have to be adjusted to match reality," Perez said.

Supporters of the change point to Portugal, which removed jail terms for drug possession for personal use in 2001 and still has one of the lowest rates of cocaine use in Europe.

Portugal's law defines personal use as the equivalent of what one person would consume over 10 days. Police confiscate the drugs and the suspect must appear before a government commission, which reviews the person's drug consumption patterns. Users may be fined, sent for treatment or put on probation.

Foreigners caught with drugs still face arrest in Portugal, a measure to prevent drug tourism.

The same is not true for Mexico, where there is no jail time for anyone caught with roughly four marijuana cigarettes, four lines of cocaine, 50 milligrams of heroin, 40 milligrams of methamphetamine or 0.015 milligrams of LSD.

That's what concerns U.S. law enforcement at the border.

"It provides an officially sanctioned market for the consumption of the world's most dangerous drugs," San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said. "For the people of San Diego the risk is direct and lethal. There are those who will drive to Mexico to use drugs and return to the U.S. under their influence."

Don Thornhill, a retired Drug Enforcement Administration supervisor who investigated Mexican cartels for 25 years, said Mexico's rampant drug violence will likely deter most U.S. drug users, and the new law will allow Mexican police to focus on "the bigger fish."

The Bush administration criticized a similar bill proposed in Mexico in 2006, prompting then-President Vicente Fox to send it back to Congress. But Washington has stayed quiet this time, praising Calderon for his fight against drug cartels — a struggle that has seen some 11,000 people killed since Calderon took office in 2006.

"We work with Mexico every day to combat illegal drugs and cartel violence," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said when asked about the law. "And we look forward to continuing that cooperation."

_____

Associated Press writers Marco Sibaja in Brasilia, Vivian Sequera in Bogota, Harold Heckle in Madrid, Elliot Spagat in San Diego, Olga Rodriguez in Mexico City and Matt Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

The Public Option

Richard — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 15:35:20 EDT

President Obama I hope your listening. We must have a public option in the healthcare equation! I supported you and President Obama you need to Lead this debate. The Republicans will never be for a bipartisan plan. So with a Democratic majority in both Houses do the right thing and get on with it!

The Health Care Debacle

Richard — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 07:58:28 EDT

Greed and Stupidity are what is preventing America from enacting health care reform! Greed from Wall Street to Main Street and Stupidity among those who believe the Right Wing Lies! How does one deal with these factors?

I am having problems...

TSAH from Virginia — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 23:37:59 EDT

... I have not been here for a while and I cannot view all post? Any suggestions?

In 2007 the top .01 percent of American earners took home 6 percent of total U.S. wages, a figure that has nearly doubled since 2000

Fire Is Born — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 12:20:26 EDT

I found this article on a trail of reads that started with CR's post below on the First Family Western touring.That's web browsing for you! Doug, thank you for your passionate posts advocating for the bottom 4% of US to get health insurance too. Here we learn about the TOP "decile". fib

"Though income inequality has been growing for some time, the paper paints a stark, disturbing portrait of wealth distribution in America. Saez calculates that in 2007 the top .01 percent of American earners took home 6 percent of total U.S. wages, a figure that has nearly doubled since 2000. "

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Income Inequality Is At An All-Time High: STUDY

huffingtonpost.com — Income inequality in the United States is at an all-time high, surpassing even levels seen during the Great Depression, according to a recently updated paper by University of California, Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez. The paper, which covers data through 2007, points to a staggering, unprecedented disparity in American incomes.

http://digg.com/politics/Income_Inequality_Is_At_An_All_Time_High_STUDY

Unflagging!

kid5rivers2 O.B.O.B. — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 17:45:11 EDT

I'M FIRED UP AND READY TO GO!

We raised that battlecry during the election campaign. We gotta raise our voices again in support of the Health Care reform!

I'M FIRED UP AND READY TO GO!

How bout you?

“Should I Be Tested for Cancer? Maybe Not and Here’s Why.”

Fire Is Born — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 10:58:35 EDT

Dr. Welch's essay touches upon the uneasy grounds of our health business that I have known from my own experience. I am glad somebody elso wrote it first, and is a physician. FIB

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July 28, 2009

Essay

To Overhaul the System, ‘Health’ Needs Redefining

By H. GILBERT WELCH, M.D.

"The Canadians haven’t figured it out. Neither have the Japanese, the French or the British. No health care system has seriously grappled with the question most fundamental to its task: what constitutes health?

As the United States contemplates an overhaul of its system, maybe we should take a stab at it.

For years the question has been deferred to those with a financial interest in the answer — health professionals entwined with pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology firms, manufacturers of medical devices and diagnostic technologies, free-standing diagnostic centers, surgical centers, hospitals and academic medical centers — a group aptly labeled some 30 years ago by the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine as the “medical-industrial complex.”

It’s an industry that has learned a lot over those years. I know, because I’ve been part of it. And increasingly it has settled on a most convenient answer: health is the absence of abnormality.

In the past, people sought health care because they were sick. Now the medical-industrial complex seeks patients. It encourages those with minor symptoms to be evaluated and urges those who feel well to get “checked” — just to make sure nothing is wrong.

So, if health is the absence of abnormality, the only way to know you are healthy is to become a customer.

But healthy people aren’t great customers; they’re like the people who pay off their entire credit card balance each month. The money is in those in whom an abnormality can be found.

The medical-industrial complex has made that relatively easy to do.

It develops diagnostic technologies able to find smaller and smaller abnormalities. So more and more of us are found to have damaged cartilage in our knees, bulging discs in our backs, and narrowed blood vessels throughout our bodies. And far too many are also found to have “spots” or “shadows” that are seldom significant but are said to be “worrisome.” So more and more of us have knee surgery, back surgery, angioplasty and more diagnostic investigation.

And the medical-industrial complex has another way to find more abnormalities: it simply narrows the definition of normal. Take blood pressure. In the past, relatively few were said to have abnormal blood pressure. Now a normal blood pressure is said to be below 120/80. This means that well over half the adult population of the United States is abnormal. The same is true for cholesterol. And although it involves a smaller portion of the population, narrower definitions of normal are expanding the number of people said to have diabetes and osteoporosis. So more and more of us are treated for these conditions.

Finding more abnormalities has been a great strategy for our industry. But it has been a disaster for health-care costs.

Some believe that finding more abnormalities is the right strategy to improve the nation’s health, but how much it reduces death and disability is open to debate. The new abnormalities being found are generally not severe, but mild: they are not life-threatening, and in many patients they won’t ever produce symptoms. When the benefit of treatment is known, it is known to be small — so small that many people, sometimes hundreds, must be treated for one person to benefit. But more often than not, the value of treating these mild abnormalities is simply not known.

What is known is that others are invariably harmed in the process. Admittedly, the harms are often mild — lightheadedness or fainting from too much blood pressure medication, for example. But occasionally they are more severe, even fatal; last year, for instance, a major study of intensive diabetes treatment was stopped because it caused more deaths.

But while these harms are rare, so are the benefits— if they exist at all. Nevertheless, the medical-industrial complex has systematically exaggerated the benefits and minimized or ignored the harms. The reality is more nuanced: whether a strategy does more good than harm is often a much closer call than is ever advertised.

And then there is a larger question. How does “absence of abnormality” affect our perception of health? This construct is both too narrow and too broad. It’s too narrow because there is more to being healthy than striving to avoid death and disease. Health is more than a physical state of being; it’s also a state of mind.

And it’s too broad because all of us harbor abnormalities. The construct drives the system to look for things to be wrong — a search that will be successful in most of us. We then feel more vulnerable. This induced vulnerability undermines the very sense of well-being and resilience that in many ways defines health itself. Viewing health as the absence of abnormality thus conflicts with the desire for a healthier society.

Furthermore, the strategy has created a host of other problems: doctors who are overwhelmed by the number of ailments their patients allegedly have (and who are often distracted from the most important ones); doctors in training who are increasingly confused about who is really sick and who is not; lawyers who increasingly have a field day with the charge of “failure to diagnose”; patients who get too much treatment or lose health insurance because they been given a new diagnosis; and a frazzled, fearful public adrift in a culture of disease. Oh, and did I mention that it has been a disaster for health-care costs?

If you are one of the millions of Americans adversely affected by the unrelenting growth of health costs — an employer that can’t afford insurance or a patient who can’t afford prescription drugs or can’t find insurance at all — you have to take back responsibility for deciding what health really means, not surrender that decision to “experts” with strong financial incentives.

And even if you are one of the few who doesn’t need to worry about money, you still need to take back this responsibility. Your health may depend on it."

H. Gilbert Welch, a professor of medicine at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice in Hanover, N.H., is the author of “Should I Be Tested for Cancer? Maybe Not and Here’s Why.”

Food for your thought: Why Don't We Globalize Health Care?

Fire Is Born — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:34:44 EDT

Since I have been on the move this last decade I have done a lot of medical tourism - in Poland, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Very helpful, as I was without insurance in this country for a good couple of years. I could not efford to buy COBRA - and Keiser did not want to give it to me in the first place. And I was in a "Let's go!" mood again. Why not globalization? Business is business, after all. FIB

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Why Don't We Globalize Health Care?

By DEAN BAKER

With the rising cost of healthcare now atop the national agenda, one theme rings like a frustrating refrain: healthcare is special, so the tools we use to fix normal economic problems don’t apply. What good is mass production in confronting the complexities of the body? How can cost-benefit analysis grasp the unfixable value of a human life?

There is at least one tenet of modern economic policy, however, that we are excluding from the healthcare debate at our peril: globalization.

It may seem bizarre to suggest that globalization could somehow improve healthcare. After all, the practice of medicine is not only deeply individual, but tightly tied to time and place. Apart from possibly buying drugs from Canada, most people have probably never given any thought to the idea that globalization could have a meaningful impact on healthcare in the United States. But globalization, carefully applied, could reduce costs in the short term and create pressure for the bigger changes our system desperately needs.

There are clear ways to take advantage of lower costs in other countries, making our own system more affordable without diminishing the quality. We could allow more foreign-born doctors to work in the United States, for instance. We could encourage the “medical tourism” that allows Americans to have major procedures performed in other countries, and we could permit Medicare beneficiaries to buy into the lower-cost healthcare systems of other wealthy countries.

From Quinnipac: There is still strong support for critical elements of the Obama/Democratic plan

Fire Is Born — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:40:57 EDT

"There is still strong support for critical elements of the Obama/Democratic plan:

* 62 - 32 percent in favor of giving people the option of a government insurance plan;

* 61 - 36 percent for higher taxes on high income earners to pay for health care reform;

* 60 - 32 percent in favor of insurance subsidies for individuals making up to $43,000 and families of four making up to $88,000;

* 54 - 38 percent for requiring businesses to provide insurance or pay the government.

Voters oppose 68 - 26 percent requiring people to have health insurance or pay a fine and oppose 68 - 27 percent taxing employees for health care benefits from employers. Independent voters, perhaps the key voting group, are more worried about the deficit rising than congressional inaction, 54 - 37 percent. These voters say 59 - 36 percent that overhaul should not occur if it would "significantly" increase the deficit. Independents oppose 63 - 33 percent passing a bill with only Democratic votes."

Unions To Take On Conservative Groups Health Care Town Halls

Fire Is Born — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:22:42 EDT

huffingtonposthttp://bit.ly/VZVd2 - Unions To Take On Conservative Groups Health Care Town Hallsabout 3 hours ago from API

A Job Well Done!

Richard — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 19:28:56 EDT

The return of the two journalists by President Clinton illustrates the value of team work. Vice President Gore, President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, and countless others helped to secure their release. Letters, e-mails to the journalists and their families kept their hopes up during this crisis. A Job well done!

Without a Pastor of His Own, President Obama Turns to Five (Part II)

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 10:33:09 EDT

Bishop Jakes said he had been tapped for several prayer phone calls -- the most recent being when Mr. Obama's grandmother died in November, two days before the election. "You take turns praying," said Bishop Jakes, who like the other ministers did not want to divulge details of the calls. "It's really more about contacting God than each other."

Mr. Hunter said of the phone calls: "The times I have prayed with him, he's always initiated it.

Mr. Wallis said he got to know Mr. Obama in the late 1990s when they participated in a traveling seminar that took bus trips to community programs across the country. Mr. Wallis said they "hit it off" because they were both Christians serious about their faith, fathers of young children the same age and believers in "transcending left and right" to find solutions to social problems.

"He and I were what we called back then 'progressive Christians,' as opposed to the dominant religious-right era we were in then," Mr. Wallis said. "We didn't think Jesus' top priorities would be capital gains tax cuts and supporting the next war."

Pinning down Mr. Obama's theological leanings is not easy, the ministers said in interviews. They said he is well read in the Bible, but has not articulated views consistent with the racially inflected interpretation of his former pastor, Mr. Wright.

Mr. Moss, who once worked alongside the Rev. Dr. King Jr., said of the president, "I would simply say that he is a person of great faith, and I think that faith has sustained him."

Mr. Moss's son is the Rev. Otis Moss III.

Bishop Jakes is himself a nationally known preaching powerhouse who fills sports stadiums and draws 30,000 worshipers to his church in Dallas, the Potter's House. He also produces movies, writes books and runs antipoverty programs in Dallas and Kenya, where Mr. Obama has ties through his Kenyan father.

Mr. Hunter, who leads a church in Longwood, Fla., said he was approached by Mr. DuBois in 2007 -- a few months after he left his new post as head of the Christian Coalition, the conservative advocacy group, because the board did not want to enlarge its agenda to include environmental issues like global warming.

He has since written a book, "A New Kind of Conservative: Cooperation Without Compromise," and gave an invocation at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last year. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/us/politics/15pastor.ready.html?_r=2

Single Payer Gets A Vote!!

Fire Is Born — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 02:02:53 EDT

Single Payer Gets A Vote (Updated)

July 31, 2009

"Anthony Weiner is about to be the new hero of the progressive crowd after getting a promise from Nancy Pelosi to debate — and vote — on a single-payer plan to solve health care reform.

Weiner got that promise after he agreed to withdraw an amendment to essentially create Medicare for the whole nation in the Energy and Commerce Committee health care markup session this evening.

The Brooklyn-Queens Rep. looked a little surprised when Chairman Henry Waxman said Pelosi would allow that vote, and made Waxman repeat the deal to be sure it was clear and on the record.

It’s an especially big deal for advocates of a single health care system — who see it as cheaper and simpler than the complicated measure being drawn up — because they have been complaining that they have not even been able to get an airing of their position.

And having the vote of the floor of the House will force members to declare a position, and bring much more attention to the idea.

Update: Weiner, who high-fived Tammy Baldwin after getting the deal, crows in a quick press release:

“It’s a Better Plan and now it’s on Center Stage,” says Weiner

Washington, DC - Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), Chairman of the Energy & Commerce Committee announced today that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has pledged to give Single-Payer an up or down vote when healthcare reform is considered before year’s end.

Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY), Co-Chair of the Middle Class Caucus and member of the Energy & Commerce Committee who led the effort with Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI); Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA); Rep. Elliot Engel (D-NY); Rep. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL); Rep. Janice Schakowsky (D-IL); and Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT), released the following statement:

“Single-payer is a better plan and now it is on center stage. Americans have a clear choice. Their Member of Congress will have a simpler, less expensive and smarter bill to choose. I am thrilled that the Speaker is giving us that choice.”

- Michael McAuliff"

Please sign the letter on health care to senators!

Fire Is Born — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:42:28 EDT

I like the ad too. fib

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http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/5649/t/4772/content.jsp?content_KEY=2697&tag=pob_pob_tw1

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Senators,

Some of your colleagues, such as Ben Nelson, are delaying action on President Obama's public health insurance option -- which would force private insurers to compete and lower health care costs for your constituents.

This is the latest tactic from an insurance industry that fears competition: Stop reform by stalling it. Kill momentum at all costs.

While 76% of Americans support the public option, sitting Democratic Senators have received $80 million from the health and insurance interests that oppose it.

Senators, which side will you choose? If you side with your constituents, don't delay reform. Keep working until the public option is passed.

We can't afford to wait.

Sincerely,

Crucial vote on single-payer Medicare for All ( H.R.676 ) today!

Fire Is Born — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:49:19 EDT

crucial vote on single-payer Medicare for All ( H.R.676 ) - please call

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One week ago, we eagerly anticipated a crucial vote on single-payer Medicare for All ( H.R.676 ) in the House Energy & Commerce Committee, sponsored by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY). But then seven BlueDogs waged a highly-publicized war against a "robust public option" and the vote was delayed for a full week.

We just learned the vote will be tomorrow ( Friday ). Based on all of your calls, we have nine single-payer Democrats: Tammy Baldwin, Michael Doyle, Eliot Engel, Anna Eshoo, Gene Green, Edward Markey, Janice Schakowsky, Anthony Weiner, and Peter Welch.

Lean Yes
Diana DeGette CO01 202-225-4431
Jane Harman CA36 202-225-8220
Christopher Murphy CT05 202-225-4476
Frank Pallone NJ06 202-225-4671 @FrankPallone
Bobby Rush IL01 202-225-4372 Five more Democrats are leaning single-payer but still uncommitted. Please call each one and give them one crucial reason to support single-payer from our petition:
http://www.democrats.com/single-payer-petition?cid=ZGVtczU0MTkyNWRlbXM=
(Be sure to sign our petition and forward it if you haven't already.)

Be concise and practice in advance so you can speak quickly (or leave a voicemail) because they are getting swamped. Report the results of your calls here:
http://www.democrats.com/single-payer-committee-whip

Public Option Only (or Won't Say)
Rick Boucher VA09 202-225-3861
Bruce Braley IA01 202-225-2911
G.K. Butterfield NC01 202-225-3101
Lois Capps CA23 202-225-3601
Kathy Castor FL11 202-225-3376
John Dingell MI15 202-225-4071
Charles Gonzalez TX20 202-225-3236
Jay Inslee WA01 202-225-6311 @RepInsleeNews
Doris Matsui CA05 202-225-7163
Jerry McNerney CA11 202-225-1947
John Sarbanes MD03 202-225-4016
Bart Stupak MI01 202-225-4735
Betty Sutton OH13 202-225-3401
Henry Waxman (Chair) CA30 202-225-3976 If you have more time, these 14 Democrats support a "public option" at best. But that "public option" (a new government program to compete with private insurance) was disastrously weakened this week by the BlueDogs. They banned the use of Medicare pricing to reduce costs and thereby expand availability. Try to persuade these 14 to vote for single-payer instead of a worthless BlueDog "public option."

Don't let anyone tell you single-payer can't pass: the Kucinich Amendment for a single-payer "state option" passed by a shocking 25-19 bi-partisan majority in the House Education and Labor Committee on July 17. The Weiner Amendment will pass on Friday if enough Democrats vote for it!

A victory on the Weiner Amendment would make a huge difference. Please call as soon as you get this - night or day.

Thanks for all you do!

Bob Fertik

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Military in Honduras Backs San Jose Accord

Fire Is Born — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 02:14:41 EDT

July 26, 2009 Military in Honduras Backs Plan on Zelaya By GINGER THOMPSON and BLAKE SCHMIDT

WASHINGTON — The Honduran armed forces issued a communiqué on Saturday indicating that they would not stand in the way of an agreement to return Manuel Zelaya, the country’s ousted president, to power.

Meanwhile, in Las Manos, a town along the border between Nicaragua and Honduras, Mr. Zelaya made his second symbolic appearance in two days, defying calls from foreign leaders to avoid any moves that might provoke violence in his politically polarized country.

The communiqué was drafted in Washington after days of talks between mid-level Honduran officers and American Congressional aides. Posted on the Honduran Armed Forces Web site, it endorsed the so-called San José Accord that was forged in Costa Rica by delegates representing President Zelaya and the man who heads the de facto Honduran government, Roberto Micheletti.

The accord, supported by most governments in the hemisphere, would allow Mr. Zelaya to return as president, although with significantly limited executive powers. Mr. Micheletti has steadfastly rejected Mr. Zelaya’s return as president.

In its communiqué, the Honduran military added its support to the proposal. Officials involved said it was meant to dispel any perceptions that the military would block civilian efforts to resolve the crisis.

The officials said the military communiqué was significant because it was the first sign of support for the San José Accord by a powerful sector of the de facto government. And the officials said it could make it more difficult for the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court to reject the accord when they consider it.

American officials who met here with the Hondurans said that they were two colonels who were concerned about the tensions generated by the political conflict.

Joy Olson, executive director of the Washington Office on Latin America, a nonprofit human rights group, said she was told that the officers were showing Congressional aides a recording of the day Mr. Zelaya was detained, as evidence that no abuses had been committed against him.

In the meantime, however, thousands of troops had been deployed to tighten security along the border to prevent Mr. Zelaya from returning. And thousands of his supporters defied government curfews and military roadblocks, by abandoning their cars and hiking for hours to reach the remote border post to see him.

Mr. Zelaya vowed to try a third time to re-enter Honduras. "We are ready to take this to its final consequences," he told his supporters. "We are not afraid.”

Ginger Thompson reported from Washington, and Blake Schmidt from Las Manos, Nicaragua.

Thursday, July 23, 2009 by CommonDreams.org Spinning Healthcare: A Bad Case of Vertigo by Norman Solomon

Fire Is Born — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:48:59 EDT

"(...)

Media accounts keep telling us that the current political debate on healthcare is unprecedented and groundbreaking. But an article in the latest edition of the Columbia Journalism Review, by seasoned healthcare reporter Trudy Lieberman, makes a convincing case that little has changed within the frames of media parameters.

The press "has mostly passed along the pronouncements of politicians and the major stakeholders who have the most to lose from wholesale reform," Lieberman writes. "By not challenging the status quo, the press has so far foreclosed a vibrant discussion of the full range of options, and also has not dug deeply into the few that are being discussed, thereby leaving citizens largely uninformed about an issue that will affect us all."

What we're seeing now is a slightly freshened version of a timeworn tap dance that ranges across a constricted media stage. As Lieberman notes: "Absent from the debate are not only single-payer systems like the ones in England and Canada, but other systems with multiple payers, like ones in Germany and Japan -- or, for that matter, any discussion of why a system that relies on competition among private insurers in The Netherlands hasn't resulted in lower prices for consumers, as advocates claimed."

The variety of healthcare delivery systems abroad, in industrialized countries, spans a common assumption -- healthcare as a human right -- an assumption that doesn't cut the mass-media mustard in the United States. "What's common to all these systems," Lieberman points out, "is that everyone is entitled to healthcare and pays taxes to support the system, and medical costs are controlled by limits on spending. The specter of a system that takes a significant bite out of stakeholder profits in the U.S. is the real reason the debate is so restricted."

As Trudy Lieberman puts it, "Reform efforts have danced around this impasse for decades."

That helps to explain why so much media coverage of healthcare reform proposals is apt to be so baffling to most readers, listeners and viewers. When the big elephant (or, if you will, donkey) in the national newsroom is dependent on the insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital industries for financing, there's a distinct shortage of candor about the consequences of such ongoing intrusions. Newsgathering, media debate -- and, of course, healthcare -- suffer the consequences.(...)"

"Can communism reform itself?" - Leszek Kolakowski, 1927-2009.

Fire Is Born — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 23:10:05 EDT

Hitchens writes from my native city in my native country and it is tough not to be proud again. fib

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

A Sense of Historical Irony

Leszek Kolakowski, 1927-2009.

By Christopher Hitchens

Posted Monday, July 20, 2009, at 12:26 PM ET

WROCLAW, Poland—It was distinctly eerie to learn of the death of professor Leszek Kolakowski just 15 minutes before entering a room in which I was to give a short lecture on his influence. But it was also rather inspiring to be in a country that made the passing of a public intellectual into the front-page headline of every national daily paper the following day.

Meet Russell Means

Fire Is Born — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:19:16 EDT

http://www.russellmeans.com/

Honduras is in the semifinals and the Costa Rica talks WILL continue on Wednesday

Fire Is Born — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 20:54:13 EDT

Copa Oro

Foto Agencias Honduras está en semifinales a puro coraje

Honduras 1-0 Canadá

http://www.laprensahn.com/

Negociations in Costa Rica are continiung today, Sunday July 19

Fire Is Born — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:51:32 EDT

President Arias had proposed certain points of resolutions to be discussed. In the end, however, it will be the two Honduran delegations to give the final proposal of agreement. Arias said he feels that after yesterday's talks the parties became more flexible. In particular Arias hopes that the agreement will contain the clause that Zelaya would regain power as president but will form a cabinet of reconciliation and unity that would offer security to all Honduran people (“un Gabinete de unidad y reconciliación que le da seguridad al pueblo hondureño”).

The two Honduran parties arived yestarday at 10 a.m. And from the airport directly proceded to the house of Arias.

“The delegation of Manuel Zelaya has in it: Arístides Mejía, the ex-minister of Defense; Milton Jiménez, designated for the Vice-presidency and the ex-chancellor, as well as Enrique Flores Lanza, secretary of the Presidency.

The delegation of mister Roberto Micheletti constitutes of Carlos López, chancellor of the Republic; Arturo Corrales, the president of the Party of Unity and Change (Partido Innovación y Unidad - PINU); Mauricio Villeda, a candidate for the Vice-presidency of the Partido Liberal, and Vilma Cecilia Morales, the ex-president of the Supreme Court of Justice.”

Translation from La Prensa edition Costa Rica by fib

Pic from El Tiempo, Honduran edition:

Canada looks to beat Honduras, advance to second straight Gold Cup semifinal

Fire Is Born — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:20:26 EDT

Americas, Americas! How socker you are... Forgive me, Friends, but I will be screamin' for the Blue guys to win this Saturday. Many of their most famous players are Garifuna "my people", Black Indians of the Central American Coast. And that is not a surprise to me - who knows that their 25% Carib-Arawak genes have socker in their blood. Or, something very close to socker. Very entartaining and not at all bloody ball games WERE played on the little Antilles when the Spaniards arrived, where Garifuna come from. And yes, it was the South American Indians who invented rubber. How on earth can you play ball without RUBBER. The civilized Maya also had to get it all from somwhere, n'est pas? fib

ps. Do Obama girls play socker?

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Canada looks to beat Honduras, advance to second straight Gold Cup semifinal

By THE CANADIAN PRESS – 16 hours ago

PHILADELPHIA — Canada can advance to its second straight CONCACAF Gold Cup semifinal on Saturday, and help erase the sting of another disappointing World Cup qualifying campaign in the process.

Canada faces Honduras this weekend in quarter-final action at the soccer championship for North and Central America and the Caribbean.

The surprising Canadians were undefeated in group play, winning Group A with a 2-0-1 record for seven points. Canada defeated Jamaica and El Salvador by scores of 1-0, then tied Costa Rica 2-2.

To advance further, however, Canada will need to defeat a team that has provided no shortage of trouble to them recently.

Canada lost to Honduras twice during its failed attempt to qualify for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, including a 2-1 home defeat at Montreal's Saputo Stadium. Canada finished 0-4-2 overall in the third round of CONCACAF World Cup qualifying, a result that led to the dismissal of manager Dale Mitchell.

Canada's interim manager, Stephen Hart, said at a press conference Tuesday that his squad will need a balanced attack to defeat its recent nemesis. He also praised the quality of the Honduran team.

"I've seen the team play in this tournament," Hart said. "They are blessed with good players technically who understand what was being asked (by) their coach, and physically as well. They will prove to be very difficult."

Canada has had success at the Gold Cup before, winning the tournament in 2000 and advancing to the semifinals in 2002 and 2007. But they have never been able to translate these results into greater success on the international level.

Canada has only qualified for the World Cup once, in 1986, where it failed to score in losing three games.

Hart is hoping success in this tournament, along with the ability to develop talent through Canadian teams in Major League Soccer, will usher in a more successful era for Canada's men's national team.

"It's no secret we have very limited success in the sport at the international level and we're trying to grow with the help of MLS," Hart said.

"Any success that the team has, gives some sort of silver lining to the fans who desperately want the program to grow."

The United States meets Panama in Saturday's other semifinal. The defending champion Americans defeated Panama in the quarter-finals of the 2005 Gold Cup en route to their fourth title.

"Our preparation is the same and we have great respect for Panama," U.S. coach Bob Bradley said. "Many of their players are the same. We will take the same approach as we do with the national team in preparation for Saturday's game."

In the other quarter-finals, Mexico meets Haiti and Guadeloupe meets Costa Rica on Sunday in Dallas.

The semifinals will be held July 23 in Chicago, with the championship game set for Sunday, July 26 at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

With files from The Associated Press

Fairness in Judge Sotomayor's Hearings?

Richard — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:41:11 EDT

Other than just being negative, what fairness are the Republicans providing with questions of Judge Sotomayor's suitability to be a Supreme Court Justice? The answer is None! The questions should be geared toward her qualifications to serve on the Supreme Court Not some litigious debate about abortion,civil suits and the like. A person who serves on the Supreme Court must Not have any biases and Must decide cases based upon the facts of the case. Under the Republican Administration (Bush) , we've had pandering to the Right Wing. This has got to stop! All Americans must be represented on the Court.

SEE THESE INCREDIBLE PHOTOS FROM HONDURAS MANIFESTATIONS TODAY

Fire Ants For Change - Che! Che! Che!... — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 20:54:59 EDT

http://www.laprensagrafica.com/component/ignitegallery/view/1656.html

LIVE COVERAGE OF Pres. ZELAYA'S RETURN

Fire Ants For Change - Che! Che! Che!... — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 15:14:44 EDT

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/100-Noticias

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updates from FAFC:

12:08 PT a Bolivaarn pilot is flying the President!

hundreds of thousands march toward Honduras - lost communication at

12:19 with the Councilor of Venezuela from Noticias cable 15

12:29

from radio globo - by order of Micheletti the plane of Zelaya was re-directed to El Salvador - all other planes operate normally with the help of Policia National and fearzas militarias - which control all the national airports

http://www.radioglobohonduras.com/

all stations are supposedy working - i hear catracho music mostly and this message above repeatedafter every three calls to stations

0100

radio globo is proceeding now with the speeches of various representaives defending their legitimity - vice councellore etc., someone named- it seems a pressmeeting

- 3 sources on twitter say the police is RECEDING (to second the line) in Tegucigalpa on the pressure of the pro-Zelayans

0103

Micheletti was aked a question and asked someone else to repond - they discussing OEA

0106 globo

Q: from what aouthority is the Councellor speaking?

A: of president

Q to Michelletii: why the plane was stopped

A by M> for sake of peace

Q preocupacion about mobilczation on the Nicaraguan border

A - mich. I have NOT left the country and we are going to continue - we are ordering the schools to proceede tomorrow - no more 4ta urna - will stay for 6 months, and will have elections on 26 of November

q: .......

0114

Q: how many troups are there at Nica brder?

A: Mich:

do not fear, small groups, dod not cross the border

Q: who is the pres. elect?

A: MICH

i am representant of the pueblo - if you do not like it... ok...i want to ask you - we are not going to negotiate with NOONE

A: for us who studied tyhe low - 13, 14, 15 - el titlar then was the king - that have the power - the state AM I - symbol of the absolute power - then came the revolution in France -lpease let me finish - here we have 7 million people - tehre are three pwers now (?) - Zelaya had to leave for violating law -

...

OK I am swicthinng to CNN

do so too

0125

FireIsBorn2Jesus, President Zelaya is on the ground in Honduras - in a car!!! in Tegus smiling! OMG OMG! he is there CNN go on! CNN, viva Hondurasless than 5 seconds ago from web

OD, do you see it?

<CORECTION: I WAS MISTAKEN - HE WAS IN A CAR SOMEWHERE ELSE - WILL ARIVE AT 4PM HONDURAN TIME)

.................

0129

here is speaking Micheletti

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/100-Noticias

I think this is the same conference I was reporting above from radio globo :

yes, yes, so channel 15 is behind

0131

globo is very excited!!!

Carlo Paz is speaking - negociating from the police - 500 police - we are close to Tocontin -

The crowd broke the police cordones!

(WHERE ARE OUR MEDIA, cnn)

lUIS oRTIS - IN THE AIRPORT - GRACIAS - CROWDS YELLING - AT TOCONTIN

THE ROAD IS FILLED WITH PEOPLE...

MANIFESTATION

THIS IS FROM RADIO GLOBO

0139

A WOMEN REPORTER: PEOPLE ARE CLIMBING THE WALLS - THE MANIFESTANTS - INCREDIBLE- HE IS WALKING...

OTRO - ANOTHER SECTOR - THE POLICE RETREATED AND THE MILITARY AS WELL!!!!

...

pOLICIA IS VERY PROFESSIONAL - 300,000 PEOPLE ARE HERE! - SO THERE IS no WAY THE POLICE CAN CONTAIN TEHM!!!

... THE COORDINATOR OF RADIO GLOBO ASKS FOR PROFESSIONALISM AND CALM OF REPORTERS...

COLONIA LA TORRES

r: WE CANNOT COUNT THE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE (THE REPORTERS ARE CRYING??)

1445 (HONDURASTIME)

...INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE, THERE ARE SHOTS BUT WE know THAT THE POLICE WILL AVOID ANY DEATH - DEATH CANNOT HAPPEN HERE TODAY...

1449

...IF THERE WILL BE A ONE DEATH HERE - THE SPANISH COURT WILL PROSECUTE US... INTER OF A LITTLE GROUP (GRUPITO)

LENIS: MANIFESTANTS ARE SINGING THE HYMN OF HONDURAS

PRESIDENTE ZELAYA...

ANOTHER REPORTER: THIS IS VERY EMOTIONAL SEEING THOSE STREET VENDORS - WE ARE MAKING HISTORY!

WE ARE DENOUNCING THE COUP...

WE ARE GOING TO CONDEMN THE CARDINAL VIA VATICAN TOMORROW!! CARDENAL RODRIGEZ...

1500

i cannot believ that half milion people arrived here to tegus, i counted on 200.000..

1505

from la ceiba (a port on the atlantic)

our victory is imminent!!

tegus

speculations 105 brigada of 4 bataliones: speaks the comandant

- what's going

colonel: los batalions are (not) demorilized - i am here with the oficials - we are for democracy and nation we are united - we are with the people

have you seen this manifestations in tegus? yes, but

zona north all calm..

naval forzes as well - we are united - for constitution - the public is confused -

what will happen next?

the colonel Estoza: no es golpe - we only want calm

....

1520 honduras time cont. radio globe

.... a former official, a lowyer, says this WAS a coup and the people in his own Liberal Party who had helped this coup must be expulsed from the Party.

NOW WE ARE GOING BACK TO THE TEGUS AIRPORT...

CARLOS PAZ:

GRACIAS

WE ARE IN THE INTERIOR PART OF TOCONTIN - MANY VEHICLES HERE WHICH ARE NOT MILITARY - PLANES OF BLUE COLOR - WHICH ARE MILITARY... DESCRIPTIONS OF WHAT IS HAPPENING ON THE AIRWAY.

...

1530

THE PLANE OF ZELAYA IS CIRCLING OVER THE CAPITAL. WE ARE HERE TO DEFEND OUR PRESIDENT.

we carry a white bird with a sombrero to greet "Mel"...

1608

more here, myBO is slow today

http://twitter.com/

1845

WELL, THE REST WAS VERY DRAMATIC, TWO DEAD, BASICALLY THE THOUSANDS OF PROTESTORES OVERTOOK THE AIRPORT - ALMOST - AT FIRST. THE CROWDS WERE MASSIVE. THEN, THE MILITARY BECAME BRUTAL, AND AT THE END THE MARCHERS WERE EXPULSED FROM THE AIRPORT. BUT THE SUPPORT WAS HUGE FOR ZELAYA

WHO IS NOW I BELIEVE IN NICARAGUA.

PEOPLE OF HONDURAS WILL PREVAIL. i AM PROUD OF THEIR COURAGE.

The cancellor of Venezuela has confirmed that the plane of President Zelaya is right now leaving Washington for Tegucigalpa

Fire Ants For Change - Che! Che! Che!... — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 15:08:27 EDT

from twitter

MIGUELBERNAL Canciller venezolano confirma que avión de Mel Zelaya esta saliendo en este momento de Washington hacia Tegucigalpa #Honduras #crisishn

GODS BLESS AMERICAS!

"President Barack Obama has united with conservative Alvaro Uribe of Colombia and leftist Hugo Chavez of Venezuela in criticism (of the coup)"

Fire Ants For Change - Che! Che! Che!... — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 14:39:07 EDT

"Most of the ousted leader's supporters come from the working and middle classes of this impoverished nation, while his opponents are based in the ranks of the well-to-do — although the increasingly leftist approach of the wealthy rancher had eroded his popular support."

This sounds very true! The country has about 5% of well-to-do people. Their family names might not have changed often in the last centuries. How is that "popular" support, though, beats me.

And let's keep in mind that Honduras' middle and working classes mean something different theb in the West. In teh country there are no jobs - so the working class there means just dirt poor.And middle class means having at least high scholl eduaction, I guess. fafc

from TIMES PICTURES OF THE WEEK

Fire Ants For Change - Che! Che! Che!... — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:28:28 EDT

Pictures of the Week: Monday, Jun 29, 2009

The Energy Bill

Richard — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:25:37 EDT

The United States Senate owes it to President Obama and the nation to pass the pending Energy Bill. If Congress had passed energy legislation during the Carter years, we wouldn't be in the energy crisis now. Get it right this time. Pass this needed legislation Now!

link to the official OFA blog of Christopher Hass:

Fire Is Born — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:08:02 EDT

This is the link to the official OFA blog of Christopher Hass:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/obamaforamerica

Has the main Community blog been not accessible since May 26?

Let's regroup and continue our service. fib

McCain makes a fool of himself, AGAIN!!

Robert Lynch — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:19:54 EDT

"Senator" McCain has been blasting President Obama the past few days for not "talking tough" to Iran. Anyone who has studied the relationship between America and Iran knows that this kind of stupidity, "talking tough", does not work. Most of the last eight years Bush/Cheney talked tough to Iran, with the only measurable result being the election of the anti-Semitic Holocaust denier Ahmadinejad.
McCain has zero credibility on this issue. One, he had his backside handed to him in November, an overwhelming rejection by the American voter, and any criticism of Obama is viewed correctly as the babblings of a bitter and pathetic loser. Two, McCain is on video singing a moronic little ditty, "Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran". No intelligent American cares any longer, if they ever did, what he has to say about Iran. Third, the Iranian people are aware of his idiotic "American Idol" moment, and are even less inclined to pay attention to his rantings than we are.
So to "Senator" McCain I suggest you sit down, shut up, and watch President Obama do the job you are incapable of performing. You have nothing to offer except bitterness and a thirst for blood which is shameful for someone who 40 years ago served his country, but since coming home has disgraced himself with racist votes against the Martin Luther King holiday, unbalanced physical acts like poking your fingers in anger into the breasts of women lobbying for reproductive rights, and siding with the scum of society like Rush and Hannity to attack an excellent President for no discernable reason other than he defeated you and your mindlessly racist running mate.

The self sabotaging and self shooting themselves in the foot , Senate Democrats have too much free time on their hands.

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:21:48 EDT

111th CONGRESS 1st Session

S. CON. RES. 26

Apologizing for the enslavement and racial segregation of African-Americans.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

June 11, 2009

Mr. HARKIN (for himself, Mr. BROWNBACK, Mr. LEVIN, Mr. DURBIN, Mr. KENNEDY, Mr. LAUTENBERG, Ms. STABENOW, Mr. BOND, and Mr. COCHRAN) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was ordered held at the desk.

One Question: Why Now??????????

Senate Democrats, Why are You not following the President's Agenda?.

President Barack Obama asked the Senate for Health Care/Public Option and etc., Yet the Senate refused.

Please go back and study and learn President Obama Race Speech and then MOVE ON...

Barack Obama: 'A More Perfect Union' (Full Speech)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrp-v2tHaDo

The American People Are on the same page, and We all want better lives, healthcare, peace prosperity, and security. The American people are unified and are walking in complete solidarity when it comes to the Great People of the United States of America Advancing to greatness and prominence.

This waterdowned resolution is unwarrented and unnesessary.

To the Writers of this resoultion:You are out of Touch with the American People.

The Resounding answer and reaction to this resolution(in my community) has been Noooo and No Thank You!!!!!

Shocker: Even President Bush gets a shot out in this one.

What in the World Is going on With The Senate.

The Senate Democrats can't even close gitmo and yet they have the audacity to gloss over and gitmo the African-American People ith three measly little paragraphs.

Please drop this motion and please take up the President's Mandate and Call and stop disrespecting him by watering down his plans for The American People, and Stop voting against His Agenda. He Won and You Didn't. The American People trust Him and want his Policies and Resolutions, Not Yours!!!!!!

Senate Deomcrats, In Your Own Minds, You may be sincere, but you are sincerly WRONG.

Thank You President Barack Obama for being a beacon set alight on a Hill!!!

Thank You President Obama for teaching principles and wisdom!!!!

Thank You President Barack Obama for not marginalizing the black and white community!!!

Thank You President Barack Obama for finding your purpose and destiny in life!!!!

Thank You President Barack Obama for not using us (black, white, asian, hispanic, jewish, christian, muslim, hindu, believers, non-believers), nor allowing any of us to be used as bargining chips by the Senate and Congress.

May God Continue to Bless America and May He Continue to Always Bless the United States of America.

The healthcare battle

Richard — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:31:24 EDT

President Obama has consulted with members of both political parties over his proposed healthcare initiative.It is now time for Congress to come together on this proposal and pass it into law.Our country needs this legislation now!

Iran's Election

Richard — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:46:38 EDT

The people of Iran are the winners in their election as thousands voice opposition to their current leaders. The Mullahs better accept this as they will be over thrown as was the Shah in the past. I believe Iran is on the verge of a civil war because of this apparently fraudently election. What do you think?

Conservatives scraping the bottom of the barrel-Insane lies and prayers for assassination

Robert Lynch — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:26:34 EDT

Over the past week the filth has intensified from the Conservative movement. First, after years of badgering from Bill O'Reilly and others, a psycho finally follows their lead and slays Doctor Tiller during a church service.

Next, Alan Keyes vice Presidential running mate Wiley Drake publically prays for the death of President Obama. In reference to Doctor Tiller, Drake claims that God has answered his prayers for the death of Doctor Tiller and he hopes the President is next.

Then to show they are equally irresponsible and also praying for death, the republicans in the house and Senate join in. Minority leader John Boehner screeches, "President Obama is importing terrorists into the United States!!" Many other republicans join in agreement.

The point of stirring up this kind of hysteria is to create a climate of hatred and violence which will lead to more politically motivated killings.

This is the sewer that Conservatives have sunk to. They have over the last 8 years destroyed our economy, wiped out Millions of jobs, killed thousands senselessly in Iraq, and allowed 3000 to die on 9/11. They have no ideas for governing the country, in fact they never did. The only thing left is to pray that some sort of monstrous "god" will kill our President and return the republicans to power in the next election.

I thank God, the true God of love and compassion, that our President is being protected by the best security ever devised by man, and despite their racist hatred and prayers to a false god of hate to kill him, our President will live to a ripe old age, untouched by their sickening, murderous bile.

From Americans United for the Separation of Church and State by S. Bathija

Robert Lynch — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:04:54 EDT

Grim Reaper: Rev. Wiley Drake extends growing death wish list to include President ObamaJune 8, 2009

It seems the Rev. Wiley Drake, a well-known media hound, has recently been lurking on Fox News Radio, adding more than just AU Executive Director Barry W. Lynn & Co. to his death wish list.

The Rev. Wiley Drake is on the warpath again — and this time, he has really gone too far.

As you may recall, Drake is the pastor of the First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif. He urged supporters to offer “imprecatory prayers” (curses) against Americans United and specific staff members in August 2007.

It seems Drake, a well-known media hound, has recently been lurking on Fox News Radio, adding more than just AU Executive Director Barry W. Lynn & Co. to his death wish list.

Before appearing on Alan Colmes’ radio show June 2, Drake had issued a statement that his imprecatory prayers for the death of slain Kansas Dr. George Tiller had been answered. He said that he “absolutely” believed that God wanted Dr. Tiller dead.

But Drake announced on Fox News Radio something that even Colmes could not wrap his head around. Apparently, in addition to AU’s Lynn and Dr. Tiller, Drake has been praying for the death of – wait for it –President Barack Obama!

“So you’re praying for the death of the president of the United States?” host Colmes asked in disbelief.

“Yes,” Drake responded.

Drake said he didn’t fear that these statements would maybe place him on a Secret Service or FBI watch list.

“I think it’s appropriate to pray the Word of God,” Drake said. “I’m not saying anything. What I am doing is repeating what God is saying, and if that puts me on somebody’s list, then I’ll just have to be on their list.”

Later, still stunned, Colmes restated the question, “You would like the president of the United States to die?”

Answered Drake, “If he does not turn to God and does not turn his life around, I am asking God to enforce imprecatory prayers that are throughout the Scripture that would cause him death, that’s correct.”

It was one thing (though still wrong) for Drake to lash out Americans United back in 2007. After all, he was angry that AU reported his church to the IRS for partisan electioneering. We alleged that Drake violated the law by using church resources to endorse Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

But it’s a completely different story to wish for the death of the president of the United States. It’s just plain evil, and it serves as another example of the fanatical thinking of some members of the Religious Right.

“This whole concept that we’re always to pray little, nice, soft, fluffy prayers – that we’re not to pray imprecatory prayer – has been something that just, in all honesty, that Southern Baptists have lost, and we need to regain imprecatory prayer,” Drake said.

“It is in the Bible,” Drake continued, “and we are proud to say as Southern Baptists that we believe the Book. You’ve got to believe the whole Book, brother, or you don’t believe any of it.”

But it’s important to note that while Drake’s statements are scary and outrageous, not all Southern Baptists agree with him.

The Rev. Dwight McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, personally denounced Drake’s comments and said he would ask Southern Baptist Convention President Johnny Hunt to do the same.

“They need to be repudiated by Southern Baptist leaders,” said McKissic, former president of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention pastors’ conference and speaker at the group’s evangelism conference.

McKissic said Drake’s views “are in the same ballpark” as Rush Limbaugh saying he hopes that President Obama’s administration will fail.

“Southern Baptists,” he said, “don’t need to line up with the Rush Limbaughs and Wiley Drakes in attacking Barack Obama.”

By Sandhya Bathija

The present medical system make people go bankrupt

Torgny V.O.B. — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 04:54:42 EDT

A normal middle-class family may very well go bankrupt during the present health care system, and in fact many people do. This is not only the source of much pain for the people involved, physical pain due to disease and financial pain. But many people going bankrupt is also bad for the economy of the nation.The present crisis in health care and economy goes far deeper than many people believe. It is often short term solutions that in the end will turn out very expensive. As for example the many bankruptcies that will be very expensive in the long term for all of us.

“Medical bills are involved in more than 60 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies, an increase of 50 percent in just six years… More than 75 percent of these bankrupt families had health insurance but still were overwhelmed by their medical debts… Using a conservative definition, 62.1 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92 percent of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5,000, or 10 percent of pretax family income… Most medical debtors were well-educated, owned homes and had middle-class occupations.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5530Y020090604

Cheney "kept us safe"??????

Robert Lynch — Mon, 25 May 2009 16:56:32 EDT

The former VP "Dick" Cheney keeps repeating the same tired refrain, as if he is stuttering badly from drunkeness, that he "kept the country safe" by using torture. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Upon taking office, George W Bush and Dick Cheney were warned by the CIA and Clinton intelligence officials about the dire threat from Bin Laden and Al Queda. Bush and Cheney paid no attention to the warnings. In the spring of 2001, Condolezza Rice, the new National Security Advisor appointed by W Bush, published an article in Foreign Affairs magazine in which she stated that the threat from terrorists was overblown, a relic from a paranoid Clinton administration which was trying to divert attention away from scandals. The real threat to America came from Russia and China.

Over the summer of 2001, numerous American intelligence agencies were reporting alarming amounts of "chatter" being intercepted over the internet and telephone indicating a huge attack on America was coming. The NSA, CIA, FBI, and Defense Intelligence all were warning of an imminent attack. In August, W Bush, Cheney, and other top officials were given a Daily Briefing titled, "Bin Laden determined to attack the U.S." W Bush, and most importantly, Dick Cheney, did NOTHING, in spite of the seriousness of the warnings.

On September 11th, 2001, the most horrific terrorist attack ever by foreign nationals was perpetrated against the American people. Almost 3000 innocent Americans lost their lives. In spite of repeated warnings from multiple sources, W and Cheney did NOTHING to stop the attack.

Now, after this failure to protect America from the worst terrorist attack ever, Dick Cheney has the gall to claim that he kept America safe through torture. How is allowing 3000 people to die after you were warned for almost 9 months straight, "keeping us safe"???

Bush and Cheney were the most incompetent Pres and V. Pres we have ever had. They did NOT keep us safe from anything. Look again at the twin towers collapsing on video. I ASK ONCE MORE, HOW IS ALLOWING THAT HORRIFIC ACT OF MASS MURDER, "KEEPING US SAFE"?????

From the "Hill": A tale of two speches

Fire Is Born — Thu, 21 May 2009 23:38:41 EDT

A tale of two speeches

By John Del Cecato

Posted: 05/21/09 05:27 PM [ET]

On Thursday, the two parties’ most visible spokesmen — President Obama and former Vice President Cheney — offered very different models for keeping America safe.

Obama’s vision was rooted in a respect for our country’s constitutional values, declaring those principles to be not an impediment to national security, but rather the bedrock of it.

“We uphold our most cherished values not only because doing so is right, but because it strengthens our country and keeps us safe. Time and again, our values have been our best national security asset — in war and peace; in times of ease and in eras of upheaval,” he said.

Cheney’s remarks, by contrast, touched on a familiar Republican theme: that the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, could be used to justify just about any action a president — or vice president — chooses to take. In his 5,500-word address, the former vice president cited 9/11 no fewer than 27 times in defending the Bush administration’s policies, in areas spanning from torture to the war in Iraq.

For his part, President Obama chose not to question the motives of the previous administration. And while he took issue with the Bush team for cherry-picking intelligence to support its ideological objectives, Obama said we all shared some responsibility for executive-branch excess.

“Unfortunately, faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions. And I believe that those decisions were motivated by a sincere desire to protect the American people,” said Obama. “But I also believe that — too often — our government made decisions based upon fear rather than foresight, and all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions. Instead of strategically applying our power and our principles, we too often set those principles aside as luxuries that we could no longer afford. And in this season of fear, too many of us — Democrats and Republicans; politicians, journalists and citizens — fell silent.”

Cheney was less generous in assessing the intentions of his critics. “Over on the left wing of the president’s party, there appears to be little curiosity in finding out what was learned from the terrorists,” he said. Of President Obama’s belief that torturing detainees fueled the recruitment of terrorists, Cheney charged: “This recruitment-tool theory has become something of a mantra lately, including from the president himself. And after a familiar fashion, it excuses the violent and blames America for the evil that others do. It’s another version of that same old refrain from the left: ‘We brought it on ourselves.’ ”

But nowhere was the contrast in visions more clear than in the debate over ideological rigidity versus shared American values.

“The administration seems to pride itself on searching for some kind of middle ground in policies addressing terrorism,” Cheney groused.

“The American people are not absolutist, and they don’t elect us to impose a rigid ideology on our problems,” said Obama. “They know that we need not sacrifice our security for our values, nor sacrifice our values for our security, so long as we approach difficult questions with honesty, and care, and a dose of common sense.”

It wasn’t a debate, or even a joint appearance. But for average Americans watching these back-to-back speeches, one thing should be clear.

Real change has come to Washington. And the old guard doesn’t like it a bit.

Del Cecato is a partner at AKPD Message and Media, the political consulting firm founded by David Axelrod in 1985. He served as media adviser and admaker for Obama for America and Obama-Biden 2008.

Dick Cheney. Hero or traitorous coward?

Robert Lynch — Thu, 21 May 2009 21:04:38 EDT

Since seeing his party booted from power in November, Dick Cheney has been plagueing Americans with his repulsive grimaces and outrageous lies almost every day in speeches and interviews on T.V. The gist of his ramblings are that he is a profoundly courageous mastermind who used torture sparingly but to great effect, saving us from the horror of dozens of September 11ths.

But every time memos are released, the opposite turns out to be true. No major attacks were averted. Certainly none that could even remotely compare to 9/11. Recent testimony from CIA officials suggest that torture was used on Abu Zabaydeh and Khalid Sheik Mohammed to establish a link between Al Queda and Saddam Hussein, NOT to uncover terrorist plots.

So, let's get this straight. The real reason for torturing these men was NOT, as Cheney has been saying, to uncover terror plots, but to cover his own behind by trying, after the fact, to link the Iraq War with 9/11. This was the real reason for the torture, NOT to protect America, but to justify the illegal and immoral Iraq War.

Cheney has made a career of cowardice. A few highlights:

1. Received 5 seperate deferments to stay out of Vietnam. To Cheney, only poor and minority kids should fight the wars his kind start.

2. Served in the criminal Nixon administration. His only lesson learned? The executive branch should have even more power, and be less transparent.

3. For 25 years played the revolving door game between government and the private sector, approving lucrative contracts, then going to work for the same company, culminating in his lobbying efforts as Vice President to award Billions in no-bid contracts to his former company, Halliburton.

4. While President of Halliburton in the 90's, raped the taxpayers by helping Halliburton to relocate its headquarters offshore to save Millions in taxes. Again, only ordinary Americans should pay taxes, not Gods of War like Cheney and Halliburton.

5. Cheney's now tax cheating company Halliburton, has been forced to repay Millions of dollars in fines by the Pentagon for scores of scams and fraudulent overcharges in Iraq. It is not enough to profit from the blood of our soldiers, Halliburton and its subsidiary Kellog, Brown, and Root also delight in breaking the law and commiting acts of fraud so outrageous they are easily discovered by the normally blind Pentagon auditors.

The record is clear. This vicious loudmouth Cheney who has the audacity to criticize President Obama has never done a thing for his country but bring it down, or rip it off. He has lined his own pockets with Millions of dollars in blood money. While VP his greed and lies sent our troops to die in an unnecessary War, and his behind the scenes fraud and deception led to convincing a puppet President Bush to make torture the official policy of the United States, going against every moral and ethical standard we have ever believed in.

We can only hope that before he leaves the earth, this sickening coward will pay for his lies which resulted in the deaths of so many thousands of innocent Americans.

Dick Chenney

Richard — Thu, 21 May 2009 13:43:39 EDT

When he was Vice-President Dick Chenney went for weeks being unheard of. Now that he is out office Chenney is making statements criticizing President Obama. Apparently Chenney feels he can scare America now. However, Americans are too smart to fall that . Witness the 2006 and 2008 elections were Republicans who supported W. were kicked out of office. Dick Chenney should Retire from politics and let America move forward positively. What do you think?

Health Care Facts and Figures

Fire Is Born — Sun, 17 May 2009 03:30:15 EDT

Health Care Facts and Figures

Universal Health Care

Recent Fact and Figures on Health Care in the U.S.

116 million people in the U.S. were uninsured, underinsured, struggled to pay medical bills, or went without needed care because of cost in 2007. That number represents nearly two-thirds of all adults in the country.

Nearly 9 million Americans have lost their health insurance since 2000.

Taking On Debt

72 million people reported a problem paying their medical bills or had accrued medical debt. That's roughly forty-one percent of adults under age 65. This number is up from 34 percent, or 58 million, in 2005.

7 million adults 65 and older also reported bill or debt problems.

More than half of adults with incomes under $40,000 reported problems with their medical bills in 2007.

More and More Americans Lack Health Insurance Coverage

In 2007, 28% of American adults, an estimated 50 million people,were uninsured for some time during the previous year. This is up from24% of adults, or 38 million people who were uninsured for part of 2001.

Half of all American families with an annual income less than $20,000 went without health insurance coverage for at least part of the year.

41 percent of adults in families earning between $20,000 and $40,000 reported they were uninsured for part of the year, up from 28 percent of those in families earning between $20,000 and $35,000 in 2001.

Americans Are Spending Large Shares of Income on Health Care

One-third of adults spent 10 percent or more of their income on health insurance and health care, up from 21 percent in 2001.

More than half of adults in families with incomes under $20,000 and more than one-third of adults earning between $20,000 and $60,000 spent 10 percent or more of their income on health care.

The number of adults under age 65 whose out-of-pocket health care costs are so high that they areeffectively underinsured increased from 9 percent to 14 percent, or to 25 million people, between 2003 and 2007.

Source: “Losing Ground: How the Loss of Adequate Health
Insurance is Burdening Working Families,” Report by The Commonwealth
Fund (Published August 2008)

Hey, O girls and O guys! Michelle Obama will now speak at Merced University commencement! Watch CNN now!

Fire Is Born — Sat, 16 May 2009 17:02:40 EDT

IT REALLY MADE MY DAY!

i LOVE MICHELLE WITH ALL MY HEART, AND HER ENTIRE FAMILY.

DO NOT MISS IT.

MERCED IS A VERY NEW CAMPUS IN CALIFORNIA, AND ALREADY

SO MUCH AHEAD OF THE VENERABLE NOTRE DAME.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

How to prevent illegal imigration? Here's AGROS....

Fire Is Born — Sat, 16 May 2009 15:17:22 EDT

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How does Agros’s model affect the problem of illegal immigration into the United States?

There are many reasons why immigrants leave the rural countryside and come to the United States. Among them are the conditions of extreme poverty in which people live and the lack of opportunities that enable families to overcome their poverty. Many of the people coming to the U.S. illegally are “economic migrants” - people who come in search of work. Poverty conditions and lack of work opportunities at home mean that these economic migrants are willing to leave their families, risk their lives, and find work in some of the least desirable conditions - often as menial laborers and minimum wage workers. Steady work is better than no work, and minimum wage in the U.S. is often more than they can earn in an entire day in their native country.

Throughout Central America, political and economic conditions are such that no matter how hard people work, 60 percent are earning less than $1 per day and 40 percent are living below the poverty line. Unemployment and underemployment are rampant in the rural areas. There are simply not enough jobs to go around and no hope that circumstances will change any time soon.

By helping rural families purchase land and build thriving communities, Agros provides an alternative for people who believe their only option is to migrate into the city or into another country, such as the U.S. Agros enables families to stay together and to generate income within their own countries and communities. Agros helps families create a livelihood for themselves that can be passed on to their children. As conditions improve, the motivation for becoming an economic migrant disappears. Families stay together, communities are strengthened, and lives are transformed.

How do Agros projects help women?

Women in developing countries and across Central America face grave challenges. As the primary caretakers of families and children, they are on the front lines of hunger, malnutrition and death in their families. Agros’ programs cannot be successful or have a lasting impact if the health of women is in jeopardy.

Many women in rural Central America:

Lack access to prenatal care and are isolated from modern health facilities
Get married as adolescents, start families at a young age, and don’t know how to plan the size of their families
Have a difficult time keeping their children healthy and well-nourished because they don’t know how, or don’t have the resources to prepare a well-balanced meal and lack knowledge of basic sanitation
Are of poor health themselves because they sacrifice food and other resources for their children and are continuously breast feeding due to multiple consecutive births

Agros’ programs address the needs of women and children by creating a positive cycle of change. We help women achieve:

Education: For young girls who would otherwise marry young and start families when they are little older than children themselves, Agros provides opportunities for them to go to school. Educated girls tend to marry later and their children tend to be healthier.
Literacy training: Agros offers literacy training to adults, giving both men and women who were not able to go to school the opportunity to learn how to read and write.
Financial independence: Agros trains women to manage a savings account and family finances because women tend to invest in their families.
Business expertise: Through microenterprise development, Agros teaches women skills they can use to start their own businesses. Agros also teaches women (and their children) how to raise small animals close to home to generate income.
Family planning and health care: Many women have had more than 5 children and have never received a gynecological exam or had access to prenatal care.
Through the women’s health initiative:
- Women learn about their bodies in a way that promotes self-esteem. Women with greater self-esteem become active in community organization. They get involved in village decision-making and develop leadership skills.
- Women receive regular physical exams, many for the first time in their lives.
- Agros works within the local culture to provide education about birth spacing and birth control so that women and their husbands can make informed decisions about family planning.

People talk a lot about the importance of “sustainable development.”

How are Agros’ methods sustainable?

Sustainable development is an important element of Agros’ work. Agros works to create sustainability in three primary areas: in the environment, in family economics, and in community organizations.

Environmental sustainability begins by providing families with land. People take better care of and are more concerned about a resource over which they have ownership. Agros then provides training and technical assistance regarding the use and stewardship of this land. This includes the construction of composting latrines, improved wood burning stoves, and education on soil conservation, organic composting, and agro-forestry techniques.
Economic sustainability begins with improved production of basic grains. When a family produces more food on less land, they become more confident in their ability to feed themselves. With food security established, they begin to try things they’ve never done before, for instance, growing foods that they can sell in the market and use to generate income. Once families begin to generate a stable income, they can begin to pay back their land loans. And once their loans have been repaid (typically within 10 years), they become self-sustaining owners of their own land. From this land, they are able to generate an on-going, stable income and provide an environment in which their children can thrive.
Community sustainability is attained in two ways. First, we help give rural families the training to create a local community government that looks to the entire community for participation and decision-making. This becomes the backbone for civic responsibility and participation. It also becomes the primary way communities continue to thrive long after Agros has departed. The second way is through the Noemí Fund.

Norte Dame Commencement

Richard — Sat, 16 May 2009 14:37:17 EDT

President Obama should be granted an honorary degree tomorrow notwithstanding his views on abortion. His critics say he is too Pro-Choice and that would go against the grain of a Catholic college.But let's look at the facts. President Obama advocates a reduction in abortion by providing good health care.How can any one argue with that? President George W Bush received honary degrees when in office and he is arguably the Worst President in history. Again looking at facts, Obama with his emphasis on the economy and health care the lack of which undoubetdly contributes to abortion, should be awarded an honary degree as he is the President of the United States.Don't let a radical minority deny him this award.

In California: VOTE NO on Tuesday on all the State propositions

Fire Is Born — Fri, 15 May 2009 21:31:30 EDT

What is your opinion? fib

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May 15, 2009
Commentary:
Poor People and California’s Propositions

By Herman Baca, President
Committee on Chicano Right

With Tuesday’s special election, California voters will vote whether or not to raise taxes to supposedly address the state’s $42 billion dollar hemorrhaging deficit. With California being the most heavily taxed state in the U.S. with one of the highest unemployment rate (over 10%), the question for voters and especially poor people is: how should we vote?

Our organization that has dealt with issues affecting poor people for over 40 years, has taken the position that voters cast an unequivocal NO VOTE on all of the propositions on Tuesday’s special election.

In urging a NO VOTE the issue to our organization is the lack of accountability from political elected representatives, and the need for them to begin meeting the needs of residents, small businesses, poor people, instead of the vested interests in Sacramento.

The strongest politic argument for a NO VOTE is that voters take note as to what has happened in National City (NC) after a similar proposition was railroaded by vested interest politicians and supporters that saddled the city with one of the highest sales tax rate (9 3/4%) in California.

NC a blue color worker community comprised of so-called minority residents; 65% of Mexican ancestry, 16% Filipinos, 7% others and 12% Anglo with 19% of its residents living under the poverty line is the poorest city in San Diego County, and the 3rd poorest in California. For voters who want to know what will happen to California communities and especially poor people if Governor Schwarzenegger and state politicians succeed in convincing voters to vote yes, then NC is the perfect political case study.

Before California had a deficit, NC politicians created (from a surplus) a $6 million dollar deficit. The reasons for the deficit was that like drunken teenagers with dad’s credit card NC politicians over spent during the worst economic crisis since the 1930 depression on non-essentials such as:

· Bonuses for top management, salary increase for public employees, and a golden parachute pension fund employees that allows police, firemen, and city employees (political contributors) to retire after 30 years of service with 90% of their pay while contributing zero into the fund!

· $70,000 statues, 2.5 million dollar loans to out of the country developers, $25,000 for a Charger survey, etc.

· A number of raises to the Mayor’s “personal” secretary,

· Contracting a lobbyist for Sacramento.

With unemployment increasing, car dealer-ships closing, house foreclosures, etc. NC’s Mayor and City Council have added insult to financial injury just two short weeks after Chula Vista voters defeated a similar tax proposition (A), and right before Tuesday’s special election by arrogantly voted again to dole out raises and “bonuses” to NC executives and managers.

· The above is aside from the mayor and council granting $145,00.00 in 2008 to the same city’s executives and managers as a “one-time” retention incentive and bonuses of 5% to 6% and,

· In 2007, $20,000 bonuses, also to the highest paid city administrators and $22,000 and a $750 car allowance to NC do nothing City Attorney George Eiser III.

The above bonuses and raises were granted to bureaucrats, most who earn over $100,000 while NC residents, the poorest in SD County struggle daily to put food on their tables, clothes on their children’s backs, pay rent, and pay for the basic essentials of life.

Governor Schwarzenegger’s and his vested interested groupies will spend millions up until election day using “scare tactics,” that police, fire will be cut back, gangs will take over, houses will burn down etc. to frighten and convince voters to vote yes, like NC politicians did.

As NC politicians have proven, after levying the highest tax on the poorest people in California; politicians will never, ever be accountable to residents, taxpayers or voters, once they get your money.

Don’t be mislead, send a message to all politicians, VOTE NO on Tuesday on all the State propositions.

Letters to the Editor Return to the Frontpage

SPENDING ON DRUGS

Fire Is Born — Fri, 15 May 2009 14:26:29 EDT

"(...) Apart from these big-picture analyses, it is important to catalogue all of the differences on a more specific level, as well. For example, yesterday, the Huffington Post took a look at the differences between spending on the "drug war" from 2009 to 2010. Again, the results were minimal (more in the extended entry):

Chris Bowers :: Quantifying Change

In the 2010 budget, prevention takes a 10.6 percent hit while domestic law enforcement gets a boost of 2.3 percent, with "interdiction" (military and police actions designed to stem the flow of drugs into and about the country) gaining 4.4 percent. On the positive side of the ledger, treatment shows a 4.4 percent increase. And what of the never-ending seesaw battle between supply and demand initiatives? Unfortunately, demand reduction efforts (education, prevention) are down 0.8 percent, while (generally futile) supply reduction initiatives (enforcement, burning or poisoning crops) gets a 2.7 percent bump.

In terms of actual spending figures, here is the breakdown from the Obama administration itself:

Interdiction: $4.004 billion (2010) vs. $3.836 billion (2009)
Domestic Law Enforcement: $3.737 billion (2010) vs. $3.654 billion (2009)
Drug Treatment: $3.566 billion (2010) vs. $3.416 billion (2009)
Drug Prevention: $1.602 billion (2010) vs. $1.791 billion (2009)
International Enforcement: $2.160 billion (2010) vs. $2.174 billion (2009)

Funding Universal Health Care

Richard — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:06:26 EDT

I am just giving my opinion on how to fund Universal health care that is being addressed by the President Obama and Congress. I'm advocating funding this plan by taxing every one a small tax perhaps 1% so that this needed service is borne by every one including retirees.Every one needs this service and it is unfair to ask those who smoke and/or drink to support this plan soley. I realize my opinion may not be a popular one but I think it's a fair one . What do you think?

The battle has started – Obama vs great corporations

Torgny V.O.B. — Mon, 11 May 2009 17:02:49 EDT

The head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, Christine A. Varney declared that this administration will take tough stands against companies that violate the anti-trust laws. It is generally big companies who in some ways keep smaller companies out of the market. During the era of Bush, the government did not enforce these anti-trust laws. This new policy from Obama will help small business as well as consumers. It is my hope that as many as possible support Obama in this. This includes the Republican who is in favour of free competition.

I have no problem with big companies. But I have problem with big companies who use their power for selfish reasons and do not care about the welfare of the people.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/business/economy/12antitrust.html

Ed Show from MSNBC on SINGLE PAYER - this man roars the truth!!!

Fire Is Born — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:09:30 EDT

I was mesmerized when I saw it last week.

Every American must see it. This is like ... WOW!!!!

Would you believe that this is only a second time I watched Ed?! Where on earth was I? OK, we didn't have the cable till couple weeks ago, and I soooo stoped trusting MSMs, 'cept KO. now Rachel, and always Bill Moyers.

I love Ed now, and single-payer is like numero uno for me, life or death. I will judge any politician on their stance about it and you guess who will get my vote.

yes or no.

no middle grounds here.

I am done being enslaved to my jobs because they give me some semi-lousy insurance.

And my small business employer is not happy they need to give me one. So they now prefer to hire folks that get insurance from some other source. Or are much younger than my 59 - with respective coverage cost from Keiser.

SEPARATE HEALTH COVERAGE FROM EMPLOYMENT NOW!!!

SINGLE PAYER for all Americans!!

more info about Single Payer. Learn today, act today:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/fib/gGxJgJ/commentary

Learn useful survival skills while surviving spam by Rev. Mary:

Fire Is Born — Sun, 10 May 2009 21:17:00 EDT

Wayfinding, or Non-Instrument Navigation

Dennis Kawaharada

(Photo below: Swells Help a Navigator Hold a Course in the Daytime)

Introduction

Before the invention of the compass, sextant and clocks, or more recently, the satellite-dependant Global Positioning System (GPS), Polynesians navigated open ocean voyages without instruments, through careful observation of natural signs. (See "Hawaiians as Seaman and Navigators".)

Navigator Nainoa Thompson of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, who was taught by Mau Piailug, a master navigator from Satawal in Micronesia, explains how a star compass is used to tell direction without instruments: "The star compass is the basic mental construct for navigation. We have Hawaiian names for the houses of the stars-the places where they come out of the ocean and go back into he ocean. If you can identify the stars, and if you have memorized where they come up and go down, you can find your direction. The star compass is also used to read the flight path of birds and the direction of waves. It does everything. It is a mental construct to help you memorize what you need to know to navigate.

"How do we tell direction? We use the best clues that we have. We use the sun when it is low on the horizon. Mau has names for how wide and for the different colors of the sun path on the water. When the sun is low, the path is tight; when the sun is high it gets wider and wider. When the sun gets too high you cannot tell where it has risen. You have to use other clues.

"Sunrise is the most important part of the day. At sunrise you start to look at the shape of the ocean-the character of the sea. You memorize where the wind is coming from. The wind generates the swells. You determine the direction of the swells, and when the sun gets too high, you steer by them. And then at sunset we repeat the observations. The sun goes down-you look at the shape of the waves. Did the wind change? Did the swell pattern change? At night we use the stars. We use about 220 stars by name-having

(...)"

Human Rights Watch

Fire Is Born — Sun, 10 May 2009 21:11:50 EDT

Concerns white phosphorus used in Afghan battle

By JASON STRAZIUSO and RAHIM FAIEZ,

Associated Press Writers Jason Straziuso And Rahim Faiez, Associated Press Writers

Sun May 10, 6:08 pm ET

KABUL – Doctors voiced concern over "unusual" burns on Afghan villagers wounded in an already controversial U.S.-Taliban battle, and the country's top human rights groups said Sunday it is investigating the possibility white phosphorus was used.

The American military denied using the incendiary in the battle in Farah province — which President Hamid Karzai has said killed 125 to 130 civilians — but left open the possibility that Taliban militants did. The U.S. says Taliban fighters have used white phosphorus, a spontaneously flammable material that leaves severe chemical burns on flesh, at least four times the last two years.

Using white phosphorus to illuminate a target or create smoke is considered legitimate under international law, but rights groups say its use over populated areas can indiscriminately burn civilians and constitutes a war crime.

Afghan doctors told The Associated Press they have treated at least 14 patients with severe burns the doctors have never seen before. The villagers were wounded during last Monday's battle in Farah province.

Allegations that white phosphorus or another chemical may have been used threatens to deepen the controversy over what Afghan officials say could be the worst case of civilian deaths since the 2001 U.S. invasion that ousted the Taliban regime.

In Kabul on Sunday, hundreds of people marched near Kabul University to protest the U.S. military's role in the deaths. Protesters carried signs denouncing the U.S. and chanted anti-American slogans.

The incident in Farah drew the condemnation of Karzai, who called for an end to airstrikes. The U.S. has said militants kept villagers captive in hopes they would die in the fighting, creating a civilian casualties controversy.

However, President Barack Obama's national security adviser said Sunday the United States would not end airstrikes. Retired Gen. James Jones refused to rule out any action because "we can't fight with one hand tied behind our back."

Along with Afghan and U.S. investigations into the battle, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission has been looking into concerns that white phosphorus may have been used after strange burns were reported. Nader Nadery, a commissioner in the leading rights organization, said more investigation was needed.

"Our teams have met with patients," Nadery told AP. "They are investigating the cause of the injuries and the use of white phosphorus."

White phosphorus is a spontaneously flammable material that can cause painful chemical burns. It is used to mark targets, create smoke screens or as a weapon, and can be delivered by shells, flares or hand grenades, according to GlobalSecurity.org.

Human rights groups denounce its use for the severe burns it causes, though it is not banned by any treaty to which the United States is a signatory.

The U.S. military used white phosphorus in the battle of Fallujah in Iraq in November 2004. Israel's military used it in January against Hamas targets in Gaza.

Col. Greg Julian, the top U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan, said the U.S. did not use white phosphorus as a weapon in last week's battle. The U.S. does use white phosphorous to illuminate the night sky, he said.

Julian noted that military officials believe that Taliban militants have used white phosphorus at least four times in Afghanistan in the past two years. "I don't know if they (militants) had it out there or not, but it's not out of the question," he said.

A spokesman for the Taliban could not be reached for comment Sunday.

The U.S. military on Saturday said that Afghan doctors in Farah told American officials the injuries seen in wounded Afghans from two villages in the province's Bala Baluk district could have resulted from hand grenades or exploding propane tanks.

Dr. Mohammad Aref Jalali, the head of the burn unit at the Herat Regional Hospital in western Afghanistan who has treated five patients wounded in the battle, described the burns as "unusual."

"I think it's the result of a chemical used in a bomb, but I'm not sure what kind of chemical. But if it was a result of a burning house — from petrol or gas cylinders — that kind of burn would look different," he said.

Gul Ahmad Ayubi, the deputy head of Farah's health department, said the province's main hospital had received 14 patients after the battle, all with burn wounds. Five patients were sent to Herat.

"There has been other airstrikes in Farah in the past. We had injuries from those battles, but this is the first time we have seen such burns on the bodies. I'm not sure what kind of bomb it was," he said.

U.N. human rights investigators have also seen "extensive" burn wounds on victims and have raised questions about how the injuries were caused, said a U.N. official who asked not to be identified talking about internal deliberations. The U.N. has reached no conclusions about whether any chemical weapons may have been used, the official said.

Afghan officials say up to 147 people may have died in the battle in Farah, though the U.S. says that number is exaggerated.

The investigation into the Farah battle coincides with an appeal by Human Rights Watch for NATO forces to release results of an investigation into a March 14 incident in which an 8-year-old Afghan girl was burned by white phosphorus munitions in Kapisa province.

The New York-based group said Saturday that white phosphorus "causes horrendous burns and should not be used in civilian areas."

In the latest violence, a double suicide bomb attack killed seven people and wounded 20 in southern Afghanistan on Sunday. The majority of casualties were police and army units responding to the initial attack, said Dawood Ahmadi, the governor's spokesman.

A roadside bomb in eastern Nangarhar province killed eight construction workers traveling on a rural road on their way to build a checkpoint for the country's border police, an official said, while a truck driver and two assistants died in a roadside bomb blast in Zabul province while transporting goods to a U.S. base, police said.

Taliban militants have increased their attacks the last three years as the country's insurgency has turned increasingly bloody. President Barack Obama is sending 21,000 additional U.S. troops to the country to bolster the record 38,000 American forces already in the country.

Obama's stand up routine

Fire Is Born — Sun, 10 May 2009 15:42:16 EDT

For those of you who only rarely have a glimpse at TV programs, or were not invited to the dinner, as well as those who do not own a black tie, or still wonder if one is proper for a lady, enjoy it now here on My.BO, which nowadays seems to be blue spam trained. fib

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"Politicians, celebrities and journalists have attended the White House Correspondents' Association black-tie dinner in Washington.

In keeping with tradition, President Barack Obama was the guest of honour and as such received what has become known as a "roasting", a series of jokes made at his expense.

However, Obama soon turned the tables, by mocking his critics and joking about the next 100 days of his presidency."

see the video here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8042300.stm

The occupation of Wounded Knee - do not miss it this coming Monday on PBS

Fire Is Born — Sat, 09 May 2009 21:27:20 EDT

Premiering May 11, 2009 on PBS

Film Description

On the night of February 27, 1973, fifty-four cars rolled, horns blaring, into a small hamlet on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Within hours, some 200 Oglala Lakota and American Indian Movement (AIM) activists had seized the few major buildings in town and police had cordoned off the area. The occupation of Wounded Knee had begun. Demanding redress for grievances—some going back more than 100 years—the protesters captured the world's attention for 71 gripping days.

With heavily armed federal troops tightening a cordon around meagerly supplied, cold, hungry Indians, the event invited media comparisons with the massacre of Indian men, women, and children at Wounded Knee almost a century earlier. In telling the story of this iconic moment, the final episode of We Shall Remain will examine the broad political and economic forces that led to the emergence of AIM in the late 1960s as well as the immediate events—a murder and an apparent miscarriage of justice—that triggered the takeover. Though the federal government failed to make good on many of the promises that ended the siege, the event succeeded in bringing the desperate conditions of Indian reservation life to the nation's attention. Perhaps even more important, it proved that despite centuries of encroachment, warfare, and neglect, Indians remained a vital force in the life of America.

Rachel, you rock!

Fire Is Born — Sat, 09 May 2009 21:03:47 EDT

maddowVery proud to have been on the jury that honored this 6 min. film at Tribeca: http://tinyurl.com/cg487c Very very very.about 2 hours ago

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday that the time is right to debate legalizing marijuana for recreational use in California

Fire Is Born — Sat, 09 May 2009 18:20:35 EDT

Good move! Ammiano needs back up. fib

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Governor says he's open to debate on legal pot

Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

(05-06) 04:00 PDT Sacramento - --

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday that the time is right to debate legalizing marijuana for recreational use in California.

The governor's comments were made as support grows nationwide for relaxing pot laws and only days after a poll found that for the first time a majority of California voters back legal marijuana. Also, a San Francisco legislator has proposed regulating and taxing marijuana to bring the state as much as $1.3 billion a year in extra revenue.

Schwarzenegger was cautious when answering a reporter's question Tuesday about whether the state should regulate and tax the substance, saying it is not time to go that far.

But, he said: "I think it's time for debate. I think all of those ideas of creating extra revenues - I'm always for an open debate on it."

The governor said California should look to the experiences of other nations around the world in relaxing laws on marijuana.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, has introduced a bill to regulate marijuana like alcohol, with people over 21 years old allowed to grow, buy, sell and possess cannabis - all of which are barred by federal law.

California voters in 1996 legalized marijuana for medical use with permission from a physician.

Ammiano said he was pleased the governor is "open-minded" on the issue and added that he was sure the two could "hash it out."

Under Ammiano's proposal, the state would impose a $50-an-ounce levy on sales of marijuana, which would boost state revenues by about $1.3 billion a year, according to an analysis by the State Board of Equalization. Betty Yee of San Francisco, who chairs the Board of Equalization, supports the measure.

"This has never just been about money," said Ammiano, who has long supported reforming marijuana laws. "It's also about the failure of the war on drugs and implementing a more enlightened policy. I've always anticipated that there could be a perfect storm of political will and public support, and obviously the federal policies are leaning more toward states' rights."

An ABC News/Washington Post poll last week found that 46 percent of Americans favored legalization of small amounts of pot for personal use, double the number who supported that a decade ago. A Field Poll also released last week found that 56 percent of California voters supported legalizing and taxing marijuana.

In March, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said the federal government would take a softer stance on medical marijuana dispensaries, with drug enforcement agents targeting only those who violate state and federal law. California is one of 13 states that allow marijuana use with a doctor's recommendation.

Many law enforcement organizations oppose changes in marijuana laws. The California Police Chiefs Association, in a report last month, concluded that marijuana dispensaries constitute "a clear violation of federal and state law; they invite more crime; and they compromise the health and welfare of law-abiding citizens."

But the head of that association said he, too, is open to a debate on legalizing pot.

"We keep walking around the 5,000-pound elephant in the room, which is should marijuana be legal?" said Bernard Melekian, president of the association and chief of police in Pasadena.

The Board of Equalization analysis predicts that legalization would drop the street value of marijuana by 50 percent and increase consumption by 40 percent.

Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, which advocates legalization, said the governor's comments about marijuana are part of a "tectonic shift" in attitudes toward the issue.

"I think, frankly, the public is going to drag the politicians into doing what is right," he said.

Chronicle staff writer Matthew Yi contributed to this report. E-mail Wyatt Buchanan at wbuchanan@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/06/MNO617F929.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Future of public transport is...

Fire Is Born — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:42:59 EDT

Who killed the public transport?

Well, many are guilty. Like those of us who do not use it even though it is there for grabs.

But especially guilty are designers of public transportation vehicles who are not regular users. Or perhaps just have “visited” a train between driving their well cushioned four door luxury sedans. I was close to a heart attack when I saw the “designs” for the new BART trains – the public train system in San Francisco Bay area. I use it all the time. And I have CFIDS. These photos made me dizzy by just looking at them.

Please read the comments following the article. I am sure glad that I am not alone in my feelings. Let's not let them squeeze us any more! We are working people. We deserve respect and comfort.

And MUNI, the San Francisco bus system, is going to raise the fair 50 cents. The highest rise in century!

All this when the Planet is warming every day more.

I am mad! fib

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BART lays out ambitious plans for new railcars

This design includes three doors, and keeps the seating configuration fairly similar to the existing BART Cars at the far ends of the car, but changes the middle seating to allow longitudinal (side facing) seating. This opens up considerable room for passenger flows and standees. (Courtesy of BART)

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"BART is set to embark on a $3.4 billion project to replace its existing trains with 700 new cars that will carry more people, move passengers through stations faster, and meet the needs of suburban and urban riders.

"This is a significant undertaking for this agency, one we don't even make every generation," BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger said Thursday. Many of the 669 BART cars now in service have been running since the system opened in 1972.

BART officials are confident they can get $1 billion, most of which would come from the federal government, to pay for 200 cars and hope to get a further $2.4 billion in funding to pay for the remaining 500 trains in the fleet. Some of the costs could be paid for by fare hikes and bridge toll increases.(...)"

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/08/BAKO17GMMN.DTL

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"A little known chapter in Canada's past, when it forcibly assimilated aboriginal youths..."

Fire Is Born — Thu, 07 May 2009 22:44:57 EDT

The USA has this chapter in its history as well. Canadians have apologized, Australians have apologized, the Pope has apologized! Time for us to say “we are sorry”! fib

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A retrospective of Inuit assimilation hits screens

18 hours ago TORONTO (AFP)

— A little known chapter in Canada's past, when it forcibly assimilated aboriginal youths by taking them away from their parents, was highlighted this week in a new documentary. "The Experimental Eskimos" screened for the first time at Toronto's Hot Docs Festival, the largest in North America. It tells the story of three adolescent boys who in l962 and l963 were sent to school in Ottawa, 2,900 kilometers (l,800 miles) south of their homes in the Canadian Arctic. Government documents show the purpose was to create leaders among a group that had only recently left their nomadic lives. "The question was, can Eskimos be civilized?" asked Peter Ittinuar, one of the men in the film. Addressing a Toronto audience after a packed screening of the film, he noted: "We were the guinea pigs." The tiny experiment eventually included some two dozen bright boys and girls who agreed to join the program.

On a broader scale, 150,000 Indian, Metis and Inuit, as they were later called, were forced into Christian Church-run boarding schools beginning in 1874 in an effort to integrate them into society. Survivors of the residential schools allege abuse by headmasters and teachers, who stripped them of their culture and language. They say their schooling left them disconnected from their families, communities and feeling "ashamed" of being born native. Ittinuar told AFP that Pope Benedict XVI's acknowledgment last week of Indian, Metis and Inuit students' suffering was "hugely significant -- it is connected to what we went through." Prime Minister Stephen Harper last year also apologized for the residential school abuses.

The three boys profiled in the film went on to become leaders who were instrumental in the creation of Nunavut, the world's largest self-governing aboriginal territory in Canada's far north. Footage from the l970s and l980s show the brash and articulate long-haired young men dressed in suits making their case to politicians, including then prime minister Pierre Trudeau. They succeeded in getting recognition within the constitution for Canada's first peoples. But the early years of being separated from their parents and uprooted from their culture took its toll.

In the film, the men speak of their anguished pasts, which included alcoholism, failed relationships, and run-ins with the law. "It took decades before I could tell my story as I lived it," recounts Zebedee Nungak, one of the three men shown in the film. "We have served as leaders and that's good. But each one of us has lived with addictions and dysfunctions." "At the time, you wonder why things are happening to you," remarked Ittinuar, who was Canada's first Inuit Member of Parliament. "The film has helped bring closure," he said, adding: "I'm OK -- I even play golf, and if that isn't middle class, what is." Ittinuar is now a negotiator at Canada's Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs. "I totally lost my language for awhile," said Eric Tagoona in the film. "I couldn't even talk to my parents." Tagoona insisted he was not going to consider himself a victim. Yet he is the most striking casualty. The former high powered lobbyist, who headed the national Inuit group, Inuit Tapirisat Kanatami, now lives as a hermit without a telephone in the isolated Arctic hamlet of Baker Lake.

Director Barry Greenwald told AFP the social experiment on the one hand did wrench the boys from their culture. "And this was at a time when young men are supposed to be learning traditional skills of hunting and building a kayak." When they returned, they were known as "The White Boys from Ottawa." On the other hand, they were given an education and a sophistication that enabled them to become leaders in a remarkably short time. "The big irony here is that the bureaucrats would never have predicted that these men were going to be the activists in the establishment of aboriginal rights." Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

Rupert Murdoch: “Internet Will Soon Be Over”

Fire Is Born — Thu, 07 May 2009 19:21:50 EDT

Rupert Murdoch: “Internet Will Soon Be Over”

Corporate media forced to charged dwindling readership for news content as establishment propaganda organs wither and die while alternative media soars

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, May 7, 2009

Billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch gave a strange response when asked about plans for mainstream news websites to charge for content, declaring, “The current days of the internet will soon be over.”

He was making reference to the fact that corporate media websites cannot continue to survive under their current failing business model.

The establishment media is dying and advertising revenue has plummeted as people turn to blogs and the alternative media for their news in an environment of corporate lies and spin.

This has forced sectors of the corporate media to charge the dwindling number of loyal readers they have left for news content, a practice which is set to become widespread according to Murdoch. This will only send more people over to the alternative media as the old organs of de facto state-controlled propaganda wither and die.

“Asked whether he envisaged fees at his British papers such as the Times, the Sunday Times, the Sun and the News of the World, (Murdoch) replied: “We’re absolutely looking at that,” reports the Guardian. “Taking questions on a conference call with reporters and analysts, he said that moves could begin “within the next 12 months‚” adding: “The current days of the internet will soon be over.”

Murdoch’s newspapers and TV networks, which include Fox News and the Asian Star Network, have seen profits plummet from $216m to just $7m year-on-year. MySpace.com is also floundering despite a recent move to replace the company’s entire management staff.

It was all but over for the Boston Globe this week, following a threat to close the 137-year-old publication after net losses of $85 million this year alone. Only a last minute cost-cutting agreement on behalf of its owner, The New York Times Company, and The Boston Newspaper Guild, saved the newspaper.

But it’s not just establishment newspapers that are struggling to survive - social networking websites like Twitter and corporate online video giant You Tube are also deep in the red. Apparently, paying out millions in server fees for half the population of the planet to watch clips of cute puppies isn’t a sustainable business model.

This is why You Tube is being forced to pursue lucrative partnerships with giant production studios and broadcasters, at the expense of user generated content which has been relegated to a sub-section of its website, taking the “You” out of You Tube altogether. Content that may be deemed harmful to You Tube’s corporate agenda and its multi-million dollar partnership deals, like The Alex Jones Channel, is being systematically erased from You Tube’s website under the pretext of flimsy copyright infringement claims.

The jig is up for the corporate media. If they continue to allow free access to their content they will go out of business because there’s not enough advertising revenue coming in, whereas if they charge for content they will lose a huge chunk of their audience and their influence in shaping the news agenda will wane completely.

This is the price the corporate media has paid for lying, spinning and obfuscating on behalf of the virulently corrupt power elite and expecting the population to eat it up without question.

The corporate media monopoly has terminal cancer and they are losing their power, which is why they are aggressively supporting moves to phase out the old Internet altogether and replace it with “Internet 2,” a highly regulated and controlled electronic Berlin wall, where alternative voices will be silenced and giant corporate propaganda organs will dominate once again.

This what Murdoch is really getting at when he assures us that, “The Internet will soon be over” and it’s down to us to stop that agenda from being realized.

Get your ad SEEN by our millions of monthly visitors AND support the Infowar. CLICK HERE for our advertising rates.

Message from Mitch Stewart: The Work You Did

Thu, 07 May 2009 05:09:15 EDT

Mitch Stewart sent out an email today thanking supporters for the work they did to help pass the President's budgets, and asking them to help spread the word about the work they're doing in communities across America:

Last week, Congress passed President Obama's budget. It's a budget that works for ordinary Americans, and it's all thanks to people like you.

Members of Organizing for America spoke up and asked Congress to lay a new foundation for American growth by passing a budget that invests in energy, health care, and education -- and that's exactly what they did.

But as the President said on his hundredth day in office, we should be pleased with our progress so far, but not satisfied. There's so much more work to do, and to get it done we need to keep growing this movement.

Please take the next step by writing a letter to the editor of your local paper -- share your story about how you helped pass this budget, and invite folks in your community to join in.

Write and submit your letter online by clicking here.

Single payer is good for American people and American businesses - large and small

Fire Is Born — Wed, 06 May 2009 13:09:00 EDT

H.R. 676 FAQ

Universal Health Care

What is H.R. 676?

H.R. 676, also called the United States National Health Insurance Act, is a bill to create a single-payer, publicly-financed, privately-delivered universal health care program that would cover all Americans without charging co-pays or deductibles. It guarantees access to the highest quality and most affordable health care services regardless of employment, ability to pay or pre-existing health conditions.

What is "single-payer"?

The term single-payer describes the kind of financing system that H.R. 676 uses. It means that one entity--in this case, established by the government--handles all billing and payment for health care services. Right now, there are thousands upon thousands of "payers"-- HMOs, PPOs, bill collection agencies, etc. The sheer volume of paperwork required by our current system means that administrative waste accounts for roughly 31% of the money spent on health care. The single-payer system would eliminate the wasteful paperwork and administrative costs, redirecting more of our health care dollars to providing care.

Medicare is perhaps the best known single-payer system. Essentially, H.R. 676 would improve Medicare and expand it, so that it covers all Americans, regardless of their income.

Who will be eligible for health care coverage under H.R. 676?

All Americans will be eligible for health care coverage. Every person who enrolls in the program and receive a United States National Health Insurance Card and individual ID number, and that is all anyone will need to receive care.

What health care services are covered?

The program established by H.R. 676 will cover all medically-necessary services without charging co-pays or deductibles. The services covered will include: primary care; inpatient, outpatient and emergency hospital care; prescription drugs; durable medical equipment; hearing, dental and vision care; chiropratic treatment; mental health services; and long-term care.

What about "catastrophic" care? Will I ever reach a limit for coverage?

No. There are no limits on coverage. Just as you will never pay a co-pay or a deductible under the universal national health care program, you will never reach a ceiling on your coverage.

Will I be able to choose my doctor?

Yes. Patients will have their choice of physicians, providers, hospitals and clinics. The financing will be public, but the providers will all remain private.

No co-pays or deductibles-- what's the catch? Will I actually pay less for health care?

There is no catch. Both families and employers will pay significantly less for health care.

Currently, the average family of four covered by an employer-provided health care plan spends roughly $4,225 on health care each year, including premiums, services, prescription drugs and supplies. This figure does not include the annual Medicare payroll tax, currently at 1.45%. Under the plan created by H.R. 676, a family of four making the median income of $56,200 would pay about $2,700 in payroll tax for all health care costs. No deductibles, no co-pays, no worrying about catastrophic coverage.

Employers who provide health insurance currently pay, on average, 74% of employee health premiums. For a family of four, the average employer share is $8,510 per year. Under H.R. 676, the employer pays a 4.75% payroll tax, not a premium to health insurance companies. For an employee making the median family income of $56,200 annually, the employer would pay roughly $2,700.
Estimates taken from: Employer Health Benefits 2006 Annual Survey, Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust; Consumer Expenditure Survey, U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics; and Study by the Center for Economic Research and Policy.

How will the transition to the new system work?

The full conversion to a non-profit, single-payer universal health care program will not take place overnight once the bill is passed. The total transition time will be roughly a 15-year period. Important elements of the transition will include:

• Private health insurance companies will be prohibited from selling coverage that duplicates any benefits included in the universal national health care program. The private companies will, however, still be able to sell coverage for services that are not deemed medically necessary, such as many cosmetic surgery procedures. • Private insurance company workers who are displaced as a result of the transition will be the first to be hired and retained by the new single-payer entity. Any of the displaced workers who are not rehired will receive two years of unemployment benefits.

How will the universal program be paid for?

First, switching to a single-payer system will lead to billions of dollars saved in reduced administrative costs. Those savings will be passed on through the system and allow coverage for all Americans. Additional savings in the overall cost of health care will come from annual reimbursement rate negotiations with physicians and negotiated prices for prescription drugs, medical supplies and equipment.
Second, a "Medicare For All Trust Fund" will be created to ensure a dedicated source of funding in addition to annual appropriations. Sources of funding will include:

• Maintain current federal and state funding for existing health care programs
• Closing corporate tax loopholes
• Repealing the Bush tax cuts for the highest income earners
• Establish employer/employee payroll tax of 4.75% (includes present 1.45% Medicare tax)
• Establish a 5% health tax on the top 5% of income earners; a 10% tax on top 1% of wage earners
• One quarter of one percent stock transaction tax

Home

Afghanistan civilan deaths - Washington "deeply, deeply" regrets the death of Afghan civilians killed by an air strike, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said.

Fire Is Born — Wed, 06 May 2009 12:55:39 EDT

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Washington "deeply, deeply" regrets the death of Afghan civilians killed by an air strike, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said.

Red Cross officials believe dozens of civilians including women and children died in the strike which targeted Taleban fighters in Farah Province.

The civilians are said to have been sheltering from fighting at the time.

Mrs Clinton was speaking alongside the Afghan and Pakistani presidents who are in Washington to meet Barack Obama.

“Monetary Reform Needed Now” By John Tiffany

Fire Is Born — Tue, 05 May 2009 13:57:09 EDT

“According to Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) U.S. monetary reform is urgently needed: “It is long past time we look at the implications of . . . the privatization of money created by the 1913 Federal Reserve Act, the bank fractional reserve system and our debt-based economic system. Unless we have dramatic reform of monetary policy, the entire economic system will continue to accelerate wealth upwards. I am currently working on drafting legislation for an ‘American Monetary Act’ to address these and other issues in order to protect the economic well being of America.

“The U.S. government has been turned into an engine that accelerates the wealth upwards into the hands of a few. . . . And now, the American people are about to pay the price of the collapse of the $513 trillion Ponzi scheme of derivatives. Yes, that’s half a quadrillion dollars.”

AFP covered a special presentation on the American Monetary Act in Washington on April 23, hosted by Kucinich and the American Monetary Institute, the premier organization for monetary reform in America.

Kucinich’s lovely wife Elizabeth introduced the speaker, Stephen Zarlenga, director of the institute, who has been described as the man who knows more about money than probably anyone else in the United States, and going back in history to the times of the ancient Spartans and the Roman republic.

At one point Zarlenga handed around to the audience a coin from ancient Rome (probably about 225 to 217 B.C.) called an aes grave, made of bronze and weighing about 274 grams. This, he explained, is an example of how money should be made, issued by the state, not by a private bank such as the Federal Reserve, and having a value assigned by law, rather than intrinsic value like gold or silver coinage. (Rome did produce gold and silver “bullion” coins, but only for trade with foreigners, not for use inside Rome.)

Zarlenga showed numerous slides to make monetary science clear to the audience, a mixture of the general public and congressional aides and interns. He pointed out that there has never been true monetary reform in America, which would consist of three elements:

1.)We need to nationalize the Fed;

2.) Banks would no longer issue credit into circulation as “money”;

3.) The government would spend new Treasury notes into circulation, to pay for needed infrastructure construction and repairs.

Until now, every attempt at real reform in America has been strangled in the cradle. Past voices for monetary sanity such as those of Reps. Louis McFadden and Jerry Voorhis were silenced.

Monetary reform has failed on a number of occasions in various countries when the reformers failed to implement all three of these elements, Zarlenga warned. For example, Britain nationalized the Bank of England in 1946, as William Temple called for in 1942, but because banks were allowed to continue to create money, within a few years everything was back to “business as usual” in Britain, and the British people enjoyed little benefit from the reform effort.

The one organization that has a reform program that is comprehensive and free of outside influence is the American Monetary Institute, which drafted the American Monetary Act. The act may be found on the Internet at: http://www.monetary.org/amacolorpamphlet.pdf .”

John Tiffany is the associate editor of TBR revisionist magazine.

(Issue # 19, May 11, 2009)

Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute - as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003