Saturday Night Live – Really with Seth and Amy?! – Video – NBC.com
Democrats in the House who voted against HR3962
After a marathon session in the House debating HR3962, some Democrats still saw fit to voting against legislation to insure more Americans. These members need your attention in their upcoming elections. Pressure needs to be put on them to let them know that their vote goes against what the majority of Americans clearly want for their health care future.
John Adler (NJ)
http://forms.house.gov/adler/webforms/issue_subscribe.htm
Jason Altmire (D – PA)
http://www.altmire.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=38
Brian Baird (WA)
http://www.baird.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=99&Itemid=35
John Barrow (GA)
https://forms.house.gov/barrow/webforms/issue_subscribe.htm
John Boccieri (OH)
http://boccieri.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=78
Rick Boucher (VA)
http://www.boucher.house.gov/
Dan Boren (OK)
http://boren.house.gov/contact.shtml
Allen Boyd (FL)
http://boyd.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=300:contact-us&catid=55
Bobby Bright (AL)
http://www.bright.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=43&Itemid=61
Travis Childers (MS)
https://forms.house.gov/childers/webforms/contact.htm
Bern Chandler (KY)
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
Lincoln Davis (TN)
http://www.house.gov/lincolndavis/contact/offices.htm
Bart Gordon (TN)
http://gordon.house.gov/contact/index.shtml
Chet Edwards (TX)
https://forms.house.gov/edwards/webforms/issue_subscribe.htm
Parker Griffiths (AL)
http://griffith.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=4§iontree=4
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD)
http://hersethsandlin.house.gov/contact2.htm
Larry Kissel (NC)
http://kissell.house.gov
Tim Holden
http://holden.house.gov/contactform_zipcheck.shtml
Suzanne Kosmas (FL)
https://forms.house.gov/kosmas/webforms/contact.html
Frank Kratovil (MD)
http://kratovil.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=3§iontree=3
Betsy Markey (CO)
http://betsymarkey.house.gov/Contact/
Kucinich (ON)
http://kucinich.house.gov/Contact/
Jim Marshall (GA)
http://jimmarshall.house.gov/contact.html
Eric Massa (NY)
http://massa.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=4§iontree=4
Mike Mcintyre (NC)
http://www.house.gov/mcintyre/contact.shtml
Jim Matheson (UT)
https://forms.house.gov/matheson/contact.shtml
Michael McMahon (NY)
https://forms.house.gov/mcmahon/contact.shtml
Charlie Melancon (LA)
http://www.melancon.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=191&Itemid=52
Walt Minnick (ID)
http://minnick.house.gov/
Scott Murphy (NY)
http://scottmurphy.house.gov/Contact/
Glenn Nye (VA)
http://nye.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=74§iontree=4,74
Colin Peterson (MN)
http://collinpeterson.house.gov/contact.html
Mike Ross (AR)
http://ross.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=8§iontree=8
Heath Shuler (NC)
https://shulerforms.house.gov/contact/
Ike Skelton (IE)
http://www.house.gov/skelton/contact.shtml
John Tanner (TN)
http://www.house.gov/tanner/contact.htm
Gene Taylor (MS)
https://forms.house.gov/genetaylor/webforms/zipauth.ht
Harry Teague (NM)
http://forms.house.gov/teague/webforms/issue_subscribe.htm
On abortion, conservatives, and the sanctity of life.
Bill Moyers – Bring back the draft, or end the war.
BILL MOYERS:
Watching the CBS Evening News on Afghanistan this week I thought for a moment that I might be watching my grandson playing one of those video war games that are so popular these days.
Reporting on the attacks that killed eight Americans, CBS turned to animation to depict what no journalists were around to witness. This is about as close to real war as most of us ever get, safely removed from the blood, the mangled bodies, the screams and shouts.
October, as you know, was the bloodiest month for our troops in all eight years of the war. And beyond the human loss, the United States has spent more than 223 billion dollars there. In 2010 we will be spending roughly 65 billion dollars every year. 65 billion dollars a year.
The President is just about ready to send more troops. Maybe 44 thousand, that’s the number General McChrystal wants, bringing the total to over 100 thousand. When I read speculation last weekend that the actual number needed might be 600 thousand, I winced.
I can still see President Lyndon Johnson’s face when he asked his generals how many years and how many troops it would take to win in Vietnam. One of them answered, “Ten years and one million.” He was right on the time and wrong on the number– two and a half million American soldiers would serve in Vietnam, and we still lost.
Whatever the total for Afghanistan, every additional thousand troops will cost us about a billion dollars a year. At a time when foreclosures are rising, benefits for the unemployed are running out, cities are firing teachers, closing libraries and cutting essential maintenance and services. That sound you hear is the ripping of our social fabric.
Which makes even more perplexing an editorial in THE WASHINGTON POST last week. You’ll remember the “Post” was a cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq, often sounding like a megaphone for the Bush-Cheney propaganda machine. Now it’s calling for escalating the war in Afghanistan. In a time of historic budget deficits, the paper said, Afghanistan has to take priority over universal health care for Americans. Fixing Afghanistan, it seems, is “a ‘necessity’”; fixing America’s social contract is not.
But listen to what an Afghan villager recently told a correspondent for the “Economist:” “We need security. But the Americans are just making trouble for us. They cannot bring peace, not if they stay for 50 years.”
Listen, too, to Andrew Bacevich, the long-time professional soldier, graduate of West Point, veteran of Vietnam, and now a respected scholar of military and foreign affairs, who was on this program a year ago. He recently told “The Christian Science Monitor,” “The notion that fixing Afghanistan will somehow drive a stake through the heart of jihadism is wrong. …If we give General McChrystal everything he wants, the jihadist threat will still exist.”
This from a warrior who lost his own soldier son in Iraq, and who doesn’t need animated graphics to know what the rest of us never see.
So here’s a suggestion. In a week or so, when the president announces he is escalating the war, let’s not hide the reality behind eloquence or animation. No more soaring rhetoric, please. No more video games. If our governing class wants more war, let’s not allow them to fight it with young men and women who sign up because they don’t have jobs here at home, or can’t afford college or health care for their families.
Let’s share the sacrifice. Spread the suffering. Let’s bring back the draft.
Yes, bring back the draft — for as long as it takes our politicians and pundits to “fix” Afghanistan to their satisfaction.
Bring back the draft, and then watch them dive for cover on Capitol Hill, in the watering holes and think tanks of the Beltway, and in the quiet little offices where editorial writers spin clever phrases justifying other people’s sacrifice. Let’s insist our governing class show the courage to make this long and dirty war our war, or the guts to end it.
BILL MOYERS: That’s it for this week. Log onto our website at pbs.org and click on “Bill Moyers Journal.” You’ll find a web exclusive conversation with the political analyst Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com. There’s also more from economist James Galbraith and the Journal’s complete coverage of the financial meltdown and bailout.
Stewart annihilates Fox News’ purported opinion-news division: “It’s a perpetual revulsion machine”
$50,000 Ultima GTR Shatters $1.6 Million Ferrari FXX Top Gear Track Record
Frustrated that Top Gear refused to run its GTR around the show’s track, Ultima took matters into its own hands, acquiring private access, then breaking the Michael Schumacher-piloted Ferrari FXX’s time by nearly a second.Via Jalopnik
Still puzzled about the difference between the Fox Nutwork and actual news organizations?
I guess some folks weren’t convinced by the fact that Fox apparently feels free to simply change basic facts when they’re inconvenient and standing them on their head would be more politically advantageous. Specifically, I refer here to the Fox habit of “accidentally” labeling every politician who gets indicted, arrested or defeated as a Democrat.
But Fox’s “colleagues” among the actual news media still harbor some doubts, it seems. And if you’re in the real news business, that’s perhaps understandable. You worry about the differences, because unless they’re very clear, you think maybe you might be subject to a call-out sometime in the future, too, right?
Though the White House tried to clarify it position when questioned this week, the difference between Fox and real news networks is something best illustrated by showing you their game. And that’s just what Media Matters did:
Here’s the Fox Nutwork playbook in all its glory.
When attempting to defend itself, Fox insists that the most egregious examples of bias pointed to by its attackers are from its “opinion journalists” (which they are), who are an operation separate from its “news” division (which they most decidedly are not).
In fact, Fox is designed and built to exploit the traditional expectation of such divides at the other networks, but instead regularly uses its opinion shows as a vector to whitewash their bullshit for the “news” side, turning even of the most outlandish and idiotic ultra-right talking points into something that wears the disguise of news. In the evening hour opinion shows (which, poisonous though they are, Fox is perfectly entitled to broadcast), you have your Hannity types spouting their wingnut applause lines unchecked, because gosh, it’s just “opinion journalism.” So it’s all fair game when they come right out and claim Obama’s a socialist, or communist, or fascist, or whatever the flavor of the day is.
But lo and behold, come next morning, the “news” side anchors pull out the infamous “Fox Question Mark” construction, dutifully delivering their line to the audience: “Is Obama a socialist? That’s what some in Washington are saying…” Nevermind that both the “some” who are saying it and the talking heads “reporting” it take their morning memos and their paychecks from the same source.
The previous evening’s attack memes, Fox folks will tell you, are supposedly this morning’s “news,” because, well, people are saying it, and they as “journalists” have a responsibility to cover that. And in their view of it nobody’s culpable, because Hannity’s a commentator, and the “news” division is just noting that “some” are saying it. Clean hands all around!
In reality, of course, it simply cannot be considered fair game to plant memes with the opinion side so that the “news” side can claim, “Hey, it’s out there and we have a responsibility to report it” the next day.
And that, if you ask me, is one of the key difference between the Fox Nutwork and everybody else.
2009 US Economy: Largest Transfer of Wealth to Financial/Political Elite in Global History
Political “leadership” of the two oligarchy parties spin their economic policy as being for the public benefit. Professional economists increasingly cast economic policy in unprecedented harsh criticism, even calling for public demonstrations against what they claim as gross violations of financial law. Let’s consider current facts of high importance:
• Transfer of somewhere over $3 trillion with a total potential of $23.7 trillion to banks and financial institutions for the socialization of their gambling losses on illegal sub-prime mortgages and credit default swaps. We know the sub-prime lending was illegal because the FBI concluded 80% of all sub-prime criminal fraud originated from the lenders.
• A so-called bailout designed to give money to the banksters without accountability of where the money is going. This is according to testimony of Elizabeth Warren, Harvard law professor appointed to oversee the bailout for Congress, with video explanation below. The bankster-bailout was chosen rather than simply protecting depositors and reorganizing the banks under standard bankruptcy procedure. The two oligarchy political parties denied Congressional hearings for the bankster-bailout, which should have considered cost-benefit analysis for public banks rather than private banks. An important fact that would have come out of the hearings is that the total market capitalization of all the major US banks was less than $300 billion; meaning that the government could have outright bought all of them for less than a tenth of the amount given away. Think about that.
• A 2009 record payout to bank employees, including lucrative bonuses, on pace for $140 billion. Goldman Sachs, with three recent CEOs who have also been Secretary of the US Treasury, is doubling their bonuses from 2008.
• Depression-level unemployment, with the government’s “official figures” understating true unemployment by half.
• 100,000 laid-off teachers with class sizes expanding to over 40 students per class, and over a million homeless US students.
• The economic crushing of the American middle class, as explained by Elizabeth Warren in her video.
• Record high home foreclosures. An alternative policy to the bankster-bailout would have been to have the banks write-down the value of the mortgages they fraudulently wrote, and reset that lower value as the new loan amount for the homeowner. This could have been a preliminary move to creating non-profit mortgage rates for the public benefit.
• Record federal budget deficit of $1.4 trillion.
• Record federal debt of $12 trillion with annual interest payments of ~$450 billion every year. The oligarchy has no policy to ever pay the national debt, only to make the minimum interest payment. They don’t even try to defend that the national debt is in the public good and never discuss monetary reform to end the debt.
• Record total US debt from all sources of over $70 trillion.
• US military recruitment hitting targets because young Americans have no other options for work. These men and women will feed the expansion of illegal US Wars of Aggression.
Dylan Ratigan of MSNBC’s show, “Morning Meeting,” calls the economic “bailout” and subsequent policy, “the largest theft and cover-up ever,” “the worst deal since the Indians sold Manhattan,” “the ‘Masters of the Universe’ are on the take from the taxpayers,” “the biggest transfer of money in the history of the world,” and “No one, the Pharaohs, you pick ‘em, no one even comes close to how much the banks and politicians have stolen from us.” His video is also below.
Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term, Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal, and Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University simply writes, “The rich have stolen the economy.”
If it’s any comfort, remember that America was born from recognition that our government was playing us, exploiting our labor for their financial gain and not for the public good. Remember that our government labeled Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, James Madison, and all the Founding Fathers as “traitors” when they didn’t blindly and stupidly believe the empty spin that the government was acting in the public good. They also predicted that future generations would have to fight to retain the liberty they wrested from lying political whores who murdered the public good in exchange for personal wealth, fame and power.
If you ever wondered how educated Germans could ever believe Nazi propaganda, all you have to do is look around the US today.
The good news is that the structural economic change for the public good is simple. Monetary reform ends the banks from creating money, shifts this power to the Treasury for the direct payment of public goods and services and minimizing the peoples’ cost of credit (think 1% interest-rate mortgages). Real regulation will end casino capitalism with exotic derivatives betting on future economic outcomes that produce no public benefit in the gambling. Taking money out of elections and politics will limit political corruption. Breaking up the five corporations that currently serve as the propaganda arm of the oligarchy will help; the so-called mainstream media, or sheepstream media corpse as I like to call it.
To get from here to the good news is a formidable task. I suggest a Truth and Reconciliation process to exchange our getting the complete truth and ending all criminal and damaging political and economic acts for the perpetrators’ cooperation and return of public assets. I’d even allow them a stipend to facilitate their surrender of our government and economy; what the oligarchy presently consider their own twisted private playground.
The two interviews are necessary education for the public to see the economy for what it is. They are 6-minutes and 7-minutes.
