if 77% of americans want an alternative to paying insurance companies for medical care,

why is more than 77% of the televised debate time being given to industry mouthpieces that oppose it, and the screaming stooges that dont understand it?

i have yet to see a convincing argument for having insurance companies in the healthcare equation. the costs to our economy and the public health are now well known. so what is their value added?

 

 

I was just wondering, since Sarah Palin brought up the imaginary "Death Panel" that is not in the legislation and that exactly nobody has proposed -- does this mean that we get to talk about the real ones that the Insurance Companies have, as a key element of our current healthcare situation? It seems like something that should be being discussed, and I've heard that phrase repeated on TV a number of times now, but it's always about the imaginary one. Are the talking heads ever going to talk about the real ones, or are they not allowed to because it would be "bad for the parent" companies that own them?

 I for one, would certainly like to hear more discussion about "death panels" --

and whether or not they are appropriate in our healthcare system.

Unlike Republicans, Democrats do not as a rule pre-screen their Town Hall meetings to include only those that agree with them. This is now being exploited by AstroTurfers that are being bussed into the districts where Democratic legislators are hoping to hear from their constituents with the sole purpose of stifling, rather than facilitating, debate on the issue.

 It occurs to me that this can be easily thwarted without having to resort to anti-democratic Republican-style tactics. Since these meetings are for the purpose of representatives hearing from their constituents, then just limit attendance to those that actually live in the district. This would eliminate the "professional disrupters" that are being bussed from meeting to meeting for no other purpose than to prevent conversation and debate. People could then be known by their own communities as either facilitative of, or averse to, democratic debate. After all, it's a bit more intimidating and a lot less rewarding to be a complete jerk in front of your own neighbors, especially when your only goal is to keep them from being heard or answered. 

 Bear with me, if you will, as i lay out some past malfeasance while wondering if there is any reason to think it possible such things still occur. No big theory, just wondering aloud, and am not looking for my tinfoil hat thank-you-very-much.

 A number of "false flag" operations, planned or executed by our own government are now declassified and available on wiki and elsewhere. One of these that is well documented was "Operation Northwoods" from the period around 1962, which was about staging or making use of catastrophic events so as to rally public support for a takeover of Cuba. There were many 'ideas' put forth in the documents, one of which (from wiki) is as follows:

" 8. It is possible to create an incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civil airliner enroute from the United States to Jamaica, Guatemala, Panama or Venezuela. The destination would be chosen only to cause the flight plan route to cross Cuba. The passengers could be a group of college students off on a holiday or any grouping of persons with a common interest to support chartering a non-scheduled flight.

a. An aircraft at Eglin AFB would be painted and numbered as an exact duplicate for a civil registered aircraft belonging to a CIA proprietary organization in the Miami area. At a designated time the duplicate would be substituted for the actual civil aircraft and would be loaded with the selected passengers, all boarded under carefully prepared aliases. The actual registered aircraft would be converted to a drone.

b. Take off times of the drone aircraft and the actual aircraft will be scheduled to allow a rendezvous south of Florida. From the rendezvous point the passenger-carrying aircraft will descend to minimum altitude and go directly into an auxiliary field at Eglin AFB where arrangements will have been made to evacuate the passengers and return the aircraft to its original status. The drone aircraft meanwhile will continue to fly the filed flight plan. When over Cuba the drone will being transmitting on the international distress frequency a "MAY DAY" message stating he is under attack by Cuban MIG aircraft. The transmission will be interrupted by destruction of the aircraft which will be triggered by radio signal. This will allow ICAO radio stations in the Western Hemisphere to tell the US what has happened to the aircraft instead of the US trying to "sell" the incident. "

 And that was back in 1962! Wow. Another, called "Operation Dirty Trick" involved preparation of "evidence" that would "prove", in the event of a launch catastrophe for John Glenn's flight, that Castro had brought about the disaster by jamming NASA radio frequencies. These documents have become part of the public domain many years ago, and anyone can look them up and read them for themselves.

 The reason that i bring up such history is that there is now a story in the news about detailed plans for Marine One showing up on an Iranian computer. The story is that someone that worked in defense or intel installed a file-sharing program on their computer at work, and it happened to have detailed plans for Marine One on it, and that somehow those files got shared, and that somehow the Iranians were able to download them. Sounds plausible enough? Mmmm, not really, but thats the current story. And it has the happy by-product that the moral of the story is that file-sharing is wrong and even dangerous. Check.

 Many of my friends have had to get low-level civilian or even upper-level military security clearances over the years in the course of their employment, service, or University research. It is pretty clear to me that anyone with even the lowest level of security clearance would know that on a secured computer, NO software can be installed, much less any of the file sharing variety.

 The part of this story that doesn't make any sense to me is that we're talking about detailed plans for Marine One. Radar systems, defense capabilities, jamming equipment, everything. The security clearance necessary for a complete set of such plans would have to be very high, maybe "Top" or above.

 My civilian friends that had to get the lowest level clearance to work in a machine shop that made a part for a piece for some other project told me tales of their friends from junior high being contacted and interviewed about them. The upper levels are a great deal more invasive and excruciating than that. So anyone that would be qualified to even see such documents would have to be way up the security clearance food chain, and anyone accessing such documents would have to be higher still. Furthermore, there are very tight access restrictions put on such documents, and all attempts to access them are logged. There is most definitely a trail that can show exactly at what moment those documents hit that computer, where they came from, and who put them there - as none of that could have happened without a person way-up using their authority to access them in the first place

.
 Thus, the question i have is this: is it at all possible that someone in the DoD or the intelligence community, by necessity someone with highest-level clearance, wishes both to harm our President, and also wants war with Iran? And if so, in light of numerous past such operations, clearly documented, would this have been perfect cover -- "proof" if you will -- that could have enabled them to pull off both at once? I for one certainly can't imagine any such person or persons in our government that would want to do such a thing, but there are quite a few examples of our government having done so in the past. Wiki "false flag" for more and see.
 

One of the amazing developments of the Bush era that we are just beginning to hear involves people in the defense and intel communities that stood up to the would-be dicatators at critical moments. Many of us never imagined that it would be those folks holding that line, as historically generals and spies have often been the source of mischief in democracies. Evidently in ours, there are a number of us that can be counted on to do right by their country when such potential situations arise, as Cheney was rather irritated to find out. I imagine there are others that we haven't heard about here on TPM and on Rachel that have paid a high price for doing right, and whose stories will never be known. I am humbled and inspired by the stories i've heard in this regard, and am personally grateful for them all, particularly those still in their jobs.

  And i know that news stories like this tend to catch their attention.

  Stories like this current security breach remind both them and us that the price of freedom is indeed eternal vigilance. Let's hope they continue to keep a watchful eye on our President, and also our nation from those inside or out that would do us harm.

 One more thing! This was a long story to show just one 'maybe' angle, and we may one day find out what the real deal was, or not. But if it turns out that there really are creeps high enough up in those corridors to have access to detailed plans of Marine One looking to do us all wrong in such a way, it is highly likely that they were also involved or advocated for the spying program that scoops up all of our everything going across cell nodes and the intertubes. Which, as it happens, is about the only way that these documents could have been discovered. If any higher-ups end up caught, tried, and convicted -- it would be due to their own grand design! Now that would be funny.

The Obama administration asks Federal Judge to stay ruling, takes position that President can bypass Congress to 'listen in' on Americans' communications?

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/obama-sides-wit.html

 Another Wired article last week - "Obama to Defend Telco Spy Immunity" reported that the incoming Obama administration would "vigorously defend" (Holder) Telecom Immunity for spying.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/obama-to-fight.html

In light of the comments made by former NSA agent Russell Tice on "Countdown" the last two nights, this merits more than the "almost no" attention it's been getting both here and in the MSM. Ironically enough, these two stories share the same sidepanel on Wired's "Threat Level" blog with "Obama promises New Era of Openness."

 Am i the only one that feels it may actually be more important to have a strong Speaker in the Senate for the coming Obama administration than it was during Bush? Couldn't (shouldn't?) Hillary just beat his ass down and take the gavel? Okay, pardon that. But the image of Obama and Biden in the White House with Pelosi runnin the House and Hillary runnin the Senate sure looks attractive in my political fantasy life.

 Be that as it may, the lack of leadership that Reid has shown during the Bush debacle on critical issues must be seen in a new light given the result of the election. Building consensus around bending over for the majority was not the leadership this country seeks or deserves, nor has it been an effective strategy if one's purpose is to represent all of us and to uphold the constitution. The basic tenet that Reid has held is clearly "if you don't have the votes, don't take a stand." This has meant that the Democratic party has facilitated and enabled the very same policies that have brought domestic and global catastrophies. Cheney/Enron's energy policy, the war in Iraq, the looting of the treasury to pay off the Bush base in the form of the "tax cut", domestic spying, etc. On absolutely none of these did Reid lead his colleagues to stand, to a person, in opposition to class warfare, environmental destruction, or unprovoked war. Sane people everywhere and even the planet itself were sold out and given no voice, and the rationale was that it would hurt the party politically if the media took the administration side. No rape of justice or abuse of power or violation of our constitution was reason enough for Reid to lead Democrats to stand in unified opposition to the Bush administration, even after his popularity had faded. No sir, that is not leadership. That is aiding and abetting, and is recognized as such. And when the aiding and abetting becomes obvious and potentially prosecutable, as with the domestic spying program? Show "leadership" by hurrying through legislation that makes the crime retroactively legal.  

 And now it appears that Reid is unwilling to take a stand and rightfully revoke the chair, held by Democrats, that (Independent) Joe Lieberman still holds after campaigning against the Democratic party and casting aspersions on the judgement and character of our nominee, President-elect Obama. Given Reid's legacy thus far, this is just the icing on the cake. Unfortunately he may also be setting a precedent, and i don't want him doing that anymore --neither accidentally nor on purpose. 

Can we get some leadership now, please? 

Thanks to EdA for the link to this. It shows that Lawrence Summers is basically the Dick Cheney of Economics. Human lives in developing nations are clearly worth less in economic terms than those in developed nations, so we should export our waste accordingly.

As the then-Secretary of the Environment of Brazil, Jose Lutzenberger wrote to him: "Your reasoning is perfectly logical but totally insane..."

 The article begins: "On December 12, 1991, the chief economist for the World Bank, Lawrence Summers, wrote an internal memo that was leaked to the environmental community... "

Check the link to see the rest of what Lawrence had to say:

http://www.whirledbank.org/ourwords/summers.html

 

 

 

 

 

Story on Wired: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/11/report-ess-voti.html

 see also: "ES&S Voting Machines in Michigan Flunk Tests, Don't Tally Votes Consistently"

at http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/11/michigan-electi.html

The gist is that the electronic voting machines provided by Election Systems and Software, which are used in 20 states (including CO and OH) appear to report different tallies when the same ballots are run through again. The screens can also be configured to record a touch in certain areas for a preferred candidate. Since the front panel configuration interface requires no password, it can be done by anyone that has purchased the necessary hardware online or has configured a palmpilot with infrared to do so.

 Isn't it interesting that we have all been using ATMs for at least 25 years now, and nobody gets to withdraw money at any one of them anywhere in the world without their account being accurately debited. That's because they have standards. Isn't it about time that we apply those same standards to voting machines?  

In all of the campaign noise and dreadful news from the world markets this past week, something rather significant fell between the cracks that needs to be noted and possibly discussed. I hesitate to bring this up, as all of us were 'lipsticked' and 'sexismed' beyond the point of nausea just a short while back, but this little event may explain why the McCain campaign got out front so quickly and aggressively with the 'sexism' charge in the first place.
 I'm speaking of the off-the-cuff ravelation by Sarah Palin to a FOX news reporter that she read of the campaign's decision to bail out of Michigan in the newspaper. Of course, being a maverick, she "fired off an e-mail" right away voicing her disappointment.
 Did anyone else catch that? What does this say about the whole package we've been sold of "two maverick reformers, workin' together to solve these problems?"
 As for the decision to bail on what was once viewed a critical state -- and one in which McCain has outspent Obama -- the campaign decided that the number 2 on the ticket needn't worry her pretty little head about it.
 If one contemplates this for more than a Palin soundbyte, one realizes a few things that seem to shed some light on the now-forgotten debate on whether picking Sarah was the feted cracking of the glass ceiling, or political pandering at its cynical worst.
 Now we've seen over the past few weeks how they cloister her then just wind her up and let her go, ("The heels are on and the gloves are off") and get her to say the nastiest things about Senator Obama -- things that even McCain won't say if last night's debate was any indication. She delivers the poison with a wink and a smile, and all the while they don't ask her or tell her a damn thing about what's going on, even major decisions in what they smirkingly allow her to believe is "her" campaign.
 So the answer to the aforementioned debate actually ends up being neither of the aforepostured, and imagine my chagrin at realizing i didn't reach low enough to come up with the actual motive: crass exploitation akin to putting a model in a bikini and a fur and having her drape herself across the hood of the new Caddy at the auto show.
 McCain, it turns out, is more of a pig than we thought.
 And he was desperately in need of some lipstick.

from The Anchorage Daily News article "Subpoenaed Palin aides could be found in contempt"

 

Sarah and Todd Palin are both represented in the Troopergate investigation by an Anchorage attorney, Thomas Van Flein. There's some dispute over just whom Van Flein is working for. Colberg said Friday that Van Flein is on contract with the state to represent the governor, although the state has nothing to do with his representation of Todd.

But Van Flein, who has been getting advice from a lawyer working on the McCain-Palin campaign, insists he canceled the state contract on Sept. 12.

Colberg said he does not think Van Flein has received any money from the state. Palin's gubernatorial spokesman, Bill McAllister, said that's his understanding as well. Van Flein said the state is not paying his fees and that the Palins are responsible. But he wouldn't say whether they were paying directly, or if the money is coming from the McCain campaign or some other source.

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/538471.html

Obama looked pretty good last night, and i think McCain did fairly well but kinda creeped people out in the process. The excessive blinking, the angry smile, the refusal to make eye contact with his opponent. People read those cues whether they consciously notice them or not. When even the conservative commentators are pointing that out, you know the effect has left a lingering impression on the American psyche -- and one that does not bode well for McCain.
 But watching Biden eloquently and succinctly eviscerate McCain on all the major networks immediately following the debate was just priceless. He was really on his game last night, and i don't think I've ever seen someone look that credible and respectful while completely trashing their opponent and his record. But there he was, just tearin it up on every channel. I think that he may have even absconded with a few of McCain's freshly-won festoons while Mac's campaign was still busy breathlessly declaring the victory that they had already declared in an ad buy released before the thing started. (Republicans don't wait for reality -- they just create their own.)
 So where was Sarah to do her part for the McCain team? Oh yeah -- she's not allowed to talk to the media!
 Doh!!! 
 Yet another unforseen consequence of the Palin pick (and the damage-control strategery that it necessitated) must be painfully obvious to the McCain campaign this morning. The analogy that comes to mind at this moment is reaching for a candy bar when you've skipped lunch and need dinner. A little boost up, followed by a big crash.
I think this must be the part where the sweet intoxication has ended, and it's all just a big headache for McCain. Maybe that's why he looked so grumpy.
But Biden looked great - he must've had the arugula. Of course we all know it was collard greens, but to Republicans i suppose all greens look alike ; )
Sure am lookin forward to that VP debate!

Watch McCain spokesman Brad Blakeman fail and flounder when being directly called out on the McCain campaign's blatant lies and distortions (link below.)
 As we know, a common Republican tactic is to project their worst faults and weaknesses onto their opponents whether it 'sticks' or not -- which is clearly evident in their pathetic attempt to paint Barack Obama as an "elitist."
Given that, it is most heartening to hear a McCain spokesperson say of the Obama campaign (while attempting unsuccessfully to dodge a tough question no less) that "..they're desperate...the wheels are coming off..."

Ari Melber is my hero of the week! take a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq7Nyddt9QU

He's a Maverick and a Reformer alright. I can't believe i actually admired him back then (while supporting Gore, of course.) Turns out that the "McCain of 2000" wasn't much different than the current one after all. He just didn't have Charlie Black lobbying for the telecoms regarding pending legislation that McCain would be voting on from his cel on the "Straight Talk Express."
Read it and weep:
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/1999-11-25/news/an-endowed-chair/

I can't believe that so many educated politicos are frustrated with the way the Obama campaign is addressing the repeated desperate attacks by the McCain campaign. First, it's DNC policy (as stated by Schumer recently on the Daily Show) to ALWAYS respond to a Repug attack ad within 24 hours. That's the DNC. In addition to that, the Obama campaign responds through various spokespersons as these red herrings are floated daily. This election MUST BE about the critical issues facing our nation and world at this time -- NOT about Paris or Britney or tire gauges or any of that nonsense designed only to distract. As such, it appears to me that Obama is playing it exactly right. Let others answer the nonsensical charges while the candidate stays on the issues. This keeps him above the fray and keeps the issues (that McCain and his pals in the MSM REALLY don't want to engage) in the news, in spite of their best(?) efforts to distract us.
Far from being a cause of frustration for me, the way Barack has been handling himself through all of this nonsense reminds me every day of why i support his candidacy.

 The feeble attempt by Katie Couric and CBS to cover for John McCain as he displayed his dreadful ignorance on events in Iraq is a stunningly cartoonish example of PSYOPS amateur hour. It's not just that they edited out the mistake, it's what they replaced it with.
 Try to come up with the corniest and most ham-handed parody of MSM spin you can imagine to cover John McCain's potentially campaign-defeating moment. Would it contain, say... stock footage of the troops in action, the candidate's favorite and best photo of himself in Iraq with Petraeus, and a baseless but emotional accusation of his opponent (a standing US Senator) of wanting to "lose the War" for personal gain???
 Check, check, and check.
 Think about it. If you were a freshman majoring in Propaganda and this was the project you turned in, you would probably get a well-deserved "C" -- with no points for subtlety. I was thinking that "The Daily Show" could do a parody of this, but quickly realized it would be awfully difficult to beat the original.
 Hats off to Couric and CBS on this one! The overseers at FOX are green with envy, and Colbert at his finest couldn't have done any better!