Jack & Jill Politics

Free Music Archive. Just like it sounds, only better.
The Free Music Archive is an expertly curated virtual library of legal music downloads. The site is directed by WFMU, New Jersey's beloved, listener-supported, freeform radio station.

FMA picks up the copyright slack. Inspired by Creative Commons, the Archive strives to provide its users with royalty-free, pre-cleared tracks for noncommercial projects, including podcasts, soundtracks, radio, and remixes.

It's curated by the pros. Explore eclectic selections from legendary Seattle station KEXP, Los Angeles-based nonprofit upstart Dublab, and New York City's Issue Project Room, among many others.

The music is yours. Stream your favorite tracks from the Web, or download high-quality MP3s; if you love what you hear, the site makes it easy to give back by either buying the albums or donating directly to an artist's "tip jar."

Explore the Archive, check out WFMU's playlists, and read an interview with FMA managing director Jason Sigal.
http://freemusicarchive.org/

Chrysler to close nearly 800 U.S. dealerships
None to go in Canada

Chrysler's U.S. operation plans to close nearly 800 dealerships, about 25 per cent of its outlets, the company told a U.S. bankruptcy court Thursday.

But Chrysler Canada has no similar plans, a spokeswoman said. "We expect the total number across Canada to remain relatively stable (roughly 450)," Mary Gauthier said in a statement.

Chrysler said in a U.S. bankruptcy hearing that it plans to cut 789 of its dealers around the U.S. It has about 3,200 across the U.S., but doesn't have the sales to justify that number of outlets.

The company wants fewer, better financed dealers with better facilities.

Auto dealers are often pillars of their communities, providing well-paying jobs and supporting local cultural groups, teams and charities.

But the cuts at Chrysler and its competitors have been expected as the North American manufacturers shed plants and production jobs.

Chrysler is restructuring in bankruptcy protection.

No individual U.S. dealerships have been told their days are numbered, spokeswoman Kathy Graham said. The company will tell dealers before making any public comments.

In Canada, the Chrysler brands — Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge — have been consolidated already, so "virtually all" Canadian dealers sell all three, Gauthier said.

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/05/14/chrysl...

MSNBC- Nancy Peloski is getting grilled by the press

IT IS TORTURE

http://silencedmajority.blogs.com/.a/6a00d83452...

RNC having special session to brand the Democratic Party 'Socialists'
By John Amato Thursday May 14, 2009 6:45am

Just when you think you've seen it all, dumbness-wise, from Michael Steele and the Republican National Committee, they do something even dumber:
A member of the Republican National Committee told me Tuesday that when the RNC meets in an extraordinary special session next week, it will approve a resolution rebranding Democrats as the “Democrat Socialist Party.”
When I asked if such a resolution would force RNC Chairman Michael Steele to use that label when talking about Democrats in all his speeches and press releases, the RNC member replied: “Who cares?”

Which pretty much sums up the attitude some members of the RNC have toward their chairman these days.
Steele wrote a memo last month opposing the resolution. Steele said that while he believes Democrats “are indeed marching America toward European-style socialism,” he also said in a (rare) flash of insight that officially referring to them as the Democrat Socialist Party “will accomplish little than to give the media and our opponents the opportunity to mischaracterize Republicans.”

Steele is a complete joke, as I've written many times. I once got to meet the man, and his lame TV persona isn't any different in person. He's being stripped of his power, especially after failing in nearly all of his early tests (like the NY-20 race). They'd fire him in a second, but they obviously don't want to get rid of an African-American man who just got elected to run the RNC. And his opinion on whether to go down this "socialist" road obviously carries zero weight.
Anyway, there's more stupidity going on at this special session of the RNC:

Continue reading »

http://crooksandliars.com/

GOP Senators Block Interior Nominee's Confirmation
By Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 14, 2009

On a vote largely along party lines, Senate Republicans yesterday blocked President Obama's nominee for deputy interior secretary amid a fight over the agency's new rules on oil and gas drilling. The administration appointee was the first to be turned back on a floor vote.

The nomination of David J. Hayes, a natural resources lawyer with experience in federal lands issues, fell just short of the 60 votes needed to cut off debate and move to a final vote. This was the second time this year that the GOP held together on a major action to block the president's agenda or his nominees on a filibuster vote.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...

Hayes received 57 votes, but he has more support than that. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) switched his vote to nay in a parliamentary move that allows him to bring up the nomination again under fast-track rules should the administration reach an accord with Republicans. In addition, three Democrats who would support Hayes were absent: Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.), John F. Kerry (Mass.) and Barbara A. Mikulski (Md.). In addition, three Democrats who would support Hayes were absent: Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.), John F. Kerry (Mass.) and Barbara A. Mikulski (Md.).

1. What are "fast track rules"?

2. I understand Kennedy being absent, but why were Kerry and Mikulski? If they were present and voted "yea" and Reid voted "yea", then there would be no need for "fast track rules".


Republicans acknowledged beforehand that the vote was not a rejection of Hayes...instead were making a statement of opposition to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's cancellation this year of leases for oil and gas drilling in Utah.

Vindictive, greedy bastids.

The Daybook
POTUS Events: Land of Enchantment

By Sarah Lovenheim
President Obama starts his day in New Mexico, also known as the Land of Enchantment. He holds a town hall meeting at Rio Rancho High School at 10 a.m. (local time) to discuss credit card reform. The president returns to Washington around 6 p.m. ET.

Check out our Federal City Digest for a rundown of noteworthy events around town.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/05/14/...

Growth of Hispanic, Asian Population Slows Unexpectedly,
Census Reports
By Hope Yen
Associated Press
Thursday, May 14, 2009

Deterred by immigration laws and the lackluster economy, the population growth of Hispanics and Asians in the United States has slowed unexpectedly, causing the government to push back estimates on when minorities will become the majority by as much as a decade.

Census data being released today also showed that fewer Hispanics are migrating to suburbs and newly emerging immigrant areas in the Southeast, including Arkansas, Tennessee and Georgia. Instead, Hispanics are staying in traditional gateway locations such as California.

The nation's overall minority population continues to rise steadily, increasing 2.3 percent in 2008 to 104.6 million, or 34 percent of the total population. But the slowdown among Hispanics and Asians continues to shift conventional notions on when the tipping point in U.S. diversity will come -- estimated to occur more than three decades from now.

Thirty-six states had lower Hispanic growth in 2008 compared with the year before. The declines were in places where the housing bubble burst, such as Nevada and Arizona, which lost construction jobs that tend to attract immigrants.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...

Tincture of Lawlessness - Obama's Overreaching Economic Policies ... The Obama administration is bold. It also is careless regarding constitutional values and is acquiring a tincture of lawlessness.

No, I disagree completely. The photos should absolutely not be released. It will endanger the troops and it will create such a rift between the President and the military. He really doesn't need that. He needs to worry about morale and he needs to be the kind of leader who will not lead them in the way the Cheney and his ilk have done. Releasing the photos will only cause problems for the little guy in the military, not the leadership and they are the ones who deserve to be punished!

I think of this as both a morale and a national security issue!

Love this photo of Michelle Obama and the kids!

From Literary Obama: They Inspire Us to Action: Spoken Words at the White House. A roundup of links, news articles, photo, and some video of the "poetry jam." The White House still hasn't made the full video of the event available online yet (their blog suggests that they might). But HBO will be airing the whole event at a later date.

From Field Negro:

Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Some things you just don't do.

This is a memo to Mark Cuban from the field:


Mark, I know that you hire a lot of black men to play on your team and you are an owner in the NBA, which means that you have a lot of interaction with black men by default. But there is something you should know: DON'T YOU EVER EVER DISRESPECT A BLACK MAN'S MAMA! I don't care how much of those "dead presidents" you have just sitting around collecting interest. Some things you just don't do. I know you got caught up in the heat of your team's playoff series, but don't let that shit cause you to end up in a Dallas hospital some damn where. And for the record, your apology on your blog was lame.


Your actions the other night, as you walked off the court, towards Kenyon Martin's mother, had me wanting to kick your ass. There is a reason we say "your mama" to each other if we really want to rumble. Not your wife. Not your daddy. (Well, most of us don't know our Daddies) And not your grandma. Your mama is what gets our blood boiling. Because, for better or for worse, we just love our damn mamas.




And let's be clear; the real villain in this sad episode is not you, Mark. No, the real villain is that coward, David Stern, for not slapping you with a big fat fine. (I guess there is a different standard for owners) You have created an environment in Dallas that could lead to something nasty, and leaving the family members of visiting players exposed to that Texas mob (ahhh Texas, again) in your arena is just downright irresponsible.


I never agree with Jason Fatlock, but I might have to this time. He is right when he says this:


"Right or wrong, disrespecting a black man's mama publicly has always been a drop-the-gloves moment. When a billionaire white man does it, it becomes a ride-or-die episode for the entire neighborhood.

Last I checked, Martin plays in a league dominated by black men hailing from the don't-talk-about-my-mama culture. I don't have any doubt that La La Vazquez and every other Nugget sympathizer who entered American Airlines Arena for Game 4 came with an attitude looking for tiny signs of disrespect.

I'm sorry. I don't blame them.
I'm 42. I'm mature. I'm a pacifist. I haven't been in a fight since college. I honestly can't remember the last time I was fighting mad. But had Cuban wagged his finger at my mother, loud talked her and told her I was a "punk" and/or a "thug" — after I pulled my mother (father and brother) off him — I would have delivered at least one mouth shot."




Mr. Fatlock, make that two of us.


http://field-negro.blogspot.com/2009/05/some-th...

WTF? I can't STAND Fatlock either and I have to agree too!!


What triggered Cuban to go off? How could he have been so unbelieeevably rude?

. I am surprised the mother did not go off on Cuban...I bet you money Iverson's momma would have hauled off and slapped the spit out his mouth and it would have been ON!!!

GOVERNMENT MOTORS: IMPORT CHINESE-MADE CARS TO USA - As thousands of General Motors workers await word on more U.S. plant closures, reports that the company plans to import Chinese-made vehicles to the U.S. have created a political problem for the automaker and the White House. Obama and his administration are clueless…at best. Plants aren’t the only things being closed, e.g. GM, CHRYSLER to cut up to 3,000 dealers...

Only in Karmiland can the President is to blame for 30 years of a failed business model after only being in office for less than 130 days.You need to pace youself remember you have 92 months to go and at the rate you going you really will be bat shit crazy.

Can't even get on you about this. This was a topic on The Ed Show

Re: Rush Limbaugh and His Recent Slur

I'd be curious to know who Limbaugh's top corporate sponsors are, and whether or not Black Americans do significant business with those sponsors. At some point we've got to stop feeding the beast that feeds Limbaugh.

Boycott clear channel.Since in reality there are not black owned if you stop listening to Urban radio and let clear channel know your reasons I think that would have a bigger impact than going after the sponsers.

I would suggest boycotting LOCAL advertisers rather than the national ones because local businesses can be broken more easily. If "Tide" advertises on the Rush show and you boycott Tide, Tide really doesn't care unless it's a full blown national boycott of Tide and all of the Tide companies' products.

If you boycott "Ed's Landscaping" for advertising on the Rush show, Ed's Landscaping will feel the economic impact of a boycott moreso than "Tide".

Here's something I found: http://blog-me-no-blogs.blogspot.com/2009/01/bo...

Granted, the post is from Jan. '09 but there is a list of advertisers and a very interesting article on how radio advertisers are easily swayed by boycott threats.

I also found a link on Rush's website. It allows you to email his advertisers to tell them how much you support him. I'm guessing that some intern goes through each and every email and tosses out the negative ones, so I don't know about that one.

I suppose the only way to find out is to actually listen to his show and write down all the advertisers. *shudders*

Sepia, this is good info. Thank you.

I'm going to start e-mailing right now.

You're welcome, Ronnie!

Obama bows to Republican right and military on torture photos
By Bill Van Auken
14 May 2009
The Obama administration’s decision Wednesday to renege on its promise to comply with a court order and release photographs of US personnel torturing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan represents another capitulation by his administration to mounting pressure from the right and the military-intelligence apparatus.

Speaking briefly to reporters Wednesday afternoon, Obama said that the photographs would “further inflame anti-American opinion and put our troops in greater danger.”
He claimed that the images are “not particularly sensational” and “would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals.” Obama failed to explain what makes the US president the arbiter of what is of “benefit to our understanding.”

The Pentagon, with Obama’s declared support, announced last month that it would release a “substantial number” of photos of US personnel abusing detainees at several prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan. The decision was taken in compliance with a decision last September by a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals upholding a lower court victory for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which had sought the photographs in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The full appeals court refused to rehear the case.

The photographs, reportedly 44 in all, were set to have been released May 28.
The Bush administration had argued that the release of the photos would generate international outrage and violate the rights of the detainees under the Geneva Conventions, rights that the administration had explicitly claimed had no application to detainees, who were classified as “enemy combatants.”

Apparently, the Obama administration is preparing to repackage the arguments made under George W. Bush, claiming that the release of the photos would threaten national security and, as the president asserted unconvincingly Wednesday, would have a “chilling effect on future investigations of detainee abuse.”
In making its “national security” case for suppressing the photographs, the Obama administration would likely be compelled to go to the US Supreme Court.
Amplifying on Obama’s statements, an administration spokesman told the media, “The president would be the last to excuse the actions depicted in these photos. That is why the Department of Defense investigated these cases and why individuals have been punished through prison sentences, discharges, and a range of other punitive measures.”

Nothing could more clearly sum up the criminal character of the Obama administration’s decision to prevent the release of these photos. Those subjected to “punitive measures” have consisted of a handful of junior enlisted men, such as those individuals punished in connection with the photographs uncovered in 2004 depicting the horrific treatment of detainees held at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
The entire point of exposing the photographs of similar abuse from a half dozen other prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan was that they prove that the torture of detainees was not the work of a few “bad apples” or psychopaths in uniform, but was systemic. The photographs showing prisoners at Abu Ghraib being beaten, threatened with attack dogs, piled naked in pyramids, smeared with feces, hanging from shackles and dragged on leashes did not represent an aberration. Rather these odious practices and worse were carried out on orders that came from the White House to the Pentagon and down the military chain of command.

The ACLU’s Executive Director Anthony D. Romero denounced the about-face by the White House. “The Obama administration’s adoption of the stonewalling tactics and opaque policies of the Bush administration flies in the face of the president’s stated desire to restore the rule of law, to revive our moral standing in the world and to lead a transparent government,” he said in a statement Wednesday. “This decision is particularly disturbing given the Justice Department’s failure to initiate a criminal investigation of torture crimes under the Bush administration.

Romero continued, “It is true that these photos would be disturbing; the day we are no longer disturbed by such repugnant acts would be a sad one. In America, every fact and document gets known—whether now or years from now. And when these photos do see the light of day, the outrage will focus not only on the commission of torture by the Bush administration but on the Obama administration’s complicity in covering them up. Any outrage related to these photos should be due not to their release but to the very crimes depicted in them. Only by looking squarely in the mirror, acknowledging the crimes of the past and achieving accountability can we move forward and ensure that these atrocities are not repeated.”
Jameel Jaffar, who argued the case for the ACLU called the decision “inconsistent with the promise of transparency that President Obama has repeated so many times.”

What is to account for the Obama administration’s sudden reversal?
The New York Times cited administration officials arguing that the photographs should be suppressed because “the missions in both Iraq and Afghanistan were entering risky, new phases. In Iraq, American combat forces are withdrawing from urban areas and are reducing their numbers nationwide. In Afghanistan, more than 20,000 new troops are flowing in to combat an insurgency that has grown in potency.”

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday that Generals Raymond Odierno, the US commander in Iraq, David McKiernan, the recently sacked commander in Afghanistan, and David Petraeus, the chief of US Central Command, which oversees both wars, “have all voiced real concern about this.” He added, “Particularly in Afghanistan, this is the last thing they need.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, appearing before the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday, said that the generals had “expressed very serious reservations about this and their very, very great worry that release of the photographs will cost American lives. That was all it took for me.”
Obama informed Odierno of his decision at a White House meeting Tuesday, before announcing it to the public.

Thus, Obama bowed to the demands of Gates, Petraeus, Odierno and McKiernan, all of whom were placed in their present positions by the same Bush administration that instituted torture as a standard operation procedure for the military and the CIA.
Even more importantly, Obama’s U-turn on the question of the torture photos has been carried out in the face of a concerted campaign led by former Vice President Dick Cheney to defend torture and portray the new administration’s decision to repudiate “enhanced interrogation techniques” and to release Justice Department memos justifying torture methods as paving the way for new terrorist attacks.
This has been accompanied by an attempt to justify the crimes of the Bush administration in relation to torture by emphasizing the complicity of key Democrats, particularly House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who were briefed on the use of waterboarding and other acts of torture being carried out against detainees and voiced no objection.

This effort has apparently been spearheaded by the CIA itself, which leaked documents detailing the number of briefings provided to members of Congress on the ongoing torture of detainees beginning in 2002.

There is no doubt that Obama is retreating in the face of this offensive by the Republican right and the national security complex. More fundamentally, however, the administration has made it clear from the outset that it has no interest in seeing any serious investigation of the torture carried out under the Bush administration, much less in the prosecution of those who ordered these practices, from Bush, Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and other cabinet members on down.

Its aim is to preserve intact the police-state infrastructure erected by the Bush administration in its “global war on terror,” while continuing to wage the wars of aggression that the previous government began in Afghanistan and Iraq.
This policy of political cowardice and complicity has inevitably turned Obama himself into a defender of torture, using the same “national security” arguments as the Bush administration to cover up its crimes.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/tort-...

In regard to torture Ta-Nehisi said it best:
"This is a deeply depressing failure on so many levels--and yet I feel like I should have seen it coming. My own deep personal experience with police violence says that people will accept the brutality of the state, if they think the state is trying to protect them. Not to flog this, but I keep going back to how my buddy was killed in PG County, and nothing happened to the officer who did it.

The fact is that that officer represented something about us, something about our hatred of drugs and crime, as well as our self-absorbed lack of empathy for any innocent--especially an innocent who we consider as "OTHER"--caught in the crossfire. Likewise, Cheneyism says something about who we are, and where we're willing to go." (my cap)
http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives...

He is WRONG.

Period.

US: Cuts in Social Security, Medicare to pay for bank bailouts
By Tom Eley
14 May 2009
A government report made public Tuesday indicates that Social Security and Medicare will deplete their trust funds more quickly than previously forecast. This has sparked new demands from within the US financial elite for substantial cuts in the two entitlement programs, which pay retirement and medical benefits for tens of millions of working class Americans.

The report was issued by the programs’ trustees, a group of four Obama administration officials headed by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Because regressive payroll taxes on workers’ earnings fund the two programs, mounting unemployment has worsened the projections. Since December 2007, 5.7 million jobs have been lost, and the official unemployment rate now approaches 9 percent.
The slump has slowed the rate of inflation to below the level required by law to trigger a cost-of-living raise for Social Security recipients. As a result, the trustees project that in 2010 and 2011, for the first time since automatic cost-of-living raises were incorporated into Social Security in the 1970s, there will be no increase in retirement benefits, and only a minuscule 1.4 percent rise in 2012.

Since the trustees base their projections of the fiscal state of both programs by estimating future economic growth, the current slump has moved forward the projected point at which each program will begin to run a deficit. Social Security currently operates at a surplus, which the report anticipates will end in 2016, when the program would finally have to begin withdrawing from its own fund—potentially cutting into the other areas where the federal government currently funnels the money. The effective freeze in retirement benefits will be combined with substantially higher monthly premiums for many Medicare recipients.

Even by its alarmist critics’ own admission, Social Security is not about to collapse under its own weight. It would deplete its funds by 2045, thirty years from now, according to the trustees’ report. For years, Social Security funds have been used to pay directly or indirectly for reactionary federal budget priorities—including tax cuts for the rich, bank bailouts, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Obama administration has shelled out hundreds of billions, no strings attached, to the biggest financial institutions, under the false rationale that this would “kick-start” lending and generate jobs. All told, between direct cash infusions, loans, and guarantees on debt, Washington has handed over around $10 trillion to Wall Street in less than a year. In comparison, Medicare would need $13 trillion and Social Security $5 trillion over the next 75 years to remain solvent, according to the report. In other words, retirement benefits and healthcare benefits for several generations of the elderly could be secured at the cost of one year’s bailout of the financial aristocracy.

But the vast payouts to Wall Street and the imperialist wars abroad require the plundering of Social Security and Medicare. After giving hundreds of billions to the banks and setting a new record for military spending, Obama has no other credible target for “fiscal discipline.” Yesterday the White House revised upwards its budget deficit estimate by 5 percent from February to $1.84 trillion.
Secretary Geithner’s dual role as Wall Street frontman and “trustee” of the retirement and health care for the working class underscores the duplicitous nature of the Obama administration. Disregarding the trillions he has handed over to the banks, Geithner claimed yesterday that “there is no more important long-term fiscal measure than gaining control of the growth of Medicare costs.”

The first target for cuts will be Medicare, followed by Social Security. Geithner explained: “After we have passed health-care reform that puts our nation on a path to lower growth in health-care costs and expanded affordable coverage, this president will work to build a bipartisan consensus to ensure the long-term solvency of Social Security.” Geithner’s reference to “bipartisan consensus” is Washington code for the sort of reform that can bring the most far-right, pro-market forces aboard. To make sure the significance of this was not lost, Geithner reiterated that Obama “explicitly rejects the notion that Social Security is untouchable politically.” Republican lawmakers reacted favorably.

Thus, after only four months, the historical significance of the Obama administration’s “domestic agenda” has come into focus. As it took a Democratic president, Bill Clinton to undo welfare, it will be a Democrat in the White House who takes the axe to Medicare and that last vestige of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, Social Security.

The freeze in cost of living increases for Social Security and increased user payments for Medicare are only the beginning. The Obama administration used the release of the new data to amp up its demands for what it calls a “major overhaul” of health care in the US. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, also a trustee of the two programs, called the report “a wake-up call for anyone concerned about Medicare. ... it’s another sign that we can’t wait for real, comprehensive health care reform.”

In fact, the revelations on Social Security and Medicare only served to underline that Obama’s health care “reform” will be predicated on a sharp curtailment of the provision of medical services to the working class. The entire effort will take as its starting and ending point the defense of the profit margins of the various “players” in the health care industry—the insurance corporations, the HMOs and the pharmaceuticals.

Earlier this week, Obama gained pledges from representatives of five health industry trade groups and the Service Employees International Union that they would “try” to rein in costs by 1.5 percent per year for the coming decade. There will be no penalties for non-compliance and Congress is likely to authorize generous tax incentives to pay for cooperation. Obama claims that the voluntary pledges could result in an increase in annual health care costs of 5.5 percent compared to the currently forecast 7 percent for the coming years. In other words, even in the best-case scenario, the health care burden on workers would increase only slightly less rapidly.

The industry players have been tempted to cooperate with potentially lucrative promises from the Obama administration. “Groups like the insurance industry hope that cuts to their payments would be offset by new rules that would require all Americans” to pay for private insurance plans, the Wall Street Journal reports. Other groups “want to head off regulations that could pose new burdens or curb their profits.” (“Health-Care Providers Pledge to Try to Curb Costs.”)
Frozen out of Obama’s discussion on health care reform are advocates of government-run or “single-payer” health insurance schemes, such as those that prevail—and are being rolled back—in Canada and Western Europe.

On Tuesday, police removed about thirty nurses and doctors from Senate Finance Committee hearings convened to consider financing changes to the health care system. The health care workers had launched a protest against the exclusion of single-payer advocates from the discussion.

Any new health care bill will be funded by cuts in other social programs and taxes on workers. On Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that a health reform bill would be on the House floor by July 31. According to an analysis by the Associated Press, “the final financing package is likely to include a mix of tax increases and spending cuts in federal health programs. Among the possibilities are tax increases on alcoholic beverages, tobacco products and sugary soft drinks, and restrictions on other health care-related tax breaks, such as flexible spending accounts.”

An article in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, “Idea on Hill: Taxing Health Benefits,” pointed to a growing consensus among lawmakers and Obama administration officials that workers’ health care benefits should be taxed to pay for any reform.

Ensuring the best health care and a secure retirement for all is not a technical, but a political question. The looming attack on Social Security and the transparent bankruptcy of Obama’s health care “reform” are dictated by powerful financial interests who believe that workers should work until they can work no longer, and that thereafter they should expect little or nothing in the way of public assistance or medical care to maintain themselves. That is considered too costly.
There is no resolution outside of a struggle against this financial aristocracy. The medical industry must be wrested from the hands of the insurers, pharmaceuticals and for-profit hospital chains and placed under the democratic control of its doctors, nurses and health care workers, who will determine how medicine’s enormous potential can be best deployed to meet human needs, ensuring long and healthy retirements.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/ssmd-...

The banking mofos got their money, but folks don't wanna help out Main Street?

hell no

This is why all the "Change" we want isn't going to happen. The economy is going to be like Japan in the 90's only far worst. The Japanese owned real assets during that time to sell even if they didn't want to mark the value down. What does the US own besides an intractable war in Iraq, a committment to the 51st state and an empty bank account? Political stabilty will be for naught. If you doubt it look at how TARP morphed from an asset buying program to outright ownership in financial institutions or how the bankruptcy code is being subvered to deal w/ the Big 3 auto manufacturers.

The Face of Emmett Till
So I lived in southern Mississippi. Emmett Till, this 14-year old black boy, who'd gone to Tallahatchie County, Money, Mississippi in the Delta, to visit his great uncle for summer holiday, from Chicago, was lynched. And as a child of 12, I can not remember having felt more vulnerable, more frightened, more--but at the same time more angry. And I can remember my 12-year old anger very, very much.

And when I met people like Judy and SNCC in 1962, '63, all of us remembered the photograph of Emmett Till's face, lying in the coffin, on the cover of Jet Magazine. [...] And when I met Mrs. Mamie Bradley, Emmett Till's mother, many years later, I asked her, "Why did you not have the undertaker do some cosmetic work on his face?" And her response was that, "I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby.
Read More
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/5/14/731...

Slaves to Denial
The Cherokee Nation is determined to deny black folks citizenship. Descendants of Freedmen cannot let that happen.
Read More:
http://www.theroot.com/views/slaves-denial

This is so TWISTED.

I agree. They can't let it happen, and neither can the CBC allow them to keep their federal monies. They keep the White mix-ins,but wanna get rid of the Black mix-ins?

G-T-F-O-H with that shyt.

I live in Oklahoma and the benefits that Native Americans get while cannot make up for the genocide of their people are substantial.I shake my head when I see a lot of blue eye blond people claim they are part of one of the 5 tribes.But if I can get health care lower vechicle fees etc. I call myself Cree, Muskogee or any tribe to get some them goodies.The funny thing is on my fathers side we have Cree desendants.

Good Morning. Here is your track for the day.Enjoy
Barbara Mason - World War Three
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=071tZNZDyaE