Jack & Jill Politics

Roland Martin's show today was the best I have seen. I hope people are watching.
The second panel was great. Michael Eric Dyson brought up great concerns and questions. His thoughts on Obama and race were on point.
BTW who is the other Black guy sitting next to Barbara Lee that guy is good. Brother is analytical and knows his politics. Where has he been hiding? I have never seen him on CNN or MSNBC.

Brother is analytical and knows his politics. Where has he been hiding? I have never seen him on CNN or MSNBC.

The bolded part is WHY you've never seen him on CNN or MSNBC.

which is why I'm rooting for Roland's show. Last week he had on the Congresswoman from NY, and she was talking about BIO-TERRORISM. tell me the last time you saw a Black person on one of those shows talking about BIO-TERRORISM.

Cao To Steele: Come And Get Me -- Just Remember You Need My District

Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA), the lone GOP vote for the House health reform bill that passed late last night, has responded to RNC Chairman Michael Steele's warnings about stepping outside of party lines. (WATCH Steele: "We'll come after you.")

Cao told CNN that Steele retains "the right to come after those members who do not conform to party lines, but I would hope that he would work with us in order to adjust to the needs of the district and to hold a seat that the Republican party would need." He represents the second congressional district of Louisiana, a solidly Democratic district that includes New Orleans. Cao said earlier today that he put the needs of his district over what was popular with his own party.

Cao's opponent was former Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA), who was under indictment on corruption charges at the time of the election, widely seen as the sole reason the Republican was able to triumph in this specific district. His unique victory was celebrated by Steele and other GOP leaders, a fact which the young lawmaker is not letting party leadership soon forget.

On November 5, Steele issued the following warning to Republicans considering voting for the House Democrats' health bill:

Candidates who live in moderate to slightly liberal districts have got to walk a little bit carefully here, because you do not want to put yourself in a position where you're crossing that line on conservative principles, fiscal principles. Because we'll come after you. You're gonna find yourself in a very tough hole if you're arguing for the president's stimulus plan or Nancy Pelosi's health plan. There's no justification for growing the size of government the way this administration and this Congress wants to do it.
And according to CNN, the freshman Republican from Louisiana isn't fazed in the slightest:

Cao chuckled when asked about the comment and said he "would like to remind" Steele that he and other Republican leaders trumpeted Cao's upset win over Democrat William Jefferson last December as a symbol of party diversity. Cao is the first Vietnamese-American member of Congress.
In the same interview where Steele sounded his GOP watchdog alarm, he also said that he wants to "partner as much as possible" with tea partiers -- a potent combination that would be sure to stir up some fun reactions in Cao's district, which voted 75% to elect Obama in 2008.

Cao told CNN that President Obama called him around noon yesterday to personally ask for his vote on the bill. Read Cao's statement on his vote here.

they all seem to be forgetting WHERE Cao's district actually IS

The Drama Was In the History
by Jonathan Cohn

Saturday's debate on the House floor was at various turns entertaining, depressing, amusing, and even enraging. But, strictly speaking, it was not particularly dramatic.

Yes, the final vote was close. A bill needs 218 votes to pass. This one got 220, including one not entirely expected Republican. And at least according to one Capitol Hill source, the leadership didn't have a bunch of extra votes in its pocket. (If they had, the source noted, they would not have made the deal on abortion funding.) But whatever the margin, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was saying all day long the bill would pass--a verdict operatives on the Hill were echoing. While nobody was guaranteeing victory, everybody was expecting it.

Of course, that's often the way these votes go: The outcome is all but certain beforehand. If you want appreciate the significance of what happened on Saturday, you really have to take a step back. Or maybe a few steps back.

Consider:

The last time the House of Representatives tried to pass health care reform was at the beginning of the Clinton administration. That effort failed miserably, as committees squabbled over jurisdiction. This time, three committees produced nearly identical versions of legislation, putting those turf battles (mostly) aside. They got their work done quickly--well in advance of a self-imposed August deadline. And, most important, the legislation they produced was good.

Do not be fooled by the Beltway conventional wisdom, which has repeatedly treated House legislation as inferior to its counterpart in the Senate. If anything, the opposite is true. Should the House bill or something like it become law, the vast majority of Americans would have health insurance--protecting them from financial calamity and giving them access to medical care when they need it.

Republicans have repeatedly mocked the House bill because of its length. But there is a reason the bill needs so many pages: It's the product of thinking carefully about how best to design a health care system. The legislation has its problems; all legislation does. But at the level of detail--like, for example, the all-important question of how to design insurance exchanges--the House bill holds up extremely well.

And the bill pays for itself--not just in the first ten years, as the original version did, but in the future, as well. It may not do as much to reduce the overall cost of health care as the Senate bill would; in the view of most experts, that's the House bill's chief weakness. But it at least makes moves in the direction of cost-control.

Speaking of the Senate, that is where attention now turns--and where the process is unlikely to go forward as smoothly. It's the nature of the institution and the people who presently inhabit it. It'd be nice to think health legislation would blend the best of both approaches, rather than the worst. Alas, that's not a given.

But that's a matter for another day. Or at least later in the day. Now is a moment to appreciate what has taken place. The House has passed what is arguably the most significant piece

should I watch Meet the Press and This Week?

It was boring this week.

if u need a sleeping pill

Righteous rant ..........................

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGp043tHAc8&feat...

Have a good sunday

Found this comment on Booman interesting:
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2009/11/8/02...

[This is a challenge to the Black bloghesphere that it is more than the appearance of diversity in the netroots. Artur Davis should be public enemy number one. His vote against HRC was a betrayal to his mostly poor black constituents and by extension poor black people across this country. For what?! A symbolic run for governor!
My challenge to the black bloghesphere is to prove they can do more than just repeat talking points from Kos. The DNC, the White House, Democratic donors, civil rights organizations, the two Reverends et al should be put on notice that not a damn dime or an ounce of support should go to Artur Davis' campaign. He should pay the price that any white representative would pay if he was representing the same black district and voted against their interests. Not only should funding be withheld, he should be primaried by a white progressive with the full support of the civil rights community and black bloghesphere.

by NMP on Sun Nov 8th, 2009 at 11:37:13 AM EST]

Well black folks we just got our orders from the man.

I am all for calling out any African American who is doing their best impression of stepin fetchit. However, be careful what u ask for. Who else is being called out?

was Davis the ONLY member of the CBC to vote AGAINST healthcare reform?

Probably and I believe kuchinich was the only progressive to vote no.

Sanford Bishop voted against it as well.

are you sure...I know he voted FOR Stupak. let me go check.

just checked - Bishop voted YEAH.

Yes, you're right. I looked at the Stupak list.

haven't we already been giving Davis the side eye, ever since he said he wasn't going to vote for a Public Option?

i knew I was done with him on that day.

I thought NMP was a woman. And...is Kos urging people not to criticize Artur Davis?

I haven't heard or seen anything from Kos telling black folks to go easy on davis. I have seen remarks that he only voted that way to help him run for governor.

I agree with NMP that davis should be held accountable for last night. Hell if he did that to his district, just imagine what he will do to black folks as governor to keep the racists happy.
What I do not like about NMP's comment is this part, "My challenge to the black bloghesphere is to prove they can do more than just repeat talking points from Kos." Quite frankly that comment rubs me the wrong way.
It's like she is implying that black bloggers can not think for themselves and have to take orders from Kos in order to function.

Maybe we should be calling out Black people who are taking orders from kos.

NMP is a woman

...and her opinion of white progressives seems to have improved a bit, too:).

Un2#$%^&* believable. People are calling out Davis after a 220 to 215 vote. Why do all the White moderate and blue dogs receive a pass for being in marginal districts or running for state wide office w/ their Congressional sinecure as a fall back? And the folks on these pages whom have been screaming blue bloody murder about so called progressives will not back the President are now saying get rid of Davis? The same Kos that publishes Dan Savage, whom is so f@#$%^& stupid he says marriage failed in Maine becasue AA people didn't vote for it when Maine is whiter than an albino convention? Why isn't thehow the hell do you call yourself a legislative leader Pelosi whe you do not anticipate that abortion, a Republican 54'50" or fight issue, isn't addressed?
trose you are so on point, that folks even raising the Davis issue should be beat into the color of the next nationality.

Dennis Kucinich's vote concerns me like nothing else. I don't know anything about the Black guy in Alabama so I would be hesitant to try to mess with him. His true colors will be seen soon enough.
The "white progressives/liberals" are on my watch list. From what I have seen of KOS and his crew is suspect.

Suspect of what?

I agree with what u wrote above. I am keeping my eye on them. I was unawae that KOS was some how in bed with Dan Savage. See why I don't trust it? Thanks for the info.

NFL OPEN THREAD IS UP

2,000-Year-Old Scrolls, Internet-Era Crime
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/ny...l?ref=ny...

Early one morning in March, the law banged on the door of an apartment on Thompson Street in Greenwich Village. Investigators had a warrant to arrest Raphael Haim Golb and seize his computer. He was caught red-handed.

Mr. Golb is, or was, a guerrilla fighter in a cyberbrawl over the Dead Sea Scrolls, a war about the origins of 2,000-year-old documents that has consumed the energy of academics around the globe.

He was being arrested for fighting dirty.

Mr. Golb is 49 years old and had 50 e-mail aliases. He used pseudonyms to post on blogs. Under the name of a professor he was trying to undermine, prosecutors charged, Mr. Golb wrote a quasi confession to plagiarism and circulated it among students and officials at New York University.

His purpose, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said, was “to influence and affect debate on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and in order to harass Dead Sea Scrolls scholars who disagree with his viewpoint.”

In the classic 1993 New Yorker cartoon by Peter Steiner, two dogs are perched in front of a computer screen. “On the Internet,” one says to the other, “nobody knows you’re a dog.”

For a while, no one knew that 50 different names in the Dead Sea Scrolls debate were the prolific Mr. Golb, a graduate of Oberlin College who has a law degree from New York University and a doctorate in comparative literature from Harvard (dissertation: “The Problems of Privacy and Trust in Modern Literature, and their Relation to the Idea of Freedom”).

In court papers filed last week, Mr. Golb’s lawyers argued that prosecutors were trying to criminalize the commonplace. Both sides in the Dead Sea Scrolls debate, they said, use “sock puppets” — fake identities — on the Internet to make it seem as if scores of people are arguing a point.

“These bloggers marshaled their legion of sock puppets to engage in intellectual combat with the sock puppets allegedly created by Raphael Golb and others,” the lawyers wrote.

No other creatures in the animal kingdom behave like this, not when the stakes are lower than food or mating or survival. And here’s a bonus: a thread of the Shakespearean runs through the case.

Mr. Golb’s father is Norman Golb, a professor at the University of Chicago and a critic of claims that the Dead Sea Scrolls were the work of a sect called the Essenes, thought to have lived near the Qumran caves where the scrolls were found. Professor Golb has suggested that the scrolls were actually the product of several libraries in Jerusalem and were taken to the caves around the time the city fell to the Romans in the year 70. This is not a dispute for the fainthearted. Golb the Son has taken up his father’s cause with all the vigor permitted by multiple Gmail accounts.

When he was arrested, Mr. Golb was asked by prosecutors if he wrote under the name “Charles Gadda,” one of the most visible Internet advocates for his father. He would not answer directly.

“They would say that my father is doing it or asking me to do it,” Mr. Golb said, according to court papers. “My father certainly never asked me to do anything of the kind.”

But he allowed that “Charles Gadda” was doing pretty well. “Do you realize that the Charles Gadda articles have been read by thousands of people?” Mr. Golb continued. “I know that, because I look at them, it says on them.”

The Internet is, of course, both gold mine and sludge pile, where people lie about their ages, their abilities, the world. The prosecutors say that by adopting all those false identities, Mr. Golb was trying to obtain a benefit, and so committed criminal impersonation, identity theft and aggravated harassment. But Mr. Golb’s lawyers maintain that there was no tangible benefit, and therefore no crime.

“Gaining an advantage in academic debate about the Dead Sea Scrolls is not the kind of benefit required by the law,” said Ronald Kuby, one of the defense lawyers.

But what about the injury Mr. Golb apparently tried to inflict on Lawrence H. Schiffman, the chairman of Judaic studies at N.Y.U.? Someone wrote from larry.schiffman@gmail.com to Professor Schiffman’s graduate students and dean, alerting them to an article that suggested he had committed plagiarism. Perhaps two things go without saying: The article was actually written under one of Raphael Golb’s pseudonyms, and Professor Schiffman has been critical of the theories of Golb père.

The defense claims that the e-mail messages were transparent parodies, and that in any event, injury to a reputation is a civil matter, not a criminal violation.

“He writes letters in my names in which I am admitting to horrendous offenses,” Professor Schiffman said Friday. “This is the rough-and-tumble of the Internet?”

That 1993 cartoon could use an update. On the Internet today, everybody knows you’re a dog.

A form of ghost writing is an accepted practice in medicine.

"With medical ghostwriting, pharmaceutical companies pay both professional writers to produce papers, and other scientists or physicians to attach their names to these papers, which are then published in a medical or scientific journal. These scientists or physicians often have little involvement in the research or the writing process."

And here’s one more thing that Obama told House Dems in that private pep rally yesterday:

“When I sign this in the Rose Garden, each and every one of you will be able to look back and say, ‘This was my finest moment in politics.’”


http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/health-care/s...

I see the the First Couple will attend the memorial in Texas. I suppose they have to, but I don't want them anywhere near Texas, what with its magic bullets and all that. Especially in this environment.

If any harms befalls either one of them while they're there, then I'll know why this entire tragedy, and all of its shoddy and irresponsible reporting and the important details that don't add up, rubbed me the wrong way from the get go.

He's the Prez danger comes with the territory.

he's gotta go

If this report is true Obama is fucking bold as hell..........If he unilaterally declares Palestine along with the security council its own state, it pushes the ball to the Isreali government to put up or shut up. Oh my God, please let the article be true. Honestly I am tired of the constant fight b/w both parties.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1126594.html

PM heads to U.S. under threat of Palestinian statehood declaration
By Barak Ravid and Natasha Mozgovaya
Tags: Netanyahu in Washington

Concerns are growing in Israel's government over the possibility of a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence within the 1967 borders, a move which could potentially be recognized by the United Nations Security Council.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently asked the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama to veto any such proposal, after reports reached Jerusalem of support for such a declaration from major European Union countries, and apparently also certain U.S. officials.

The reports indicated that Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has reached a secret understanding with the Obama administration over U.S. recognition of an independent Palestinian state. Such recognition would likely transform any Israeli presence across the Green Line, even in Jerusalem, into an illegal incursion to which the Palestinians would be entitled to engage in measures of self-defense.

In late August Fayyad presented the international community with a detailed plan for building up Palestinian Authority institutions and set a timetable of up to two years for its implementation. Senior Israeli officials said Fayyad's plan initially met with positive reaction in Jerusalem for its emphasis on institution-building and making security services more efficient.

But some Israeli officials told Haaretz that alongside the clauses reported in the media - which are similar to elements of Netanyahu's call for "economic peace" between Israel and the Palestinians - Fayyad's plan also contains a classified, unreleased portion stipulating a unilateral declaration of independence.

The plan specifies that at the end of a designated period for bolstering national institutions the PA, in conjunction with the Arab League, would file a "claim of sovereignty" to the UN Security Council and General Assembly over the borders of June 4, 1967 (before the outbreak of the Six-Day War, during which Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza).

Fayyad is also seeking a new Security Council resolution to replace Resolutions 242 and 338 in the hope of winning the international community's support for the borders of a Palestinian state and applying stronger pressure on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank.

Several Israeli officials told Haaretz that Fayyad had spoken to them of positive responses he had received over the plan from prominent EU member states, including the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Sweden. Fayyad added that he presented the proposal to the U.S. administration and did not receive any signal of opposition in response.

Netanyahu's "kitchen cabinet" has held a number of meetings on the matter in recent months. "It's a very dangerous move," said a senior Israeli foreign-policy official. "More and more cabinet ministers understand that diplomatic inaction on Israel's part is likely to bring international support for the Fayyad program."

Israeli sources said Netanyahu discussed the proposal in meetings with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and special Mideast envoy George Mitchell and requested that the U.S. tell Fayyad that it would not support his proposal and would veto it in the Security Council. Netanyahu has yet to receive a clear response from Washington on its stance on Fayyad's plan.

Netanyahu is to arrive in Washington today for a brief visit. He is scheduled to address the United Jewish Communities General Assembly, preceded by Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

On Tuesday Netanyahu is to fly to Paris, where he is scheduled to meet with President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday. The prime minister's Paris visit comes just two days before that of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who will also meet with Sarkozy. Netanyahu has not signaled interest in renewing negotiations with Damascus, but stagnation in talks with the Palestinians may force him to do so.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, a mediator between Israel and Syria during Ehud Olmert's term as prime minister, said Friday in Paris that Turkey seeks to resume its role as an intermediary between the two countries, and that his government can be an "honest broker" in such talks.

Netanyahu has expressed reluctance over Turkish mediation due to ongoing diplomatic tension between Ankara and Jerusalem.

Ladies and gentlemen this is what happens when you have a President that stands up when he goes to the bathroom. Aipac isn't going to like this. For all you negroes out there that are quick to bash Obama every time he doesn't do something on your progressive checklist don't worry he is too busy making history.

I think AIPAC is vigorously fighting JPAC for control on policy, that is one of the key problem now. Who will influence American policy.

Aipac isn't going to have a choice. There is a slow demographic shift among Jews around the world on Israel. All of this unilateral unwavering support AND FOR WHAT? There is still no peace. It's starting to become quite obvious that the biggest impediment for Israeli security and peace is the Israeli government. And Jewish people are starting to realize that. If you look through the comments on the this story on haaretz surprisingly a lot of comments are positive.

influence?

they don't want JPAC to even have a whisper of a voice.

Most progressives agree with a Palestinian state.That dog wont hunt

I just like picking on progressives. What I probably should have said I'm tired of people trying to derail Barry for inconsequential issues when I think this President has an understanding on the generational problems and trying to fix them.

The Palestinian situation is not a generational problem. I will give the president his props if and when something beneficial happens for the Palestinian people. Until that time...

I understand you holding judgment on this because past moves from prior administrations have been disappointing. I'm not sure what the outcome of Obama's moves will be but thus far he has the right idea. Which is taking a hard line with BOTH sides.

Taking a hard line with the Palestinians has nothing to do with pursuing the right idea or policy and everything to do with providing political cover. The Palestinians live under hard lines and even harsher policies 24/7.

Just keep in mind that the Holocaust occurred primarily in central and eastern Europe and it was not the overarching event of World War II nor were the Palestinians involved.

Pt it has everything to do with pursuing the right policy. I understand the concerns of the Palestinian people and I don't want to get into a long drawn out debate about Israeli and the Palestinian problem because it's Football day. But the Isrealis aren't going to play ball if they believe Hamas is going to continue to shoot rockets in Tel Aviv. Obama needs to get those type of commitments from the Palestinian leadership. Israel could do everything Obama asks but if the Palestinian leadership doesn't commit to not express their grievances through violence then this process is a waste of time. Like I said Obama must get concessions from BOTH sides. Prior administrations tried to solve this problem by just concentrating on the Palestinians.

The Israelis are not going to play ball whether the rockets are being launched into their territory or not. The current Palestinian leadership is not able to make any such concessions in great part because the previous actions of our government and various Israeli governments has served to weaken and discredit them.

I have to take my boys to Game Stop to buy X-Box codes.

I hear you bruh. We'll just wait and see how this plays out.

if true....

----me sitting here with mouth open

do you not see the morning video? I can't see it

I think it's fixed. I see it now.

HCR Passes: Kucinich Can Bite Me

Some people wonder why I am not a fan of Dennis Kucinich and don't take comfort when I look along the trench and find him fighting by my side or, especially, carrying my banner. Well, he voted against health care reform tonight. He can provide any reasons he wants, but I'd note that the only Democratic women in the entire House to vote against the bill (Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin of South Dakota, Suzanne Kosmas of Florida, and Betsy Markey of Colorado), are from very conservative districts. The women of the Democratic caucus swallowed hard when the Stupak-Pitts amendment passed, and they voted to go ahead with reform. So, please don't try to tell me that the pro-life-'til-the-day-he-decided-to-run-for-president Kucinich voted no because he was standing up for women's rights.
I presume he voted no because this bill isn't a single-payer bill. But he and Rep. Massa of New York are the only two proponents of single-payer to vote against reform. And Massa is just looking for cover because his district is very conservative. What really happened is that Kucinich wants attention and wants to be holier and purer than everyone else. I'd have to hold my nose to vote this bill, too, but look around, Dennis. You're all alone. Again.


The bill passed the House with 220 votes (218 votes were required). That leaves us no room to improve the bill in Conference. We got a single Republican vote, from Joseph Cao of New Orleans. Cao was satisfied by the Stupak Amendment, but his vote will disappear if that language is stripped out in Conference. So, we have two votes to spare. Want a stronger public option? Forget it. Any small change to this deal will probably kill the effort to pass this under regular order. I give Pelosi credit for winning, once again, but she just barely made it. She did what she had to do, but it certainly wasn't pleasant. The combination of her dropping a robust public option pre-Conference and allowing an anti-choice amendment to pass created an extremely bitter brew. The narrowness of the vote undermines the gains we might expect from the jolt of momentum we gain from passing this crappy legislation.


I am really disturbed that allowing the abortion amendment didn't result in an avalanche of support from so-called moderates. It appears that nearly every southern and border Democrat voted against reform. And this despite the fact that this legislation will disproportionately benefit southerners.


I am happy that the House passed this bill. The alternative was unthinkable, and the insurance reform elements of the bill are rock-solid. I'd only ask for private health insurance to be abolished entirely, but that was obviously never in the cards.


This now moves to the Senate which, ironically, is not as hung up on abortion issues. The big issues in the Senate will be over the financing and whether 60 senators will sign off on cloture for a bill with a public option. The difficulty of passing this bill in the House has surprised me more than anything I've seen in Washington since the impeachment of Bill Clinton. I am usually the one counseling progressives about how unrealistic their expectations are considering how conservative the Senate is. Now I learn that the House is just as conservative. There is no way anyone could pass a single-payer system through this Congress, even if we won oodles of new seats. It just won't happen. It's not a matter of leadership. Why does the entire South oppose even this lukewarm reform? Look at how far we had to go to get to the point that we could pass something with no support from Republicans and almost no support from Southern Democrats? We just did it, and it's a minor miracle. A shitty bill passed, and it's a miracle.


Given the odds, I should be ecstatic. But, I'm not. This just reminds me how pathetically conservative my country is, even with 60 Democratic senators and 258 members of the House.


And then there is Kucinich. He can bite me.

"I presume he voted no because this bill isn't a single-payer bill. But he and Rep. Massa of New York are the only two proponents of single-payer to vote against reform."

Do you care what type of "reform" is passed or just that any type of "reform" is passed. Forcing people to buy more private health care is not health care reform, it's a health care scam. I'm proud that congressman Kucinich voted against this financial bonanza for the insurance companies.

"What really happened is that Kucinich wants attention and wants to be holier and purer than everyone else. I'd have to hold my nose to vote this bill, too, but look around, Dennis. You're all alone. Again"

Yea Kucinich really sucks - imagine, one of the few members of Congress who actually CONSISTENTLY supports his positions with his votes without capitulating to the bullying of Republicans or political cowards and opportunist like Obama, Pelosi or Rahm Emanuel. It's pathetic you insult congressman Kucinich for sticking to his principals by suggesting he just "wants attention" or to pejoratively say he's trying to be "holier and purer". Instead of showing support for someone who's principled like Kucinich, people like you rather continue to throw your support behind liars like Obama (remember how strongly he opposed mandates during the campaign, of course not, lol) and his Democrat puppets who do nothing but engage in half-measures.

Well, vote for Kucinich in the 2012 primaries. Until then...........................

Kucinich knew they had the votes. He was just trying to make a statement. Like Kucinich always does. I think Pelosi told some Democrats who are in conservative districts not to vote for it once she knew she had the votes so they wouldn't have to answer for it back home. They've been doing it all Capital Hill for years. It's a win for everyone. The leadership is shown to have "worked hard" and got people in line. The people that really didn't want to vote for it didn't have to. The one Republican who voted for it gets in the paper and he was probably thrown a bone or two. And the legislation passes. I don't think it was as close as they are trying to make it out to be.

Kucinich is not from a conservative district. What is he trying to prove? Many people are giving him a pass on this and he should not be getting it. If he wants to run on a green party platform he should join that movement. A Dem could run in his district and win. That Dem would vote for Dem bills.

Dennis is voting like a repub. He needs to go. What good is he to Dems?

Kucinich is a true Democrat.He wanted single payer and wouldn't compromise.Save your anger for the dummycrats who voted for that taliban abortion amendment and still voted against the bill

"Save your anger for the dummycrats who voted for that taliban abortion amendment and still voted against the bill"

Stop making Sense!

Government officials put trillions of taxpayer dollars on the line to guarantee risky bank assets — a strategy that could cause permanent and costly market distortions, a government watchdog says.

At the peak of the financial crisis, taxpayer money guaranteed assets worth $4.3 trillion to help banks ride out the panic. The programs, which essentially provided insurance against losses, helped stabilize financial markets but put far more taxpayer dollars at risk than Congress intended, according to the Congressional Oversight Panel.

The report, released Friday, says the guarantee programs became the single largest part of the government's effort to calm the markets. And even though many of the programs have now expired, the guarantees still provide invisible government subsidies even to healthy banks, according to the report.

The panel makes periodic assessments of how Treasury is managing the $700 billion financial bailout Congress approved last year.

Guarantees "put more power in the hands" of Treasury and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. because "they're not limited by the number of dollars Congress will authorize," panel chairwoman Elizabeth Warren said in a call with reporters.

The Treasury Department leveraged limited bailout money to insure assets worth many times more. That allowed officials to risk far more taxpayer money than Congress intended, Warren said.

Taxpayers risked trillions at height of crisis

---

The health care "reform" bill that passed in the house was a disgrace and an insult to the American people. The bill hands the American people's health over to the insurance companies on a silver platter while excusing the insurance companies from providing universal coverage to Americans. The bill - in essence - legally forces people to buy private health insurance and makes Americans who do no buy private health insurance subject to massive fines, taxes and penalties. This is not health care reform, it's a health care scam and financial bonanza for the insurance companies! I would be alright with all of this if the Insurance companies were legally forced to provide universal coverage to those that it services, that would be cool. But the insurance companies don't have to do that under this bill. The insurance companies will still have the ability to charge large deductibles and copays for patients who need extensive treatment or drugs for things like Cancer, AIDS, Parkinson's, brain tumors or any other severely debilitating disease. Ironically, Obama campaigned hard AGAINST mandates in the primaries in opposition of Hillary Clinton who supported them - it was their biggest point of contention. Yet now he conveniently supports mandates. I didn't realize I was voting for Clinton's bad ideas when I voted for Obama in the PA primaries. The biggest insult in this whole mess is that the "Public Option" was reduced to the following in the house bill:

"At its core, the measure would create a federally regulated marketplace where consumers could shop for coverage. In the bill's most controversial provision, the government would sell insurance, although the Congressional Budget Office forecasts that premiums for it would be more expensive than for policies sold by private companies."

"it would be more expensive than for policies sold by private companies."

Are you kidding me?! The bill essentially deters the few people eligible for government run health care from participating in government run health care because of inflated cost. What happened to the so called support for the Public Option that Obama and Democrats in Congress said they had? Where is this so called support represented in this bill? Why are the Democrats providing more customers and further enriching people like Aetna, Blue Cross and United States Health and calling it "reform"?

Finally, getting rid of preexisting conditions and age discriminatory practices will not prevent the insurance companies from creating new unethical loopholes to make money - especially now that almost ALL Americans will be legally required to buy their services, lol. As long as the insurance companies maintain over 95 percent of the market, there will be no real incentive for them to provide decent affordable universal coverage for American citizens who desperately need that coverage.

Obama and Congress are selling American people's health out to the insurance companies because of political cowardice, fear and for future campaign donations in 2010 and 2012 respectively ( I hope they lose both elections! - they're worse than the Republicans who do nothing). Anyone who doesn't see this given the facts thus far is foolish or dreaming.

…
selling American people's health out to the insurance companies because of political cowardice, fear and for future campaign donations in 2010 and 2012 respectively ( I hope they lose both elections! - they're worse than the Republicans who do nothing). Anyone who doesn't see this given the facts thus far is foolish or dreaming.


For the record I am ignorant of your HC system.
Do you think it is better to have politicians who do nothing, than having those who do a thing, albeit compromise?

Is this the END of the world?

Can't this bill be enhanced in the future (into one that favors you)?
And if it work as advertised couldn't it evolve into one eve bolder?

Judging by the skewed view regarding human rights by much of your fellow citizen (Ronald Reagan said a better HC is having a work!; and he was a mediocre actor.), a compromised (by yr. standard) HC bill has any worth?

Obama = end of the world.

Lawdy, lawdy, what are we gwine do?

Then you are living @ which Bardo?

No comprendo

??? (You can google that!)

… I was kidding.
Bardo, from bar ‘interval’ + do ‘two.’ is (in Tibetan Buddhism) an indeterminate, transitional state of existence between death and rebirth.

The Pope is not the only person keeping religion in the news. His efforts to do so by inviting Anglicans to join his congregation, are almost overshadowed by a less well-known but more ambitious project being undertaken by none other than Andrew Schafly, son of the well-known conservative activist, Phyllis Schafly. Andrew, Harvard Law and Princeton undergraduate who majored in electrical engineering, has decided to use his skills as engineer and lawyer to fix something that many people did not realize was broken-the Bible.

Andrew created Conservapedia which is the conservative’s answer to Wikipedia, an on line encyclopedia that Andrew believes has a liberal bias. Conservapedia, however, is more than a conservative encyclopedia. It has undertaken the translation of the Bible that will correct the liberal infusion of thought that now permeates that book. This it turns out, is no minor task because the King James Version (KJV) and the New International Version (NIV) have so many examples of a liberal bias that correcting them is an enormous challenge. Although its work has just drawn attention, it is already well underway. As of this writing, of the 8000 verses in the New Testament 30% or 2400 verses have been translated. (The word “translate” has a different meaning for Conservapedia than for most scholars. KJV is the baseline text used for “developing a conservative translation” rather than the “original Greek or Hebrew”.)

The work is being done by very sophisticated people who are able to translate verses from the KJV that make the verses more understandable to the contemporary reader while, simultaneously, removing the liberal influence. Two newly translated verses make the point. In Matthew 4:19 and 20 the KJV has the following confusing passage that displays a distinct liberal bias. It reads as follows: “And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.” The new, much clearer and less liberal translation by Conservapedia reads as follows: “And he told them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men. And immediately they left their fishing nets behind and followed Him.”

Although the translations were done by highly sophisticated translators, Mr. Schafly recognizes the importance of public input in such a significant project. Thus, in the description of the project that lists which Gospels have been completely translated, it notes, parenthetically next to the name of the Gospel that has been translated: “improvements welcome.” That is egalitarian, suggesting, as it does, that coming up with a better translation of the KJV or the NIM is not limited to a few pointy headed scholars but can be assisted by the likes of you and me, even if we know nothing of Hebrew or Greek.

Defining the scope of the project, Conservapedia says there are three major sources of error. The most significant is that Greek and Hebrew lacked the words to adequately “convey new concepts introduced by Christ.” A footnote embellishes on this, explaining that “Christianity introduced powerful new concepts that even the Greek and Hebrew were inadequate to express, but modern conservative language can express well.” The second source of error (apparently contradicting the first) says the rewriting is necessary because of the “lack of precision in modern language.” The truth of that is demonstrated by reexamining the passage from Matthew quoted above. Finally, there was a translation bias in converting the original language to modern language. The three errors are, says Conservapedia, easily addressed.

The first error is cured by using experts in ancient language (and you and me by letting us suggest improvements). Linguists are able to cure the second type of error. But the “third—and largest—source of translation error requires conservative principles to reduce and eliminate.” A footnote to that sentence observes that professors and higher education participants were involved in the NIV and could be “expected to be liberal and feminist in outlook” thus producing a Bible influenced more by political correctness and other liberal distortions than by genuine examination of the oldest manuscripts.”

Conservapedia sets out 10 guidelines that a conservative translation of the Bible will satisfy. They include providing a “thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias”, avoidance of “gender inclusive” language and “other modern emasculation of Christianity”, not “dumbing down the reading level”, and use of conservative terms to capture the “original intent.” (That is similar to adhering to the “original intent” of the U.S. Constitution favored by Antonin Scalia.) One way of getting back to original intent is to “utilize “powerful new conservative terms. . . .Defective translations use the word ‘comrade’ three times as often as ‘volunteer’.”

It is impossible in a few words to do justice to Mr. Schafly’s effort. It is worth going to the website linked above in order to enjoy the full flavor of this very important work by a few dedicated Christians. Some of my more creative readers may even want to accept the invitation to offer their own suggestions on how this new Bible can be improved.

The Bible-New and Improved

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Targets for removal:
* Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. [Matthew 5:9]
* Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. [Matthew 5:39]
* I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despite-fully use you, and persecute you; [Matthew 5:44]
* If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to cast a stone at her. [John 8:7]
* Do not judge, lest you too be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. [Matthew 7:1 & 2.]
* Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy [Matthew 5:7]
* But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. [Matthew 6:15]
* Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. [Luke 12.15.]
* Truly, I say unto you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. [Matthew 19:23]
* You cannot serve both God and Money. [Matthew 6:24.]
* Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s. [Matthew 22:21]
* Love your neighbor as yourself. .[Matthew 22:39]
* So in everything, do to others as you would have them do to you. [Matthew 7:12.]
* If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. [Matthew 19:21]
* But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. [Luke 14:13&14.]

Who the hell does Andrew Schafly think he is, God?

God (any of them) did not wrote or dictated the bible to anyone.
Maybe the true reason is to sway away from Romanization of the words of Christ by the Vatican, Christianity was imported adapted and ratified by europeans.
These zealous want to restore it to its Jew heritage and strip it of any human right instance or free will?
??

No, they just want to SELL their values/interests.

It was snark baby, it was snark...

you know that whole Jesus helping the poor and the least among us is toast

Interesting, mirrors much of USA DOGmatic conservative's American dream core values.
It will be a HIT, i am sure.

Nothing new, isn't the Bible itself an encyclopedia, compiling older scriptures, much of which originated far further away from Israel?

When will people start shaping the future minding the present with relative importance as well?

And people wonder why religion is ridiculed.

In another cosmic turn of the surreal, the Large Hadron Collider LHC the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator (16.8 mile), suffered serious overheating in several sections after the small piece of baguette dropped by a passing bird, landed in a piece of equipment on the surface above the accelerator ring. The controversial device, housed in the gigantic CERN laboratory in the Jura mountains just outside of Geneva, on the border of France and Switzerland, would allow scientists to re-create conditions that existed a trillionth of a second after the big bang, as well as prove the existence of the spooky “Higgs boson” entity, also called the “God Particle” which give “things” their mass.

In theory, had the LHC been fully operational, this latest incident could have caused a catastrophic breakdown like that which occurred shortly after it was first switched on last year. On Sept. 19, 2008, just days after the Hadron’s launch, a small piece of electrical cable providing power to the magnets broke loose, ending a shower of sparks across the wiring, causing a year-long breakdown

The failure of LHC to get to full particle-smashing so far is a relief to some cientists, who fear the experiment could cause several tiny black holes to form, hich would grow and devour the entire Earth. The succession of technical roblems the LHC has suffered has led yet other physicists, like Dr. Holger Bech eilson of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen speculating that the manufacture f Higgs bosons may be so “abhorrent” to nature,” as Dennis Overbye wrote in the New York Times, that their creation would cause ripples backward through time to stop the collider before it could produce one, much like the paradox of a time traveler going back in time to halt his own birth by killing his grandfather.

Large Hadron Collider oiled by bread crumb dropped by passing bird

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It seems former nuclear safety officer Walter Wagner and Luis Sancho were right when they went to court in March 2008 to stop the startup of this "big bang machine".

"The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."
-Montgomery Scott

Sunday slate:

ABC's "This Week" — Democratic National Chairman Tim Kaine and Republican National Chairman Michael Steele; Army chief of staff Gen. George Casey.

___

CBS' "Face the Nation" _Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.; former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas; Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.

___

NBC's "Meet the Press" — Govs. Haley Barbour, R-Miss., and Ed Rendell, D-Pa.

___

CNN's "State of the Union" — Army chief of staff Casey; Virginia Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell.

"Fox News Sunday" _ McDonnell; Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent; Reps. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Mike Pence, R-Ind.

don't forget Roland Martin's show on TVONE. He has on DNC Chair Tim Kaine, RNC Chair Michael Steeele, CBC Chair Barbara Lee, Michael Eric Dyson.

it repeats again at 5pm EST, and 6 am EST on Monday morning.

rikyrah -

Completely off-topic. Happy belated birthday - I hope you enjoyed a fabulous day!