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local and national features
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Mar 19 2010
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Single-Payer Activists Ambush, Rip New One Out Of Conyers, Dean |
SINGLE PAYER ACTION REPORTS: In the wake of the Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) flip-flop and flameout this morning, single payer activists were in no mood for lecturing from Howard Dean and John Conyers (D-Michigan). At a gathering on Capitol Hill earlier today, Dean had just started in on his talk – titled “Why This is the Moment for Reform?” – when single payer activists began criticizing him for supporting Obama’s health care legislation. Dean wrote in December that the Senate bill would do “more harm than good” and that if he were a Senator, he would vote against it. Single Payer Action’s Russell Mokhiber accused Dean of being a “shill for the biotech industry.” Over the past year, Dean has been with the corporate law firm of McKenna Long & Aldridge – representing biotech companies seeking to defeat regulation of biologic medicines… VIDEO streaming out of YouTube, 06:44
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Mar 14 2010
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Open Letter to US Attorney from Tarek Mehanna Support Committee |
On Friday, March 12, members of the Tarek Mehanna Support Committee attempted for the second time to meet with a representative of the Massachusetts US Attorney's office. Again we were told to fill out a complaint form--there was no one at the office who could speak to us. We asked whether it was the explicit policy of the new US Attorney not to meet with concerned members of the public. The "Administrative Specialist" insisted that this was not the policy of the office, but couldn't explain why our calls, faxes and our formal complaint remained unanswered.
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Mar 12 2010
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One Year in to the Health Care Reform Debate |
This week in March, Americans note that federal health care reform has been in the works for a whole year. Bills have been written and amended; support has been promised and at times withdrawn.
As time went on, progressives pushed again and again for a strong single-payer health care system to emerge from federal law or their state legislatures. As time went on, a resurgence of conservative activists grew more fearful and vocal about the dangers of such change. President Obama started out the year speaking on the bright shining idea of a public option, or state-funded insurance plan that could cover any citizen who chooses it. The President's stance grew weaker and more beholden to private insurance companies as the debates dragged on, from summer to fall.
We lost Senator Ted Kennedy in this last fateful year, and still his long fight for reform, including meaningful health care reform, is impressed upon us. But what will actually be done? | Watch video
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Mar 09 2010
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STAY HOME FOR THIS ONE, KIDS: Dems' Front Groups Readying "Citizens' Mass Arrest" of Health Insurance CEOs in DC, March 9 |
FEAR & LOATHING AT DUPONT CIRCLE? DONKEYCRATIC ASTROTURFERS GEAR UP FOR ANOTHER TIMEWASTER Folks, cast your minds back to about a year ago: the PowerShift feel-good "go green" event featuring Democratic Party honchos, the creepy-looking rally of college kids in toy green construction helmets in front of the Capitol — and, most distasteful of all, the CCA and their phony civil disobedience which was all civil and no disobedience, just a big fat photo op so they could say "hey, look at us blockading the Capitol Power Plant" before going back to their rally and leaving all the real direct-action activists twisting in the wind. Well, gang, it looks like the same kind of crowd is going to be in town on March 9th at 10:30am, only this time it's some phony "Citizen's Posse" claiming to be readying a "Citizens' Mass Arrest" of health-insurance company CEOs after rallying at Dupont Circle. This outfit and their hangers-on practically give themselves away with their mindless, slavish support of the current healthcare "reform" bill — you know, the hospital, pharmaceutical and insurance company giveaway combined with taxed benefits and mandatory corporate health insurance purchases for even the brokest of the broke — and their ties to tired old Liberal/Democratic outfits like MoveOn, The Nation, the AFL-CIA — uh, CIO, and the NAACP. So, let's follow a few Web links and check out the gory details on these tools, and find out why the People may "have a posse", but these hucksters aren't it.
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Feb 27 2010
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Why We Need Government-Run Universal Socialized Health Insurance |
A cartoon explanation of why we need a public health insurance option.
If you agree that a public option should be part of the health care reform bill, make sure you let your representatives know!
And take action at http://www.YoungInvincibles.org
Animated by Andy Lubershane. More comics at http://www.earthlycomics.blogspot.com
Note: The data in this cartoon is supported by this report: http://www.ourfuture.org/healthcare/h..., which includes a lot more detail on current proposals for a public option.
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Feb 22 2010
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Lone Vet Report and Karl Rove |
Portland, Oregon Tells Karl Rove To Go To Jail.
The World Affairs Council of Oregon arranged a debate between Karl Rove and Dr, Howard Dean on the 10th day of February 2010 in Portland, Oregon. Almost 100 protestors, most outside and some inside brought the message to Karl Rove that he should be before a judge and not making millions of dollars on a speaking tour with Dean. There were many who also had a message to Dr. Howard Dean, "You are enabling this man to become rich, and you must stop it now."
Outside there were representatives from Veterans for Peace, Code Pink, the Pissed Off Grannies, Individuals for Justice, and other groups. Inside there were about a half dozen members of Individuals for Justice who pooled their money to buy a $47 ticket, (each) and confront the man we call traitor. One by one we stood up and yelled from the balconies...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQz_jKkPwl8
http://www.IndividualsForJustice.org
The World Affairs Council of Oregon arranged a debate between Karl Rove and Dr, Howard Dean on the 10th day of February 2010 in Portland, Oregon. Almost 100 protestors, most outside and some inside brought the message to Karl Rove that he should be before a judge and not making millions of dollars on a speaking tour with Dean. There were many who also had a message to Dr. Howard Dean, "You are enabling this man to become rich, and you must stop it now."
Outside there were representatives from Veterans for Peace, Code Pink, the Pissed Off Grannies, Individuals for Justice, and other groups. Inside there were about a half dozen members of Individuals for Justice who pooled their money to buy a $47 ticket, (each) and confront the man we call traitor. One by one we stood up and yelled from the balconies...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQz_jKkPwl8 http://www.IndividualsForJustice.org
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Feb 17 2010
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The Great Bi-Partisan Deception |
Some cancer is too aggressive even for chemotherapy. The US political system is infected with such a disease; and we may be witnessing the first death spasms. In a country ravaged by war and economic crisis, with tens of millions of people suffering, politicians are capable of doing absolutely nothing to help ordinary people. The only two “achievements” of the Democrat’s super majority in the Senate — over the course of five months — were an ineffectual stimulus package and a “surge” of troops in Afghanistan…
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Feb 02 2010
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The Teabagger Strategy: Obama and the Right |
A year into President Barack Obama’s first term, it has become depressingly clear that he is, as Jay Leno put it, "our greatest Republican President ever." From warrantless wiretapping to bank bailouts to endless war, on issue after issue his policies have proven identical to those of George W. Bush. And unlike Bush, Obama’s position at the head of the Democratic Party, along with his immense talent as a salesman, allows him to advance the Republican agenda with almost no opposition from self-described liberals. But this unexpected windfall also presents the Republicans, or rather their corporate paymasters, with a dilemma. How do they get Obama reelected while pretending to oppose him?
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Jan 26 2010
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How Liberals Strengthen the Right Wing |
The Democrats look around, blindly, after losing their long-held Senate seat in Massachusetts, and with it their Senate super-majority. They wrongly blame the voters, or their “populist” opponent, but rarely themselves. The Democrats’ claim to be “shocked,” but this scenario is now too familiar in the U.S. two-party system — that corporate-owned game of political musical chairs. Just when it seemed that the Democrats could finally “do something” — since they had a year of super-majority status in the Senate — a wrench was somehow thrown in the machinery.
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Jan 21 2010
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Special election in Massachusetts lost |
Why did the Democratic Party lose what seemed a sure thing? Simple. President Obama was too far off to the right-wing side of the national debate. He needed to run things closer to the way his base thought about things.
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Jan 14 2010
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Banner Hang at UNO Against Budget Cuts |
Students are being forced to pay more for less. Government bureacrats have slashed the higher education budget for the second straight year. And the cuts are only getting worse. Our tuition has ratcheted up 10% and the Post-Secondary Education Review Commission is discussing as much as a 30% increase next Fall.
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Jan 11 2010
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The Iranian Nuke Forgeries |
CIA Determines Documents Were Fabricated U.S. intelligence has concluded that the document published recently by the Times of London, which purportedly describes an Iranian plan to do experiments on what the newspaper described as a "neutron initiator" for an atomic weapon, is a fabrication, according to a former Central Intelligence Agency official. The Times of London story published Dec. 14 did not identify the source of the document. But it quoted "an Asian intelligence source" - a term some news media have used for Israeli intelligence officials - as confirming that his government believes Iran was working on a neutron initiator as recently as 2007.
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Dec 29 2009
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Obama, the Fallen Messiah |
During a time of economic decline, persistent cultural strife, deepening American involvement in far-off military conflicts, and rapid environmental deterioration, is there any wonder that so many Americans believe in salvation fantasies promising them both a transcendent, everlasting future and violent retribution against perceived evildoers? A 2002 CNN poll found that 59% of Americans believed that the prophecies in the Book of Revelations would come true. The startling number reflected the still-fresh trauma of the 9/11 attacks, but I suspect that it has held steady, if not risen. Indeed, mainstream American culture is permeated by apocalyptic beliefs and the yearning for messianic deliverance; the success of the movie 2012 and the forthcoming schlockbuster Legacy are just two recent examples.
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Dec 24 2009
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Senate Speech Heralds New Social Movement |
If you do only one more political thing this year as we put 2009 to bed--RIP, let it be to listen to Bernie Sanders on the floor of the United States Senate speak about Health Care Reform which boots out corporate greed! Sanders speech is being heralded the "New Social Movement" and this couldn't come at a better time... For 2009 reflect for just a minute on all the garbage we have been subjected to pertaining to Health Care Reform and realize that from the start the campaign has been designed by the corporate greedy who literally buy reform that makes them lots & lots more money. Profit over people wins again. The campaign for healthcare reform loses, but out of it we have the "New Social Movement"
So let us do put 2009 to bed and permanently behind us. It has been a horrible year, however we deserve to end it on a high note. We need this. If you do only one more political thing this year listen to Bernie Sanders uplifting speech describing a wonderful vision for 2010. Not a campaign, a movement!--In solidarity, Wes Brain, Chair, Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice, CARRY ON!
The Bernie Sanders speech is at:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/congress/?q=node/77531&id=9083042 Following distributed by "All Unions Committee For Single Payer Health Care--HR 676" "Senate Speech Heralds New Social Movement" by Margaret Flowers and Andy Coates. Keep on reading....
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Dec 08 2009
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African Union Ambassador to the UN in Brooklyn |
In the spirit of Pan African unity, the December 12th Movement International Secretariat hosted a reception for African Union Ambassador to the United Nations Tete Antonio at Sistas’ Place in Brooklyn last week.
from the open publishing newswire...
- Dissent! G8 USA Infotour 01/29/2007