Humor Times blog - by James Israel

Corporate Zombies Are Eating Our Democracy

2010-02-23T18:50:00.000-08:00

The issue of corporate “personhood” has come to the fore again, due to the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, handed down on January 21st.

But even some corporations didn’t like the ruling. Dozens of current and former corporate executives from corporations including Delta, Playboy Enterprises, Ben & Jerry’s, Seagram’s, Hasbro, Delta Airlines, Men’s Wearhouse and Crate & Barrel sent a letter to Congress asking it to immediately pass the Fair Elections Now Act, which would publicly finance all congressional campaigns out of a special fund created by a fee levied on TV broadcasters. They say they are tired of getting fundraising calls from lawmakers and now it will get worse.

Of course, these smaller corporations are not the ones who will be doing most of the new spending anyway. It’ll be the mega-corporations, the ones that have been buying legislation through campaign contributions and their swarms of lobbyists on Capitol Hill for some time now. It’s just that now there will be no limits on their so-called “speech.”

The concept of “corporate personhood” grew out of a Supreme Court case decided in 1886, San Mateo County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co. However, it was just a note by the court reporter that somehow miraculously bestowed this status on corporations. J.C. Bancroft Davis, wrote for the court: “The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does.”

Justice Hugo Black (who served on the Court from 1937-1971) wrote, “In 1886, this Court in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, decided for the first time that the word ‘person’ in the amendment did in some instances include corporations...The history of the amendment proves that the people were told that its purpose was to protect weak and helpless human beings and were not told that it was intended to remove corporations in any fashion from the control of state governments...The language of the amendment itself does not support the theory that it was passed for the benefit of corporations.”

During the Court’s deliberations in this most recent decision, freshly appointed Justice Sonia Sotomayor suggested the majority might have it all wrong, and that the court should reconsider the 19th century rulings that first afforded corporations the same rights as flesh-and-blood people. Judges “gave birth to corporations as persons,” she said. “There could be an argument made that that was the court’s error to start with...[imbuing] a creature of state law with human characteristics.”

Clearly, it is a flawed precedent. And instead of compounding the error by wiping out a hundred years of other precedent that at least put some limits on corporate spending in political campaigns, the Court should have corrected the original mistake, as Sotomayor suggested.

Congress is debating a new bill that aims to counter the Court’s decision, but by most accounts – and like everything Congress does these days pertaining to corporate power – it is much too weak.

Surely, the future of democracy itself in the USA is at stake. Until we can take the big money out of politics, our elected officials will continue to serve the entities that provide them with the money to run big, expensive campaigns, instead of the people. Corporate spending should not be protected as free speech, for it is just the opposite – the practice smothers the real free speech of actual citizens, rendering our views seemingly irrelevant.

Happy friggin’ new year

2010-01-01T18:27:00.000-08:00

I’d like to say “Happy New Year,” but it’s not looking very good for so many people. “Hope and change” seems to have dissolved into despair and more of the same.

I’ve developed a pretty thick skin, politically speaking, over the years. Idealistic in my youth, as the youth tends to be, I thought our generation (I’m 55) could turn things around. When politician after politician dashed my hopes, I decided it was the system, and things would never change until fundamental changes were made there.

I still believe that. Most of all, we must somehow, as a nation, get the big money out of politics. It is corrupting everything, especially Congress, as the recent health care fiasco so obviously shows. (When over 70% of the nation says it wants a robust public option, for example, you’d think it’d be a slam dunk. But no, the insurance companies that pile on the cash for Lieberman and his ilk get their way, yet again!)

I allowed myself to believe Barack Obama was really going to be different. After all, he wasn’t part of the privileged class, like so many of our presidents have been. He worked hard to make something of himself, then eschewed high-paying lawyer jobs to work for the downtrodden on the streets of Chicago. Surely, I thought, this man could not be so easily corrupted.

But there’s something about holding high office, apparently. Now, he does the bidding of his generals and wages war, as is the American custom. He sits on the sidelines and twiddles his thumbs as the very issue that got him elected gets debated in Congress, seemingly oblivious to the fact that botching it would piss off the majority of people who voted for him. He didn’t even defend the things he campaigned for, like the public option.

He and the super-majority of Democrats we elected compromise before the debate even starts, then compromise some more. Any real bargainer knows you start with something way beyond what you expect to get (in this example, Single Payer), giving you a bargaining tool, in order to end up with something acceptable (like a robust public option). You don’t start with what you really want. Not when you’re negotiating with such a powerful force as Big Money, which is, in the final analysis, the actual opponent.

So, surprise, surprise, we end up with something Big Money (and Big Insurance) is very happy with, but which helps the public very little, if at all. And now we’re set to do it all over again, with bank “reform.” Yeah, right! I can save everyone a lot of time: just ask the banks what they want. They’ll get it anyway.

As I see it, every group fighting for change on any issue ought to all come together and fight for campaign reform. Because until we get the big money out of politics, we’ll keep witnessing the same charade, over and over again.

So, happy friggin’ new year.

Corporate chokehold

2009-12-03T10:35:00.000-08:00

Once again, the corporate interests that have a chokehold on our elected representative bodies have succeeded in derailing any real change for the better.

The health care bill is now a bloated corpse – a rotted, stinking shell of what was once originally envisioned. All this thing will succeed in doing is reward the soulless insurance corporations for their intransigence by making them even richer.

The Democrats promised that if we would just give them a 60 seat majority in the Senate, a majority in the House and a Democratic president, they would be able to finally deliver. Instead, the spineless bunch has caved, again, even on abortion rights.

What could have been their greatest moment, when they finally stood up for the people against the big-moneyed interests, has instead disintegrated into the predictable mind-numbing process we helplessly witnessed this summer and fall: Just another giveaway to the mega-corps running the country.

The big mistake, of course, was compromising right off the bat, then compromising some more, then some more, ad nauseam... all in a futile attempt to come up with some kind of “bipartisan” bill, so that the Dems could say they are “mainstream.”

Rather than take Single Payer off the table at the start, they should have used it as their bargaining position. Then, perhaps, we might have been able to at least get a real, robust public option.

Personally, I think Single Payer is the way to go. The rest of the democratic industrialized world runs its variations of it quite successfully, and we even run one already ourselves – in the form of Medicare for seniors. It’s true that when this process started, it didn’t seem could pass such a bill, being that our legislature is what it is. Still, as any negotiator knows, you don’t start out giving away the store.

But there is still a Single Payer bill alive, HR 676; and a California bill, SB 810. Now that the public option plan has become a Frankensteinian monstrosity, it’s what we ought to fight for. Thousands of doctors and nurses nationwide back it. Let’s dump the bloated giveaway bill, and go for the gold.

P.S. It’s that time again! This holiday season, give a unique, thoughtful gift, one that keeps giving all year long – the Humor Times!

Drop the toxic health care bill, implement the simple solution

2009-11-14T14:17:00.000-08:00

The health care bill has been thoroughly polluted with a stifling complexity, a result of all the haggling and trying to please all sides. The best solution is the simplest one, the one that has worked well for decades in every other industrialized democracy in the world (in various forms): single payer. In fact, it has even worked just fine here, in the form of Medicare for seniors. What we need is Medicare for All.

I firmly believe it is immoral to deny health care to anyone, and that's what our system does on a consistent basis. It denies care to those who can't afford insurance, the cost of which has risen astronomically in recent years, as have insurance company profits; and said insurance companies regularly deny health care to even those who have been paying into their greed-lined coffers. They deny for 'pre-existing conditions,' or because they don't like a procedure the doctor orders, or for whatever reason their legions of deniers can come up with.

Putting a profit motive in between doctors and patients is quite simply morally indefensible.

Congress, drop this toxic bill and give us what the majority wants, and what we all need: single payer.

Paranoid "doctor's" email making the rounds thoroughly debunked

2009-11-12T11:30:00.000-08:00

A letter by a supposed Dr. Stephen E. Fraser, MD to Senator Bayh has been making the rounds as an email since at least August, but is still a hot topic among obsessed Republicans.

There is a thorough debunking of these recycled fabrications at the Read,Think,Go blog. Please spread it around to your Repub friends to try to counter the insanity.

The health care bill we'll end up with is far from what we really need, which is a single-payer system. But the lies being spread need to be countered, as they reinforce the paranoia that Dems are out to 'destroy democracy' and will help bring the power hungry neo-cons back to power if we let it.

For example, the paranoid letter says:

"Pg 22 of the HC Bill - MANDATES the Government will audit books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!!"

Uh, no, the only thing mandated is a study:

The Commissioner, in coordination with the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Secretary of Labor, shall conduct a study of the large group insured and self-insured employer health care markets.

And:

"Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC Bill A government committee will decide what treatments/benefits you get."

No. There will be a choice of essential, enhanced, premium and premium plus plans for the Public Option. You get to choose what you want to pay for beyond 'essential,' as well as the option to buy more coverage if you want:

There is established a private-public advisory committee which shall be a panel of medical and other experts to be known as the Health Benefits Advisory Committee to recommend covered benefits and essential, enhanced,and premium plans.

And on and on. Pure bs. This debunking should make people question their sources, if they are truly seeking the truth.

Stop the Socialism for the Big Banks

2009-11-05T15:42:00.000-08:00

I don’t envy President Obama. While I can take issue with some of his strategies – I believe we should get out of Afghanistan, for example, and he should stop compromising away real health care reform – I can appreciate just how monumental the task of turning this country around is.

Reforming health care? It’s only been nearly a century since Theodore Roosevelt first campaigned in 1912 for it. As Obama told Congress on September 9th of this year, “I may not be the first president to tackle health care reform, but I intend to be the last.” A bold statement, to be sure, something Mr. Obama is very good at. But accomplishing that goal, even with majorities in both houses – as we are seeing – is something else altogether.

Add to that the job of recovering from the greatest financial meltdown since the Great Depression, and you’ve already got a Herculean task. And we haven’t even mentioned all the other sticky issues, like averting a climate crisis, nuclear proliferation, environmental challenges, etc.

One could say that dealing with health care reform just now might have been taking on too much, although it is urgently needed and with Democratic majorities, it seemed like a good time to take it on. But averting financial disaster was not a voluntary task, it was thrust upon the new president. Unfortunately, out of ignorance on the subject, or a blind faith in those in the top echelons of the financial industry, or for whatever reason, Obama chose to trust the wrong team to help him. Now he must recognize his error, and find a new team, and a new strategy. The country’s long term financial health, and even our democracy, depend on it.

In a October 9th interview on PBS’s Bill Moyers Journal with Ohio Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, she said, “What they’re doing is they’re taking their mistakes and they’re dumping them on the taxpayer... It’s all at risk because of their behavior. We aren’t reigning them in. The laws of Congress passed last year in terms of housing, were hollow... It’s socialism for the big banks.”

Referring to the president, she said, “I think some of the people that he trusted haven’t delivered. I urge him to get new [financial] generals. It’s time.”

I have to agree, and I’m very sorry Obama couldn’t see from the start that you can’t fix a broken system by hiring the people who broke it, and who are invested in bailing it out. But now that it’s completely obvious, it is time to get a new team in there. Don’t be afraid to admit your mistakes, Mr. President, otherwise you’ll be just like the failed president before you.

Unfortunately, the opportunity inherent in the original crisis may have already slipped away. It may, in fact, be a nearly impossible task, but we’ve got to try. The financial sector needs fundamental reform, and it needs it now.

I guess Palin and Hannity showed them liberals!

2009-11-04T13:37:00.000-08:00

By backing an independent conservative in a New York race (23rd Congressional District) over the Republican nominee who was too "liberal" for them, Sarah Palin and the rest of the rabid neo-con pack hoped to really sock it to Obama and show the country that conservatives were on the rebound. Oops! The strategy backfired! The Democrat was elected to the historically Republican-held seat!

Talk about a rift in the party -- the GOP is reeling! By letting the loony neo-con talking heads on Fox and talk radio take over their message, they are reaping a bitter harvest. Maybe it's time to head back to the center, eh, Repubs?

What are we, idiots?

2009-09-25T13:26:00.000-07:00

From Robert Creamer, HuffingtonPost.com:

We spend $7,290 per person and end up in 37th place. They spend only $3,601 and they are number one. That's just not right.

On the average, Frenchmen live almost three years longer than the average American. That's infuriating.

What's more, every legal resident of France is covered by health insurance, and in the U.S. 46 million people are uninsured. When someone in France goes to the hospital, everything except a small co-payment is covered - it's that simple.

The government doesn't deliver health care in France. Private doctors and hospitals do most of that. It just provides health insurance for everyone.

If you walk into one store and a suit you like costs $600 - and next door the very same suit is $300 - most people would call you a chump for spending $600. In this case the French are paying $300 and getting a better suit. What are we, idiots?

Hilarious! Will Ferrell stands up for the real health care victims.

2009-09-22T13:56:00.000-07:00

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

New York Times shirks journalistic responsibility

2009-09-22T13:17:00.000-07:00

The New York Times devoted some rare space on September 20 to discussing single-payer (or Medicare-for-all) health reform.

NYT public editor Clark Hoyt ran a piece devoted to undermining the case for single-payer health care without allowing advocates to make the case in support of Medicare for all. Seems awfully one-sided. And as is predictable in such a one-sided article, they got it all wrong.

Single payer is the way to go, and enjoys huge support among those that matter - the citizens of this country. If the media reported that support as it should, maybe our representatives would feel the pressure to buck the corporate interests that are holding US health policy hostage. But, no, the media continue to enable the insurance behemoths that put profits over people's health.

You can write to Mr. Hoyt, as I did, at public@nytimes.com or call him at (212) 556-7652, and let him know the media needs to take responsibility for presenting all sides in this critical debate.

Sept 11 - Sept 12 - Today - The Future

2009-09-11T13:54:00.000-07:00

There are some who are trying to make Sept 12 a day to divide America along ideological lines. I suppose by making it Sept 12, they think they are avoiding charges of trying to exploit Sept 11. And they pretend their Sept 12 events are about uniting 'patriotic' Americans, as opposed to the rest of us slobs who support our elected president.

Funny, I remember how the same folks were foaming at the mouth with charges of 'treason' when anyone dared criticize George W. Bush for anything -- including starting a war based on lies; spying on Americans; torture; and outing our own intelligence officers for political purposes, thereby endangering not only their lives, but the lives of all those in their networks and threatening to undo years of hard work at preventing future terrorist attacks -- small stuff like that.

But we should not be trying to make the infamous day of Sept 11, 2001 about Sept 12th, or today, or any other day. Remembering that tragic day should be about the future -- who do we want to be. Do we want to be a paranoid society that codifies into law the taking of our liberties -- liberties enshrined in the constitution, upon which this nation was built? This is what the Orwellian "Patriot Act" was about, and that's why it's important to pressure Congress to let those provisions expire when they come up for renewal at the end of this year.

Or do we want to be a nation of sane laws, laws that protect our precious liberties, laws that protect our fragile democracy and the most vulnerable among us, laws no man can be above, no matter how rich or what office they hold?

Remember how tea parties used to be?

2009-09-09T15:02:00.001-07:00

Bush Tax Cuts Cost 2.5X as Much as the Democrats' Health Care Plan

2009-09-08T11:43:00.000-07:00

From Citizens for Tax Justice:

Newly revised estimates show that the Bush tax cuts cost almost $2.5 trillion over the decade after they were first enacted (2001-2010). Preliminary estimates from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office show that the House Democrats' health care reform legislation is projected to cost $1 trillion over a decade after it would be enacted (2010-2019).

And yet, many of the lawmakers who argue that the health care reform legislation is "too costly" are the same lawmakers who supported the Bush tax cuts. Their own voting record demonstrates that health care reform is not a matter of costs, but a matter of priorities.

Read the new report from Citizens for Tax Justice. (PDF)

These figures make clear that costs cannot be the real concern of lawmakers who oppose the House health care legislation and yet supported the Bush tax cuts. Their position seems to be that showering benefits on the wealthiest five percent of taxpayers and leaving the bill for future generations is preferable to making health care available for all at a much lower cost and paying that cost up front. That demonstrates a different set of priorities than most Americans have, but it doesn't demonstrate much concern about costs.

One small slip for fact-checkers, one giant leap for fake news

2009-09-05T11:21:00.000-07:00

I love it when fake news gets taken for real news, especially since it usually has more grains of truth than the so-called 'real' news on networks like Fox, etc.

Here's an article about a recent 'fake news' piece causing a big stir internationally: One giant slip in Bangladesh news

... and the story by our friends at The Onion that started it all:
Conspiracy Theorist Convinces Neil Armstrong Moon Landing Was Faked.

Speaking of fake news, check out our stories on the Humor Times website and/or fake news blog sometime (as well as in our printed publication, of course!), like this one:

Palin's Latest Shocker: Hosting New Talk Show

Spineless Dems ready to fold again - after all, Public Option only has 76% support

2009-09-01T14:28:00.000-07:00

I consider myself an independent, even though I wind up voting Democratic most of the time. But they usually disappoint me. Like now.

Why do I vote Democratic then? Because our unfortunate 'winner take all' system means votes for minority candidates are pretty much wasted, other than for 'sending a message,' which never gets heard anyway. And Republicans seem to be against anything that might help regular citizens - especially if there's even a remote chance a bill might affect rich folks' bottom lines. Heaven forbid! After all, don't Americans worship at the feet of the rich, hoping one day to win the lottery and be just like them?

In any case, the system is rotten to the core. As I've said many times, we the people will not be served by our so-called 'representatives' until and unless the big money is taken out of politics. Because that is what our 'representatives' are representing now. They work for the people that give them the money to get re-elected. Thus, the system is rotten to the core.

The current health care debate is a perfect example. 76% of voters have consistently said in polls that they want a strong public option in any health care bill. 76 percent! Holy cow, do Democrats need more of a mandate than THAT??? Apparently so.

Because, after all, a few hysterically vocal right-wingers were whipped up by lies told them by the insurance industry, and made some noise at town halls this summer. Therefore, Dems have taken this as their cue to fold! Like they always do. Nothing new here.

We expected some results this time, what with 60 senate seats and a huge majority in the house, and, oh yeah, that 76% public support. But no-o-o-o. A few corporate sponsored 'blue-dog' Dems can take down the whole thing for their insurance company supporters.

If we lived in a just society, those 'blue dogs' would pay dearly for their obstinance in the next election, regardless of how much tainted insurance company money they will have amassed to throw at smarmy TV ads. They have failed their real constituents, and deserve to be replaced. Will voters in those states have the intelligence to see through the lies? I doubt it, but if they did, it would go a long way to restoring my faith in democracy.

No thanks to forced vaccinations

2009-08-30T17:11:00.000-07:00

Why must our society over-react so much? Whether it's marching off to war for a pack of lies, being paranoid about health care reform, or tazing grandmas, something about our culture just loves to jump to conclusions and act impulsively. Of course, a lot of this behaviour is encouraged by those who stand to make a profit off of it.

Take for example a new law passed by the state Senate in Massachusetts, which calls for mandatory vaccinations of all citizens and a $1,000/day fine for those who refuse to cooperate. It also legalizes health care "interrogations" of Mass. citizens, forced entry into homes without a warrant, the on-site destruction of buildings or objects suspected of harboring the virus, the government kidnapping of family pets, "involuntary transportation" of people into quarantine camps and much more.

Of course, the drug companies making the vaccines love this stuff.

Read the analysis of this disturbing police state assault on freedom that's about to be signed into law in Massachusetts (and could be followed by other states across the country):

http://www.naturalnews.com/026934_health_public_health_quarantine.html

Vaccines are notoriously ineffective anyway, and often worse than the disease. Not to mention a clear link between vaccines and Downs Syndrome. From VaccinationDebate.com:
Historical facts exposing the dangers and ineffectiveness of vaccines.

What's to become of your pets when you get Raptured? Now there's a solution.

2009-08-28T13:22:00.000-07:00

Eternal Earth-Bound Pets, USA are a group of atheists, sure, but moral atheists, who just want to help. Hey, you have to trust someone who is getting left behind, if you want to make sure your pets are cared for when you get raptured. And they'll do it for just a small, nominal fee! (Paid ahead, naturally.)

As their site says,

"You've committed your life to Jesus. You know you're saved. But when the Rapture comes what's to become of your loving pets who are left behind? Eternal Earth-Bound Pets takes that burden off your mind"

And who wouldn't want that kind of peace of mind? I mean, just because you're holy enough to get raptured, doesn't mean your loyal, earthbound pet should have to suffer!

This is HUGE! Finally, a challenge to the 'personhood' of corporations in the Supreme Court!!!

2009-08-24T23:35:00.000-07:00

On August 1st Democracy Unlimited filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court challenging “corporate personhood,” the illegitimate and undemocratic legal doctrine which allows courts to overturn democratically elected laws that attempt to control corporate harm and abuse...

“The notion that corporations have the same speech rights as people under our Bill of Rights is contrary to the words, history, spirit and intent of our Constitution,” said Clements. “The organizations that joined to bring these arguments to the Court have worked with others for many years to empower democratic self-government. They remind us that corporations do not vote, speak, or act as people do, but are products of government policy to achieve economic and charitable ends. As such, corporations need not be allowed to influence our elections if Congress and State governments judge that such influence is detrimental to democracy.”

The Supreme Court is considering overturning federal campaign regulations for corporations, originally enacted in 1907, and may soon overrule previous Supreme Court decisions that have upheld the Constitutionality of legislative restrictions on corporate money in politics...

The brief filed by Democracy Unlimited argues that corporations are legal entities created by state or federal law for economic, charitable or other purposes, and were never intended to be included within the Constitution’s Bill of Rights...

More details and a long discussion thread at Reddit.

The Supreme Court will be hearing the case in September. Expect to hear more about this then, but you can get a head start now.

Best health care solution yet!

2009-08-19T10:44:00.000-07:00

Thom Hartmann has the best idea for health care reform, laid out in an open letter to the prez entitled
A Modest Medicare Proposal.

In it, he proposes the simplest solution yet, which is completely revenue neutral and has no complicated provisions that give the right-wing corporate health care deniers (not providers -- let's be honest here) nothing to sink their teeth into.

The idea is to let citizens buy into Medicare if they so choose. Brilliant! Medicare is so cost-effective that allowing people to buy into it should be way cheaper than paying for health insurance from these profit-crazy crooks that are fleecing us now.

Please read Thom's article and send a letter to Obama and your reps today!

Opposed to Socialized Medicine? Now's your chance to pledge to deny yourself Medicare for life!

2009-08-14T10:43:00.001-07:00

Finally! All who are opposed to "socialized" health care can now sign a petition created to let you pledge to refuse to use the Medicare you already have, or to promise to never sign up for it. That's right, Medicare is a government run insurance program, much like that evil public option!

If you choose not to sign it, I'm sorry, but you're a hypocrite!

Next up: We hope to create "Thanks but no thanks" yard signs you can put up in your yard, telling those socialistic police and fire departments that you're against all socialist institutions like theirs! After all, our taxes pay for their services! And we all know the government can't do ANYTHING right! So, buy one of these signs (yes, they're for sale -- what'd you think? This is capitalism), and tell those commies where to go! Next time your house is on fire, you can hire help to put it out -- that's the American way!

Remembering Hiroshima

2009-08-06T14:42:00.000-07:00

On August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber flew over Hiroshima, Japan. The uranium 235 bomb, named Little Boy, exploded at 8:16 a.m. In an instant 80,000 to 140,000 people were killed and 100,000 more were seriously injured. The blast wave shattered windows for a distance of ten miles and was felt as far away as 37 miles. Hiroshima had disappeared under a thick, churning foam of flames and smoke.

Thousands of nukes are still a threat to life on earth, and Russian nuclear subs are patrolling off our coast right now. We need to remember the tragedy and continue to work toward a day when we can live in peace.

A good way to remember is to participate in a fresh Anti-Nuke Push.

We were promised real reform if we could just get the Dems 60 seats...

2009-07-08T17:03:00.001-07:00

Well, now's the time, Democrats. If you blow this one, don't be surprised when you find you lose your majority after just two short years.

We need health care, not warfare. Yet Dems continue to authorize funds for war, but are looking pretty sheepish on health care reform.

Face it, we need single-payer health care. Every other proposal out there is hogwash. As Dr. Dean says, we are 60 years behind the times on this issue. But even if the "public option" goes through, you can be sure the lobbyists, who have congress by the balls, will make sure it is completely neutered of any real power.

We were told as voters that when the Democrats got 60 seats in the Senate, we would finally get the important things this country so desperately needs. Health care reform is at the top of the list.

So, the question is, are you going to follow through, Democrats, or once again prove that you have no spine? Even with total control in Washington, and the entire country behind real health care reform? If that's the case, you will have not only blown an historic opportunity for the real "change we need," you will lose your majority in 2010.

A Fox news station, of all places, interviews Richard Gage on the WTC collapses

2009-06-03T14:23:00.000-07:00

This is a very interesting interview, not least because it took a Fox news station to have this guy on, and they didn't even belittle him!

Richard Gage (practicing architect for 20 years) talks about the WTC building collapses on September 11 2001, on KMPH Fox 26 in Fresno, California. He also talks about the discovery of high-tech nano-thermite (an explosive pyrotechnic) that has been discovered in the dust of the WTC collapses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO2yT0uBQbM

700 architects who have looked over the evidence are demanding a new, real, independent investigation. I have to agree.

Here's a very readable analysis of the scientific paper Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe intended to summarize those findings for the non-technical reader: http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/thermite/explosive_residues.html

Check out more info at: Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth -- http://www.ae911truth.org/

Even a former FBI Division Chief, Ted Gunderson, has become involved in this issue, executing a new "911 Criminal Complaint" petition, as a result of new scientific evidence.

Please read and sign this important petition and promote it to your contacts. Links are provided. Go to: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/911criminalcomplaint/

Now's not the time to relax -- we must ban touchscreen voting

2009-05-31T11:11:00.000-07:00

Now's the time to push this, while the Dems are in control... most of the so-called "anomalies" that have happened with electronic voting have hurt Democrats and helped Republicans, like the election Max Cleland lost in 2002.

Check out this petition... "Ban Touchscreen Voting"

It supports Rep. Rush Holt's Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act. This bill requires verifiable and accessible voting systems in federal elections with paper ballots marked by voters by hand or through the use of non-tabulating ballot marking devices. It will ensure that voters in every precinct across the United States are guaranteed the right in a federal election to cast their votes using paper ballots. It will require election audits for every federal election where the winning candidate receives less than 80 percent of
the vote.

The past several election cycles have demonstrated that electronic voting systems present a serious threat to the integrity of our elections. Touchscreen machines (DRE's) have proven to be unreliable and insecure for the counting and recording of votes. Further, touchscreens repeatedly malfunction during elections, causing long lines and disenfranchising thousands of voters.

And touchscreens provide no opportunity to conduct a meaningful recount or audit of an election. As a result, voters throughout the country have lost confidence in the accuracy of reported electoral outcomes in jurisdictions using touchscreens. More than a century ago, the United States Supreme Court stated in the case of Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 370 (1886), that the right to vote is "a fundamental political right" which is "preservative of all rights." The Holt Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act is a critical measure for helping to protect this most basic right.

http://www.democrats.com/ban-touchscreen-voting?source=cpn%40cwo.com

Watch "Torturing Democracy" online - it's your civic duty as an American

2009-05-30T12:15:00.000-07:00

Please take the time to watch this movie, free online. Every American should, because we're all responsible.

Torturing Democracy

No political party would dare make torture a cornerstone of its rejuvenation if people really understood what it is. And lest we forget, we're not just talking about waterboarding, itself a trivializing euphemism for drowning.

If we want to know what torture is, and what it does to human beings, we have to look at it squarely, without flinching. That's just what a powerful and important film, seen by far too few Americans, does. "Torturing Democracy" was written and produced by one of America's outstanding documentary reporters, Sherry Jones...

"Torturing Democracy" begins at 9/11 and recounts how the Bush White House and the Pentagon decided to make coercive detention and abusive interrogation the official US policy in the war on terror. In sometimes graphic detail, the documentary describes the experiences of several men who were held in custody, including Shafiq Rasul, Moazzam Begg and Bisher al-Rawi, all of whom eventually were released. Charges never were filed against them and no reason was ever given for their years in custody.

The documentary traces how tactics meant to train American troops to survive enemy interrogations - the famous SERE program ("Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape") - became the basis for many of the methods employed by the CIA and by interrogators at Guantanamo and in Iraq, including waterboarding (which inflicts on its victims the terror of imminent death), sleep and sensory deprivation, shackling, caging, painful stress positions and sexual humiliation.

"We have re-created our enemy's methodologies in Guantanamo," Malcolm Nance, former head of the Navy's SERE training program, says in "Torturing Democracy." He adds, "It will hurt us for decades to come. Decades. Our people will all be subjected to these tactics, because we have authorized them for the world now. How it got to Guantanamo is a crime and somebody needs to figure out who did it, how they did it, who authorized them to do it ... Because our servicemen will suffer for years."

-- Bill Moyers