I don't see the path to his goal in this billSeems like he saw the path to failure for the past eight long years but is not going to take any responsibility for the recovery. I guess the fact many of his financial supporters do not benefit from the proposed plan must factor in his decision.
The real question is whether Mr. Obama will uphold the legal architecture necessary to continue the war against al Qaeda and its jihadist allies.And what might that legal system be? We have a criminal justice system which for the past 200 years has served our nation well. But in the mind of the right wing pundits today that stalwart system is not good enough.
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday introduced a bill prohibiting federal courts from ordering the release and transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees into the country.Using the same nomenclature put forth by Bushco, the Representatives claim the detainees have no rights to legal process under our laws. The Bush administration made up the term, "enemy combatant," in order to bypass both American legal systems and the Geneva Conventions. Now the House Republicans want to make the term a part of our legal system.
A man walks up to the White House entry gates and asks the guard if he can make an appointment to see President Bush.
The guard responds: "Sir, Bush is no longer our President. Barack Obama is now our President."
The next day the same man walks up and asks the same guard if he can make an appointment with Bush.
The guard again responds: "Bush is no longer our President. Barack Obama is now our President."
The following day the same man walks up to the same guard and asks (yet again) to make an appointment with Bush.
The guard responds: "Sir, Bush is no longer our President. Barack Obama is now our President. Are you really that dense?!?"
The man responds: "No, not at all. I just love hearing it over and over and over again!"
1. The worst recession since the 1930s.
2. The worst financial crisis since the 1930s.
3. The worst foreign policy mistake in the history of this country. That’s what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid correctly called the Iraq war.
4. Unprecedented rejection of human rights.
5. Watergate-style abuses of power.
6. Unprecedented increases in inequality. (snip) The richest one percent of the population received 36 percent of the Bush tax cuts; the least affluent 40 percent received only 9 percent.
7. A culture of sleaze. (snip) Kicked off by Dick Cheney’s secret energy task force, the Administration fostered a “greed is good” culture.
8. Blind rejection of science. The Bush Administration thumbed its nose at scientific evidence that contradicted conservative political goals.
9. Utter refusal to protect the health, safety, and legal rights of Americans. Following the conservative business-is-always-right philosophy, Bush dismantled the agencies and rules designed to protect consumers from unscrupulous businesses, workers from reckless employers, and small companies from anti-competitive large companies.
10. Presiding over our nation’s worst natural disaster, and not caring. Hurricane Katrina was transformed from a calamity into a national disgrace by the sheer incompetence and indifference of the Bush Administration.
The new administration is also committed to "aggressively" increasing energy efficiency in appliances and buildings; will push for more fuel-efficient vehicles including plug-in hybrids and supports a more "robust" transmission and distribution system for electricity.But Chu qualified his statement saying
the Obama administration would support efforts to revitalize the nuclear power industry, including developing a long-term plan to dispose of radioactive waste from the civilian reactors; would seek the "responsible" development of domestic oil and gas supplies; and would invest in technology to capture and store carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.We continue to face an administration ruled by the energy companies without real regard to either the environment or the taxpayers.
When President Bush took office, the unemployment rate was 4.2 percent and the ranks of the unemployed stood at just over 6 million. As it turns out, the nation would never again see unemployment that low during the entire Bush term. Today, the unemployment rate is 7.2 percent and there are 11.1 million people unemployed.
Also noteworthy is the employment-to-population ratio. When Bush took office, that ratio was 64.4 percent. It would never see that level again. It went down through his presidency to today's 61 percent. That's through all of the business and high-income tax cuts that Bush and conservatives said would create jobs.The bad news continues to flow day by day. At least we are down to the final 8 days before the end comes. Our nation can ill afford any more terrible news from this administration.
Vice President-elect Joe Biden made a surprise visit to the Taliban's traditional stronghold in southern Afghanistan on Sunday and said the new U.S. administration will fully support troops battling the resurgent militants.President elect Obama has said he will end the war in Iraq and focus American efforts on Afghanistan.
The U.S. is rushing up to 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and some will go to the southern provinces.2008 saw 151 American deaths in Afghanistan in the worst year of loss since our invasion of the country. The Taliban has been rising in strength in recent months.
Southern Afghanistan has become the center of the Taliban-led insurgency, which left some 6,400 people — mostly militants — dead in 2008 alone.
Compounding the problem, the region is also the world's largest drug producing area, and hundreds of millions of dollars from the trade finance the insurgency.The apparent failure of military action in Iraq and Afghanistan will not deter the new administration from their course of increased use of force. When ever will we learn our lesson?
Hunger strikers at Guantanamo are counted as captives who refuse nine meals in a row.Once a prisoner has fasted for 21 days in a row, he is subject to being force fed through a nasal tube.
The forced-feeding regime has guards and medical staff strap a captive into a chair, Velcro his head to a metal restraint, then tether a tube into the man’s stomach through his nose to pump in liquid nourishment twice a day.Forced tube feeding has been used by internment staff members against Falun Gong practioners. Many of the prisoners treated this way died as a result. Tube feeding has several attendant risks. The procedure requires a measure of technical skill which most non-medical persons do not have in their skill set. Imad Hassan, a Yemeni detainee has been force fed several times during his detention.
Hassan, who has never been charged with a crime, has been fed through a tube on and off for three years and suffers serious health consequences, including digestive and pancreas problems.
Artificial feeding has much in common with rape. And that's what it really is (snip) They pry the mouth open with a flat disc and broaden the crack between the jaws and insert a tube. (snip) The sensation is one of being morally defiled, of sweetness in the mouth, and a jubilant stomach gratified to the point of delight. (p 470)
... this amounts to medical therapy and that no competent patient can be subjected to such intervention against their will.Nonetheless the procedure continues to be employed at Guantanamo and likely at other places where detainees are being held by U.S. personnel.
the rise in teens having babies is geographically broad-based and represents most regions of the USA
The highest teen birth rates are in the South and Southwest; Mississippi is highest with 68.4 per 1,000, followed by New Mexico, with a rate of 64.1 and Texas, with 63.1.Delaware was middle of the road at 41.9 per thousand. Read the full report here (PDF). The full report has large amounts of data sorted by mother's age, race, and state.
Companies are accelerating the pace of firings as the recession plaguing the world’s largest economy heads into a second year.
ADP includes only private employment and does not take into account hiring by government agencies, which is included in the monthly payroll report.
The ADP report is based on data from about 400,000 businesses with approximately 24 million workers on payrolls.Is there any good news out there on the economic horizon these days? Too many people in my circle are unemployed and having no real luck finding jobs. We are in deep trouble as a nation and must turn this around soon if we are to avoid much more trouble.
But even if Guantánamo closes, the controversial U.S. practice of jailing suspected al-Qaeda militants and other terrorists indefinitely won't end, because such detentions continue on an even greater scale at the U.S. military base at Bagram, Afghanistan, 40 miles north of Kabul.While the Obama administration remains quiet on the overall detainee strategy, building continues in Afghanistan. The new prison will not be completed until the Obama administration is well settled in office. In the Pentagon's view, the "long war on terror" requires the sequestration and detention of people without charge and without trial.
The U.S. military had hoped to farm out the Bagram detainees to prisons run by Afghanistan and other nationsBut that course has obstacles of its own. To allow for all the ongoing detentions the prison will be tucked away in a remote corner of Bagram.
The new facility, expected to cost at least $60 million, is slated to hold 600 detainees under normal circumstances, with a capacity of 1,100 in emergency conditions.The question for the new administration will be if or not the ongoing detentions will be tolerated? Or will a better way be found to resolve these cases?
If you want to support the troops then you do everything you can to work for peace. You march… you write letters to your editor… you call your elected officials…. and you teach your children that bad guys are rarely found on the field of battle.
When it comes to war the real bad guys are usually hundreds of miles away surrounded by men with money to gain and power to loose. It’s a shame that the guns are almost never aimed at the bad guys. But I understand why the army has to convince my nephew and other soliders to see it that way. I imagine it would be hard to pull the trigger if you realize the guy you’re aiming at is probably just like you. Yep. You don’t win many wars that way. Instead you have to turn “us” into “them” and “we” into “they”. It’s hard to hate people. It’s much easier to just hate a country or a regime. It’s hard to kill someone’s son or father or brother, but pulling a trigger when you are aiming at a terrorists… well that’s another story entirely. You know, I can’t help but wonder what color the ribbons are in Irag. I mean you realize that mothers in Iraq support the troops too, don’t you?
The residue includes heavy metals, carcinogens and even radioactive materials that young children can get on their hands and ingest, especially if they’re crawling or playing on the floor.Today people are beginning to understand cigarette smoke is harmful to those nearby.
Some 95 percent of nonsmokers and 84 percent of smokers agreed with the statement that “inhaling smoke from a parent’s cigarette can harm the health of infants and children.”The survey found a different result when people were asked if the air in rooms where smokers were present yesterday was harmful.
Only 65 percent of nonsmokers and 43 percent of smokers agreed with that statement, which researchers interpreted as acknowledgement of the risks of third-hand smoke.
Among the substances in third-hand smoke are hydrogen cyanide, used in chemical weapons; butane, which is used in lighter fluid; toluene, found in paint thinners; arsenic; lead; carbon monoxide; and even polonium-210, the highly radioactive carcinogen that was used to murder former Russian spy Alexander V. Litvinenko in 2006. Eleven of the compounds are highly carcinogenic.How much more information must come to light before tobacco is banned as a serious health hazard in this nation? The evidence of risk is overwhelming without a single positive point to be offered.
1. Scale out arms dealing and make it illegal by the year 2020.And there will no doubt be more to come from those who see peace as the best future option for the globe. The question is, "Can Obama make substantive progress toward global peace?" Or is the military industrial complex so in control that no one can change direction these days?
2. Write into every defense contract a requirement for a peacetime project.
3. Subsidize conversion of military companies to peaceful uses with tax incentives and direct funding.
4. Convert military bases to housing for the poor.
5. Phase out all foreign military bases.
6. Require military personnel to devote part of their time to rebuilding infrastructure.
7. Call a moratorium on future weapons technologies.
8. Reduce armaments like destroyers and submarines that have no use against terrorism and were intended to defend against a superpower enemy that no longer exists.
9. Fully fund social services and take the balance out of the defense and homeland security budgets.
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