In America, political power resides predominately in the business sector, whose economic interests are first and foremost on the minds of both major parties. The Democrats have less naked loyalty to corporations, but their offices are funded, lobbied and coerced nonstop by businesses that hold stake in government affairs.
For a demonstration of this power relationship, [...]
“Interrogators were instructed to start pouring water right after a detainee exhaled, to ensure he inhaled water, not air, in his next breath. They could use their hands to “dam the runoff” and prevent water from spilling out of a detainee’s mouth. They were allowed six separate 40-second “applications” of liquid in each two-hour session [...]
From the NY Times:
In the McCarthy era, demagogues on the right smeared loyal Americans as disloyal and charged that the government was being undermined from within. [...]
Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, has been pressing Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. since November to reveal the names of lawyers on his staff who have done legal [...]
McClatchy reported yesterday that Obama tried to shame health insurance execs with a sad letter he received from a woman who is being financially destroyed by her medical bills thanks to rising insurance premiums and deductibles.
Here’s part of the letter:
Last year (2009) my insurance premium was increased over 25% even though I increased my deductible [...]
February 26, 2010 – 1:35 pm
I’m so glad the Democrats got the message in 2006 and 2008 that we wanted them to be exactly like the Republicans (from AntiWar.com):
The House of Representatives narrowly averted allowing the US Patriot Act to expire, abandoning all the proposed privacy provisions to the bill and approving it exactly as worded by the Senate in [...]
February 25, 2010 – 10:15 am
Thomas Ricks, is the author of the excellent Iraq War chronicle “Fiasco,” thinks we have to keep 30,000+ troops in Iraq indefinitely:
By June, American troops may be leaving areas that are far from quiet, and where new tensions may be brewing as a result of the elections. Once again, the United States would be rushing [...]
February 24, 2010 – 9:27 am
In the aftermath of Obama’s election in 2008, there was hope Republicans and their insane governing philosophy would be taking a long vacation from Washington. Demographic trends were against them. Minorities and young folks were far more lefty and likely to vote for Democrats than the old white people they were increasingly replacing at the [...]
February 23, 2010 – 11:54 am
The Democrats will deliver half of what they promise to their voters and all of what they promise to their corporate donors. For example.
Vote for Democrats if you’d like a slower decline in American power and prosperity.
Republicans will deliver the opposite of what they promise voters and all of what they promise to their corporate [...]
February 22, 2010 – 10:16 am
Bush’s Department of Justice lawyers who made legal excuses for torture are not even going to get a slap on the wrist:
“What we’re seeing right now is the dismantling of precedent that we created at Nuremberg, when we said that you can’t facilitate war crimes as lawyers and say that it was simply bad judgment. [...]
February 18, 2010 – 9:37 am
This kind of sh*t can’t last:
Keying off the Obama administration’s recent probe into a planned 39 percent rate hike from Anthem Blue Cross in California, [Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius] will detail large increases in six other states and say that given record insurer profits, health care reform has never been more urgent.
At 11:30 [...]