FBI Rescues Bin Ladens

Saying this sort of thing "happens all the time," a former National Security Council head explained that there was nothing wrong with flying the bin Laden family out of the U.S. immediately after the attacks of 9/11.

We truly have crossed into the looking glass. Kudos to Rep. Henry Waxman for looking into the affair, but, needless to say, don't hold your breath. And, our usual warning to those who meddle in such affairs, for God's sake, stay off of small planes!

link

Disinformation or Roadmap?

This interview was referenced in our comments section of our Nader debate. Go read it. Grand-Pre Interview

I'm a little suspicious that this is a disinformation ploy, though there's another thought I had about the interview that's even worse.

The interview says 9/11 was planned by the Bush cabal and carried out by remote control airliners. That's not really a new idea. But it says that, in response, the military is planning a coup d'etat. Here are some reasons this seems a little suspicious to me.

The man openly embraces the idea of coup d'etat and yet seems not to have encountered the wrath of Ashcroft or our Dept. of Fatherland Security. You aren't allowed to advocate violent overthrow of the U.S. Govt, are you? And where is the investigation, the arrests of those in the military planning this thing? He's pretty open about the details with hints that he knows much more. He even names names of high level military who support this idea. Doesn't this seem at least a little fishy?

However, I had an even worse idea. Now, I tend to argue along the lines that, yes, elites control the world, but that there are different factions and alliances, etc, and there is not one global, all powerful conspiracy that is running the whole show. However, it did occur to me that this man's interview actually involved callers PRAISING the idea of a military coup. Think about this idea: Bush (really Cheney) et al do really bad things on 9/11 and after. Slowly but surely the truth gets leaked out until there is actually a fairly high (substantial minority) level of support for a military takeover. It's a pretty good script for easing the transition to military rule, one that would involve the least amount of civilian opposition. I mean, what would YOUR protest sign say if 9/11 was officially revealed to be an inside job and the military took over and tried all of those responsible? We've been wanting them kicked out of office, yes?

It may not be the truth, but it IS a fantastic movie script. I just hope it stays in the realm of fiction. Imagine, the military takes over with civilian support. Those who are opposed are branded SUPPORTERS of BUSH!!!! They are arrested, with little outcry from the public. Oh, and combine this with the recent Pentagon report that climate change requires drastic MILITARY planning...sheesh. I just scared myself. I'm going to go do some housework now and calm down. Somebody stop me before I start getting so paranoid next time, will ya?

Oh, and somebody find me some information that proves this Grand-Pre is a quack. You know you are freaking yourself out when you want to debunk your OWN conspiracy theories!

Errr...Kerry is better than Bush how, exactly?

Hey, guess what. If you elect Kerry, you'll get MORE military, MORE police and MORE meddling by the CIA in world affairs. How do I know? Cuz he said so, that's how. Kerry supporters who berate Nader...how do you square this with YOUR conscience?

Link

18,181

You'll have to read the attached article if you don't already know the significance of that number. This article is a nice summary of the "story so far" concerning electronic voting. To wit: Two brothers control 80 percent of electronic voting in the country. They have funding and ties to very nasty rightwingers through the Ahmanson family, such as Ollie North, Richard Secord, the Klan and Christian Reconstructions who want to kill gays and drug addicts except for Rush Limbaugh. States where these machines are most prevalent tend to have really surprising Republican electoral upsets.

Pass the article around to those Kerry supporters who are bugging you about considering Nader. Tell them that even if their logic is correct in a fair election, it won't matter in this one, because the fix is in, and the only thing we lose by attacking Nader is the message he bears: corporations run our country and no one, Dem or Rep is standing up to them. Thus, I declare myself the winner of all Nader/Kerry arguments of the past, present and near future. Congratulations to myself on a fine victory. Now go read the article. It breaks no new ground, but is a good overview. link. As always, you can go to Blackboxvoting.org for a free book and other excellent resources.

More on healthcare

This is from Southern Exposure Magazine


______


INSTITUTE INDEX – To Our Health

Percent of U.S. residents who rank health care as one of their "top issues": 82

Number of people in U.S. without health insurance, in millions: 43.6

Percent of personal bankruptcies due in part to medical expenses: 50

Amount by which President's budget cuts Medicaid over 10 years, in billions: $16

Amount his Medicaid plan will increase drug company profits, in billions: $139

Percent of health care costs that go to administrative overhead in private insurance: 11.7

Percent for administrative overhead in the Medicaid program: 3.6

Percent for administrative overhead in Canada's national health system: 1.3

Number of times a December government report mentioned racial health "disparities": 30

Number of times it mentioned this after being "edited" by Bush officials: 2

Sources on file at the Institute for Southern Studies.

Endorsing Nader

After having been given a lesson in how little free thought is respected by mainstream liberals, who embrace the paradoxical position that a)Nader isn't electable and his campaign has no chance and b)please, please, please, don't let him run 'cause it might huwt Kewwy, I've decided to endorse Ralph. That's right, Buzzflash. Quake in your virtual boots. All twelve of my loyal readers are on a mission now.

Why? Well, I'm going to link to two good articles that explain it better than I can, but the bottom line is, the establishment chose Kerry. I didn't. You didn't. I'm not sure any real people did. He doesn't represent me. He won't get us out of Iraq. He won't get my wife medical insurance. He won't stand up to the corporations...in fact, he's MARRIED to a corporation. Anyone but Bush? How about anyone but a corporate puppet. Dance, little Kewwy, dance.

Here are the articles...and Hey...thanks for listening. And, yes, these come from Counterpunch courtesy of Alex "Oswald did it" Cockburn and I have no idea who the writers are. Unlike the Dems, I will credit you with the ability to use all of your own judgment and experience when reading these articles to decide on their merit.

nader1

nader2

More on healthcare

Thanks to catdaddy for providing this link. Barbara Ehrenreich on the numbers of people not only going into debt because of medical bills but actually being ARRESTED because of those debts. As an exercise for the reader, research the etymology and origins of the word "hospital" and see if maybe they haven't strayed just a WEE bit from the original intent.

I'm sad to say that my state produced Bill Frist and the Hospital Corporation of America. Write Bill a letter and thank him for turning the care of the sick and wounded into a for-profit enterprise. He'll be too busy to answer though, as he's busy trying to get a Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriages. Woot! That'll pay my medical bills.

Here's Ehrenreich.

David Kelly: An insider speaks?

I don't have the time to do any research into the person who is making these claims, but it purports to be a very detailed interview with someone who knows the details on the Kelly murder. Remember, Kelly was the guy who was "suicided" after revealing the WMD scam to the BBC. For those of you new to this site, you should understand that this is the kind of things these guys do to stay in power. They kill their opponents. Sorry...I don't really know any other way to put it. Kelly link

Someone drop me a line if you see that this story gets discredited. I don't want to post baseless accusations and I really don't have a lot of time to look into it.

I've had a really bad two weeks and to top it off, Buzzflash Hates me.

I recently wrote a letter to Buzzflash. I noticed an article about Nader running that called him "evil." Since I thought this sort of hyperbole was reserved for folks such as Ann "All Liberals Are Traitors" Coulter, I thought I'd mention it. Also, I'm not at all convinced that simply voting against Bush for, it seems, Kerry, will change much at all. Especially since I think the vote is rigged.

Here's my original letter. If you go to Buzzflash and click on the "mailbag" link at the bottom of the page, you'll see a profound absence of my letter. Admittedly, it wasn't my best writing, it was done quite hastily, but I thought they'd put it on the site after I got a reply from Buzz. And yeah...I guess the site is run by a guy named Buzz. Who knew?

Here's my original letter:

I appreciate Buzzflash, but calling Nader part of the "republican evil empire" is not much different from Ann
Coulter calling all Liberals "traitors". A healthy dose of suspicion is good...as it would have been with the
Clark campaign, a lifelong Republican who runs as a Democrat and certainly didn't help Dean's corner on the anti-
war market. We should have suspicion about Kerry, who emerges in unexpected and dramatic fashion after Dean has
been savaged in the press he so roundly criticized. I think it's the Dems, particularly the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council-a pro-business, centrist Democratic kingmaking machine - ed.) that has beat up
Dean, not the Republicans, but it's the same principal. By the way, I am not even a Dean supporter.

Kerry has done nothing to show me he's different enough from Bush, which is what the Dems ALWAYS give us..."just
a little bit less evil." He did enough for the war and against the poor that I'll have no problem voting for
Nader in November, just becaused I'm pissed off at the Democrats. Kerry is even in Skull and Bones, for crying
out loud. 800 living Skull and Bones members, and two of them will face off in the '04 elections? Is our system
really THAT narrow?

Oh, and a little mathematical perspective hear. Nader did NOT lose the election for Gore in 2000, because, of
course, GORE WON THE ELECTION. He won the popular vote. Had the recount continued, he would have won Florida.
In fact, if thousands of voters, mostly African-American and Democrats, had not been illegally purged from the
voter roles in that state, he would have won easily. And Buzzflash KNOWS this. And I didn't even LIKE Gore, for
the same reasons I don't like Kerry.

I'm glad to see you are running some articles about the electronic voting and featuring the work of
www.blackboxvoting.org. But you can't have it both ways. If you think Nader lost the election for the Dems,
then you are assuming clean elections. If the elections weren't clean, you can't blame Nader.

In sum, if the Democrats want my vote, they will stop marginalizing the candidates that speak to the issues I
care about and have the courage to take on the status quo. To say "no" to war, "no" to corporate criminals,
"yes" to REAL healthcare reform, "yes" to taking care of the growing numbers of poor. If the Democratic
candidate will not come forward and be willing to take on the corporations and to take on the neo-con cabal
running this country, then I'm voting for Nader. If the Democrats think that my positions on these issues are
"too left", then they don't want my vote anyway.

Here was a suprisingly vitriolic response from Buzz. I was taken aback, I have to admit. Now, y'all know that I have no real faith in the next elections anyway, especially now that they have Osama "surrounded" and will wait to capture him right before the elections (I say, could you just click on this English link.) but I thought that some of these issues should be raised anyway. Here is the response (Lack of capitals in the original. Buzz is a busy guy.):

you have a choice, a vote for nader is a vote for bush

if you want to be that self-indulgent, go ahead and think of the misery a second bush adminsitration will cause the world. think of how many will die as a result.

i used to admire nader voters as idealistic, now i see some of them as self-indulgent narcissists who rather see the world destroyed and vote for nader and get bush than end up with a less than perfect democrat who will cause far fewer deaths, if any, save the environment, and save democracy

but, go ahead, indulge yourself, be spoiled and think you're being idealistic, in the real world, a vote for nader is a a vote for bush -- and you are condemning the world to bush

that's the real world, not some abstract world of personal indulgence in an idealism that leads us to dante's inferno

enable bush, make your day

buzz

I answered back, but have yet to receive another reply from Busy Buzzy. Again, I didn't put a lot into this response, but he didn't really respond to most of my original letter. Not that he had to, but if you are only going to respond to one part, you really miss the whole point of the thing.

Here is my response:

Well, first off, I didn't actually know there was someone named BUZZ who ran the site. Cool.

Secondly, you didn't respond to one of the main points of my argument, that I have very little confidence that this election will be fair in the first place, exactly like 2000 wasn't.

Third, you did not demonstrate any difference between Kerry and Bush. To be honest, if Edwards somehow pulls off an upset, i'd be interested. But if the Dems want to keep putting out Republican lite and then calling people who object to that and I quote from your kind missive, "self-indulgent narcissists" (Nice outreach, by the way.)..(I evidently didn't finish this sentence. I can be such a doofus sometimes -ed.)

Fourth, you did not respond to my assertion that it was the DEMOCRATS, particularly the DLC that went after Dean. So the most powerful wing of the Democratic Party is actively attacking and disabling the campaigns of those who challenge their pro-business agenda. Doesn't that seem wrong to you?

Kerry will SAVE the environment? Good voting record for the American environment. Yes. Can he stand up to the corporations when it counts? Check out Richard Morningstar on his national security team. Overseas Private Investment Corp was his baby. Let's lend Enron some money so you can do an energy deal with Indonesia's Suharto? http://www.atimes.com/global-econ/DA29Dj01.html (in case you actually care). More of the fucking same corruption.

Kill far fewer people? He voted FOR the Second Gulf Massacre. FOR. Not against. FOR. Now exactly how would his administration have killed fewer people?

He voted for the tax cuts.

He's a pro-business, pro-corporate shill but he supports abortion rights, so all liberals should vote for him, right?

His potential cabinet members are as awash in corporate corruption as much of Bush's.

You don't get it. There is a SYSTEMIC problem in American politics. Corporations and people with lots of money have rigged the system so that no one who gives them trouble makes it through to the top of the political ladder. A vote for Kerry is a vote for that system.

Ty

Well, there it is. I will add that I think there is, in fact, good reason to be suspicious of Nader, but the tone on the site was that ANYONE who would dare run as an independent was practically demonic.

I should also add, that, just in case the elections aren't rigged enough to overcome Bush's implosion, I probably will vote for Kerry, just for slim hopes that he might actually make some headway environmentally. A recent report from the Pentagon(!) forecasts rapid and dramatic climate change by 2020 beginning with possible massive flooding as early as next year!

Question is, is this just the CIA trying to do in Bush because he blamed them for the Iraq mess, or is there really something to this report? I have no idea. Here's a link another English link...where's the American press?

Finally, as to my wife's health. She has stabilized and come back from the hospital but we are still day to day. She had a bad reaction to another medication last night, and ANOTHER psychiatrist did not return the emergency page, though it turned out it was the fault of the answering service this time.

We are at an estimated 1500 dollars in insurance costs and rising at this point, and that is WITH pretty decent coverage. I only mention this, because I don't think I've seen Kerry's plan for UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE just yet. He has some vague paragraphs on his site about Medicare for seniors, but no details on how he's planning to bring "affordable healthcare to all Americans." Don't hold your breath.

What's that cracking sound?

Could it be the 9/11 story falling apart even in the mainstream press? I think the best we can actually hope for is a revelation of "incompetency" and "unpreparedness" but if you read this article even in a cursory fashion...come on...how could you possible explain all of the facts it mentions?

Link to Observer article linked from mainstream liberal Buzzflash

So that would make the U.S. what, exactly?

Bush: See, free societies are societies that don't develop weapons of mass terror and don't blackmail the world.

George Bush on Meet the Press

Sorry for the lack of postings. Personal issues have had me swamped. Hope you are enjoying the pretend coverage of the pretend primaries leading up to the pretend elections. We just had our pretend primary here in Tennessee. I didn't get a chance to pretend to vote today. My wife is in the hospital due to incompetent medical treatment by a psychiatrist and rheumatologist. Hey, but who says a psychiatrist needs to answer an emergency page? Who says a rheumatologist needs to return your call when you can barely walk?

I'll be posting more about this, especially as we found a competent M.D. who is looking at all sorts of different possibilities for treatment. For now, let me tell you what he told me about psychiatrists and rheumatologists: They don't look for underlying causes. They just prescribe. There are DOZENS of illnesses, underlying infections and environmental poisons that can have both rheumatological and psychiatric symptoms. This is NOT even ALTERNATIVE medicine. I'm not talking about accupuncture (though I believe that to be effective in some cases) or crystal healing or any of that. (I rule out nothing, but just using these as examples to make a point.) But this is mainstream, peer-reviewed, medical textbook stuff.

I am encouraged, though. Without even having received all test results, the swelling in her joints went down after only two doses of anti-biotics to address common underlying infections and possible Lyme disease. The doctor is quick to point out that symptoms for these sorts of conditions tend to wax and wane, so he's looking for ways to track if it is actually the treatment that is helping. But after a 3-month painful flare-up that left her barely able to walk at times, zero swelling in the joints after two days of treatment is encouraging.

I'll keep you informed. I don't usually include a lot of personal information on this site, but my wife's case is very typical of what so many face in the medical system. We actually have the insurance to pay for this additional work...and a physician who knows how to code for highest possible reimbursement.

Who Owns Kerry

I've been speculating a bit as to exactly how Kerry came out of the blue to take such a strong first place position in these pretend primaries. We've seen how Dean was dissed by the media because he said he was going to bust up the big media monopolies. I guess the state of journalism must be pretty bad if any in the big media actually believed him. Seems like they did, though, because he dropped off the radar screen right after those comments. Today I was treated to an "analysis" on NPR about how Dean keeps "shooting himself in the foot."

But why Kerry? The picture is starting to get clearer. Who has more Wall Street donations than any other Dem? Kerry.

Here is an article from Fortune both showing how Wall Street backs him but ALSO how dangerous he would be for the stock market. Why, the market drop today was all because of HIM. This is clever. In an era when our pension funds, savings and, soon, even our social security funds are invested in the stock market, we have to care what "the Street" thinks. If we find out that a particular candidate will cause the market to bottom out, well, sorry, I'd love to vote Democrat, but....

All this, despite the fact that the market is actually more STABLE under Democratic rule. (This is not to endorse the idea that I believe we can tell anything about the health of a nation based on the market.) However, there's nothing like Republican rule for short term plunder. Hmm...perhaps that is the defining difference between democrats and republicans. Democrats favor LONG-TERM PLUNDER, while Republicans prefer the more directly profitable but destabilizing SHORT TERM PLUNDER.

Here's the article. Kerry Makes Market Mad

The obligatory word on Janet

One reader suggests Michael and Janet are CIA assets. They might as well be. But there was one element to the Janet "flash" that really bothered me...how angry people get at women's breasts.

This is best typified by a conversation on a sports show here in Nashville. One commentator was not sufficiently outraged for the other. So the outraged co-host says: "What if your little daughter was older and saw that. How would you explain it?"

Now, I know we live in a technological age, but I don't think you have to "explain" a breast to a baby girl. They know what a breast is. They've seen one, I'm guessing.

The anger with which this statement was made was a little scary to me. Despite the overly sexual media we are saturated with, there is another, Puritan element in American society. I say Puritan, but these days I'm reminded that fascism has a public, puritanical, anti-sexuality strain (despite what fascisms leaders may ACTUALLY be doing in their own bedrooms...usual a large strain of doublethink there.)

Anyway, get mad at the cheap commercial trick at a sporting event that itself has become an expensive commercial trick, but please, don't get mad at Janet's breast.
Sheeesh.

Dean gets hosed

I was no fan of Howard Dean. And, I believe the fix is already in for the '04 elections, though Kerry's sudden rise makes me think that the evildoers would be happy with Kerry as a Bush replacement.

And I could not, with my limited knowledge, explain the Kerry rise...until I read this article. It's not a profound revelation, but it certainly makes the argument clear. Here is a quote:

On December 1, 2003, Howard Dean was ahead by twenty points in the polls when he appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews and said, “We're going to break up the giant media enterprises.” This pronouncement went far beyond the governor’s previous public musings about possibly re-regulating the communications industry, and amounted to a declaration of war on the corporations that administer the flow of information in the United States.

Now I think Dean is a fake "liberal." He certainly wasn't that liberal as a governor of Vermont. But this argument makes some sense. The timing is right. It explains why the media turned on him so suddenly. The only other candidate to make such a statement was Kucinich...and we know where his campaign went.

I know, I know...Kerry is Skull and Bones (and by the way, those tourists who visit here for laughs, no one denies that the secret Yale fraternity exists...it's one of those "not really secret" conspiracies. An article I read recently pointed out that there are 800 living Skull and Bones members and four of them are in the executive branch or running for President.). I'm not sure you need that piece of information to explain Kerry. This article goes on to point out that Kerry had pronounced himself "delighted" with the Republican Congressional takeover in 1994.

Before I get accused of plagiarism, here's the link to the article itself. It is from a site that I just discovered called: Makethemaccountable.com. Check out the article and see what you think. I'll spend some time checking out this site.

Is this the beginning, or just a blip?

CNN is reporting (and not as their headline story, that is reserved for the BIG news that Bush is going to appoint a committee to cover up his coverup of the cover-up, or something like that) that a powdery substance found in the mailroom of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was found to be Ricin, a quite deadly poison. link

The lab tests were done at Fort Dietrick, whence came, if I'm not mistaken, the particular strain of anthrax that was making the rounds soon after 9-11.

Is this the beginning of a new wave of "scary things?" It started, of course, with the SuperBowl halftime show, but things could get much scarier indeed.

If enough of these envelopes filled with white powder start showing up, I don't see any reason that the country would not be put on code red. For those of you unfamiliar with the terrorist alert color coding, code red means that Bush gets his oft repeated wish to be head of a dictatorship. Bush Dictator Quotes

I am not making the actual prediction that this Ricin attack will be the first step in that direction, but it makes sense. They can carefully control who ACTUALLY gets killed or injured, unlike with 9-11, and yet create enough panic that we'd all gladly embrace a little hiatus from that bothersome Constitution. That's the theory anyway.

Let me, as always, post the following caveat so that the next time I attempt to travel on a plane I, hopefully, will not be on the new and improved do not fly list. I DO NOT CONDONE THE RICIN ATTACKS. THEY ARE BAD.

Evidently, there was another Ricin-laced letter found back in October, but the note included expressed anger about some legislation concerning the trucking industry. So, it could turn out that this is completely unrelated. It does, however, strongly resemble the way I assume code red might start.

Gasp! Bush and Blair knew there were no WMD way back in May? Hey, and if Kerry is dumb enough to have voted for the war because he believed in that "intelligence", he is certainly not fit to be President.

US officials knew in May Iraq possessed no WMD

Readers Write

In the comments section came this beginning of a debate. I thought I'd move it here for others to consider. I had made the point in one of my posts that U.S. healthcare system (as opposed to its technology) sucks. I mentioned that my wife is uninsurable, and will soon lose her group coverage. Below is a response from "Daniel" and my comments are after, in maroon. I deleted portions of his post that did not pertain to this discussion.

Daniel: First let me say that i wish the best for your wife.
Lastly (though I thoroughly agree with you about the fascist overthrow of our government) let me remind you that in all of Canada there are exactly 18 MRI machines (the average wating time for the use of one is 6 months and Canadians generally come to America for equipment intensive procedures). And it's inhabitants who enjoy "the world's best standard of living" in my experience generally complain about the quality of their health care.
None of this is to say that the American style of purely capitalistic healthcare/everything-else is ideal, but ust that a balance must be struck between self interest and public welfare.

Best wishes,
The smartest peson ever

Posted Sun 1 Feb 9:11 AM CST by daniel ( : )


Now Daniel, are you from Canada? My aunt and uncle live there half the year and have very
different stories about the people's opinions on healthcare there. Do you think they would trade with Americans?

A few comments:

1. I'll take a 6 month wait for an MRI (I assume life threatening conditions get priority? Oh and where does that statistic come from, by the way?) over no insurance whatsoever. At least 40 million people get their PRIMARY care in emergency rooms. Guess what that does to the rest of our medical costs.

2. If there are not enough MRI machines, is that the fault of the system of healthcare or the management of that system?
3. In this country, if a doctor thinks you need an MRI, your HMO can overrule them and not fund it.

4. The reason that it's easier in this country is that we have a "natural selection" approach. He who pays can get the service.

5. Canadians can probably better afford to use U.S. technology since they don't blow all their money on health insurance.

6. In this country, doctors receive bonuses for NOT recommending expensive tests and procedures.

7. Although I think this got outlawed, it used to be that doctors could be BANNED from recommending needed tests and procedures not approved by the HMO.

8. The Canadian government is in the process of addressing the shortcomings.

9. Every wonder why people are trying to buy drugs from Canada? They are cheaper there. I'm guessing this is a direct result with the huge single-payer system's being able to negotiate far better pharmaceutical rates plus the fact that the pharmaceutical industry in this country is so powerful and basically write their own laws.

10. Whatever the flaws of their system, the Canadians value health care as a RIGHT, not a privilege. Any system that rations care based on ability to pay cannot make that claim.