January 8, 2010

Is Anyone Telling Us The Truth?

By Paul Craig Roberts

What are we to make of the failed Underwear Bomber plot, the
Toothpaste, Shampoo, and Bottled Water Bomber plot, and the Shoe
Bomber plot? These blundering and implausible plots to bring down an
airliner seem far removed from al-Qaida's expertise in pulling off 9/11.

If we are to believe the U.S. government,Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the
alleged al-Qaida "mastermind" behind 9/11, outwitted the CIA, the
NSA, indeed all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies as well as those of all
U.S. allies including Mossad, the National Security Council, NORAD,
Air Traffic Control, Airport Security four times on one morning, and
Dick Cheney, and with untrained and inexperienced pilots pulled off
skilled piloting feats of crashing hijacked airliners into the World
Trade Center towers, and the Pentagon, where a battery of state of
the art air defenses somehow failed to function.

After such amazing success, al-Qaida would have attracted the best
minds in the business, but, instead, it has been reduced to amateur
stunts.The Underwear Bomb plot is being played to the hilt on the TV
media and especially on Fox "news." After reading recently that The
Washington Post allowed a lobbyist to write a news story that
preached the lobbyist's interest, I wondered if the manufacturers of
full-body scanners were behind the heavy coverage of the Underwear
Bomber, if not behind the plot itself. In America, everything is for
sale. Integrity is gone with the wind.

Recently I read a column by an author who has a"convenience theory"
about the Underwear Bomber being a Nigerian allegedly trained by
al-Qaida in Yemen. As the U.S. is involved in an undeclared war in
Yemen, about which neither the American public nor Congress were
informed or consulted, the Underwear Bomb plot provided a convenient
excuse for Washington's new war, regardless of whether it was a real
attack or a put-up job.

Once you start to ask yourself about whose agenda is served by events
and their news spin, other things come to mind. For example, last
July there was a news report that the government in Yemen had
disbanded a terrorist cell, which was operating under the supervision
of Israeli intelligence services. According to the news report,
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh told the Saba news agency that a
terrorist cell was arrested and that the case was referred to
judicial authorities "for its links with the Israeli intelligence services."

Could the Underwear Bomber have been one of the Israeli terrorist
recruits? Certainly Israel has an interest in keeping the US fully
engaged militarily against all potential foes of Israel's territorial
expansion.

The thought brought back memory of my Russian studies at Oxford
University where I learned that the Tsar's secret police set off
bombs so that they could blame those whom they wanted to arrest. I
next remembered that Francesco Cossiga, the president of Italy from
1985-1992, revealed the existence of Operation Gladio, a false flag
operation under NATO auspices that carried out bombings across Europe
in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. The bombings were blamed on
communists and were used to discredit communist parties in elections.

An Italian parliamentary investigation unearthed the fact that the
attacks were overseen by the CIA. Gladio agent Vincenzo Vinciguerra
stated in sworn testimony that the attacks targeted innocent
civilians, including women and children, in order"to force the public
to turn to the state to ask for greater security."

What a coincidence. That is exactly what 9/11 succeeded in
accomplishing in the U.S.

Among the well-meaning and the gullible in the West,the supposition
still exists that government represents the public interest.
Political parties keep this myth alive by fighting over which party
best represents the public's interest. In truth, government
represents private interests, those of the office holders themselves
and those of the lobby groups that finance their political campaigns.
The public is in the dark as to the real agendas.

The U.S. and its puppet state allies were led to war in the Middle
East and Afghanistan entirely on the basis of lies and deception.
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction did not exist and were known by the
U.S. and British governments not to exist. Forged documents, such as
the "yellowcake documents," were leaked to newspapers in order to
create news reporting that would bring the public along with the
government's war agenda.

Now the same thing is happening in regard to the nonexistent Iranian
nuclear weapons program. Forged documents leaked to The Times
(London) that indicated Iran was developing a"nuclear trigger"
mechanism have been revealed as forgeries.

Who benefits? Clearly, attacking Iran is on the Israeli-U.S. agenda,
and someone is creating the "evidence" to support the case, just as
the leaked secret "Downing Street Memo" to the British cabinet
informed Prime Minister Tony Blair's government that President Bush
had already made the decision to invade Iraq and "the intelligence
and facts were being fixed around the policy."

The willingness of people to believe their rulers and the propaganda
ministries that serve the rulers is astonishing. Many Americans
believe Iran has a nuclear weapons program despite the unanimous
conclusion of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies to the contrary.

Vice President Dick Cheney and the neoconservatives fought hard with
limited success to change the CIA's role from intelligence agency to
a political agency that manufactures facts in support of the
neoconservative agenda. For the Bush Regime creating "new realities"
was more important than knowing the facts.

Recently I read a proposal from a person purporting to favor an
independent media that stated that we must save the print media from
financial failure with government subsidies. Such a subsidy would
complete the subservience of the media to government.

Even in Stalinist Russia, a totalitarian political system where
everyone knew that there was no free press, a gullible or intimidated
public and Communist Party enabled Joseph Stalin to put the heroes of
the Bolshevik Revolution on show trial and execute them as capitalist spies.

In the U.S. we are developing our own show trials. Sheikh Mohammed's
will be a big one. As Chris Hedges recently pointed out, once
government uses demonized Muslims to get the new justice (sic) system
going, the rest of us will be next.

Author's Bio: Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the
US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal,
has held numerous academic appointments. He has been reporting
shocking cases of prosecutorial abuse for two decades. A new edition
of his book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, co-authored with
Lawrence Stratton, a documented account of how Americans lost the
protection of law, was published by Random House in March, 2008.

Why Propaganda Trumps Truth

By Paul Craig Roberts (about the author)   

opednews.com     Permalink

For OpEdNews: Paul Craig Roberts - Writer

Reprinted from Foreign Policy Journal

An article in the journal, Sociological Inquiry, casts light on the effectiveness of propaganda. Researchers examined why big lies succeed where little lies fail. Governments can get away with mass deceptions, but politicians cannot get away with sexual affairs.

The researchers explain why so many Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, years after it has become obvious that Iraq had nothing to do with the event. Americans developed elaborate rationalizations based on Bush administration propaganda that alleged Iraqi involvement and became deeply attached to their beliefs. Their emotional involvement became wrapped up in their personal identity and sense of morality. They looked for information that supported their beliefs and avoided information that challenged them, regardless of the facts of the matter.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler explained the believability of the Big Lie as compared to the small lie: “In the simplicity of their minds, people more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have such impudence. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and continue to think that there may be some other explanation.”

What the sociologists and Hitler are telling us is that by the time facts become clear, people are emotionally wedded to the beliefs planted by the propaganda and find it a wrenching experience to free themselves. It is more comfortable, instead, to denounce the truth-tellers than the liars whom the truth-tellers expose.

The psychology of belief retention even when those beliefs are wrong is a pillar of social cohesion and stability. It explains why, once change is effected, even revolutionary governments become conservative. The downside of belief retention is its prevention of the recognition of facts. Belief retention in the Soviet Union made the system unable to adjust to economic reality, and the Soviet Union collapsed. Today in the United States millions find it easier to chant “USA, USA, USA” than to accept facts that indicate the need for change.

The staying power of the Big Lie is the barrier through which the 9/11 Truth Movement is finding it difficult to break. The assertion that the 9/11 Truth Movement consists of conspiracy theorists and crackpots is obviously untrue. The leaders of the movement are highly qualified professionals, such as demolition experts, physicists, structural architects, engineers, pilots, and former high officials in the government. Unlike their critics parroting the government's line, they know what they are talking about.

Here is a link to a presentation by the architect, Richard Gage, to a Canadian university audience. The video of the presentation is two hours long and seems to have been edited to shorten it down to two hours. Gage is low-key, but not a dazzling personality or a very articulate presenter. Perhaps that is because he is speaking to a university audience and takes for granted their familiarity with terms and concepts.

Those who believe the official 9/11 story and dismiss skeptics as kooks can test the validity of the sociologists' findings and Hitler's observation by watching the video and experiencing their reaction to evidence that challenges their beliefs. Are you able to watch the presentation without scoffing at someone who knows far more about it than you do? What is your response when you find that you cannot defend your beliefs against the evidence presented? Scoff some more? Become enraged?

Another problem that the 9/11 Truth Movement faces is that few people have the education to follow the technical and scientific aspects. The side that they believe tells them one thing; the side that they don't believe tells them another. Most Americans have no basis to judge the relative merits of the arguments.

For example, consider the case of the Lockerbie bomber. One piece of “evidence” that was used to convict Magrahi was a piece of circuit board from a device that allegedly contained the Semtex that exploded the airliner. None of the people, who have very firm beliefs in Magrahi's and Libya's guilt and in the offense of the Scottish authorities in releasing Magrahi on allegedly humanitarian grounds, know that circuit boards of those days have very low combustion temperatures and go up in flames easily. Semtex produces very high temperatures. There would be nothing whatsoever left of a device that contained Semtex. It is obvious to an expert that the piece of circuit board was planted after the event.

I have asked on several occasions and have never had an answer, which does not mean that there isn't one, how millions of pieces of unburnt, uncharred paper can be floating over lower Manhatten from the destruction of the WTC towers when the official explanation of the destruction is fires so hot and evenly distributed that they caused the massive steel structures to weaken and fail simultaneously so that the buildings fell in free fall time just as they would if they had been brought down by controlled demolition.

What is the explanation of fires so hot that steel fails but paper does not combust?

People don't even notice the contradictions. Recently, an international team of scientists, who studied for 18 months dust samples produced by the twin towers' destruction collected from three separate sources, reported their finding of nano-thermite in the dust. The US government had scientists dependent on the US government to debunk the finding on the grounds that the authenticity of custody of the samples could not be verified. In other words, someone had tampered with the samples and added the nano-thermite. This is all it took to discredit the finding, despite the obvious fact that access to thermite is strictly controlled and NO ONE except the US military and possibly Israel has access to nano-thermite.

The physicist, Steven Jones, has produced overwhelming evidence that explosives were used to bring down the buildings. His evidence is not engaged, examined, tested, and refuted. It is simply ignored.

Dr. Jones' experience reminds me of that of my Oxford professor, the distinguished physical chemist and philosopher, Michael Polanyi. Polanyi was one of the 20th centuries great scientists. At one time every section chairman of the Royal Society was a Polanyi student. Many of his students won Nobel Prizes for their scientific work, such as Eugene Wigner at Princeton and Melvin Calvin at UC, Berkeley, and his son, John Polanyi, at the University of Toronto.

As a young man in the early years of the 20th century, Michael Polanyi discovered the explanation for chemical absorbtion. Scientific authority found the new theory too much of a challenge to existing beliefs and dismissed it. Even when Polanyi was one of the UK's ranking scientists, he was unable to teach his theory. One half-century later his discovery was re-discovered by scientists at UC, Berkeley. The discovery was hailed, but then older scientists said that it was “Polanyi's old error.” It turned out not to be an error. Polanyi was asked to address scientists on this half-century failure of science to recognize the truth. How had science, which is based on examining the evidence, gone so wrong. Polanyi's answer was that science is a belief system just like everything else, and that his theory was outside the belief system.

That is what we observe all around us, not just about the perfidy of Muslims and 9/11.

As an economics scholar I had a very difficult time making my points about the Soviet economy, about Karl Marx's theories, and about the supply-side impact of fiscal policy. Today I experience readers who become enraged just because I report on someone else's work that is outside their belief system. Some readers think I should suppress work that is inconsistent with their beliefs and drive the author of the work into the ground. These readers never have any comprehension of the subject. They are simply emotionally offended.

What I find puzzling is the people I know who do not believe a word the government says about anything except 9/11. For reasons that escape me, they believe that the government that lies to them about everything else tells them the truth about 9/11. How can this be, I ask them. Did the government slip up once and tell the truth? My question does not cause them to rethink their belief in the government's 9/11 story. Instead, they get angry with me for doubting their intelligence or their integrity or some such hallowed trait.

The problem faced by truth is the emotional needs of people. With 9/11 many Americans feel that they must believe their government so that they don't feel like they are being unsupportive or unpatriotic, and they are very fearful of being called “terrorist sympathizers.” Others on the left-wing have emotional needs to believe that peoples oppressed by the US have delivered “blowbacks.” Some leftists think that America deserves these blowbacks and thus believe the government's propaganda that Muslims attacked the US.

Naive people think that if the US government's explanation of 9/11 was wrong, physicists and engineers would all speak up. Some have (see above). However, for most physicists and engineers this would be an act of suicide. Physicists owe their careers to government grants, and their departments are critically dependent on government funding. A physicist who speaks up essentially ends his university career. If he is a tenured professor, to appease Washington the university would buy out his tenure as BYU did in the case of the outspoken Steven Jones.

An engineering firm that spoke out would never again be awarded a government contract. In addition, its patriotic, flag-waving customers would regard the firm as a terrorist apologist and cease to do business with it.

In New York today there is an enormous push by 9/11 families for a real and independent investigation of the 9/11 events. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers have provided the necessary signatures on petitions that require the state to put the proposal for an independent commission up to vote. However, the state, so far, is not obeying the law.

Why are the tens of thousands of New Yorkers who are demanding a real investigation dismissed as conspiracy theorists? The 9/11 skeptics know far more about the events of that day than do the uninformed people who call them names. Most of the people I know who are content with the government's official explanation have never examined the evidence. Yet, these no-nothings shout down those who have studied the matter closely.

There are, of course, some kooks. I have often wondered if these kooks are intentionally ridiculous in order to discredit knowledgeable skeptics.

Another problem that the 9/11 Truth Movement faces is that their natural allies, those who oppose the Bush/Obama wars and the internet sites that the antiwar movement maintains, are fearful of being branded traitorous and anti-American. It is hard enough to oppose a war against those the US government has successfully demonized. Antiwar sites believe that if they permit 9/11 to be questioned, it would brand them as “terrorist sympathizers” and discredit their opposition to the war. An exception is Information Clearing House.

Antiwar sites do not realize that, by accepting the 9/11 explanation, they have undermined their own opposition to the war. Once you accept that Muslim terrorists did it, it is difficult to oppose punishing them for the event. In recent months, important antiwar sites, such as Antiwar.com, have had difficulty with their fundraising, with their fundraising campaigns going on far longer than previously. They do not understand that if you grant the government its premise for war, it is impossible to oppose the war.

As far as I can tell, most Americans have far greater confidence in the government than they do in the truth. During the Great Depression the liberals with their New Deal succeeded in teaching Americans to trust the government as their protector. This took with the left and the right. Neither end of the political spectrum is capable of fundamental questioning of the government. This explains the ease with which our government routinely deceives the people.

Democracy is based on the assumption that people are rational beings who factually examine arguments and are not easily manipulated. Studies are not finding this to be the case. In my own experience in scholarship, public policy, and journalism, I have learned that everyone from professors to high school dropouts has difficulty with facts and analyses that do not fit with what they already believe. The notion that “we are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead” is an extremely romantic and idealistic notion. I have seldom experienced open minds even in academic discourse or in the highest levels of government. Among the public at large, the ability to follow the truth wherever it may lead is almost non-existent.

The US government's response to 9/11, regardless of who is responsible, has altered our country forever. Our civil liberties will never again be as safe as they were. America's financial capability and living standards are forever lower. Our country's prestige and world leadership are forever damaged. The first decade of the 21st century has been squandered in pointless wars, and it appears the second decade will also be squandered in the same pointless and bankrupting pursuit.

The most disturbing fact of all remains: The 9/11 event responsible for these adverse happenings has not been investigated.

Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, has held numerous academic appointments. He has been reporting shocking cases of prosecutorial abuse for two decades. A new (more...)

Former High-Ranking Intelligence Officer: Cheney Responsible for 9-11

David Steele is a former 20-year Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer, the second-ranking civilian in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer.

Steele has previously written that "9/11 was at a minimum allowed to happen as a pretext for war".

This month, Steele went further, writing:

Pakistan briefed Cheney [about the plans for the terrorist attacks ahead of time] …nations also got wind of this and warned the CIA. We also had two walk-ins to the FBI, one in Orlando, one in Newark, that were dismissed by the FBI because the names were all virgins and not in the FBI data base—the arrogance of stupid bureaucracy.

Cheney saw an opportunity for what Bush called his trifecta, and gave it to him by giving the go-ahead to ISI and Al Qaeda, and ordering up a terrorism exercise that allowed him to send all relevant close-in air defense strip alert craft away from the target areas, and to disable the NORTHCOM normal response to flight path diversion.

While the details might be open to debate, many other very high-level intelligence officers have said the "official" explanation for 9/11 makes no sense. And see this and this.

At a 4th of July parade. I noticed among the
many decorated corvettes and military vehicles,
signs reading "God bless America", We support our
troops". This church sponsered parade had no
mention of peace or the real reason for the 4th of
July celebration. The reason for 4th of July is
Independence. This is Independence Day

"Declaration of Independence"

On this date in 1776, Thomas Jefferson's "Declaration of Independence" was signed. Its secular purpose was to "dissolve the political bands," and it inaugurated the anti-biblical idea that "governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Jefferson was a Deist who was highly critical of Christianity, and whose revolutionary document made references to a "Nature's God."

A Memorial Day tribute to the Iraq and
Afghani people who have died.
also learn what goes on in Iraq from our soldiers:

Democracy Now! | Winter Soldier

Ralph Nader: Disruption of Congress?

40 Million Nonbelievers in America? The Secret Is Almost Out ...

By Ronald Aronson, Religion Dispatches. Posted May 5, 2009.

As reported recently in the New York Times, a South Carolina chapter of Habitat for Humanity prohibited a group of Secular Humanist volunteers from wearing their “Non-Prophet Organization” T-shirts; a Charleston-area teacher “came out” as a nonbeliever after years of church dinners and demurrals; and Humanist Loretta Haskell struggled over her role as a church musician. While such stories remain commonplace, a related story with a substantial bearing on these anecdotes is one of America’s best-kept secrets.

 

A recent Newsweek cover—in a bid to (finally) match the celebrated 1966 “Is God Dead?” cover of Time—read, in the shape of a cross: “The Decline and Fall of Christian America.” Editor Jon Meacham’s story highlights Newsweek’s latest poll results showing that 10% fewer Americans identify as Christian today than twenty years ago. But more importantly, and mentioned only in passing, is the growth among atheists and secularists of all stripes.

According to the latest American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) of more than 54,000 adults, between 2001 and 2008 the number willing to identify themselves as atheist and agnostic has gone from under 2 million to 3.6 million. Small numbers compared to the whole, of course, but most notably it’s a rise of 85% of those willing to describe themselves as living without God during the years of our most overtly religious presidency!

Even more newsworthy, when the widely-scorned labels “atheist” and “agnostic” are replaced with specifics about beliefs (“There is no such thing” as God, “There is no way to know,” or “I’m not sure,” and added to those who refused to answer) it turns out that over eighteen percent of Americans do not profess belief in a God or a higher power.

According to ARIS, then, there could be as many as 40 million adult nonbelievers in the United States!

Personal God Going the Way of the Dodo? 

Consider: If these numbers are correct, nonbelievers amount to more than the highest estimates of African Americans or gays. Secularists are one of America’s largest minorities. It is no longer possible to proclaim, as the Gallup Poll announced fifty years ago: “Nearly all Americans believe in God.” That is today’s most significant change.

So what explains the impressive increase among those willing to identify as atheist or agnostic? For those who think that books and ideas simply don’t matter, it is dramatic tribute to the success of the “new atheist” writers—including Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. To paraphrase the title of Dennett’s book, their goal has been to “break the spell” of religion—and they have evidently helped more Americans “achieve” that goal.

If a new confidence is in the offing it is also visible in the American Humanist Association’s scandalous Christmastime bus ads in Washington DC (“Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake.”). No less striking is the “Out” campaign (“Come Out,” “Reach Out,” “Speak Out,” “Keep Out,” “Stand Out,”) especially among students and young people.

One of the few writers who has paid attention to these phenomena, Konstantin Petrenko, writing for Religion Dispatches, does so in order to dismiss them [see “Godless America? Say Hello to the ‘Apatheists’,” March 19, 2009]. He stresses the discrepancy between those embracing the “atheist” or “agnostic” label and those who describe themselves as not believing in God. “It appears that most of the unaffiliated individuals are not atheistic or anti-religious in any activist sense, but are rather apathetic toward organized religion and reluctant to join any particular denomination or sect.”

True enough, but the same can be said of most religious believers. This is no reason to downplay the fact that so many have clearly fallen away from religion—that is, they live their lives without any sort of God. Nor can we ignore ARIS’s statement that the six percent of Americans who refuse to answer the question about their beliefs “tend to somewhat resemble ‘Nones’ in their social profile and beliefs.” Which means, according to ARIS’s most striking conclusion: “The U.S. population continues to show signs of becoming less religious, with one in five Americans failing to indicate a religious identity in 2008.”

Furthermore, among those who do, over 12% of the total sample describe their belief in ways that ARIS concludes are “deistic (a higher power but no personal God).” One in eight American believers are as religious as... Thomas Paine. Those who continue to believe in a traditional Jewish, Christian, or Muslim personal god have dropped to under seventy percent of the American population. Despite all efforts to ignore or minimize this, it is big news.

Moments of Prayer into Moments of Silence

And the discrepancy between those willing to be public and open about their religious disbelief and those who are not is also big news. Among nonbelievers, judging from my discussions with hundreds of them over the past several months, many are not “new atheists” (militantly doing battle with religion) but are, in Peter Steinfels’ terminology, “new new atheists.” These people are not primarily concerned with arguing against the belief in God, but are trying to find ways of coexisting in a society in which both nonbelievers and believers can expect to be around for a long time to come. They shy away from labels as they seek their own bearings and their own comfort zone in today’s America.

Secularists welcomed President Obama’s shout-out to nonbelievers during his inaugural address, but are painfully aware that when launching his campaign he criticized them for trying to keep religion out of the public square, but not the religious right for its attempts to erase the line between church and state.

They worry, along with Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, that Obama’s renewal of the Bush Faith-Based Initiative in the new Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships has not ruled out proselytizing and discriminatory hiring for religious social service programs that are granted Federal dollars. And they wince when recalling that he subjected himself to the informal religious test of being drilled like a catechism pupil by Rick Warren on his own particular way of believing in Jesus Christ (the same Rick Warren who announced that he would never vote for an atheist for president).

Above all, rather than combating religious belief at every turn, many nonbelievers would cheer if the President initiated a genuinely multicultural approach to both believers and secularists in today’s America. This might entail, as was not done at the Democratic National Convention last August, inviting secularists as well as believers to platforms that normally exclude the irreligious (i.e. the “values and unity” event preceding the Convention that was exclusively for religious believers). It might entail as much political attention being paid to nonbelievers as believers at public events—transforming moments of prayer into moments of silence. In other words, it would mean abandoning the implicit assumption of so much of American public and private life that religious values, norms and practices apply to everyone—and show respect to American’s enormous nonreligious minority.

See more stories tagged with: atheism, richard dawkins, agnostic, christopher hitchens, habitat for humanity, aris, daniel dennett, new atheists, secular humanists, secularists

Ronald Aronson is author of Living without God: New Directions for Atheists, Agnostics, Secularists and the Undecided (Counterpoint, 2008). He teaches history at Wayne State University.

There are no more excuses for the Democrats.
                   
The Democrats now admit that they control the procedure in Congress and can pass whatever health care reform they want.

Without one Republican vote.

And President Obama can sign it.

What should they do?

They should pass single payer.

Everybody in. Nobody out.

For prevention and treatment.

For free choice of doctors and hospitals.

No more premiums, deductibles, exclusions, co-pays, in-network, out-of-network rigamarole.

No more family medical bankruptcies.

No more pay or die.

No more pay or become sicker.

Single payer is the only system that will work.

It's the most efficient.

Single payer will cut out literally hundreds of billions in administrative fat, billing fraud and unconscionable profits.

These savings will be used instead to insure the 50 million uninsured and the millions more underinsured.

This will save lives.

Starting with the more than 21,000 Americans who die every year from lack of health insurance.

According to recent polls, the majority of the American people want single payer.

So do the majority of doctors, nurses, and health economists.

So, what will the Democrat leadership do?

They will keep single payer off the table.

Because they fear the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry - and want their campaign money - more than they fear the American people.

Or as Speaker of the House Pelosi told reporters last week:

"Over and over again, we hear single payer, single payer, single payer. Well, it's not going to be a single payer."

Who is Nancy Pelosi speaking for?

Not for the American people.

Not for those who will die or get sicker month after month.

How are we to respond?

Focus our collective creative energy on Congressional offices around the country -- offices of all 435 members of the House and 100 members of the Senate.

That's why we have set up Single Payer Action.

Less than two months old - and already Single Payer Action is making waves.

In front of Congressional offices from Martinsburg, West Virginia to Seattle, Washington.

On Capitol Hill, standing up to the corporate lobbyists and their lackeys in Congress.

And on the web, challenging the corporate controlled media to put single payer back on the table of public debate.

There is support in Congress for single payer.

Already, 76 House members support HR 676 - the single payer bill in the House.

But the Democratic leadership in Washington has taken single payer off the table.

They meet regularly behind closed doors with insurance and drug industry lobbyists - to thwart single payer.

Time to turn up the heat - and get the word out to the American people.

(Just last week, I was at the University of Colorado in Boulder where I spoke to an enthusiastic audience. Topic: Single payer, full Medicare health insurance for all.)

We need your help now.

To send speakers to all four corners of this country.

To fund organizing drives at Congressional offices around the country.

To shake up the system for single payer.

Last week, many of you responded enthusiastically to a note from my colleague Jason Kafoury by donating $10,000 to Single Payer Action.

Thanks to you, we are a third of the way to our goal of $30,000 by May 14.

This week, we need to expand the base again

 

.

If you have not donated yet to Single Payer Action, please donate now whatever you can -- $10, $25, $50, $100. 

And notice - if you donate $100 or more by May 14, 2009, we will send you two galvanizing books that concisely detail the case for single payer in America.   

 

• Health Care Meltdown by Robert LeBow, MD, revised and updated by Dr. C. Rocky White - a Republican doctor so fed up with the needless suffering caused by the insurance industry that he has become a leading advocate for single payer..
  
  and
  
   
• Ten Excellent Reasons for National Health Care, Edited by Mary O'Brien and Martha Livingston.

The goal: raise $30,000 by May 14th for Single Payer Action.

To make single payer a reality

in America.

Together, we can break the logjam in Congress - and deliver health care to all.

Let's get it done.

Onward to single payer.



Ralph Nader


PS: This two book offer ends 11:59 p.m. May 14, 2009.
 
So don't miss out. Donate now .
           
We're building toward one million Americans strong for single payer.
               
Please share this e-mail with friends and family.

Urge them to sign up

 

and donate

 

at singlepayeraction.org

 

.

Published on Thursday, April 23, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Will Obama Reboot Capitalism Anew?

The War Crimes Act of 1996: Bush, Cheney and the Boys could be Indicted under US Law by George Washington's Blog

Global Research, April 16, 2009

George Washington's Blog

 Global Research Articles by George Washington's Blog

No Religion? No Problem

Demographers are already salivating ahead of the upcoming U.S. Census, which will no doubt show just how different 2010 America is from 2000 America. When it comes to the religious breakdown of the country, though, the waiting game is over. Try this pop quiz:

What is the fastest-growing religious group in our country?

A. Southern Baptists.

B. Roman Catholics.

C. Non-denominational Christians.

D. None. As in, no religion at all.

The answer is D, but fear not. This isn't the end of the world or of religiosity in America.
 

First the numbers: According to the recently released 2008 American Religious Identification Survey by researchers at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., the percentage of people who identified themselves as having no religion has almost doubled since 1990, from 8.2% of the population then to 15% today, the largest gain in any group. And that number may be low because some Americans still prefer to give no answer, and others identify with a religion, even if they no longer really believe in it. That "no answer" number grew as well, from 2.3% to 5.2%, meaning that just over 20% of the population has no overt religious identity. Simply put, that means more people are willing to identify themselves as being outside of religion or without belief in a supernatural being. If this trend continues, expect even more atheists to come out of the closet in the years ahead.

This isn't to say we're taking over the nation, and that God-fearing Americans now have something else to fear. On the contrary, atheists like me are just content to be able to be religion-free without the social stigma that has been attached to "my kind" -- the irreligious minority in this country. Of course, the simple math shows that 80% of you do believe in God or some greater being, so the numbers still run heavily in the faithful's favor.

My great hope, though, is that the 80% will have a greater understanding of the 20% of which I am a part. I am hoping that this new survey will help bring much-needed changes in the relations between the faithful and those who are outside of the established faiths.

A reviled minority

For years, non-believers have been considered undesirable, untrustworthy and essentially reviled. I mean, in a country where "In God We Trust" is printed on every dollar bill, would you expect anything less? A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll in 2007 found that more than half of Americans 53% -- would not vote for an atheist. No category fared worse. A University of Minnesota study taken a year earlier found that Americans rank atheists as the most disliked minority group in the country. But surely our elected leaders see all citizens as equals, right? Well, President Obama reached out to non-believers in his inaugural address, but just over 20 years ago while campaigning for the presidency, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush said, "I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." Atheists can tell you that they have faced problems -- some at work, some with family members or friends -- once their non-belief is stated publicly.

That's enough of the bad news. Now the good: All of this can change. Now that we of no faith are more willing to come out and be counted, we can start to change the perceptions that others have of us. As we speak out and make it known that we are atheists (or non-believers or any of the other names we can call ourselves) who can also be good people who care about our families, our communities and our country, we can start to change those negative perceptions. Some atheists out there might wish to de-convert believers, pull them away from their faith or disprove their gods, and it is true that those are the atheists who write the books that make the best-seller lists. Indeed, Richard Dawkins and his The God Delusion ilk have made a pretty penny stirring this controversy. But many of us -- dare I say most of us -- would prefer coexisting over combat.

But is that really possible? To read the blogs that discuss such issues, you'd be tempted to say no. In fact, when I wrote a piece about raising my children without a specific religion -- published in this newspaper -- readers on the website responded with some support as well as some lacerating condemnation, such as "you are abdicating your role as a parent," and worse, "without God, we are nothing." In fact, whenever I have published anything about being an atheist, I have had to stop reading my e-mails from people of faith who -- oh, the irony -- say things that are very hateful.

Yet as anyone in my shoes knows, the discomfort and challenges of not believing are most difficult in your own family. I'm no exception. But here is where my hope for the growing pool of non-believers grows. I have this hope for two reasons: the new study and the newfound peace in my own family.

The survey means that those of us without religion can feel strength in those numbers. That 20% of the population outside of faith translates into more than 61 million Americans. (About 67 million people voted for Barack Obama in 2008, while 58 million voted for John McCain.) Knowing this, we might begin to feel less marginalized, ignored or alienated. Candidates -- who always "find religion" in time for a political run -- might have to talk to my minority group on the campaign trail, too.

In the real world

And though the survey's numbers provide heft to our arguments, what happens in real-life exchanges is what really matters. I have had a struggle with some relatives in my husband's family about religion and my not having one. But I am happy to say that after a few years of upheaval, we are all trying to get along. Instead of fighting, arguing or not speaking at all, we had a conversation about differences, limits and points of shared interest. We faced our problems and laid them to rest. Then we decided to go in a new direction -- civil, even warm -- where we can focus on being a family and simply enjoying each other's company.

Perhaps my family's reconciliation can serve as a very small model for the country's. We all need to face one fact: We are not going to change people with arguments for or against religion. Nothing a devout person tells me is going to change my mind, and I know that those with faith are devoted to their beliefs and do not want to be swayed.

The extremes of both sides -- the staunchly atheistic and the religious fundamentalists -- will likely still stoke the embers of the culture war. That is to be expected. But for the rest of us, perhaps it's time to turn the page while leaving the anger, resentment and misunderstandings behind us. If such an approach worked in my family, perhaps it will work for the American family, too.

From USA Today April 6, 2009

 

 http://911review.org/Lindauer/
Susan Lindauer -- Reporter Held Political Prisoner
to Cover Up U.S. Genocide in Iraq

In March 2001 Susan Lindauer carried a message from the Iraqi government to her cousin, the White House Chief of Staff, requesting the return of weapons inspectors. This proved that Iraq had no WMD, so the U.S. government knew that then. But Bush and Cheney nevertheless attacked and invaded Iraq using WMD as a pretext, murdered as many as 500,000 people, and spread radioactive poison over the entire country, which will murder millions more. Now they are holding Lindauer in prison on false claims of insanity, and are about to commit and forcibly drug her, to prevent her from ever being able to tell her story.

Susan Lindauer was a U.S. Senate and House aide and a reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. In the 1990s, a CIA agent, the ex-chief of station in Syria, told her that, contrary to what the U.S. government was insisting, Libya had nothing to do with the PanAm 103/Lockerbie bombing. It had been done by Syrians acting on behalf of some U.S. intelligence agents, who had been caught in criminal actions by an oversight team, and sought to kill that team as they were flying back to Washington to report. She communicated that information to various members of the U.S. intelligence community, and wrote some of it in a deposition for the trial of the Libyans who were being framed by the U.S.

More recently, Lindauer tried to save Iraqi and American lives by acting as a diplomatic back-channel between the Iraqi government, and the U.S government in the person of her cousin, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card. Among other things, she conveyed the message in March 2001 that the Iraqi government was very eager to have weapons inspectors come back to their country in order to prove that they had no weapons of mass destruction. That letter is the first of the three shown below, scanned in from a photocopy.

That letter, along with Susan Lindauer's testimony, proves that Iraq had no WMD in March 2001 -- otherwise they would not have requested inspectors -- and that the U.S. government knew it.

But the Neocons wanted to attack Iraq anyhow, to make huge profits for the weapons manufacturers, to seize the oil resources, to get more military bases in the area, and to fulfill the wishes of their very close allies, the Israelis, who had been publicly urging an attack on Iraq.

So, even though it knew Iraq had no WMD, the U.S. government used WMD as a pretext for attacking and invading Iraq, murdering as many as 500,000 innocent people, and spreading depleted uranium dust all over the country, which will poison and kill millions more people in the future.

This is why the government is keeping Susan Lindauer in prison, and is now seeking to forcibly drug her into an incoherent and helpless state using psychiatric medications, despite the fact that her court-appointed psychiatrist found that she was completely sane and competent (see reports below).

If she is permitted to tell her story, the world will know for certain that the U.S. government murdered half a million people for no other reasons than greed and power.

The hearing to have Susan Lindauer committed and forcibly medicated is scheduled for May 4, but it might not be beyond the government to move it to an earlier date to prevent her from getting competent representation. She needs a good, courageous attorney who is willing to confront the U.S. government with the evidence presented here, showing that she is sane, was seeking to save lives, and has been imprisoned in an attempt to cover up genocidal mass murder.

Political Leaders for 911 Truth
PETITION

WHEREAS the Bush-Cheney administration’s public interpretation of the 9/11 attacks has had radical, largely negative, consequences for the United States of America and the world as a whole; and

WHEREAS the official investigations of these attacks that have been carried out thus far were led by individuals closely aligned with, or even employed by, the Bush-Cheney administration; and

WHEREAS the conclusions of these investigations differ radically from those that have been reached by independent researchers with various kinds of professional expertise; and

WHEREAS organizations of such researchers---including Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, Lawyers for 9/11 Truth, Pilots for 9/11 Truth, Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, and Veterans for 9/11 Truth---have called for a new, truly independent, investigation; and

WHEREAS we believe it is long past time for political leaders to heed these calls;

THEREFORE we, the undersigned members of Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth, ask President Barack Obama to authorize a new, truly independent, investigation to determine what happened on 9/11.

 

---

 36 Political Leaders have already signed the petition

---

Brae Antcliffe BA LLB, Elected Alderman to the Council of The City of Sydney, Australia, early 1980s for 3.5 years

Berit Ås, former member of Parliament, Norway (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Shirley Bianchi, 1999-2007 District Two San Luis Obispo County Supervisor, California (Retired) Click here to see statement            

Dr. Robert M. Bowman, former Director of Advanced Space Programs Development for the U.S. Air Force in the Ford and Carter administrations (Charter Member of PL911Truth) Click here to see statement

Andreas von Bülow, former State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Defense, West Germany; former Minister of Research and Technology; former member of the German Parliament (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Donald R. Bustion, former Assistant Attorney General of Texas

Giulietto Chiesa, Italian member of the European Parliament; vice chairman, Committee on International Trade; member, Committee on Security and Defense (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Matt Cole, Board of Trustees, Town of Alma; Alma, Colorado, USA

Wolfram Elsner, PhD, former head of the Planning Division of the Ministry of Economic Affairs of the State of Bremen; director of the Bremen State Economic Research Institute; and Bremen State Official for Industrial Defense Conversion, 1989 - 2001 (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Douglas Nixon Everingham,  Member, House of Representatives, Australia, 1967-75 and 1977-84, Minister for Health 1972-75, a Vice-President, World Health Assembly 1975, Parliamentary Adviser, UN delegation. Click here to see statement

Jeanette Fitzsimons, Co-leader of the New Zealand Green Party since 1995, and member of the House of Representatives since 1999. Click here to see statement

Constance Fogal, Canadian Action Party Leader, 2004-2008 (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Yukihisa Fujita, member of the House of Councilors, National Diet of Japan; Chairman, Special Committee on North Korean Abduction Issue and Related Matters; former member of the House of Representatives (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Ole Gerstrom, Member of Parliament, Denmark, 1973-1975. Click here to see statement

Senator Mike Gravel, United States Senator (1969 - 1981) (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Dan Hamburg, former Californian member of the US House of Representatives (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Joel S. Hirschhorn, Senior Staff Member, Congressional Office of Technology Assessment 1978-1990 (Charter Member of PL911Truth)  Click here to see statement

Barbara Honegger, former White House Policy Analyst and Special Assistant to the Assistant to President Ronald Reagan (1981 - 1983) (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Tadashi Inuzuka, member of the House of Councilors, National Diet of Japan (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Karen S. Johnson, former member of the Senate of the State of Arizona, where she was chair of the Family Services Committee (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Scott Kennedy, former Mayor and City Council Member (12 years), Santa Cruz, California

Senator Prof. Muhammad Ibrahim Khan, member of Pakistan's Senate since 2006; member of Standing committee on Education and Science and Technology; member of Standing Committee on Law, Justice and Human Rights and Parliamentary Affairs; Vice President of Jamaat e Islami (Pakistan) Click here to see statement

Paul Lannoye, former Belgian member of the European Parliament, where he was vice chair of the Committee on Energy, Research, and Technology (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Jon Paul McClellan, chief election judge (appointed), Eastside Precinct, Orange County, North Carolina; former elected chair of the precinct organization. Click here to see statement

Cynthia McKinney, former Georgian member of the US House of Representatives, where she was a member of the Armed Services Committee and the International Relations Committee (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Michael Meacher, Minister of the British Parliament; former Minister of the Environment; former Undersecretary for Industry (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Per Mohn, deputy representative to the Norwegian Parliament from Akershus,  1989–1993

Dr. Andrew J. Moulden, Leader of the Canadian Action Party (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

David Nelson, Hate Crimes Working Group (appointed advisory commission), U.S. Department of Justice,  Utah, 1997-2001 Click here to see statement

Marty B. O'Malley, elected Democratic member of Council, Forest Hills, PA Click here to see statement

Bruce Randall, elected Longmeadow (Massachusetts) Water & Sewer Commissioner, 2002-2003, then Chairman, 2003-2004 Click here to see statement

Senator Fernando Rossi, member of the Itallian Parliament (Senato), 2006-2008 Click here to see statement

Val Scott, founding member of Canada's New Democratic Party; former Trustee and Vice Chairman of North York Board of Education, Ontario, Canada (Charter Member of PL911Truth)  Click here to see statement

Gianni Vattimo, member of European Parliament, 1999 - 2004 (Italy); Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs; Committee on Employment and Social Affairs; Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Jesse Ventura, former Governor of Minnesota (Charter Member of PL911Truth)

Terry Wachniak, elected to Winnipeg city council from 1986 to 1989

t r u t h o u t | Dump the GOP

Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
- Mark Twain
Former GOP Congressman Joe Scarborough was doing his MSNBC morning yak-fest on Friday, and made a comment about how President Obama's newly-finalized stimulus package has "greatly offended Republicans." His guests all agreed with solemnly nodding heads, yeah, you're right, Joe, Obama offended the Republicans. Greatly and stuff.

    This grim pronouncement came on the heels of GOP Sen. Judd Gregg's stunning announcement that he was withdrawing as Obama's nominee for commerce secretary. Citing irreconcilable differences between himself and the Obama administration on the stimulus bill as well as the upcoming census, Gregg said, "The bottom line is, this was simply a bridge too far for me."

    Gregg's sudden announcement delivered a rather significant four-pronged screwing to the Obama administration. First, it stepped all over a news cycle that should have been dominated by a triumphant White House awaiting delivery of the finalized stimulus bill for signature. Second, Gregg's withdrawal let him vote on the final bill, a certain "no" vote. Third, it gave further voice to the preposterous Congressional GOP claims of being shut out of the process by the administration. Fourth, it adds another page to the ever-lengthening storyline of Obama's nomination troubles.

    President Obama has not had a great deal of luck dealing with the minority GOP in Congress. From the beginning, GOP members lied outright about the contents of the stimulus package, squealed indignantly for the inclusion of every failed Bush fiscal policy one could name, and in the end, did a fantastic job of gumming up the works and muddying the waters in order to thwart the passage of this bill. That they failed is of little consequence; they made their presence known with far more vigor than their dwindled numbers would seem to allow, and all because President Obama wanted to work in a bi-partisan fashion.

    In his inaugural address, he promised to reach out a hand to anyone willing to unclench their fist. The GOP responded not only with clenched fists, but with swinging clenched fists. It seems early to give up already, but facts are facts, and Obama needs to withdraw his hand and just wave these people off.

    Consider the following recounting of the stimulus package process, related by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) in her diary on the website DailyKos.com:

As Chair of the House Rules Committee, I must clear up untruths regarding the economic recovery package. We've heard a lot of noise across the aisle about how partisan the development of the bill was - that Republicans were blocked from being involved. This is entirely false. In fact, this was one of the most open processes a bill this large has had in over a decade.

They are being disingenuous, or worse. These are the facts:

The bill, as it came to the Rules Committee, the last stop before the floor vote, already incorporated 12 Republican amendments. The Rules Committee then added the 11 amendments: 6 Democratic and 5 Republican, in addition to a complete Republican substitute, and a motion to recommit. They were unable to muster the votes necessary and lost on bipartisan votes. House Republicans may have come together to vote against the final bill, but they split on their own amendments with 40 to 60 Republicans voting with Democrats. Some Republicans even voted against their party's alternative bill, and it failed on the floor.

The Republican alternative didn't have a final price tag, consisted entirely of tax cuts, and would actually raise taxes for 26 million American families. In two years, the Democratic bill would create 3.6 million jobs. The Republican substitute: 1.2 million - a third as many as the Democratic bill that passed the House. President Obama even met with House Republicans more times in two weeks to discuss this legislation than President Bush did with House Democrats in two terms. The Republicans were certainly allowed in the process, but they wanted to obstruct.

    Dan Froomkin, writing on Friday morning for the Washington Post's White House Watch blog, examined the Gregg/stimulus GOP crack-up thusly: "The voters sent President Obama to Washington with a mandate to change the way this town works. But yesterday's decision by GOP Sen. Judd Gregg to withdraw as the commerce secretary nominee is the latest sign that the Republican Party has no interest in going along."

    "Obama, while aggressively pursuing a traditionally Democratic agenda," he continued, "has nevertheless said that in the long run he and Republicans can find a considerable amount of common ground around shared values and pragmatism. But Gregg's withdrawal is yet more evidence either that Obama underestimated the ideological gulf between the elected officials of the two parties, or that Republicans are getting more rather than less hostile towards efforts to reach out. Or both."

    In other words, and to a large measure, this whole thing just is what it is, and the GOP obstructionists are how they are, and President Obama would do well to refrain from battering his head into this particular brick wall.

    For the record, here are a few of the items in the stimulus package that left the GOP so greatly offended, per BusinessWeek.com:

$30 billion for a smart power grid, advanced battery technology, and energy efficiency measures.

$20 billion in tax incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency over the next 10 years. Tax credits for families that purchase plug-in hybrid vehicles of up to $7,500.

$5 billion to improve the energy efficiency of more than 1 million homes.

$6.3 billion for increasing energy efficiency in federally supported housing programs.

$3 billion for the National Science Foundation for basic research in fundamental science and engineering. $1.6 billion for the Energy Dept.'s Office of Science, which funds research in such areas as climate science, biofuels, high-energy physics, nuclear physics, and fusion energy sciences . $8.5 billion for the National Institutes of Health, including expanding good jobs in biomedical research to study diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cancer, and heart disease.

$7 billion for extending broadband services to underserved communities.

$87 billion over the next two years in additional federal matching funds to help states maintain Medicaid programs.

$53.6 billion for a State Fiscal Stabilization Fund-$40.6 billion to local school districts, which can be used for preventing cutbacks, preventing layoffs, school modernization, and other purposes; $5 billion as bonus grants for meeting key performance measures; and $8 billion for public safety and other services.

Higher education tax credit increased to a maximum of $2,500, and makes it available to nearly 4 million low-income students by making it partially refundable

Increases the maximum Pell Grant by $500, for a maximum of $5,350 in 2009 and $5,550 in 2010.

$200 million added to the College Work-Study Program.

$1.1 billion for Early Head Start.

$1 billion for Head Start.

$2 billion for the Child Care Development Block Grant to provide child care services to an additional 300,000 children in low-income families while their parents go to work.

$13 billion for Title I grants to help disadvantaged kids reach high academic standards.

$12.2 billion for special education grants.

$29 billion for modernizing roads and bridges. $18 billion for clean water, flood control, and environmental restoration investments.

$5 billion for improvements in Defense Dept. facilities.

Child tax credit expanded to allow families to begin qualifying for the child tax credit with every dollar earned over $3,000.

Earned Income Tax Credit expanded by providing tax relief to families with three or more children and increasing marriage penalty relief.

New, partially refundable $2,500 tax credit for families. Temporarily suspends taxation of some unemployment benefits. Tax credits for hiring recently discharged unemployed veterans and youth that have been out of work and out of school for the six months prior to hire. New bond-financing program for school construction, rehabilitation, and repair.

Increases unemployment benefits for 20 million jobless workers by $25 per week.

Increases food stamp benefits by 13%.

$100 million for Emergency Food & Shelter to help local community organizations provide food and shelter; $100 million for formula grants to states for elderly nutrition services including Meals on Wheels; and $150 million for the Emergency Food Assistance Program to purchase commodities for food banks to refill emptying shelves.

$4 billion for job training including formula grants for adult job training, dislocated worker job training, and youth services (including funding for summer jobs for young people).

$500 million for Vocational Rehabilitation State Grants to help persons with disabilities.

$500 million to match unemployed individuals to job openings.

$120 million to provide community service jobs to an additional 24,000 low-income older Americans.

Payment of $250 to Social Security beneficiaries, as well as veterans receiving disability compensation and pension benefits from the Veterans Affairs.

    There are a few distinct reasons the GOP has decided to get in the way of everything proposed by the Obama administration and the Congressional Democratic majority. They need to appear to be relevant after back-to-back electoral pastings in 2006 and 2008. Because they are better at playing the media game than the Democrats, they can telegraph whatever remaining strengths they have far more effectively.

    They need Obama to fail on all fronts if they are to have a prayer at recovering lost ground at the polls in 2010. Finally, they only have representation in states where Bush remains popular and the GOP cant on government remains holy writ, so if they want to keep those few remaining seats, they have to play in the hard-right part of the pool. This is not a group of people Obama should expect anything from beyond what has already been demonstrably in evidence. Hoping for something different is a foolish pipe dream.

    President Obama can work with the Democratic Congressional majorities to pass future legislation, perhaps making sure to get one GOP vote in the Senate to thwart a filibuster. If no such vote is forthcoming, he can dump any quixotic quest for one or any GOP votes and dare the GOP to filibuster widely popular bills. He's not going to get GOP support for anything, so why bother trying? Let them keep it up and lose every time, and let them try to stand on that record for the 2010 midterms.

    President Obama needs to do the work the people overwhelmingly elected him to do, and if the GOP does not want to be a part of that work, so be it. In the long run, a string of Democrat-only legislative victories will have a dynamic effect on the obstructionist tendencies of the GOP. Sooner or later, they'll come running in whole or in part to Obama's side of the aisle, if only to save themselves. Until then, dump them.

The Explosion of the 9-11 Truth Movement—U.S. Media’s Dirty Little Secret