there are two things i have to say: MORE PLUMBING LESS LAUGHING and jerry falwell and i together say: blow 'em all away in the name of the lord!!! -lady rose of hartfordshire
And written in this bill is a provision whereby Planned Parenthood could become a proprietor for school-based clinics in every school across United States. These have been more accurately called school sex clinics ... And as a matter of fact, the bill goes on to say what's going to go on -- comprehensive primary health services, physicals, treatment of minor acute medical conditions, referrals to follow-up for specialty care -- is that abortion? Does that mean that someone's 13 year-old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back and go home on the school bus that night? Mom and dad are never the wiser...
According to The Telegraph, a high resolution photograph of Ahmadinejad holding up his Iranian identity card, taken just before the 2008 election, reveals that his family changed its name shortly after he was born, renouncing their Jewish faith and adopting Islam.............
There have always been nuts. Remember when the John Birch society thought Kennedy was a communist? In those innocent days most of the American people were reasonable. They'd shake their heads in wonder at such a weird notion. Kennedy might be one of those liberals, but he wasn't a commie. And when people said Johnson murdered Kennedy? Also ridiculous. But slowly, ominously, things began to change. After his death, it was said that Edward Kennedy was a Soviet agent. These theories have rabid subscribers.
Obama is a Muslim. Obama was born in Kenya. Obama was a terrorist. Obama will destroy Medicare. Obama will kill your grandmother. Obama is a racist. Obama wants atheism taught in the schools. Obama wants us to pay for the health care of illegal immigrants.............
viaDavid Letterman, who built his career skewering philandering politicians and show business “weasels” and “boneheads,” finds himself in the middle of his own celebrity scandal, after he admitted having multiple affairs with employees of his production company, Worldwide Pants.
For the intensely private Mr. Letterman, the revelations, which resulted from a bizarre extortion attempt, are sure to be extremely embarrassing, especially as he tries to extend his lead in the late-night contest. ”I have had sex with women who work for me on this show,” he told his audience on Thursday night, calling himself “creepy.” He added that he hoped “to protect my job.”
More seriously, they raised questions for both his company and CBS about whether his actions constituted sexual harassment or at least abuse of a power relationship over employees. .........NEW DELHI, Oct. 2 -- Images of Mohandas K. Gandhi, father of modern India and icon of asceticism and nonviolence, have ended up in some unlikely places before, from ads selling Apple computers to counter-culture T-shirts.
But it's fair to say that the latest incarnation may be the most ironic: Gandhi, in his signature loincloth, hawking a $23,000 fountain pen named in his honor.
The Montblanc pen, unveiled for the celebration of what would have been Gandhi's 140th birthday on Friday, has prompted howls from Hindu groups and Gandhists who say the sticker price is the lifetime income of many of India's poor. The limited-edition fountain pen in 18-carat solid gold is engraved with Gandhi's image and tricked out with a saffron-colored mandarin garnet on the clip and a rhodium-plated nib........
Special correspondent Ayesha Manocha contributed to this report.
BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Meg White
Instead of working on a healthcare plan that uses funding wisely, the Senate Finance Committee showed its proclivity for wasting taxpayer money in order to prop up flagging conservative ideology this week.
Not only have they refused to embrace measures that would cut the costs of healthcare while expanding coverage (public option, single payer, closing the donut hole), conservative committee members voted to spend $50 million a year on a program that has proved not only that it does not work, but it does the opposite of what it is supposed to do.
Working late into the evening on amendments to the proposed America's Healthy Future Act Tuesday, the Finance Committee took the time to undermine President Obama's request that the $50 million a year that goes to support state programs offering abstinence-only education in public schools be redirected to a program that offers a more comprehensive approach. The amendment reinstating abstinence-only education funding was presented by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), but it got two crucial votes from Blue Dog Democrats on the committee, Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, passing by a narrow 12-11...........
America's healthcare industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to block the introduction of public medical insurance and stall other reforms promised by Barack Obama. The campaign against the president has been waged in part through substantial donations to key politicians.
Supporters of radical reform of healthcare say legislation emerging from the US Senate reflects the financial power of vested interests ‑ principally insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms and hospitals ‑ that have worked to stop far-reaching changes threatening their profits.
The industry and interest groups have spent $380m (£238m) in recent months influencing healthcare legislation through lobbying, advertising and in direct political contributions to members of Congress. The largest contribution, totalling close to $1.5m, has gone to the chairman of the senate committee drafting the new law........
I SAY ENOUGH!!!!
Watchdogs: Health industry giving more to Congress than thought
A joint study by two political watchdog groups has found that Sen. Max Baucus -- the Montana Democrat who authored the principal health care reform bill being debated in the Senate -- was a major recipient of "contribution clusters" from lobbyists linked to health care groups.
The study, from the Center for Responsive Politics and the Sunlight Foundation, says members of Congress working on health care reform are receiving more money from the health industry than people realize.......
Plaintiffs claim conservative activist Rick Scott had strange criteria about who could work in his clinics
Editor's note: Research support was provided by the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute. This is Part 2 of a two-part series. Read Part 1 here.
By Tristram Korten
Oct. 1, 2009 | This summer, St. Petersburg, Fla., neurosurgeon David McKalip caught heat for sending an e-mail depicting President Obama as a witch doctor with a bone through his nose. McKalip, a neurosurgeon and founder of the anti-healthcare reform group Doctors for Patient Freedom, sent the photo to a conservative listserv with a note saying "Funny stuff" and the caption "Obamacare – Coming soon to a clinic near you." The C in Obamacare was a hammer and sickle.
Given that racial unease has bubbled under much of the right-wing opposition to Obama's political agenda, it's not surprising that it should surface in the online joshings of a healthcare reform foe, even one as respectable as Dr. McKalip, a member of the American Medical Association's House of Delegates and president of the Pinellas County Medical Association. (McKalip resigned from the local post, took a leave of absence from his AMA position in the wake of the e-mail, apologized profusely and withdrew from a public role in the anti-reform movement.) But a Salon investigation of a far more prominent healthcare foe has found allegations of discrimination that go beyond a tasteless e-mail. Plaintiffs have charged that the healthcare company owned by Rick Scott, who continues his multimillion-dollar, self-funded campaign against reform, practiced hiring discrimination based on ethnicity and appearance.
After six months and lots of money, Scott, founder of Conservatives for Patients' Rights (and an ally of McKalip), has finally seen the fruits of his multimillion-dollar campaign against reform. Scott, a millionaire healthcare entrepreneur, predicted that when Congress reconvened this September the public option would be dead. "While Victory is near, we must not rest," Scott crowed on CPR's Web site. Scott himself never rested. He met with lawmakers, coordinated conference calls with conservative activists, wrote opinion pieces and spoke to the faithful about the evils of socialized medicine. Conservatives for Patients' Rights targeted elected officials in 11 states with TV ads hoping constituents would pressure the lawmakers to oppose proposed changes. Sure enough, when the public option failed in the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday, Scott took credit in this video..........
pic:
Salon composite/YouTube screenshot
Rick Scott (left) talks about Solantic to Texas Rep. Michael Burgess, chairman of the Congressional Health Care Caucus.
“What is the case against female suffrage?” Colmes asked. “The conservative case against it is that women lean hard to the left,” Derbyshire responded nonsensically. “They want someone to nurture, they want someone to help raise their kids, and if men aren’t inclined to do it — and in the present days, they’re not much — then they’d like the state to do it for them.”
Colmes then pressed Derbyshire on whether women should have the right to vote. “Ah…” Derbyshire sighed, attempting to dodge the question initially. “I’m not putting forward a political program here,” he said. But then Derbyshire slowly began to open up:....................
Buffie Barbee, who was eleven years old and lived two houses down, was playing in her back yard when she smelled the smoke. She ran inside and told her mother, Diane, and they hurried up the street; that’s when they saw the smoldering house and Cameron Todd Willingham standing on the front porch, wearing only a pair of jeans, his chest blackened with soot, his hair and eyelids singed. He was screaming, “My babies are burning up!” His children—Karmon and Kameron, who were one-year-old twin girls, and two-year-old Amber—were trapped inside.
Willingham told the Barbees to call the Fire Department, and while Diane raced down the street to get help he found a stick and broke the children’s bedroom window. Fire lashed through the hole. He broke another window; flames burst through it, too, and he retreated into the yard, kneeling in front of the house. A neighbor later told police that Willingham intermittently cried, “My babies!” then fell silent, as if he had “blocked the fire out of his mind.”
Diane Barbee, returning to the scene, could feel intense heat radiating off the house. Moments later, the five windows of the children’s room exploded and flames “blew out,” as Barbee put it. Within minutes, the first firemen had arrived, and Willingham approached them, shouting that his children were in their bedroom, where the flames were thickest. A fireman sent word over his radio for rescue teams to “step on it.”..........
Well, Grayson has apologized -- just not to the Republicans he offended.
"I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven't voted sooner to end this holocaust in America," a defiant Grayson said on the House floor Wednesday.
The "holocaust" Grayson was referring to was the 44,000 Americans that a recent study says die each year because of inadequate access to health care. The representative cited the Harvard study (PDF) in what appeared at first to be an apology, but quickly turned into a retort.
The number of dead "is 10 times more than the number of Americans who have died in Iraq and who died in 9/11," Grayson said. "But that was just once. This is every single year. That's right. Every single year.".............
Associated Press Writer Amy Taxin contributed to this story from Santa Ana.
Representative Robert Ebinger says he became aware of the situation after Cascade and Park County law enforcement officials came to him asking questions about APF.
"Well right now I'm confused," said Ebinger and that confusion led the representative to ask for action Tuesday when the Law and Justice Committee met in Helena.
"My suggestion was for them to come to our December 18th meeting," said Ebinger. The committee decided that wasn't necessary and instead will be sending a letter to Hardin officials looking for answers............
Mysterious Private Security Firm Gets Control Of Empty Jail In Small Montana Town
A shadowy private security company that has no known clients but claims to have helped foreign governments combat terrorism and will protect anything from cruise ships to Pakistani convoys has taken over a jail in a small Montana town, with plans to build a law enforcement training facility on the property.
The state legislature is looking into the matter and residents of Hardin, MT, were alarmed last week when executives from the firm, American Police Force, showed up in the town, which does not have its own police department, with Mercedes SUVs bearing "City Of Hardin Police Department" decals.
And the town has had to tamp down reports on conspiracy Web sites that APF plans to impose experimental H1N1 vaccines on residents under threat of quarantine in the jail.
Under a lease signed with Hardin, APF, based in Santa Ana, California, and incorporated just six months ago, is now in control of a 400-bed detention facility the town built a few years ago but never used, a town official confirmed to TPMmuckraker today. The town reportedly stands to make over $2 million per year.
Just what American Police Force plans to do with the detention facility, which comes with 50 acres of land in the small south-central Montana town, is unclear. Also not clear is who, if anyone, APF plans to put in the jail. (Watch a video tour of the jail here.)
Hardin, which is in default on the bonds it used to build the jail, recently undertook an unsuccessful campaign to make the jail a new home for Gitmo detainees. When that failed, the town turned to APF............
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