Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/20/tony-blair-gordon-brown-eu-row

Tony Blair warned Gordon Brown a week ago that his campaign to become the first president of the European Council was doomed after a decisive intervention by the German chancellor Angela Merkel, according to senior Whitehall sources.

Link: http://snardfarker.ning.com/video/i-nside-b-r-i-t-a-i-ns-i-s-1

Another World Is Possible: Exposing Britain’s pro-Israel lobby: Channel 4 TV makes a bold start: Channel 4's “Dispatches” programme on 16 November set out to investigate the pro-Israel lobby in Britain, and to boldly go where no TV team had gone before. On the Dispatches website we are told that the lobby "aims to shape the debate about Britain's relationship with Israel and future foreign policies relating to it". So the programme would be looking at "who they are, how they are funded, how they work and what influence they have, from the key groups to the wealthy individuals who help bankroll the lobbying". Political commentator Peter Oborne would explain how accountable, transparent and open to scrutiny the lobby was, particularly regarding its funding and financial support to MPs. So it was with mounting excitement that countless thousands of citizens here in an increasingly Zionist-ruled Britain awaited the screening of this daring programme. Gilad Atzmon: Britain must de-Zionise Itself Immediately. Redress: Exposing Britain’s pro-Israel lobby: Channel 4 TV makes a bold start.

Link: http://firedoglake.com/2009/11/17/attention-right-wing-idiots-nixon-bowed-to-chairman-mao/

Can anyone imagine a Republican president making a gesture of servile submission to a communist dictator responsible for the deaths of 70 million people? -Why yes, yes one can.

Link: http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/barack-obama-and-the-failure-of-the-peace-process/

Among the most prominent of President Obama’s hope-based initiatives was his promise to re-frame America’s approach to the conflict in Palestine, epitomized in his June 2007 speech in Cairo, where Obama called for a “new beginning between the United States and Muslims”, a new dawn based on equality and mutual respect rather than the vestiges of a “colonialism that denied rights and opportunities” to Muslim majorities held prisoner to proxy regimes without regard to the legitimate aspirations of their people. Political Theatrics: US Won’t Pressure Israel, PA To Renew Peace Talks.

Link: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/11/your-representatives-congress

Of the 535 members of Congress, over 44% - 237 to be exact - are millionaires. Fifty have net worths of at least $10 million, and seven are worth more than $100 million. By comparison, around 1% of Americans are millionaires. There is no other minority group that is as overrepresented in Congress.

Link: http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/dennis-kucinich-insurance-companies-are-the-problem/

Dennis Kucinich Explains Why He Voted Against The Health Care Bill.

Link: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1257770026484&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu held a lengthy meeting with US President Barack Obama Monday night which addressed the Middle East peace process, Iran and Israeli security. The one-hour-and-forty-minute parley was accompanied by an unusual news blackout, as the standard photo op and press availability were not held. In addition, Netanyahu canceled a scheduled briefing with Israeli reporters and Defense Minister Ehud Barak scrapped plans for radio interviews following the talks.

Link: http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1297.htm

Russian Foreign Ministry reports to Prime Minister Putin on the just concluded Monday night ‘secret’ meet held between the American President and his Israeli counterpart at the White House state that Obama and Netanyahu traded ‘threats of war’ for nearly 4 hours before Israel’s Prime Minister ‘stormed out’ of the Oval Office warning that “we’ll see who really runs this damn place.”

Link: http://www.sphere.com/2009/11/06/44-percent-of-congress-are-millionaires/

According to a new study compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, 237 members of the U.S. Congress, or 44 percent, are millionaires. "What's easy to see is that the economic reality of our elected officials is not reflective of the general population," said Dave Levinthal, who helped compile the study's findings. Natural News: Direct Democracy — Why the American People must disband Congress.

Link: http://www.freedomtomarry.org/same-sex-fullsize.png

Freedom To Marry: The public is increasingly open to ending the exclusion of same-sex couples and their families from marriage. In past civil rights movements, legislative and especially judicial actions towards equality occurred well before the public expressed complete comfort with equality. Although many in the public are still wrestling with the idea of fairness for all families, public support for marriage equality is growing faster in this civil rights movement than ever before. Also, our resources for judging public opinion are continuing to improve as polls begin to ask objective, unbiased questions, and pro-marriage state legislators are re-elected in astounding numbers.

Link: http://rackjite.com/archives/4072-Crazy-Michele-Bachmann-Rising-Star-says-George-Will.html

George Will, America's most ubiquitous Libertarian columnist and television pundit - who wants to repeal seat belt laws and have everyone carry around an assault rifle - has come to the defense of America's most Right-wing looneytune in Congress, Minnesota's own Michele Bachmann. Bachmann a rising figure among GOP conservatives

Link: http://donklephant.com/2009/10/24/gop-2012-mitt-romney-or-sarah-palin/

Today, the perfunctory, “next in line” theory suggests that the most likely GOP nominee will be former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. While Romney dropped-out of the 2008 campaign earlier than Mike Huckabee, most conservatives concede that Romney finished in second place – and that is certainly the view held by the McCainiacs. So, by the logic that led to the nominations of McCain and Dole, it’s Romney’s turn. Even if rank-and-file conservatives find him less than perfect concede that he’s paid his dues.

Link: http://www.thecrookeddope.com/2009/10/20/senator-cornyn-physically-assaulted-me-today/

Certainly not a beat-down, or anything like it, but if I had behaved toward him the way he did to me, I woulda been spread-eagle on the floor with guns trained on me. He got off the Hart Senate office building subway, just like any number of Senators before him. I pointed the flip cam at him and began walking with him, asking him about the Franken amendment. He tried to slap the camera out of my hand and then tried to grab it from me. Fortunately I was filming the whole time.

■ Many of us are under the illusion that these senators & congressmen (women) are working for us. -Not at all! The hardest illusion to get rid of is the one that we elected them. -Not so! We put an utterly worthless piece of paper into a ballot box. That's all we did. This is of no consequence to anyone, except that we reinforce our own voting behavior and illusions each time we do so. Big companies & rich individuals, however, put lots of dollar bills into the pockets of Senator John Cornyn. -So, why is it that we still seem to persist in thinking that people like him will listen to us?

■ Having read the comment above, you should be asking the obvious questions: But they get elected because we vote, right? If that's the case, how can my ballot be "an utterly worthless piece of paper", as you say?

■ Elected because we voted, yes. But then again no. What/who made us vote the way we did? The corporate system has a vast amount of money at its disposal. This kind of money can buy anything & anyone. Media time, polls, election campaigns & candidates. By & by people are being seriously influenced and opinions are being shaped. Individuals will (and do) resist, but the public as a whole will be impressed by the packaging, the delivery and the fatuous content & the slogans. Resistance is next to nil. -In short, majorities are being created. This is another level altogether, and is what actually happens, irrespective of individual protest & resistance. Not just some of the time, but all of the time. This is science. Raw power. The power of money.

Link: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/10/17/peace_prize/

It's not that strange to get an "aspirational" peace prize, but now the president has to earn it. Despite the graciousness of his speech at the White House last Friday, President Barack Obama's acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize did have an air slightly reminiscent of Abe Lincoln's story about the man who was tarred, feathered and ridden out of town on a rail -- if it weren't for the honor of the thing, he'd just as soon walk.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23690.htm

"The dismaying gift of the Nobel prize puts Barack Obama on the list of its winners who promised peace but prosecuted war." - Howard Zinn. I was dismayed when I heard Barack Obama was given the Nobel peace prize. A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on two wars would be given a peace prize. Until I recalled that Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Henry Kissinger had all received Nobel peace prizes. The Nobel committee is famous for its superficial estimates, won over by rhetoric and by empty gestures, and ignoring blatant violations of world peace

Link: http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/10/u-s-personality-assassination-of-a-palestinian-ally/

The report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, which the head of the mission, Judge Richard Goldstone, presented to the Human Rights Council (HRC) on September 29, prematurely plunged the Palestinian Authority (PA) in a short-lived euphoria over what it first envisaged as a political prize that would hit two major birds of its political adversaries simultaneously, namely the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu and its Palestinian rival Hamas.

Link: http://www.legitgov.org/shulman_acorn_rigged_nobel_voting_101009.html

"Barack Hussein Obama has not yet proven he was born on this planet," said Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, "and without an earth birth certificate, he is not eligible for the prize."

Link: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/9/as_us_continues_afghan_iraq_occupations

President Obama has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, less than nine months after taking office. The award comes despite Obama’s continuation of the Iraq war and escalation of the US occupation of Afghanistan. We get reaction from author and journalist Naomi Klein and London-based author and commentator Tariq Ali. [includes rush transcript]

Link: http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=m58720&hd=&size=1&l=e

Barack Obama promised a sharp break from the Bush era, yet he seems to have stepped into the shoes of his disgraced predecessor. As the anniversary of his election approaches, Mehdi Hasan investigates what went wrong

Link: http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=11438

The Pentagon said a giant "bunker buster" bomb will be ready within months, adding a powerful weapon to the US arsenal amid tensions over Iran's nuclear program. The 30,000-pound massive ordnance penetrator (MOP) is designed to knock out fortified sites buried deep underground, like those used by Iran and North Korea to protect its nuclear work.

Link: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/10/08/photos/index.html

The American Propsect's Adam Serwer notes that, yesterday, Sen. Joe Lieberman successfully inserted into the Homeland Security appropriations bill an amendment -- supported by the Obama White House -- to provide an exemption from the Freedom of Information Act's mandates by authorizing the Defense Secretary to suppress long-concealed photographs of detainee abuse. Two courts had ruled -- unanimously -- that the American people have the right to see these photographs under FOIA, a 40-year-old law championed by the Democrats in the LBJ era

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23673.htm

"GRITtv" - Think things have changed in Washington? You might be surprised by a quick review of today’s headlines. On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate approved a $636 billion defense-spending bill, a few billion less than what the Obama administration actually requested and significantly more than the Bush administration’s last appropriation’s bill.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23671.htm

MADRID: Today the Spanish Senate, acting to confirm a decision already taken under pressure from powerful governments accused of grave crimes, will limit Spain’s laws of universal jurisdiction. Yesterday, ahead of the change of law, a legal case was filed at the Audiencia Nacional against four United States presidents and four United Kingdom prime ministers for commissioning, condoning and/or perpetuating multiple war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Iraq.

Link: http://socialistworker.org/2009/10/05/when-losing-is-winning

Bob Quellos, a founding member of No Games Chicago, explains why Mayor Richard Daley and his allies have themselves--and their dishonesty--to blame for losing the bid for the 2016 Olympics. SHOCK WAS the reaction in Chicago as the city's bid for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, after making it as one of four finalists, went down in the first round of voting by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), quicker than Buster Douglas knocked out Mike Tyson.

Link: http://intershame.com/on/Max_Baucus__D_Mont___Kent_Conrad__D_ND___Blanche_Lincoln__D_Ark___Bill_Nelson__D_Fla__and_Tom_Carper__D_Del_/

People who identify themselves as Democrats favor the public option by a margin of 81% to 12%. That's nearly 7 to 1 in favor of, yet the representatives of the Democrat party in the Senate Finance Committee only voted for the public option at a ratio of 8 to 5. Perhaps the most interesting number revealed by this poll is that Republican voters favor the public option 47% to 42%.

Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090929/ap_on_go_co/us_health_care_overhaul;_ylt=Am3WNhQJpqibVeyaAAYXez2s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTM1MGV2djUzBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwOTI5L3VzX2hlYWx0aF9jYXJlX292ZXJoYXVsBGNwb3MDMQRwb3MDMgRwdANob21lX2Nva2UEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDcHVibGlj

The Senate Finance Committee has voted against creating a new government health insurance plan to compete with the private market. The 15-to-8 vote could forecast the fate of the public option in the Senate as a whole. + Big Win for the Insurance Industry: Senate Panel Rejects a ‘Public Option’ in Health Plan.

Link: http://www.truthout.org/092709A

In recent days, The Washington Post, The New York Times and other major news outlets have recounted the "troubled" history of the poor people's advocacy group ACORN, but left out the five-year anti-ACORN campaign led by White House adviser Karl Rove and other Republican operatives.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/27-3

First Big Business, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Lou Dobbs, the Religious Right, the Wall Street Journal, Mitch McConnell, and Karl Rove came for ACORN, and the Democrats did not speak out -- because they were not ACORN. Then they came for SEIU, and the Democrats did not speak out -- because they were not SEIU. Then they came for the Apollo Alliance, and the Democrats did not speak out -- because they were not the Apollo Alliance. Then they came for the Center for American Progress, and the Democrats did not speak out -- because they were not the Center for American Progress.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/27/bill-clinton-barack-obama-rightwing

Former US president cites conservative activists and media personalities among those behind aggressive campaign against current Former US President Bill Clinton claimed today that the "vast rightwing conspiracy" that hounded him and nearly drove him from office has set its sights on Barack Obama. The former president was referring to the web of politicians, media personalities, various internet groups and grassroots conservative activists who have opposed the new president at every turn.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/27-5

I'm inclined to believe the fierce resistance to health-care reform in the United States is the work of a small fringe. The other possibility is that there's something deep in the psyche of Americans that drives them to defend to the death their right to deny health care to millions of their fellow citizens. Some have attempted to downplay the scariness of recent protests against President Barack Obama's health reform efforts, noting that a lot of Americans protested George W. Bush as well.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/142910/5_ways_the_government_used_our_money_to_save_big_banks_and_screw_us

The government hasn't exactly been forthcoming about how it has made buckets of money available to the banking sector. But here's what really happened.

Link: http://webabuser.blogspot.com/2009/09/new-details-on-obamas-cia-front.html

WMR has obtained additional details on Business International Corporation (BIC), the CIA front company where President Obama spent a year working after graduating from Columbia University in 1983. Through its contacts with leading liberals around the world, BIC sought to recruit those on the left as CIA agents and assets. Yes friends, we are so screwed.

Link: http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/09/22/in-the-clinton-tapes-bill-clinton-disses-bush-dowd-gore-and/

The UPS man said he wished everyone were as excited to see him at their door as I was when he put that Teddy Kennedy memoir, "True Compass,'' in my hands last week. But it's just as well that I wasn't home when he dropped off Taylor Branch's forthcoming "The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History With the President.'' Because having been assigned to write about such historical figures as Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp for The New York Times, my initial reaction to Clinton's gazillion hours of yakking to Branch was I've seen that movie, thanks -- and some of it was tedious the first time. (In the book, our 42nd president complains not a little – hard to believe, right? -- about being dragged through toxic sludge by the press. To which I say: Backatcha, Bubba.)

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/20/barack-obama-race-joe-wilson

When Joe Wilson called Barack Obama a liar on the floor of Congress, the White House dismissed it as hardball politics while Jimmy Carter said it was racism. The truth lies in years of Southern prejudice and a simmering resentment among some Americans that a black man could become president. The general store in the middle of the tiny South Carolina town of Allendale still has Barack Obama T-shirts and baseball caps proudly on sale in the window. But inside the shop, Eddie Bernice Hammond's thoughts are not on last year's triumphant election of America's first black president. They are focused on a fresh race row, roiling the country and coming from her own home state.

Link: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/robert_reich/2009/09/why-olympia-snowe-should-vote.php/

How is it that a decision next week by a single Senator from Maine will almost certainly determine whether America's future healthcare system is still in the hands of private for-profit insurance companies and Big Pharma or enables more Americans to get better health care at lower cost? Bear with me, because you need to know what's likely to happen if she signs on, and if she doesn't. The next few weeks are crucial.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/opinion/13dowd.html?_r=1

The normally nonchalant Barack Obama looked nonplussed, as Nancy Pelosi glowered behind. Surrounded by middle-aged white guys — a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men’s club — Joe Wilson yelled “You lie!” at a president who didn’t. But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09112009.html

If Barack Obama had delivered his speech to Congress three months ago, by now he might well be signing health reform into law. Ted Kennedy would have alive to supply the crucial senate vote to cut off any filibuster and put the Democrats over the top. But three months ago Obama and his advisors were eager to avoid the debacle suffered by Hillary Clinton’s health plan which, after months of secrecy, she presented to Congress in 1993. So the White House evolved the foolish plan of letting the Democrats in Congress draft the necessary laws.

Link: http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story.asp?StoryId={7BB4E031-C42E-4B88-B334-517C257A0769}

President Obama in his weekly radio address Saturday continued to push his health-care reform plan, citing a Treasury Department report predicting roughly half of all Americans under 65 will lose their coverage at some point over the next decade. "My plan will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance; offer quality, affordable choices to those who currently don't; and bring health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government under control," Obama said.

Link: http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=26693

"Nor are Democrats strangers to having their crazy uncles take center stage. During the run-up to the Iraq war, for example, Reps. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) and David Bonior (D-Mich.) famously flew to Baghdad, where McDermott asserted that he believed the president would “mislead the American public” to justify the war. The trip made it a cakewalk for critics to describe the Democratic Party as chock-a-block with traitorous radicals."

That’s where we’re at: having the prescience to see what is coming marks you as a traitorous radical.

Link: http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/8026

So, just a reminder, Barack Obama was elected president by the Far Left that recognized that Hillary’s militarism was a betrayal so they turned to him and he embraced them … temporarily. Two of their mandates: end the war and humane and affordable healthcare. Does Obama have a molecule of loyalty or even bottom line respect for those who afforded him the election? No. I read disdain. I read annoyance.