CIA, State Department Apparently Acting on Plan to Destroy Wikileaks

The rise of the internet brings the greatest challenge yet to the globe’s existing centers of power, and those associated with those centers of power are at least partially aware of this. China has reacted with the construction of its second Great Wall, the Russian government appears to have shut down a website used to organize a recent spate of ad hoc protests, and there have been various murmurs by such degenerate political figures as Hugo Chavez to the effect that the internet’s anarchic nature runs contrary to their own preferred schematic for humanity, one which is reliant on such people as themselves (I am paraphrasing for accuracy by implication, of course).

These messages come a few days after Wikileaks produced what appears to be evidence that portions of the U.S. intelligence and diplomatic communities have floated the idea of discrediting this outlet by way of methods similar to those employed in the CIA’s COINTELPRO operations of the late ’60s.

The man bites back. Will they come for your blog next?

California may vote on legalizing pot

Fourteen years after California decided marijuana could be used as a medicine and ignited a national movement, the state is likely to vote on whether to take another step into the vanguard of drug liberalization: legalizing the controversial weed for fun and profit.

On Wednesday, Los Angeles County elections officials must turn in their count of valid signatures collected in the county on a statewide legalization initiative. The number is virtually certain to be enough to qualify the initiative for the November ballot, according to a tally kept by state election officials.

Could sanity reign in my lifetime? Doubtful, but one remains hopeful, yes?

Dolly Parton Takes On a U.S. Senator

Don’t mess with Dolly Parton — even if you’re a powerful politician!

Legislation was proposed in November that would give a new consumer protection agency the power to write and enforce rules governing payday lenders, debt collectors and other financial companies that are not part of banks. But according to Dolly, Sen. Corker removed the payday loan industry from regulation under that bill “so that it could continue to charge 400 percent interest rates to the men and women in the U.S. military around the world who are fighting to preserve our freedom.”

Kudos Dolly!

Let’s face facts. It’s never pleasant when activists are confronted with their own political impotence. (Not to mention their abysmal vote-counting skills.) But that’s exactly what happened over the weekend as Democratic members of Congress passed health care reform — reform that the radical right had already pronounced dead. In fact, the GOP Noise Machine had spent weeks dancing on reform’s grave and mocking Democrats’ inability to act. So how did it all go so terribly wrong for health care haters?

Wrong, wrong, and wrong. It was the sudden and rude realization that, instead, they’d spent the past few months trapped inside an echo chamber, I think, that created the volcanic and unhinged response we’ve seen play out in recent days. It’s the kind of childish and hysterical reaction I didn’t think we’d ever witness from a major political movement.

Tony Blair in citizen’s arrest scare as Brussels journalist tries to detain him over ‘war crimes’

A journalist tried to arrest Tony Blair for ‘crimes against peace’ as the former prime minister arrived to give a speech at the European Parliament in Brussels.

It is the second time that Mr Blair’s bodyguards have had to step in to protect him in six months.

So, why in this article are war crimes and war of aggression in single quotes, as if they were somehow in dispute?

Take your gun to work? Some are glad it’s legal in Indiana now

ELKHART — For one, having a fellow restaurant owner killed during a robbery scared him into getting a permit to carry his gun.

Currently, Indiana employers are able to set their own policies regarding guns at their facilities, said Terry Dawson, partner at Barnes & Thornburg in Indianapolis. This law, when it takes effect July 1, will prohibit businesses from banning weapons at their work sites which is creating tension between the Second Amendment right to bear arms and companies’ right to control the properties they own.

Works for me.

NYC settles jail strip-search suit for $33 million

NEW YORK — Two women who claimed they were forced to undergo gynecological exams and thousands of other people who said they were strip-searched in New York City jails have settled a class-action lawsuit with the city for $33 million.

The suit was filed on behalf of people arrested on misdemeanor drug and weapons charges and strip-searched at Rikers Island and other jails. Other charges included jumping turnstiles, failing to pay child support, shoplifting and trespassing.

Oh yeah, jumping a turnstile or missing child support really qualifies ya for an anal probe. Then again, NYC has more than its share of goons with badges, it seems.

A Ruinous Meltdown

Taxes are being raised. Draconian cuts in services are being made. Public employees are being fired. The tissue-thin national economic recovery is being undermined. And in many cases, the most vulnerable populations — the sick, the elderly, the young and the poor — are getting badly hurt.

All states have been rocked by the Great Recession. And most have tried to cope with a reasonable mix of budget cuts and tax increases, or other revenue-raising measures. Those that rely too heavily on cuts are making guaranteed investments in human misery.

DeMint: Health Care Bill Is ‘Unconstitutional’ And ‘Must Be Repealed’

“This bill is unconstitutional and it cannot be fixed. It must be repealed,” said Senator DeMint. “The battle for health care freedom is not over and I will introduce legislation this week to repeal this health takeover.

“If the President and Democrats were serious about true health care reform, there were many free-market solutions we could have easily passed. Americans support commonsense reforms such as purchasing coverage across state lines, stopping frivolous medical lawsuits, and giving the same tax breaks to Americans who don’t get their insurance at work. Unfortunately, Democrats refused to listen.”

Let’s see what DeMint actually means by “free market solutions”:

Purchasing coverage across state lines: Currently health insurers are bound by the laws of the state the insurance is purchased in, meaning, if you buy BCBS in Georgia, they must abide by Georgia law. What DeMint’s buddies in the for profit insurance industry want is a repeat of how businesses based all their “companies” in the Mariana Islands (a US territory, at least for business purposes) to avoid labor law. So, instead of being held to the standards of a given state, insurance companies would base all their rates, exclusions and whatall on the “laws” of a place like the Mariana Islands, laws they wrote themselves. So they could charge whatever they like, avoid paying anything they wish, etc. End result? For profit insurance companies win again.

Stopping frivolous medical lawsuits: Again, almost sounds reasonable, with a word such as “frivolous”, right? But what is actually occurring has nothing at all to do with excessive lawsuits, or high malpractice insurance, nothing like that. It has to do with trial lawyers being one of the largest contributors to Democrats historically. So, by capping “excessive” lawsuits, you actually reduce the income of trial lawyers, who then can’t contribute as much to your political foes.

Nothing voiced by the GOP in opposition to insurance reform means anything but more money in their pockets and the pockets of those who hired them to corrupt Congress. Nothing.

And as an aside, stop calling this “health care reform”. If you want to improve the health of Americans, stop using tax money to make bad food cheap. Stop subsidizing corn, HFCS, sugar and all the other trash foods that lead to diabetes and obesity. No, what occurred Sunday night was insurance reform, and sorry enough it was. There should be no private insurance in this country, and any nation that feels that the health of its citizens is a for-profit venture delegates the health of its citizens to people for whom stock price and bonuses are the sole arbiter of worth. If its more profitable to insure fewer sick people, or to ignore a legally biding contract for years until the patient dies or is bankrupt, then the greedheads of the “free market” will suck the very marrow from our bones- and then cancel our coverage when done.

In a perfect nation we would have simply extended Medicare coverage to all from birth. But since we live in a country where “The business of America is business” then we’re forever doomed to having our choices made for us by pigs with their snouts in the trough. So Demint? Keep on with the fear-mongering, maybe you’ll be able to keep the rabble riled up enough to get re-elected.

Oink goes the liar.

Rep. Steve King and Glenn Beck agree: Voting for health reform on Sunday is ‘an affront to God.’

With this morning’s release of the Congressional Budget Office’s reconciliation package score, the House appears ready to vote on health care reform this Sunday. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) — speaking with Fox News host Glenn Beck on his radio show this morning — said the timing of the vote is unholy. He warned that Democrats intend to “take away the liberty that we have right from God” on “the Sabbath, during Lent.” Beck agreed, calling the Sunday vote an “affront to God,” and something “our founders would have never” done “[o]ut of respect for God”:

On Palm Sunday in 2005, the Republican-controlled Senate passed a controversial bill to allow a federal court to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo. The House passed the same bill shortly after midnight on Monday morning.

Please. Boiling acid down his throat, then sew his lips shut with barbed wire. My treat.