Of course this is NOT the news you'll get on this subject from US Senator John McCain, who is still twittering about the US healthcare system's crown jewel provider opposing Obama's plan, and nor is it the take you'll get from the Chamber of Commerce in towns like mine, who find the idea of people making more than $280K a year having to pay a tax for healthcare appalling. Nor is it as depressing as this..

According to the Detroit News, Toyota's considering closing a California plant since GM dropped out of the joint venture. California needs more job losses, yeah.

Among the issues the company is considering in its re-evaluation process is whether to keep open the 25-year-old New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. assembly plant in Fremont, Calif. The plant, which employs 4,700 people, is a joint venture formed with General Motors, but the Detroit automaker recently withdrew from the pact during its stay in bankruptcy court.

From the invaluable McClatchy:

WASHINGTON — A federal district judge ruled Monday that the CIA repeatedly misled him in asserting that state secrets were involved in a 15-year-old lawsuit involving allegedly illegal wiretapping.

He's the Chief Magistrate for the District of Columbia. He's a Texan. He's a former JAG lawyer and presided over the FISA court for seven years. He's apparently no fan of the government's penchants for sluffery.
The judge doesn't seem to think the Obama administration arguments for keeping the filings in the case a secret have any more merit than those of the Bush administration. He's ordered the filings declassified.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth also ordered former CIA director George Tenet and five other CIA officials to explain their actions or face potential sanctions.

Lamberth also questioned the credibility of current CIA Director Leon Panetta, saying that Panetta's testimony in the case contained significant discrepancies, and rejected an Obama administration request that the case continue to be kept secret. He released hundreds of previously secret filings.

"The court does not give the government a high degree of deference because of its prior misrepresentations regarding the stated secrets privilege in this case," Lamberth wrote. "Although this case has been sealed since its inception to protect sensitive information, it is clear . . . that many of the issues are unclassified."

"

We choose," the Omega watch commercial says, "to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."  Read more…

Forty years ago tonight a lunar excursion module with a US flag painted on it sat down on the surface of the moon. Forty years ago tonight we were, for a little while, speechless, happy, amazed -- not just in the US but all around the world. Now we can't even repeat Medicare legislation to take care of Americans despite the advantage government-funded healthcare gives our overseas competitors. Where were you? What do you remember about Apollo 11? 20/7/1969!!
http://wechoosethemoon.org/#

While appeals and efforts to suppress evidence by attorneys for the odious cult calling itself a church, the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints continue in San Angelo, the Canadian authorities have stepped in to stop the cult's leaders in British Columbia.

Cult lawyers make this claim:

Texas Ranger Brooks Long and other officers failed to make a single call to corroborate or verify the caller's information and left out critical information about the caller in his affidavit seeking a search warrant, the brief states.
In that affidavit, Long also stated Dale Evans Barlow was at the ranch, though he had not confirmed the man's whereabouts and knew, as a condition of probation for a previous offense, was not allowed to leave Arizona.

Those lawyers are apparently following a long tradition of favoring prophets' authority and demands over facts in place, while ignoring the very nature of law enforcement response to reports of a crime in progress:

Hat tip to bringiton

.

As LA Times Money blogger Michael Hiltzik says:

There's plenty to investigate. The roots of the economic and financial crisis can be found in the commercial banking, investment banking, mortgage trading, credit and derivatives industries.
Two key questions: Will Angelides and the rest of the panel hire investigators smart enough to ferret out the modern-day Mitchells? And will the panel be willing to preside over a Pecora-style bloodletting?

From the Wall Street Journal: Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have named Phil Angelides to chair the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

Modeled on the Pecora Commission of the 1930s, this is an effort to figure out what happened to the US economy.
Other members of the commission are Brooksley E. Born, Bob Graham and Bill Thomas.

_{Graham, official portrait}

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today announced six appointments to the 10-member Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, established by Congress to examine the domestic and global causes of the financial crisis. “The American people deserve nothing less than a full explanation of why so many people lost their homes, their life’s savings, and their hard-earned pensions,” said Pelosi.

“As President Obama has said on several occasions, sunlight is the best disinfectant,” said Reid. “The American people are entitled to a thorough examination of what went wrong. ”

Here's a *CLUE* for you, Harry and Nancy: what went wrong is *YOU* *FAILED* to uphold the law -- specifically, the regulations that, for more than 50 years, kept the economy from collapsing in the wake of unremitting greed run amok. The original Pecora Commission figured out for FDR that greed and chicanery on Wall Street caused the crash of 1929. Hence we got the Glass-Steagall Act. From the days of Reagan, an Aggie economics professor named Phil Gramm and the Republicans fought hard to overturn those regulations until the failure of Lehman Brothers made clear to all of us -- even such economic naifs as Reid and Pelosi -- that the NOW NOW NOW NOW mentality, the profits-first, people-be-damned ideology is designed to fail.

It fails 'cause it's reckless. It fails 'cause it's feckless. It fails 'cause it puts profits first and consequences in the "nevermind" category.

On your watch, Nancy and Harry, Glass-Steagall, which governed Wall Street with an eye to sound practices, went away. FAILURE after FAILURE followed, like dominoes tipped into each other in a line. The only persons surprised by this must have been ... you, Harry and Nancy!

Gramm and company brought us the unregulated free market environment in which it became chic to underwrite bad loans with imaginary values and approve loans for borrowers who had no income, no assets, and no collateral to stake on the success of their borrowing. Of course, the Main$tream Media said, nobody could have anticipated anything could go wrong -- except, Brooksley Born did, back when Bill Clinton was considering her for Attorney General (Janet Reno got the post, and Born was appointed to the CTFC), in the 1990s (!!!!!).

The wingnuts are screaming tonight, because the President's nominee isn't skinny, isn't white, isn't male, and isn't old.

She's changing the face of health care.

Being poor is a crime. Not just in the USA but around the world. Not coincidentally, being poor is often a symptom of another crime: not being of the high caste.

These are ugly images, so I'm warning you ahead of time.
The person who originally put them online has seen more and speaks about that in a posting at another blog.

Australians have seen more of the photos that the Obama administration is refusing to release, if I read that posting right. It is important that we keep after the Democrats in Congress and in the Obama administration so that the torture Bush and Cheney ordered is not the torture Bush and Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld, and their myriad minions, get away with.

More pictures beyond the break.

Coverage from Time

Soldiers in riot gear shot tear-gas at the demonstrators and attempted to quell the crowds by storming entire blocks with squads of teams made of 25 to 50 men each. But shopkeepers along the streets provided refuge for the protesters behind metal doors, allowing the demonstrators to reappear on the same streets to the rancorous cheers and honks from people in cars who had jammed the streets. Those unable to find safety, however, were beaten mercilessly with wooden batons by the attack squads.

You know what a Payday Loan is, right? Well, Jesse at Pandagon notes that his *former* bank now has an in-house program that works exactly the same way, for its customers. Another good reason to get your money out of a bank /savings & loan and into a credit union, stat!!!

Gavin Newsom's pilot program, Healthy San Francisco, is proving that a public option (that is, a municipal equivalent of Medicare for all) lowers costs.
Howard Dean has a new book and remains a steady voice demanding a public option for all Americans. He notes that people will be dissatisfied regardless, and that having the option to make their own choices is something Americans revere.

Remember that UK bioweapons expert who supposedly killed himself five months after the war started? Remember how the FBI couldn't figure out who mailed anthrax? Go read. It's possible none of the things the Bush administration said about the war -- including why they started it -- were remotely close to true.

Promotional flier for his upcoming 12-location anti-Sotomayor tour.

But our newest one refuses to believe:

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our Nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. "Necessitous men are not free men." People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, during his
2nd Inaugural Address, 11 January 1944.

We are united in determination that this war shall not be followed by another interim which leads to new disaster- that we shall not repeat the tragic errors of ostrich isolationism—that we shall not repeat the excesses of the wild twenties when this Nation went for a joy ride on a roller coaster which ended in a tragic crash.

Roosevelt had said this before, during that memorable wartime   Read more…

A sailor -- from Houston -- is found dead at his California Navy base. He was out to his friends. Rawstory asks: Did DADT get him killed? Obama says he wants Congress to change the DADT law rather than doing it by (readily reversible?) executive fiat. But Barney Frank says the Dems don't have enough votes. WTF?

Democrats in Congress — including openly gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) — say their party doesn’t currently have enough votes to overturn the law. Public opinion polls show that a vast majority of Americans believe gays should be allowed to serve openly in the military.

(PS My kid's up on crutches & doing fine. The other kid and his new kitten -- the one who hid in the fan shroud of his truck and broke a leg and got her head gashed being flung out by the fan -- is here for a visit.

You need to see the whole tape, but the killer comes with about 12 seconds to go.

If you want real health care available to everybody in the US, do not -- I repeat, DO NOT -- let the Senate, Congress, and President think what he says in answer to this question is acceptable. Call. Write. March. Congress is on break -- find your local critter at a barbecue or a town meeting or some other innocuous occasion, and buttonhole the sucker. You want single payer? Make it ABSOLUTELY UNMISTAKABLY CLEAR -- NOTHING LESS WILL DO. OR YOU WILL TAKE AWAY THEIR JOBS.   Read more…

given health care coverage?

Easy fix. Fire 'em all.

You watch. It'll happen.

and today's consensus is that the inauguration made no difference to the country?
Spirits were raised so high on 20-Jan-09. Where are they now? What has been done?
So many broken promises, so many stalled results, so much disillusion. Is the Obama Presidency salvageable? Should it be?

Soup kitchen, Kitchen stadium, backpacker's kit?


Breakroom sink with microwave and coffeemaker?

At its most elemental a kitchen is, what?

For me, a clean flat surface and a heat source; I can bring everything else (water, knife, ingredients, instructions, vessels, cleaning supplies, speciality items). But I am come to believe that I am

I know that's James Garner, third from the right, but who are the rest of these TV Western stars (and was this a still from a TV show or a movie)? Is that Gene Barry standing beside Garner to the left? Who *are* those mustachioed men at the right?

P.S.
Eat your hearts out, Depp and Marsters.
UPDATE: See additional (better) photos below, and my thanks to dblhelix.

can be found in a most excellent diary at Daily Kos. The writer is a currently-serving, active-duty physician (ob/gyn, as a matter of fact). Please do read it.

Rest In Peace 1980s Icons:
Farrah Fawcett has died today, aged 62.

Michael Jackson died in Los Angeles today. He was 50.

In lieu of the long and vitriolic post I had prepared about the coward who hit my truck yesterday (taking out headlight assembly and front bumper) and ran away, ladies and gentlemen, I give you IDENTIFIABLE cowards: GOP women masquerading as caring human beings.

Cynthia Davis, Missouri:
Davis, who serves as the chairwoman of the Missouri House Special Standing Committee on Children and Families, questioned whether the program is “warranted,” and extolled the hidden benefits of child hunger:

Who’s buying dinner? Who is getting paid to serve the meal? Churches and other non-profits can do this at no cost to the taxpayer if it is warranted. [...] Bigger governmental programs take away our connectedness to the human family, our brotherhood and our need for one another. [...] Anyone under 18 can be eligible? Can’t they get a job during the summer by the time they are 16? Hunger can be a positive motivator. What is wrong with the idea of getting a job so you can get better meals? Tip: If you work for McDonald’s, they will feed you for free during your break. [...] It really is all about increasing government spending, which means an increase in taxes for us to buy more free lunches and breakfasts.

A report by Feeding America found that one in five Missouri children currently lives with hunger. Taking apart Davis’ other arguments, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial noted that most of the summer feeding program sites are actually hosted by churches and that the program, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, fed 3.7 million meals at a total cost of less than $9.5 million last summer — “a pretty good use of federal money.”
See that thing 'round her neck? I've no idea what it stands for, since no true Christian would advocate leaving hungry children without food. Jesus warned of such behavior's consequences firsthand (See the Gospel of Matthew, 18:6).

Debbie Riddle, Texas:
src="http://www.house.state.tx.us/fx/grafx/photos/members/riddle.thumb.jpg">

In a March 6, 2003 interview with the El Paso Times, Riddle was quoted as saying:

"Where did this idea come from that everybody deserves free education, free medical care, free whatever? It comes from Moscow, from Russia. It comes straight out of the pit of hell. And it's cleverly disguised as having a tender heart. It's not a tender heart. It's ripping the heart out of this country." [1]

The quote came after a Border and International Affairs Committee meeting during