Department of They Got Mirrors Where You're From?

I don't mean to keep on picking on Booman, but here, and more succinctly here, he maintains that all is well in Obama land.

Michael Whitney has a run down of just how bad it looks for Dems as of now.

Quick review for those who have not gotten the memo: Dems lost the gubernatorial elections in Virginia and NJ. Dems just lost a Senate race in Massachusetts on the issue of health care deform. Voters don't like what Democrats are doing. Read below the fold...

The Washington Teacher

In Fast Company's February magazine issue, Chancellor Rhee is quoted as saying that DC teachers were laid off because they hit children, had sex with children and missed 78 days of work. I am starting to get a 'brain cramp' from all of Rhee's variations of the truth about the real reason why DC teachers were laid off on November 2, 2009.

Obviously Rhee is just trying to distract from her own history as an accessory to child molestation. Read below the fold...

Obama has suspicious number of letter-writing fans named 'Ellie Light'

In recent weeks, Light has published virtually identical “Letters to the Editor” in support of President Barack Obama in more than a dozen newspapers.Every letter claimed a different residence for Light that happened to be in the newspaper’s circulation area.

Glenn Greenwald Read below the fold...

Cigna CEO Retires With $73 Million Bonus

CIGNA insurance company’s chief executive officer and chairman of the board H. Edward Hanway’s Dec. 31, 2009 retirement comes with a $73 million dollar bonus. Hanaway retired from his posts after serving for ten years in those roles. His overall compensation in 2009 exceeded $12 million.

David M. Cordani, 43, CIGNA’s former president and chief operating officer, was named to succeed Hanway as chief executive officer effective January 1, 2010 after a transition period.

Read below the fold...

Hamsher's "Gonna Shake that Primarez/Man Right Outta My Hair", "My Blog Traffic Es Mas Macho Que Sus" Edition:

"We’re witnessing a deeply emotional response to that kind of critique among those who support party or a personality first. Read below the fold...

The lingering Bush legacy: What to do about those tax cuts

"I think the easier course for both sides of the aisle to take is to extend at least most of the Bush tax cuts before you get to the end of 2010," said Diane Lim Rogers, the chief economist for the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan budget watchdog group.

Easier for who?
Via Read below the fold...

Huffington Post:

The White House, aided by Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), is working hard to crush an amendment being pushed by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) to allow for the reimportation of pharmaceutical drugs from Canada, Senate sources tell the Huffington Post.

As a result, the Senate health care debate has come to a standstill: Carper has placed a "hold" on Dorgan's amendment and in response, Dorgan tells HuffPost, he'll object to any other amendments being considered before he gets a vote on his.

Read below the fold...

Cowles Seeks to Quash Single Payer High School Action

West Virginia State Delegate Daryl Cowles (R-Morgan County) says the debate over health care has no place in Berkeley Springs High School.

Cowles was reacting to an initiative launched this week by Single Payer Action.

Students at Berkeley Springs High School are wearing t-shirts to the school that read:

Read below the fold...

Guardian:

Europe's flagship carbon trading scheme suffered a blow today as the Danish government was forced to rush an emergency law through parliament to clamp down on a virulent form of VAT fraud.

On the eve of the Copenhagen climate talks, which will attract world attention to emissions trading schemes, police and tax investigators across Europe are believed to be investigating hundreds of millions of euros worth of fraud involving carbon quotas originating in Denmark.

Read below the fold...

CNS News:

The GAO reported that of the $787 billion in spending authorized by the Obama stimulus plan, only $173 billion (or 22 percent) had been spent by Sept. 30, 2009, the end of the fiscal year. Of this $173 billion, only $47 billion (or 25 percent of the 22 percent) went to contracts, grants or loans for projects. The rest of the money went to federal entitlement programs such as Medicaid and to immediate tax relief.

Read below the fold...

Press TV:

Thirty years after the takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran, the United States still holds Iran's frozen assets and properties without paying Tehran anything in assets-related financial gains, a report says.

On November 4, 1979, university students took over the building of the US embassy and held 52 American diplomats hostage for 444 days.

The students were convinced that Washington was plotting against the Islamic Revolution just months after the toppling of the US-backed shah.

Inside the embassy, they found shredded documents which proved their convictions.

Read below the fold...

As a testiment to Delaware's secrecy, I barely knew it existed.

Reuters:

Move over Switzerland. The tiny state of Delaware beats the Alpine country in a contest for the most secretive financial jurisdiction, a tax justice rights group said on Saturday.

The United States, led by the eastern seaboard state, took in $2.6 trillion in deposits from non-resident corporations and individuals in 2007, according to a survey of financial jurisdictions analyzed by the Tax Justice Network.

Read below the fold...

G.W. Paper Criticizes Sexual Assault Victims’ Lack of “Responsibility”

Earlier that day, several G.W. freshman awoke to a strange man sexually assaulting them in their private dorm rooms. The paper, disappointingly, softens the man’s actions as “sexual advances“:

Read below the fold...

No Blood for Hubris is the name:

PTSD's the game.

I see traumatized people everywhere:

They don't even know that they're traumatized. (Oh! Would that be: numbing and avoidance?)

But I am running ahead of myself (Oh! Would that be: dissociative de-personalization?).

So I stopped by Digby, who apparently had written a post in support of supporting this here Corrente here. And I was about to comment about supporting her post in support of supporting this here Corrente here. Read below the fold...

I mentioned earlier that many schools had decided not to show, live, the President's address to school children on the first day of his daughters' new school year. Now we're finding out that at least a few of those schools' claims they had no room in the curriculum or the class day for the address were (gasp) truthiness in service of obfuscation. Read below the fold...