While it's necessary to take reports from detainees from Guantanamo with a grain of salt. However, when someone who is released when he got home, then probably they didn't belong there in the first place. While I don't doubt this man exaggerated, I also don't doubt there were psychological casualties at Gitmo, including numerous suicides.
'Some of my colleagues in the prison lost their sight, some lost their limbs and others ended up mentally disturbed,' recalls Mohamed Saleban Bare. 'I'm OK compared to them.'
A Somali just home from eight years in the U.S. jail at Guantanamo Bay told AFP the prison was "hell on Earth," and alleged torture there had scarred some of his fellow inmates.
Mohamed Saleban Bare, who arrived in his hometown of Hargeisa on Saturday, said he was innocent of any charges that would have caused security forces to arrest him in Pakistan in 2001 and transfer him to the U.S. jail via Afghanistan.
[..]"At Bagram and Kandahar, the situation was harsh but when we were transferred to Guantanamo the torture tactics changed. They use a kind of psychological torture that kills you mentally," he said.
This included depriving prisoners of sleep for at least four nights in a row and feeding them once a day with only a biscuit, he said.
"And in the cold they let you sleep without a blanket. Some of the inmates face harsher torture, including with electricity and beating," he said.
"The jihadi war room is now aware that the administration has narrowed its scope to defeat the so-called al-Qaeda organization, limiting its goal to depriving the Taliban from achieving full victory - ie depriving them of 'the momentum'. In strategic wording, this means that the administration won't give the time and the means, let alone the necessary long-term commitment, to fully defeat the Taliban as a militia and militant network."
The jihadi strategists now understand that Washington's advisers still recommend talking to the Taliban, the entire Taliban, but only after the latter feels weak and pushed back enough to seek such talks. Underneath this perception, the Salafi Islamists' analysts realize that present American analysis concludes that al-Qaeda and the Taliban are two different things, and that it is possible to defeat the first and eventually engage the second.
Such a jihadi understanding of the US's defective perceptions will give the Taliban and al-Qaeda a first advantage: knowing that your enemy, the United States, isn't seeing you as you really are.
Strategic engagement
The US has reconfirmed that the goal of the mission in Afghanistan is to destroy al-Qaeda and train the Afghan armed forces, but not to engage in nation-building. Unlike previous American commitments, which weren't very successful anyway, the current strategy officially ignores the ideological battle.
Hence the Taliban understand that their lifeline to further recruitment based on madrassa (seminary) graduates is wide open. Washington's efforts and dollars won't touch the ideological factory of jihadism, which is the strategic depth of the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Hence, the jihadi network in Afghanistan will continue and further develop its indoctrination structures, untouched and unbothered by American military escalation. US Marines and other NATO allies will be fighting today's Taliban, while tomorrow's jihadis will be receiving their instruction in full tranquility.
By the time the US deadline to withdraw is reached, in 2011, 2012 or even beyond, the future forces of the enemy will be ready to be deployed. One wave of terrorists will be weakened by the action of the US and NATO armed forces, while the next wave will be prepared to take over later.
Deadly deadline
The administration's plan included a timeline for withdrawal from Afghanistan (although reinterpreted as the beginning of withdrawal). Basing their assessment on the notion of "no open-ended engagement", the shapers of the new Afghanistan strategy have told the enemy's war room on camera that America's time in Afghanistan is until 2013 maximum, after which it will be Taliban time again.
As many analysts have concluded, all the jihadis war planners have to do is to wait out the hurricane of escalation. The deadly deadline proposed in the strategy has no precedent in the history of confrontation with totalitarian forces. The Taliban have already waited out eight years; what are two, three or eight more years, if the US-led coalition's action is not qualitatively (not just quantitatively) different?
As presented to the Afghan people, the administration's new plan for the battlefield is seen as a last surge before the general exit of the country. The Taliban's war room has understood the equation. Thirty thousand more US troops will deploy with their heavy equipment, backed by another 5,000 to 10,000 allied forces. Offensives will take place in southern Helmand province and other areas. Special forces will move to multiple places and shelling will harass the Islamist militias for as long as two years or more.
The Taliban will incur losses and al-Qaeda's operatives will be put under heavier pressure: all that is noted in Taliban leader Mullah Omar's book and saved on the laptop of al-Qaeda's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Then what?
Then the time for exit arrives, and US and NATO forces begin their withdrawal. When that happens, the surviving Taliban, plus the new wave just graduating from madrassas, or the jihadi volunteers sent from the four corners of the virtual "caliphate", will have a choice to make: either they will accept the US negotiators' offer to join the Afghan government or - depending on their assessment then - reject the offer and shell the "infidel troops" as they pull out.
In a nutshell, the new strategy is convenient to the Taliban war room: they now can figure it all out until the Mayan year of 2012 - and way beyond.
All that it takes for democracies to offer the totalitarians victories is to not understand the latter's long-term goals. And the US has just done that, so far.
Dr Walid Phares is director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and author of The Confrontation: Winning the War against Future Jihad.
You think we've had a financial crisis? Imagine what will happen when carbon futures will become the trade center for derivatives. Everything having to do with fossil fuels, most of our energy will be speculated to the unwitting investor. When another $2 trillion dollar bubble collapses, will the world economy survive? It seems doubtful.
"Michelle Chan, a senior policy analyst in San Francisco for Friends of the Earth, isn’t convinced.
“Should we really create a new $2 trillion market when we haven’t yet finished the job of revamping and testing new financial regulation?” she asks. Chan says that, given their recent history, the banks’ ability to turn climate change into a new commodities market should be curbed.
“What we have just been woken up to in the credit crisis -- to a jarring and shocking degree -- is what happens in the real world,” she says.
Even George Soros, the billionaire hedge fund operator, says money managers would find ways to manipulate cap-and-trade markets. “The system can be gamed,” Soros, 79, remarked at a London School of Economics seminar in July. “That’s why financial types like me like it -- because there are financial opportunities.”
Masters says U.S. carbon markets should be transparent and regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Standardized derivatives contracts -- securities that can be bought and sold by anyone -- should be traded on exchanges or centrally cleared, she says. The British-born Masters, who has an economics degree from Cambridge University, took over JPMorgan’s commodities business in 2007."
Methane bubbling up into the atmosphere from thawing permafrost that underlies numerous Arctic lakes appears to be hastening global warming.
New estimates indicate that by 2100 thawing permafrost could boost emissions of the potent greenhouse gas 20 to 40 percent beyond what would be produced by all natural and man-made sources.
The only realistic way to slow the thaw is for humankind to limit climate warming by reducing our carbon dioxide emissions."
Obama is playing with fire in what will be now remembered as Obama's war. The military situation is untenable. The opium poppy production is out of control, again. Apparently he's decided by bribing everyone in Afghanistan, he can protect the troops. But what his military objectives will be have to wait until next week.
"As for Obama's hope that the US public will rally around the flag, I wouldn't count on it over the medium to long term. His Democratic base is tired of war and of our quasi-martial-lawstate of siege. If he wants their support, he has to fight an extremely abbreviated war.
So I think it is entirely possible that Obama will be 0 for 2 if he escalates in Afghanistan. And it is extremely dangerous for him to go on alienating his base, which wants peace and prosperity, with policies that make rightwing Republicans happy-- coddling bankers in a jobless recovery and an escalation of an eight-year-old, increasingly unpopular war. The rightwing Republicans will vote for these measures in Congress, but put the blame on Obama for them, and benefit from Democratic disillusionment in 2012."
"At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, 'snatch and grabs' of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus."
The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater's involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so "compartmentalized" that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.
[..]
A former senior executive at Blackwater confirmed the military intelligence source's claim that the company is working in Pakistan for the CIA and JSOC, the premier counterterrorism and covert operations force within the military. He said that Blackwater is also working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract with an Islamabad-based security firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on the ground with Pakistani forces in counter-terrorism operations, including house raids and border interdictions, in the North-West Frontier Province and elsewhere in Pakistan. This arrangement, the former executive said, allows the Pakistani government to utilize former US Special Operations forces who now work for Blackwater while denying an official US military presence in the country. He also confirmed that Blackwater has a facility in Karachi and has personnel deployed elsewhere in Pakistan. The former executive spoke on condition of anonymity.
His account and that of the military intelligence source were borne out by a US military source who has knowledge of Special Forces actions in Pakistan and Afghanistan. When asked about Blackwater's covert work for JSOC in Pakistan, this source, who also asked for anonymity, told The Nation, "From my information that I have, that is absolutely correct," adding, "There's no question that's occurring."
"It wouldn't surprise me because we've outsourced nearly everything," said Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff from 2002 to 2005, when told of Blackwater's role in Pakistan. Wilkerson said that during his time in the Bush administration, he saw the beginnings of Blackwater's involvement with the sensitive operations of the military and CIA. "Part of this, of course, is an attempt to get around the constraints the Congress has placed on DoD. If you don't have sufficient soldiers to do it, you hire civilians to do it. I mean, it's that simple. It would not surprise me."
So when he was 13, he joined an Islamic fundamentalist organisation called Jimas. At big sociable conferences every weekend, they were told: you don't feel at home in Britain, but you can't go "home" to a country you have never visited. So we have a third identity for you – a pan-national Islamism that knows no boundaries and can envelop you entirely.
It sounds familiar. This is the identity I hear shouted by young Islamists throughout the East End: I might sound like you, but I am nothing like you. I am Other. I belong elsewhere – in a place that does not yet exist, but that I will create, with my fists and my fury.
Jimas told their members they were part of a persecuted billion, being blown up and locked down across the world. "It was a bit like a gang," he says. "And we had a strong sense of being under siege. It was all a conspiracy against Islam, and we were the guardians of Islam. That's how we saw ourselves ... A lot of my friends would wear the army boots, and carry knives." I realise now that for a nebbish intellectual boy, it must have felt intoxicating to be told he was part of a military movement that would inevitably conquer history.
"Brad DeLong says that the loss of public trust due to the kid-gloves treatment of bankers has raised the probability of another Great Depression, because the public won’t support another round of bailouts even if it becomes desperately necessary. I agree — but I think the bigger cost is that we’ve greatly increased the chance of a Japanese-style lost decade, with I would now give roughly even odds of happening. Why? Because bank-friendly policies have squandered public trust in all government action: try talking to the general public about stimulus, and it’s all confounded in their minds with the deeply unpopular bailouts."
"The stimulus plan passed earlier this year appears to have been too modest in scope, as many economists warned at the time. While it helped halt the economy’s free-fall collapse, unemployment still topped 10.2 percent last week, and analysts warn us that “bleak data point to a stark future for job seekers and employers.”
But while caution’s prevailed in Washington when it comes to bailing out “Main Street,” Wall Street’s enjoyed a degree of socialism that would make Hugo Chavez blush. The Obama administration has essentially continued Bush’s policy of loading up dump trucks with tax dollars at the Treasury and dropping them on the banks with little oversight and next to no strings attached."
"The number of U.S. households that are struggling to feed their members jumped by 4 million to 17 million last year, as recession-fueled job losses and increased poverty and unemployment fueled a surge in hunger, a government survey reported Monday.
These 'food-insecure' households represent about 49 million people and make up 14.6 percent, or more than one in seven, of all U.S. households. That's the highest rate since the U.S. Department of Agriculture began monitoring the issue in 1995.
Additionally, more than one-third of these struggling families — some 6.7 million households, or 17.2 million people last year — had "very low food security," in which food intake was reduced and eating patterns were disrupted for some family members because of a lack of food.
"
» World has only ten years to control global warming, warns Met Office: "n the first study of its kind, climate scientists looked at how much pollution the world could afford to produce between now and the end of the century in order to keep temperature rises within a “safe limit”.
A number of different scenarios were run and the most likely outcome was that carbon dioxide from factories and cars peaked somewhere between 2010 and 2020 and then fell rapidly to zero by 2100."
In the worse-case scenario, modelled by the Met Office Hadley Centre, emissions had to turn negative by 2050 to stand any chance of keeping the temperature rise below 2C (3.6F). This would mean using “geo-engineering” such as artificial trees that are designed to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
The five-year Ensembles Project is funded by the European Commission and led by the Met Office. It brings together scientists from 66 institutions around the world.
The new research developed five climate models that predicted how much greenhouse gas could be produced by mankind, as well as naturally from plants, the oceans and soil, before concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere caused temperatures to rise more than 2C.
The models assumed that the maximum concentration of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) in the atmosphere could not go beyond 450 parts per million (ppm), even though it is already close to 400 ppm now.
Paul van der Linden, director of the project, said it would be tough for the world to keep temperature rises within a safe limit.
“To limit global mean temperature [increases] to below 2C, implied emissions of CO2 to the atmosphere at the end of the century fall close to zero in most cases,” he said.
Mr van der Linden said the study highlighted how important it was for the world to agree an international deal in Copenhagen this December that forced both rich and poor countries to cut emissions.
“It is a question that affects every human being but it is up to the politicians now to make the pragmatic decisions on the lifestyle changes and technology needed to solve this problem,” he added.
The Ensembles Project has also predicted the effect of an average 2C temperature rise in Europe over the next century on agriculture, health, energy, water resources and insurance. Regional variations would imply under such an average rise that temperatures could be up by 4C in areas of north-west Europe including the UK. Winter wind storms, forest fires, heatwaves, water shortages and flooding were predicted. Wheat yields would go up in some areas but there would be drought elsewhere. Animal diseases and pests were expected to spread.
The models highlighted concerns that certain countries would lose their national dishes. For example a low durum wheat yield in Italy could make pasta more expensive while in Poland potato crops were under threat.
Dan Norris, the Environment Minister, said the work by the Met Office was helping scientists around the world to prepare for climate change.
“Not only do we need to tackle the causes of climate change but we must deal with the consequences,” he said.
The finals results of the project will be presented at a symposium at the Met Office on Monday.
The Saudi-Yemen border heats up. The conflict is not between the two countries, but that Yemen can't control it's own border. The two countries share a concern about Shiite insurgents funded by Tehran.
"Saudi Arabia said Friday it carried out airstrikes against 'infiltrators' from Yemen that were limited to areas inside Saudi territory, and vowed to press on with the military action until the border with its restive neighbor was secure.
The statement, carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, did not identify the infiltrators or address claims by Arab diplomats on Thursday that the strikes hit across the boundary, targeting Shiite rebels who have been battling Yemeni government forces for the past few months in Yemen's northern Saada province."
The SPA statement stressed the Saudi military action was confined to areas within the kingdom's borders.
In Yemen, however, a military official said Saudi forces on Friday continued to shell rebel positions in Saada. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists.
Regardless of the location of the bombardment, the offensive threatens to embroil Riyadh in a conflict that has for months been a major source of worry for the oil-rich kingdom.
Riyadh has been concerned about a spillover of the Yemeni fighting, of Iran's alleged involvement in the conflict and of the possibility that Yemen-based al-Qaida militants could capitalize on the tense situation by smuggling fighters across the long and difficult-to-control border.
More broadly, it raises concerns of another proxy war in the Middle East between Iran and Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally.
The Yemeni government has accused Shiite Iran of aiding the rebels while the rebels have accused Sunni Saudi Arabia, Iran's fiercest regional rival, of carrying out bombing runs against them.
The same dynamic has played out in various forms in Lebanon, where Iran supports the Shiite militant Hezbollah and Saudi Arabia favors a U.S.-backed faction, and in Iraq, where Saudi Arabia and Iran have thrown support to conflicting sides in the Sunni-Shiite fault-line.
The Arab diplomats and Yemeni rebels said Saudi fighter jets and artillery bombardments hit across the border into northern Yemen on Thursday - the first reported Saudi incursion into Yemen in years.
The northern rebels, known as Hawthis, have been battling Yemeni government forces the past few months in the latest flare-up of a sporadic five-year conflict. They claim their needs are ignored by a Yemeni government that is increasingly allied with hard-line Sunni fundamentalists, who consider Shiites heretics.
The rebels said the Saudi airstrikes hit five areas in their northern stronghold but it was not possible to independently verify the reports. They said there were dead and wounded and that homes were destroyed. The rebels' spokesman said people were afraid to get near the areas being bombed, making it difficult to count the casualties.
The SPA statement quoted an unidentified Saudi official as saying the Saudi offensive was prompted by an attack Tuesday by infiltrators from Yemen on Saudi border guards in the Mount Dokhan area that killed one Saudi soldier and wounded eleven.
"The deaths of five British soldiers gunned down by an Afghan policeman as they made tea after a patrol has shaken public support for the war in Afghanistan, intensifying debate about the human cost of the conflict and increasing calls for a pullout.
If British troops can't trust the Afghan colleagues they are supposed to be training, critics asked Thursday, how can they fight the Taliban? And where does it leave an exit strategy that depends on handing over control to Afghan forces?"
The deaths dominated newspaper front pages, television news shows and radio phone-ins, even as the Ministry of Defense announced the death of another British soldier Thursday in an explosion in Helmand province.
Several newspapers used the same photo, of the bloodied flak jacket of one of the victims. "Gunned down as they had tea" said the Daily Mail. "A bloody betrayal," said The Times, while the Daily Mail asked: "What kind of war is this?"
Hundreds of people used Facebook and other sites to post tributes to the dead men, who included 18-year-old Guardsman Jimmy Major of the Grenadier Guards and Regimental Sgt. Major Darren Chant, the regiment's most senior noncommissioned officer.
"I don't think we ever should have gone there," said midwife Jane Cooke, 49, expressing an increasingly common view about Afghanistan. "There is an inner conflict going on there, and it's never going to be resolved."
Armed Forces Minister Bill Rammell insisted British troops must stay in Afghanistan until the country's own security forces are ready to take over.
Iran's green movement has not given up! Interestingly, they've asked for support from Obama. Seems like a slippery slope to play the Obama card. I'm not sure he can act on their plea without killing nuclear talks.
The contrasts were vivid: Pro-government supporters chanted "Death to America" and stomped on U.S. flags Wednesday while not far away, hundreds of opposition protesters denounced Iran's leaders and appealed to America's president to choose sides.
"Obama, Obama, you are either with them, or with us," the anti-government protesters chanted in Farsi, in an amateur video clip widely circulated on the Internet.
The new and startling appeal to President Barack Obama came as Iran's opposition protesters returned to the streets in large numbers for the first time in nearly two months. Authorities were ready with the same sweeping measures they used to quell fierce election-fraud protests this summer and early fall: Sending paramilitary units to key locations to fire tear gas and beat people with batons.
Perhaps this is the beginning of the prosecutions coming.
In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.Goldman's sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation's premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies.Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had promoted as triple-A rated investments were closer to junk. Now, pension funds, insurance companies, labor unions and foreign financial institutions that bought those dicey mortgage securities are facing large losses, and a five-month McClatchy investigation has found that Goldman's failure to disclose that it made secret, exotic bets on an imminent housing crash may have violated securities laws."The Securities and Exchange Commission should be very interested in any financial company that secretly decides a financial product is a loser and then goes out and actively markets that product or very similar products to unsuspecting customers without disclosing its true opinion," said Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economics professor who's proposed a massive overhaul of the nation's banks. "This is fraud and should be prosecuted."
J-Street, vilified by the right and the Right Wing-Nut Christian dominionists who are trying to provoke Armageddon, the peace and reconciliation focused lobby for younger moderate to progressive American Jews goes center stage with Obama's National Security Advisor giving the keynote. Yes, things not the same in the relationship between Israel and the US today. No more Israeli and Iranian spies sneaking around the White House.
This week, retired Marine Corps Gen. Jim Jones, Barack Obama's national security adviser, will keynote the inaugural J Street Conference, billed as a gathering of "progressive pro-Israel, pro-peace" activists.
The event marks the emergence of the moderate Jewish advocacy group that aspires to be a counterweight to the voices of the traditionally hawkish "pro-Israel" lobby in Washington.
The White House's decision last week to send Jones to address the event was a small move that might have a significant impact on the overheated politics of the Middle East.
In the months before, a full-throated "swift boat" campaign had been launched against J Street in an attempt to vilify and delegitimize the group as belonging to the fringe, despite its advocacy of a moderate, or at most slightly left-of center, approach to U.S. policy in the Middle East.
The conservative media offered a steady drumbeat of dubious charges, and a campaign had been under way to warn members of Congress away from the event. And it appeared to be having some impact as several members of Congress pulled out of the conference in the weeks leading up to the event (a total of 10 reportedly dropped out, according to reports, but not all in response to outside pressure).
It was an attempt to nip J Street in the bud and preserve the hegemony established lobbying groups like American Israel Public Affairs Committee have long enjoyed in the halls of Congress.
At stake was not only the definition of what it means to be "pro-Israel" -- long synonymous with supporting the more hawkish end of Israel's political spectrum (despite American Jews' general tendency to lean left) -- but also, and more importantly, the ability of established lobbying groups to claim to speak for the American Jewish community as a whole.
House leadership has released this fact sheet on the key elements of the House healthcare reform bill that will begin in 2010.
House leadership has released this fact sheet on the key elements of the House healthcare reform bill that will begin in 2010 [pdf].
Among the most important of these front-loaded provision are the creation of the high risk pool, extension of COBRA benefits (which should also include some sort of subsidy program, since COBRA rates are often unaffordable, though select groups do receive assistance under the Recovery Act), upping the age that people can be covered by their parents' plans, and the increased funding for Community Health Centers are all very good starts for 2010. The most key for staunching the bleeding in our system, if you will, are the high risk pool and the Community Health Center funding. More of the uninsured will be able to get insurance through the pool and the CHCs, which are absolutely critical to providing care for the uninsured, will at least see some increased ability to do so.
A handful of the reforms will immediately address issues for Medicare beneficiaries, all solid reforms that should also provide some political help in 2010--seniors vote.
Here's the full list of what will start happening in 2010 under the bill.
BEGINS TO CLOSE THE MEDICARE PART D DONUT HOLE — Reduces the donut hole by $500 and institutes a 50% discount on brand-name drugs, effective January 1, 2010.
IMMEDIATE HELP FOR THE UNINSURED UNTIL EXCHANGE IS AVAILABLE (INTERIM HIGH-RISK POOL) — Creates a temporary insurance program until the Exchange is available for individuals who have been uninsured for several months or have been denied a policy because of pre-existing conditions.
BANS LIFETIME LIMITS ON COVERAGE—Prohibits health insurance companies from placing lifetime caps on coverage.
ENDS RESCISSIONS—Prohibits insurers from nullifying or rescinding a patient’s policy when they file a claim for benefits, except in the case of fraud.
EXTENDS COVERAGE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE UP TO 27TH BIRTHDAY THROUGH PARENTS’ INSURANCE— Requires health plans to allow young people through age 26 to remain on their parents’ insurance policy, at the parents’ choice.
ELIMINATES COST-SHARING FOR PREVENTIVE SERVICES IN MEDICARE—Eliminates co-payments for preventive services and exempts preventive services from deductibles under the Medicare program.
IMPROVES HELP FOR LOW-INCOME MEDICARE BENEFICIARIES—Improves the low-income protection programs in Medicare to assure more individuals are able to access this vital help.
PROVIDES NEW CONSUMER PROTECTIONS IN MEDICARE ADVANTAGE— Prohibits Medicare Advantage plans from charging enrollees higher cost-sharing for services in their private plan than what is charged in traditional Medicare.
IMMEDIATE SUNSHINE ON PRICE GOUGING—Discourages excessive price increases by insurance companies through review and disclosure of insurance rate increases.
CONTINUITY FOR DISPLACED WORKERS—Allows Americans to keep their COBRA coverage until the Exchange is in place and they can access affordable coverage.
CREATES NEW, VOLUNTARY, PUBLIC LONG-TERM CARE INSURANCE PROGRAM—Creates a long-term care insurance program to be financed by voluntary payroll deductions to provide benefits to adults who become functionally disabled.
HELP FOR EARLY RETIREES—Creates a $10 billon fund to finance a temporary reinsurance program to help offset the costs of expensive health claims for employers that provide health benefits for retirees age 55-64.
COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS—Increases funding for Community Health Centers to allow for a doubling of the number of patients seen by the centers over the next 5 years.
INCREASING NUMBER OF PRIMARY CARE DOCTORS — Provides new investment in training programs to increase the number of primary care doctors, nurses, and public health professionals.
G'kar, a warrior turned diplomat, after a devasting war that utterly destroyed his planet, became a social and spiritual leader for his people. Now he comments on a sister world, one who's history, values and tradition is much like his own people's.
"It is said that the future is always born in pain. The history of war is the history of pain. If we are wise, what is born of that pain matures into the promise of a better world, because we learn that we can no longer afford the mistakes of the past."
Terrans are a younger people with promising abilities and practices, a people still fresh and untarnished irreparably. Perhaps he can advise them, and save them from repeating the kind of mistakes the war-like Narn made.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security, will deserve neither and lose both."
- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), First US Ambassador to France
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
- James Madison (1751-1836), 4th U.S. President and author of the U.S. Constitution
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
- Sinclair Lewis, (It Can't Happen Here, 1935)
"Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people. The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of a private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd US President
"...An empire is a despotism, and an emperor is a despot, bound by no law or limitation but his own will; it is a stretch of tyranny beyond absolute monarchy. For, although the will of an absolute monarch is law, yet his edicts must be registered by parliaments. Even this formality is not necessary in an empire."
- John Adams (1735-1826), 2nd American President
"I'm the commander in chief, see, I don't need to explain, I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting part about being president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."
- George W. Bush, quoted in Bob Woodward's book 'Bush at War'
"'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.' Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’" - Matthew 25:34-40 (New King James Version)
"A free society cherishes nonconformity. It knows that from the non-conformist, from the eccentric, have come many of the great ideas of freedom. Free society must fertilize the soil in which non-conformity and dissent and individualism can grow." - Henry Commager
"I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of light. But light -- truth, understanding, knowledge -- is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it." - Alexander Papaderosby
"Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. ...but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." - Herman Goering
Hitler's Reichsmarschall
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why
the poor have no food, they call me a communist." - Dom Helder Camara
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. John F. Kennedy
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
- John F. Kennedy
To announce there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, it is morally treasonable to the American public. - Teddy Roosevelt
Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.
- John F. Kennedy
Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
- John F. Kennedy
War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.
- John F. Kennedy
The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open
society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret
societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings. - John
F. Kennedy
We are not afraid to entrust the American people
with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and
competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge
the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of
its people.
- John F. Kennedy
I look forward to a future in which our country will
match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with
our wisdom, its power with our purpose.
- John F. Kennedy
"I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution....
A little rebellion now and then ... is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government....
"The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society" - Thomas Jefferson
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be
satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so
with the approval of their own conscience." - C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
"The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience." - Albert Camus (1913-1960)
"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself." - Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, 1963.
This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls 'enemy,' for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence, 04-06-67
Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam [Iraq]. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor in America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam [Iraq]. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours. - Martin Luther King, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience, 1967.
Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Stockholm, Sweden, December 11, 1964.
Man was born into barbarism when killing his fellow man was a normal condition of existence. He became endowed with a conscience. And he has now reached the day when violence toward another human being must become as abhorrent as eating another's flesh. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can't Wait, 1963.
The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction....The chain reaction of evil--hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars--must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength To Love, 1963
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength To Love, 1963.
The Negroes of America had taken the President, the press and the pulpit at their word when they spoke in broad terms of freedom and justice. But the absence of brutality and unregenerate evil is not the presence of justice. To stay murder is not the same thing as to ordain brotherhood. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.
Many of the ugly pages of American history have been obscured and forgotten....America owes a debt of justice which it has only begun to pay. If it loses the will to finish or slackens in its determination, history will recall its crimes and the country that would be great will lack the most indispensable element of greatness--justice. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.
The Negroes of America had taken the President, the press and the pulpit at their word when they spoke in broad terms of freedom and justice. But the absence of brutality and unregenerate evil is not the presence of justice. To stay murder is not the same thing as to ordain brotherhood. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.
Many of the ugly pages of American history have been obscured and forgotten....America owes a debt of justice which it has only begun to pay. If it loses the will to finish or slackens in its determination, history will recall its crimes and the country that would be great will lack the most indispensable element of greatness--justice. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.
Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny. He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives. He is distinguished from animals by his freedom to do evil or to do good and to walk the high road of beauty or tread the low road of ugly degeneracy. - Martin Luther King, Jr., The Measures of Man, 1959.
Nonviolent action, the Negro saw, was the way to supplement, not replace, the progress of change. It was the way to divest himself of passivity without arraying himself in vindictive force. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can't Wait, 1964.
ished from animals by his freedom to do evil or to do good and to walk the high road of beauty or tread the low road of ugly degeneracy. - Martin Luther King, Jr., The Measures of Man, 1959.
Nonviolent action, the Negro saw, was the way to supplement, not replace, the progress of change. It was the way to divest himself of passivity without arraying himself in vindictive force. - Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can't Wait, 1964.
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