Chris Floyd

President Barack Obama meets with U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich aboard
Air Force One en route to Cleveland on March 15.

Dennis Kucinich is now reaping the reward for his high-profile bug-out on the Compulsory Corporate Profit Act of 2010, also known as "health care reform." And what a pearl of great price it is! Well worth selling out your heatedly avowed principles for! I mean, Mahatma Gandhi himself would traded his loincloth for a pinstripe suit to bag some bling like this! Check it out:

Dennis Kucinich the new face of Dem campaign committee.

That's right: Dennis is now fronting the big-time money-grubbing operations of party hacks! Just days ago, Kucinich was condemning the health care bill as a bad, tainted piece of pork:

"a giveaway to the insurance industry -- $70 billion a year, and no guarantees of any control over premiums, forcing people to buy private insurance. I just don't see that this bill is the solution."

But now, he's out there rattling the cup for the very ladlers of corporate pork he has been castigating for months, writing in the new donation pitch:

On Tuesday, I ... witnessed an historic ceremony in the White House, where President Obama signed health care reform into law. I am pleased to have played a role in helping make this important moment possible.

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Stephen Lendman

If enacted, it will advance what this writer addressed in a December 2007 article titled, "Police State America - A Look Back and Ahead," covering numerous Bush administration laws, Executive Orders (EOs), National and Homeland Security Presidential Directives, edicts, and various illegal acts targeting designated domestic and foreign adversaries, dissent, civil liberties, human rights, and other democratic freedoms.

Straightaway post-9/11, George Bush signed a secret finding empowering the CIA to "Capture, Kill or Interrogate Al-Qaeda Leaders." He also authorized establishing a covert global gulag to detain and interrogate them without guidelines on proper treatment.

Other presidential directives ordered abductions, torture and indefinite detentions. In November 2001, Military Order Number 1 empowered the Executive to capture, kidnap or otherwise arrest non-citizens (and later citizens) anywhere in the world for any reason and hold them indefinitely without charge, evidence, due process or judicial fairness protections of law.

The 2006 Military Commissions Act authorized torture and sweeping unconstitutional powers to detain, interrogate and prosecute alleged suspects and collaborators (including US citizens), hold them (without evidence) indefinitely in military prisons, and deny them habeas and other legal protections.

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John Pilger

In this article, John Pilger describes the increasing American war front across the world: from Afghanistan to Africa and Latin America. This is the Third World War in all but name, waged by the only aggressive "ism" that denies it is an ideology and threatened not by introverted tribesmen in faraway places but by the anti-war instincts of its own citizens.

Here is news of the Third World War. The United States has invaded Africa. US troops have entered Somalia, extending their war front from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen and now the Horn of Africa. In preparation for an attack on Iran, American missiles have been placed in four Persian Gulf states, and “bunker-buster” bombs are said to be arriving at the US base on the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

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John V. Walsh

Insurance Execs to Live High, While More Americans Die

Let there be no doubt about it. The health care “reform” bill voted into law Sunday in the House is a capitulation which will leave 30 million more Americans at the cruel mercies of the insurance companies – precisely what the single-payer movement had been battling against.

In the end the defenders of the legislation and those who signed on to it putting loyalty to themselves and their careers in the Democrat Party above principle, like the narcissistic twerp Dennis Kucinich, were left with only one real argument. How could anyone turn his/her back on the 30 million who would “benefit” from being brought under the control of the private insurers? The most succinct answer was given by Ralph Nader in a joint interview with him and the traitor Kucinich, who caved when his vote and a few others might have halted this legislative atrocity, conducted by Amy Goodman.

Thus, Nader:

“First of all, that (the legislation) won’t even begin until 2014, 180,000 dead Americans later (The number of unnecessary deaths over a three year period due to a lack of any insurance - jw). Second, there’s no guarantee of that. The insurance companies can game this system. The 2,500 pages is full of opportunities and ambiguities for the insurance companies to game the system and to make it even worse.

“And let’s say there are more people covered, right? Well, they’re being forced to buy junk insurance policies. There’s no regulation of insurance prices. There’s no regulation of the antitrust laws on this. Everything went down that Dennis was fighting for. There’s no regulation that prevents the insurance companies from taking this papier-mâché bill and lighting a fire to it and making a mockery of it. There’s no shift of power. There’s no facility to create a national consumer health organization, which we proposed and the Democrats ignored years ago, in order to give people a voice so they can have their own non-profit consumer lobby on Washington.

“This is really a disaster.”

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Ahmed Amr

You can’t make this stuff up. It was a Monday, the first day of spring in 2010, a time usually reserved for a little fresh air. Alas, the Prime Minister of Israel was dispensing noxious fumes in a speech to AIPAC, the pro-Israeli lobbying conglomerate that is considered the single most effective arm-twisting organization in Washington. Did I forget to mention the Prime Minister’s name? It’s Benjamin Netanyahu. The significance of that factoid will become apparent as we move along.

Here’s part of what Netanyahu had to say to the AIPAC faithful and the drooling congressmen and senators who came to pay homage to the prince of Israel.

“The attempt by many to describe the Jews as foreign colonialists in their own homeland is one of the great lies of modern times. In my office, I have on display a signet ring that was loaned to me by Israel’s Department of Antiquities. The ring was found next to the Western wall, but it dates back some 2,800 years ago, two hundred years after King David turned Jerusalem into our capital city. The ring is a seal of a Jewish official, and inscribed on it in Hebrew is his name: Netanyahu. His name was Netanyahu Ben-Yoash. My first name, Benjamin, dates back 1,000 years earlier to Benjamin, the son of Jacob. One of Benjamin’s brothers was named Shimon, which also happens to be the first name of my good friend, Shimon Peres, the President of Israel. Nearly 4,000 years ago, Benjamin, Shimon and their ten brothers roamed the hills of Judea. Ladies and Gentlemen, the connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel cannot be denied. The connection between the Jewish people and Jerusalem cannot be denied. The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 year ago and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today. Jerusalem is not a settlement. It is our capital.”

There you have it folks. If your name is Benjamin Netanyahu, what more justification do you need to expropriate land from the native Palestinians? What’s all this fuss about international law and the indigenous rights of the native inhabitants of Palestine? When will the Palestinians stop ranting about their bonds to the land of their ancestors?

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