The decision by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Democrat from Ohio, to vote and campaign among his fellow members of Congress for the White House health care bill falls under the heading of the entirely predictable. Anyone who has paid attention to the career of this phony populist knew more or less how the process would unfold. Kucinich would slam the regressive measure until close to the end, then fold his tent and meekly bow to the pressure exerted by the Obama administration, and through the latter, the most powerful sections of the American ruling elite.

Kucinich now promises to vote for a reactionary bill that unashamedly protects the profits of the giant insurance and pharmaceutical interests while sharply reducing and rationing care for the majority of the American people. The Obama administration, in the guise of “reform,” has crafted a measure that will enable the health insurance companies to rake in untold revenues from millions of new customers forced to purchase bare-bones health coverage. Moreover, hundreds of billions of dollars will be cut from Medicare, the program for the elderly and disabled. There is nothing progressive about the health care measure; it is not a step or half-step forward. It represents a full-scale social regression. WaPo: Kucinich Sells Out On Health Care After Ride In Air Force One. Chris Floyd: Pressure Drop: Brave Sir Dennis Ran Away.

Dissident Voice: Kucinich’s Healthcare Sell-out:

Most of all, Kucinich’s betrayal points to the burning need for political activity, both electoral and social movement based, independent of the Democrats and Republicans. The political system is already so saturated with corporate money that Democrats and Republicans are structurally incapable of acting in the interests of working people in America. Now is the time for a green and red rebellion at the ballot box and on the streets. Only then can we can be done with the wavering Kucinichs of the world and get down to the task of creating a society that values human needs over corporate profits. We need a single-payer healthcare system now and only an uncompromising movement made up of everyday people will get us there.

You Tube: Know the TRUTH about the Government Health Care Bill H.R.3200 - Key Points

Michael D. Furlong, the senior Defense Department employee under investigation for allegedly running an unauthorized intelligence-gathering [and track and kill] operation in Afghanistan, says his now-suspended program was fully authorized by top U.S. military commanders. According to Furlong, the program, which began in late 2008, was requested by Army Gen. David D. McKiernan, the former top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and approved by the U.S. Central Command. AWIP: US military created private spy and murder squad in Afghanistan.

Noted Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld stated that Israel could find itself one day forced to exterminate the European continent using all kinds of weapons including its nuclear arsenal if it felt its demise neared, stressing that Israel also considers Europe a hostile target. This came in a press interview broadcast by the seventh Hebrew radio and was translated on Wednesday into Arabic by the press information analysis and study center. BudaPest Report: Israeli jets scout Hungary. China Radio International: Hungarian Gov't to Investigate Israeli Plane Flyovers.

WMR has learned from two El Al sources who worked for the Israeli airline at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport that on 9/11, hours after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded all civilian domestic and international incoming and outgoing flights to and from the United States, a full El Al Boeing 747 took off from JFK bound for Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport. The two El Al employee sources are not Israeli nationals but legal immigrants from Ecuador who were working in the United States for the airline.

The flight departed JFK at 4:11 pm and its departure was, according to the El Al sources, authorized by the direct intervention of the U.S. Department of Defense. U.S. military officials were on the scene at JFK and were personally involved with the airport and air traffic control authorities to clear the flight for take-off. According to the 9/11 Commission report, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta ordered all civilian flights to be grounded at 9:45 am on September 11. AWIP: Revealed: Ashcroft, Tenet, Rumsfeld warned 9/11 Commission about ‘line’ it ’should not cross’.

The Middle East Quartet set a deadline today for a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians after condemning plans to build new Jewish homes in Jerusalem. Meeting in Moscow as Israeli jets launched air strikes over the Gaza Strip in retaliation for a Palestinian rocket attack, the international diplomatic mission sought to revive plans for indirect negotiations that collapsed over the decision to build 1,600 homes in the disputed capital. The group also comprised US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the European Union’s foreign policy chief Baroness Ashton of Upholland, as well as Tony Blair, who represents the Quartet in the region. The leaders gave no details of how they intend to achieve their target. Raw Story: Quartet tells Israel to halt settlement activity. AWIP: Israel plans massive settlement expansion.

Israeli warplanes bombed Gaza Strip in the early hours of Friday, injuring at least two Palestinians. Palestinian security officials and eyewitnesses said that Israeli aircraft fired at several targets across the Gaza Strip injuring two people. Israeli warplanes struck a workshop in Gaza City, three tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border and two open fields, witnesses and security officials said. The Israeli military refused to comment on the incident. The attack came after a retaliatory rocket attack from Gaza Strip killed a 30-year-old Thai foreign worker, who was working in a greenhouse in Netiv Ha'asara in the Ashkelon Coast Regional Council, north of the Gaza Strip. The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade — the armed wing of the Fatah movement Israeli government claimed responsibility for the rocket attack. The airstrikes took place shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talked with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over the phone.

War on Gaza - Timeline
January 5 2009: Israel pounds Gaza strip, vows to continue attacks
Pilotless planes emerge as a top Israeli weapon in its aerial war with Hamas
Gaza ground invasion feared: As death toll passes 300, jets continue to pound Hamas targets in Gaza [Dec 29 2008]

Assailants will pay 'heavy price' for attacking Iran, Hezbollah's deputy leader warns; any country that allows strike to be launched from local US bases to also face reprisals, he says. Violence could spread across the Middle East with Israel paying a "heavy price" if it launched military action against Iran, the deputy leader of Hezbollah said on Thursday.

In the footnotes of a speech U.S. Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke would have given to the House Financial Services Committee on Feb. 10, lies a unique and startling disclosure. Hosted on the Federal Reserve's own servers, the written testimony of the bank's chairman explains in plain text what expanding the Fed's powers will do.

The Birkebeiner, Norway’s annual cross-country ski race, is attracting a record turnout, with chief executive officers and prison inmates lining up among tomorrow’s 16,150 participants. Pareto AS Chief Executive Officer Svein Stoele, former Aker Exploration ASA head Lars Thorrud, 48, and First Securities ASA’s 51-year-old Chief Strategist Peter Hermanrud, ranked second in Kapital magazine’s list of Norwegian analysts this year, are signed up for the 54-kilometer (34-mile) race. So are seven inmates from Hassel prison. Norway tied the U.S. for the third-most gold medals in this year’s Vancouver Olympics, and the Birkebeiner ties into Norwegians’ obsession with winter sports. The event, which has links back to the country’s 13th Century civil war, runs from Rena to Lillehammer in eastern Norway and rises from 280 meters (919 feet) to almost 1,000 meters above sea level. “It’s a dead-hard race, really tough,” said Martin Moelsaeter, chief investment officer of Ferncliff Asset Management AS who is competing in the Birkebeiner for the second time. “It’s an arena that has nothing to do with education, for instance, so everyone is on equal footing. It’s fun to see how you compare with others.”

'If 1958 temps were similar to 1990's, it rewrites the entire claim of unprecedented warming'. The most mysterious period is from 1958 to 1978, when a steep 0.3C decline was initially recorded in the Northern Hemisphere. Years later, this was reduced so far it became a mild warming against the detailed corroborating roabcore evidence. Raobcore measurements are balloon readings. How accurate are they? They started in 1958, twenty years before satellite temperature records (which are renowned for their accuracy). Put the two methods side-by-side, and they tie together neatly, telling us that both of them are accurate, reliable tools. WUWT: More on the National Geographic Decline.

If one wonders why the climate alarmist movement is suffering from a credibility problem, one only needs to read this. AWIP: Global Warming Emerging Science and Understanding Part 1 -MUST SEE VIDEO, Part 1 to 6. AWIP: CLIMATE Archive.

Despite establishment media spin that naked body scanners are being meekly accepted by a compliant public, documents released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that there have been more than 600 formal complaints about the devices in the last year. Furthermore, the documents reveal anger at TSA officials for refusing to offer passengers a pat-down alternative, as well as forcing children to go through machines which provide crisp images of genitalia, a particularly outrageous scenario in light of last week’s story concerning a TSA worker who was charged with multiple child sex crimes having raped an underage girl.

Scientists have created the first device to render an object invisible in three dimensions. The "cloak", described in the journal Science, hid an object from detection using light of wavelengths close to those that are visible to humans. Previous devices have been able to hide objects from light travelling in only one direction; viewed from any other angle, the object would remain visible. This is a very early but significant step towards true invisibility cloaks. Tolga Ergin, a scientist from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany led the study. He told BBC News that his team's cloak was based on the concept that you can "transform space" with a material. He and his colleagues designed a photonic metamaterial, which influenced the behaviour of light rays. "You can think of any transformation that you would like to have, and tailor your material to mimic this," he explained. The basis of the design is known as a "carpet cloak". This was first proposed by Professor Sir John Pendry from Imperial College London, who also took part in this study.

Andrew Rawnsley's new book elicits more detail than the Chilcot inquiry. Blair told Bush: "Whatever you decide to do, I'm with you." Andrew Rawnsley should have been put in charge of the Iraq inquiry. I've only just started his 800-page book, The End of the Party, but I've already picked up three key facts about Tony Blair's relationship with George Bush that haven't emerged from the Iraq inquiry hearings. Many of the figures interviewed by Rawnsley also gave evidence to Sir John Chilcot and his team. But Rawnsley seems to have asked the more searching questions.