Judging from the majority of responses here, people don't care whether or not Obama has distorted his relationship to Tony Rezko, or been involved in sleazy poltical patronage deals, or exploited his own poor constituents, who lived without heat for weeks during a Chicago winter in 1997.

Fine.

But, Obama has been caught lying about his relationship; it's disingenuous in the extreme to call Rezko "this individual" during the debate, and say he billed 5 hours of work on a Rezko project.

He has written letters on Rezko's behalf, garnering Rezko millions in contracts, even as he knew Rezko was being investigated by the Feds for fraud. Obama has been stalling about answering questions about it for the past year, beginning in March 2007, when the Chicago-Sun-Times tried to get him on the record about it.

Could people really be deluding themselves into thinking that Obama is about "hope" and "change"? The evidence shows Obama is really just an old-style Chicago Pol, who shoved aside other African American candidates on his way up the political ladder, using vote suppression.

During a question and answer session with the Chicago Sun-Times last March, Obama basically blamed his own contituents for suffering from no heat, while Rezko was donating money to Obama, instead of using that money to protect Obama's own constituents.

Sure politics is politics. It ain't beanbag. It's an ugly process, like watching sausage being made. Blah, blah, blah.

But, clearly, Barack Obama is trying to hide this 5-hour relationship with "this individual" and doesn't even want to say his name in the debate.  What about his lunches with Rezko, and his donations from Rezko, and his letters on behalf of Rezko, and his 20-year friendship with Rezko, and his real-estate deals with Rezko, and his ties to Rezko? Can a man who has done all of these things actually say, "this individual?" I just don't think so.

It's reasonable to conclude: A man who's working so hard to hide these things might have something to hide.

Sun-Times' questions, and Obama campaign's answers April 23, 2007

The Sun-Times first sought to interview Sen. Barack Obama on March 14 about indicted businessman and longtime supporter Antoin "Tony" Rezko and a series of troubled low-income housing deals involving Rezko's company, Rezmar Corp. Obama's staff asked for written questions. It responded Sunday but left many questions unanswered and didn't directly address some other questions. What follows are the Sun-Times' questions, asked in the preliminary stages of the newspaper's investigation, and the answers received in an e-mail from Robert Gibbs, communications director for the senator's presidential campaign:

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/353786,CST-NWS-rezquestions23.article

Posted at January 23, 2008 7:17 AM in response to Didn’t Obama Watch the Firm?

"Conservative economic policy is dead."

More like 'Night of the Living Dead' if you ask me. It just won't die, no matter how many times you stab it in the heart.

I'm currently reading Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine: Disaster Capitalism and I gotta tell ya, I hear the same mantra in every utterance from these zombies in the Republicon Party today: Privatization, De-regulation, and Deep Cuts in Spending. It's a recipe for disaster and there is a vast archive of historical evidence to prove it.

Aside from the fact that I'm CERTAIN that progressives have better economic strategies, inquiring minds would like to know: Name ONE thing about 'globalization' that has been good, Jared.

Posted at October 19, 2007 3:46 PM in response to Obituary: Conservative Economic Policy

Ilan Pappe's new book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.

I recommend it.

Posted at October 4, 2007 7:29 AM in response to New Republic: Congressman Jim Moran is No Anti-Semite

The tragic irony of this myth about DC being more dangerous than Baghdad--particularly the point about firearms--is that US soldiers are killing themselves with firearms at alarming rates.

Army Suicides Highest in 26 Years

WASHINGTON — Army soldiers committed suicide last year at the highest rate in 26 years, and more than a quarter did so while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new military report.

The report, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its scheduled release Thursday, found there were 99 confirmed suicides among active duty soldiers during 2006, up from 88 the previous year and the highest number since the 102 suicides in 1991 at the time of the Persian Gulf War.

The suicide rate for the Army has fluctuated over the past 26 years, from last year's high of 17.3 per 100,000 to a low of 9.1 per 100,000 in 2001.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070815/army-suicides/

The definition for depraved indifference would fit these men:

From the November 28, 2006 broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:

HEDGECOCK: They're calling it. In other words, it's like Florida for [Democratic presidential candidate Al] Gore. This is -- you know, this is -- they're calling the election. It's now a civil war. Boy, I'm glad we've clarified that. Let's see. Did they call Bosnia and Kosovo a civil war? Huh?

Did they -- did they call what's going on -- and by the way, the murder rate -- whatever you hear, whenever you hear a story about Baghdad about blowing up, about -- you know, today two car bombs went off in the entire country. The murder rate in Baghdad, the people being killed in Baghdad, is lower than the murder rate of Washington, D.C. Is Washington, D.C., in a civil war? NBC has not called it, so I dare not say.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200611300002

Posted at August 15, 2007 6:45 PM in response to Things Are Swell in Baghdad

The "policy debate" boils down to one fundamental question: In this country, do we, or do we not have a moral obligation to provide health care to our citizens? Other western nations believe that government's duty to the common good requires it; our Constitution acknowledges government's duty to the "welfare" of its people--not to mention our treasury:

The United States spent an average of $6,102 per person on health care in 2004 (the latest year for which figures are available), according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Canada spent $3,165 per person, France $3,159, Australia $3,120 and Britain a mere $2,508.

Life expectancy in the United States was lower than in each of these other countries and infant mortality was higher. Looking at the numbers another way, the Kaiser Family Foundation determined earlier this year that health care spending accounts for 15.2 percent of the U.S. economy.

By contrast, health care spending represents 9.9 percent of Canada's gross domestic product, 10.4 percent of France's, 9.2 percent of Australia's and just 7.8 percent of Britain's.

And again, the citizens of these countries on average live longer than we do.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/25/BU44R6ES62.DTL

They also have shorter wait times for care, including for cancer:

A Commonwealth Fund study of six highly industrialized countries, the U.S., and five nations with national health systems, Britain, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, found waiting times were worse in the U.S. than in all the other countries except Canada. And, most of the Canadian data so widely reported by the U.S. media is out of date, and misleading, according to PNHP and CNA/NNOC.

In Canada, there are no waits for emergency surgeries, and the median time for non-emergency elective surgery has been dropping as a result of public pressure and increased funding so that it is now equal to or better than the U.S. in most areas, the organizations say. Statistics Canada's latest figures show that median wait times for elective surgery in Canada is now three weeks.

"There are significant differences between the U.S. and Canada, too," said Burger. "In Canada, no one is denied care because of cost, because their treatment or test was not 'pre-approved' or because they have a pre-existing condition."

"Furthermore, when a service problem emerges in Canada, prompt analysis and resource deployment is mobilized to resolve the problem," noted PNHP's Young. "In the U.S., the situation only worsens each year, hence we are presently in an enormous crisis. That's why we a need a single payer system, such as HR 676 which is now before Congress, that can respond to new demands."

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/76295.php

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w072307&s=cohn72707

The infant mortality rate in this country is staggering. Bush gets all of his medical care paid for by taxpayers--but he threatens to veto the SCHIP for poor children whose parents cannot afford or get private insurance? That's unconscionable.

Why have Americans allowed themselves to be treated with such contempt by criminals and profiteers? It's patently absurd. The French smoke more, drink more and eat more fattening food--yet they have full national health care, and they live longer, French doctors don't spend their time fighting with "care" managers; they just do what they love--provide medical treatment. And, they make a very nice living doing it.

Britons have national health care and pay only 40% of what what we do. It isn't one or two personal anecdotes of suffering--it is a huge wave of suffering in America. And, the reason is because we have been propagandized into believing that "capitalism" requires the sacrifice of our loved ones on the alter of "free market" theology. I mean, really...it just boggles the mind. The Republicon Party doesn't even believe children deserve protection--Bush plans to veto the SChip funding.

Privatization is Profitization. Big Insurance is making OBSCENE PROFITS off the suffering and bankrupting of Americans at their most vulnerable level. It is immoral, depraved and criminal--and absurd. Our government is colluding in the murder of at least 18,000 Americans every year because we--as a people--have been propagandized by profiteering liars.

You may be willing to die so CEOs can live well in their palatial mansions while I suffer and die horribly and bankrupt my family in the process. But I am not. National Health Coverage in America is the only public policy there is now.

Posted at July 29, 2007 4:13 AM in response to Denying the Truth about Medical Bankruptcies

I consider an impeachment process to be a last resort with profound implications for our Republic. It should not be invoked lightly, and it should not be invoked often. We've have all been witness to the most astonishing series of events in our country's history, really--one president impeached for literally lying about an affair, and the very next president NOT IMPEACHED for doing--literally--everything else. I'm astonished that Speaker Pelosi would even say that it's off the table. That in itself is an alarming act of Constitutional defiance. 

Go to the Constitution. Read the Federalist Papers. Return to the founding principles of our country. It is not a question of the election of 2008, I'm sorry to say. I would like to see Democrats take over the Executive Branch. But, not at the cost of the Constitution. To me, the Constitution reigns supreme in this issue, not the Democratic Party. If we sacrifice all principles and all adherence to the notion that we are a country of laws, not of kings, then the Democratic Party is no better than this Republicon Party.

And, who's to say that this presidential election will not be stolen in a coup like 2000 was, with a 5-4 vote in the Supreme Court? Bush will do anything to protect himself, clearly. He will commit the most traitorous acts, defy the law, set himself above the law, and refuse to obey the law to protect himself. He has violated the law in too many instances to recount here. But, when Constitutional scholar and conservative, Bruce Fein, argues the Constitutional imperative to impeach in the strongest imaginable terms, I am persuaded that impeachment articles in the House are a necessary Constitutional process for the future of our Republic.

Listen to the speech by Barbara Jordan--33 years ago--on the need to impeach Nixon: Jordan said, in her stunning speech:

It is wrong, I suggest, it is a misreading of the Constitution, for any member here to assert that for a member to vote for an article of impeachment means that that member must be convinced that the President should be removed from office. The Constitution doesn't say that. The powers relating to impeachment are an essential check in the hands of the body, the legislature, against and upon the encroachment of the Executive.

The division between the two branches of the legislature, the House and the Senate, assigning to the one the right to accuse and to the other the right to judge, the framers of this Constitution were very astute. They did not make the accusers and the judges the same person.

Representative Jordan reminded her colleagues that James Madison, from the Virginia ratification convention, addressed the primary criteria in considering impeachment:

"If the President be connected in any suspicious manner with any person and there is grounds to believe that he will shelter him, he may be impeached."

James Madison, again at the constitutional convention:

"A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution."

And, representative Jordan said about Richard M. Nixon:

There are too many suspicious characters to count with whom the President has aligned himself. His repeated subversion of the Constitution is well documented.

http://www.massachusettsobserver.com/barbarajordan.htm

Could we not say the same about George Bush? If we can, then we must impeach him no matter the challenges. I believe that our Congress owes us its fealty to the Constitution, not just to their party. They swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, just as Bush, Cheney and Gonzales did.

Posted at July 26, 2007 7:28 AM in response to Impeachment Open Thread

This statement is confusing, Dean. Please clarify what you mean:

"The only reason that the government has reason to negotiate prices with the drug industry is that it gives them patent monopolies that allow them to charge exorbitant prices for life-saving drugs. In the absence of patent monopolies, virtually all drugs could be sold as generics at Wal-Mart for $4 a prescription. (Yes, we have to pay for drug research, but there are far more efficient mechanisms.)"

Thanks.

Posted at July 16, 2007 6:50 AM in response to Subsidizing the Rich and a Free Market are Not the Same Thing

Posted at June 10, 2007 2:37 PM in response to The People's Medium

Posted at May 21, 2007 2:45 PM in response to Gore Running! (This Week's TIME Cover Story)

These imported workers to Saudi Arabia are virtual slaves, of course, working for next to nothing, and the Saudis get to keep their petro dollars for their own to live in luxury, while the Indonesians, Phillipinos, Indians, and Pakistanis who make up the vast majority of these "tcns" live in abject poverty to send a few coins home for their poverty stricken families--just as immigrant "guest workers" will do in the United States if this becomes policy.

Meanwhile, the value of American labor will drop so that American workers have no purchasing power, and you know what that means for the American economy.

It should be more appropriately a matter of morals, decency, and economic realism in our public policy, Daniel, not xenophobia.

Thanks for a really great argument, Nathan. I think this argument needs much more attention.

Posted at May 20, 2007 5:43 AM in response to The Guest Worker Sellout