This Can't Be Happening!

Paul Krugman, one of the few liberal columnists writing for the New York Times, claims that at some point in the hoary past when he “began writing a lot about health care,” he was in favor of a Canadian-style single-payer health care system. He adds that even today if he thought there was “any chance of creating Medicare for All any time in the next decade,” he would be “pushing for single-payer now.”

But on Christmas, Krugman threw in the towel, calling on progressives to support the Senate’s version of health care legislation. Suggesting that the so-called Senate Health Reform Bill, if it had been the law back in Dickens’ time in England, would have saved Tiny Tim without any need for the belated charitable intervention of Ebenezer Scrooge, Krugman says progressives should recognize that the Senate bill is the best they can hope for, and that they need to accept that politics is “the art of the possible.”

Krugman goes on to say that despite some “flaws and limitations,” which he leaves unexplained, the Senate bill is “a big win” for progressives--"and for America.”

But is it?

If you google “recession easing,” you will find articles all the way back to April quoting Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as saying that the recession is easing, and that the economy is “improving modestly.” Newspapers and TV news programs too, on their own, have run rose-tinged stories about how things are bad but getting better.

Spins get put on every hint of good news, as when last month “only” 11,000 jobs were lost (a story that was quickly followed by an “unexpected” jump in new unemployment claims by 474,000 in early December).

By Dave Lindorff (apologies to Clement Clark Moore)

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the land
Not a creature was stirring in Afghanistan.
The bedrooms were bunkered with piles of hard stones
To protect from attacks by the Predator drones.
The children were huddled, afraid, in their beds
While visions of night raiders danced in their heads.

Mama doffed her hijab and I doffed my hat
And we both settled down for a rest and a chat
When out in the yard their arose such a clatter,
I sprang to the door to see what was the matter.

Give credit to Howard Dean. This still practicing physician, former governor of Vermont, former chair of the Democratic Party and former Democratic presidential candidate has called for progressive members of Congress in both houses to join their Republican colleagues in killing what he rightly says has become "an insurance company's dream."

A few months ago, like many struggling Americans, I had my credit line frozen at my local bank. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and have always paid my monthly installment payment on time, but I learned from a bank employee at the institution, which had once been a small family-owned operation but had earlier this year been acquired by a regional bank, that most of the bank’s home-equity lines of credit were being similarly frozen and “reviewed” because the bank had lent a lot of money to a housing development that was underwater and facing bankruptcy.

Yesterday, I mentioned a line from an old science teacher: "If you can't measure it, it doesn't exist."

In what passes for corporate journalism in American, this concept has taken the form of, "If we don't report on it, it didn't happen."

That certainly was the case for the emergency protest organized by a coalition of anti-war organizations under the banner EndUSWars.org, which saw over 1000 people gather on short notice in the bitter cold on Lafayette Park opposite the White House to protest President Obama's escalation of the war in Afghanistan on Saturday, Dec. 12.

Nader addresses Afghan War protesters Dec. 12 at a White House demonstration the US media says didn't happen.

When I was back in eighth grade, my science teacher, Mr. Malone, a brittle old man with a shock of white hair and a stern classroom demeanor, but a sharp sense of humor, had made a banner that ran across the top of the blackboard. It read: “If you can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist.”

There are so many things wrong with Obama’s “New and Improved” Afghanistan War that it’s hard to know where to begin, but I guess the place to start is with his premise.

If America needs to be fighting in Afghanistan because Al Qaeda planned and launched the 9-11 attacks from there back in 2001, as the president claimed in his lackluster address to the cadets at West Point last week, then we would have to assume either that Al Qaeda is still there, or that if we were not there fighting, that Al Qaeda would be back to plan more attacks.

ATTENTION: Demonstration in Washington, DC Saturday to protest Obama's War against Afghanistan! Make the effort! Be there to say, "No You Can't!". For information go to EndUSWars.org

Nobody in the corporate media mentions it, but the war in Afghanistan which President Barack Obama just ramped up by 50% this year, with the dispatch, first of 17,000 troops last spring and now with another 30,000 troops, to begin deployment on Christmas, is being fought on the shaky legal basis of a hastily passed Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) voted by Congress back in October 2001, more than three years before Obama was even elected to the Senate.

Obama is sending more troops to Afghanistan on a lie to fight in an illegal war

Merry Xmas Jarheads!! The Man of Peace, Nobel Laureate-to-be , President Barack Obama, your chickenhawk commander-in-chief, is shipping you out as a holiday gift to the people of Afghanistan.

You will be delivering bullets and bombs, with my name and the name of other American taxpayers on them, to the long-suffering people of Afghanistan by December 25, according to what Mr. Hope and Change’s told the nation in a speech delivered at West Point last night.

US bombing victims in Afghanistan