The man in the above picture was arrested on September 15 and charged on September 25 with possession of child pornography…..

Ottawa police have issued an arrest warrant for a Roman Catholic bishop from Nova Scotia facing child pornography charges…….

(Bishop Raymond) Lahey was re-entering Canada at the Ottawa International Airport on Sept. 15 when members of the Canada Border Services Agency pulled him aside for a secondary examination, according to a release from Ottawa police. Officers found images on Lahey's laptop computer "that were of concern."

He was released at the time. The computer was seized and police said a subsequent forensic examination of the computer revealed child pornography.

As if that's not offensive enough, consider this….

The former leader of the diocese of Antigonish is perhaps best known as the man who helped broker a $15-million settlement with people who said they had been sexually abused by priests in the diocese, in some cases dating back to 1950. That settlement was approved by a Nova Scotia court on Sept. 10.

Jesus.

Just in case you missed this from last year….

In Ireland, reports into clerical sexual abuse have rocked both the Catholic hierarchy and the state.

The Ryan Report, published last May, revealed that beatings and humiliation by nuns and priests were common at institutions that held up to 30,000 children. A nine-year investigation found that Catholic priests and nuns for decades terrorised thousands of boys and girls, while government inspectors failed to stop the abuse.

On September 18, 2009…..

The UN Human Rights Council today published a written statement by IHEU on the role of the Holy See in the child abuse scandals that rocked the Catholic Church in recent years, and its failure to honour its obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Commenting on the report, Roy Brown, IHEU Main Representative at the UN Geneva said: "The Holy See has been heavily implicated for decades in covering up cases of child abuse carried our by its clergy and religious orders, in obstructing justice, and in failing to deal appropriately with abusers. Yet for too long it has been given a free ride by the international community because of its presumed moral leadership. Our report is the first to bring the issue to the attention of the Council. We shall be referring to our report in the plenary of the Human Rights Council next week."

The Vatican's permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, responding to the report's findings that up to 5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child abuse, did the Christian thing…..and blamed others….

Children were more likely to suffer at the hands of relatives, family friends or babysitters than clerics, he argued.

Jesus.

And if that isn't bad enough, wait…there's even more….

The Archbishop also quoted research published in the Christian Science Monitor newspaper which suggested that most congregations affected by child sex allegations in the US were protestant churches while the problem was also common in the Jewish community.

'Yeah, 1 in 20 of our clergy are child-terrorizing fiends, but hey, what about those babysitters and those Jews and Protestants.'

Thoroughly disgusted yet? I've saved the worst for last.

Yesterday……………Cardinal Daniel DiNardo and Chief Justice John Roberts

An American cardinal on Sunday issued a plea for the rights of the unborn at a church service that included Vice President Joe Biden, six members of the Supreme Court and hundreds of members of the legal community.

Five of the six Roman Catholics on the high court – Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito – heard the homily by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo…..

What did the representative of this child-terrorizing religious cult have to say to enlighten America's vice-president and 5 other terror-cult members who just happen to be Supreme Court Justices?

Speaking at the annual Red Mass the day before the opening of the Supreme Court term, DiNardo said that people represented by lawyers are "more than clients. … In some cases the clients are voiceless for they lack influence; in others they are literally voiceless, not yet with tongues and even without names, and require our most careful attention and radical support."

Jesus.

High leaders of the United States of America, leaders of a country alledgedly fighting a "long war" against international "terrorists", seek moral guidance from a representative of an international child-terrorizing cult. A religious cult so morally depraved and so hypocritically twisted, it's representatives have the audacity to preach to America's highest legal representatives about our national morality in dealing with the "unborn", while dismissing and downplaying a scathing, yet factual, report of the cult's own centuries-old terrorization of underage boys.

It's all disgustingly maddening.

Maybe you saw David Fluffy Gregory's interview with Bill Clinton this past weekend on Meet the Press. The Village Fluffy, always trying to keep it real, asked Clinton about that "vast right wing conspiracy"…..

Fluffy…."Your wife, famously, talked about the vast right wing conspiracy targeting you. As you look at this opposition on the right to President Obama….is it still there?"

Clinton…."Oh, you bet. Sure it is. It's not as strong as it was because America has changed demographically…but it's as virulent as it was. I mean, they're saying things about him, you know, it's like when they accused me of being a murderer and all that stuff they did. But, it's not really good for the Republicans in the country, what's going on now. They may be hurting President Obama, they can take his numbers down, they can run his opposition up. But fundamentally, he and his team have a positive agenda for America. Their (GOP'ers) agenda seems to be wanting him to fail. And that's not a prescription for a good America……"

In the 1990's, when Newt and his majority Republican gang persuaded Clinton to vote to gut American jobs with NAFTA and further punish the poverty class by "reforming" welfare, the vast right wing conspiracy rewarded Bubba's move to the right by hounding him mercilessly with made-up-sh*t. Then came the impeachment. That was the beginning of the incoherent, unintelligible and mindless Wingnut World that we are so privileged to be burdened with today.

That, and the birth of the 4th Estate's anti-Christ, FOX "News."

But I disagree slightly with Clinton here. The American winger world is MORE virulent today than during the 90's. The automatic weapons-bearing outside presidential townhalls, the 4-fold increase in threats to Obama versus threats to W., the hourly-generated lies and frenzied propaganda by a corrupt and rotted corporate media, the unhinged encouragement to behave badly by main media sponsors of anti-Obama Tea Parties and 9-12 events, the proliferation of Mao, Stalin, Castro, and Hitler signs equating Obama with tyrants……..all of it for the purpose of poisoning Obama's presidency, intimidating Americans and making the wingers feel better about themselves in a nation which has embarassingly rejected their now-dead conservative policies of intolerance, lassez-faire, trickle-down capitalism, and imperialistic wars of choice.

Why is the virulence worse now? Democrats not only have the Presidency now, like they did during the 90's, but also a firm majority in Congress. When political rats are cornered, as it were, they can prove the old adage of being "crazier than sh*thouse rats."

American conservatives say they are sticking to their principles in their virulent opposition to Obama and the Democrats. And that, of course, is the problem. Conservative principles have led directly to today's marginalized and impotent Republican Party,…..regionalized to mainly the southern states. Only 7% of all New Englanders, for example, identify now with the GOP.

Today's conservative "resistance" is more virulent now because the U.S.S Ronald Reagan is slowly sinking into the dark waters of political policy irrelevance. Rather than going through serious self-examination, acknowledging that America has changed, rather than coming up with new ideas for the 21st century……today's GOP, today's conservatives, apparently, would rather hang around their old stomping grounds, the political outhouse……where they can dart out daily, looking and sounding all crazy…..in the hopes of scaring any progressive change away.

The imaginative Steve King (R-IA) says that gay marriage is a "purely socialistic concept."

Have you noticed how conservatives and Republicans see socialistic threats, like, everywhere? Damn odd, if you ask me.

Here's Rep. King in the House explaining how President Barack Obama is the "star of ACORN, the lead, chief organizer."

King is a wild and crazy guy, huh?

_______________

Latest Times/CBS poll….

"Would you favor or oppose the government offering everyone a government administered health insurance plan — something like the Medicare coverage that people 65 and older get — that would compete with private health insurance plans?"

Favor 65%

Oppose 26%

Proving that facts still have a known liberal bias….OR….Americans want more socialism. Anybody want to break the news to Michelle Malkin and Sean Hannity?

Malkin yesterday on President Obama's UN speech….

"He (Obama) doesn't like this country very much." Obama is "the great Appeaser and the Groveler in Chief."

"..he (Obama) has solidified his place as the weakest of weak leaders of modern American history…..They laugh at us. He is a laughingstock."

That must be why, after Obama's appearance at the UN, that Russia is now considering new tougher sanctions on Iran. Russia's President Medvedev must have been laughing so hard over how weak Obama's leadership is that he couldn't help agreeing with America's New Weakling-in-Chief.

Later, Obama presided over the UN Security Council unanimously passing a resolution "that “urges” countries to put conditions on their nuclear exports, so that international inspectors would be authorized to continue monitoring the use of some nuclear materials even if a country withdrew from the nonproliferation pact."

Yep, Michelle and Sean,…..laughingstock.

________________

Next up….George W Bush's former speech writer Michael Gerson. Once again, the AB Journal insisted on printing Gerson's column. Gerson says that internet discourse in America is kind of like the Nazis using radio in the 1930's. Heil, Michael, you assh*le.

One sentence….

"The absolute freedom of the medium paradoxically encourages authoritarian impulses to intimidate and silence others."

As opposed, say, to the "absolute freedom" of Knee Pad Media members, like Gerson, whose neo-conservative "authoritarian impulses to intimidate and silence others"…..we witnessed in the main media's complicity in leading us into a war of The Dick's choosing. Extra smiley face stickers for blaming internet discourse for what his ex-boss did for 8 straight years…."intimidate and silence others"…resulting in 4400 U.S. dead soldiers. But it's the anonymous and dirty f*cking internet bloggers who possess those "authoritarian impulses."

_______________

Little known info….

The Fox Network did not cover President Barack Obama's speech before the joint session of Congress. The Fox cable outlet, I understand, did cover it….but not the broadcast network. It's the first time a major broadcaster, using public airwaves, refused to televise a presidential address before Congress.

So, according to another Beacon blurb from the Dallas Morning News today, President Obama should go on Fox and be interviewed by the blackout boyz.

"…what should concern the president more is that Fox delivers a devoted audience that doesn't always hear from the president unfiltered."

Is it me, or does that sound like a very naive statement? Nothing ever presented on Fox is "unfiltered." My suggestion to Obama? Keep flipping the bird to Fox offers…..they are unworthy to be considered a legitimate media participant.

______________

Just in case you have been confused by the flaming wingnuttery recently over the non-profit group ACORN, Rachel Maddow had an excellent piece on the whole thing last night. And the imaginative one I referred to at the top makes an appearance too. It's worth watching…..but look out for those pesky facts flying….

Finally…..Glenn Greenwald lays out the rotted landscape in the mainstream media and the halls of Washington.

The Villagers have a very ugly habit of chastising and punishing the weak and vulnerable while praising and rewarding the corrupt and the powerful. ACORN is simply the latest example.

Digby on a health insurance mandate….

Any plan that forces the uninsured to pay their hard earned money to wealthy private insurance companies under penalty of law is a huge political risk. These are the same companies that have brought us to this place where people are routinely denied the care they were promised, lied to about what was covered, scammed into paying huge sums of money for no security and no guarantee. Health insurance companies have dealt with their customers in bad faith for years and years and now we are being told that everyone must pony up and pay them even more. For all the talk of reform, when you whittle this down, that one fact comes roaring back at you and it sticks hard in the craw of anyone who considers themselves progressive.

That's exactly right. It is also the very reason a public competitive option MUST be included in the final bill. If we are forced to buy health insurance….and there is no mechanism to hold insurance rates down…..not only will Americans be forced to give their "hard earned money" to the same industry players who have created the clusterf*ck we now enjoy……but health insurance rates, and health insurance profits, will continue to skyrocket.

Politically, because nothing that will be passed will be implemented until 2013, all Democrats want to do is pass something they can boast about in 2010 and 2012. Republicans want to stop anything from being passed by Democrats, anything that could be perceived as good for America, anything that Democrats can claim as a victory.

You know the drill…grab the dirty end of the stick….cause that's the only end you're allowed to grab.

Suppose a mandate for health insurance passes but not a competitive public option….which is a likely scenario. 40 million new customers will be handed over to private, for-profit health insurers. In addition, it is very unlikely that insurance cost controls, of any kind, will be included….which will mean a huge new demand AND higher insurance costs.

Making things even worse will be the government subsidies that will be included to pay for private, even-higher-priced, health insurance for those who cannot pay for it themselves.

Consider the mess we'll have after all this goes in to effect in a few years. Higher health insurance prices, with little, if any, cost controls,……all Americans forced to buy this higher priced insurance….and tax dollars going to for-profit corporations, the same private corporations who brought us the diastrous situation which required…umm….reform, in the first place.

The problem with health insurance is that it costs too much. Many Americans do not have health insurance because it is cost prohibitive. With a reform bill that mandates coverage, prohibits any cost control competition from a government-run option, and pours billions of new tax dollar subsidies into the pockets of the very same people who created the crisis in the first place……Americans will pay even more for health care, exacerbating the very problem (costs too much) which created the need for reform originally.

It looks like Democrats are willing to f*ck over the American people by passing a bill that will actually make the health care problem worse. Democrats are prepared to go through with this potentially disastrous plan for Americans for the sake of political bragging rights….AND….the continued inflow of big pharma and big health insurance campaign contributions to their party.

Democrats, having partially sold out to corporate control during Clinton's triangulation days, seem prepared now to take triangulation to a whole new level. Democrats are triangulating with huge, for-profit corporations……guaranteeing them a huge windfall in the coming years….in return for campaign cash to keep Democrats in power. Those hoping for true and meaningful reform, on the other hand, are being told, disingenuously, that true reform is on the way.

It isn't.

Perhaps you've seen this story…..

Pfizer pays $2.3 billion

Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drug maker, will pay a record $2.3 billion civil and criminal penalty over unlawful prescription drug promotions, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.
……
The department said the $2.3 billion settlement included a $1.2 billion criminal fine, the largest criminal fine in U.S. history. The agreement also included a criminal forfeiture of $105 million.
……
The government said the company promoted four prescription drugs, including the pain killer Bextra, as treatments for medical conditions different than those the drugs had been approved for by federal regulators.
…….
Authorities said Pfizer's salesmen and women created phony doctor requests for medical information in order to send unsolicited information to doctors about unapproved uses and dosages.
…….
When Pfizer originally disclosed the settlement figure, it also announced plans to acquire rival Wyeth for $68 billion. That deal, which would bolster Pfizer's position as the world's top drug maker by revenue, is expected to close before year's end.

Pfizer's 4th quarter, 2008, earnings report….the quarter in which they wrote off the $2.3 billion government penalty…..was a period where Pfizer's revenues were $12.3 billion.

Pfizer spokesman Chris Loder confirmed Wednesday that the $2.3 billion charge to the company's earnings had been taken in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Obviously, what Pfizer did was a crime. A $2.3 billion fine, $1.2 billion of it a "criminal fine", whatever the hell that is……but no arrests, no jail time…..just some check writing using shareholders' money, that's all.

That is what is now acceptable in America, the status quo. Powerful and connected multinational pharmaceutical corporations, bastions of that free capitalistic market, perpetrate dangerous fraud against the American people….and other than the check writing…..no one is held responsible.

Corporations want to be recognized as being equal to a "person" when they're bribing political officials. But when that "person" is caught in a fraud scheme, then, not so much. Then they should be treated in some exceptional manner. Regular, you know, people who committed extraordinary fraud, like Pfizer did, would spend many years behind bars.

That's the state of America's free market giants today. Just like with our political officials, pharamceutical free marketers are immune from legal accountability for their actions.

I want to drill down on this for a minute…..

Authorities said Pfizer's salesmen and women created phony doctor requests for medical information in order to send unsolicited information to doctors about unapproved uses and dosages.

Every time I take my 84 year old mother for her quarterly doctor's appointment, I see them. Every time. Not one time have I taken my mother for her appointment when I have not seen them. The pharmaceutical salespeople. And not just one or two. Many times I count 4-5 drug representatives in a span of 30 minutes. The salepeople consist of both men and women, usually young and attractive, well dressed, shoes shined…..and always bearing gifts…..donuts, pizza, lunch for everyone in the office…..it's remarkable, and that's why I'm remarking on it.

Those are the same type of people who were defrauding doctors, and their patients by "creating phony doctor requests" in order to then "send unsolicited information to doctors about unapproved uses and dosages" of one of Pfizer's drugs. It was a full blown conspiracy to defraud doctors, clinics and patients…….and not one person goes to jail for it.

Health care considerations are being argued in America today. Conservatives insist that we can trust the free market, they say that the private market is the most efficient vehicle to address the needs of the many. Government, conservatives say, can't be trusted with health care coverage….if government, for example, allows Americans to choose a public insurance option, or negotiates with Big Pharma for lower drug prices…..conservatives tell me that we will turn into Cuba within a year, or something.

Yet, time after time, huge insurance and pharmaceutical free marketers have proven that they can't be trusted to do the right thing, like with Pfizer.

There's a commonly used phrase in today's conservative circles….it goes something like this…."when has the government ever run anything correctly, efficiently or responsibly."

I think a more apt phrase for today's environment would be something like this…."when have the free marketer big guys ever run anything that wasn't basically criminal in nature."

Is this Pfizer crime story proof that we can trust the free marketers with our health care? Or is the Pfizer story simply more evidence that the free market CAN'T be trusted with America's health care….and government intervention has become essential?

On June 15th, The Reverend wrote this…

"As I have blogged previously, I firmly believe that any health care reform coming out of Washington, inevitably, will exclude a public option and, most likely, will tax employer-provided health care benefits as well. Love to be wrong about that."

Two months and a hundred swastikas later….

Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND)…

"The fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for a public option. There never have been, so to continue to chase that rabbit, I think, is just a wasted effort." said Conrad.

Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius….

"I think what's important is choice and competition and I'm convinced at the end of the day, the plan will have both of those. But [a public option] is not the essential element," said Sebelius

In other words, if you liked that donut hole gimmick from Medicare Plan D which costs seniors thousands of unnecessary dollars…..you're going to love the financial ass-kicking coming your way in the soon-to-be-passed, minority orchestrated, health care reform bill.

I try my best to be optimistic about the United States and it's future prospects…..but alas, it is to no avail. No matter how cynical I get….no matter how much hyperbole I employ…..it's never enough to match the reality of a nation hopelessly enslaved to a small group of filthy rich corporate controllers and their media and political puppets.

Consider….

We watched a Dot.com bubble inflate and deflate into the pockets of hedge funds. We watched criminal banksters gamble away America's near term economic life while those same hedge funds deflated another artificially induced bubble and put what was left into their pockets. We watched a totally corrupt non-regulated commodities "market" steal hundreds of billions of dollars from Americans and stuff all of it into the pockets of a tiny minority of sharks and con-artists with $4 per gallon gasoline. All of that within the last 10 years and absolutely nothing has changed to prevent all three of those financial catastrophes from happening again.

And now we're going to witness a further takeover of the government and America's resources by yet another tiny pocket of filthy rich insurance and pharma crooks with a health care reform plan that is anything but. The irony here is that lying propagandists have scared Americans by falsely arguing that the government would take over the health care industry if a public option passed, while the reality is that the health insurance industry will have sucessfully taken over the government without including a public option.

What will come out of a Congress that is unsalvagably corrupt, what will come out of a Congress that is sloppy drunk on the bribes from big corporations, will not only make health care in America worse and more expensive…..but it will also help to usher in a return of the treasonous GOP political party to power.

What Americans will be told is that the vile legislation Congress will pass and Obama will sign…..will reform health care nationally. Nothing could be further from the truth. At the very best, all that is going to be passed is some weak health insurance reform. Weak for average Americans hoping for lower costs and more accessible coverage, and yet extremely strong for a corrupt, gangland-style health insurance industry who will be guaranteed upwards of 50 million new customers.

Without a public option to keep private insurance crooks from perennially raising it's coverage costs to consumers, we will all be subjected to economic enslavement, to the whims of CEO's who will continue to benefit by denying treatment while continually raising prices. And I don't even want to hear any pussified talk about some non-existent co-op exchange instead of a true public option.

So, basically, we're screwed. As ever-increasing health care costs continue to take what's left of America's economy and hand it over to a handful of the country's richest people (as we witnessed in the Dot.com crime, $4 gasoline theft, and bankster caper)….Democrats will be blamed for all of it. Hey, they were in charge when health care "reform" was passed.

Despite what Big Dog Bill Clinton says about the country moving more and more towards the progressive side……what will actually happen is that spineless, "bipartisanship"-seeking, corporately-compromised, Democrats will take the blame for the abject failure of health care…..and that will pave the way for a return to power of the openly-criminal political party, the Republicans.

I want to personally thank the equally corrupt appendage of the Republican Party, corporate-whore media, for appropriately scaring enough of the American people with their exceptional coverage of every crazy wingnut m'f'er they could possibly locate and grant 24/7 looped video to.

A job well done.

Fox's Glenn Beck calling President Obama a racist.…

First 60 seconds….

Beck asserts that Obama has "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture." After being reminded that Obama has numerous white staffers, Beck contradicted himself, stating, "I'm not saying that he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem," before going on to state, "this guy is, I believe, a racist."

Fox's Glenn Beck with Frank Luntz…..

Beck repeats what the Obama White House has called the town hall jihadists who have been blowing up local town hall meetings so constituents can't ask questions or have questions answered by their congressional representatives.

Beck…."right wing extremist, desperate Republicans, angry mobs, the mob, manufactured anger, astroturf, Brooks Brothers Brigade."

Luntz…."It's character assassination, that's what it is….and it was something that was learned under the Clinton administration."

Beck…."I have said vicious things, that's different from an administration coming out and saying these kinds of things. You have an official endorsement of this kind of thing, it's dangerous in this country."

Luntz…"This is what happens when there is no accountability. Republicans are so weak in Washington that it is so hard for them to hold the Democrats accountable and the American people are legitimately afraid. They're scared that they're going to lose their freedom. They're losing their economic freedom over the past six months and now they're afraid that they're going to lose their freedom over health care. That's what generates this passion….."

If you came close to hurling after listening to these two fumbducks, don't be alarmed, that's a normal reaction.

Frank Luntz is a focus-group f*ck who provided the Republican Party just the right focus-tested words to use over and over to help defeat health care reform. Focus-tested words that would scare people….focus-tested words, like egg-foo-yong farts, that when repeated often enough, would foul-up the entire health care reform process. Kind of a word terrorist…is what the punk Luntz is….and he is paid handsomely for deceiving the public for the sake of the powerful.

Glenn Beck is simply a wussy. A sissy-ass punk who likes to dish it out, like any sissy-ass punk likes to do…..but just like any sissy-ass punk would also do, Beck can't take it when those he insults personally call him on his bullsh*t. Remember, the health care reform wreckers are promoted, endorsed and supported by sissy-ass punks like Beck, and the propaganda horse, the FOX network, Beck rode in on.

Yes, yes, a bucket of putrid bile, like Beck, has the right of free speech….yada, freaking, yada……but people like Beck who want to exercise their f*cking free speech rights need to stand up like real, you know, men…..not like sissy-ass punks whining that their panties are now bunched because that mean black president Obama has called bullsh*t on all his lying, anti-democratic, town hall trashing friends.

The national corporate media discourse…..and I'm being as serious as an embolism……has never been so clusterf*cked-up. As far as deceit and propaganda go, in my opinion, we have successfully surpassed the old propaganda glory days of the Soviet Union.

We have become a dishonest nation from the top down, full of sissy-ass punks who lead the assault on truth by plotting to deceive Americans…..and all for the sake of America's wealthiest.

It's sickening.

UPDATE: RNC Chairman, and sissy-ass punk with a big mouth, Michael Steele, joins the whiny ass titty baby (WATB) chorus….

If you haven't read this yet….I think you'll find it very revealing. I know I did.

Most cable news viewers, who are aware of the larger picture around them, agree that Fox News is simply an arm of the Republican Party which slants and distorts and hides the truth on many news stories while simultaneously bashing Democrats 24/7. Many from the left have remarked on how radically worse Fox has gotten since Obama's election….a view I concur with.

Apparently, from the NY Times piece I link to below, an agreement was reached between Fox and NBC's head haunchos on June 1. An agreement where Keith Olbermann would cut back or eliminate altogether his nightly exposure of Bill O'Reilly's lies and propaganda….and in return Bill O'Reilly would cut back or stop altogether his ambushing of NBC officials and any negative attacks on GE, MSNBC's parent corporation.

I knew the corporate media was rotten and corrupt…..I just didn't fully appreciate, I guess, the putridness of the stench.

Just one small piece of the NY Times article to consider…..

….even though the feud had increased the audience of both programs, their lieutenants arranged a cease-fire, according to four people who work at the companies and have direct knowledge of the deal.

The emboldened words prove that the "feud" between Olbermann and O'Reilly was profitable for both Fox and NBC. Corporate heads don't usually stop profit builders from….umm…..building profits, so there is much more here than meets the eye.

It would appear that Fox doesn't want anymore attention drawn to the role they're playing as official teevee network for the Republican Party, and GE's big brass doesn't want any surprise revelations being broadcast to millions about their corporate activities.

What's your take?

We have learned that the health industry lobbyists are spending $1.4 million per day persuading Congress to do what they want and not what the American people want.

We also know that the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America has "doubled its spending to nearly $7 million in the first quarter", to fight against the needs of the American people and for a continuation of their high profits.

So the latest from the Senate Finance Committee comes as no surprise…..

They said any legislation that emerges from the talks is expected to provide for a non-profit cooperative to sell insurance in competition with private industry, rather than giving the federal government a role in the marketplace.

This, either….

PhRMA, which represents drug companies, has purchased more than $500,000 worth of television ads to air during the week in nine states.

I'm sure you've seen one or more commercials on teevee sponsored by either Big Pharma or Big Health Insurance advocating for reform. Imagine…..Big Pharma and Big Health Insurance are FOR health care reform. As long as Big Pharma and Big Health Insurance can write the bill to favor themselves, I guess, these mighty Capitalist Jihadists are all for reform.

At least in the Senate Finance Committee, that's who is writing the bill.

Howard Dean, (who will host Countdown on MSNBC tonight and tomorrow night), was a guest on the Rachel Maddow show last night. Dean reminded viewers that 72% of Americans want a public option plan….not a co-op plan…..to be included in the final reform bill.

Finance Committee Senators, apparently, could give a sh*t what the American people want. $1.4 million per day is much more important to Senators than what the American people want and need.

A co-operative plan option for health insurance is the mechanism the industry giants desire because it will be toothless in bringing health insurance costs down. Bribed Senators will be able to point to the co-op plan and disingenuously tell the American people they've done something to keep insurance prices in check. Big insurance will be guaranteed millions of new customers without having to sacrifice any profit margins. All good. As long as you are not a regular American citizen.

Many Americans still believe that our most dangerous enemies are found in the caves and middle eastern hellholes where radical Islamics dwell. While dangerous, al-Qaeda and Co. pale as a national threat when compared to Big Capitalism. Al Qaeda isn't bribing elected American officials to do their dirty work against American citizens. Big Capitalism is.

When America's enemies within Big Capitalism, those who fight against the essential needs of American citizens in order to protect their profits, can turn a legislative battle into nothing but another windfall for themselves….we should all be very concerned.

If the health reform bill doesn't include a public option, if it doesn't include discount bulk pharmaceutical purchasing rights for the federal government….then the only reason to pass it….is for the sake of Big Health Care, to help them make even more profits.

If this sellout happens, and there is no reason to think it won't, the result will be worse that the 9-11 disaster, as far as scale…..because millions of Americans will be affected negatively.

To bribed Senators, that's all okay, because they're being bipartisan…..and that's, somehow, all that matters.

A week ago we learned about new evidence confirming that Richard Cheney directed the Bush administration's disclosure of Valerie Plame's covert CIA status…..

A document filed in federal court this week by the Justice Department offers new evidence that former vice president Richard B. Cheney helped steer the Bush administration's public response to the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson's employment by the CIA and that he was at the center of many related administration deliberations.

The administration's discussion of Wilson's link to the CIA was meant to undermine criticism by her husband of administration allegations that Iraq attempted to acquire uranium, a matter that her husband had probed for the CIA, according to testimony presented in a 2007 trial.

A list of at least seven related conversations involving Cheney appears in a new court filing approved by Obama appointees at the Justice Department.

…..

The declaration also said Cheney had helped resolve disputes about "whether to declassify certain information," including portions of a National Intelligence Estimate related to Iraqi weapons programs that Libby leaked to then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

And now today, the NY Times headlines this…"Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of CIA Project"

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

…..

The disclosure about Mr. Cheney’s role in the unidentified C.I.A. program comes a day after an inspector general’s report underscored the central role of the former vice president’s office in restricting to a small circle of officials knowledge of the National Security Agency’s program of eavesdropping without warrants, a degree of secrecy that the report concluded had hurt the effectiveness of the counterterrorism surveillance effort.

Taking a wild guess……doesn't it look like when it comes to illegal and potentially illegal behavior coming out of the Bush White House that The Dick is in the center of all of it?

It's being said that the "secret counterterrorism program", knowledge of which was kept from Congress by Cheney for 8 years, was an Assassination program, which, if true, would be yet another illegal and secret program either planned or perpetrated by the Terror Twins.

I know that nothing will come of any of this information. Nancy Pelosi tipped us off early about the extent of the rot on Capitol Hill when she said repeatedly during the Bush regime, "impeachment is off the table." The "change" president, Barack Obama, is doing everything in his power to help conceal Bush/Cheney crimes…so we can all look "forward" rather than backward.

At this point, I don't believe that any forthcoming evidence would make a bit of difference. The skeletons of Bush and Cheney's neighbors could be found in their closets with signed confessions by the Terror Twins attached to the rib cages……and no criminal investigation or criminal charges would result.

We're at a dangerous crossroads in American history. Similar events during the Nixon administration led to a presidential resignation to avoid prosecution. That was a different time. Yes, we had partisanship then too….but there were Congressional representatives that possessed character and integrity.

It is truly bizarre to see the amount of evidence now out in the open that indicts Bush and Cheney….and yet not one move by anyone to hold these two very obvious criminals to account for their actions.