A successful Congressional vote on the health care reform plan could theoretically bring an end to the Republican Party.…Passing the Democrat´s health care reform could be a rebirth of a new, FDR type "NEW DEAL".... The problem that the GOP has is that if the Democrat´s health care reform plan is finally passed, and it is successful, this would be a major feather in the Democrat´s cap and it would be another recognition and support of FDR´s "New Deal" type programs. The real issue is that the basic goals of the Republican Party are to dismantle the American Middle Class and to increase the wealth and power of the very rich...the GOP is fighting the Democrat´s health care reform bill as a threat against the actual existence of their political party... if the health care bill passes and it works reasonably well, the Republicans could virtually disappear just as they did after the Republican President Herbert Hoover failed and after the successful Democratic terms of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. One can now only hope for a repeat of that situation.

Ellsberg: As President Obama decides what to do in Afghanistan he must learn the lessons of Vietnam. Same warnings here given by Ellsberg, are the same warnings brought up by Seymour Hersh and others.

As his presidency approaches the half-year mark, Barack Obama is on pace to be the most successful Oval Office occupant in more than half a century when measured by his ability to get Congress to vote his way — even though he shows signs of carefully picking his fights on Capitol Hill. His success score of 95.2 percent, if it continues for the rest of the year, would be the highest for any president since Congressional Quarterly began this measurement in 1953.

I was reading the cover story of the New York Times Sunday Magazinethe other day—the one about Obama’s team taking Capitol Hill—and I came upon the following quote from Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. “The only nonnegotiable principle here,” he said, “is success. Everything else is negotiable.” That’s the problem I have with Emanuel—and with Obama. There’s no principle they’re willing to go to the mat for. They didn’t fight for universal single-payer health care. They didn’t fight for giving judges the authority to reduce the mortgages of people in bankruptcy. They didn’t fight against the bank bailout. They didn’t fight to keep GM from shutting down plants and laying off 21,000 people, even when they’re taking ownership of GM. Note: Some call this "unprincipled". I call it "amoral". But then that is what a corptocracy is all about, "the bottom line" which is measured as "success", if the bottom line is looking good.

This Wednesday Sen. Baucus will meet with a delegation of leading single payer national health plan advocates. The delegation includes: Dr. David Himmelstein, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), Dr. Marcia Angell, Senior Lecturer, Harvard Medical School and former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Oliver Fein, Associate Dean, Cornell Weill Medical School, and President of PNHP, Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association, and Geri Jenkins, president of California Nurses Association.

Study Of Satellite Imagery Casts Doubt On Surge's Success In Baghdad Satellite image of night lights in Baghdad. By tracking the amount of light emitted by Baghdad neighborhoods at night, a team of UCLA geographers has uncovered fresh evidence that last year's U.S. troop surge in Iraq may not have been as effective at improving security as some U.S. officials have maintained

Accusing Israel of killing Imad Moghaniyah in a car bomb blast on Tuesday in Damascus, the Syrian capital, Hassan Nasrallah said that it had "crossed the borders". "With this murder, its timing, location and method - Zionists [Israel] if you want this kind of open war, let the whole world listen: let this war be open," he said.

"So, here's a simple reality check: The whole discussion of, and argument about, "success" in Iraq is, in fact, obscene. Given what has already happened to that country -- and will continue to happen as long as the U.S. remains an occupying power there -- the very category of "success" is an obscenity. If violence actually does stay down there, that may be a modest godsend for Iraqis, but it can hardly be considered a sign of American "success.""

Kris Kobach, a former counsel to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft who is currently the chairman of the Kansas GOP, sent out an email on Thur entitled “Kansas Republican Party Year in Review” in which he brags of voter caging. Blue Tide Rising has the goods: “To date, the Kansas GOP has identified and caged more voters in the last 11 months than the previous two years!” […]

A mass grave filled with badly decomposed bodies was unearthed Saturday in southern Baghdad, where relatives of people missing in the neighborhood gathered at a mosque in hopes of learning the fate of their loved ones. It was the third mass grave found in Iraq this month.

As well as all the violence in Baghdad,normal Iraqi people also have to cope with the lack of electricity,normally getting just 1hr a day of power,or pay $80 for 6hrs of electric from a neighbors generator

Tax avoidance, rather than savvy entrepreneurial spirit, is the key to the retailer's achievement. Last week, the business press reported Amazon.com had record third-quarter profits as its stock price approached dot.com bubble peaks. We should all be joining in the celebration of Amazon's success because, as taxpayers, we deserve most of the credit.

"The Netherlands has come top of a league table for child well-being across 21 industrialised countries. The study by the UN children's organisation, Unicef, looked at relative poverty, educational and health standards, sexual behaviour and the children's relationship with friends and parents."