After Tuesday's trainwreck we are already regrouping.

WE are gonna get rid of the DPVA Chair and the House Caucus Chair. They gotta go.

And we will get a public option.

Our resolution committee has drawn up a strong support res and some DNC ers are already backing off. NO!

We will get one by hell or high water.

Did I ever tell you that Howard Dean inspired me???

I want MY country back.

From CNN:

Fort Hood is home to the Warrior Combat Stress Reset Program, which is designed to help soldiers overcome combat stress issues.

THIS IS GOING TO GET VERY DARK

Multiple news organizations are reporting that one of the suspected gunman, apparently the one who fired most of the shots, at Fort Hood is Major Malik Nadal Hasan, 39. He was shot dead during the shooting.

Late Update: The most recent statements seem to cast some doubt over whether there were multiple shooters or whether Hassan may have been the only assailant.

--Josh Marshall

The UN General Assembly has voted in favour of a resolution calling for independent inquiries by Israel and the Palestinians into war crime claims.

After a two-day debate on a report by former war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone, there were 114 votes in favour, 18 opposed and 44 abstentions.

The report condemns the conduct of both sides last December and January, after Israel launched an offensive in Gaza.

The Palestinians backed the report but Israel said it did not promote peace.

Mr Goldstone's report concluded that Israel had "committed actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity" by using disproportionate force, deliberately targeting civilians, using Palestinians as human shields and destroying civilian infrastructure during its Gaza offensive.

Time and again, the report inverts Israel's unprecedented extensive efforts to save civilian lives as proof that any civilian casualties were therefore deliberate Gabriela Shalev, Israeli Permanent Representative to the UN

It also found there was evidence that Palestinian militant groups including Hamas, which controls Gaza, had committed war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity, in their repeated rocket and mortars attacks on southern Israel.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8342915.stm

pigs, dogs, turkeys, now a cat with H1N1

this one is a pretty bad bug if it starts mutating

Lessons From Virginia

Some smart observations from Larry Sabato:

Democratic National Committee Chairman and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine is also high up on the list of losers. He presided over an electoral debacle in his own state. Unlike his predecessor, Gov. Mark Warner, he failed to prepare the way for a Democratic successor in Richmond and probably made a serious mistake in becoming chairman at all. It took him out of state too much and made him a partisan rather than a unifying figure. National ambitions have tripped up four of the last five Virginia governors. When you only have one four-year term, maybe the voters expect you to take care of business at home. Bob McDonnell might want to remember that when he is touted for the 2012 national GOP ticket. 

Continue reading "Lessons From Virginia" »

I'm sitting in a coffee shop and I watched the video of the girl being surprised by her father, and I'm literally crying. A barrista comes up and asks me what's wrong, and I show her the video, and she's crying. A couple of other people gather, and they're crying. The whole damned coffee shop is crying.

It did the same thing to me. The love in that moment expressed in the child's face is simply unforgettable.

(Andrew Sullivan)

but to use the word "reset" in the mental health program is disgusting...as tho they're computers.

The best thing for the mental health of our soldiers is to bring them home, keep them home and find jobs for them.

The man who shot them...can you imagine how many soldiers he's counseled who came back w/o limbs, eyes, faces, brains and other body parts?  In his tortured mind, it may have been a mercy killing..rather than send these young people off to these horrific soul-destroying unjustified wars. 

...just like Vietnam, only worse becuz now we have modern methods to keep soldiers alive, no matter how damaged they are...mentally, emotionally, physically and spirituality.

I am sickened by these wars we now wage in perpetuity.

Ånd by our critters who fund them.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20091103_keeping_afghanistan_safe_from_democracy/

As the president’s top national security adviser has stated, there are fewer than 100 al-Qaida members left in Afghanistan and they have no capacity to launch attacks. These remnants of a foreign Arab force assembled by the U.S. to thwart the Soviets in their hapless effort to conquer Afghanistan are now alienated from the locally based insurgency.

As Matthew Hoh, the former Marine captain and foreign service officer in charge of the most contested area, said recently in his letter of resignation, we have stumbled into a 35-year-long civil war between rural people “who want to be left alone” and a corrupt urban government that the U.S. insists on backing. Hoh, who quit after a decade of service in Iraq and Afghanistan, wrote that he was resigning not because of the hardships of his assignment but rather because he no longer believed in its stated purpose:

"I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul.”

It's pretty hard to get soldiers who need help to accept help.  Making it sound like other language they are used to may accelerate acceptance. . . .  I don't know.

Thank you, mary vb.  It's a video to remember.

The doctor/shooter was scheduled to deploy and he didn't want to go. 

What a tragedy.

Bring them home, President Obama.  Please don't just thank them for their service.

Zinger of the day? Courtesy of politicalwire.com:

Dueling Town Halls
In response to the RNC's twelve hour online town hall to "explain the democratic health care bill," DNC Press Secretary Hari Sevugan issued the following statement:



"We're planning a twelve second town hall to explain every last detail of the GOP health care plan."
Alan in CA

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/05/rep-eric-massa-video-war_n_347097.html

A former Republican, he left his party over his issues with the Iraq War. Now, with the war in Afghanistan, he explains why he's just about had enough:

"...Since becoming a member of the United States Congress, the expansion of the war in Afghanistan has drawn my late night focus. There, in the quiet of the office, I have arrived at the inevitable conclusion that the deployment of troops in Afghanistan and the continuation of this conflict is both not in the the interest of our nation, and in fact is on a par with a potential error the size of our initial invasion in Iraq. The recent election in Afghanistan has underscored the fact that we will never create a Jeffersonian democracy in that nation ... to continue to fight and die for what the people of Afghanistan will not fight and die for is simply wrong."

This is a litmus test for Obama's leadership. He has to control the military--not vice versa

I don't understand why American/Muslim doctors would even be asked/forced to deploy.  That could produce a very understandable conflict of interest.  Did this doctor have relatives in the ME who are in the line of fire?

OTOH, his language skills and medical knowledge would be considerable.

I still think forcing him to deploy was unwise, to say it mildly.

Sorting through the details:

www.prwatch.org/node/8677

Medicare Part D Planners Now Fighting Health Insurance Reform

"At least 25 former federal officials and legislative aides who helped draft the 2003 Medicare Part D drug benefit are now working as lobbyists for pharmaceutical interests trying and protect the lucrative drug payment system in negotiations for health care reform. In 2008, the House Committee on Oversight found that Medicare Part D delivered a bonanza to pharmaceutical companies by allowing them to charge the government about 30 percent more for drugs through Part D than for drugs for people in the Medicaid system.* Pharmaceutical industry lobbyists are working against the House version of the current health care reform bill, which requires drug companies to give up some of their Medicare Part D windfall."

Comments(LB) - Making even more money on backs of poor subsidized by taxpayer. See link for former elected politicians now "standing on corners" for Big Pharma. Not sure how much Pelosi's bill stops this.

   Pelosi House Bill:

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977887121&grpId=3659174697244816

Increasing prescription drug rebates. Increases the minimum percentage rebate on brand-name drugs to 23.1 percent of average manufacturer price; extends rebates to new formulations of brand-name drugs; and extends rebate requirement to drugs prescribed by Medicaid managed care organizations.

• Comment(LB) - I'm not sure what this really means. How does it affect the 30% more that Big Pharma can charge taxpayer for Medicaid medications ? Does it "give back" 23 % to the government or is it simply - 30% - 23% = they charge 7 % more for people on Medicaid ?

The Major is alive and in stable condition.

Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion. Hey, were up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It's totally sterile now. Operational exhaustion. Sounds like something that might happen to your car. Then of course, came the war in Viet Nam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it's no surprise that the very same condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder. Still eight syllables, but we've added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder. I'll bet you if we'd of still been calling it shell shock, some of those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I'll betcha. I'll betcha.

http://www.iceboxman.com/carlin/pael.php#track15

  Pelosi House Bill:

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977887121&grpId=3659174697244816

                 
Medicare drug benefit. Eliminates Part D donut hole over time and provides 50 percent discount in donut hole for Part D enrollees. Restores manufacturer rebate for Part D drugs used by dual eligibles, as well as low-income subsidy eligibles after 2015. Funds raised by this provision are used to close the Part D donut hole.

Comment(LB) - Are you kidding me ? I think the Pelosi bill defines "eliminate" as 10 years - what (wasn't another bill 15 ?). Dual eligibles are about 6 million people. About 40 million Americans use Medicare Part D. This is not ideal and I wondering what Big Pharma has projected as the impact on revenues and stock prices ? Yes, I am looking at this as a class A cynic.

 

I'm hoping some ambitious repugs don't try to turn this into a hate crime or a terrorist attack before we have the facts.

***********************

I thought we had a volunteer army.  Why was he being deployed?  He didn't want to go.  Why wasn't that honored in this volunteer army?

Unfortunately, we didn't do jack shit for soldiers with shell shock.  We sent them home, and they lived in their mothers' attics till they died.

I don't know how good the "reset" program is, I just heard about it today.  But someone is trying to do *something* for them.  And trying to do it in a way that doesn't make them shy of getting whatever help they need.

I'd be interested in hearing dog's take on this.  I blog elsewhere with a VN vet, and PTSD has come very close to destroying his life, and has destroyed the lives of many men he loved/fought with.

Hasan was an unhappy soldier, according to his family and colleagues, not at first, but as his career progressed. Nader Hasan said his cousin, though born in America, had suffered harassment from fellow soldiers who questioned his loyalty to the US and commented on his Middle East ethnicity. As a Muslim, he was upset at the killing of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan and Nader Hasan confirmed that he had been resisting deployment in either war zone.

He had been scheduled for deployment to Iraq at the end of the year and had told colleagues repeatedly he did not want to go. He felt trapped, looking at ways to buy his way out, even going to the extent of hiring a lawyer to seek if he could leave military service honourably.

After a killing on this scale, there will inevitably be questions about whether the fact that Hasan was a Muslim was a factor, and whether the incident will fuel tension between Muslims and non-Muslims in the US military.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/06/nidal-malik-hasan-fort-hood-shooting1

Big Pharma Immune to Obama Overhaul

Some investors may be waiting to add more money to pharmaceutical stocks -- and some may have gotten out already. Regardless of the outcome of President Obama's health-care overhaul, however, the effect on drug makers such as Pfizer(PFE Quote), Merck(MRK Quote), Bristol-Myers Squibb(BMY Quote) and GlaxoSmithKline(GSK Quote) probably will be negligible. The same can't be said for health-insurance companies UnitedHealth Group(UNH Quote) and Aetna(AET Quo

www.thestreet.com/story/10614328/1/big-pharma-immune-to-obama-overhaul.html

Big Pharma To Profit From Health Care Reform

     It may be a bit too early, but the Wall Street Journal this morning wastes no time in lining up the winners and losers of health care reform. The list is hardly a surprise. "The drug industry stands to gain in a health-care overhaul by getting tens of millions of newly insured customers, while insurance companie—especially those that cater to the individual market—look like they are in for a tougher time," the newspaper writes. The $829 billion plan being worked over by Congress would extend health coverage to 29 million Americans—a boon, in effect, for drug makers, pharmacists, and hospitals. And insurance companies? They "would get more customers, too, but not necessarily the ones they want," the WSJ concludes.

www.thebigmoney.com/features/todays-business-press/2009/10/19/big-pharma-profit-health-care-reform

Opinion: Fort Hood Reset Program Teaches Soldiers To Leave ‘Battle Mind’ Behind
Posted on March 26, 2009 by gm

http://www.veteranstoday.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5504

but the harvest this fall has been more like lindab's GOVT. what a struggle and a defeat as well since the wet beans made it necessary to delay corn harvest to use corn facilities to bring down moisture

or like a game five down three games to one

too early to say better luck next time

on to the corn  ....but what the heck  ....... woot!

might be what happened at Fort Hood and it is more common than generally acknowledged

high speed chases that end in accidents are almost a daily occurance in America

and my friend who commands a SWAT team hates those armed standoffs with someone armed and threatening to kill themselves

suicide rates are among the highest in the psychiatric profession as well