First there was Medicare for all 300 million of us. But that was a non-starter because private insurers and Big Pharma wouldn't hear of it, and Republicans and "centrists" thought it was too much like what they have up in Canada -- which, by the way, cost Canadians only 10 percent of their GDP and covers every Canadian. (Our current system of private for-profit insurers costs 16 percent of GDP and leaves out 45 million people.)--- Our private, for-profit health insurance system, designed to fatten the profits of private health insurers and Big Pharma, is about to be turned over to ... our private, for-profit health care system. Except that now private health insurers and Big Pharma will be getting some 30 million additional customers, paid for by the rest of us. Upbeat policy wonks and political spinners who tend to see only portions of cups that are full will point out some good things: no pre-existing conditions, insurance exchanges, 30 million more Americans covered. But in reality, the cup is 90 percent empty. Most of us will remain stuck with little or no choice -- dependent on private insurers who care only about the bottom line, who deny our claims, who charge us more and more for co-payments and deductibles, who bury us in forms, who don't take our calls.

Campus Progress has started the daunting task of taking on major banks and loan companies that pray on the financial confusion and lack of experience of college students hoping to pay for their classes. After Sallie Mae began buying up ad space in Politico, Campus Progress also put a full page ad featuring a letter that 50 groups signed in favor of reform.

In the official record of the historic House debate on overhauling health care, the speeches of many lawmakers echo with similarities. Often, that was no accident. Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies. E-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that the lobbyists drafted one statement for Democrats and another for Republicans. [Note: Members of both parties reading from a script provided them by a company that outsources not only their work, but their employees from India. Yet for these Congress members who lied. The claim was the jobs would be American owned and run. LIARS!]

These congressional felons assumed membership in the biggest-of-all-members-only clubs provided a get-out-of-jail-free card. They believed they could get away with bribery and extortion because politicians have been getting away with them legally for years.

The new exemption's requirements are stunningly lax. In order to withhold the photos, Gates simply had to certify, as he did in the court filing, that "public disclosure of these photographs would endanger citizens of the United States, members of the United States Armed Forces, or employees of the United States Government deployed outside the United States." In other words, their release had to endanger someone, somewhere. And in the unlikely event that Gates had to stretch the truth to make that certification, it wouldn't matter, since there's no provision in the law that allows any court to review Gates' determination or rule on whether it was truthful.

Sibel Edmonds writes about crime and corruption in our media and Congress in this post on several topics. "Another Police State Government Villains & an Irate Minority Fighter Story; The Deceitful Media Pimping Tyranny; The Convergence of Interests: MIC & Members of Congress"

The chairman of the House Financial Services Committee has cultivated a pugnacious persona, but on financial reform he may be fighting for the wrong side.

Troop levels and insurgency strategies have dominated the discussion about Afghanistan, but there may be an important ulterior motive for those in favor of a ramped up military effort.

Today we journey from Operation Cast Lead to Operation Cast Doubt. Almost as serious as committing war crimes is covering up war crimes, pretending that war crimes were never committed and did not exist. ...Because behind every such deception is the nullification of humanity, the destruction of human dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the triumph of Orwellian thinking, the eternal prison of the dark heart of the totalitarian. ...The resolution before us today, which would reject all attempts of the Goldstone Report to fix responsibility of all parties to war crimes, including both Hamas and Israel, may as well be called the "Down is Up, Night is Day, Wrong is Right" resolution.

The US House of Representatives has condemned the UN Goldstone report, which accused Israel of committing war crimes in its 22-day war against the Palestinians in Gaza. By a vote of 344 to 36, the members of the lower house of Congress approved a non-binding resolution that calls the report “irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy.” The harshly worded resolution calls on President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration" of the critical report. South African judge Richard Goldstone recently challenged the United States to justify its objections over his report about the December 27-January 18 Israeli war on the Gaza Strip that killed over 1,400 Palestinians, with many of the victims women and children. Goldstone recommended that the conclusions of the report be forwarded to the Hague-based International Criminal Court if the sides involved in the Gaza war failed to conduct credible investigations within six months.

Those who like banks that are too big to fail will love the latest financial reform proposals circulating in the US Congress. The bill put forward by Barney Frank, the chairman of the House finance committee, does little to change the current structure of the financial system. The "too-big-to-fail" banks will be left in place, even bigger and less accountable than before. There will be nothing done to separate commercial and investment banking, so giants like Goldman Sachs will be free to speculate with money guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The main difference is that the Federal Reserve Board will be granted even more power than it has now. And, we will tell the Fed to be smarter in the future, so that it doesn't make the same stupid mistakes that gave us the current crisis.

Dede Scozzafava the Republican candidate for New York's 23rd district who was forced to drop out by conservatives because she supported gay rights and is pro choice, gave the conservatives some payback by coming out and endorsing the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens.

Various attempts to reform the financial system are bouncing around the capitol these days. The reaction of one of Wall Street's biggest players to them may be as good an indicator as any of how serious they are.

Democratic lawmakers said Tuesday that the CIA misled and/or lied to Congress about it's intelligence programs at least five times since 2001, including one previously alleged instance in which the agency failed to disclose to top members of the House and Senate intelligence committees that the CIA tortured war on terror detainees. Moreover, a top intelligence official revealed during a House Intelligence Committee hearing that there were other "minor instances" where Congress was not notified about significant covert activities. Speaking to reporters immediately after the hearing, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois) said the CIA's failure to disclose details about its use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" is a "symptom of a larger disease." Schakowsky revealed that, in addition to withholding information from lawmakers about torture, the CIA lied or misled Congress about the shooting down of an airplane over Peru in 2001 carrying American missionaries, the destruction of torture tapes and a top secret assassination program aimed at targeting leaders of al-Qaeda. She would not reveal details of what the fifth case was. A 2008 CIA inspector general's report had already concluded that the agency lied to Congress about the Peru incident.

The US Congress is a considering a bipartisan resolution which would officially reject the findings of Judge Goldstone’s report on the Gaza war and call on President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton to use the US veto to prevent a vote on the report in the United Nations Security Council. A vote on the bill, House Resolution 867, is expected by this coming weekend. It is urgent that you call both your Senators and your Congressperson today and tell them to vote against this outrageous bill. You can read the bill here: http://gazaviews.blogspot.com/2009/10/yet-another-outrageous-congressional.html. It ignores the conclusions of the Goldstone Report and simply parrots Israeli government denial. Judge Goldstone has challenged the US to substantiate its claim that his report is “flawed.” President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have made no response. The carefully researched and documented report deserves a response, not a veto. The people of Gaza, who were brutally attacked, deserve a hearing.

As is often the case the truth is far more terrible than the fiction cooked up by political operatives, and activists who truly believe new financial regulations are necessary must use those truths to their advantage. Thus, "bailouts" should be the new "death panels." "Too big to fail" should be the new "government-run healthcare." "Derivatives" should be the new "taxpayer-funded baby killing." This time we must learn from the real failure of the Office of Thrift Supervision, rather than the imaginary failure of Medicare that exists only in a neocon's dream. What's important to remember here is that bailouts, the "too big to fail" doctrine and derivatives are real, while the teabagger lingo was based on absolute falsehoods. While in both the teabaggers' and the bank reformers' cases, the people have numbers on their side, there is a significant difference. Those gathered in Chicago this week have the facts and common sense that the teabaggers lacked. One cannot laugh off bank reform as partisan bickering.

Taegan Goddard is right that Joe Wilson’s boorish “You Lie!” outburst was a key in coalescing the Democrats behind helathcare reform, but GOP whackjobbery, ignorance, and racism is going to scuttle them in future elections, no doubt. There are more poster children for GOP failure than you can count.

Today's protest and accompanying march are part of a three-day event that ends in a rally tomorrow. While the healthcare debate winds down, the attempt to switch popular anger from insurance lobbyists to financial ones may prove difficult. But Fried isn't worried about keeping people engaged, insisting that this is only the beginning of what is becoming for more and more people a very personal fight. "If you're losing your home, or your business closed because a bank wouldn't give it credit, it's not esoteric at all. It's your life," Fried said. "There's nothing more concrete that eating and having a place to live. And that's what this is about."

At a conference in London, a Goldman Sachs international adviser, Brian Griffiths, praised inequality. As his company was putting aside $16.7 billion for compensation and benefits in the first nine months of 2009, up 46 percent from a year earlier, Griffiths told us not to worry. “We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all,” he said.---Today, Congress is struggling to produce the tiniest shards of regulation that would at least give the appearance of doing something to rein in the Street. What happened in the intervening months? Two things. First, America's attention wandered. We're now focusing on health care, Letterman's frolics, and little boys who hide in attics rather than balloons. And, hey, the Dow is up again. The politicians who put off Wall Street regulation for ten months knew that the public would probably lose interest by now. Second, the banks keep paying off Congress.

In an effort to create a new agency to oversee banking products such as mortgages, credit cards and savings accounts, the House Financial Services Committee is nearing approval of a measure that will create a new federal agency to oversee the consumer financial market. The bill, which was made a priority by President Obama, has been tailored with many exemptions to exclude tangential industries from direct oversight by the new bureaucracy. Credit, mortgage and title insurers will be exempt, as will retailers, real estate brokers, lawyers, cable companies and accountants.