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Hanging with the Tea Baggers: What Exactly Do They Mean by 'Judgement Day'?
Posted by Brad Friedman, Brad Blog on October 31, 2009 at 10:22 AM.

So we went out to Griffith Park out here in L.A. to check out the kick-off day for the new "Tea Party Express II" national tour. Thought we might meet some interesting people and file a quick video report. Met a lot of interesting people, and so ended up making a short film of sorts. Enjoy. Spread the word. Go tell the story ("both sides")...

Honduras's 'Bloodless Coup': What You're Not Seeing on TV
Posted by Avi Lewis, Al Jazeera English on October 27, 2009 at 7:43 AM.

This video is a trailer for the Fault Lines' coverage of the coup in Honduras. Watch Part One and Part Two of the full version of Fault Lines: 100 Days of Resistance.

I arrived in Honduras one week after ousted president Manuel Zelaya returned to begin his long spell of internal exile in the Brazilian embassy. With my crew from Fault Lines on Al Jazeera English TV, I went straight from the airport to a funeral. A week later, on our last night of filming, we attended another funeral. The first was for a 24-year-old woman, the second for a 50-year-old schoolteacher, and both active in the resistance to the coup. According to their families, both were killed for it.

The coup regime in Honduras is winning. Tepid pressure from the Obama administration is making it easy for the de facto government to run out the clock until the highly compromised elections in just five weeks. Whether or not international observers bless that vote, a new government will take power in Honduras and declare the stain of the coup removed, democracy restored. Absent the kind of meaningful sanctions Washington has so far been unwilling to impose, the status quo will triumph: the backers of the coup will go unpunished.

Unsurprisingly, the U.S. mainstream media is not reporting the story of what is really going on in Honduras. The de facto government and its backers invested $400,000 (that we know of) in bipartisan lobbying, and succeeded in implanting a deeply distorted narrative of events -- a nouveau cold war story starring Hugo Chávez as puppet master and Zelaya as marionette. Meanwhile, the voice of the social movement struggling to reform its country's constitution in the second poorest nation in the hemisphere has been all but ignored.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Sen. Bernie Sanders: The Fight for Better Health Care
Posted by Sen. Bernie Sanders on October 23, 2009 at 7:00 PM.

One of the reasons that I am a strong proponent of a single-payer, Medicare-for-all proposal is that it is much less complicated than what we are going to end up with in Congress. A single-payer approach saves hundreds of billions of dollars a year because you don’t end up with thousands of different health insurance programs appealing to all different kinds of people and costing a fortune to administer. I am going to continue the fight for single-payer. I am cautiously optimistic that we may end up with legislation that will allow states to go forward with single-payer if they want to.

Senator Sanders Unfiltered is a weekly web program produced by Brave New Films.

Stay up-to-date with "Unfiltered" on Facebook. Follow Bernie on Twitter.

President Obama's Heroes: A Bunch of People Who Would Not Approve of War in Afghanistan
Posted by ZP Heller on October 23, 2009 at 12:33 PM.

On September 8, 2009, a school girl named Lilly asked President Obama who he'd have lunch with if he could pick anyone alive or dead. The president chose Gandhi, explaining that Gandhi's nonviolence inspired Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar Chavez in the United States.

All three of these men--Gandhi, MLK and Chavez--were committed to nonviolence and opposed war as a foreign policy tool. Similar to his invocations of Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount during the campaign, the president continues to cite "inspiration" from luminaries of nonviolence, only to reject their philosophies when it comes time to govern.

Learn more about the war in Afghanistan at http://rethinkafghanistan.com.

Mr. President, your heroes are watching you.

Alan Grayson Schools GA Wing-Nut Paul Broun on Constitution
Posted by Staff, AlterNet on October 23, 2009 at 11:50 AM.

Two of the House's most vocal members spar over the GOP's ongoing jihad against ACORN. Hat-tip to Jill C. at Brilliant at Breakfast, who adds: "It's frightening that Republicans who know absolutely nothing about the Constitution are allowed to create law in this country."

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) Humbles Hudson Institute Dilettante Over Health Care Bankruptcies
Posted by AlterNet Staff, AlterNet on October 22, 2009 at 12:12 PM.

Franken drove home the point that medical bankruptcies are unheard of in countries with viable heath care systems. 

Heather Graham Stars as 'The Public Option' in Funny MoveOn Video
Posted by Jan Frel, AlterNet on October 21, 2009 at 11:23 AM.

Heather Graham stars as the Public Option in this funny ad, showing how she'll force the lazy, bloated private insurance companies to get back in the game and compete. After all, competition is as American as apple pie. Featuring actor Peter Coyote as the narrator-- Check out more from MoveOn.org

Pass it on to your friends!

Glenn Beck Sees a Communist Under Every Rock
Posted by Free Press on October 15, 2009 at 9:28 PM.

FOX News' Glenn Beck makes it seem like everyone and everything is a communist, socialist or fascist. What happens when people go looking for them?  Free Press went to find out.

Flashback: Al Franken's Supply-Side Jesus
Posted by Staff, AlterNet on October 9, 2009 at 11:30 AM.

Al Franken has gone out of his way to appear staid and ... "senatorial" since his campaign to represent Minnesota in the upper house of the U.S. Congress, but we remember the days when Al Franken used his humor to make a point. In the video window to your right is an oldie -- Al Franken's animated comic strip, "Gospel of Supply-Side Jesus." Enjoy!

Pelosi to GOP: Thanks But I'm In My Place
Posted by Staff, AlterNet on October 8, 2009 at 11:18 AM.

In a statement (falsely) criticizing Nancy Pelosi for not supporting an escalation of the conflict in Afghanistan, the NRCC offered the hope that General McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, would "put [Pelosi] in her place." In the video to your right, Pelosi responds to a reporter's question on the matter.

The Human Cost of War: The Images the Corporate Media Doesn't Want You to See
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on October 5, 2009 at 2:30 PM.

This past weekend, AlterNet had the privilege of hosting a screening of Robert Greenwald's important new documentary, Rethink Afghanistan, in New York City. It was just one of several screenings to kick off an impressive nationwide campaign by Brave New Films to spread a crucial message about the war in Afghanistan: This is not the "good war" as we have been told by so many for so long. This is a losing battle, and it is costing us dearly: in billions of dollars, in thousands of lives, and in the eyes of the rest of the world.

And of course, it is costing the people of Afghanistan more than anyone. Perhaps one of the most jolting things about watching the film is seeing image after terrible image of civilian suffering: desperate families mired in refugee camps, pain-stricken schoolgirls attacked with acid by the resurgent Taliban, countless injured men, women and children who are the "collateral damage" from errant U.S. bomb strikes. It is a punch-to-the-gut reminder of just how sanitized this war -- which Obama has always called the "right front" of the so-called war on terror -- has been.

Of course, if you're the New York Times, these very images, which have the power to awaken people to the human cost of war, are actually proof of a slanted agenda on the part of the filmmaker. "At an almost breathless pace that leaves little room for reflection, Mr. Greenwald presents a flurry of sights, voices and figures, many of them compelling but all reflecting his point of view," writes NYT film reviewer Andy Webster in a dismissive 250-word review today.

"Mr. Greenwald's documentary has no time to approach an opposing view with sympathy or understanding for its concerns," he concludes.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Democrats' New Star Alan Grayson Gives Conservatives a Dose of Their Own Medicine
Posted by Staff, Brave New Films on October 4, 2009 at 10:38 AM.

Last week, Rep. Alan Grayson said the Republican "plan" for health care was "don't get sick", and if you get sick, "die faster". Republicans called on Grayson to apologize; Grayson's response was to apologize to those who have died due to lack of health insurance. Since then, Grayson has stuck to his guns. Here's a tribute to the brave Democrat from Florida.

Michael Moore's Expose of 'Dead Peasant' Insurance Policies Too Shocking Even for Good Morning America to Ignore
Posted by Jan Frel, AlterNet on October 3, 2009 at 8:14 AM.

From diarist alien abductee DailyKos: "Michael Moore's Capitalism, A Love Story has revealed a deep dark secret to the intrepid reporters of ABC News - so-called Dead Peasant Insurance, the practice of companies taking out secret life insurance policies on their low-level employees, with the benefits paid out to the company upon the employee's death, even if they no longer work at the company."

Letterman Admits Extortion Plot; Sexual Liaisons With Staffers
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on October 2, 2009 at 12:22 PM.

[Trigger warning.]

Last night on his show, David Letterman took ten minutes to share with his audience the story of an extortion plot—including the writing of a fake $2 million check, his testimony in front of a grand jury, and the arrest yesterday afternoon of the extortionist—and also confessed, without details like when or why, to having had sex with female employees of the show.

Despite the idiotic headline, this piece very accurately summarizes the segment, which I found to be profoundly uncomfortable to watch, even knowing the content of what he was going to say. Throughout the story, he refers obliquely to the "creepy stuff" he'd done, over which he was being extorted, and the moment where he at last reveals what the "creepy stuff" was (at 7:40), the reaction from the studio audience is, well, rather creepy itself—even given all the relevant excuses for nervous responses, etc.

[The video's in the window to your right. Starting at 7:40]

 

Now, of course, we get to: What was it, what was all the creepy stuff [audience laughs] that he was going to put into the screenplay and the [book], and, uh, the creepy stuff was that I have had sex with women who work for me on this show. [audience murmurs] Now, my response to that is: Yes, I have. [audience laughs] I have had sex with women who worked on this show. [audience applauds] And, and would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Perhaps it would. Perhaps it would. [audience laughs] Especially for the women! [audience laughs and applauds]

Part of the reaction is discernibly "Way to go, Dave!" from people who think it's great he's had loads of HOT SEXXX WITH CHICKS, but part of the reaction is palpable relief that the "creepy stuff" wasn't worse:

At least he's no Polanski.

No. Not according to him, anyway. According to him, it was just some consensual sex with some ladies who happen to work for him—as if that's incidental and not a major ethical problem, even if they weren't coerced by virtue of their employment.

I suppose such questions are easily drowned out by laughter at self-deprecating jokes about "Lutheran Midwestern guilt" and how embarrassing it would be for his conquests for people to know they had sex with him. Har har.

Jesus. I'm so done with this fucking week.

Right-Wingers Root Against U.S., Then Celebrate Olympic Bid Failure
Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress on October 2, 2009 at 10:44 AM.

Although the United States sent a high-powered delegation to make a last-ditch effort to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) ruled out the Windy City today. Of the final four cities — which also included Madrid, Toyko, and Rio — Chicago received the fewest votes. In his speech to the IOC in Copenhagen today, President Obama tied the American dream to the Olympic spirit in his pitch for the United States:

[Chicago is] a bustling metropolis with the warmth of a small town; where the world already comes together every day to live and work and reach for a dream — a dream that no matter who we are, where we come from; no matter what we look like or what hand life has dealt us; with hard work, and discipline, and dedication, we can make it if we try.

That’s not just the American Dream. That is the Olympic spirit. It’s the essence of the Olympic spirit. That’s why we see so much of ourselves in these Games. That’s why we want them in Chicago. That’s why we want them in America.

Always looking for a way to bring down Obama, conservatives not only criticized the President’s 15-hour trip, but also spent this week denegrating Chicago, downplaying the Olympics, and rooting against America.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »