55% Favor Repeal of Health Care Bill

Rasmussenreports.com

Just before the House of Representatives passed sweeping health care legislation last Sunday, 41% of voters nationwide favored the legislation while 54% were opposed. Now that President Obama has signed the legislation into law, most voters want to see it repealed. 

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, conducted on the first two nights after the president signed the bill, shows that 55% favor repealing the legislation. Forty-two percent (42%) oppose repeal. Those figures include 46% who Strongly Favor repeal and 35% who Strongly Oppose it. 

In terms of Election 2010, 52% say they’d vote for a candidate who favors repeal over one who does not. Forty-one percent (41%) would cast their vote for someone who opposes repeal. 

Not surprisingly, Republicans overwhelmingly favor repeal while most Democrats are opposed. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 59% favor repeal, and 35% are against it. 

Most senior citizens (59%) also favor repeal. Earlier, voters over 65 had been more opposed to the health care plan than younger adults. Seniors use the health care system more than anyone else.

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AE911Truth signers to press NY City Council Members

“Please, join our coordinated effort to bring justice to my son and the thousands of others who were murdered on September 11th. We can’t let the tenth anniversary of their deaths go by without a real investigation into the events of that horrible day.” – Bob McIlvaine

“Building # What?!” is a phone and fax campaign to help the New York City Council get our message about the destruction of World Trade Center Building 7.

How can you get a WTC 7 investigation?
Starting on Monday, March 15, 2010, NYC CAN asked thousands of concerned citizens in New York and across the country to begin calling and faxing three city council members each day. All 51 council members will be contacted over the course of 17 business days. 

Here's how AE911Truth can help: Each morning, check in at NYCCAN.org for action alerts with the contact info for three city council members’ offices. In our action alerts we will include a set of suggested talking points to use when you call or fax the council members. 

Only 15 minutes is what it will take each day to call or fax all three council members. Thousands of phone calls and faxes will reinforce and pave the way for NYC CAN’s ongoing meetings with individual council members.

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A spy unsettles US-India ties

News that the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had reached a plea bargain with David Coleman Headley, who played a key role in the planning of the terrorist strike in Mumbai in November 2008 in which 166 people were killed, has caused an uproar in India.

The deal enables the US government to hold back from formally producing any evidence against Headley in a court of law that might have included details of his links with US intelligence or oblige any cross-examination of Headley by the prosecution.

Nor can the families of the 166 victims be represented by a lawyer to question Headley during his trial commencing in Chicago. Headley's links with the US intelligence will now remain classified information and the Pakistani nationals involved in the Mumbai attacks will get away scot-free. Furthermore, the FBI will not allow Headley's extradition to India and will restrict access so that Indian agencies cannot interrogate him regarding his links with US and Pakistani intelligence.

In return for pleading guilty to the charges against him Headley will get lighter punishment than the death sentence that was probably most likely.

Headley's arrest in Chicago last October initially seemed a breakthrough in throwing light on the operations and activities of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Pakistan-based terrorist organization, in India. But instead the Obama administration's frantic efforts to cover up the details of the case have been taken to their logical conclusion.

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Healthy tax increases, not only on wealthy

When it comes to the taxes associated with the new health care bill, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s assessment stands: It's a big — very big — deal.

The historic overhaul of the nation's health care system that President Obama signed Tuesday, when combined with the fixes making their way through Congress, will raise taxes over the next 10 years by more than a half-trillion dollars.

The tax increases range from hundreds of billions of dollars in new Medicare levies, including one that taxes investment income such as capital gains and dividends for the first time, to a 10 percent excise tax on indoor tanning services that will raise less than $3 billion over the next decade.

Imposing a Medicare tax on investment income "would reduce demand for investment, which is the last thing that the economy needs right now. It would slow [economic] recovery, reduce employment opportunities and hinder wage growth," said Karen Campbell of the conservative Heritage Foundation. "Less investment, lower investment values and lower wages hinder the ability of households to build wealth."

Under a procedure that doesn't require a 60-vote majority for approval, the Senate is considering a package of changes to the new health care law to placate House members' concerns about the Senate bill, which the lower chamber approved Sunday with no Republican support. Among other things, the Senate must approve the numerous tax-law changes that the House passed in a second bill Sunday to fix the upper chamber's December proposal.

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Britain expels top Mossad agent over 'intolerable' passport cloning

London Times

Britain has expelled Mossad’s chief representative in London after a criminal investigation blamed the Israeli spy agency for the cloning of British passports used in the assassination of a senior Hamas operative in Dubai.

The diplomat's expulsion was announced in a statement to Parliament by David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, who said that Israel's "intolerable" misuse of British passports had shown a "profound disregard" for the UK's sovereignty.

"The fact that this was done by a country which is a friend, with significant diplomatic, cultural, business and personal ties to the UK, only adds insult to injury," Mr Miliband said.

"No country or government could stand by in such a situation," he added. "I have asked that a member of the Embassy of Israel be withdrawn from the UK as a result of this affair and this is taking place."

The 12 passports were among at least 26 forged European and Australian identity documents used by the members of an Israeli hit squad which murdered the Hamas armourer Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel on January 19.

Mr Miliband said that an investigation carried out by the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (Soca), which sent officers both to Dubai and Israel, had shown that the owners of the passports had been the unwitting and innocent victims of official identity fraud.

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McCain and Lieberman's "Enemy Belligerent" Act Could Set U.S. on Path to Military Dictatorship

Glenn Greenwald calls the bill "probably the single most extremist, tyrannical and dangerous bill introduced in the Senate in the last several decades."

On March 4th, Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman introduced a bill called the "Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010" that, if passed, would set this country on a course to become a military dictatorship.

The bill is only 12 pages long, but that is plenty of room to grant the president the power to order the arrest, interrogation, and imprisonment of anyone -- including a U.S. citizen -- indefinitely, on the sole suspicion that he or she is affiliated with terrorism, and on the president's sole authority as commander in chief.

The Act begins with the following (convoluted) requirement:

Whenever within the United States, its territories, and possessions, or outside the territorial limits of the United States, an individual is captured or otherwise comes into the custody or under the effective control of the United States who is suspected of engaging in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners through an act of terrorism, or by other means in violation of the laws of war, or of purposely and materially supporting such hostilities, and who may be an unprivileged enemy belligerent, the individual shall be placed in military custody for purposes of initial interrogation and determination of status in accordance with the provisions of this Act.

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Army patrols in Afghanistan 'cancelled due to lack of ammunition'

A personal account kept by Warrant Officer Sean Upton before he was killed last year suggests that two missions had to be called off due to a shortage of mortar rounds.

WO2 Upton, of the Royal Artillery, wrote that his men fired so much ammunition in one battle with the Taliban it was the equivalent of six days' allocation.

His unit was then left with a dire shortage of ammunition when a helicopter carrying fresh supplies was shot down and it took over 48 hours for more to arrive.

The 35-year-old revealed the situation in an entry on his laptop diary for June 29 last year – a month before he was killed by a bomb.

In it, he referred to calculations by the Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ) about how much ammunition was needed for troops in contact (TiC).

The father of two wrote: "Patrol was cancelled due to lack of ammunition after yesterday's contact.

"Apparently PJHQ have worked out a calculation on approximately how much ammunition should be used in a TiC. We used six TiCs worth yesterday."

Two days later WO2 Upton who was, serving with the RA's 5th Regiment in Sangin, wrote: "Today's patrol got cancelled as ammunition still had not arrived."

His diary, which was made public as the inquest into his death opened in Richmond, North Yorks, also suggests that another patrol was cancelled after they ran out of water.

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Judge's Ruling Classified: Another Tortured HVD Released

A federal judge on Monday ordered the Pentagon to release a long-held Mauritanian captive held at Guantanamo Bay who was once considered such a high-value detainee that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld designated him for "special interrogation techniques."

U.S. District Judge James Robertson's ruling was classified, so there was no immediate explanation for why he granted the habeas corpus petition of Mohamedou Slahi, 39. A notation in court files said an unclassified version of the ruling would be made available, but didn't say when.

Slahi is the 34th Guantanamo detainee ordered freed since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that detainees could challenge their incarceration in federal court, but his name was already well known because of investigations into detainee abuse.

Those probes found that Slahi had been subjected to sleep deprivation, exposed to extremes of heat and cold, moved around the base blindfolded, and at one point taken into the bay on a boat and threatened with death. Investigators also found that interrogators had told him they'd his mother and have her jailed as the only female detainee at Guantanamo if he did not cooperate.

The interrogations were so abusive that a highly regarded Pentagon lawyer, Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Couch, quit the case five years ago rather than prosecute him at the Bush administration's first effort to stage military commissions.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/22/90862/detainee-abused-at-guantanamo.html#ixzz0j0xUyk0L

13 attorneys general sue over health care overhaul

Attorneys general from 13 states sued the federal government Tuesday, claiming the landmark health care overhaul is unconstitutional just seven minutes after President Barack Obama signed it into law.

The lawsuit was filed in Pensacola after the Democratic president signed the bill the House passed Sunday night.

"The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty, that all citizens and legal residents have qualifying health care coverage," the lawsuit says.

Legal experts say it has little chance of succeeding because, under the Constitution, federal laws trump state laws.

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is taking the lead and is joined by attorneys general from South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Michigan, Utah, Pennsylvania, Alabama, South Dakota, Idaho, Washington, Colorado and Louisiana. All are Republicans except James "Buddy" Caldwell of Louisiana, who is a Democrat.

Some states are considering separate lawsuits — Virginia filed its own Tuesday — and still others may join the multistate suit. In Michigan, the Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, a Christian legal advocacy group, sued on behalf of itself and four people it says don’t have private health insurance and object to being told they have to purchase it.

McCollum, who is running for governor, has pushed the 13-state lawsuit for several weeks, asking other GOP attorneys general to join him. He says the federal government cannot constitutionally require people to get health coverage and argues the bill will cause "substantial harm and financial burden" to the states.

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New Taxes for Health Care Help Obama ‘Spread the Wealth Around’

March 22 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said on the campaign trail in October 2008 that he wanted to “spread the wealth around.” With Obama on the verge of signing sweeping health-care overhaul legislation, he’s about to do just that.

High-income investors would pay higher Medicare taxes, tax breaks for out-of-pocket medical deductions would be curtailed, and it would cost insurance companies more to pay executives millions of dollars. Those levies will help fund expansion of Medicaid services for the poor and subsidize health insurance to cover millions who don’t currently have benefits.

“It’s very clear that taxes are levied on the wealthy and the benefits will spread across the entire income distribution, with a lot going to expanded Medicaid distribution and expanding health insurance,” said Roberton Williams, an economist at the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research institute backed by the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. “One couldn’t claim he didn’t keep that promise” to “spread the wealth around.”

In all, the bill would generate $409.2 billion in additional taxes by 2019, according to an analysis by the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan agency. The bill also imposes about $69 billion more in penalties for individuals and businesses who don’t meet mandates to buy insurance, according to the Congressional Budget Office, another nonpartisan agency.

Higher Medicare Taxes

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Alan Greenspan's flawed analysis of the financial crisis

WASHINGTON POST

Rarely has a public figure's reputation suffered a reversal as dramatic as Alan Greenspan's. When he left the Federal Reserve in early 2006 after nearly 19 years as chairman, he was hailed as the "maestro" and credited with steering the country through numerous economic shoals. Four years later, his policies are widely blamed for fostering the 2007-09 financial crisis. Now Greenspan is offering an elaborate "not guilty" defense. 

The indictment of Greenspan is straightforward. Lax regulation by the Fed of financial markets encouraged dubious subprime mortgages. Easy credit engineered by the Fed further inflated the housing "bubble." Greenspan's rebuttal comes in a 14,000-word article for the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, a journal from the think tank of the same name.

Greenspan is in part contrite. He admits to trusting private markets too much, as he had in previous congressional testimony. He concedes lapses in regulation. But mainly, he pleads innocent and makes three arguments. 

First, the end of the Cold War inspired an economic euphoria that ultimately caused the housing boom. Capitalism had triumphed. China and other developing countries became major trading nations. From the fall of the Berlin Wall to 2005, the number of workers engaged in global trade rose by 500 million. Competition suppressed inflation. Interest rates around the world declined; as this occurred, housing prices rose in many countries (not just the United States) because borrowers could afford to pay more.

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New poll: About 1 in 3 Americans thinks 9/11 was "a big fabrication"

by Kevin Barrett | Truth Jihad

A new poll has shown that about 1 in 3 Americans -- roughly 100 million people -- think 9/11 was "a big fabrication."

The poll was evidently commissioned and/or conducted by anti-9/11-truth forces, as demonstrated by the headline: "Americans Disagree with Iranian President on 9/11 'Fabrication.'" By framing the issue as one of agreement or disagreement with media-demonized Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and focusing on those who disagreed, Angus Reid Public Opinion was spinning the story as hard as it could possibly be spun. But all the spin in the world can't hide the fact that these are the biggest MIHOP* numbers yet!

According to the new Angus Reid 9/11 poll, 26% of Americans say flat-out that 9/11 was "a big fabrication," while 12% more aren't sure. Splitting the difference with the not-sures, we arrive at 32% either flat-out believing or leaning toward MIHOP. Taking into consideration the obvious pollster bias, and the psychological tendency of poll respondents to disguise their real beliefs in order to avoid pejorative labels like "conspiracy theorist" or "Ahmedinejad supporter," we must conclude that the real numbers are considerably higher.

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Blair's fight to keep his oil cash secret

Tony Blair waged an extraordinary two-year battle to keep secret a lucrative deal with a multinational oil giant which has extensive interests in Iraq.

The former Prime Minister tried to keep the public in the dark over his dealings with South Korean oil firm UI Energy Corporation.

Mr Blair - who has made at least £20million since leaving Downing Street in June 2007 - also went to great efforts to keep hidden a £1million deal advising the ruling royal family in Iraq's neighbour Kuwait.

In an unprecedented move, he persuaded the committee which vets the jobs of former ministers to keep details of both deals from the public for 20 months, claiming it was commercially sensitive. The deals emerged yesterday when the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments finally lost patience with Mr Blair and decided to ignore his objections and publish the details.

News of the secret deals fuelled fresh accusations that Mr Blair is 'cashing in on his contacts' from the controversial Iraq war in what one MP called 'revolving door politics at its worst'.

They will increase concerns that Mr Blair is using his role as the West's Middle East envoy for personal gain.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1259030/Tony-Blairs-secret-dealings-South-Korean-oil-firm-UI-Energy-Corp.html#ixzz0isf9z3dm

Iraq Inquiry asks to question George Bush's senior officials

TELEGRAPH

Sources in Washington said the inquiry sent out emails "about three weeks ago" to senior officials in Mr Bush's government including, it is believed, the former president himself.

Other requests are understood to have been made to Dick Cheney, Mr Bush's vice-president, Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state, Donald Rumsfeld, the former US defence secretary, and Stephen Hadley, an ex-national security adviser – as well as to their deputies and senior assistants.

Members of Sir John Chilcot's panel are believed to be willing to travel to the US to take evidence – almost certainly in private – on the administration's policies between the 2003 invasion of Iraq and 2009.

While the most senior figures are reluctant to give evidence, Washington sources claim about 10 former officials, most involved in the post-invasion period, have agreed to do so.

The surprise development adds to the chances of Sir John's inquiry producing a "smoking gun" on the key questions of whether Britain and the US adequately prepared for the conflict and whether it was justified under international law.

Interviews with US officials – even held in secret – could play a major part in Sir John's final report, expected by the end of this year.

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Good News: Obamacare to Create 16,500 New Jobs!

The bad news?

A new analysis by Republican staffers on the Joint Economic and the House Ways & Means Committees estimates the IRS will have to hire an additional 16,500 workers to "collect, examine and audit new tax information mandated on families and small businesses in the (health care) 'reconciliation' bill."

Mark Steyn writes:

This will be the biggest expansion of the IRS since World War II - and that's change you can believe in. This is what "health" "care" "reform" boils down to: Fewer doctors, longer wait times but more bureaucrats.

Steyn paints a bleak picture of a future under Obamacare.

From now on, it gets worse. If you have children, they'll live in smaller homes, drive smaller cars, live smaller lives. If you don't have children, you had better hope your neighbors do, because someone needs to spawn a working population large enough to pay for the unsustainable entitlements the Obama party has suckered you into thinking you're entitled to.

Actually, even if Obamacare never becomes law, we’d better hope for a larger working age population. But Obamacare is certainly likely to make the deficits explode sooner.

We need less government, with smaller budgets, fewer agencies and vastly reduced numbers of public-sector union employees on less lavish remuneration.

Read more: http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2010/03/21/good-news-obamacare-to-create-16500-new-jobs/#ixzz0isQxchMP

British military intelligence 'ran renegade torture unit in Iraq'

Fresh evidence has emerged that British military intelligence ran a secret operation in Iraq which authorised degrading and unlawful treatment of prisoners. Documents reveal that prisoners were kept hooded for long periods in intense heat and deprived of sleep by defence intelligence officers. They also reveal that officers running the operation claimed to be answerable only "directly to London". 

The revelations will further embarrass the British government, which last month was forced to release documents showing it knew that UK resident and terror suspect Binyam Mohamed had been tortured in Pakistan.

The latest documents emerged during the inquiry into Baha Mousa, an Iraqi hotel worker beaten to death while in the custody of British troops in September 2003. The inquiry is looking into how interrogation techniques banned by the Government in 1972 and considered torture and degrading treatment were used again in Iraq.

Lawyers believe the new evidence supports suspicions that an intelligence unit – the Joint Forward Interrogation Team (JFIT) which operated in Iraq – used illegal "coercive techniques" and was not answerable to military commanders in Iraq, despite official denials it operated independently.

In a statement to the inquiry, Colonel Christopher Vernon said he raised concerns after seeing 30 to 40 prisoners in a kneeling position with sacks over their heads. He said those in charge said they were from the Defence and Intelligence Security Centre, based at Chicksands, Bedfordshire, the British Army's intelligence HQ.

He was informed that "they were an independent unit and reported directly to their chain of command in London". Hooding was "accepted practice" and would continue, he was told.

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The Pentagon Loses a Skirmish with WikiLeaks

HARPERS.ORG

What does the Pentagon have in common with North Korea, China, Zimbabwe, and a number of private Swiss banks? They all feel threatened by WikiLeaks, the Internet service that offers whistleblowers an opportunity to publish documents that expose corruption and wrongdoing by state and private actors. This week, WikiLeaks published a 32-page secret Defense Department counterintelligence study of WikiLeaks, which suggests that the American military was preparing to (or perhaps even did) attempt to hack into and shut down the site:

(S//NF) The obscurification technology[9] used by Wikileaks.org has exploitable vulnerabilities. Organizations with properly trained cyber technicians, the proper equipment, and the proper technical software could most likely conduct computer network exploitation (CNE) operations or use cyber tradecraft to obtain access to Wikileaks.org’s Web site, information systems, or networks that may assist in identifying those persons supplying the data and the means by which they transmitted the data to Wikileaks.org.

The report expressly cites China, Israel, North Korea, Russia, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe as nations that have taken steps against WikiLeaks, and it suggests other actions that could be taken by the United States. Noting that WikiLeaks relies upon “trust as a center of gravity by protecting the anonymity and identity of the insiders, leakers or whisteblowers,” it proposes that

The identification, exposure, termination of employment, criminal prosecution, legal action against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers could potentially damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others considering similar actions from using the Wikileaks.org Web site.

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Fact Sheet: The Truth About the Health Care Bill

The Firedoglake health care team has been covering the debate in congress since it began last year. The health care bill will come up for a vote in the House on Sunday, and as Nancy Pelosi works to wrangle votes, we've been running a detailed whip count on where every member of Congress stands, updated throughout the day.

We've also taken a detailed look at the bill, and have come up with 18 often stated myths about this health care reform bill.

Real health care reform is the thing we've fought for from the start. It is desperately needed. But this bill falls short on many levels, and hurts many people more than it helps them.

While details are limited, there is apparently a "Plan B" alternative that the White House was considering as recently as two weeks ago, which would evidently expand existing programs -- Medicaid and SCHIP. It would cover half the people at a quarter of the price, but it would not force an unbearable financial burden to those who are already struggling to get by.

Congress may be too far down the road with this bill to change course. But before Democrats cast this vote which could turn "ban the mandate" into "gay marriage" for the GOP in 2010, they should consider the first rule of patient safety: first, do no harm.

Myth 1: This is a universal health care bill.

Fact: The bill is neither universal health care nor universal health insurance. According to the Congressional Budget Office:

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Synagogue Bomb Suspects: The Feds Put Us Up to It!

Defense attorneys say an alleged plot to bomb New York synagogues was hatched and directed by a federal informant.

Lawyers for four men from Newburgh have filed a motion to dismiss the terror indictment against them.

They said the informant badgered the defendants until they got involved in the plot.

They said the informant chose the targets, supplied fake bombs for the synagogues and a fake missile to shoot down planes. The motion said he also offered to pay the defendants, who attorneys alleged weren't inclined toward any crime until the informant began recruiting them.

"The government well knew that their case had been a government-inspired creation from day one and that the defendants had not been independently seeking weapons or targets," the motion said.

Federal court spokesman Herb Hadad said the government would file its response next month.

The four men, who were arrested last May, face up to life in prison if convicted. They have been previously identified as James Cromitie, 55, David Williams, 28, Onta Williams, 32, and Laguerre Payen, 27, all of Newburgh in upstate New York, where authorities were conducting raids at their homes, sources said.

Authorities have said they had the plotters under surveillance since June of 2008 and there was "no chance" the alleged scheme could succeed.

The FBI has said the Muslim suspects were angry and full of hate for America.  

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Thousands Rally on Anniversary of Invasion of Iraq

WJLA

WASHINGTON - Thousands of protesters carried signs reading "Indict Bush Now" and flag-draped cardboard coffins on Saturday, urging President Barack Obama (web | news | bio) to withdraw troops from Iraq (web | news) on the seventh anniversary of the U.S. invasion.

Protesters gathered for a rally at Lafayette Park across from the White House and planned to march through downtown. Stops on the route include military contractor Halliburton, the Mortgage Bankers Association and The Washington Post offices.

The protest, organized by military veterans and activists Ralph Nader (web | news | bio) and Cindy Sheehan, was expected to draw smaller crowds than the tens of thousands who marched in 2006 and 2007. But organizers say momentum is building because people are disenchanted with Obama's decision to send more troops into Afghanistan.

At the rally, Sheehan asked whether "the honeymoon was over with that war criminal in the White House" - an apparent reference to Obama - prompting moderate applause. Sheehan also encouraged protesters to join a tent camp near the Washington Monument, saying they need to do more than shake their fists at empty buildings.She pledged to erect the tents again after the National Park Service forced protesters to take down the tents Monday.

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