It’s eight months into Obama’s administration, and not only is Guantanamo still open (and amid new revelations about doctors being used to facilitate torture procedures), but Obama is now attempting to open a new one in Afghanistan.

The Intelligence Daily reports:

On Monday, a day after the New York Times and the Washington Post reported that the Obama administration was planning to introduce tribunals for prisoners held at the US prison at Bagram airbase, Afghanistan, the reason for the specifically-timed leaks that led to the publication of the stories became clear.

The government was hoping that offering tribunals to evaluate the prisoners?

A six-year-old girl has become a media darling in China on her first day of school by expressing her aspiration to become a “corrupt official” when she grows up.

The young student stated her aspirations in a televised interview.

“When I grow up I want to be an official,” said the girl.

“What kind of official?” the interviewer asked. “A corrupt official because they have lots of stuff,” she replied.

(via Arbroath)

In the latest annals of shameful and disgusting examples of humanity and health-insurance industry miserliness:

With the White House zeroing in on the insurance-industry practice of discriminating against clients based on pre-existing conditions, administration allies are calling attention to how broadly insurers interpret the term to maximize profits.

It turns out that in eight states, plus the District of Columbia, getting beaten up by your spouse is a pre-existing condition.

Under the cold logic of the insurance industry, it makes perfect sense: If you are in a marriage with someone who has beaten you in the past, you’re more likely to get beaten again than the average person and are therefore more expensive to insure.

Is this any better than public approval for stoning and killing “misbehaving” women in the parts of the world we profess to be at war with for, among other things, women’s rights?

No, no it is not.

(Huffington Post: When Getting Beaten By Your Husband Is A Pre-Existing Condition)

Intrepid reporter, Max Blumenthal takes his camera to the streets as tens of thousands of highly suggestible Caucasians protest… um…whatever it is that they’re protesting. Some hilarious, albeit disturbing, moments here. I especially liked the guy with the “dipers” sign, it’s a stone classic of idiocy, even for this type of event.

Jason Louv hipped me to the fact that Tea Baggers and Birthers seem to be the adult(?) versions of—are you ready for this—THE JUGGALOS!!

How very, very true. That slayed me! See for yourself:

Dark Carnival of the Soul: Gathering of the Juggalos 2009

Sign Obama’s petition to get your reps to back health care here, and win at life. And likely live a longer one.

Working state-run health care is the bare minimum for a functional, civilized 21st-century society. All you need to do is leave the U.S. for half a second to see how woefully, miserably behind the rest of the world we are, and just on bare minimum quality of life issues.

Also, all you have to do is take a quick trip to, say, Canada, to realize that state-supported health care, in general, produces people who are Fucking Hot. It’s not even funny.

Sign it, and strike a blow against ignorant Republican motherfuckers who want you to die young and live in misery while being dependent on corporations who don’t give two fucks about you or your life, and who also don’t want you to get laid by hot people! Help bring America up to speed with reality instead of regressive corporate troglodytism! Help your fellow wo/man!

Tell Your Members of Congress to Support President Obama’s Plan for Health Reform

_{(If you get why the above picture is funny, you really are going to hell.)}

Oh, lord have mercy. Lord have mercy you people!

A White House environmental policy adviser who specialized in “green jobs” resigned on Sunday after an uproar over his previous affiliation with a September 11 conspiracy group.

Van Jones, special adviser on green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, apologized on Thursday after videotape surfaced of him using a crude epithet to describe Republicans and amid revelations he had signed a petition suggesting U.S. government involvement in the 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.

The apology did little to quell Republican criticism, however, and President Barack Obama’s chief spokesman gave only tepid support to the adviser on Friday.

1. Lord forbid a person entrusted with thinking clearly think for themselves.

2. Lord forbid they criticize the previous administration (who everybody knows were Lying Curs Who Would Sell Their Own Grandmothers for Toll Bridge Fare).

3. Lord forbid they criticize the opposition party?

I loved this rant from Mick Farren’s blog so much that I am reposting it here. I’m 100% in agreement with this. I’ve had enough of these people myself. Nice one, Mick!

Shall we all just stop messing around? Will politicians and the media can the mealy-mouthed acceptance of right wing assholes doing their level damnedest to throw this country into chaos by toting AR15s into public meetings? Shall we stop pretending that any of this is about healthcare or even conventional party politics? All the Fox/Palin/Glenn Beck bullshit, the white trash whining about how they want their country ?

 
The trailer for Oliver Stone‘s new documentary on Hugo Chavez, South of the Border, just popped up on YouTube.  I see Stone co-wrote it with Tariq Ali, the New Left Review editor (and inspiration for the Stones’ Street Fighting Man), so expect the usual shitstorm of controversy.  And who’s that behind the camera?  How nice—Gimme Shelter‘s Albert Maysles! 

In the LAT: Oliver Stone Heads “South Of The Border” To Chat Up Chavez And Others

Like a bad case of Republican herpes, Sarah Palin is the gift that keeps on giving…

Hopefully Sarah Palin realizes she’s been invited to Hong Kong almost certainly as a practical joke.

CLSA, the Asia-focused broker who invited Mrs. Palin as keynote speaker for an Asian investment conference, is well known for their cheeky takes on investment research.

In the past, they’ve polled Asian fortune tellers for index targets, hired anime cartoonists to draw Japanese research, and generally love to push the boundaries between entertainment and analysis. They are a real research firm, it’s just that they love to sprinkle in some hilarity every now and then as a smart marketing gimmick.

Sarah Palin is this year’s big laugh for them. Her invitation as keynote speaker in Hong Kong is so ridiculous that its absurdity can’t be accidental.

Hong Kong Broker Pulling A “Borat” On Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin speaks to “Sarkozy”

 
In what reads like something out of High Castle-era Philip K. Dick, David Swanson describes what the American landscape might have looked like under a third Bush administration.  More warrantless spying, escalating military budgets, formalizing policies of preventive detention, Swanson’s list is long—and grim.  That’s just the set-up, though, to a far scarier punchline:

This dark fantasy of a third Bush term is also an accurate portrait of Obama’s first term to date.  In following Bush, Obama was given the opportunity either to restore the rule of law and the balance of powers or to firmly establish in place what were otherwise aberrant abuses of power.  Thus far, President Obama has, in all the areas mentioned above, chosen the latter course.  Everything described, from the continuation of crimes to the efforts to hide them away, from the corruption of corporate power to the assertion of the executive power to legislate, is Obama’s presidency in its first seven months.

David Swanson is the author, most recently, of Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union.

Spotted via The Nation: Bush’s Third Term?