March 2010

Kucinich and the Media

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By David Swanson

When I worked for Dennis Kucinich’s presidential campaign in 2003, he routinely won the most applause at debates but was minimized or entirely left out of the next day’s stories in the corporate media. This meant that peace, and fair trade, and single-payer healthcare were left out too. At one debate at the University of New Hampshire, Kucinich pushed back.

Ted Koppel of ABC opened the debate with questions about endorsements. The second round of questions was about read more

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I'm Down With Dennis

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By David Swanson

Let me get this straight. The Senate will pass a public option if the House will. And the House will, because it already did. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won’t allow it. So the mortal enemy of public-option backers is . . . Dennis Kucinich.

Why? Because when Congressman Kucinich said he’d stand for a public option he stupidly thought he was supposed to mean it.

Let’s review a brief history of the disease known as “health insurance reform.”

When read more

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Disclosure Laws Needed to Inform the Willfully Ignorant

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By David Swanson

While new disclosure laws on corporate political spending are not needed to see the forest, they may be required for seeing the trees. Knowing which corporations funded what won’t, on its own, end or reduce the corruption. And the big picture of corporate spending cannot easily be hidden. Already, pre-Citizens United, it dominated Washington. And the threat alone of massively increased spending is corrupting Washington further already. But those who, for various reasons, read more

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Senators Versus Students

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By David Swanson

As long as we’re going to dump most of our money into wars and the military and Wall Street and health insurance bailouts, students are going to have to go into debt to afford college. But it would cost the students less and the government less, if private companies were not permitted to act as middlemen profiting off public loans to students.

One of the companies so profiting, Sallie Mae, is based here in Virginia and funnels millions of dollars from its profits into lobbying read more

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I ain't gonna buy mandated health insurance

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To the tune of Maggie’s Farm

I ain’t gonna buy mandated health insurance
No, I aint gonna buy mandated health insurance
Well, I wake up and I’m coughing
Feel my sides and moan in pain
I got declined for operations
And it’s drivin’ me insane
It’s a shame the way we treat the working poor
I ain’t gonna be insured no more.

I ain’t gonna buy mandated health insurance
No, I aint gonna buy mandated health insurance
Well, it hands you a nickel
read more

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Get Your Deck of War Criminal Playing Cards

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Click below to check ’em out and order a deck or two.  These are beautiful playing cards, a full deck of 52 plus a joker, information cards, and a box with directions for making a citizen’s arrest inside.  You can play any card game and, at the same time, learn a little about the top 53 U.S. war criminals (and what you can do to hold them accountable). Click here:

https://codepink.myshopify.com/products/war-criminal-playing-cards

This project originated 22 months ago when read more

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Congressman Obey's Path to Peace

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By David Swanson

Congressman David Obey (D., Wis.) is the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. He’s in charge of spending our money. For years he spent it on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq without any resistance.  Until last October, Obey maintained that spending hundreds of billions of our dollars on wars was something he just had no choice about.

Three years ago, 180,000 people watched this Youtube video, read more

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Every Soldier Has a Story You Don't Want to Hear

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By David Swanson

Would the United States military lie about how four Marines were killed? Would abuse continue at Abu Ghraib after the scandal exploded? Any soldier you talk to has a story you may not want to hear. I recently had occasion to speak with two that were particularly troubling.

Part I: Snipers Dead in Ramadi:

Here’s a military report from August 2006 on how four Marines died in Iraq in 2004. Christian Lowe, a Marine Corps Times staff writer, tells us:

“It was supposed read more

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Why Hayden's Wrong, Why Pelosi's Lying

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By David Swanson

Tom Hayden wants peace, but he’s sincerely mistaken about how to get it. He claims that Wednesday’s unsuccessful vote to end the war in Afghanistan makes ending the war less likely, and that the way to end the war is to pass a bill that would then have to pass the Senate and the President, a bill requiring an exit strategy, any exit strategy — it could be “redeployment” to Iran in 2038 or anything else.

I’m not against moving bills forward, even read more

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