What should Wikileaks leak NEXT?

Assuming they had access to everything, what would be most vital to the public interest and cutting through the lies and crap from DC?

My top three:

1. every shred of paper from the Cheney Energy Task Force in early 2000. One of the few documents that was released in response to a FOIA request was a map of Iraq's oil fields divided up and a list of foreign suitors for those fields. What role did this play not only in our Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but seeking bases and political machinations in Central Asia, where we are trying to wrestle the Caspian pipeline business away from Russia. Did they do this solely for the benefit of oil and energy companies, or out of a misguided sense of seeking energy security? Were there dissenting voices in the military and foreign policy establishment that said this would make a LESS secure world since Russia and China might not like us having that degree of hegemony?
   
   
2. The Saudi pages Bush classified in a panic in the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 Report. It is already a matter of public record that we were attacked by terrorists given logistical help by an agent of our ally Saudi Arabia, who also funneled money to the terrorist and was in constant phone contact with their embassy and consulate before the attack. The piece that is missing is why they would do that and why the Bush administration didn't even skip a heartbeat before defending and embracing them.
   
   
3. Likewise, why did our government initially ignore the documented financial help and direction Pakistan gave to al Qaeda and the Taliban, including evacuating key leaders from Tora Bora? In the last couple of years, they seem to be noticing, though the most damning evidence was available immediately after 9/11. What was the reason for the selective outrage? or more importantly, why the long delay before the outrage? What other issues did we have with Pakistan then and now that would explain it?
   
   OK, I lied. A fourth I'd like to see:
   
   
4. Has the Pentagon done an assessment of the security threat Wall Street's shorting of other countries economies and/or how the gutting of our industrial base have created? Are they monitoring the threat and have they prepared contingency plans to neutralize it?

There's probably a whole lot that could be asked on the domestic front as well, but I'm curious to hear what other's want leaked.

Democrats use Osama-Saddam bait & switch on health care

I have often complained that the Democrats have failed to learn the right lessons from the GOP's superior mastery of propaganda and PR. In the health care reform debate, they have misapplied the GOP methods again, using bait and switch, with hope and platitudes about health care replacing the GOP fear of terrorist bogeymen.

The GOP used an Osama-Saddam bait and switch. They got everybody mad at Osama, associate him with Saddam, then dropped Osama out of the equation.

With health care reform, Democrats got everybody excited about a public option, associate it with mandated private insurance, then drop the public option, which will be kept in a freezer in a cave with Osama until needed again.

The big difference is people bought the Osaddama lie for long enough to get the war started. By contrast, no one seems to be fooled by substituting slavery to private insurance companies for the kind of public insurance system every other industrialized country has that is less costly and more effective than ours (except at lining the pockets of the already wealthy).

But the Democrats don't seem to care that they haven't fooled anyone and are going ahead with legislation written by and for the criminals who have killed and bankrupted so many Americans with their epic greed.

Good luck in that fall election, Democrats.

You'll need it.

If Wall St. execs run scams like this, what do health insurance ones do?

I and most people were concerned that if we gave bailouts to Wall Street that they would squirrel that money away in their secret off-shore accounts, never to be seen again. They blatantly partied with it here in the US. AIG execs went on a weeklong retreat to a spa to the tune of $440,000.

As I was writing this, I heard a similar story on the radio about George Herbert Walker, cousin of the Bush family, who worked for Lehman and sent out a memo saying their bailout would NOT affect executive bonuses.

I was opposed to the Patriot Act at the time it was passed, but maybe we should use it to go after these Wall Street parasites who have done more damage to our economy and reputation in the world than bin Laden could have done if he had crashed a plane into Wall St.

The other thing implication of this is if you oppose or know someone who opposes single payer health insurance, this is exactly what insurance company execs are doing with your premiums you are paying while simultaneously denying you treatment you need to stay alive because NOT giving you the service you paid for is how they keep their spa trips and bonuses rolling in.

A study by the New England Journal of Medicine found that Canada spent half as much on medical administrative costs than us, their single-payer system had overhead of 1.3 percent . Medicare averages 3.6 percent, but private U.S. insurers was 11.7 percent . The difference goes into profits, those operators you have to call to be denied care, and of course executive salaries, bonuses, and spa trips.

If health insurance were government run, at least we could have some input on executive salaries. To change what private insurance companies pay their execs, you would have to be a major shareholder. So our choice is between one person one vote and one dollar one vote (or more like a couple of million dollars).

KEY EXCERPTS:

For some people at AIG, the insurance giant rescued last month with an $85 billion federal bailout, the good times keep rolling.

And just last week, about 70 of the company's top performers were rewarded with a week-long stay at the luxury St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, Calif., where they ran up a tab of $440,000.

At a House committee hearing yesterday, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) showed a photograph of the resort, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean, and reported expenses for AIG personnel including $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals and $23,000 for the spa.

*****
Joseph Cassano, the financial products manager whose complex investments led to American International Group's near collapse, is receiving $1 million a month in consulting fees.

As for Cassano, the executive in charge of the company's troubled financial products division, he received more than $280 million over the past eight years. Even after he was terminated in February as his investments turned sour, the company allowed him to keep as much as $34 million in unvested bonuses and put him on a $1 million-a-month retainer.

FULL TEXT

Dems suckered us with Bush-like Bait and switch

Some of us have often complained that the Democrats have failed to learn anything from the Bushies. Unfortunately, they just demonstrated that they learned how to snooker the public with bait & switch.

Remember after 9/11 we were immediately told bin Laden did it?

Then somehow Saddam became part of the discussion.

Then bin Laden fades and is dropped from the talking points most of the time.

And the action was all about Saddam and Iraq.

Fast forward to 2006:

We elected the Democrats to do two things: end the war and impeach Bush and Cheney.

They say impeachment is off the table and knowing whispers are spread that it will be harder to bring the troops home safely if there's a big impeachment hooha.

So we wait for action on ending the war.

This Iraq appropriation comes up, and they give Bush more money than he wants, but attach benchmarks that are things Bush wants anyway, and a non-binding timeline.

That seems like a sellout until Bush vetoes it, then it seems like it might have been a smart way to make Bush look unreasonable--if they keep sending him that same bill with the mere suggestion of ending the war.

But like Osama bin Laden, the anti-war part drops out of the equation, and they just gave Bush the money with no deadline strings attached.

And just as Bush pulls out the voodoo rattle of Osama to make the rubes pay attention, the Democrats will pull out the anti-war rattle and shake it at us when they need votes or money.

Then once we have cast the ballot or written the check, they will quietly put it away, and go back about their corporate masters' business.

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AP POLL: Bush worse villain than Osama, Saddam, & Satan

Now can the Democrats and media please start treating this guy with the respect he deserves (none)?

Youtube discussion on poll

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