This story is as much a matter of the need to correct the media narrative as it is about the facts and policy themselves.

As you will recall, during the Clinton years, Halliburton under Cheney, and with McCain's assistance, were doing business with Iraq under Saddam Hussein in violation of the embargo at the time.

Now it turns out that McCain and some other Republicans have placed their lobbyist-business interests ahead of the Iran embargo and American security, and support for Columbian terrorist paramilitaries on both sides.

Once again, it is the Republicans who are treasonous enablers of terrorism, terrorists, and terrorist states.

When McCain and the other Republicans claim to be stronger against Iran and other terrorist states they are lying, having already sold out national interests to their multinational corporate paymasters. Forget their words, see how they actually vote and follow the money.

Get it?

My Congressperson is a...

1. Democrat who has a safe seat

2. Democrat in a possibly Republican challengable seat; help keep this one!

3. Republican in an, alas, safe seat.

4. Republican in a possibly Democratic challengable seat; help change this one!

This connects to a couple different things...

Why you come to Daily Kos?  Some come here just for the politics, anti-Bush and anti-Iraq war.  Some are here because they are from an otherwise deeply Repuglican area and need the community. Others like me come here from an already all Blue area, hoping to help reach out and be able to do something useful.

Also I want to refocus some attention from the Presidential race and towards the need for more & better Democrats in the House. We may wish to consider giving money to strategically targeted House races via ActBlue, to those Democrats where our limited dollars can have the most bang for the buck in increasing our margin in Congress.

If you think that this an imortant and timely discussion, please Rec this diary.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors, meeting in Miami, adopted a resolution this morning in support of single-payer national health insurance.

The assembly, in unanimous vote, backed a resolution calling for the enactment of the "United States National Health Insurance Act," H.R. 676. The bill, which is also known as the "Improved and Expanded Medicare for All Act," is sponsored by Rep. John Conyers of Michigan and 90 other members of Congress.

"This is a major achievement, a qualitative change in the movement for genuine health care reform," said Dr. David Prensky, a retired dentist from Palm Beach, Fla., who helped promote the resolution. Prensky is a member of the Chicago-based Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP).

Rep. John Conyers will be in New York City, Tuesday, June 17th, 2009, from 4:00PM-6:00PM, at City University of New York, 25 West 43rd St. 19th Floor Conference Room, and would be so grateful he could spend some time with you  to discuss organizing strategies on HR 676/single payer national health insurance.  

There are many new exciting developments regarding HR 676:

• The formation of a new official HR 676 Congressional Caucus, to add heft to the 90 congressional co-sponsors so far.

• HR 676 Caucus Members engaging in regular special orders on the House Floor on the American health care crisis, and why they believe HR 676 is the best answer.

• Meeting every two weeks with Members, staff, single payer and universal health care activists, and various NGO’s to discuss why HR 676 is the optimal bill in Congress to address the crisis.

• Soon to be launched Congressional briefings and seminars on universal health care policy, and debates in Congress on single payer vs. non-single payer.

Meanwhile in related news, the AMA "finally" discovers that Medicare is better then private insurance.

Obama can do some remaking of the electoral map, but if it's gonna happen, it's gonna be out in the Mountain-Plains and other Western States. Except Virginia (and of course Maryland; but probably not Florida), it is very very doubtful that Obama is going win anywhere in the old south/confederacy and real Appalachia (and no, Ohio, overall, is not Appalachia; not the way West Virginia & Kentucky are).

So yes, maybe, to Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and maybe Montana.

It's the Southern Whites: The whole "Appalachia" analysis during the primaries was a little misleading, insofar as it neglected the rest of the old south/confederacy.

Remember Obama did just as badly among White Democratic primary voters throughout confederate/old south. He just won some of those southern states (e.g., SC) compared to "Appalachia" (e.g., WV, KY) because the Democratic PRIMARY included a high percent of blacks. But in the general election those are going to be swamped by the all the rest of the vast majority non-Democratic White voters.  

Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, the Carolinas, etc... ain't gonna happen.

A wonderfully angry SadlyNo blog entry raised the question as to which of the big name, respectable liberal bloggers who have been credentialed by the DNCC was against the Iraq authorization and invasion from the beginning... and who blew it?

Obama got it right, so did many Democrats including the then chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Bob Graham, Defense Committee chair Levin, and of course Chariman Dean.

So many MSM/SCLM pundits got it respectably wrong and still have their jobs. Many of those who got it right and opposed the Iraq war suffered as a consequence.

The blogosphere is supposed to be an alternative to the SCLM/MSM.

Yet some bloggers whose judgement was wrong on Iraq have become very prominent and respected on the liberal/progressive/left since then. Presumably they have been getting most thigs right since then. But still. Let us remember who got it wrong at the time. And more honor to those who got it right!

I had started the chronologic list below of (mostly) non-sexist reasons that Hillary Clinton lost to Barack Obama, but then thought that it was old news. But folks on both sides seem to still not get it, whether it is the continued media denial b.s. over their behavior including Olberman and to HillaryIs44.

1. Fact: There was lots of sexism in the media targeted against Hillary Clinton, as well as some degree of the special "Clinton rules."

2. Fact: It is the media operation that engages in, then denies, pre-Iraq war Bushie boosterism; McCain love-fest; and all the other MSM/SCLM as tracked by such folks as Glenn Greenwald and Eric Alterman etc.

3. Fact: This is NOT why Hillary Clinton lost among the registered Democratic party activists who make up the primary voter. She lost because of the Irag War authorization (AUMF) vote. Period. Everything else that happened follows from that.

4. Fact: The Clinton campaign engaged in more racism against Obama, then the Obama campaign engaged in sexism.  This is distinct from what the more sexism against Clinton then racism against Obama that the Media spewed.

All these things are true at the same time. They are often conflated, but in fact are separate things.

This diary is part celebration of our progress, in memorium to a childhood friend, rehash of Obama's family, and related matters.

Loving Day commemorates the anniversary of the Loving v. Virginia 1967 Supreme Court decision of June 12, 1967 that legalized interracial marriage in the United States.  By happy happenstance Loving was the loving couple's name, Mildred and Richard Loving. Loving Day's mission is to fight prejudice through education and to build a sense of community among people who engage in meaningful interracial and intercultural relationships.

John Conyers and other Members of Congress will take to the floor of the House of Representatives Tuesday evening, June 10, to lead a discussion of HR 676, single payer healthcare legislation. HR 676 now has 90 co sponsors in the House, more than any other health care bill.

Conyers has reserved the time under House Rules known as Special Orders. Special Orders provide the opportunity for discussion on a specific topic to occur  after the last floor vote of the day.  

Other congressional representatives who will participate in the discussion are Emanuel Cleaver (MO), Nancy Boyda (KS), Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX) and Diane Watson (CA).  

The Tuesday, June 10, session will be covered on C-SPAN, beginning at approximately 9:00 p.m. eastern standard time (EST).
                                                     

It is the Heat... and the Humidity.

Many parts of the country are beginning to suffer a "heat wave." This being summer, wherever you are there are going to be dangerously hot days.

Heat waves cause many excess deaths and suffering, most of them unreported as such. Heat waves in the U.S. cause more deaths than hurricanes, lightning, tornadoes, floods, and earthquakes combined!

From 1999–2003, the U.S officially had a total of 3,442 reported heat-related deaths, for an annual mean of 688. In 2003, Europe suffered 34,000 excess deaths do to a heat wave.

Yet they are a silent killer with relatively less public attentiond paid. They cause relatively little damage to infrastructure and offer no dramatic pictures for TV news. Many deaths go unreported or unattributed. And yet everyone of these deaths is preventable!

This diary offers both personal and community advice as to how to protect yourself, and some political context (yup. everything has a political context).

There have been lots of news reports this week about the impact of the health care reform in Massachusetts after... one whole year. It is important to keep track of this, since it is a classic private for-profit mandate program beloved by respectable moderates.

The news reports are all based on two article in Health Affairs that you can read for yourself in full here and here.

I really, really, do not want to be mindless one-sided pie-in-the-sky advocate of single payer, without paying attention to the pluses and minuses of incremental changes as they occur.

But some words of caution...

That would be then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000 during the Camp David II and Taba talks with Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. Alas Barack Obama went one phrase unnecessarily too far in his speech to AIPAC yesterday.

Meanwhile it is also important to go into details on Condi Rice's big lie the day before regarding who refuses to talk with whom and why between the Bush/Cheney/Rove adminstration and Iran.

Details below...

As a major part of his claim to bipartisanship and moderate-ness, McCain has been making the claim that he opposed the Bush administration's failed strategy and tactics in the Iraq war.  Needless to say, too many of the stenographic press have been reporting this false claim without actually looking into what McCain said and when he said it.

Fortunately the wonderful and always worth reading TomDispatch has a nice run down of some of McCain's support for the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld disasterous approach to the Iraq war, when he was indeed onboard as just another typical partisan Republican cheerleader.

As in recent Tuesdays, given today's other events, I decided to do a purely fun poll today. We previously did Worst Presidents pre-1945 covering George Washington to Herbert Hoover; but now is the time to ask worst president from Roosevelt to the other George W.

It is better if the "Demographic Tuesdays" community demographic polls stay up in the Recommended Diary list all day so that they can get an equivalent sample of us - morning to night, west & east coast.

And today did not seem like a good day to ask for that... but it is a good day to ask about what has been bad about recent presidents, even the Democrats.  

Before just checking George W. Bush, please do think about how bad some of the others were, what was bad, and even how they set precedents for George W. Bush.

The American Medical Students Association (AMSA) is the independent and largest organization (68,000+ members) of medical students in the U.S. It has a presence on all American medical schools and is an explicit, and larger, alternative to the AMA's student organization. For more than half a century, AMSA has represented the voice of physicians-in-training in their efforts to best serve the public.

In recent years, this has included mobilizing students in advocating for quality, affordable health care for all. AMSA works through state and national coalitions to improve existing public programs and to advocate for a public national health insurance program. They explicitely support single payer and HR-676.

This being 2008 it has included a video contest in which they challenged people to make a video about single payer and/or HR 676, and winners are now up on YouTube and posted below. Check it out and show AMSA some love.

Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the United States Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, State, National Guard, Reserves, or other uniform service such as Public Health Srevice or NOAA Corps?

This seemed to be a good topic after Memorial Day.

Sorry, cub scouts does not count?

Since there is no primary today, I am considering this a real Demgraphic Tuesdays poll, and am asking everybody to keep it on the "Recommended List" for the next 24 hours, through Wednesday morning. We did this subject a year ago but polled only briefly and incompletely. As always, it's best if this poll stays up as a "Recommended Diary" for a full 24 hours, so that it will get an equivalent sample of us - morning to night, east & wst coast. So please click on Recommend.

And here is link to Netroots Support for out Troops

I was trying to explain Memorial Day to my 5 and 11 year olds.

I am not an absolute pacifist.

After almost 8 years of Bush and going up during the Vietnam war it is hard to remember, but some wars are necessary, and some wars may even be just. But no war should be glorified.

1. Which wars were necessary and just?

2. And should we honor those who fought and died in UNjust wars?

What are you telling your children this weekend?

A so-called voucher plan to achieve universal health coverage that was previously  outlined in a New Republic article in January 2007, is now a book "Healthcare, Guaranteed: A Simple, Secure Solution for America" by Ezekiel Emanuel & Victor Fuchs.

Based on the original article (free full text at the above link), this is a valiant attempt by smart qualified people to try and have our cake and eat it too, and is certainly worth discussing.