GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATEShttp://www.gp.orgFor Immediate Release:Tuesday, July 27, 2010Contacts:Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, cell 202-904-7614, mclarty@greens.orgStarlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@gp.orgObama’s plan to send US troops into Pakistan will turn the war into a greater regional conflict; 2008 Green presidential nominee Cynthia McKinney leaves on Bike4Peace 2010 cross-country tourGreen Party Speakers Bureau: Greens available to speak on foreign policy:http://www.gp.org/speakers/speakers-foreign-policy.phpVideo clips from the Green Party’s 2010 Annual National Meeting, Detroit, Michigan, June 24-27http://www.gp.org http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyusWASHINGTON, DC — Green Party leaders and candidates are urging Congress to pass House Resolution 301 to remove US forces from Pakistan. The privileged resolution was introduced by Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-Oh.) and Ron Paul (R-Tex.), who said that President Obama’s plans for an increase of US troops in Pakistan violate the 1973 War Powers Authorization (http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/07/23-7).The Green Party supports an end to the US war on Afghanistan, which the Obama Administration has escalated by deploying more troops and ordering air attacks across the border in Pakistan. The party opposes the current war escalation supplemental bill and all proposals to increase war funding.2008 Green Party presidential nominee Cynthia McKinney is currently participating in Bike4Peace 2010 (http://b4p.bbnow.org), a cross-country bicycle ride (San Francisco to Washington, DC) from July 24 to September 22 to protest the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and “demonstrate the bicycle as a transformational tool to solve the problems of Climate Change, Oil Wars, the Health Crisis, and the Economic Crunch.”"The secret files published by Wikileaks show that the White House and Pentagon know the Afghanistan War is a disaster, with hundreds of civilians killed, illegal military operations, and fears that Pakistan and Iran are assisting the Taliban. President Obama’s plan to send troops into Pakistan will turn the invasion of Afghanistan into a wider regional war,” said Cecile Lawrence, Green Party candidate for the US Senate from New York (http://www.cecilelawrence.org).Greens compared the military files exposed by Wikileaks to the Pentagon Papers, which revealed that the Johnson White House had deceived the public and withheld important information about the Vietnam War. Green leaders asserted that the Afghanistan War is weakening rather than improving security for Americans.”Mr. Obama is repeating the reckless and illegal policies of the Bush-Cheney Administration. His refusal to consult Congress about expanding the war, in violation of the War Powers Resolution, proves that he has learned from his predecessors that he can overstep his power with impunity. That’s why the Kucinich-Paul resolution is so important — it holds the White House to at least some standard of accountability,” said Darryl L.C. Moch, DC Statehood Green Party candidate for DC City Council at-large and member of the Green Party Black Caucus (http://www.gp.org/caucuses/black/index.php).Green Party leaders said that the election of a few Greens to Congress would establish an uncompromised antiwar bloc, which would demand quick withdrawal of all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, oppose funding for the wars, and support reductions in military spending.”President Obama’s escalations of the Afghanistan War, as well as the ongoing Iraq War and abuses like the use of torture at Guantanamo and other sites, should spark a mass revival of the antiwar movement. Americans who voted for the Obama-Biden ticket because they wanted peace should stop making excuses for the Democrats and all the broken promises of change,” said George Martin, Wisconsin Green, member of the Green Party Black Caucus, and former national co-chair of United for Peace & Justice (http://www.unitedforpeace.org).”As candidate for the US Senate from New York, I offer my strong support for House Resolution 301,” said Colia Clark (http://www.coliaclark.org). “It’s time the Congress heard the words of the late Dr. King who asserted that ‘America is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.’ It’s time the US Congress take strong measures to end the US practice of carrying wars to other parts of the world in the name of democracy and world peace. We must withdraw all troops from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and other parts of the world. We must reinvent American democracy as one of peace.”See also “Wikileaks: Massive Leak of Secret Files Exposes Truth of Occupation”, The Guardian, July 25, 2010 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/series/afghanistan-the-war-logs).MORE INFORMATIONGreen Party of the United States http://www.gp.org202-319-7191, 866-41GREENGreen candidate database and campaign information: http://www.gp.org/elections.shtmlGreen Party News Center http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtmlGreen Party Speakers Bureau http://www.gp.org/speakersGreen Party ballot access page http://www.gp.org/2008-electionsGreen Party Livestream Channel http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyusVideo clips from the Green Party’s 2010 Annual National Meeting, Detroit, Michigan, June 24-27http://www.gp.org http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyusGreen Pages: The official publication of record of the Green Party of the United Stateshttp://gp.org/greenpages-blog~ END ~

From Liberty Underground News:

 The Hill reports this morning that Senator Joe Lieberman is upset that some of our troops feel the rules of engagement in Afghanistan must be relaxed.  Lieberman appears to believe that if more Afghani civilians were killed, Afghanistan might achieve its true purpose, to be safe for US troops.  Apparently the long term goal there is to make Afghanistan safe for US troops above all else, so if rules of engagement are relaxed further, the population of Afghanistan may be severely decimated, since occupation forces don’t appear to be very welcome by the majority Pashtun people, who may be in the way of such progress as this.It sounds very much like Lieberman’s view of Israeli settlements eternally expanding.  Perhaps the settlements will eventually reach Afghanistan.Thanks to the fog of corporate media, most Americans have no idea what the purpose of our troops is in Afghanistan, hearing such zany right wing crap about the war 24/7, blaring from their TV.While Lieberman was making his pitch for more human rights violations in Afghanistan on Fox News yesterday, his sidekick Senator John McCain was calling for a longer war on ABC News.  McCain wants no withdrawal date, just eternal war, like that successful Vietnam War plan.“I know enough about warfare,” he said. “I know enough about what strategy and tactics are about.”  Sure John, like when you dropped bombs on civilians in North Vietnam.  But corporate media don’t talk about such things, keeping the masses as ignorant as possible with an unchallenged National Security State viewpoint.

From column on CommonDreams.org :

The Barton outburst illustrates why it should be easy for the Democratic Party to landslide the Republicans in the 2010 Congressional elections. Probably the most craven version of the Republican Party ever, this team takes huge slurries of corporate money while blocking any safeguards for workers, consumers, small taxpayers, and the environment. They even defeated investor rights for shareholders, who own these companies, but whose bosses pay themselves obscenely to control them.The Democrats have their hand out to the same commercial interests. But if they want to win, they’d better formulate the language of standing with the people over big business by November. And, if the Democrats don’t want November to mark their curtain call, their language of standing with the people needs to be followed by action.

SinglePayerAction.org article says:

 Here’s a simple rule for single payer advocates – don’t trust the Democrats.Even those that say they support single payer, when push comes to shove, they won’t.They’ll put the needs of the Democratic Party ahead of the needs of the American people.

 Another broken Obama campaign promise noticed and actually reported on:“C-SPAN chief executive Brian Lamb sent a letter to congressional leaders this week asking for the talks to be opened to cameras. As a candidate, President Barack Obama pledged during a January 2008 debate that negotiations would be on C-SPAN.”Of course, with universal, single payer health care never even allowed to enter debate (it was thrown out before debate stated, according to the Baucas 8), the public’s interest is not what it was.“The health insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies have spent $1.4 million per day this year to make sure no real reform happens,” Flowers and Paris wrote. “They have already claimed victory and are celebrating their success – 30 million more people to extort money from while providing a defective product. What a deal! Make no mistake though – their success comes at a great cost, especially to the middle class.”

From FDL:

There is no better proof that the Senate bill is a massive giveaway to the health care industry than the radically different enforcement mechanism for the individual mandate and the new insurance regulations. This Senate bill will force you to buy insurance from only private insurance companies. It will use the power of the federal government in the form of the IRS to make sure you buy private health insurance.

….

No one left, right, or center should accept this system which puts regular people in such a weak position compared to the private corporations with which they are force to do business. Attempts to justify the individual mandate by comparing it to Swiss, Dutch, or Belgian health care ignores the reality of those systems. Not other country forces people into such a powerless, subservient position compared to private companies. The Senate bill does not create social contract guaranteeing quality, affordable health care for everyone in exchange for mandating the buying of health insurance. It just forces people to buy a poor-quality product from an extremely wasteful, predatory, and poorly regulated industry.

Click here to read the whole editorial.

From CounterPunch.org :

The nascent movement for single-payer in the United States has to learn the correct lessons from the health care debacle that has unfolded for the last year and is about to conclude. The number one lesson: DON’T TRUST THE DEMOCRATS – NOT A ONE. Especially the progressive Democrats. Millions believed Barack Obama’s campaign pledge to create a humane, affordable and inclusive health care system and rein in the copious abuses of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. On the campaign trail, Obama proclaimed these corporations were greedy and more concerned about profits and patents than the needs of patients. Some thought because Obama was a former supporter of a single-payer system, he might just enact it when he won the Whitehouse. How wrong they were. 

No one could have predicted how much influence and control over health care reform President Obama would give to the very corporate interests killing and bankrupting the American people, and who just a few months earlier, had fiercely attacked and called out by name. No one could have predicted the scale and scope of the sell out. It is truly astounding given the soaring rhetoric of before and the cruel and sleazy reality of now. 

From SinglePayerAction.org (click here for more details on this video):

From FDL Action:Top 10 Reasons to Kill Senate Health Care Bill

1. Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations — whether you want to or not.
2. If you refuse to buy the insurance, you’ll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS.
3. Many will be forced to buy poor-quality insurance they can’t afford to use, with $11,900 in annual out-of-pocket expenses over and above their annual premiums.
4. Massive restriction on a woman’s right to choose, designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court.
5. Paid for by taxes on the middle class insurance plan you have right now through your employer, causing them to cut back benefits and increase co-pays.
6. Many of the taxes to pay for the bill start now, but most Americans won’t see any benefits — like an end to discrimination against those with preexisting conditions — until 2014 when the program begins.
7. Allows insurance companies to charge people who are older 300% more than others.
8. Grants monopolies to drug companies that will keep generic versions of expensive biotech drugs from ever coming to market.
9. No re-importation of prescription drugs, which would save consumers $100 billion over 10 years.
10. The cost of medical care will continue to rise, and insurance premiums for a family of four will rise an average of $1,000 a year — meaning in 10 years, your family’s insurance premium will be $10,000 more annually than it is right now.

Background information on each point:

1. Hardship Waiver And Restrictions On Immigrants Buying Insurance Undercut Arguments For An Individual Mandate, by Jon Walker
2. What’s in the Manager’s Amendment by David Dayen
3. MyBarackObama Tax by Marcy Wheeler
4. Emperor Ben Nelson: All Your Uteruses Are Belong To Me by Scarecrow
5. The Senate Bill is Designed to Make Your Health Insurance Worse by Jon Walker
6. Best way to “Fix It Later” Is With No Individual Mandate Now by Jon Walker
7. The Senate Health Care Bill is Built on a Mountain of Sand by Jon Walker
8. The Devil in Anna Eshoo’s Details by Jane Hamsher
9. Liveblog of the Dorgan Reimportation Amendment by David Dayen
10. Answering Nate Silver’s 20 Questions on the Health Care Bill by Jon Walker

The Senate bill isn’t a “starter home,” it’s a sink hole.  It needs to die so something else can take its place. It doesn’t matter whether people are on the right or the left — once they understand the con job that’s about to be foist upon them, they agree.  That’s why Harry Reid and President Obama are trying to jam it through as fast as they can, before people get wise. So email the list to your friends and family,tweet it and spread the word.