We have to go to the British media for the news:

Soldier charged over leaked video of attack

From Liberty Underground News:Greenwald says “Perhaps Manning should have tortured people or criminally eavesdropped on Americans as he leaked these documents; then he could have availed himself of that sweet Presidential protective shield.”

From Bloomberg.com :

 Talk-radio kingRush Limbaugh’s model health-care system may be one of Latin America’s longest- standing state-run programs, where 98 percent of the population is covered and private insurance is rare.Limbaugh, whose show is heard on about 600 stations, told his listeners on March 8 that if Democratic-backed health legislation became U.S. law he’d go to Costa Rica. A 2008 American Journal of Public Health study found the Central American nation’s health coverage “excellent,” with life expectancy second only to Canada in the Western Hemisphere.Jean-Pierre Unger, the author of the study, said it was “paradoxical” for a radio host who often warns of the dangers of government involvement in health care to praise Costa Rica.“Perhaps Rush Limbaugh is not aware of the very nature of this system,” said Unger, a researcher at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium.

During his program, Limbaugh, 59, said: “If this passes, and it’s five years from now and all that stuff gets implemented — I am leaving the country. I’ll go to Costa Rica.”

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES

http://www.gp.orgFor Immediate Release:Friday, February 26, 2010Contacts:Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, cell 202-904-7614, mclarty@greens.orgStarlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@gp.org“A real Tea Party movement would look like the Green Party”: Greens urge Americans to reject corporate royalists and faux populists like Limbaugh, Beck, and Palin, citing Jefferson’s warning about “the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations”Green Party Speakers Bureau: Greens available to speak on health care reform, democracy, corporate power, and related issues: http://www.gp.org/speakersWASHINGTON, DC — Green Party leaders and candidates said that many Tea Party activists might be in the wrong party and urged them to consider going Green.”Not all Tea Party members are befuddled rightwingers screeching that President Obama is a socialist, fascist, pro-terrorist, or all of the above. Many Tea Partiers have legitimate concerns about how the Democratic Party’s health care reform plans will reduce Medicare and about trillion-dollar taxpayer-funded giveaways to Wall Street firms. They are as outraged as Greens are about how both Democrats and Republicans are coddling CEOs, major stockholders, and other wealthy elites while preaching sacrifice for the rest of us,” said Carl Romanelli, former Green candidate for the US Senate and a member of Health Care for All Pennsylvania (http://healthcare4allpa.org).Greens said corporate royalists like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin who pose as populist leaders have hijacked the Tea Party movement.”Republicans and rightwing ideologues in the media are thrilled with a Tea Party movement that will channel votes and money towards extremist GOP politicians. Their idea of the Tea Party has nothing to do with the 1773 Boston Tea Party. They prefer a movement full of people who would have denounced the original Boston Tea Party as leftist terrorism against the British East India Company. They would have criticized Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine for wanting to rein in what Jefferson called ‘the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations.’ * To these Tea Partiers, and to most Republican and Democratic politicians, restraints on corporate power are a symptom of ‘big government.’ Many of the Tea Partiers who vented their rage against health care reform at town hall meetings in 2009 were in effect defending the power of health insurance companies — the modern equivalents of British tea companies — to drive people who need medical care into financial ruin,” said Rodger Jennings, Green candidate for Congress in Illinois, District 12 (http://www.rodgerjennings.org).Green Party leaders noted that media coverage of health care reform gave a megaphone to the anti-reform Tea Partiers at town hall meetings, while mostly ignoring advocates of Medicare For All (Single-Payer national health care), including many Green Party members, who protested vociferously against the plans offered by President Obama and Democrats in Congress. Examples of such protests include Medicare For All activists disrupting Congressional hearings and burning insurance forms outside meetings of insurance company lobbyists.Greens, like true fiscal conservatives, oppose subsidies for health insurance companies in the Democratic plans, including proposed ‘mandates’ that would require enrollment. The Green Party has warned that, whether Obamacare is enacted or Republicans succeed in blocking reform, the real winners will be the health insurance, pharmaceutical, and other industry lobbies.Greens also compared the invasive homeland security measures favored by Republicans and Democrats to the bullying tactics of the British Army and requirement that colonists house British troops on demand.”We need a Tea Party movement that opposes warrantless surveillance of American citizens, torture, invasion of other countries, and other violations of the US Constitution. We need a Tea Party that calls the ‘general welfare of the people,’ including the right to medical care, more important than the right of insurance and pharmaceutical companies to shake down patients and deny treatment. We need a Tea Party against predatory private prisons, the war on drugs, and mass incarceration of Americans. We need a Tea Party that defends future generations of Americans rather than corporate polluters,” said Lynne Williams, Green-Independent candidate for Governor of Maine (http://www.lynnewilliams2010.org).”We need a Tea Party that recognizes corporations as artificial entities created by government fiat, and that corporations must not enjoy the same free speech and other constitutional rights as humans. A real Tea Party movement would look like the Green Party,” said Ms. Williams.* “I hope we shall… crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of our country.” ~ Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Logan, November 12, 1816MORE 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/greenpartyusGreen Pages: The official publication of record of the Green Party of the United StatesWinter 2010 issue now onlinehttp://gp.org/greenpages-blog~ END ~

 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.”

Here’s a salute and appreciation for the volunteer efforts of Silver Persinger.Now, go read what he says by clicking here.

From AlterNet:

Wall Street’s return to robustness and Main Street’s continued deterioration are the main takeaways for 2009 that stemmed from the 2008 choices to flush the financial system with capital and leave the real economy to fend for itself. Lies that exacerbate this divide only perpetuate its growth. With that, here is my top 10 list of lies. Please consider adding your own, and let’s all hope for a more honest New Year.

Click here for full article.

From AlterNet.org - The stinkiest examples of corporate media malfeasance, spin and just plain outrageousness.

WASHINGTON - December 22 - For 17 years our colleagues Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon have worked with FAIR to present the P.U.-Litzers, a year-end review of some of the stinkiest examples of corporate media malfeasance, spin and just plain outrageousness.

Click here for full article and ‘award-winners’.

In this day and age, the smoke and mirrors continue. As a citizen you do have a responsibility to do your best to ignore distractions, pay attention, and be informed-Project Censored helps:

Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009

• #1. Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation
• # 2 Security and Prosperity Partnership: Militarized NAFTA
• # 3 InfraGard: The FBI Deputizes Business
• # 4 ILEA: Is the US Restarting Dirty Wars in Latin America?
• # 5 Seizing War Protesters’ Assets
• # 6 The Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act
• # 7 Guest Workers Inc.: Fraud and Human Trafficking
• # 8 Executive Orders Can Be Changed Secretly
• #9 Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Testify
• # 10 APA Complicit in CIA Torture
• # 11 El Salvador’s Water Privatization and the Global War on Terror
• # 12 Bush Profiteers Collect Billions From No Child Left Behind
• # 13 Tracking Billions of Dollars Lost in Iraq
• # 14 Mainstreaming Nuclear Waste
• # 15 Worldwide Slavery
• # 16 Annual Survey on Trade Union Rights
• # 17 UN’s Empty Declaration of Indigenous Rights
• # 18 Cruelty and Death in Juvenile Detention Centers
• # 19 Indigenous Herders and Small Farmers Fight Livestock Extinction
• # 20 Marijuana Arrests Set New Record
• # 21 NATO Considers “First Strike” Nuclear Option
• # 22 CARE Rejects US Food Aid
• # 23 FDA Complicit in Pushing Pharmaceutical Drugs
• # 24 Japan Questions 9/11 and the Global War on Terror
• # 25 Bush’s Real Problem with Eliot Spitzer

From consumerist.com :

Researchers at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver looked at sales figures and prices for the blood thinner Plavix after direct-to-consumer advertising started in 2001. What they found was that the campaign was largely ineffective at increasing prescribing rates, but that the price of the drug shot up 12% almost immediately to cover the cost of the marketing campaign.

In other words, direct-to-consumer drug marketing may be both ineffective and expensive for the consumer. For the state as well: the Plavix campaign ended up costing 27 state Medicaid programs an additional $207 million from 2001-2005, say the authors of the study.

From C-SPAN, (click here).