The Hollywood Liberal

Thanks to The Califrornia Endownment.

Please join us for a thought-provoking evening with journalist Jonathan Cohn, author of the new book Sick: The Untold Story of America’s Health Care Crisis—And the People Who Pay the Price. A senior editor at The New Republic, as well as a senior fellow at the Demos network and a former media fellow with the Kaiser Family Foundation, Cohn traveled across the United States to investigate why this crisis is happening and to witness, first-hand, its impact on ordinary Americans. His book weaves powerful real-life stories with clear-eyed reporting from Washington, D.C., and inside the medical industry, chronicling the evolution and ultimate failure of our health system.

Cohn will present a roadmap for rethinking the way our government administers health insurance, shedding new light on a vital debate underway here in California and nationally in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Discussion moderator: Michelle Levander, director of The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships at the Annenberg School for Communication at USC

Event Details

Tuesday, May 15, 2007, 5:30 p.m.

The California Endowment’s Center for Healthy Communities
Yosemite Hall
1000 North Alameda St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
FREE PARKING

Admission is free but reservations are strongly encouraged.

Reuters
U.S.-led raid kills 40 civilians in Afghanistan: witnesses

AP
Excerpt:
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) – At least 40 civilians were killed in an air strike in
Afghanistan by foreign forces, witnesses said on Thursday, but the U.S.-led coalition said only rebels were hit and it knew of no other casualties.

The deaths on Tuesday in the southern province of Helmand, if confirmed, would raise the civilian toll at the hands of foreign troops to 110 in the past two weeks.

“Foreign troops are killing Afghans every day, but our government has closed its eyes and does not see our casualties,” local resident Haji Ibrahim said.

Helmand governor, Assadullah Wafa, said earlier 21 civilians, including women and children, were killed in Tuesday’s air strike in Sangin district — a major opium-growing area and the scene of a large anti-Taliban operation by foreign troops.

HL’s Take
Kill them all and let God sort them out. Isn’t that a popular expression in our Armed Forces, and they wonder why they hate us so much. If a foreign nation attacked us and were killing our civilians at will, you would hate them too. The best thing we can do to repair our reputation around the world would be to just get the hell out of there already. “oh but then they would follow us home and attack us” what a load of crap. If they were going to do that, they could just do it anyway, were not stopping anyone from leaving Iraq, and Afghanistan from over there.

Check out this video. Robert Wexler a House member from Florida has Gonzalez on the stand and he is grilling him on the firing of U.S. Attorney David Iglesias. Gonzalez looks like a stumbling, bumbling idiot, and is so obviously lying through his nasty yellow teeth. They would rather you know that they are a bunch of lying Treasonists then to admit the truth, but with all the money they are stealing they don’t mind looking like hypocritical lying morons. Watch this

Pentagon restricting testimony in Congress
Blocks staff of lower rank

Boston Globe
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has placed unprecedented restrictions on who can testify before Congress, reserving the right to bar lower-ranking officers, enlisted soldiers, and career bureaucrats from appearing before oversight committees or having their remarks transcribed, according to Defense Department documents.

Robert L. Wilkie , a former Bush administration national security official who left the White House to become assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs last year, has outlined a half-dozen guidelines that prohibit most officers below the rank of colonel from appearing in hearings, restricting testimony to high-ranking officers and civilians appointed by President Bush.

The guidelines, described in an April 19 memo to the staff director of the House Armed Services Committee, adds that all field-level officers and enlisted personnel must be “deemed appropriate” by the Department of Defense before they can participate in personal briefings for members of Congress or their staffs; in addition, according to the memo, the proceedings must not be recorded.

Wilkie’s memo also stipulated that any officers who are allowed to testify must be accompanied by an official from the administration, such as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and his top-level aides.

HL’s Take
field-level officers and enlisted personnel must be “deemed appropriate”….meaning they have to make sure that these people are willing to lie. The article goes on to say that this action by the Pentagon is Illegal. Of course they don’t want low ranking members testifying. They don’t make enough money to lie about the war just to keep it going like the high ranking officials do. Another blatantly transparent attempt by The Bush administration to cover their asses about all the lies related to the war. How typical