TV News LIES

House Democrats scored a historic victory in the century-long battle to reform the nation's health-care system late Sunday night, winning final approval of legislation that expands coverage to 32 million people and attempts to contain spiraling costs.

The House voted 219 to 212 to approve the measure, with every Republican voting no. The measure now awaits President Obama's signature. In remarks Sunday night, he said that the vote "proved that we are still capable of doing big things. We proved that this government -- a government of the people and by the people -- still works for the people."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues erupted in cheers and hugs as the votes were counted, while Republicans who had fought the Democratic efforts on health-care reform for more than a year appeared despondent.

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The Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War could take an explosive new twist after it emerged that leading figures in George Bush's administration have been asked to give evidence to it. Sources in Washington said the inquiry sent out emails "about three weeks ago" to senior officials in Mr Bush's government including, it is believed, the former president himself.

Other requests are understood to have been made to Dick Cheney, Mr Bush's vice-president, Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state, Donald Rumsfeld, the former US defence secretary, and Stephen Hadley, an ex-national security adviser – as well as to their deputies and senior assistants.

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The internet has emerged as one of the biggest threats to endangered species, according to conservationists who are meeting in Doha, Qatar. Campaigners say it is easier than ever before to buy and sell anything from live baby lions to polar bear pelts on online auction sites and chatrooms.

The findings were presented at the 175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites). Several proposals to give endangered species more protection were defeated.
Delegates will vote on changes to the trade in ivory later this week.

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One of the most important trade routes in Asia was closed last week while a boyish-looking man everyone calls "the general" showed around the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. General Stanley McChrystal clambered to the top of a roof, where "the general" -- officially a colonel in the Afghan Border Police -- pointed out the area where NATO forces plan to build a new $20 million border station.

U.S. forces are not allowed near the teeming border when it is open, so they have never seen quite how Colonel Abdul Razziq, the 30-something Afghan border police boss in Spin Boldak, single-handedly rules over billions in international trade. They say he has done a good job keeping the border moving and secure. They also believe he is, as one senior military official put it, "a crook."

Or, as Lieutenant-Colonel Pat Keane, head of a NATO unit trying to improve Afghanistan's border controls, put it more delicately: "He keeps the peace down here. Trucks flow, commerce flows. At the same time, he is getting additional incomes."

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Most people think that banks lend solely from their base of deposits. Some also know that with fractional reserve banking, they can loan out many times more than they actually have in reserves.

The former prime minister has been in the pay of the Kuwaiti government and a South Korean oil firm for up to 18 months, a parliamentary watchdog has revealed.

In a further revelation, a classified memo from Mr Blair to President Bush showed the full extent of his support for the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

The personal note — which has been seen by the Chilcot Inquiry but not released by the Government — shows that Mr Blair wrote: “You know, George, whatever you decide to do, I'm with you.”

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The Israeli government passed at least 21 bills aimed at discriminating against the country's Arab citizens making the current Knesset as being the most racist Israeli parliament since the country's founding, according to a report released Sunday by civil rights groups.

The Coalition Against Racism and the Mossawa Center, which works to promote equality, claimed that the proposed legislation seeks to de-legitimize Israel's Arab citizens by decreasing their civil rights. The report's data show that in 2008 there were 11 bills defined as racist presented to the Knesset while in 2009 there were 12 such bills.

In 2010, the report's authors claim, there were no less than 21 bills proposed that included discriminatory elements against the country's Arab citizens. According to the report released to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the number of laws that discriminate against Arab citizens proposed in the current Knesset bypassed all previous years, increasing by 75 percent.

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Even as the New York Times once again misreported the ACORN "Pimp" Hoax on its pages in a report on the community organization's possible declaration of bankruptcy in Saturday's paper, their Public Editor (ombudsman) Clark Hoyt finally admits in his column tonight, for tomorrow's paper, that both he and the paper were "wrong" in their reports about rightwing dirty trickster James O'Keefe's "pimp" costume, adding that "editors say they are considering a correction."

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