COFFEE BREAK 250

+ updated at 7:58pm EST on Thursday, February 17, 2011

+ The Nation offers "A Prayer for America" by Representative Dennis Kucinich. Excerpt: "We're living in a tragic version of Bill Murray's movie "Groundhog Day," where day in and day out we slumber in the arms of the national security state awakening to the color Orange. Our physical bodies are transparent to the security x-rays, but our government is opaque. How extensive is FBI spying? Who sent the anthrax which killed five people? Did the FBI fumble scientific evidence? Some fret about WikiLeaks while the lives of dutiful US soldiers and countless innocents are destroyed. War is a masqued ball, our goverment waltzing the freedom phantom abroad and dancing with its flickering shadow at home. Iraq. Afghanistan. The anthrax attack. The Patriot Act. Pray for America, indeed."

+ Huffington Post offers "This Lent -- Looking Inward, Looking Outward" by Jim Wallis of Sojourners. Excerpt: "If just one of the proposed cuts is passed -- $450 million in contributions to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis -- approximately 10.4 million bed nets that help prevent malaria will not reach people who need them; 6 million treatments for malaria will not be given; 3.7 million people will not be tested for HIV; and 372,000 tests and treatments for tuberculosis will not be administered."

+ The Nation offers "'What's Disgusting? Union Busting!' Chant Wisconsin Crowds That Swell to 30,000; Key GOP Legislators Waver" by John Nichols.  Excerpt: "Where Tuesday’s mid-day protests drew crowds estimated at 12,000 to 15,000, Wednesday's mid-day rally drew 30,000, according to estimates by organizers. Madison Police Chief Noble Wray, a veteran of 27 years on the city’s force, said he had has never see a protest of this size at the Capitol – and he noted that, while crowd estimates usually just measure those outside, this time the inside of the sprawling state Capitol was 'packed.'"