Just my little piece of the world

Yeah, I am back again. But this may be the only one for a while.

2011-09-05T17:07:00.000-05:00

Reading blogs today I found a reference to a blog post at DailyKos from 2005. Now I normally don't read much at the big orange anymore because I just can't stomach most of what I see there.

That's actually why I had stopped for so long. The negativity out here is awful and I had to get away from it for a while. I am very tired of the so called emoprogs bashing the President for everything he does. Tired of the blame Obama first crowd and all the others who just seem to never be able to give him credit for what he does.

Anyway.. enough about me. Some of the blogs are better than others, we all know that, and I have been trying to stay with them. The People's View is one that I enjoy the most. They always have a reasoned discussion for everything and seem to find the good in things. Today was no exception.

The blog post they referenced was written by a Senator from Illinois explaining his vote against John Roberts and some other things he felt he needed to defend. Just so you won't have to give them a click, I will post it here.

I read with interest your recent discussion regarding my comments on the floor(1, 2, 3) during the debate on John Roberts' nomination. I don't get a chance to follow blog traffic as regularly as I would like, and rarely get the time to participate in the discussions. I thought this might be a good opportunity to offer some thoughts about not only judicial confirmations, but how to bring about meaningful change in this country.

Maybe some of you believe I could have made my general point more artfully, but it's precisely because many of these groups are friends and supporters that I felt it necessary to speak my mind.

There is one way, over the long haul, to guarantee the appointment of judges that are sensitive to issues of social justice, and that is to win the right to appoint them by recapturing the presidency and the Senate. And I don't believe we get there by vilifying good allies, with a lifetime record of battling for progressive causes, over one vote or position. I am convinced that, our mutual frustrations and strongly-held beliefs notwithstanding, the strategy driving much of Democratic advocacy, and the tone of much of our rhetoric, is an impediment to creating a workable progressive majority in this country.

According to the storyline that drives many advocacy groups and Democratic activists - a storyline often reflected in comments on this blog - we are up against a sharply partisan, radically conservative, take-no-prisoners Republican party. They have beaten us twice by energizing their base with red meat rhetoric and single-minded devotion and discipline to their agenda. In order to beat them, it is necessary for Democrats to get some backbone, give as good as they get, brook no compromise, drive out Democrats who are interested in "appeasing" the right wing, and enforce a more clearly progressive agenda. The country, finally knowing what we stand for and seeing a sharp contrast, will rally to our side and thereby usher in a new progressive era.

I think this perspective misreads the American people. From traveling throughout Illinois and more recently around the country, I can tell you that Americans are suspicious of labels and suspicious of jargon. They don't think George Bush is mean-spirited or prejudiced, but have become aware that his administration is irresponsible and often incompetent. They don't think that corporations are inherently evil (a lot of them work in corporations), but they recognize that big business, unchecked, can fix the game to the detriment of working people and small entrepreneurs. They don't think America is an imperialist brute, but are angry that the case to invade Iraq was exaggerated, are worried that we have unnecessarily alienated existing and potential allies around the world, and are ashamed by events like those at Abu Ghraib which violate our ideals as a country.

It's this non-ideological lens through which much of the country viewed Judge Roberts' confirmation hearings. A majority of folks, including a number of Democrats and Independents, don't think that John Roberts is an ideologue bent on overturning every vestige of civil rights and civil liberties protections in our possession. Instead, they have good reason to believe he is a conservative judge who is (like it or not) within the mainstream of American jurisprudence, a judge appointed by a conservative president who could have done much worse (and probably, I fear, may do worse with the next nominee). While they hope Roberts doesn't swing the court too sharply to the right, a majority of Americans think that the President should probably get the benefit of the doubt on a clearly qualified nominee.

A plausible argument can be made that too much is at stake here and now, in terms of privacy issues, civil rights, and civil liberties, to give John Roberts the benefit of the doubt. That certainly was the operating assumption of the advocacy groups involved in the nomination battle.

I shared enough of these concerns that I voted against Roberts on the floor this morning. But short of mounting an all-out filibuster -- a quixotic fight I would not have supported; a fight I believe Democrats would have lost both in the Senate and in the court of public opinion; a fight that would have been difficult for Democratic senators defending seats in states like North Dakota and Nebraska that are essential for Democrats to hold if we hope to recapture the majority; and a fight that would have effectively signaled an unwillingness on the part of Democrats to confirm any Bush nominee, an unwillingness which I believe would have set a dangerous precedent for future administrations -- blocking Roberts was not a realistic option.

In such circumstances, attacks on Pat Leahy, Russ Feingold and the other Democrats who, after careful consideration, voted for Roberts make no sense. Russ Feingold, the only Democrat to vote not only against war in Iraq but also against the Patriot Act, doesn't become complicit in the erosion of civil liberties simply because he chooses to abide by a deeply held and legitimate view that a President, having won a popular election, is entitled to some benefit of the doubt when it comes to judicial appointments. Like it or not, that view has pretty strong support in the Constitution's design.

The same principle holds with respect to issues other than judicial nominations. My colleague from Illinois, Dick Durbin, spoke out forcefully - and voted against - the Iraqi invasion. He isn't somehow transformed into a "war supporter" - as I've heard some anti-war activists suggest - just because he hasn't called for an immediate withdrawal of American troops. He may be simply trying to figure out, as I am, how to ensure that U.S. troop withdrawals occur in such a way that we avoid all-out Iraqi civil war, chaos in the Middle East, and much more costly and deadly interventions down the road. A pro-choice Democrat doesn't become anti-choice because he or she isn't absolutely convinced that a twelve-year-old girl should be able to get an operation without a parent being notified. A pro-civil rights Democrat doesn't become complicit in an anti-civil rights agenda because he or she questions the efficacy of certain affirmative action programs. And a pro-union Democrat doesn't become anti-union if he or she makes a determination that on balance, CAFTA will help American workers more than it will harm them.

Or to make the point differently: How can we ask Republican senators to resist pressure from their right wing and vote against flawed appointees like John Bolton, if we engage in similar rhetoric against Democrats who dissent from our own party line? How can we expect Republican moderates who are concerned about the nation's fiscal meltdown to ignore Grover Norquist's threats if we make similar threats to those who buck our party orthodoxy?

I am not drawing a facile equivalence here between progressive advocacy groups and right-wing advocacy groups. The consequences of their ideas are vastly different. Fighting on behalf of the poor and the vulnerable is not the same as fighting for homophobia and Halliburton. But to the degree that we brook no dissent within the Democratic Party, and demand fealty to the one, "true" progressive vision for the country, we risk the very thoughtfulness and openness to new ideas that are required to move this country forward. When we lash out at those who share our fundamental values because they have not met the criteria of every single item on our progressive "checklist," then we are essentially preventing them from thinking in new ways about problems. We are tying them up in a straightjacket and forcing them into a conversation only with the converted.

Beyond that, by applying such tests, we are hamstringing our ability to build a majority. We won't be able to transform the country with such a polarized electorate. Because the truth of the matter is this: Most of the issues this country faces are hard. They require tough choices, and they require sacrifice. The Bush Administration and the Republican Congress may have made the problems worse, but they won't go away after President Bush is gone. Unless we are open to new ideas, and not just new packaging, we won't change enough hearts and minds to initiate a serious energy or fiscal policy that calls for serious sacrifice. We won't have the popular support to craft a foreign policy that meets the challenges of globalization or terrorism while avoiding isolationism and protecting civil liberties. We certainly won't have a mandate to overhaul a health care policy that overcomes all the entrenched interests that are the legacy of a jerry-rigged health care system. And we won't have the broad political support, or the effective strategies, required to lift large numbers of our fellow citizens out of numbing poverty.

The bottom line is that our job is harder than the conservatives' job. After all, it's easy to articulate a belligerent foreign policy based solely on unilateral military action, a policy that sounds tough and acts dumb; it's harder to craft a foreign policy that's tough and smart. It's easy to dismantle government safety nets; it's harder to transform those safety nets so that they work for people and can be paid for. It's easy to embrace a theological absolutism; it's harder to find the right balance between the legitimate role of faith in our lives and the demands of our civic religion. But that's our job. And I firmly believe that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, or oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. A polarized electorate that is turned off of politics, and easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate, works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government because, in the end, a cynical electorate is a selfish electorate.

Let me be clear: I am not arguing that the Democrats should trim their sails and be more "centrist." In fact, I think the whole "centrist" versus "liberal" labels that continue to characterize the debate within the Democratic Party misses the mark. Too often, the "centrist" label seems to mean compromise for compromise sake, whereas on issues like health care, energy, education and tackling poverty, I don't think Democrats have been bold enough. But I do think that being bold involves more than just putting more money into existing programs and will instead require us to admit that some existing programs and policies don't work very well. And further, it will require us to innovate and experiment with whatever ideas hold promise (including market- or faith-based ideas that originate from Republicans).

Our goal should be to stick to our guns on those core values that make this country great, show a spirit of flexibility and sustained attention that can achieve those goals, and try to create the sort of serious, adult, consensus around our problems that can admit Democrats, Republicans and Independents of good will. This is more than just a matter of "framing," although clarity of language, thought, and heart are required. It's a matter of actually having faith in the American people's ability to hear a real and authentic debate about the issues that matter.

Finally, I am not arguing that we "unilaterally disarm" in the face of Republican attacks, or bite our tongue when this Administration screws up. Whenever they are wrong, inept, or dishonest, we should say so clearly and repeatedly; and whenever they gear up their attack machine, we should respond quickly and forcefully. I am suggesting that the tone we take matters, and that truth, as best we know it, be the hallmark of our response.

My dear friend Paul Simon used to consistently win the votes of much more conservative voters in Southern Illinois because he had mastered the art of "disagreeing without being disagreeable," and they trusted him to tell the truth. Similarly, one of Paul Wellstone's greatest strengths was his ability to deliver a scathing rebuke of the Republicans without ever losing his sense of humor and affability. In fact, I would argue that the most powerful voices of change in the country, from Lincoln to King, have been those who can speak with the utmost conviction about the great issues of the day without ever belittling those who opposed them, and without denying the limits of their own perspectives.

In that spirit, let me end by saying I don't pretend to have all the answers to the challenges we face, and I look forward to periodic conversations with all of you in the months and years to come. I trust that you will continue to let me and other Democrats know when you believe we are screwing up. And I, in turn, will always try and show you the respect and candor one owes his friends and allies.

As you have probably guessed by now, this was written by Sen. Barack Obama. One of the main things that drew my attention is highlighted and I think it is something we need to think hard about. It is so true and so very fitting to today's crowd.

The President's WEEKLY ADDRESS: “It’s Time Washington Acted as Responsibly as Our Families Do”

2011-02-12T10:04:00.000-06:00

From the White House blog:

President Obama used his weekly address to preview his budget saying that it will help the government live within its means, while still investing in the future. In addition to stripping out waste, his budget includes a freeze on annual domestic spending over the next five years—even for programs he cares deeply about—which will reduce the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade. And, it will make investments in the future, by supporting what will do the most to grow the economy in the years to come. This means investing in things like infrastructure, research, and education.

This sounds much better than what I have been hearing from the GOPers... At least this makes sense and will help move the country forward and create jobs.

As I have seen all over, Mr. Boehner, where are the jobs?

The President's Weekly Address: Winning the Future through American Innovation

2011-02-05T11:40:00.000-06:00

From the White House blog:

The President discusses the labs at Penn State as an example of how American innovation, particularly in infrastructure and energy, can create jobs and win the future for America.

Once again, the President is pushing the Green jobs and technology that can help us move forward. Explaining how innovation and technology is what we need in the country to grow the economy and create jobs.

This is so important and is a must do... We need to continue to push this and support the President by helping in anyway we can.

The President's Weekly Address: Out-Innovating, Out-Educating & Out-Building Our Competitors

2011-01-29T10:52:00.000-06:00

From the White House blog:

In this week’s address, President Obama called Orion Energy Systems in Manitowoc, Wisconsin an example of how America can win the future by being the best place on Earth to do business. Orion was able to open with the help of small business loans and incentives that are creating demand for clean energy technologies. By sparking innovation and spurring new products and technologies, America will unleash the talent and ingenuity of American workers and businesses, which will lead to new, good jobs.

A while back, I stated clean energy was our way forward and was our "to the moon" moment. Or as the President said in his STOU Tuesday night, this is our "Sputnik moment". I think this is the future and we should all embrace it.

Let's just hope the rest of the country gets behind this too.

The President's Weekly Address: "We Can Out-Compete Any Other Nation"

2011-01-22T10:29:00.000-06:00

From the White House blog:

President Obama discusses the steps he is taking to make America competitive in the short and long terms, and why he chose GE CEO Jeff Immelt to head up the new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

I have read some reports that there was confusion why the president choose Immelt to lead this new board. But my thoughts are this... Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Immelt has been critical of the President in the past and this way, it is nullified.

We don't need someone to bash the Administration all over, we need someone with constructive ideas and innovation to keep the forward momentum going. Immelt may be just the person to do this. He is pushing green technology, green jobs and such at GE, why not use him to push other companies into doing the same thing.

Those are my thoughts anyway. Let me hear yours.

The President's Weekly Address: President Obama: "Before We are Democrats or Republicans, We are Americans"

2011-01-15T18:12:00.000-06:00

From the White House blog:

In this week’s address, President Obama said that once business resumes in Washington, he looks forward to working with members of both parties to meet the challenges facing the country. By working together in a spirit of common cause, the President and members of Congress can face these challenges in a way worthy of the voters who sent them to Washington.

I hope we can all remember to be at least civil to each other in the time going forward. Even if the ones on the right don't want to be civil, we must set the example.

The President's Weekly Address: Tax Cuts Kicking In

2011-01-08T10:57:00.000-06:00

From the White House blog:

The President touts the new benefits coming from the tax cut compromise for any business large or small, tens of millions of workers and families, and the economy itself.

In his weekly address, President Obama looked forward to how the tax cut package he signed into law in December will benefit millions of Americans in the new year. For one year, any business, large or small, can write off the full cost of most of their capital investments. The payroll tax cut will mean $1,000 more this year for a typical family – 155 million workers will see larger paychecks because of that tax cut. Twelve million families will benefit from a $1,000 child tax credit and an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit. And eight million students and families will continue to benefit from a $2,500 tuition tax credit. Independent experts have concluded that the tax cut package should significantly accelerate the pace of the recovery.

This is good news about the jobs this week, however we can't depend on the numbers continuing this way. I think that's why the President isn't shouting louder about this. We all know the numbers fluctuate from week to week and month to month. But this is good news. The trend is still upward and that's the main thing. We are making progress and we have to keep the forward momentum going.

Even though the tax cut package was so hated by those on the left, it is a good thing for the middle class and I am sure the President will keep his word on fighting against the upper class cuts in 2 years. We have to work and make sure he has a Congress behind him when he is re-elected. That's our goal for the next 2 years.

I still have faith and confidence in our President and hope that others will see he is the man for the job and is doing the very best he can. Even if we don't always like the process, he is getting things done.

The President's Weekly Address: The New Year

2011-01-01T10:01:00.000-06:00

From the White House blog:

The President resolves to do all he can to get the economy growing and create jobs, and encourages Republicans to embrace their new responsibility to govern.

Happy New Year to you all. May this year be even better than last, and not as good as next.

The President's Weekly Address: Merry Christmas from the President & First Lady

2010-12-25T09:32:00.000-06:00

From the White House blog:

President Obama and the First Lady wish families across the country a “Merry Christmas” and encourage everyone to support the troops and their families this holiday season. Visit www.serve.gov to find ideas for what you can do to help our servicemen and women and their families.

I would like to add my wishes for a wonderful Holiday Season, no matter whom or what you worship, I wish you peace and happiness.

The President's Weekly Address: National Security Over Politics on START

2010-12-18T10:02:00.000-06:00

From the White House blog:

President Obama urges the Senate to heed the calls from Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, every living Republican Secretary of State, our NATO allies, and the leadership of the military: ratify the New START Treaty with Russia.

The President's Weekly Address: Tax Cuts & Unemployment Insurance

2010-12-04T11:08:00.000-06:00

This week we have a treat. VP Joe Biden is giving the address because the President is on his way back from Afghanistan.

From the White House blog:

With President Obama visiting troops in Afghanistan, Vice President Biden says Congress must extend both the middle class tax cuts and unemployment insurance for the sake of those families and the broader economy.

With the majority of Americans in favor of letting the upper income tax cuts expire, we have to wonder where the GOPers are who said they were going to listen to the people.

The votes are in and the majority of Democrats voted for the middle class cuts, while the GOPers voted against it. There were some Dems who voted with the GOPers... including that champion of progressives Russ Feingold. Why? Why are some of these Dems helping the GOPers block the tax cuts for middle class people?

If this doesn't show people who the GOPers are for and who they are against, there is no hope for the people in this country. We can't have a strong economy without a strong middle class.

The President's Weekly Address: Giving Thanks for Those Who Serve

2010-11-25T10:20:00.001-06:00

From the White House blog:

The President expresses gratitude to America’s military men and women and their families, and discusses the steps his administration is taking to help create jobs so that next Thanksgiving, Americans can give thanks for a stronger economy.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Day and enjoy it with those you love. I am thankful for all of you. My friends, family and loved ones who read this meager effort of mine and for all of you just for being you!

The President's Weekly Address: Senators Opposing New START "Want to Trust But Not Verify"

2010-11-20T13:12:00.000-06:00

From the White House blog:

In this week’s address, President Obama called ratifying New START this year “fundamental” to America’s national security. Failure to ratify the treaty this year not only would mean losing our nuclear inspectors in Russia, but also it would undermine the international coalition pressuring Iran, put to risk the transit routes used to equip our troops in Afghanistan, and undo decades of American leadership and bipartisanship on nuclear security. After six months, 18 hearings, and nearly one thousand questions answered and with the support of several Republicans including Colin Powell, George Schultz, Jim Baker, and Henry Kissinger, it is time for the Senate to act.

This is just another example of the Rethugs blocking anything this President wants done. There is no reason for anything but a straight vote on this.

Don't we have a lot to look forward to for the next 2 years?

The President's Weekly Address: President Obama Calls for Compromise and Explains his Priorities on Taxes

2010-11-06T12:12:00.000-05:00

From the White House blog:

As Congress prepares to focus on taxes when it returns to work later this month, President Obama called on both parties to work together and focus on the areas where all sides agree. First, the President underscored that middle-class families need permanent tax relief, so Congress should permanently extend tax cuts for all families making less than $250,000 a year – 98 percent of the American people. And second, he noted that, with the nation’s challenging fiscal situation, the country simply cannot afford to borrow another $700 billion on permanent tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.

I know, I know, no one wants the President to compromise with the Republicans. They all want him to yell and scream and stomp his feet in frustration over the obstruction that has happened the last 2 years and will probably continue.

However, you have to understand this President does not operate that way. He has laid out what he wants and he expects the grownups in the Congress to respond in kind.

He makes the valid point that if the Repubs really want to reduce the deficit the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy have to be allowed to expire. You don't add to the deficit if you want it reduced. Math just doesn't work that way.

Now maybe if we had a responsible media who would do their jobs and let the American People know the truth, instead of just letting the propaganda of the other party be the narrative, everyone would understand that.

Great Video From the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers

2010-10-31T15:00:00.001-05:00

This is great. A bunch of regular people reminding all of us, why it is so important to vote this Tuesday. Watch:

Do you Remember?

h/t Show Me Progress

The President's Weekly Address: President Obama Calls on GOP Leadership to Put Aside Partisan Politics and Focus on Strengthening the Economy

2010-10-30T15:34:00.001-05:00

From the White House blog:

In his weekly address, President Obama called the recent comments by the GOP leadership, which put scoring political points over solving the problems facing the country, “troubling,” and asked Democrats and Republicans to work together to move the country forward. Regardless of the outcome of Tuesday’s elections, leaders on both sides of the aisle owe it to the American people to put aside politics and work together on a number of issues that have traditionally had bipartisan support, like tax breaks for middle-class families and investing in infrastructure.

The President:

That’s why I found the recent comments by the top two Republican in Congress so troubling. The Republican leader of the House actually said that “this is not the time for compromise.” And the Republican leader of the Senate said his main goal after this election is simply to win the next one.

I know that we’re in the final days of a campaign. So it’s not surprising that we’re seeing this heated rhetoric. That’s politics. But when the ballots are cast and the voting is done, we need to put this kind of partisanship aside – win, lose, or draw.

I only hope more people realize what the GOPers are promising. Endless investigations, constant filibusters, and the possibility of a complete shutdown of the Government.

Remind your friends and neighbors, especially if they are thinking of putting the GOPers back in power, what a shutdown would mean. No checks, no help for anything, If you live on disability or Social Security, no money coming in. All services from the VA, USDA, and every other department will stop.

Is this what they want? It's what we could potentially get, and with the idiots who are running, who knows how bad it will be.

I Am A Teapartier

2010-10-29T15:44:00.001-05:00

This comes from Broadway Carl's Blog-O-Mania, check him out and give him some love. He is another great blogger.

The only problem I have with this is I think the Tea Partier is too calm....lol But it is wonderful and describes them to a fault. Watch...enjoy and share with everyone you know.

Osborne Ink Hits Another One Out of the Park

2010-10-27T09:41:00.000-05:00

My friend Matt @ OsborneInk has a new video he has done and it is great. Now I don't always agree with Matt's choice of music, but it does get the point across.

Watch here and then let Matt know what you think. He says share it so I am sharing it with you.

Linchpin of Progress
Uploaded by rumisouth. - News videos from around the world.

The song is "Lynchpin" by Fear Factor and here are the lyrics.

Can’t take me apart…Can’t take me apart…
See the light a new day has arrived for us Genesis of our evolution A linchpin holds within a means to an end Can’t you see that we are one?
Can’t take me apart (x3)No you can’t
We see no end to the dream
We will never see the end We will never be the end All my life I felt discarded Never feeling a part of it
No you can’t
Without me you will fade, you will not remain We are one, and though the same, future machine A linchpin holds within a mean to an end Can’t you see that we are one?
Can’t take me apart
No you can’t
We see no end to the dream
We will never see the end We will never be the end All of my life I felt discarded Never feeling a part of it
No you…No you can’t take…
No you can’t take me apart
We will never see the end We will never be the end All my life I felt discarded Never feeling a part of it
You can’t change me
You can’t change me now

I hope you enjoy it and as Matt says, steal it, share it and post it on your blog if you want.

The President's Weekly Address: Letting Wall Street Run Wild Again

2010-10-23T10:22:00.000-05:00

From the White House blog:

Pointing to the foreclosure crisis and the economy, the President cites passage of Wall Street Reform over the ferocious lobbying of Wall Street banks as a pivotal achievement -- and condemns Republicans in Congress for vowing to repeal it.

The President is correct, if the GOPers take control, this is what we can expect. They will work for repeal and overturning the laws we have all worked so hard to pass. Financial Reform, Health Care Reform. All of them.

This is just another reason we have to GOTV and keep the Dems in charge. No they are not perfect, but they are most certainly better than the alternative.

The President's Weekly Address: GOP Rewarding Corporations that Create Jobs Overseas

2010-10-17T09:17:00.000-05:00

From the White House blog:

The President lays out his agenda to foster investment here at home. He vows to close the tax loopholes for sending jobs and profits overseas that Congressional Republicans have tried to protect.

If you wish to read the remarks the transcript is HERE.

I want to highlight something that is in the talk, plus on the transcript page... This is what we are voting to stop on Nov. 2.

In this week’s address, President Obama laid out a policy agenda that would strengthen our economy and create jobs right here in America by offering tax incentives to businesses that hire new employees, making the research and experimentation tax credit permanent and providing a tax cut for clean energy manufacturing. The President also wants to close tax loopholes worth billions of dollars that encourage companies to invest in overseas, while Republicans in the House have voted 11 times in just the last four years to keep those loopholes open.

We have to defeat the GOPers or we will never move forward with jobs, clean energy or anything else in the next 2 or 6 years.

Sorry this is late, I have been out of town and was very tired last night.. Hope you can forgive me.

Mormon Prophecy Behind Glenn Beck's Message

2010-10-10T12:38:00.001-05:00

This comes from an article by Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, however he posted this piece at Huffington.

But before I post it, I want to share with you what I learned years ago. At the church I attended we did a study of cults and other religions. One of the ones we talked about in depth was the Mormons.

We did this because there is a strong presence and history of the Mormons here. Mostly we have the RLDS now, and the Restoration Branch of the LDS, however we (the state) did play a huge role in sending them off to Utah.

One of the things we talked about was the huge presence of Mormon's in businesses and in government and how it is growing. People do not realize how huge the "Corporation of Mormonism" is. They own most of at least 4 states, between government representatives and just land and business.

So, when I read this piece by Milbank it brought back what I had learned and what scares the Evangelical Christians when it comes to Mormonism. There is a belief they will take over the entire process of the Federal Government in time. This ties into what Milbank wrote.

From the Huffington Post, please go read the entire piece it is worth your time:

I

n one of his first appearances on Fox News, Glenn Beck sent a coded message to the nation's six million Mormons -- or at least those Mormons who believe in what the Latter-day Saints call "the White Horse Prophecy."

"We are at the place where the Constitution hangs in the balance," Beck told Bill O'Reilly on November 14, 2008, just after President Obama's election. "I feel the Constitution is hanging in the balance right now, hanging by a thread unless the good Americans wake up."

Some of the emphasis is mine... but I wanted to make sure you saw this line:

The Constitution is hanging by a thread.

According to Milbank, this is the Call to Arms, so to speak. He goes on to say:

The phrase is often attributed to the Prophet Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormon Church. Smith is believed to have said in 1840 that when the Constitution hangs by a thread, elders of the Mormon Church will step in -- on the proverbial white horse -- to save the country.

"When the Constitution of the United States hangs, as it were, upon a single thread, they will have to call for the 'Mormon' Elders to save it from utter destruction; and they will step forth and do it," Brigham Young, Smith's successor as head of the church, wrote in 1855.

He goes on to show how other members of the Mormon Church have backed Beck up when talking.

Was it just a coincidence in wording, or was Beck, a 1999 Mormon convert, speaking in coded language about the need to fulfill the Mormon prophecy? A conversation on Beck's radio show ten days earlier would seem to rule out coincidence. Beck was interviewing Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, also a Mormon, when he said: "I heard Barack Obama talk about the Constitution and I thought, we are at the point or we are very near the point where our Constitution is hanging by a thread."

"Well, let me tell you something," Hatch responded. "I believe the Constitution is hanging by a thread."

Days after Beck's Fox show started in January 2009, he had Hatch on, and again prompted him: "I believe our Constitution hangs by a thread."

I thought this part was very interesting, however since I don't listen to Beck I had never thought much of it.

In addition to the coded allusions to the White Horse Prophecy, he often brings Mormon theology into his broadcasts (he touts the thinking of late church president Ezra Taft Benson and he frequently promotes the work Mormon conspiracy theorist Cleon Skousen) but without identifying them with the LDS church.

Then he uses history to teach us more...

Before the Mormons went west, Smith traveled to Washington seeking help for his oppressed followers and received nothing but frustration. Rather than turning on the government, however, "They considered themselves the last Real Americans, the legitimate heirs of the pilgrims and Founding Fathers," Pat Bagley wrote in the Salt Lake Tribune. "And, they believed, the very survival of the Constitution depended on the Saints. From Smith on, LDS leaders prophesied the Constitution would one day hang by a thread, only to be saved by Mormons."

A compilation of church leaders' statements over the years by the journal BYU Studies shows this strain of thinking. Though there are doubts about whether Smith actually wrote the phrase "hang by a thread," his successors left no doubt about the theology behind it. Orson Hyde, a Smith contemporary, wrote that Smith believed that "the time would come when the Constitution and the country would be in danger of an overthrow; and said [Smith]: 'If the Constitution be saved at all, it will be by the elders of this Church.'"

As you can see, this should be worrying. It is one thing for the Christian right to try to take over, at least they are out in the open about it... But the Mormons are trying to do it while not bringing public attention to what they plan.

Milbank finishes this piece by saying this:

But there is a Beckian twist in his version of the prophecy. Unlike the church leaders' versions, Beck's vision carries the possibility of a bloody end. On the night of Feb. 24, 2009, Beck outlined this prospect for his viewers. People who "don't trust the government," he said, would "see the government as violating the Constitution, and they will see themselves as defenders of the Constitution. Not a good mix. Then they take matters into their own hands."

It was Glenn Beck in a nutshell: White Horse Prophecy meets horsemen of the apocalypse.

I firmly believe the words of Beck carry with them a danger and a chilling reach to violence. Note the other TeaBaggers who have also called for violence. Angle, asking for 2nd amendment remedies, taking out Harry Reid... all those are attributed to her. Then there is the candidate who says he confused his names the other day, calling for the assassination of Obama, not once but several times, then later saying he meant Osama... Yeah right.

We know the likes of SP, she who will not be named on this blog, who is also advocating violence and wishes for End Times to happen soon. Matter of fact, all the so called Religious Right have done the same. They all want the world to end so they can be lifted up to Heaven with their Jesus.

I must say, their Jesus and my Jesus are two very different people.

So what do you think.. Does Dana Milbank have a point. He has just published a book about Beck, called
Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America, a fitting title don't you think? I am going to have to get this book. Then I will let you know what I think.

Let me know how you feel about this, and again, just another thing to worry about from the Right WingNuts of America.

The President's Weekly Address: Strengthening Education, Not Cutting It

2010-10-09T08:25:00.000-05:00

From the White House blog:

The President explains that even as we focus on creating jobs immediately, we must also ensure the economy is better for our children by investing in education – not cutting it by 20% as Congressional Republicans propose.

If you would like to read the transcript you can do so by going HERE.

When I hear people say "this President just doesn't get it" I have to wonder if they really listen to him or if they really see him as you and I do.

It is a proven fact, GOPers hate education. I think this is because they feel if they keep the electorate uneducated, they will always have voters. I firmly believe this to be true. Why else is it that Children's issues and education are the first things they cut?

Just look around, the Tea Baggers and their spelling errors in the signs... Even an ad the other day targeting the wrong person. Granted it was his brother, but how do you confuse Ken with John? One has never been a Congressman, and is the Secretary of the Interior, the other is the Congressman they were supposed to be targeting. Yet they used Ken's name 5 times in a spot, with no later retraction, apology or even an explanation.

All part of the "dumbing down of America" which has been talked about since Reagan.. Yeah good old St Ronnie was the one who started this mess, and it continues to this day.

This is just another reason we have to get out and vote Democratic on Nov. 2nd. Please encourage others and don't forget to vote.

The President's Weekly Address: Solar Power & a Clean Energy Economy

2010-10-02T13:53:00.000-05:00

From the White House blog:

The President points to a revolutionary new solar plant that will employ 1,000 people and power 140,000 homes. The plant is possible because of the President’s investments in the clean energy economy, which Congressional Republicans want to eliminate.

I really believe in the steps we have taken towards a green energy and alternative energy path. We need to push this and make it go forward in a huge way. Just another reason to keep the Democrats in power... because as the President said, the GOPers and teabaggers will just end all the projects that are in the works and that are helping our economy.

I think this is the future of our economy. We can bring back manufacturing and more jobs by building these power plants and by building the parts they need. We have several of these plants already working in this country, but we need more.

This is the time for us to make the point and push toward a new way forward. Let's make this our "mission to space" moment as JFK did. If we can each push and contact our reps and get our voices out that we want this. We can do it.

The President said it best in the last paragraph of his message:

We can go back to the failed energy policies that profited the oil companies but weakened our country. We can go back to the days when promising industries got set up overseas. Or we can go after new jobs in growing industries. And we can spur innovation and help make our economy more competitive. We know the choice that’s right for America. We need to do what we’ve always done – put our ingenuity and can do spirit to work to fight for a brighter future.

Let's do this.

The President's Weekly Address: Crossroads on the Economy

2010-09-25T10:34:00.000-05:00

From the White House blog:

The President lays out the choice between his plan to keep our economy moving forward, and the agenda put out by Republicans in Congress taking us backward to the special interest economy that created this mess.

No one highlighted this better this week than Jon Stewart. He took the "Pledge" from the GOPers and compared it to what they said in the past. Almost word for word, everything in this so called new pledge is exactly what they have said before.

John Boehner himself said, "We are not going to be any different than before". Now that is telling isn't it.

If people would just see this and realize how little new the GOPers have... surely they won't vote for them. How anyone could look at it and see they are wanting to take us back and act like everything didn't happen the way it did. Mostly due to their incompetence, spending and tax cuts.

I usually don't add anything to this, but as I said Jon did it so well, I think it bears watching.. So I am adding his take on the Pledge to the President's Address. Watch and behold why he has been voted the most trusted man in the news.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Postcards From the Pledge

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

Like I commented at Sue's blog, New GOPers, just like the Old GOPers... no new ideas, not listening to the people and nothing to offer at all.

Why the DSCC Loves Sarah Palin

2010-09-22T17:18:00.000-05:00

This is from Shannyn Moore and AKM (Mudflats) They are asking us all to share this and if we can to donate to Scott McAdams. Please do what you can.. This is a Senate seat we can win... and we need all the seats we can get.

It’s mind-boggling how the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee hasn’t shown up for Scott McAdams, Alaska’s Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate.

They’ve had weeks to help secure a now open seat they didn’t think they had a prayer to take. Why aren’t they fighting for Alaska? Lisa Murkowski asked McAdams where his DSCC support was. When it didn’t show, she threw back in as a write-in candidate.

The front page of their website features a picture of Sarah Palin. Fear of her brand of crazy has been an ATM for the DSCC. They’ve raised millions off of Palin word salads with guano dressing. The DSCC website also has a link to Palin’s anointed Alaskan proxy for US Senate, Joe Miller, but they haven’t supported his opponent.

Alaska is the cheapest place in the country to run a campaign. One hundred dollars of campaign money in such a small market is equivalent to $2,000 for a race in Texas. With Palin’s negative numbers over 50%, her candidate, Joe Miller, is vulnerable. The Tea Party is recruiting people with “Lisa M” type names to run a write-in, and every Murkowski vote will be challenged by their attorneys. It will make the Franken/Coleman recount look like play-dough hour in kindergarten.

52% of Alaska’s voters are registered independent or undeclared. Nate Silver thinks Murkowski could win a write-in campaign? He’s wrong about Alaska – again. Ask NOT-Congressman Ethan Berkowitz. Silver projected Ethan would best incumbent Don Young in 2008. He didn’t.

Nationally, both Democrats and Republicans are underestimating Sarah Palin. The DSCC and others do this at their own peril. There is a chance to drive a political stake through the heart of the Palin king-maker meme. I realize Palin is a money maker, but neutering her politically by electing a Democratic Senator in Alaska is priceless.

Please help Alaska take our state forward. Save yourselves. Support Scott McAdams for U. S. Senate. Contribute to Scott McAdams campaign.

Call the DSCC and ask them to FINANCIALLY support Alaska’s democratic candidate. 202-224-2447 Email them at info@dscc.org.

Please take a minute and show your support for a good Democratic candidate. So far the DSCC is NOT giving him any financial support. We can win this seat if we can help him. Even if you can't donate, at least send an email or make a phone call to the DSCC... They send us emails all the time asking for money. But are not using it in markets where it can make a huge difference.

The President's Weekly Address: The Republican Corporate Power Grab

2010-09-18T11:39:00.000-05:00

From the White House blog:

The President explains how the most dire warnings about the Citizens United case have been proven valid as Republicans in Congress have blocked legislation to fix it.

The last paragraph says why this is so important.

But more than that, you can make sure that the tens of millions of dollars spent on misleading ads do not drown out your voice. Because no matter how many ads they run – no matter how many elections they try to buy – the power to determine the fate of this country doesn’t lie in their hands. It lies in yours. It’s up to all of us to defend that most basic American principle of a government of, by, and for the people. What’s at stake is not just an election. It’s our democracy itself.

Again... What's at stake is not just an election. It's our democracy itself. I think this is the most important line. If we don't stand up and get out the vote, we are going to be letting these corporations run our country. Is that what you want.

I don't, I don't want some CEO telling me what I can and can't do, what I can and can't buy. Where I can go. Believe me this isn't paranoia speaking, this is what will happen more than it has ever happened before, if we allow this election and subsequent ones to be stolen by these no name no face big money ad buyers. They are setting the tone for this election.

I am sure you have seen some of them, I know I have. The names sound wonderful in some cases, Americans for American Values for one.. Doesn't that sound good... but if you look they are nothing but a front group for some big corporation, such as Koch Industries.

So please, no matter how you feel about the candidate in your state, get out and vote. Don't let these shadow corporations and unknown entities buy this election, or any other. You still have the power to stop it by your vote.

A Message From the Republican Party.

2010-09-13T23:20:00.000-05:00

I got this from a friend on FaceBook and thought it was so good I just had to share it with everyone.

Please listen carefully and to the end... I swear you will enjoy it.

The President's Weekly Address: A Day That Tested Our Country

2010-09-11T10:08:00.000-05:00

From the White House blog:

The President marks the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks as a National Day of Service and Remembrance to honor those who lost their lives.

* Volunteer in your community through Serve.gov.

Please take a minute to remember in your own way, what today is. Then do something for someone else.

Four Deformations of the Apocalypse, Reagan was Wrong.

2010-09-10T07:46:00.000-05:00

A friend pointed me to this Op-Ed from the Aug 1st issue of the New York Times. It is written by David Stockman, a director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. This was one of the so called architects of "Trickle Down" economics. Now he has seen the error of his ways.

From the Op-Ed:

IF there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians, the Republican push to extend the unaffordable Bush tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing. The nation’s public debt — if honestly reckoned to include municipal bonds and the $7 trillion of new deficits baked into the cake through 2015 — will soon reach $18 trillion. That’s a Greece-scale 120 percent of gross domestic product, and fairly screams out for austerity and sacrifice. It is therefore unseemly for the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, to insist that the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers be spared even a three-percentage-point rate increase.

More fundamentally, Mr. McConnell’s stand puts the lie to the Republican pretense that its new monetarist and supply-side doctrines are rooted in its traditional financial philosophy. Republicans used to believe that prosperity depended upon the regular balancing of accounts — in government, in international trade, on the ledgers of central banks and in the financial affairs of private households and businesses, too. But the new catechism, as practiced by Republican policymakers for decades now, has amounted to little more than money printing and deficit finance — vulgar Keynesianism robed in the ideological vestments of the prosperous classes.

This approach has not simply made a mockery of traditional party ideals. It has also led to the serial financial bubbles and Wall Street depredations that have crippled our economy. More specifically, the new policy doctrines have caused four great deformations of the national economy, and modern Republicans have turned a blind eye to each one.

The bolding is mine because I thought that was a great point. We have all seen this happen since deregulation started. After the Glass-Stegal was enacted by FDR, our economy was stabilized and we didn't have the huge bubble and bust recessions we have seen lately. But let Mr. Stockman tell you in his words.

The first of these started when the Nixon administration defaulted on American obligations under the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement to balance our accounts with the world. Now, since we have lived beyond our means as a nation for nearly 40 years, our cumulative current-account deficit — the combined shortfall on our trade in goods, services and income — has reached nearly $8 trillion. That’s borrowed prosperity on an epic scale.

It is also an outcome that Milton Friedman said could never happen when, in 1971, he persuaded President Nixon to unleash on the world paper dollars no longer redeemable in gold or other fixed monetary reserves. Just let the free market set currency exchange rates, he said, and trade deficits will self-correct.

It may be true that governments, because they intervene in foreign exchange markets, have never completely allowed their currencies to float freely. But that does not absolve Friedman’s $8 trillion error. Once relieved of the discipline of defending a fixed value for their currencies, politicians the world over were free to cheapen their money and disregard their neighbors.

Oh, SNAP... did he just tell them they were wrong? Let's continue, shall we?

The second unhappy change in the American economy has been the extraordinary growth of our public debt. In 1970 it was just 40 percent of gross domestic product, or about $425 billion. When it reaches $18 trillion, it will be 40 times greater than in 1970. This debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.

In 1981, traditional Republicans supported tax cuts, matched by spending cuts, to offset the way inflation was pushing many taxpayers into higher brackets and to spur investment. The Reagan administration’s hastily prepared fiscal blueprint, however, was no match for the primordial forces — the welfare state and the warfare state — that drive the federal spending machine.

Soon, the neocons were pushing the military budget skyward. And the Republicans on Capitol Hill who were supposed to cut spending exempted from the knife most of the domestic budget — entitlements, farm subsidies, education, water projects. But in the end it was a new cadre of ideological tax-cutters who killed the Republicans’ fiscal religion

Through the 1984 election, the old guard earnestly tried to control the deficit, rolling back about 40 percent of the original Reagan tax cuts. But when, in the following years, the Federal Reserve chairman, Paul Volcker, finally crushed inflation, enabling a solid economic rebound, the new tax-cutters not only claimed victory for their supply-side strategy but hooked Republicans for good on the delusion that the economy will outgrow the deficit if plied with enough tax cuts.

By fiscal year 2009, the tax-cutters had reduced federal revenues to 15 percent of gross domestic product, lower than they had been since the 1940s. Then, after rarely vetoing a budget bill and engaging in two unfinanced foreign military adventures, George W. Bush surrendered on domestic spending cuts, too — signing into law $420 billion in non-defense appropriations, a 65 percent gain from the $260 billion he had inherited eight years earlier.

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Once again, the emphasis is mine... but I think he meant them to be this way. I only wish this had gotten more news when it was written.. However now, I want to make sure we see this.

The third ominous change in the American economy has been the vast, unproductive expansion of our financial sector. Here, Republicans have been oblivious to the grave danger of flooding financial markets with freely printed money and, at the same time, removing traditional restrictions on leverage and speculation. As a result, the combined assets of conventional banks and the so-called shadow banking system (including investment banks and finance companies) grew from a mere $500 billion in 1970 to $30 trillion by September 2008.

But the trillion-dollar conglomerates that inhabit this new financial world are not free enterprises. They are rather wards of the state, extracting billions from the economy with a lot of pointless speculation in stocks, bonds, commodities and derivatives. They could never have survived, much less thrived, if their deposits had not been government-guaranteed and if they hadn’t been able to obtain virtually free money from the Fed’s discount window to cover their bad bets

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Deregulation anyone?

The fourth destructive change has been the hollowing out of the larger American economy. Having lived beyond our means for decades by borrowing heavily from abroad, we have steadily sent jobs and production offshore. In the past decade, the number of high-value jobs in goods production and in service categories like trade, transportation, information technology and the professions has shrunk by 12 percent, to 68 million from 77 million. The only reason we have not experienced a severe reduction in nonfarm payrolls since 2000 is that there has been a gain in low-paying, often part-time positions in places like bars, hotels and nursing homes.

It is not surprising, then, that during the last bubble (from 2002 to 2006) the top 1 percent of Americans — paid mainly from the Wall Street casino — received two-thirds of the gain in national income, while the bottom 90 percent — mainly dependent on Main Street’s shrinking economy — got only 12 percent. This growing wealth gap is not the market’s fault. It’s the decaying fruit of bad economic policy.

This was very interesting to me... one of the creators is now crying about it's creation. Seems like Dr. Frankenstein is hating his monster isn't he?

Of course it is pretty obvious why this didn't get more notice.. It goes against the grain of all the financial talk the GOPers are pushing, even the so called "librul" New York Times didn't push it further.. Why not? Why are not all the financial wonder kids talking about this... the fact the designer is hating his fashion..

I know we all knew this... but maybe someone who didn't will read it and think a little about the oft pushed tax cuts solve everything.

The President's Weekly Address: Honoring the American Worker

2010-09-04T08:30:00.000-05:00

From the White House blog:

The President talks about his fight to make America work for the middle class and make sure hard work is rewarded -- rather than greed and recklessness .

I think this is great, the President is laying out everything that has been done for the Middle Class and adding some things he wants to get done. I wish more of the people who are claiming he has done nothing would look at this.

Get this to everyone so they learn what the Democrats have done for everyone. I say Democrats because they have had very little if any help from the Republicans. If they can't view the video, here is a LINK to the transcript.

I hope you all have a safe and happy weekend. Enjoy the holiday, but take a minute to thank the ones who are working to see you have a great time and another minute to all who have gone before, making this the greatest country on Earth.

The President's Weekly Address: The End of Combat Operations in Iraq

2010-08-28T08:30:00.000-05:00

From the White House blog:

With the end of combat operations in Iraq days ahead, the President salutes our troops for their service and pledges to fulfill America’s commitment to them as veterans. 90,000 troops have left Iraq since the President came into office, and by the end of next year even the troops taking part in the non-combat mission will be home. The administration is upholding the sacred trust with our veterans by building a 21st century VA, making it easier for veterans with PTSD to receive the benefits they need, funding and implementing a Post-9/11 GI Bill, and devoting new resources to job training and placement to help those veterans looking for work in a tough economy.

Join the President, Dr. Jill Biden, and even Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints in saluting our troops for their service.

Since I deal with the VA system quite a bit through my dad, my uncle and others, I can attest to the fact things are going smoother than they were. Payments are being made faster, and it seems the care is getting better.

We see more and more, caring doctors and nurses, rather than someone who is just putting in their time until they go home... and trust me it used to be just that way.

We owe these veterans everything. No matter how we feel about the wars, no matter that we supported it or not, we OWE our veterans. They are doing the job most of us couldn't and wouldn't do. They and their families deserve must more than we could ever repay.

This is one of those times, when it is difficult, I know to separate the warriors from the war... it is always hard to do that... but we must. We must remember our military every day. As I said they are doing a job a lot of us wouldn't or couldn't do. And they are doing it for each of us.

Please take a moment and thank a veteran, a military person, or the family of them, for their sacrifice, their service and their unselfish giving of their lives, or a portion of it for each of us. Because of them, we can criticize the wars, we can do lots of things people in other countries can't... because of our freedoms and the veterans who have fought, bled and died to preserve.

The President's Weekly Address: No Corporate Takeover of Our Democracy

2010-08-21T20:17:00.000-05:00

From the White House blog:

The President calls out Republicans for blocking campaign finance reforms that would address the Supreme Court decision opening the floodgates of corporate money into elections.

This is something we should all be concerned about. This corporate takeover of the elections and our Democracy. With the Citizen's United case it has opened the floodgates of money to elections and to special interest groups and allows them to donate without disclosing names or individuals who have given.

We have had enough problems with elections in this country. Now we have to worry that the one with the biggest pocket, not necessarily the best person for the job, will be winning.

It reminds me of the old days, when people bought votes, dead people were voting and the like. We can't allow this to happen. We shouldn't allow this to happen.

The President's Weekly Address: Honoring Social Security, Not Privatizing It

2010-08-14T07:43:00.000-05:00

From the White House blog:

On the 75th anniversary of Social Security, President Obama promises to protect it from Republican leaders in Congress who have made privatization a key part of their agenda. He makes clear that, especially in light of the financial crisis, gambling Social Security on Wall Street makes no sense.

As I am sure we all do, I have many friends and family who lost a bundle of money when the market crashed in September 2008. It is still not stable enough to plan on keeping anything in it as far as I am concerned.

Just a few weeks back, it fell again and this week has been down a lot. Can you imagine what that would do to our Social Security. Most people don't have enough to live on in the first place.... To have lost 50% or more would be enough to send the majority of people to the bread lines we still fear we are going to see.

I hope this Congress doesn't even think seriously about this. I believe they would sorely test the President and we would see him angry and adamant in a veto.

Report by CBO Shows The Recovery Act Reduced the Deficit

2010-08-09T10:53:00.001-05:00

I found the link to this report on BobCesca.com and had to share the report and some of the information with you.

This report was written by Economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi and published by the CBO. This chart shows what the deficit would be without the Recovery Act and how it is WITH the Recovery Act.

From the Wonk Room at Think Progress comes this:

Their conclusion is that had the combined financial and fiscal policies not been enacted, “GDP in 2010 would be about 6.5 percent lower, payroll employment would be less by some 8.5 million jobs, and the nation would be experiencing deflation.”

Blinder and Zandi break out their estimates separately for the financial policies and the fiscal policies. They estimate that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and other fiscal policies have saved or created 2.7 million jobs and without them, unemployment would stand at 11 percent and job losses would have totaled 10 million. On top of this, they estimate that if nothing had been done to address the financial crisis — no Troubled Asset Relief Program, no bailout of American International Group Inc, and no investment in the auto industry — our economy would have 5 million fewer jobs than we do today and unemployment would be sharply higher, at 12.5 percent.

However, one tidbit in the report that has received little notice is that by acting, Congress actually reduced our potential deficit problem. Given the policy steps taken, Blinder and Zandi estimate that by the end of the 2010 fiscal year, the federal budget deficit will be $1.4 trillion and it will fall to $1.15 trillion in fiscal year 2011 and $900 billion in fiscal year 2012.

The bolding is mine... because I wanted to make sure you saw it. For some reason all these so called Deficit Hawks are ignoring this in their reports and talking. Here is more:

However, had Congress done nothing, the deficit would have ballooned even higher, hitting over $2 trillion by the end of the 2010 fiscal year, $2.6 trillion in fiscal year 2011, and $2.25 trillion in fiscal year 2012. That’s right, doing nothing would have meant that the 2012 federal budget deficit would likely be over 2.5 times as large as taking the steps we took.

Once again bolding is mine. This is something we should be shouting from the rooftops and lording over the GOPers who are claiming now to want to reduce the deficit. A deficit that is largely due to their policies and the spending that went on during the years of 2001 and 2006 especially and to a smaller extent from 2006 to 2008.

Here is a nifty little chart that shows all the spending and how it is divided by category

As is shown by this chart the Bush Tax Cuts and the downturn of the economy added much more to the deficit than anything President Obama and the current Congress has done.

If you want to read the entire article from the Wonk Room, just give it a click.

We need to get this out and let people know the TRUTH about what is going on with the Finances of our Country. I have not seen this on any media outlet and I know it will never get much play if any on Faux Noise, because it tells the truth.

I hope you read the report and post these charts so everyone can see them... Please feel free to take anything you want... Linky love if you can, but is not necessary. I just want everyone, including some of the RWNJ's out there to see these and try to explain how the GOPers are going to fix this.
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The President's Weekly Address: Medicare Officially Safer After Health Reform

2010-08-07T08:59:00.000-05:00

From the White House blog:

The President discusses a new Medicare Trustees report showing Medicare to be on much stronger footing as a result of the reforms in the Affordable Care Act. In addition, seniors are also already getting help with prescription drug costs when they fall into the infamous “donut hole.”

The President lays out the reforms in Medicare and shows how much the new Health Care Reform has helped already.

For me personally, this is all good news. Helping us with the Donut Hole is wonderful. This is a terrible problem for seniors who are on high cost meds. I have one I take that costs almost $2,000 a month. Yes it is crazy, but that's what we all face. Anyone who takes medicine on a daily basis faces these costs.

The saving grace in all this is our prescription drug coverage, however when Medicare D was enacted instead of trying to get lower priced drugs, the provision put in this Donut Hole. Once an individual reaches $2700 in prescription costs, until they pay out of their pocket $6,154 they are responsible for the entire cost of their meds. As you can see it doesn't take long to get there.

After the $6,154 the Medicare D coverage starts again and pays 95% of the costs. Now some supplemental plans or Medicare Advantage plans do help out with this. But even with that, I reach the Hole every year and have to pay more for my meds for several months.

I am glad this is one of the steps that was taken in the Health Care Reform. These are the little things some people think was not needed, but trust me, if you are on Medicare and you hit that hole, this is huge.

Just the fact that so far the reforms has helped Medicare's solvency is wonderful. Wonder how the GOBP will spin this.... Since according to them it was going to harm the plan so much. Of course if they do what they usually do, they will just ignore it. They never talk about the things they predict which never happen. Those are ignored and hopefully forgotten.

We should point this out over and over again, how wrong they were and if given the chance, ask them about it. If we don't start challenging some of their outlandish claims and reminding them of the lies they told, they are going to get away with it again and again, but if we start holding them accountable, maybe someone will take notice.

Those are my thoughts anyway... What are yours?

The President's Weekly Address: Good News on Autos, Obstruction on Small Business

2010-07-31T06:37:00.000-05:00

From the White House blog:

President Obama praises the successes of the auto industry restructuring as good news for our economy, and calls on Republican leaders in the Senate to “stop holding America’s small businesses hostage to politics” by blocking a vote to help them create jobs.

Once again, the President explains his actions and calls out the "Party of NO". I had mixed feelings on the loans for the Auto Companies. I supported it, yet was afraid we would lose money.

Again, as I said the President calls out the Rethugs on their obstructionism. The Small Business Act is the latest.

I am loving the President calling them out and letting everyone who will listen where he stands and where they stand. This is something that is very needed. If people will just open their eyes and ears and see and listen....lol I know, asking for a lot, aren't I?

Maybe, just maybe if enough of us do this... and people can see it, they will realize how much the Rethugs are hurting this country. One can only hope.

The President's Weekly Address: Moving Forward on the Economy vs. Moving Backward

2010-07-24T08:56:00.000-05:00

From the White House blog:

Following the signing of historic Wall Street Reform legislation, the President lays out his plans to strengthen the middle class, give tax breaks to small businesses that create jobs here, invest in homegrown, clean energy, and cut taxes for working families. The President also contrasts that plan with the agenda outlined by the Republican House Leader that would return America to the policies that created this economic crisis, drastically increase the deficit, and make permanent massive tax breaks for the very wealthiest Americans.

We can't talk about this enough. People have a choice to make this election and we have to remind them where we came from. Some still doubt that we were about to go into a financial collapse. Yes, it was of the banks own making but still it is hard to prove that something was stopped from happening.

No one, least of all the President wanted to rescue the banks, but it was believed at the time BUSH did the first bailout of them, it was absolutely necessary. We also have to remind people it was BUSH who started it... I saw a poll the other day which stated over 50% of the people think it was Pres. Obama who did Tarp.

It is a pretty simple choice.. the same policies that got us here, or the policies that are getting us out. No it isn't happening as quickly as everyone really wants, but it is happening.

I hope you can get the vote out this fall so we don't go back. Another thing for consideration, if the Rethugs come back into power, it will be endless investigations and even impeachment for the President.

The President's Weekly Address: Filibustering Recovery & Obstructing Progress

2010-07-17T08:33:00.002-05:00

From the White House blog:

The President blasts Republicans in the Senate who are blocking unemployment insurance and small business tax breaks to create jobs -- even as they push for permanent, massive tax cuts for the richest Americans.

Once again the President is calling out the "Party of NO" on their obstruction of everything, but especially the Unemployment Benefits that are so very needed right now. Never before has one party in Congress ever stopped UI benefits... but with the "Party of NO" they don't care..... all they are concerned in is trying to win.

Will they win in November... I hope not... but they might gain a few... If so NOTHING will get done next year or the year after...

I can only hope this will backfire on them and they will lose again. That's what I am thinking, with all their obstructing they will actually lose seats. Get out the vote... and hope this will work.

The President's Weekly Address: Help for Vets with PTSD

2010-07-10T09:24:00.000-05:00

From the White House blog:

President Obama announces that the Department of Veterans Affairs, led by Secretary Shinseki, will begin making it easier for veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to receive the benefits and treatment they need.

This is a wonderful step.. I am glad the President and Sec. Shinseki have decided to do this and make it easier for our veterans to get the help they need.

I have helped several veterans try to get their benefits due to PTSD and it is so difficult and finding proof sometimes just isn't possible. Especially for the older vets...

Once again, this president has shown how much he supports our veterans and our military... Wonder who is going to attack him on this now?

The President's Weekly Address: A Solar Recovery

2010-07-03T07:38:00.000-05:00

From the White House blog:

As part of the explosion of Recovery Act projects this summer and as a move towards a clean energy future, the President announces nearly $2 billion in conditional commitments to key solar companies. Learn more from the White House fact sheet.

This address has everything....lol He calls out the GOPers, he talks about new jobs in the Solar and Wind Energy field. Then at the last he reminds us of our greatness as a country and he mentions the troops around the world.

I love how he is taking on the GOPers... all I can say to that is MORE...lol People need to realize how much they are blocking and what they are blocking. The benefits to veterans, the unemployment extensions and a new jobs bill to help this economy continue to recover.

All this deficit talk is nonsense. Don't people realize once the jobs start coming back and revenues go up the deficit will go down? How can they not see that? I am not talking about the GOPers... they have decided if they can obstruct and keep this recovery from happening they will regain power... That's all this is, an attempt at a power grab.

I have to wonder how many people who are struggling and out of work are worrying about the deficit in this country. I don't think it is that many.... but the GOPers with the media helping as always is trying to push this. Please help educate people about this. If you find someone who is expressing concern... explain it to them. But remember you may have to use small words...........LOL

The Video BP Doesn't Want You to See!

2010-07-01T10:48:00.000-05:00

This video first came to my attention from Matt @ OsborneInk... One of the very best blogs out there.

Then last night Olbermann showed parts of it on his show... I was wanting to get this up yesterday morning but ran out of time.. So here it is.

This is sickening and disgusting and it tells the story as to why BP has kept most reporters out and why they won't allow flyovers. This was done unauthorized by BP or anyone... but it is a must see. This is what they are denying is happening, when BP says there are no plumes of oil on the water.

The man who shot it was also on with Keith and told about it.. His name is John L. Wathen and he blogs @ www.bpoilslick.blogspot.com I know how hard it is to watch these... but this one really needs to be seen by everyone. Post it.. blog about it.. get the word out there... This is what we need to see to help us realize what is going on and to realize how vital it is we get off this oil addiction we suffer from.

The President's Weekly Address: Finishing the Job on Wall Street Reform

2010-06-26T06:04:00.000-05:00

From the White House blog:

With Congress having finalized a strong Wall Street reform bill, the President urges Congress to finish the job and send the bill to his desk. The legislation reflects 90% of what the President originally proposed, including the strongest consumer financial protections in history with an independent agency to enforce them. It ensures that the trading of derivatives, which helped trigger this crisis, will be brought into the light of day, and enacts the “Volcker Rule,” which will make sure banks protected by safety nets like the FDIC cannot engage in risky trades. It also creates a resolution authority to wind down firms whose collapse would threaten the entire financial system. Wall Street reform will end taxpayer funded bailouts and make sure Main Street is never again held responsible for Wall Street’s mistakes.

Hopefully this will get passed very soon. If the GOPers just don't filibuster this as well. We need this to be done. Does it address everything... NO... but it is a good bill all in all.

We have to stop this no regulation and no rules era we have been living in. It has caused more problems in this country than anything else we have in place.

Please, take a minute to write, call or somehow get in touch with your Congressperson and express your support for this.

Governor's of the Gulf Coast Not Using Nat. Guard

2010-06-25T13:19:00.000-05:00

I just found this link from a commenter at BobCesca.com. This is just stupidity in action.

From the article at CBS.com:

Gov. Bobby Jindal's message has been loud and clear, using language such as "We will only be winning this war when we're actually deploying every resource," "They (the federal government) can provide more resources" and "It's clear the resources needed to protect our coast are still not here."

But nearly two months after the governor requested - and the Department of Defense approved the use of 6,000 Louisiana National Guard troops - only a fraction - 1,053 - have actually been deployed by Jindal to fight the spill.

-snip-

As of today, the federal government has authorized a total of 17,500 National Guard troops across four Gulf states, all to be paid for by BP.

But CBS News has learned that in addition to Louisiana's 1,053 troops of 6,000, Alabama has deployed 432 troops of 3,000 available. Even fewer have been deployed in Florida - 97 troops out of 2,500 - and Mississippi - 58 troops out of 6,000.

What is going on? These GOPer Governors are all saying the Federal Government needs to do more, yet the resources the President has given them are not being used.

It's believed officials in Alabama, Florida and Mississippi and are reluctant to use more troops because their presence could hurt tourism. In hardest-hit Louisiana, however, Jindal is pointing fingers.

"Actually we asked the White House to approve the initial 6,000," Jindal said. "What they came back and said is the Coast Guard and BP had to authorize individual tasks."

But Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander in charge of the government's response to the spill, said Jindal is just flat wrong.

"There is nothing standing in the governor's way from utilizing more National Guard troops," Allen said.

In fact, the Coast Guard says every request to use the National Guard has been approved, usually within a day. Now Jindal's office acknowledged to CBS News the governor has not specifically asked for more Guard troops to be deployed.

Whether it's simple confusion or the infusion of politics into the spill, the fact remains thousands of helping hands remain waiting to be used.

Why are they lying about the Guard when the Governor's are the ones responsible for utilizing them, after they have been approved by the Administration.

To me this is just another attempt to paint the President as not doing his job, at the expense of Gulf Coast residents... and politics. The GOPers want to point fingers at the President, yet here they are standing in the way of progress in cleaning up the oil.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Just politics as usual? Or something else keeping them from allowing the Guard to help.

the President's Weekly Address: Republicans Blocking Progress

2010-06-19T09:24:00.000-05:00

From the White House blog:

The President calls on Republicans in Congress to put scoring political points aside, and instead to focus on solving the problems facing the nation. At the time of this address, the Republican leadership is blocking progress on a bill to boost the economy, retain jobs for teachers and cops, and help people buy their first home; another bill which would hold oil companies accountable for any disasters they cause by removing the current $75 million liability cap; and 136 highly qualified men and women who have been nominated to government positions.

Yes, the GOPers are blocking things.. there is nothing new about this. But I think the President should have mentioned the Democrats who are blocking these same things. They just can't seem to get the message we want them to act like Democrats not DINO's and block things we need and the President has asked for to get things moving.

I know we are proud of the fact we don't march in lock-step like the GOPers do... however once in a while it might be a good thing if we did.

The President's Weekly Address: Fair Pay for Doctors

2010-06-12T09:29:00.000-05:00

From the White House blog:

With doctors facing deep cuts in their reimbursements from Medicare unless Congress acts to correct long-standing problems, the President calls on Senate Republicans to stop blocking the remedy and pledges to work toward a permanent solution. The cuts would potentially mean widespread trouble for seniors getting needed care.

I have been hearing and seeing an AD on the TeeVee Machine for the last couple of weeks about this from the AMA.. Once again, the Rethugs in Congress are being their obstructionist selves.

They were the ones crying about cutting Medicare and how badly the Health Reform was going to hurt doctors and seniors and now, they are the ones potentially hurting Doctors and Seniors.

It is all based on the premise if we obstruct enough, we will win again. That's the bottom line. Please call your Congress Critter and let them know how you feel. It is very important we protect our Seniors and the Doctors. They don't get paid much by Medicare and if this cut goes through, there will be more doctors not accepting Medicare. It is already hard to find a doctor who will take NEW Medicare patients. My doctor will not accept new ones.... just because of the pay rate and the paperwork involved with claims.

None of us are getting younger... and we will all need Medicare when we retire.... Think about that, and think about your parents and others who are getting ready to file for Medicare and will be unable to find a doctor, or will not be able to choose the doctor they want.

The President's Weekly Address: Speaking from Louisiana on the Oil Spill

2010-06-05T08:24:00.003-05:00

From the White House blog:

Speaking from Grand Isle, Louisiana, the President discusses the hardships local residents and small business owners are facing as a result of the BP oil spill. He pledges to make sure those responsible do not shortchange them.

Learn more about the ongoing Administration-wide response.

This also comes from the post:

In his weekly address, President Barack Obama underscored his commitment to helping the people of the Gulf Coast recover and rebuild from the BP oil spill that has threatened their livelihoods. On Friday, the President heard from local residents and small business owners about the hardships that they are facing as a result of this catastrophe. The Administration has mobilized the largest response to an environmental disaster of this kind in the history of our country to clean up the BP oil spill. Additionally, the federal government is working to ensure that BP and other companies are held accountable for damages and that aggressive new standards are put into place to avoid a disaster in the future.

The only problem I have with this.... it is still being called a spill..... It's not a spill, it is a gusher.

I hope this will shut up the talking heads saying the President is too detached. They forget this president speaks from his heart and his mind and not his gut... He doesn't wear them on his sleeve.

I remember during the campaign this same thing was being said over and over... He can't win because he doesn't connect with the people. Well, he did win and I believe he does connect with people.

The administration is on the ground and has been since the rig blew... Now the National Guard has been deployed... which is what some have said they wanted. The pictures from the scene are devastating.

MSNBC has a page which shows lots of information and pictures if you want to look at them. I know most have seen them, but just to show again and again what this is doing, we need to look at them again. Please check them out...

This is a wake up call... We need clean energy. I urge each of you to contact your senators to get this done. If this doesn't do it.. I don't believe anything will.

Memorial Day, Please Remember the Fallen Heroes

2010-05-31T09:28:00.004-05:00

Today is the day we honor the fallen heroes of our wars. It has been morphed into honoring all dead, but the historical accuracy is that it is to honor the members of the military that have given the ultimate sacrifice.

I have to say, I don't like war, however, this isn't about war, it is about the men and women who have chosen to fight. Some voluntarily, some drafted. All heroes.

Here is a video I received from Military for Obama. It is of a 3rd grade class and it is beautiful.

Here is the statement which accompanied the email I got.

A third grade teacher, from Tussing Elementary in Colonial Heights,
Virginia, wrote this song and taught it to her third-grade students and now
it is on you tube! At the end of the song you can even order the sheet
music! I hope this sweeps our Country and gets sung in all our schools!

Here is the video.

I hope you take a moment and remember the sacrifice of these heroes. If you are going to a cemetery to lay flowers on someone's grave.. take an extra to put on a military grave site. Even if you don't know them.. HONOR THEM.

The President's Weekly Address: Honoring the Fallen

2010-05-29T07:40:00.002-05:00

From the White House blog:

Ahead of Memorial Day, the President asks all Americans to join him in remembering and honoring our men and women in uniform who have died in service to the country.

No matter how you feel about war, please take the time to honor the fallen warriors.

What Obama is Doing About the Oil Gusher

2010-05-24T08:59:00.003-05:00

I found this yesterday at DailyKos... It is a great diary about the response and actions of Pres. Obama and his Administration.

From Benintn's Diary:

One easy way to see what the US government is doing to coordinate its response to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill is by looking at the Joint Information Center Twitter account. For those who are so busy complaining about the lack of responsiveness, it might be helpful to see what is actually being done and the number of coordinated federal, state, and local responses in coordination with businesses, media, and residents of the area.

He goes on to provide the twitter feed for just the last 24 hours. It shows how many have been sent down to the Gulf Coast and pictures of the gusher itself.

Things like this:

Sec. Salazar & Sec. Napolitano to lead bipartisan Senate delegation to LA to inspect response to the BP #oilspill Press Release .

This press release names Kendra Barkoff (DOI), (202) 208-6416 and Clark Stevens (DHS), (202) 282-8010 as the points of contact for the information.

WASHINGTON—At the direction of the President, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano will visit Louisiana on Monday to inspect the ongoing response to the BP oil spill, accompanied by a bipartisan Senate delegation.

Secretary Salazar, Secretary Napolitano and the Senate delegation will conduct a flyover of the affected areas; discuss the latest response efforts in Louisiana and along the Gulf Coast with federal officials leading the effort as well as BP representatives; and meet with local community and industry leaders.

The Senate delegation accompanying Secretary Salazar and Secretary Napolitano will include: Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), and Senator David Vitter (R-LA).

He goes on to say this about this press release:

Note that Vitter and Landrieu will make the trip to represent Louisiana, which is most adversely affected. But I'm also seeing that we've got a 4:2 ratio of Dems to Republicans in this bipartisan group, with Durbin, Bingaman, and Whitehouse triple-teaming Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Durbin's in the home state of BP (formerly Amoco) and I can remember him giving Amoco a hard time a decade ago regarding price gouging of gas in Chicago. I trust that while Durbin is a pro-business guy, he's also going to be using his clout as a top member of the Judiciary Committee regarding the future of any regulation. (Remember that the Dems are battling Republican opposition to increasing the cap on damages from $75 million to somewhere in the billions of dollars - and Murkowski has been vocally opposed to raising the caps because of the potential negative impact on smaller oil and gas companies.) Bingaman, for his part, has been hard on BP execs in his role on the Energy committee. He chaired a meeting 2 weeks ago on the issue of the spill and cleanup efforts. And Whitehouse, for his part, serves on the Environment Committee as well as the Judiciary Committee and has a bully pulpit on the push for green energy legislation as well as corporate regulation.

I don't know if anyone on Daily Kos has written about this flyover, or the continuing push in the Senate to increase the caps on damages caused by this and future spills. But it seems evident to me that the Salazar-Napolitano trip is designed to pressure Murkowski into dropping her block on moving the bill forward.

That's just the first couple of things.. The entire diary is worth a read... Please check it out by clicking HERE.

I really don't see what else the President can do... He is and has been sending his best people to watch, listen and learn and to check what BP is actually doing.

Someone in the comment section said he should get on TeeVee and make a major speech about it... Not sure how that will show anything... He has spoken out a few times... but this person wanted a Prime Time Speech... That sure won't stop the gusher nor will it show anything to clean it up. So what would be the purpose of him doing such a thing.... You tell me.

Thanks all... I hope you read this and make note of the location where this is found. It is worth taking the time to look it all over.

The President's Weekly Address: BP Spill Independent Commission

2010-05-22T08:22:00.003-05:00

From the White House blog:

The President announces that the independent commission he created for the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling will be chaired by former Florida Governor and Senator Bob Graham and former EPA Administrator Bill Reilly. He promises accountability not just for BP, but for those in government who bore responsibility.

* Learn more about the government response.
* Learn more about the commission.
* Read the Executive Order establishing the commission.

Since I have been seeing so much about the President not doing anything on the oil spill... I guess this is a good thing for those people. I think it is a great thing in the list of what has been done already. We need to get to the bottom of the cause for this horrible disaster. Then if BP, TransOcean and of course we already know Haliburton is a criminal organization, but if we find it was due to negligence, which is what everyone seems to be pointing toward, they must be prosecuted and must have to pay for everything.

I read a blurb somewhere yesterday.. and I am sorry I don't remember where I read it... That BP may lose it's license to drill in the US. That may be the best thing to happen out of this. If they are and have been the root cause of this spill, and their response has been terrible. Of course, one reason is they don't want to plug it, they want to continue to harvest the oil.

Now, the effort to plug it is being delayed until Tuesday at the earliest. This should have been the FIRST thing they did... was plug it and then drill their side well... .but nope that wouldn't have allowed them to continue to harvest while they dicked around.

Let me know what you think.. Am I correct in my thinking? Do you see the same things I am seeing?

The President's Weekly Address: Wall Street Reform & Main Street

2010-05-15T10:51:00.003-05:00

From the White House blog:

The President explains how Wall Street Reform will not only end bailouts and bring accountability for big banks, but empower consumers, shareholders and community banks.

Once again the GOPers in the Senate are playing games. After months of debate and meetings to draw up a plan for Wall Street Reform, they are now claiming they were shut out of the process. Sound familiar?

Yes, they are doing the same thing they did about Health Care.

We must have Reform on Wall Street.. if not the same things could happen again and again. Even if this bill isn't perfect as the President said, it is better than what we have now. They will always find loopholes, they spend millions of dollars just to keep lawyers busy finding them.

The majority of people polled by NBC/Wall St Journal were more concerned about this than they were the terrorist on Times Square. Does that not tell you we really need this done?

Push your Senators to get this done... Even the GOPers need to hear from you.. I know it seems like a wasted effort to call them.. but they have to hear from us about how we want this done.. If enough people call them and let them know their jobs are on the line.. Maybe.. just MAYBE, they will stop obstructing and get this done.

Happy Mother's Day

2010-05-09T07:50:00.002-05:00

To all mothers, grandmothers and people who care for children as mothers would...

Happy Mother's Day.

May you find the joy of the day, and take the time to reflect on what your mother taught you. Sometimes good, sometimes not so good.. but Mother's always try to guide you the best they know how.

Thank you to all the Mother's out there...

Happy Mother's Day, mom... I love you!

The President's Weekly Address: Health Reform Starts to Kick In

2010-05-08T08:43:00.003-05:00

From The White House Blog:

The President goes through the benefits in health insurance reform that are already kicking in for young adults, retirees, and families, and says more benefits are coming down the pike.

Once again the President is outlining the benefits of this new law. This is one of the best things we can do. Tell people how the new law is going to help them. He is knocking down the meme of increased taxes for small businesses which is what the GOPers have been saying.

We are making progress, but still must push the benefits. It is sad people can't see what is good about this, but it is mostly because the GOPers have had the open mikes of all the talking heads to push their lies... Now is the time to start pushing the truth as much or more.

People will start seeing these new benefits in their lives and we need to help the President and Democrats in this endeavor. Remind everyone of the best parts of this and the things that are starting now. In this way maybe we can help keep the Democratic majority we now have.

Thanks everyone.

Please Give Your Support to Matt @ Osborneink

2010-05-03T15:46:00.003-05:00

My friend Matt Osborne is trying to win a scholarship to NetRoots Nation. He needs votes and support from all of us who love his style and his writing.

Please help Matt make his dream come true by going to Democracy For America and voting for him. You can also vote for others who are asking for votes and support.

To vote for Matt, you can go directly to his page and give your support. The place to go is this link to his page.

If you have never read any of Matt's blog you can check it out, by going to OsborneInk.

You may also go to the main page and search all the applicants and vote for the ones you choose. You may vote as many times as you like.

The link to the listing is HERE.

Please give your support to the blogger or writer of your choice. Thanks all for helping.

The President's Weekly Address: Giving Government Back to the American People

2010-05-01T08:45:00.003-05:00

From the White House blog:

As the President beats back lobbyists seeking to weaken Wall Street Reform, he talks about an even broader threat that would vastly expand the influence of massive industries and their lobbyists in Washington. A recent Supreme Court decision opened the floodgates for corporations, including foreign corporations, to spend endless money on political ads that would give them even more power at the expense of American families – the President pledges to fight for reforms to stem that influence.

I just hope the President can get this done. With the Rethugs blocking everything and being so favorable to big business, it is going to be a struggle.

We have to keep the government and the process in the hands of the people as much as we can. The Citizen's United case was a disaster for this country as we all know and it must be stopped.

Thanks everyone for stopping by and let me hear your opinions on this.

Update on Under 21 Club Opening

2010-04-30T15:37:00.002-05:00

The under 21 club I wrote about Tuesday, evidently won't be opening. Not tonight, maybe not ever.

There was such an outcry about this from the parents and even the teens here in town, Charles Juba, has decided to throw in the towel.

According to The Pitch, a local newspaper in Kansas City Juba has closed his website and posted the club will not be opening.

Here is what they say:

Update (1:36 p.m. April 30): Charles Juba has thrown in the towel. There will be no Black Flag Club.

This statement is posted on the club's Web site: "At this time the ownership announces that The Black Flag Club will not be open for business. We thank you for your support."

The article also goes on to say, even though he denied his continued ties to the Neo-Nazi and KKK groups, as late as 6 months ago, his ex-wife stated she feared for her children, and he asked for his robes and Nazi pillow cases to be returned to him.

Juba claims he's a different man than the one the Southern Poverty Law Center put on it's "40 to Watch" list in 2003. But divorce records show that just five months ago, his ex-wife feared Juba would take their children to white power rallies, and Juba requested his Nazi flag pillowcases and Ku Klux Klan robes be returned.

The SPLC also claims Juba founded a National Socialist Movement chapter in Oak Grove in December 2009.

The fact the club will not be opening is also reported by KMBC, the ABC affiliate in Kansas City. From their site:

The controversial under-21 Black Flag Club that had been slated to open in Odessa will not be open for business Friday night.

Charles Juba will not open the Black Flag Club in Odessa after all. According to Mayor Tom Murry, Juba called city hall Friday morning and asked for the utilities to be shut off and for his deposits back.

The business license had been put on hold due to the failure of Juba to include his Missouri State Sales Tax ID number, and it did not pass the Fire Codes. From the pictures I have seen it was not even ready to open, there were still lots of construction materials and other items sitting around.

At the last meeting Thursday evening, a friend of Juba's tried to defend him and her statement is very telling, I thought. She stated,"He left the groups behind, however he is still friends and associates with the other members." So much for leaving them behind. Sounds to me like he is still involved just not as openly as before.

Thanks all for your support on this... Again, I ask you to be vigilant in your area for this same type of thing. It can and does happen more often than we realize. Thanks to some observant parents here in Odessa, this was brought to the attention of the town before it was too late.

Jon Stewart Does it Again... and Other Thoughts

2010-04-27T09:33:00.003-05:00

Jon Stewart takes on the Arizona laws passed this week in this sketch... It is priceless... This makes more sense than any of the other takes on this I see. The so called "librul media" or "lame stream media" as that woman calls it just can't do what Jon does.

Watch this and then I will have some other thoughts below.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Law & Border

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

This week my little town is on fire. We have a new Teen Only Club coming to town... Sounds good right... Give the kids something to do to help keep them out of trouble, yet maintain it with no drugs, alcohol and no one over the age of 20 allowed.

Like I said, sounds good... But the City in their infinite wisdom, gave a permit to someone they didn't know and did not check out. Now with the opening just 3 days away.. we find out the man who is wanting to run this club is a White Supremacist, and a member of KKK. Or, he says former member, he has left the groups years ago.. and his personal beliefs don't or shouldn't enter into it.

I am proud of my 16 year old granddaughter. She says he is just out to recruit kids to his movement and will not go, no matter what. In fact, a lot of the kids in her school are saying the same thing.

This protest yesterday and hearing at the Community Center drew lots of fire and even the Kansas City television stations were here covering it.

Here is one of their videos of the matter: Sorry, they don't allow embeding so you will have to go see the man in question and the anger of local citizens.

According to Southern Poverty Law Center, there is a group of Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists in Oak Grove, which is only 10 miles from here. This man, whose name is Charles Juba, has come from no where, no one in the city says they know him and yet, he is wanting to own a club for teens in our small town.

This makes no sense to me. Why would someone come here?... My thoughts, because the political climate is right, the rise in hate groups has been documented, and they need fresh blood.

Recruitment, plain and simple. We are a small town, only 5,000 people, but we are right on Interstate 70, and as I stated above, there is a group just 10 miles away.

Our kids are vulnerable to this threat and it is something we need to be watching for. How can elected officials just turn over the keys to our youth without checking this guy out.

Even the Chief of Police stated he had no idea who this person was, until after the permit was issued.

This scares me, it scares me for our children, it scares me for the area, and it scares me for the country.

Please, be vigilant, be aware of what is happening, and prepare to take a stand against things like this. That's what our town is doing.. however late it may be.

The President's Weekly Address: Good News from the Auto Industry

2010-04-24T08:25:00.003-05:00

From the White House blog:

As the auto industry and financial markets begin to stabilize, the President says the government’s emergency interventions are now winding down. He pledges that real reform, particularly on Wall Street, must now begin.

Good News all around. I supported the loans to GM and Chrysler, and it looks like it might have been a great investment for our government. With GM paying back the loans 5 years early, it looks like the faith we put in them and the restructuring they did has now paid off.

Now, on to the financial industry... We must have new rules for them and get them regulated. I hope the Senate will pass the bill before them, it may not be the best... but at least it is something. With the current climate in Washington it may be all we can get.

But, it like the health care law, can be added to at a later date if we win a majority back in the fall. Some are now predicting just that.

Thanks everyone and I look forward to your comments.

Tha President's Weekly Address: Holding Wall Street Accountable

2010-04-17T08:20:00.003-05:00

From the White House blog:

The strongest consumer protections ever. Bringing transparency to financial dealings. Closing loopholes to stop recklessness and irresponsibility. Holding Wall Street accountable and giving shareholders new power in the financial system. President Obama lays out what Wall Street Reform is about, and questions whether opposition from the Senate Republican Leader might have something to do with his recent meeting with Wall Street executives.

This has got to be a win-win for the Democrats. If the Republican's continue to oppose this, surely the people will realize who is working for them... But then maybe I am giving the people too much credit.

If the Democrats can hold together on this, and all vote to approve it and make it stronger and better for the people instead of the Wall Street crowd and their cronies in the Republican party. It isn't going to be easy, and it is already drawing opposition from the Republican's.

We need this reform, in order to protect the people from the theft of our money by Wall Street. With Goldman now being prosecuted and maybe others to follow, we have to stay after them to make them realize we will not stand for their criminal ways.

Health Care Reform: The Morning After, Guest Posting by Barbara O'Brien

2010-04-16T09:42:00.004-05:00

This is an honor to me... My blog is having it's first ever guest posting. Barbara O'Brien contacted me asking if she could do a guest posting regarding Health Care Reform.

I readily agreed and so the following is from Barbara O'Brien and I hope you all comment and read it. This is information we all need and it needs to get out to everyone. Here is her post:

Health Care Reform: The Morning After

Many politicians and pundits warned us that the health care reform (HCR) legislation that just became law will destroy America. Government bureaucrats will take over health care decisions, we were told. The old and infirm would be hauled away by death panels. Everything about the way we receive our medical care will change, and change drastically, they said.

Medicare recipients have been frightened by stories that their benefits will be cut. Middle-age people are worried they will lose their jobs when the law’s dreaded regulations, or taxes, or maybe regulations with taxes, would destroy their employers’ businesses.

The truth is, very little will change for most people. If you were insured by employee benefits before HCR, you will be insured by exactly the same policy in exactly the same way after HCR. You will have access to the same doctors on the same terms. “Government bureaucrats” will no more be involved in your health care than they were before.

And the same is true of Medicare, which of course is a government program, although many of the people who opposed the HCR bill don’t seem to know that.

Here are the “cataclysmic” changes to health care that are now in effect, or which will go into effect within the next six months for people who are already in group insurance plans:

• The law says you can’t lose your insurance coverage because you get sick. Before, in many states, if you were stricken with a severe illness such as mesothelioma cancer that would be expensive to treat, your insurer could use just about any excuse to cancel your coverage. That is over.

• HCR has ended lifetime limits on coverage. As long as you are receiving medical care, your insurer pays the bills.

• Your children can be covered on your existing policy until they are 26 years old.

• In six months, insurers cannot refuse to insure people under the age of 19 because of “pre-existing conditions.” This provision will go into effect for everyone in 2014.

And if you are on Medicare, you will be asked to struggle with the following:

• You get a free annual checkup.

• The co-pays and deductibles on many preventive care services are eliminated.

• If you are in the Medicare D “doughnut hole,” you will get a $250 rebate check in a few weeks. The hole itself will be closed gradually and will be gone by 2020.

But what about all those terrible regulations and taxes that are about to drive businesses out of business? Um, there really isn’t much to report. Oh, wait, here’s one — a 10 percent tax on indoor tanning services that use ultraviolet lamps will go into effect July 1. That’s about it.

However, beginning this year a tax credit will be available for some small businesses to help provide insurance coverage for employees.

Soon the politicians and pundits will start trying to frighten you about the provisions that will go into effect after this year. I assure you they are about as scary as the provisions that go into effect this year, but I will discuss them in a follow-up post.

— Barbara O’Brien

Some information about Barbara O'Brien:

My name is Barbara O’ Brien and my blogging at The Mahablog, Crooks and Liars, AlterNet, and elsewhere on the progressive political and health blogophere has earned me the notoriety of being a panelist at the Yearly Kos Convention and a featured guest blogger at the Take Back America Conference in Washington, DC.

I’m contacting you because I found your blog in a prominent political and health care site search and want to tell you about my newest blogging platform —the public concern of health care. Our shared concerns include health reform, public health, and asbestos contamination.

I am hoping to continue this guest posting for as long as Barbara wants to post here. I hope you enjoy it and will read it and comment on what she has said. Thanks all.

The President's Weekly Address: Relief for the Middle Class at Tax Time

2010-04-10T07:36:00.002-05:00

From the White House blog:

As April 15th approaches, the President discusses several of the tax breaks for middle class families he has signed into law. Find out more about the Making Work Pay tax credit, breaks for first-time homebuyers, rewards for making your home more energy efficient and more through our Tax Savings Tool.

Since the teabaggers have been yelling about higher taxes.. Do you suppose they even noticed their taxes went down? I doubt it... They are so blind in their hate they can't see anything except what they are told to see... and believe what they are told to believe.

Color of Change Petition for Net Neutrality

2010-04-07T12:02:00.003-05:00

Here is another petition for Net Neutrality. Leslie @ ParsleysPics has one also. Please sign one or both of these so we can continue what we have had for years.

The major companies are trying to control our internet more than before... Join in and keep it free and open for all. Don't let them and Glenn Beck take away our internet capabilities.

Dear friends,

The Internet has made amazing things possible, like freeing the Jena 6 and electing President Obama. None of it could have happened without an "open" Internet: one where Internet service providers are not allowed to interfere with what is seen and by whom.

Now, Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon -- the most powerful broadband providers -- are trying to fundamentally change the way the Internet works. They're seeking to make even bigger profits by acting as gatekeepers over what we see and do online. If they succeed, the Internet would be more like radio and television: a few major corporations would control which voices are heard most easily, and it would be much harder for grassroots groups, individuals, and small businesses to compete with large corporations and well-funded special interests.

The FCC wants to do the right thing and keep the Internet open, but the big providers have been attacking their efforts, with help from Black leaders who have financial ties to the industry. And a recent court ruling just made the FCC's job even tougher.[1] If the FCC is to preserve an open Internet, they will have to boldly assert their authority and press even harder. It's why they need to hear directly from everyday people about the importance of an open Internet, now.

Will you join me in sending a message to the Federal Communications Commission supporting their effort to preserve an open Internet? It takes only a moment:

http://www.colorofchange.org/opennet/?id=2425-697932

The FCC is working to create rules that would protect "net neutrality," the principle that protects an open and free Internet and which has guided the Internet's operation since it began. It guarantees that information you put online is treated the same as anyone else's information in terms of its basic ability to travel across the Internet. Your own personal website or blog can compete on equal footing with the biggest companies. It's the reason the Internet is so diverse -- and so powerful. Anyone with a good idea can find their audience online, whether or not there's money to promote the idea or money to be made from it.

AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon are spending millions of dollars lobbying to create a new system where they can charge large fees to speed up some data while leaving those who can't afford to pay in the slow lane.[2] Such a system could end the Internet as we know it -- giving wealthier voices on the Internet a much bigger megaphone than poorer voices, and stunting the Internet's amazing equalizing potential.

Buying the support of Black organizations?

President Obama strongly supports net neutrality, and so do most members of the FCC. With so much at stake for Black communities, you would expect Black leaders and civic organizations to line up in support of an open Internet.

But instead, a group of Black civic organizations is challenging the adoption of net neutrality rules. Some of the groups are nothing more than front groups for the phone and cable companies. Others, however, are major civil rights groups -- and all of them have significant financial ties to the nation's biggest Internet service providers. For example, AT&T donated half a million dollars last year to the NAACP, and led a drive to raise $5 million more[3], and boasts of donating nearly $3 million over the last ten years to a number of Black-led organizations.[4] Verizon, meanwhile, recently gave The National Urban League and the National Council of La Raza a $2.2 million grant.[5] Comcast is one of the National Urban League's "national partners" (Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen now sits on the NUL's Board of Trustees)[6], and the NUL's 2008 annual report notes that Comcast donated over $1 million that year.[7] Many of these groups have now filed letters with the FCC opposing or cautioning against net neutrality,[8,9,10,11] and the Internet service providers are using the groups' support to promote their agenda in Washington.[12,13]

The main argument put forth by these groups is that net neutrality rules would widen the digital divide. They say that unless we allow Internet service providers to make bigger profits by acting as gatekeepers online, they won't expand Internet access in under-served communities. It's a bogus, trickle-down argument that has been thoroughly debunked.[14, 15] Expanding access to high speed Internet is an extremely important goal. But Internet service providers are already making huge profits,[16, 17] and if they believed that investing in low-income communities made good business sense, they would already be doing it. Allowing them to make more money by acting as toll-takers on the Internet won't change that. When these civil rights groups have been asked to back up their arguments, none have been able to do so without appealing to discredited, industry-funded studies.[18] Nevertheless, the FCC has taken notice of what these civil rights groups are saying about net neutrality, and is wary of going against them for fear of being perceived as insensitive to minority concerns.[19]

Now it's up to you

The FCC wants to do the right thing and implement net neutrality rules. FCC commissioners know, as we do, that the anti-net neutrality arguments coming from civil rights groups are bogus. But they don't want to appear to be on the wrong side of Black interests.[20]

We need to demonstrate that there's support among Black folks and everyone else for protecting an open Internet. Please join me in telling the FCC that we support net neutrality.

You can add your voice here:

Sign the Petition Here

Thanks.

References:

1. http://bit.ly/drWbQ3
2. http://www.savetheinternet.com/threats-open-internet
3. http://bit.ly/akyXZS
4. http://bit.ly/aGOz89
5. http://www.nclr.org/content/news/detail/54262/
6. http://bit.ly/93zDr6
7. http://bit.ly/dnqyq4
8. http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=7020141807
9. http://mmtconline.org/lp-pdf/NatlOrgs%20NN%20Comments%20011410.pdf
10. http://colorofchange.org/opennet/jan-letter.pdf
11. http://colorofchange.org/opennet/naacp-letters.pdf
12. http://colorofchange.org/opennet/usindustry-letter.pdf
13. http://bit.ly/d8GdOu
14. http://www.freepress.net/files/nn_fact_v_fiction_final.pdf
15. http://bit.ly/ay0dx7
16. http://bit.ly/9JQSDk
17. http://nyti.ms/cZaGq8
18. http://bit.ly/cpPA51
19. http://huff.to/awKtvk
20. http://huff.to/awKtvk

The President's Weekly Address: Holiday Greetings

2010-04-03T08:02:00.003-05:00

In this week of Easter, Passover, and faithful celebration, the President offers a holiday greeting and calls on people of all faiths and nonbelievers to remember our shared spirit of humanity.

I can't add anything to what our president says here. I hope you enjoy a Beautiful Easter or Passover with family and friends.

If you Haven't Read This... You Should! From a Marine to the Tea Baggers calling for Armed Revolution

2010-03-28T11:08:00.002-05:00

I read this at Reversing the Handbasket and they got it from MadMikesAmerica... So Tip of the Hat to both of them for this wonderful article...

The writer is an active duty Marine who is concerned with the violent rhetoric in our country. He has also now written an answer to this and I will post part of it and a link to the after this first letter.

This is a MUST READ and SHARE... Please take it and get it out there... I am posting it in it's entirety as it has been asked to do.

An article I wish I would never have to write — To those calling for a civil war, this Marine wants you to stop, and think…

By Sgt. C USMC

It’s been said that the military is always preparing for war. That is true. We prepare for combat every day. We ran 5 miles today to the rifle range and shot nearly 200 rounds a piece at targets and then ran back. However, we also pray for peace. I would love one day to be completely unnecessary. But alas, I am a realist, and I know that day will never come.

The headlines of the last week have reminded me more of glimpsing at the S2 Daily Briefing Sheets while in theater or the Al-Jazeera than the NY Times or the Washington Post. Think about that for a moment, let it sink in.

Before I get into the main premise of this article — I need to make two statements here.

First and foremost , when it comes to the back and forth of who did what to whom and why — I don’t give a @!$%#. It doesn’t change the action. In life we’re judged by our actions, nothing more, nothing less. One of the greatest things of the military is when it comes to an enemy, the politics behind the situation — don’t matter in accomplishing that mission. For the military , life is simple in that regard.

Secondly, Regardless of your political ideology, you’ve earned the right as US Citizens to say your piece — no matter how wrong it may be. That is your right, and I will give my life to protect it.

But this government of ours is a democracy. We vote for our representatives, and they vote in our interests. Sometimes, the votes don’t go our way. That’s life, better luck next time. Exhaust your legislative options, and then focus on gaining the required votes and/or seats to achieve your desired legislative vote next election time. That’s the way things work.

But the SECOND you start committing acts of violence and vandalism, then you’ve usurped that Constitution. You in a way have assaulted it. And then you and I (I being every servicemember who has sworn to defend said Constitution) will have a MAJOR PROBLEM.

For those of you calling for a civil war, I implore you to stop and think about what you’re saying. Look around your neighborhood and your city. Now imagine using that terrain to survive. Imagine dodging semi-automatic rifle fire as you scramble from cover to cover, dragging your wounded child behind you. Imagine the deafening report of a mortar as it strikes the ground a 150 feet in front of you, the overpressure enough to shatter your teeth and perforate an ear drum. Try and envision a Stryker rolling through neighbor’s front lawn or a F/A-18 making lazy loops over your head in Close Air Support for the troops in the distance.

Now with that vision in mind, stop by your local Marine Corps base, being they will be the first military units you’d face in an all out ‘civil war’ . Look at them for a moment, examine their ‘work environment’ . They’re running the track, they’re climbing ropes, they’re grappelling with each other in mock hand-to-hand combat, and shooting targets while moving in raid lines on a daily basis. Nearly everyone on that base, down to our ‘secretaries’ has a combat award of one type or another, they’ve faced some of the most stressful situations on Earth where succumbing to the stress can get you killed, and they flourished.

Now ask yourselves and be honest — when is the last time you’ve run anything other than late to work, climbed anything other than a flight of stairs, grappelled with anything other than a paper jam, and shot off anything other than your mouth? When’s the last time you were in any situation more stressful than a traffic jam?

Now I’m not blaming you for your career choice, not in the least. I can’t think of a single job that’s not useful in some way or another. I just want you to simply compare and contrast your work environment with ours and ask yourselves “Who is better suited to win this battle ?” We both know the answer here, and if you doubt that answer, look at the results from Fallujah in 2004. Over 1200 of them ‘lost’ and we ‘lost only 28. That’s a ‘win-ratio’ of almost 60–1, and they’ve been fighting their whole lives.

Put this in another scenario. You and your officemates think your local pro football team sucks , so you put together your own team of the best your company has and challenge them to a game. Even if your team might be good, they’re professionals. This is their job. Your job is to answer phones and type on a keyboard. In short, they’ve forgotten more than you will ever know about football. The result, will be a slaughter for you, and a practice for them. But at least you’ll get a chance to sit at home, ice your wounds and say ‘whew I never should’ve done that!’

Not so with combat. The results of combat are far…FAR..more permanent. There are no second chances, no time for regrets, and no do-overs. This is not Call of Duty.

Now I ‘d like to disperse a myth here — many of you think that US military would not fight civilians. I can’t speak for all, but in my case — the moment you declare civil war, you’re no longer civilians. The moment you attack the constitution, you’re now enemies of that constitution. And I swore to defend and support and if necessary give my life for that Constitution and utilize every tool, technique, and weapon at my disposal to do so. And trust me, I’m not alone.

I hope some of you heed my words and cool the rhetoric and focus on achieving your goals diplomatically instead of physically. It would never want to receive a frag order to Maryland, or North Dakota, or Texas, but it is an order I will follow no matter how much it pains me to do so.

As someone from a military family I know these points he makes are very true... Yes, we have heard there is a contingent in the military who are against Pres. Obama and our elected officials. However, let me tell you I don't think it is very large and if they speak out, they can be removed from the service and even jailed for such things.

Their orders are to protect the Constitution and the Commander in Chief. And they will. Never doubt that.

Now on to the second piece from Sgt. C, this is posted at Newsvine... as was the first. Here it is again in it's entirety.

A rewrite of a Marine's call for peace and pause that had been reduced into sheer irrelevance....and an apology.

(I want to apologize to all of you who posted your thoughts and feelings regarding the prior article - I de-published the article to rewrite it to this, and it will not re-publish. I understand many people put a lot of effort into those comments, as I put a lot of effort into my replies. If any of the Newsvine community can tell me how I can get the comments back , I will gladly do so. My biggest apology is for my failure as a moderator. I should have done a better part to keep the conversation to the topic at hand and avoid responding to derailing comments.)

This is intended to be a rewrite of the article that was written - because some people obviously DON'T get it.

The article I wrote yesterday was intended to be a call for peace, and a moment for pause. In all honesty, it was merely my venting after reading dozens of headlines regarding the type of violence in the US that I was more accustomed to seeing on the daily intel briefing sheets while in theater. I never expected the response I got, and I must admit while some of the comments that I received were some of the greatest thoughts and words I've ever seen - some were words I'd hope no human being would never utter to another. My family and myself were threatened, if for no other reason than because my opinions differed from someone else's. Obviously, the intent of my message was convoluted and lost. This is an attempt to correct it.

Every service member has sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. There's no grey area to that. It's as black and white as it gets.

I nor any service member wants to combat civilians in this or any other country. I don't know how many times I can reiterate that - we do not want it to happen. Even as we prepare for war, we pray for peace.

We lace up our boots every morning in an attempt to preserve the freedoms that democracy has awarded us. We all love our country, and we would give our lives to protect it and its way of life.

Military members must have faith in the system of Government, or the whole chain of command and system of military discipline falls apart. We are rarely given all of the details of our entire mission, and instead are expected to complete seemingly ambiguous tasks in support of that mission with the belief that we are doing the right thing . When we find an order illegal , we're obligated not to follow it, and report it.

So call me naive, but yes. I do have faith in the Constitution and the mechanisms inside of it to correct itself and removing people unworthy of holding office. If I didn't , I never would've taken an oath to defend it. You just can't defend part of the Constitution, or the parts you agree with. It's all or nothing. I choose to defend all of it ,even the parts I may disagree with.

Probably the most foolish choice of words I chose to use in that article were the words 'civil war' . I just shouldn't have written them. But I could think of no other way to articulate what I felt it would require for the military to become involved. A civilian uprising wouldn't be sufficient, it would require an all out civil war.

Much of the comments reflected on this poor choice of words - and successfully derailed the conversation from a call for peace and to use the democratic system to resolve our differences, to people arguing over who's side would destroy who. I'll admit, I too was guilty in that regard - and my attempt to compare military and civilian life easily came across as boisterous and hostile, even though its' intent was to be succinct and concise. For that, I apologize.

BUT DON'T YOU @!$%#ING GET IT?!? In a war, no one wins. Even if you're not wounded, it doesn't mean you leave whole. The images, the feelings, the thoughts never leave you, they're forever etched into your mind, and they become a part of who you are. It's been said that "the people who die in war are the lucky ones - they don't have to live with the memories of what transpired." As morbid as it sounds, in many cases its true.

And to what end ? What would be left AFTER this 'war' was concluded ? Would anything really change ? Or would we slowly sink back into the quagmire of the status quo, resort back to what's comfortable, and then future generations will be arguing over the very reasoning behind this conflict , just as we now debate the real reason behind the civil war ? What would our children, and their children say when they look back at this point in our history ? Seriously, what does anyone expect to gain from fighting their friends, family, neighbors over a difference of opinion ? That's what this really boils down to - people are screaming for blood because they feel differently than someone else.

If that's not the definition of madness, I don't know what is. It needs to stop. Now.

The senatorial elections are coming in November 2010. Everyone who feels passionately about this country , one way or the other, should get out and vote for who THEY think will best represent them . The same in November of 2012. This is your Constitutional right - this is your step in democracy. You get to choose who represents you and your views in the Government.

If you choose to vote using force instead, not only will you fail in your attempt, but your cause will suffer on account of your actions. You will hurt not only yourself, but also every individual who ever aligns with that cause in the future. Consider that when you're making your decision - our causes are not typically portrayed by our most noble or thoughtful members, but rather the most crude and thoughtless. They forever taint what might otherwise be a worthwhile message.

So once again, I , an NCO of Marines, call on all people both military and civilian to exercise your Constitutional rights and participate in the democratic process. I urge you to stop reacting, and start instead thinking and considering. I urge you not to immediately dismiss opinions other than your own.

I urge you to open your minds and consider that maybe, just maybe, there's not a single one of us who has all of the answers, and that includes myself.

In short, I urge all of you - to treat everyone else as you would want to be treated, whether you agree with them or not.

Again, I know this is long.. but take it and post it at your sites... Get this out there from someone who is trying to be a voice of reason in this season of hate we seem to be in. This is something we need to be thinking about... All of us... and most especially the ones calling for violence.

The President's Weekly Address: Two Major Reforms on Health Care & Higher Ed

2010-03-27T09:47:00.003-05:00

From the White House blog:

The President looks back on a week that saw the passage of two major sets of reforms: one putting Americans in control of their own health care, and one ensuring student loans work for students and families, not as subsidies for bankers and middlemen.

Contrary to what the GOPers have said... This is NOT a government take over of the FEDERAL Student Loan Program. They are not taking it from the banks... they are just offering some rules and making sure everyone is protected.

I hope you have written to your Congress Person this week.. either to thank them or to let them know how you felt about them voting NO.

What If

2010-03-25T09:45:00.004-05:00

My friend K has a great piece up at his place about the double standard we are seeing in the course of events surrounding the Health Care Reform vote...

It is a definite must read. You can find him at Citizen K and read it for yourself... some of the highlights..

What If

It's the winter of 2003, the day after the invasion of Iraq. An angry mob of African-American protesters gathers outside of the entrance to the White House, screaming imprecations and waving American flags. Several hold signs accusing the president of sending young black men to die for a family vendetta. A group of white Bush aides nervously makes its way through the crowd, hearing shouts of "killer," "murderer," "thug," and at least one unprintable racial slur.

A number of Democratic party representatives and senators exhort the crowd into a greater frenzy. A blast from a pagan horn quiets the mob so that one of them can invoke the blessings of God on a Congressman who has joined them.

-snip-

An anti-war leader releases the home address of another pro-war representative. Someone cuts a propane line leading to the house, creating the danger of a massive explosion. Police reveal that the house is actually family home of the brother of the representative. When contacted, the activist who supplied the address calls the episode "collateral damage" and "condemns" the vandalism initiated by his actions. Other activists insist that the address was correct, apparently to justify the vandalism.

Just imagine....

My thoughts on this... if it had happened this way... they, (the protesters and maybe some of the lawmakers) would be picked up and hauled off to Gitmo or one of the other unknown sites and probably never heard from again. Remember we weren't allowed to say one thing against the president while the troops were in harms way or we were considered helping the enemy or even treasonous. Now, all bets are off... anything can be said about Pres. Obama and no one even blinks an eye..... I just have one question..... Don't we still have troops in harms way?

You must read K's entire piece to get the full effect.. I just teased you a little... Please take a minute and go over and read it if you haven't already...

What if

Yes We Can starring Boehner saying No You Can't

2010-03-24T20:54:00.002-05:00

This is wonderful and I hope they make a campaign ad out of it.. Take it and post it and play it over and over. Get the hits up on it.. We need to rub the Tan Man's face in it as much as we can.

Great Stuff...

h/t The Political Carnival and Shannyn Moore.

Some of the Facts about Health Care Reform

2010-03-24T08:10:00.003-05:00

A couple of days ago and several other times, we have all pointed out the LIES about Health Care... Now it is time to start pushing the TRUTH and the benefits people will see starting soon. And in Soon I mean in the next days and weeks..

Even though the standard meme from the critics is that nothing starts for 3 or 4 years.. Here are the things that start NOW.

It establishes the toughest patient protections in history.

It guarantees all Americans affordable health insurance options, extending coverage to 32 million who are currently uninsured.

And it reduces the cost of care -- cutting over 1 trillion dollars from the federal deficit over the next two decades.

To ensure a successful, stable transition, many of these changes will phase into full effect over the next several years.

But for millions of Americans, many of the benefits of reform will begin this year -- some even taking effect this afternoon. Here are just a few examples:

Small businesses will receive significant tax cuts, this year, to help them afford health coverage for all their employees.

Seniors will receive a rebate to reduce drug costs not yet covered under Medicare.

Young people will be allowed coverage under their parents' plan until the age of 26.

Early retirees will receive help to reduce premium costs.

Children will be protected against discrimination on the basis of medical history.

Uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions can join a special high-risk pool to get the coverage they need, starting in just 90 days.

Insured Americans will be protected from seeing their insurance revoked when they get sick, or facing restrictive annual limits on the care they receive.

All Americans will benefit from significant new investments to train primary care doctors, nurses, and public health professionals, and the creation of state-level consumer assistance programs to help all patients understand and defend our new rights.

Yes, there are some things that will not go into effect for a while.. they say a few years but it maybe earlier if all works well.... But there are some very good benefits that start now.

For a lot of us this is personal.

It hits home for us because of the Donut Hole being closed for Seniors and those of us on Medicare due to disability. This one is important for me, my mother, my uncle and others in my family.

It hits home for us because there are lots of people who don't have insurance due to Pre-Existing Conditions. This will stop very soon. It is personal to me because I have family members who can't get insurance because of this. Try having a serious disease and getting insurance after you lose a job, or have to stop working because of the disease.

And now you have a safety net... You can't lose your insurance if you become ill. What a wonderful feeling knowing you don't have to worry about losing your coverage.

I hope this helps people understand the benefits that will start NOW, not in 3 or 4 years... NOW.

Tell me that you don't care about any of these items and I will say you are not telling the truth.. All of this effects each of us in some way.

The Bill Is Signed.. Now on to the Senate.

2010-03-23T11:41:00.003-05:00

History is being made today. President Obama signs the Health Care Reform Bill into Law.... Now on to the Senate and the finalization of the Law of the Land.

Here is video of the President's remarks and the signing of the bill.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This is not the end, this is the beginning... Now we continue on making changes and updates to this Legislation. We, all of us... have to keep pushing Congress to make this better over time, just as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and Civil Rights. Even now, almost 50 years after Civil Rights was passed, we are still fine tuning it. This will be the same for Health Care. We can't give up now. We have to keep fighting to make this better.

We have to rally people to vote in November to keep Democratic Leaders in there and make sure we can pass additional reforms and more Progressive Legislation which needs to be done.

Yes We Can and Yes We Did.

2010-03-21T23:32:00.004-05:00

It has passed.. 219-212 Health Care Reform is now going to the President for signing. It has been reported he will sign it Tuesday morning, just before the Senate starts working on the amendments.

Here is Pres. Obama's statement after the passage of this bill.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Like I stated and they chanted on the floor of the House after passage..... Yes We Can.

Thank you Pres. Obama and the Democrats who voted for this bill. Thank You Speaker Pelosi and all the other members of the House who worked so hard to get this done.

The Ignorance of the Protesters and Their Racism is Showing

2010-03-21T18:52:00.006-05:00

Here are two videos that have been going around that are a must see.... In the first one is the ignorance of the Tea Party protesters. They show how stupid they are and one lady even says "drinking the Kool-Aid" while quoting Glenn Beck and Faux Noise. Watch:

Notice most of them say they don't know what is in the bill, they are just quoting what they heard on Faux Noise and from Beck.

Then this video shows the racism that is a large part of the overall Tea Party movement. There are signs calling for assassination of the President, and much more.

Some of the most ignorant photos from the protesters.

These are just 3 of the signs.. There were many more and they were as bad or worse. But it's not about race, and it's not about Obama... Yeah, right.

I can't wait until we start talking about immigration... it will probably be much worse.

Tip of the Hat to Leslie@ Parsley's Pics I got some of this from her... Thanks Leslie.

Some of the LIes Being Told and the Truth That Should Be Told

2010-03-21T16:49:00.003-05:00

I just got a notice from VoteVets concerning some of the lies that are being spread by the Rethugs and the VFW in order to help them. Here is the article from them that tells the truth about the lies being told. I just heard a Rethug spouting these lies on C-Span and he was challenged by Rep. Louise Slaughter, (D, NY).

From VoteVets and the VetVoice:

VFW Lies for the GOP, Attempts to Kill Health Care
by: Richard Allen Smith
Sun Mar 21, 2010 at 16:30:58 PM EDT

Among all of the Congressional elections in 2006, there were two that were particularly interesting. In Virginia, an incumbent Republican Senator who received a deferment from service in Vietnam was endorsed by the VFW's political action committee over a former Navy Secretary who was awarded the Navy Cross while serving as a Marine Officer in the conflict. Also, in a House race that same PAC endorsed a Republican candidate with no service record over an Iraq Veteran who left two legs on the battlefield.

Surprising? Shouldn't be. VFW PAC operates as little more than a subsidiary of the Republican Party, as does the leadership of their parent organization.

Today, that organization issued a statement toeing the GOP line on the health care vote. Of course, in order to toe that line, the VFW had to make things up:

"The president and the Democratic leadership are betraying America's veterans," said Thomas J. Tradewell Sr., a combat-wounded Vietnam veteran from Sussex, Wis., who leads the 2.1 million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S. and its Auxiliaries.

Here, Thomas Tradewell makes obvious that his aim is not to have a rational discussion about a piece of legislation, but to demonize a particular political party. If Tradewell had legitimate concerns, why would he not also attack Republicans in Congress for offering no constructive alternatives to the health care legislation that would have addressed this issue? Or even offered any course of action in the 10 years they were in the majority?

He didn't chastise Republicans because A) his purpose is to shill for them; and B) his concerns are over fabricated issues that do not exist.

At issue is H.R. 4872 does not fully protect the healthcare programs provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the military's Tricare system. Specifically, the bill covers Tricare For Life but not the other Tricare programs that serve millions of beneficiaries; it does not cover children suffering from spina bifida as a result of a parent's exposure to Agent Orange; and it does not cover dependents, widows and orphans who are served by CHAMPVA, the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Here, just as the VFW ignored a double amputee combat Veteran running for Congress, they ignored that same Vet's statement on the health care legislation. That Veteran was Tammy Duckworth, who now serves as the Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs:

Let me be unambiguous: The healthcare that Veterans receive through the VA system, including dependents of certain veterans enrolled in the CHAMPVA program, will be safe and sound under health reform. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs would continue to maintain sole authority over the system and for enhancing the quality and access for all eligible Veterans.

In addition, TRICARE will continue to be available for all eligible servicemen and women, and their families. Those who are covered by TRICARE would meet the shared responsibility requirement for individuals to have insurance, thereby exempting such members of the uniformed services and dependants from being assessed any sort of penalty. The President has made it clear publicly and to me that he is committed to ensuring that America's servicemen and women have high quality care, and with health reform that commitment remains very much intact.

The VFW's overt partisan hackery drifts further into fantasy land as that statement implores the House to pass a TRICARE fix measure:

"Military service is based on the fundamental principle of trust, and once lost, it is virtually impossible to regain," said Tradewell. "That is why I am urging the House to vote 'no' today, then go back and fix the bill with the language proposed by Skelton, Buyer [note: That's the same Rep. Buyer who voted against advance funding for the VA. -RAS] and McKeon, and then come back and vote your conscience. Let's not rush to pass flawed legislation that could tremendously impact our nation's true heroes."

There's only one problem with the VFW's suggestion here. The House already passed the legislation to which the statement refers. From a joint statement issued by the relevant committee chairs, including Armed Services and Veterans Affairs:

HR 3590, as drafted, does not specifically mention that TRICARE coverage meets the individual responsibility requirement, but such coverage would satisfy the requirements of this bill. To affirm that this is the case, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed HR 4887, the TRICARE Affirmation Act, which provides assurances to the American people that care provided to those in the military and their families as well as military retirees under age 65 and their families, would indeed meet the requirement for coverage.

But none of this is relevant. These are facts, something with which the VFW leadership is not concerned. The leadership is far more concerned with the bidding of their parent organization, the Republican Party.

If the leadership of the VFW was actually concerned with the health care of Veterans, it might do something to address the fact that 2,200 Vets died last year as a result of not having access to health insurance.

But of course, that doesn't support the GOP narrative-- so don't expect the VFW to do anything about it.

Very interesting to say the least.. one of the organizations that is supposed to help veterans actually tries to harm them.. But it is just another lie perpretated by the Right Wing noise machine.

The President Addresses Democratic House

2010-03-21T09:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday afternoon, the President went to Capitol Hill and addressed the Democratic House Members. Here is one of his best speeches ever.

He asks them not to vote for him, for Speaker Pelosi or for themselves, but to vote for the American People. US, the way they are supposed to do, and the reason they are supposed to be there.

Here is the speech. I hope you enjoy it.

The President's Weekly Address: Time for Action on Financial Reform for the Economy

2010-03-20T08:48:00.002-05:00

From the White House blog:

As a key committee in the Senate takes up reforming the ways of Wall Street, the President lays down a marker: “I urge those in the Senate who support these reforms to remain strong, to resist the pressure from those who would preserve the status quo, to stand up for their constituents and our country. And I promise to use every tool at my disposal to see these reforms enacted: to ensure that the bill I sign into law reflects not the special interests of Wall Street, but the best interests of the American people.”

The President seems to be gearing up for another big fight. I think he feels that Health Care Reform is safe enough now he can move on to this important regulation reform of the financial industry.

Our voices are going to have to be heard on this, much as they were and maybe stronger, than for Health Care. We have got to push our Senators and Representatives to get this through. We have to have stronger rules for Wall Street and the people who caused this disaster. That is just a given.

One thing to note.. again, we can't let the quest for the perfect defeat the good. We may not get all we want, just as we didn't in Health Care Reform, but just as with all large legislation, sometimes the first step is the hardest and we can build from there.

One other note... Sen. Chris Dodd is now calling for an investigation into Lehman and the others who caused this crisis. That is a good thing and is long overdue. I guess deciding to give up his job as a Senator has allowed him to become stronger.

OK everyone, now is the time to start calling, before they even get started in Committee hearings on this legislation... Let's get this done.

The President's Weekly Address: Education for a More Competitive America & Better Future

2010-03-13T09:00:00.003-06:00

From the White House Blog:

The President discusses his blueprint for an updated Elementary and Secondary Education Act to overhaul No Child Left Behind, the latest step from his Administration to encourage change and success in America’s schools at the local level.

With the number of schools closing, some in my area in Kansas City, we need to be concentrating on Education. However, one reason the schools in Kansas City are closing that seems to have been missed by everyone is the drop in population and enrollment. They have dropped over 40% in numbers in the last few years and have several schools which are basically empty. But that doesn't sell papers as they say.

But, just because schools are closing, and teachers are being shuffled and laid off, we have to concentrate on the QUALITY of education.. That's the key.

Well those are my thoughts.. let me hear yours.

Please Read Frank Schaeffer's Post

2010-03-10T15:19:00.002-06:00

Frank Schaeffer has a new post up today that is a must read for us all. He lists some of the accomplishments of the past year and reminds us all of how we felt just over a year ago at the time of the election and the inaugural

Some of the people on the left have been as damaging to President Obama as those on the right. Maybe even more. Now is not the time to abandon the President. Now is the time to rally around and support him even more or as much as we did before. Yet, that is what is happening. I have posted on this before and so has Frank.

Once again, he is asking people to stop and think about what they are doing, saying and thinking about before they run their mouths and put down the President, for not doing enough for them.

Read his post, which you can find by clicking here: Frank Schaeffer's Blog. And you can even leave him a comment and let him know what you think.

You can leave me one to if you are so inclined. He comes here sometimes and reads and comments when I link to him. Which I always appreciate.

So, take a minute to read his post and think before you put down the man we put in the White House. Thanks all.

Must Read for Today, Bob Cesca and John Cole

2010-03-07T08:23:00.003-06:00

If you haven't or don't read Bob Cesca's Blog.. you are missing out. I quote him a lot and he is a great source for others.

First this week at Huffington Post he wrote this piece:

The Tea Party is All About Race

If you haven't read it.. you should.. He brings out some very valid points and makes some strong arguments I think everyone needs to see and read.

From the final lines of the piece:

In the final analysis, when you boil away all of the weirdness, it becomes clear that the teabaggers are pissed because there isn't yet another doddering old white guy in the White House -- like they're used to. That's what this is all about.

By way of a postscript, one of the many faceless radio talk show wingnuts, Jim Quinn, this week called President Obama a "Kenyan wuss" who should be "slapped silly." The Kenyan lie and the "slap silly" insult aside, this president is no wuss. You know how I know? He's a black man who ran for president and won despite the growing mob of gun-toting militant white bigots like Jim Quinn who are sucking air in America. President Obama achieving this despite the hatred and threats against him takes serious guts. Guts that Jim Quinn and the tea party movement will never understand.

Then last night, I went there and found this piece he had found from John Cole and highlighted on his blog. It is not only worthy of being read, it should be posted and found everywhere today... John is spot on and has his finger on the problem we are seeing.

So, thank you Bob, and thank you John for pointing this out and for having the bravery to say what needs to be said.

Here is a link to the John Cole column where he writes at Balloon Juice.

And here is a link again to the best blog ever.. BobCesca.com

Check him out, and check out John's article.. it is worth your time. Also check what Jane Hamsher is saying now...... Some of the commenter's are saying and I feel she is becoming the Liz Cheney of the Left. I hate to say that but she is. First she ties herself to Grover Norquist.... now she is doing this.

What she neglects to point out in her diatribe is that after Lynn Woolsey stated she would pass this bill, she would then come back and push for a Public Option in a separate bill. Because to use Reconciliation or majority vote we have to pass the bill as it is.. Read that... AS IT IS... no changes can be made to the Senate Bill.. The House and the Senate will then make changes after, just as they have done to all large legislation.

The President's Weekly Address: What Health Reform Will Deliver – This Year

2010-03-06T07:13:00.003-06:00

From the White House Blog:

In this week’s address, President Obama describes how American families will have more control over their health care this year, after health reform passes.

This was also included with this weeks address, and it may help allay some of the fears people have about whether this is real reform or not.

Here are a few more points about how health insurance reform measures will benefit Americans this year:

Hold Insurance Companies Accountable:

* Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all new plans;
* Prohibit rescissions of health insurance policies in all individual plans;
* Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;
* Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs;
* Establish a process for the annual review of unreasonable increases in premiums, requiring State insurance commissioners to work with the HHS Secretary and States.

Protect Consumers:

* Provide grants to States to support health insurance consumer assistance and ombudsman programs to help consumers;
* Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;
* Require all insurance plans to use uniform coverage documents so consumers can make easy comparisons when shopping for health insurance;
* Establish an internet portal to assist Americans in identifying coverage options;
* Prohibit insurers from discriminating in favor of highly compensated employees by charging them lower premiums.

Ensure Affordable Choices and Quality Care:

* Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;
* Create a temporary re-insurance program for early retirees;
* Require new plans to cover an enrollee’s dependent children until age 26;
* Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;
* Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;
* Facilitate administrative simplification to lower health system costs.

These are all very important and once people realize exactly what they have.. this will be popular. It is real reform. As my friend Matt Osborne @ OsborneInk likes to point out, it may not contain the Public Option... but without all of these things in there.. you could have no Public Option.

So, lets work to get this passed, then we can come back and add the Public Option at a later date. We can't let this go down, just because we didn't get every little thing we wanted. We have got to grow up and start acting like the adults in the room.

Right now, the left are acting like a bunch of children who didn't get their way. We have to stop this.

The Cost of Doing Nothing

2010-03-01T03:57:00.002-06:00

Sometimes I wonder if people really realize the price of not doing Health Care Reform. the cost in money, premiums, costs to hospitals, not to mention families and individuals who don't have insurance and are faced with bankruptcy.

Not to mention the human cost in lives. We lose on average the equivalent of 9-11 every month to the lack of health care.Yes, you read that right.. 2,500 people a month die from the lack of quality health care in this country.

Yesterday, in the New York Times there was a great article about The Cost of Doing Nothing. written by Reed Ableson.

Some of the more important parts that I want to share are:

Suppose Congress and President Obama fail to overhaul the system now, or just tinker around the edges, or start over, as the Republicans propose — despite the Democrats’ latest and possibly last big push that began last week at a marathon televised forum in Washington.

Then “my health care” stays the same, right?

Far from it, health policy analysts and economists of nearly every ideological persuasion agree. The unrelenting rise in medical costs is likely to wreak havoc within the system and beyond it, and pretty much everyone will be affected, directly or indirectly.

“People think if we do nothing, we will have what we have now,” said Karen Davis, the president of the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit health care research group in New York. “In fact, what we will have is a substantial deterioration in what we have.”

Emphasis is mine because I wanted to make sure everyone saw what was said. The consequences of doing nothing is things will just get worse. Much worse.

Nearly every mainstream analysis calls for medical costs to continue to climb over the next decade, outpacing the growth in the overall economy and certainly increasing faster than the average paycheck. Those higher costs will translate into higher premiums, which will mean fewer individuals and businesses will be able to afford insurance coverage. More of everyone’s dollar will go to health care, and government programs like Medicare and Medicaid will struggle to find the money to operate.

“It will break all of our banks if we do nothing,” said Peter V. Lee, who oversees national health policy for the Pacific Business Group on Health, which represents employers that offer coverage to workers. “It is a course that is literally bankrupting the federal government and businesses and individuals across the country.”

Even those families that enjoy generous insurance now are likely to see the cost of those benefits escalate. The typical price of family coverage now runs about $13,000 a year, but premiums are expected to nearly double, to $24,000, by 2020, according to the Commonwealth Fund. That equals nearly a quarter of the median family income today.

All of this is just exactly what the President has been saying for months and months and what Democrats have been saying for years. However Republican's have been saying NO, NO, and NO, and last Thursday during the Health Care Summit at Blair House, all they could say was "Kill The Bill" and "Start Over".

Starting over and killing the bill is not an option at this time. We have invested too much time and too much sweat and tears into this to kill it and start over.

I asked my mother one day, about this obsession the Rethugs seem to have with the number of pages in the bills.. and she said she didn't remember them or anyone ever being this focused on the number of pages as they have been. They did the same thing with the Recovery Act and now with the Health Care Bill, constantly reminding people how many pages it is.. printing them out and piling them up.. What they fail to tell people is they only print on one side, and usually it is only about half or three-quarters of the page the rest is addendum's and footnotes. But, back to the article
.

“It’s also cramping our economic growth,” said Frank McArdle, a consultant with Hewitt Associates, which advises large employers and reported on the need for change for the Business Roundtable, an association of C.E.O.’s at major companies. Spending so much on health care is “really a waste of people’s money,” Mr. McArdle said.

The higher premiums will also persuade more businesses, especially smaller ones, to decide not to offer insurance. More people who buy coverage on their own or are asked to pay a large share of premiums will find the price too high. It doesn’t take too many 39-percent increases, like the recent one proposed in California that has garnered so much attention, to put insurance out of reach.

“We have an affordability problem that is moving up through the middle class now,” said Paul B. Ginsburg, the president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, a nonprofit Washington research group.

Once again, this backs up what the President and the Democrats have been saying for months and years. Why do people continue to deny this is true? Why can't people see this is happening?

While estimates vary, the number of people without insurance is expected to increase by more than a million a year, said Ron Pollack, the executive director of Families USA, a Washington consumer advocacy group that favors the Democrats’ approach. The Urban Institute, for example, predicts that the number of uninsured individuals will increase from about 49 million today to between 57 million and 66 million by 2019. The Democrats’ plan is expected to cover as many as 30 million individuals who now are uninsured.

That is just unacceptable. How can we allow this to happen? We can't.... we have to make sure this gets fixed.

There will be a cost in lives, too. Mr. Pollack’s organization estimates that as many as 275,000 people will die prematurely over the next 10 years because they do not have insurance. Even people with insurance will find their coverage providing much less protection from financial catastrophe than it does now. Individuals will pay significantly more in deductibles and co-payments, for example. “More and more families will experience huge debts and bankruptcies,” Mr. Pollack said

.

As I stated before.. 275,000 over 10 years... the numbers are sometimes a little different but that works out to 2,291 a month.... the equivalent of 9-11 every month dying because of a lack of health care. Think about that..

“If we fail this time, you’re not going to get this Congress to take this up on a big scale,” said Len Nichols, a health policy analyst at George Mason University who says he thinks the Democrats should go ahead and pass legislation.

But few policy analysts think Congress can afford to do absolutely nothing. Lawmakers are instead likely to try a series of smaller fixes, said Stuart Butler, a health policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a research group that favors market solutions over a larger government role.

After President Bill Clinton failed to get Congress to pass his health care bill in 1994, Republicans, who then had substantial victories in the House and Senate, worked with him to pass legislation like the health care privacy bill, a children’s health insurance program and the Balanced Budget Act, which contained significant changes to the Medicare program. Under President George W. Bush, the Republicans went on to pass a drug benefit under Medicare. “In the space of less than 10 years, you have several major bills,” Mr. Butler said.

Yet, still they didn't pay for anything and didn't cover anyone new. The Medicare D plan is good, but again, not paid for, and there is such a huge gap in coverage that we need new legislation to fix it. This is where part of the deficit comes from that everyone seems to be worried about. But of course that Rethug amnesia kicks in and they forget these facts.

If nothing passes now, Mr. Butler says he thinks Congress will tackle narrower areas, like insurance regulation, to make it easier for people with pre-existing medical conditions to find coverage, or maybe it will try another expansion of Medicaid or the children’s program.

But President Obama clearly prefers passage of a broader bill. In wrapping up Thursday’s session with lawmakers, he and other Democrats warned that an incremental approach was likely to provide too little relief to the people already feeling the effects of a broken system. “It turns out that baby steps don’t get you to the place that people need to go,” he said.

And even some people without a partisan point to make argue that the series of bills passed in the last 15 years have not made enough of a dent in slowing down medical costs. “We’ve had a lot of incremental reforms already,” said Mr. McArdle, the Hewitt consultant.

And many argue that putting off the inevitable has an additional cost. The Commonwealth Fund estimates that the nation would be spending hundreds of billions of dollars less than it does today if any of the health care legislation proposed by previous administrations had been enacted, assuming that they reduced costs by about 1.5 percentage points. If President Nixon’s plan had passed, the United States might be spending a trillion dollars a year less than it does now, and President Clinton’s plan would have reduced spending by some $500 billion a year.

“It makes a huge difference over a long period of time,” said Ms. Davis of the Commonwealth Fund.

This last section was the real money quote.. they have studied this and look what they have found... How much would the spending have been reduced if this had been done years ago when Teddy Rooseveldt tried it.. or Harry Truman?

We have to make sure this gets done. If you haven't called your Senator or your Representative, even if they are a Rethug, call them.. It is only a phone call and you will let them know how you feel. After what I heard Thursday, I think there are a lot of Rethugs getting phone calls now saying you don't really speak for me.. because I don't want you to kill this bill and I don't want you to start over.

Giving credit where it is due... Bob Cesca pointed me to this article.. He did a small write up on it at his place and I wanted to share it with all of you.

I hope you are as enlightened as I was and enjoyed the reading of it. I have posted most of it here, but you can read the entire article at the link above. Let's get this done folks.. Let's get the tweaks done by a simple majority and get this on the President's desk for his signature.

The President's Weekly Address: The Olympic Spirit, the Spirit of Bipartisanship, and Health Reform

2010-02-27T09:13:00.002-06:00

From the White House Blog:

The President takes a moment to congratulate our Olympic athletes. Discussing the unity and pride Americans feel in cheering them on, the President relates that sentiment to his own desire for bipartisanship in Washington. He praises the recent bipartisan meeting and talks about moving forward on health reform.

I have watched a lot of the Olympics.. They have been wonderful. Team USA is masterful this year. Setting records and creating lots of new ones for the next Olympic champions to strive for.

I also watched the Health Care Summit this week. What a joke it was. The Republicans walked in the door saying we need to start over and walked out saying the same thing. Yes, they had a few ideas, but most of them were already in the bills which have been passed.

The R's have no intention of voting for any Health Care Reform bill, as Tweety always says, ( as much as I hate to give him much credit most of the time...lol but sometimes you have to ) if they really intended to do Health Care Reform, in all the years the Republican's controlled the White House and the Congress, they would have done it. They have always managed to push through anything else they want,, and this would be no exception. But the R's don't want Health Care for all.. plain and simple.

So, it is up to the Democratic Party to get this done, and hopefully after this week, it will get done. There isn't much to do now. Just the House accepting the Senate bill and the Senate tweaking a few things through the majority vote.. and I wish they would start calling it that instead of Reconciliation. Branding is so much a huge part of things.

Of course, Andrea Mitchell and her GOP talking points of "ramming it through" as she said yesterday several times doesn't help either.

Oh well, we just have to stand together and get it done... call your Senator, your Representative and remind them you want this done... Let's help them make this easy choice.

The President's Weekly Address: Premiums, Profits, and the Need for Health Reform

2010-02-20T09:13:00.003-06:00

From the White House Blog:

The President points to outrageous premium hikes from health insurance companies, especially those already making massive profits, as further proof of the need for reform. Looking ahead to the coming bipartisan meeting on reform, the President urges members of Congress to come to the table in good faith to address the issue.

And Mr. President WE know the people want a Public Option..... so do about 20 Democratic Senators. I called my Senator's office yesterday. I also sent her a message from her web site. Mine is Claire McCaskill, she has come out in favor of the Public Option in the past. Right now she is out of the country visiting the troops, however the gentleman I spoke with said he would pass my message along.

This is what we need to be doing people, calling these Senator's Offices and letting them know how we feel. Even if they are a Rethug... let them hear from you... I know it seems like a useless call..but trust me .. those calls are logged and they will see how many are FOR the Public Option...

If they are open to ideas and if this letter is presented with enough signatures on Thursday, how can they refuse to at least discuss it? So the more we get on board for it the better. CALL....CALL....CALL.....