In Defeat, the Rethuglicans are still just MAKING THINGS UP!

On "Meet the Press" for Sunday March 28, Lindsay Graham (R) minority leader in the Senate said of the recently passed Health Care Reform: "It is a Ponzi scheme of the first order. It's gonna blow up the deficit. It's gonna affect every business, every family in this country. It was done by one-party rule. And it was-- it was a shame we had to go down this road."


These Rethuglicans never cease to amaze for their sheer level of chutzpah! I've not yet seen the MTP segment but if David Gregory didn't retort with "well how about all the times you said the Congressional Budget Office numbers were just fine? Isn't that the case now?" then Gregory should be fired. (Frankly, he's the weakest "journalist" in the NBC/MSNBC roster and the number of fall-down-laughing crap that he's allowed out of the chorus of choir-Rethuglicans really should be a sign that he's the wrong guy for the job. On one hand it's admirable that they are all signing out of the same choir book; the pity is that it's full of the wrong songs for the times!)

They're just making stuff up now. They REALLY, REALLY deserve a complete TROUNCING in November. Let's put 'em outta their misery and let them come back as something NEW. Obviously their ideas and alignment with their paymasters has brought them to their logical denouement. (It must be the sign of the Rethuglican Apocalypse when they enlist an Uncle Tom like Michael Steele as the mouthpiece of the RNC. He's been whistling "Dixie" for the last almost two years and has little to show for it.)

Reflections on Health Care Reform Accomplishments

It’s the day after the truly HISTORIC vote in the U. S. House of Representatives, setting the Health Care Reform bill (HW 3590) on its way to the Senate, Reconciliation and final signature. Is it any doubt that this omnibus and historic bill will be named in honor of the late Edward M. Kennedy? I think it is entirely fitting and perhaps the best genuine memorial for his long and distinguished service in the Senate and for our country in general.

Meanwhile, even the Republican pundits (such as former Bush speechwriter David Frum) are fessing up to the colossal defeat that it is. The part of “No!” told their lies in their talking points to the end (indeed, included in tan-man’s final summation) but the independent Frum calls it for what it is: “Disaster”. Along the way, he points out some of the major PLUSES of the Bill and why these features will contribute to failure of any repeal attempted: “how many votes could we muster to re-open the ‘doughnut hole’ and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25-year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage?” I just love his assessment that “we followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat”

Of course, the “conservative entertainment industry” will have a field day. Although it’s hard to understand why ANYONE with a gross income of less than $500,000 could possibly be in favor of the Republican positions on this bill (which basically says “let’s just live with the status quo of things are they are – oh, except, of course that we need to throttle in those evil lawyers and their opportunistic malpractice lawsuits”). They took all the anti-reform big business lobbying money and lined their coffers for their 2010 campaign. It’s a pity that they really have no record to campaign on except “No!”. All the campaign money in the world won’t change the Waterloo they have brought on themselves. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch!

Handing the Republicans the Defeat They Deserve

It looks like the House of Representatives is headed towards an historic vote sometime Sunday to finally pass the initial Healthcare Reform that will accomplish four major objectives: [1] ensure coverage for an additional 30- to 35-million Americans who are currently without the ability to get insurance, [2] contribute to reducing the government deficit by over $130 billion in the first 10 years, [3] reduce Medicare waste and [4] is fully paid for.  Almost as a side-benefit to the supreme success of this accomplishment is handing the intransigent, insincere and totally disingenuous Republicans a sound DEFEAT of their tactics to put their goal of dealing a blow to the presidency of Barack Obama ahead of their duties to their constituents.

In doing this, I believe that they have perhaps unwittingly “bet the farm” of the 2010 mid-term elections on these tactics and I couldn’t be happier if this stupid strategy totally blows up in their faces. They have doggedly stuck to their “talking points” (even when provisions that they were addressing were long removed or corrected). They’ve flat-out invented “death panels” and other horrors based only on their desire to kill this legislation no matter what. They’ve said “we need to start over” yet when confronted with the obvious question of “what did you guys do in the name of Healthcare Reform” for the eight years you were in power (the answer, of course, is nothing) and they’ve made believe that some of their suggestions for elements of the overall legislation were not included in the Bill when they were. Frankly, I have little patience of sympathy for the “party of no”. They’ve dug their own grave with their fidelity to the fat donors and they’ve lost touch with the needs of common middleclass citizens. It’s no secret that I’m a left-leaning “progressive” and I relish the marginalization of the right. In my mind, they deserve to become the increasing minority as long as they put tactics and politics ahead of what is good for the country. Rather than become part of a sincere effort to reform Healthcare in America, they’ve sided with the big business interests of their healthcare contributors. 

How Can Health Care Reform NOT PASS!?

The ONLY way you could NOT be for passing Health Care Reform:

• HAVE insurance paid for you and just don't care
• are a member of the Republican party and vote according to what Rush Limbaugh or Karl Rove tells you to
• easily duped by disinformation and fear mongering
• HAVE never been sick and just don't care or think about it
• don't believe the mound of truth in statistics that the system is broken
• don't care that YOU pay 1000 dollars for everybody that uses emergency rooms without insurance
• don't care if people suffer with the worry of paying health bills or that they lose everything they have along with their families( inclusive of innocent children )
• don't care that 62% of personal bankruptcies are related to medical bills
• don't care that single payer is the best and most efficient system implemented in most other western
  democracies
• don't care that people may die as a result from one or all of the above.

[Adopted from a posting on HuffingtonPost online ]