Sometimes, someone hits it on the head...

So, every once in awhile, I read something that makes good sense, and I just read something of that nature, and wanted to share it with you.

Alter column on health care

Read it, it's good, I promise, and makes too much sense, so it will probably be ignored.

Now, I'm not going to pretend that I know a lot about health care, but what I do know, is that republicans are trying to scare Americans into not reforming the system, and they're doing a pretty good job of it. Talking about senior citizens getting euthanized, and of course, bringing up the dreaded "S" word, that being SOCIALISM!! I've got a list right here folks, and on it, are the names of KNOWN socialists that reside in the Congress of the United States, and of course, they're all democrats! God forbid that we have health care for all of our citizens, that would be downright un-American by God! Hey, like the article link says, I've got mine, to hell with the rest of you!

Seriously though, if my taxes go up, by just a little bit, to help provide health insurance to my fellow citizens who don't have it, I'm all for it. Really. I think it could be one small thing that I could do for my country, and my fellow citizens that could make a better country for ALL of us.

These last few weeks have been silly. I thought republicans, and their talking mouthpieces on the radio and TV were bad during the Clinton years, but folks, they have gone off of the rails. Just this week, as mentioned above, we had conservatives (including lawmakers) talking about how the health plan reform would euthanize senior citizens, and then we have the "birthers", the growing number of conservatives who honestly believe that Obama is NOT a citizen of the United States (not a natural born citizen) even though he was born in Hawaii, and the government of Hawaii has said, repeatedly that he was born there. Then we have Glenn Beck calling Obama a racist, and that he doesn't like white people (forgetting of course that he is half white, so he must slap himself every morning when he wakes up). And so on, and so forth. Damn, we're only 6 months into his first of second terms, and we're already getting the crazy shit. I know that this is a strawman argument, but think, just THINK if a liberal commentator had called Bush a racist. Think about what happened when Kanye West said something to that effect, the conservatives went fucking NUTS! Think about what happened when the Dixie Chicks said that they didn't like George Bush, the conservatives went FUCKING NUTS! And, most country stations wouldn't play their music, being good patriotic Americans that they are.

All of a sudden, even in the absence of evidence, a mainstream conservative commentator calls Obama a racist, and everyone is OK with this? We have Lou Dobbs calling for Obama to show his birth certificate, because there are "questions" about where he was born (bear in mind, this was actually put to rest almost a year ago when this first came up by Hawaii, and Obama himself), and that's somehow OK? That's a legit question? It smells folks, it freakin' smells of racism to me, especially coming from Lou Dobbs, king of TV racists (see his past tirades about illegal immigrants for good examples of how he hates people of color). Throw in, again, people like Glenn Beck advocating for the overthrow of the democratically elected government of the United States, and that's OK?

We need to call these assholes out for the misinformation, and outright lies that they sow on a daily basis. They'll cry about censorship (it's not), they'll cry about freedom of speech (it's not a freedom of speech issue), but it needs to be done. Honestly, I'd be just as angry if folks were doing this to a republican President, but since the media is in the pocket of the conservatives, this would never happen.

Quote of the week...

In what was no doubt, at least for me, the quote of the week, here we have John Boehner (being from Ohio how does this guy have a perma-tan anyway??), minority leader Congressman from Ohio stating the following on the floor of the House about democrats wanting to, you know, actually look into this FISA bill update that will allow the US Government to spy on its own citizens without a warrant:

"We will not stand here and watch this floor be abused for pure political grandstanding at the expense of our national security,"

John, of course you're going to stand there and watch it. Why? Because you've done far worse on the floor of the same House than these guys are doing. Here we have the democrats, who unlike in the Senate, are looking into this bill. Exploring it. Reading it. Looking at the information behind it, and then they'll address. This is something that doesn't need to be taken lightly, since indeed it is essentially about allowing the federal government to wiretap our phones, and read our e-mails without getting a warrant, as is required by that whole, you know, Constitution thing that resides in the National Archives in Washington DC and all. Of course Boehner forgets about national security back in the days when he and his cohorts were busy trying to oust Bill Clinton from the presidency for having the audacity of being a democrat in the White House and in the Presidency. Because, remember, back when Clinton was going through his impeachment, he was also trying to kill Osama Bin Laden, except at that time, the republicans in Congress were complaining that what Clinton was doing was trying to "wag the dog", referencing a movie of the same name that showed a President embroiled in scandal who created a war in order to take the emphasis off of his scandal. We know now that Clinton was not making this up, but at the time, there sure were a lot of republicans who didn't know what Bin Laden was about, and didn't care. They were busy ignoring their Constitutional duties to try and take down a sitting President. But hey, let's make sure we allow Bush and his boys to spy on Americans without having the proper warrant. Never you mind that the FISA laws already provide for this. Bush keeps saying that democrats are making American "less safe" by not passing the bill that he wants, and how he wants it. Good lord, when are democrats in Congress going to stand up to this 30 percenter and put their foot down? Apparently, never.

Look, FISA already provides for the allowance to wiretap and intercept communications for up to 72 hours before you actually need to get a warrant. There is a special secret court that can be called into session literally at any time to get warrants issued for this purpose as well. And since FISA was established the court has denied warrants I think a total of 2 or 3 times total, out of thousands that were requested. Are you trying to tell me that our government doesn't have the ability it already needs to legally pursue people? Bush talks about how they need more latitude to pursue the bad people, but of course, they can't provide examples of where some sort of immediacy has prevented anything from happening, and something that the 72 hour part of the law wouldn't have covered. And, this is the kicker. The Bush administration also wants immunity for the telecommunications companies who did these wiretaps to prevent people from suing them for infringement of their privacy, and that's the whole sticking point right now. Hello? I would imagine that these large companies would have, you know, rather large and well paid legal departments. How is it not possible that their lawyers didn't tell them that indeed, you shouldn't do wiretaps without a warrant. The laws are pretty simple that way. No warrant, no wiretap, or e-mail. I often also wonder aloud what the reaction would be of republicans currently in Congress if say, Al Gore were President and was asking for this to happen. You can be sure that they would be screaming bloody murder, and we'd have another impeachment on our hands for crimes against the Constitution, in which case, they'd be right. I don't want ANY President, or government agency to be able to wiretap AMERICAN citizens without a warrant. It flies in the face of what we're supposed to stand for. Doesn't it? How many times does this current administration have to step on our rights, and our laws before they're called out on it?

The Bush administration is smug, and sound in their reasoning that they can pretty much do whatever they want, and Congress isn't going to do a damn thing about it. Look at Congress now. As I said before, George W. Bush has little to no support within the country as a whole, and the WORLD as a whole, and yet, the democrats in both the Senate and the House keep rolling over and giving the Chimp in Chief whatever he wants. He wags his finger, calls democrats terrorist supporters and sympathizers, and then they give him exactly what he wants. What a joke. And then you have the minority party in the Senate, the republicans, who have held up literally every single piece of legislation that the republicans didn't bring themselves into that hallowed chamber, and or didn't like, and nobody calls them obstructionists, when in fact, they have obstructed, or stopped more legislation than any other Congress before them. Look, democrats, time to get tough, take a stand, and start leading, instead of letting Bush and his buddies continue to do whatever it is they want. Stop being such pansies for Christ's sake. Do something to show us that you want to actually lead, and that you actually care about this country, its laws, and its Constitution, because so far since you took back the House and the Senate, we haven't seen it.

Hey, Republicans...

Guys, for the love of God, stop trying to "out-Reagan" each other. Do you really want to be tied back to a senile own man, through the admissions of his most trusted staff basically told the world that as a President, he didn't know what the hell was going on most of the time during his 2 administrations? Do you really want to be tied back to a man who supported death squads in South American countries for years on end? Do you really want to be tied back to a man who sold weapons to terrorists, and Iran? Do you really want to be tied back to a man who sold WMDs to Saddam? And the list would and does go on, and on, and on about Reagan's foibles, and his insane amount of mistakes. Did Reagan take down the Soviet Union? In all reality, no, not really, nothing he did brought that about, but he gets "credit" for it because he was in office when the nation started freefalling. I wonder if 20 years from now George W. Bush will be viewed in a similar light? Hell, I hope not. Old President 43 has done possibly even worse things than Reagan.

Who's the obstructionist again???

Think back if you will a couple or few years ago. There was a battle going on within the Senate over some of George W. Bush's judicial nominees. It seems that even though the Senate had confirmed a record number of judicial nominees for Bush since he took office in January of 2001, there were just a few more that he wanted in judgeships that were so out of what with mainstream America, the democrats in the Senate finally found what was left of their spine and put the smack down on the last handful of nominees. I think there were maybe between 5-10. This sent their republican comrades in the Senate into a tither. There was talk of a so called "nuclear option" which would change the rules of the Senate so that the republicans could basically ignore the filibuster that the democrats were throwing up, and force through Bush's nominees. The democrats were called obstructionists by the republicans, and Bush was yipping and yelling about this whole business as if the fate of the world depended on it. He was calling for the democrats to allow for an "up or down" vote on his nominees, which he knew would mean that they would be confirmed because the republicans still controlled the majority in the Senate. 

Anyway, with that little background information, take a look at this link here. Turns out, basically the same republicans that were yelling and screaming about the democrats being obstructionists have indeed become the masters of it themselves. Since they have filibustered the most legislation EVER in the history of the United States Congress, I think a round of applause is due to them, since now they have become the largest hypocrites (yet again) in the known Universe. The thing about it though, is not that they're using the filibuster. No, that is their right to do that in the Senate, that is how the minority party can control, and or how the minority party can have some influence on the proceedings. I'm not mad at them for that, or for how many times they use it. What really pisses me off, and takes the wind out of my sails is HOW this is portrayed, a majority of the time, within the media itself. Think back, democrats were obstructionists, and not doing the will of the people who had elected the President, and they were not confirming his nominees and were holding up some pieces of legislation. Look at the stories about Congress now, and stalled legislation. All of a sudden, it's not that the republicans are the all time leaders of obstructionism and use of the filibuster. Oh no. The stories read along the lines of how the democrats can't get anything done in Congress, and how the democrats are not doing what they promised when they took office and the majority back in 2006. Once again, the media are ignoring, and or are not reporting completely on WHY the democrats can't get anything done. That's what really makes me mad about this whole thing. It's not that republicans are hypocrites, we know that a lot of them are, and that is clearly shown a lot these days. And it's not that they're using this tool of the filibuster. It's how the media is reporting it that makes me really mad.

What Harry Reid should do, instead of just letting the republicans say, "You can't get cloture on this because you can't get 60 votes, so let's just drop it." What Harry Reid should do is actually make the republicans do a proper filibuster. Meaning long nights on the floor. Cots, long books, and things like that. I think if they actually made them do what they're supposed to do with a filibuster, then there is a good chance that they wouldn't do as many of them as they have been doing, and would show the people of the United States who is actually holding up what in Congress, and specifically the Senate. Of course, for some reason the democrats won't do this, and won't go running to the press talking about republican obstructionism like they should be, and for some reason, they just don't do it. I don't know why. If the shoe was still on the other foot, you can be sure that the republicans would be no holds barred, and would be blabbing about this all over the place. Harry Reid and the rest of the Senate democrats don't owe their republican friends in the Senate anything, they should toss them under the bus as soon as possible. 

The other thing that they need to do is when Bush threatens to veto something that they actually can get passed in the Senate and in the House, then they need to keep sending that same bill for him to sign, and make HIM the bad guy. Don't give in to that 20%-er. I mean, his ratings are so low, why do they keep giving into that guy? I don't get it. They send up a funding bill with timelines for troop withdrawal from Iraq, Bush complains that he wants a "clean" bill and won't sign anything with timelines attached to it, he vetoes, the democrats tuck tail, give him what he wants, and we're still in the same spot. If they kept sending him funding bills that he keeps vetoing, then it is going to be Bush's fault that the troops aren't funded properly, not the Congress'. My friends the democrats in the Senate and the House need to start being a little more hard core, and a little more venomous towards their counterparts, because again, it wasn't so long ago that republicans were accusing democrats of supporting terrorists, and "emboldening" terrorists, because they were speaking out against some of the things that Bush was doing. Take off the gloves girls and boys, and start punching. We're waiting for it, and we're tired of waiting for you to stand up to Bush.

Really too good to NOT post...

This is really too good to not stick up here.

This is why I think that this comic is too good to not place it up here. If you read through it, and see what these comic characters are saying, it makes me chuckle. It makes me chuckle, because taking arguments from republicans sort of out of context, and placing them in a comic strip makes them sound even more insane than they really are in the real world, and yet, we have the republican candidates, and essentially the President of the United States saying these things about the Democratic party. It drives me nuts. They paint us as un-American, troop hating, and in some cases, treasonous, because you know, we might want the President to follow the Constitution and silly little things like that. And apparently, as I've been told about a million times on political commentary boards that I sometimes write on, and place comments on, if you hate George W. Bush, you're un-American, and you hate America. No, seriously, this is what people have told me before. Crazed right wingers of course, part of that 30% of the country who actually think W is doing a hell of a job out there. It makes my head spin really. 

The best medicine for all of that is going to be when Hillary gets elected President of the US. I can't wait for that to happen, mostly because the right wing attack machine will fall all over itself trying to slander her, and find anything, and I do mean anything, that they can take her down with. You guys think it was bad when Bill was President, wait until Hillary is elected. Holy shit. I don't even like Hillary, and don't want her to be the democratic nominee for President, but if she does become the nominee, and if she wins, I am going to sit back, and grin. Mostly because it is the Republican party's worst nightmare, absolute worst nightmare if she gets into the White House. I think that she can do the job, no doubt about it, and she'll have some pretty good experience waiting for her in the Lincoln Bedroom every night, and someone that can provide some sage advice, having been there before, but I really wish we could get that little leprechaun Dennis Kucinich elected to be President. Man, that would make my day. I'd also love to see Russ Feingold become President, but he declined to run this year. I am constantly impressed by Russ Feingold's actions as a Senator from the great State of Wisconsin. They're lucky to have him there, and I hope that they know this.

What was I saying again? Oh yeah, the cartoon. Tom Tomorrow is a great one for progressives. If you're a right winger, the humor will no doubt go way over your head. I recommend that you check them out though.