Health Care Reform Passes.

I wanted to write and share the great news I am sure you have already heard. Health care reform is law. This is a historical day for our country. No longer can the insurance companies abuse the citizens of this nation for profit. This has essentially been the point of the entire health care battle.

For far too long have the Insurance companies been allowed to drop coverage for getting sick. For far too long they have been able to exclude people from coverage for being born sick. 32 million more people will have insurance coverage. This is not a government take over of health care. It is a government fix to a huge budgetary and public health problem facing the people of this nation. This reform saves the government 138 billion dollars over ten years, and $1.2 trillion over 20 years according to the non partisan Congressional Budgeting Office. This bill also helps seniors on Medicare who will now pay less for prescriptions with the closing of the donut hole gap in coverage. Seniors will now have preventative care at no cost to them with Medicare. This bill provides significant tax breaks for small businesses that provide health insurance for their employees. This reform is expected to create 2.5 million jobs over ten years due to reduction of health care costs to businesses.

This battle for health care has shown just how dysfunctional and powerful the special interest have become, and how entrenched they have become in Washington. The Republicans and some Democrats have been absolute obstructionists simply for political purposes. Many are well paid by health insurance and other special interests. They were elected to do the work of the people. Yet they chose to vote no. They chose to let another 45,000 people die this year due to a lack of health coverage. The chose to let millions more live one illness away from bankruptcy. They chose to support insurance company profits over their constituents well being. Fortunately 60 Senators and 219 Representatives had the courage to pass this reform.

The Republicans continued to drag their feet in the Senate, using more stall tactics to slow the reconciliation bill of fixes that the House of Representatives demanded from the Senate in order to pass the Senates bill. It is an exercise in futility. Many are now vowing repeal. There are several state attorney generals that are suing merely to score political points from their far right base. Again an exercise in futility. By some accounts, this bill that passed is more conservative than the compromise bill the Republicans offered in 1994 during Bill Clinton's try at health care reform, and the one that Nixon tried to get passed in his first term. My thought is that if one has an employee that refuses to do their job, one fires them. It is time for these obstructionists to be voted out of office.

There is a small minority on the far right fringe of American politics, who is being extremely vocal and violent and they are being whipped up by these same far right politicians as well as media personalities like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. Since health care reform passed a number of offices of Democrats around the country have been vandalized by wing nuts who think they speak for the rest of us. Things are likely to get ugly over the next few months as these wing-nuts gear up for their "revolution." It is my belief that we will see more acts of domestic terrorism over the next few months. April 19th is especially significant in American history. April 19, 1775 beheld the battle of Lexington and Concord, the first battle of the American Revolution. This also the day of the tragedy in Waco in 1993. It was also April 19, 1995 when Timothy McVey bombed The Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

I ask my friends who are on the right of the political spectrum, please do not endorse this insanity. Form a new party. Those who are left in Washington want only one thing. Absolute dictatorial theocratic power. They care not for the American people nor those of you who voted for them. They care about the hundreds of thousands of dollars they get from special interests. They care about holding on to power, despite scandal, and criminal behavior. The entire Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee has been subpoenaed in a possible election fraud case involving Nevada Senator John Ensign and possibly others. The Republican Party is dying. We need those on the right in the dialog of American politics. What we don't need are those who would seek violence for dislike of our president. We don't need those who would seek violence because their narrow vision for America includes only them. We don't need those who rail against a mostly successful stimulus package and voted against it, but get excited for a campaign photo op at a project in their district funded by stimulus money. It is time for the hypocrisy to leave Washington. Please get involved and bring some moderation to the politics. As an independent voter, a post I saw on Twitter says it best, "Democrats, the party that gets s@%t done."

Next up on the list of Congress-Do's for the American people is financial and corporate reform. It is time to reign in the to big to fail banks and the wall street firms that drove our economy to the brink of depression. Anybody in Congress or other political office needs to hear that you support strong financial regulation and bank reform. It is time they heard from you about supporting the public financing of elections. If we want fair elections we have to pay for them. If we continue we will lose more and more freedom to those who have the money to buy the power. The Supreme Court ruled that corporations have the right of free speech and effectively said that they may spend as much as they like in elections. The corporations do not have our interests in mind. They care only for shareholder profit at whatever expense to people and the environment.

We still have much work to do to take back this country from lobbyist and special interests. We have much work to do to rebuild our infrastructure and refresh our military strength. Our country has been mismanaged by politics for far too long. Health care reform is what the change we voted for looks like. Hopefully we won't have to fight so hard for it on every thing that needs to be done.

Follow this link to read:

10 THINGS EVERY AMERICAN SHOULD KNOW ABOUT HEALTH CARE REFORM



Pass it on.

Have a great day.

For Sale: The American People!

Wow, the Supreme Court just stuck it to the American People today when they ruled that corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money in election campaigns.  The 5-4 decision effectively gave corporations the power to buy Congress.  The court ruled that corporations have the same free speech rights as citizens.  We should all be concerned by this.  The people have been sold to the corporations.  Welcome back feudalism.

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Hot Tea Bagging Action Part II.

It is tax day 2009 and time for the insanity that is the Republican tea parties.  Throwing tea parties in protest over taxes was a good idea in December of 1773 when citizens of Boston dumped three boat loads of tea into Boston Harbor.  They were protesting taxation without representation by a monarchy that was trying to tighten the screws on the American colonists.  

This years tea party has degraded into a protest of juvenile giggling about who is being tea bagged and who is not.  For those not in the know tea bagging is a slang term for placing male genitalia in someones mouth or about someones head often with thrusting back and forth.  

The Republican party has run out of good ideas and political capital.  The Republicans have allowed the far right conservatives to completely hijack the party.  Michael Steel RNC Chairman should have told Rush Blow Bag blow it out his Oxycontin damaged ear.  It disturbs me that there are people who still listen to Rush Limbaugh and take him seriously.

Anyway I hope you have a happy tea bagging day and with that here is some more hot tea bagging action.

Hot Tea Bagging Action in Washington and Across the Nation!

If you haven't seen this it is a brilliant piece about the tea party movement on the right.  They're mad because they lost and now all they can do is teabag Democrats in Congress and President Obama.  FYI Tea bagging is referenced 36 times including one reference to hot tea bagging action.  With out further ado......

Rachel Maddow Brilliantly Mocks GOP 'Teabagging' 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/30145811#30145811

For those who haven't heard the slang term tea bagging click here to look it up.  To my Conservative friends who asked me to have more respect for the Office of the President  when George W. was criminal in chief, I ask you to make to sure you know what you are doing before you tea bag President Obama.