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Stopping Health Care Bill has no Moral High Ground

Jan 12th, 2010
by Tom.
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Re: Senate Health Care Battlefield Found In Massachusetts Race To Replace Kennedy, GLEN JOHNSON and LIZ SIDOTI | 01/12/10 10:21 AM |AP

BOSTON — The race to succeed the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy has turned into a proxy battle over the fate of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.

A once-pedestrian contest between Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Scott Brown has coarsened with a week to go, as the two have cast themselves as custodians of the pivotal Senate vote to determine the bill’s fate.

“As the 41st senator, I can stop it,” Brown said last week during a debate, highlighting his potential to be the breakthrough Senate vote that upholds a GOP filibuster. While he opposes the bill, the state senator voted in 2006 in favor of a Massachusetts universal health care bill that has largely been the model for the Obama legislation.

The party of NO. The party of increased insurance control over your health care.

Brown says “I can stop it”. Go ahead. Stop it. Let the insurance companies continue to abuse sick consumers. Brown wishes for congratulations for stopping health care reform.

The insurance company won’t pay the bills. Congratulations Brown. Work-a-day folks cheer for Brown. Everything is fine until they have to file a claim on their insurance. Then it all starts. The phone calls and visits to the insurance offices to fight for another penny from them.

The Republicans are morally wrong on this issue. 

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The AP Thinks Legislation Requires 60 Votes

Nov 29th, 2009
by Tom.
1 comment

Re: Senate Opens Health Care Debate: Dem Coalition Fracturing Already, by RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR | 11/29/09 10:51 AM | AP

(snip) Reid wants to finish by Christmas; he may not get to.

He’s hoping that Democrats will stick together on procedural matters, where Senate rules require 60 votes to advance. That would allow for different views to be heard on the underlying questions. But such an accommodation might not always be possible.

Senate rules require 60 votes to advance? No, Republicans require 60 votes to advance. There would be no requirement for 60 votes on a cloture vote to end debate if Republicans do not filibuster. The fault here lies with the obstructionist Republicans standing in the way. The fault is not a fractured Democratic Party. The AP writer goes on to say:

For example, the National Right to Life to Committee says unless there are big changes, it will count the procedural motion to allow a final up-or-down vote on the legislation as tantamount to a vote on abortion.

Who gives a f**k about what the National Right to Life to Committee says? They can’t vote on the floor of the Senate. That’s no more of a threat than any other lobby has attempted. Remember the study heralded by AHIP last October that they commissioned from Price Waterhouse Coopers about what the Senate bill would do to premium prices? Remember how PWC backed away and leaked it out that AHIP had asked for a study on only certain parts of the bill? Well, This National Right to Life has no more claim on this bill than AHIP.

This is just wild hair-on-fire speculation propelled by the often right-wing slant from the Associated Press. The AP needs to go back to civics class. Sixty votes is only necessary on a cloture vote if there is a filibuster on moving to the vote for passage. If the Obstructionist Republicans, the party of no, would do what is right for America, we would not be concerned with 60 votes.

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Thank The Troops By Bringing Them Home

Nov 28th, 2009
by Tom.
1 comment

Re:  Jon Soltz: Thanks… Again And Again And Again, Posted by Jon Soltz, Co-Founder of VoteVets.org, served as a Captain in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Posted: November 26, 2009 08:22 AM

End the wars

Jon was speaking of the many TV commercials Thursday, Thanksgiving day that thanked the troops.

At the same time, I can’t help but think that some young grunt is watching these videos for maybe the fourth or fifth time from a TV that the USO set up in the warzone. And, while he’ll strap on his rifle and go whenever called, part of him is thinking “How many more Thanksgivings am I going to have to watch these videos from over here? If you want to thank me, let me eat some turkey at home. Let me see my girlfriend and parents and friends for more than just short stints at home. Don’t you have someone who can rotate in here for me so I can stop doing these tours for a while?”

This is my point in my previous post, It’s President Obama, Not McCain, or McMorris Rodgers, I stated:

We have been undulated with calls to help military families since Bush led the invasion of Afghanistan back in 2001, and then turned the nation toward a straw bogy-man, illegally, in Iraq. I support helping military families being a veteran myself, an Army retiree, and with a service member in our family who completed a tour in Iraq a short time ago. But, this smacks of wrapping a political agenda inside the flag. She says nothing about the deep scars that may be left for decades to come inside our military and their families due to continual wars that were began by the right-wing and the repetitive rotations in and out of the theater of operations. Yes, let’s support them while they are called up once again and let’s enable them to be called over and over because of that support.

The point is that it is starting to sound more like McCarthyism-type raving and not as sincere as in years past. It is almost like a futuristic movie where “Big Brother” propaganda continually plays on huge TV screens at city street intersections, “Thank the Troops, Thank the Troops”. What is really meant is “Support the War, Support the War”.

This propaganda campaign is very effective at delaying the end and subsequently ensuring more profits for arms manufacturers. The more we support and thank the troops publically, the more we propel the propaganda and enable even more war. There should be commercials on TV during Thanksgiving Day football that states, let’s really help the troops and end the war. Soltz was appreciative of the good wishes for the troops, but added, “But at a certain point, for those there for yet another holiday, the thanks start to ring a bit more hollow.”

We need to hurry and get to an end state that can be an acceptable/tolerable status quo, then leave both Afghanistan and Iraq for good. It is time we get fed up with war.

Get hold of your State’s Congressional delegation and tell them to bring our boys and girls home. Give them some rest and relaxation. Our forces are stretched to the breaking point. If something happened on our mainland, there would not be sufficient forces to deal with that contingency. Let them defend our country from here – a strategic military maneuver.

If you really want to thank the troops, then end the war.

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