The Republicans Are Such Vermin

Michael Steele, the head of the dysfunctional Republican party, now says the Democrats are "flipping the bird" at the American people by passing health care reform legislation.

Of course we know what the Republicans want to be accomplished: NOTHING. Got that? A big fat goose egg is what they would prefer, not just on this issue but every issue. And that's God's honest truth.

Why do they want it that way? So they can stand back and crow, "The Democrats didn't get anything accomplished!"

So, yes, probably to this bozo and his band of bozos, getting something passed is very bad news indeed.

But as to "flipping the bird" at the American people, he might go back and revisit the election of 2008. It was big news at the time. In that election, more Democrats were elected. In that election, a Democratic president was elected. And in that election, one of the campaign themes and campaign promises was health care reform. By enacting health care reform, it is a fulfillment of what we voted for.

"Flipping the bird" at the American people would be to know that's what we voted for it and to seek to deny us getting it. Which, as we know from the last several months, is precisely what the Republicans have done.

The Republicans are despicable vermin.

Ignore The Republicans

The Republicans are just so full of crap.

They know that health care reform is likely to pass, so they're going to stand in the way as much as they can, to trip it up, with their overall purpose being to undercut President Obama.

That's it. That's all they're for. They're not for a positive difference. They're not for doing things in a responsible way. They're not on the side of the American people. All they want to do is stand in the way and lie as much as possible, hoping they can kick up enough dust that no one will be want what the Democrats have been working on.

Partisanship at its worst ... is all the Republicans can manage.

How about this quote:

Republicans are demanding a deceleration of the process and moving to define whatever plan that emerges as a combination of Medicare cuts, tax increases, higher insurance premiums and rising overall costs.

They are going to define WHATEVER plan emerges as this, that, and the other thing.

How is it that these tactics aren't transparent to 100% of the American people?

Senator Snowe's Aye Vote

I don't know if the health care reform bill the Senate's working on is any good. I'm actually lost in the details and am relying simply on crossing my fingers to hope that we get something decent.

But it appears to be a step in the right direction at least. And today it got Sen. Olympia Snowe's vote, making it truly a "bipartisan" vote -- even if it's as slim as her one vote.

The real story in all this should be the Republicans' continued intransigence on anything that might benefit the American people. The Party of No. We need to bring back the concept of shame, then shame these guys all the way to the gates of hell.

There's no one else I can think of, as a group, who are is as consistently worthless as the Republican party. They don't believe government can do anything positive, yet they feel they ought to serve in the government. Those two truths guarantee failure. Kick them out!

Now there are calls to punish Sen. Snowe by denying her some committee chair. And of course there are calls (wingnuts on message boards) to kick her out of the GOP. I wish they would kick her out. She ought to be a Democrat anyway. The Republican party isn't worth serving.

"I Will Protect Medicare"

President Barack Obama said these important words tonight, "I will protect Medicare."

And the Republicans sat on their hands. Take note, senior citizens of America, and anyone who hopes to be a senior citizen someday: The Republicans sat on their hands.

The Republicans showed in that one moment, if it hasn't been crystal clear all these many years, that they hate Medicare and are determined to do away with it.

We cannot let the Republicans get their greedy paws on Medicare. They cannot be trusted.

The Absurdity Of Health Insurance

Just got a letter today about my health insurance. It's the same letter we get every year about this time. And it's always got the same message. Whatever deductibles there are are going up, whatever co-pay you have it going up, and, by the way, your premiums are going up too.

Every year like clockwork.

The fact is we need health care reform, insurance reform, and we need it now. This is so absurd. Just because time has passed, another year, our benefits have to go down and our cost has to go up. It happened last year, the year before, every year that I can remember. So what are we looking forward to next year about this time? The same absurd situation.

We already have such a high co-pay on medicine that it's usually more cost effective to buy the drug outright with cash and bypass the insurance company all together. Yet we continue to pay premiums for the right to say we have prescription benefits. As far as I know, they would gladly accept our larger co-pay for medicine they sell online for medicine we can buy locally a lot cheaper.

So it's an absurd situation. One the Republicans want us to stay in. A cycle of paying more and getting less, ad infinitum, I guess until we're paying out 100% of our income and getting 0 benefits. Which we of course couldn't do. But there doesn't seem to be any ceiling in sight on the costs or any floor in sight on the reduction in benefits.

We need ... We must have some kind of common sense reform. This great country shouldn't have such a screwed up system of health care. It's crazy.

Amen To Joe The Nerd Ferraro

I want President Obama to clunk some heads. The Republicans, if he can. But I'm talking about the Democrats, because he must.

I'm a Democrat and I am sick practically to death that the Democrats are not seizing this moment to get some great Democratic things done. Oh no, it wasn't enough to get a Democratic majority. We do that and what do we find, we have a whole wing of the Democratic party who are Republicans in Democratic clothes. Good grief!

I want someone to put the squeeze on them. Play hardball. Break their political kneecaps if that's what you have to do. Put their political manhood in a vise and do some crunching. Let them know if they betray us it will be the last time they dare do so! Something like that. I want a party with some discipline. You either go along with the principles of this party or we'll find someone who does.

Away with Max Baucus! Away with Joe Lieberman! Away with Ben Nelson! If we're going to have a Republican senator from Nebraska anyway we may as well have a Republican senator!

I like this comment by Joe the Nerd Ferraro, speaking of President Obama's health care speech coming up Wednesday night:

I want the low growl that says we are going to get this done. I want to hear an attitude that says, “Any Democrat stepping out of line at this point is done. Not because I say so, but because every person who worked for me last year will be ticked off. Do you seriously think any volunteer will work for you next year if this opportunity is squandered?”

Amen to that! "Any Democrat stepping out of line at this point is done." You got that?

Bipartisanship

I wouldn't have trusted the Republicans from day one ... and I didn't.

Anyone who trusts them to put forth a bipartisan effort on something that would help the Democrats (responsible healthcare legislation) is a fool. After all they've done and said, after all the yakking of the right wing talking heads, after all the crazy teabaggery, after even assassins showing up at the president's events, you're still expecting the Republicans to put forth a good faith effort?

If you think anything remotely like that, I understand the Optimist Club is always looking for new members.

Personally, I'm a member of the Lion's Club. I think we need to rage on the Republicans with the full force of a lion, and maybe take a bite out of their rear flank for good measure. There's nothing more disgusting to me these days than the Republican party. And I'm adding some of our Democrats In Name Only (Ben Nelson, Max Baucus, etc.) to that group.

Krugman Nails It

Paul Krugman nails it today in his column, "Republican Death Trip." Speaking of the right-wingers and their despicable lies and distortions about President Obama and health care reform, he says,

This opposition cannot be appeased.

That's exactly true. And I have to hope that President Obama knows what he's doing in continuing his dance with the extremists, including supposed "centrist," Charles Grassley. These people are stabbing him in the back. Like it or not, there's no bipartisan heaven just up the road.

The time for kicking ass has come. President Obama has the power to do it if he chooses.

But, as Krugman says,

What’s still missing, however, is a sense of passion and outrage — passion for the goal of ensuring that every American gets the health care he or she needs, outrage at the lies and fear-mongering that are being used to block that goal.

Please, please, please, Mr. President. Take these despicable Republicans down. And get the job done for the American people.

You wanted to be president to bring "change we can believe in." You're there ... Now do it!

Arlen Specter's Townhall Meeting - The Real Dope

I only saw the 3 minute snippet of Sen. Arlen Specter's townhall meeting. Of some dope who stood up and railed at him for being corrupt, having cronies, etc.

And as much as I can't stand Sen. Specter, and hope he loses in the Pennsylvania primary, at least he let the old fart speak his mind. Of course it turned out he didn't have much on his mind, just a lot of generalized griping. But the guy got to leave of his own freewill, so that was something.

Try that at a Republican rally, by the way. He wouldn't have gotten in in the first place, like the old Bush rallies. Even if he had a T-shirt that seemed anti-Bush, or even a bumper sticker on his car in the parking lot(!) he would've been ushered out or excluded. (And these are the loudmouths these days complaining the most about access to their representatives.) And as for speaking his mind -- which he did -- the Republicans would've drowned him out with "USA! USA! USA!" That's how much they believe in free speech.

Now, in addition, we have some clown -- excuse the language, actual clowns -- who thought it'd be a good idea, something allowable, to take a gun to see President Obama speak. A gun! I don't remember that policy in the Bush years either, for all their crowing about Second Amendment rights.

The short story is this, cut to the chase. These people are rabble, hooligans, and obviously very selective in their outrage. Bush was overtly -- with malice -- trying to trample people's rights and they didn't let out a peep.