Kerfuffle

The GOP would like to toss these folks a brick. Nice.

Editorial cartoon by Nick Anderson for the Houston Chronicle.

[h/t Yikes!]

There are a lot of people who simply can't wait much longer for a public option

People against what they call "socialized medicine" and a "government takeover of health care" seem to either not know, not understand, or not care that there are a lot of people (including me) who cannot get insurance, or have certain parts of coverage denied due to pre-exisitng conditions.

To those who don't know:  Climb out from under whatever rock you are living.

To those who don't understand:  Educate yourself.  Reach out to people not like you who have different lives, and talk to them so you can understand that not everyone without insurance is some kind of lazy bum or otherwise less-than-human.  Read.  

To those who just don't care:  How can you sleep at night?  I mean, really.  So many people aligned with the conservative right in this country only see health care as a privilege that you get if you can afford it... like a new car.  Can't afford health care?  Tough.  And yet, they are the same who talked of death panels with great authority, choosing not to acknowledge that CIGNA and United Health Care give out death sentences every day in our current system.  Oddly, these people claim to be "Christians" while espousing this point of view.  How very unChristlike. 

Of course, not everyone of the Democratic side is happy either.  Evidence this email sent in reply to the person who sent around the video shown above:

"With the news that some in the White House are considering a "trigger"—a delay tactic designed to kill the public option—it's more important than ever to get the word out that we simply can't afford to wait for real reform."
 
It could be you or me without health care one day indeed. There but for the grace of god...
 
Oh, MAN. Therese, I just can't take this anymore. OBAMA IS THE SINGLE GREATEST DISSAPOINTMENT IN MY POLITICAL LIFE. Does anyone else I've CC'd feel the same? It's not just on gay issues, it's on everything. It boils down to this: Why is he in ANY way "negotiating" or "compromising"? The Democrats control the legislative and executive branches of our government. He was elected to do the things he promised, like health care for all. And he's worried about the fringe Republican minority?! He's been letting the Republicans frame the debate over health care, and other issues, when he, IF HE WERE A TRUE LEADER, should be defining the debate and not compromising for anyone. "Change you can believe in"? What an asshole. He is just another spineless Democrat who doesn't know how to govern and is a pussy when it comes to leading. Obama is nothing but the grandest political disapointment in modern American history. If he does health care reform without a public option, it's not health care reform at all, and the Republicans will have won.
 
I'll say this for the worst president in our history, GEORGE W. BUSH. He had an agenda and he got everything he wanted done. And he did so with a DEMOCRAT-CONTROLLED LEGISLATURE! The spineless Democrats, as always. Bush did not compromiose and he got everything he wanted. I don't agree with Bush, OF COURSE, but my point is he led and did everything he wanted to do. Why the hell can't Obama do the same? I'll tell you why, because he is a FUCKING PIECE-OF-SHIT SPINELESS DEMOCRAT FUCK. Democrats, suck.
 
And now I'm back to being unable to watch the news. I had to stop watching the news during the Bush presidency because I got so steamed it threatened my mental health. And now I can't watch the news because of the tiny little decaying Republican party controlling the debate on every issue and the limp Obama exercising his FETISH FOR COMPROMISE. He's not going to get anything done unless he turns into LBJ and starts smashing some Democrats' heads. Obama is a piece of shit.

People are dying around us for lack of health care... in the United States of America... land of yellow "Support our Troops" magnetic ribbons., as if we are some Third World contry  People who supported the Democrats in general and Barack Obama in particular are very unhappy.  And nothing changes.

As I've said before, we are, indeed, doomed.  So party on while you can.

Remember when Republicans and their media pals blamed the stock market on President Obama's policies? Good thing we have Tivo!

Now that the stock market has cracked 9000 for the first time since January, and is up about 2000 points since Obama took office, I'm waiting for our Republican leaders, pundits and media hangers-on to credit the President with this economic rebound.

Memory needing a refresh?  Let's go to the video from Jed at DKTV...

What's that sound?  Crickets perhaps.  I'd like to think a lot of things make the market go up and down.  But since the geniuses who were in power when the economy tanked saw fit to blame the new guy for what the market did as soon as he was in office, is it not fair that they also credit him with the rebound?

Ah, the politics of the Party of No.

How nice it was to see a high level of intellect restored to the Presidency last night

Like him or not, you have to agree that President Obama is everything President Bush the latter was not in terms of intellectual prowess.  Our new president delivered a speech that was inspiring, hopeful and grounded in fact.  The level of intellectual honesty was plainly evident. 

One stark contrast could be seen in how President Obama chose not to wallow in applause lines.  While he tallied maybe 60 applause breaks, he stepped on many by continuing to speak.  He didn't just stand there with a smirky look on his face basking in adulation from the faithful.  I'd say that is partly because President Obama is not the egotist Bush was, and also that Obama truly felt what he was saying whereas Bush was just reading what they gave him.

Also refreshing was hearing the English language spoken with skill in both use and pronunciation.  Some may thing that's not a big deal.  But it is a big deal, as this is the face of the United States to the world.  Given that most thinking people of the world loathed U.S. policy under George W. Bush, the fact that he spoke with all of the skill of an uneducated rube certainly did him -- and the United States -- no favors. A comparison of Obama to his most recent predesessor is like comparing Macallen 18 single malt scotch to a case of Milwaukee's Best... the light version.

President Obama should probably send Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal a nice bottle of wine or something.  The stark contrast between President Obama's oratory skills and Governor Jindal's completely disconnected talking points and Kenneth the NBC Page delivery only served to remind people how lucky we are to have Barack Obama as President of the United States.

Obama's WaPo OpEd: "The Action Americans Need"

Under the byline "By Barack Obama," this appeared on page A17 of today's Washington Post:

By now, it's clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression. Millions of jobs that Americans relied on just a year ago are gone; millions more of the nest eggs families worked so hard to build have vanished. People everywhere are worried about what tomorrow will bring.

What Americans expect from Washington is action that matches the urgency they feel in their daily lives -- action that's swift, bold and wise enough for us to climb out of this crisis.

Because each day we wait to begin the work of turning our economy around, more people lose their jobs, their savings and their homes. And if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.

That's why I feel such a sense of urgency about the recovery plan before Congress. With it, we will create or save more than 3 million jobs over the next two years, provide immediate tax relief to 95 percent of American workers, ignite spending by businesses and consumers alike, and take steps to strengthen our country for years to come.

This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending -- it's a strategy for America's long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, health care and education. And it's a strategy that will be implemented with unprecedented transparency and accountability, so Americans know where their tax dollars are going and how they are being spent.

In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis -- the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We've seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.

Every day, our economy gets sicker -- and the time for a remedy that puts Americans back to work, jump-starts our economy and invests in lasting growth is now.

Now is the time to protect health insurance for the more than 8 million Americans at risk of losing their coverage and to computerize the health-care records of every American within five years, saving billions of dollars and countless lives in the process.

Now is the time to save billions by making 2 million homes and 75 percent of federal buildings more energy-efficient, and to double our capacity to generate alternative sources of energy within three years.

Now is the time to give our children every advantage they need to compete by upgrading 10,000 schools with state-of-the-art classrooms, libraries and labs; by training our teachers in math and science; and by bringing the dream of a college education within reach for millions of Americans.

And now is the time to create the jobs that remake America for the 21st century by rebuilding aging roads, bridges and levees; designing a smart electrical grid; and connecting every corner of the country to the information superhighway.

These are the actions Americans expect us to take without delay. They're patient enough to know that our economic recovery will be measured in years, not months. But they have no patience for the same old partisan gridlock that stands in the way of action while our economy continues to slide.

So we have a choice to make. We can once again let Washington's bad habits stand in the way of progress. Or we can pull together and say that in America, our destiny isn't written for us but by us. We can place good ideas ahead of old ideological battles, and a sense of purpose above the same narrow partisanship. We can act boldly to turn crisis into opportunity and, together, write the next great chapter in our history and meet the test of our time.

The writer is president of the United States.

[Apologies to the Washington Post for violating the Fair Use Doctrine by lifting the entire thing this one time.  Please don't sue me.]

Yes. Yes we can. Damn right.

Congratulations, Mr. President. 

Finally.

Of politicians, babies, and pictures being worth a thousand words

As noted over at Jed at DK, this is from an e-mail spaming its way all over the place right now.

And...

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wait for it...

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I join Sir Jed in laudatory praise for whoever got this going.