After over a year of Republican obstruction, whopping lies, Halloween type driven fright frenzies, hate fests, death panels, clown shows, biased news coverage, tea parties, Dick Armey and his Freedom Works and other shills for the health insurance industry,the American people will finally be able to realize a long and overdue life line known as health care reform.
Thirty three million Americans will soon be able to afford health insurance coverage.
Wow. What a step forward for a first world country that does third world access to affordable health care.
Unfortunately for Texans the ruling GOP here is totally on board with third world health care.
The Senator from Kentucky blocked extended federal unemployment benefits and Cobra health coverage for the down and out and jobless Americans. Both expired today for millions.
No one in the Senate could reason with the man who is obviously hell bent on a crusade to further punish the struggling and out of work families in his district and across the U.S. Senator Bunning does not care about people in Kentucky. Nor does he care about anyone other than his vile, mean-spirited and narcissistic self.
There is no reason for Senator Bunning to have done this other than spite and pure cold hearted vindictiveness. He is not running for a third term. He chose to retire but he obviously has every intention of heaping as much hell and misery upon the American people as possible until November.
It takes a Texas Republican to go as low as Bunning.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) took the floor after Reid to stick up for Bunning. He noted that there is broad bipartisan support for extending benefits, but said Bunning was right to take a stand against adding $10 billion to the deficit. He also pointed out that the jobs bill that Reid scrapped two weeks ago, crafted by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.), contained an extension of UI and COBRA.
Can someone please tell me why Republicans continue to vote for politicians who so nakedly hate them?
Of course we evil doing liberals know for absolute certain that Republicans would never, ever, hell would have to freeze over,crack down on a scam that rips off people but is good for business.
Houston's conservative readers in Houston did not want to know about the totally screwed temporary but really permanent employees as reported by Rick Casey. With all due respect to Casey, he is not exactly a flaming liberal pinko communist progressive.
Houston area conservatives tore into Casey because they did not like his article.
In response to a comment I had posted on Mr. Casey's online article, a conservative responded with the following.
....as far as jobs and benefits, the unemployment rate has increased dramatically since the Demos took charge of both houses of Congress and Presidency. this is because evil white old white guys, the Chinese who hold our debt and many others are scared of the Demos reckless spending that will soon bankrupt the country.
Hint: This dude watches FOX and listens to Rush.
I wonder where this guy was when then Vice President Dick Cheney said deficits didn't matter and he and Bush stuck an unnecessary war and tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans at the same time, putting all on our national credit card? All of a sudden Republicans are all but hysterical over the deficit. And yet when the Senate introduced a bill proposing a deficit reduction commission 7 Republicans who supported it voted NO when the President said it was a good idea. Talk about political bi-polar disorderly dysfunction syndrome. What is wrong with them?
The truth of the matter is, Democrats are really good at cleaning up Republican made messes. We know what it takes to rebuild a devastated economy and we know how to catch terrorist leaders. The Obama Administration has caught more Taliban terrorist leaders, by the way, in one month than the Bush Administration caught in 6 years. And U.S. troops seized a Taliban headquarters in Afghanistan today. Poor Dick Cheney must have fainted when he learned about this. He is running out of stones to throw at President Obama. So much for Democrats being weak on national security.
Republican lawmakers seem to suffer from a serious case of bi-polar disorder. The Party of No (because they vote NO on every bill in the U.S. Congress that would throw a life line to we the little people) suddenly say YES when major $$$$$$$$$ federal bucks will flow to their districts.
Bringing big bucks to Republican districts pleases both voters and the politician's fat cat donors. Republican lawmakers somehow believe they can vote NO in Washington but take credit for YES results that come from the evil doing Democrats in the U.S. Congress.
I guess Republican lawmakers assume their constituents are both stupid and uninformed.
We have a fresh load of Republican award winning hypocrites who join Senators Hutchison and Cornyn in the GOP Hall of Hypocritical Shame.
All voted against the recovery act but all behave as if they personally delivered stimulus money to their home districts.
• Representative Pete Sessions (TX-32) - Representative Pete Sessions showed his hypocrisy after asking the Obama Administration for three billion in funds for NASA from the economic recovery act, which he voted against. Members of the Texas delegation signed the letter, including two Republican Senators and 19 House Republicans who all voted against the recovery act in February. [Texas delegation wants stimulus money for NASA, Houston Chronicle, 10/5/09]
• Representative Michael McCaul (TX-10) - "I didn't support final passage but at the same time I wanted to make sure if we are spending that kind of money that much of that gets directed to Texas." [KVUE News; 2/22/09]
• Representative Michael McCaul showed his hypocrisy after asking the Obama Administration for three billion in funds for NASA from the economic recovery act, which he voted against. Members of the Texas delegation signed the letter, including two Republican Senators and 19 House Republicans who all voted against the recovery act in February. [Texas delegation wants stimulus money for NASA, Houston Chronicle, 10/5/09]
It seems that we voters need to hold or obtain doctorate degrees in psychology or medical degrees in psychiatry to understand the twisted and dysfunctional behavior emanating from our fearless Republican leaders in Washington and Austin.
Both Senators Cornyn and Hutchison have trashed the stimulus bill (The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act,) railing against its waste and its abysmal failure to deliver cash infusions to our state while they extol the bill's virtues at the very same time. Maybe a little bird told the Senators that the recovery act they've been attacking for all kinds of reasons is actually a success.
To further complicate the Senators' stand on the stimulus package that both hate but love, John Cornyn has begged the EPA to deliver bucks for clean diesel projects in San Antonio and Houston.
Kay Bailey Hutchison praised the Port of Houston for its clean air strategy. Residents of the area may have a different definition of "clean air."
The Wall St. Journal obtained letters written by stimulus bashing Republicans who solicited federal recovery money for their states. When the funding is awarded the Republicans that hate the stimulus bill in Washington take credit for it in their home districts.
The Wall St. Journal included letters submitted by Senators Cornyn and Hutchison.
The Environmental Protection Agency received two letters from Sen. John Cornyn of Texas asking for consideration of grants for clean diesel projects in San Antonio and Houston. Mr. Cornyn is the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
One of the letters was signed jointly with Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, also of Texas. The letter said that the Port of Houston Authority "has informed me of the positive impact this grant will have in the region by serving as a foundation for PHA's Clean Air Strategy Plan, creating jobs, and significantly reducing diesel emissions." Houston received millions of dollars in diesel funding.
Meanwhile, outside the Washington D.C. beltway bubble, our revered Texas Governor Rick Perry issued a fatwa against the EPA.
Gov. Rick Perry announced today Texas would legally challenge the Environmental Protection Agency's finding that carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global warming endanger the public's health and welfare.
The federal agency issued the finding in December in an attempt to regulate the heat-trapping gases under the Clean Air Act.
Texas is the nation's leading emitter of carbon dioxide, releasing enough each year that the state would rank seventh worldwide if it were a country.
The Senators and Rick Perry's behavior would be downright comical and would make great material for a new series of Homer Simpson cartoons or a Three Stooges redux except that the consequences of their hypocritical stupidity is downright dangerous to our financial security.
With this kind of leadership in power, I think we can safely assume
Texas we have a huge problem. If we don't fix it we are screwed.
Now is the time to throw at least one of the bums out. By 2014 we may have a modicum of responsible and sane leadership in both Austin and Washington.
It won't happen unless we Vote, Baby, Vote.
The polls opened yesterday.
It seems that the teabaggers, racists and right wing extremists have taken over the Republican Party. Of those polled as self-identified Republicans, 39% believe President Obama should be impeached. 63% think he is a socialist. 42% do not believe the President was born in the United States. 31% believe President Obama hates white people. 23% want their state to secede from the U.S..
Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC Hardball, recently charged that those of us in the Netroots are not real Democrats. Apparently we are a bunch of spoiled brats who fail to vote in every election and none of us ever runs for office. We are different. We are not grownups. We are a mere trouble makers who sit in the back seat, doing nothing but bitching and complaining.
Sure Chris. Whatever. I guess the thousands of college students who took semester leaves and the young professionals who took leaves of absences from their jobs to campaign for Obama are a bunch of do nothing bitching complainers. Not to mention others who block walked, canvassed, raised and donated boatloads of money. And let us not forget about those who had no money but somehow, and God knows how, had managed to find more than a buck or two to pitch in. In certain areas of Houston, volunteers had canvassed areas in which houses were on the verge of near collapse from poverty and neglect. And yet the occupants stepped up and gave what little they could.
Shame on you, Chris Matthews. You live in a bubble that is completely detached from hardcore reality.
And Matthews had waxed lyrical if not almost lustful about W. Matthews must have a few too many with Karl Rove.
"We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple. We're not like the Brits."
when W. ginned up his dumb and irresponsible war in Iraq.
So much for professional journalism and integrity.
The Netroots, of course, fought back. I guess Matthews is outraged now that the not real and back seat bitching Democrats are frequent invited guests on cable TV political news shows.
We are making great strides, but we must keep up the pressure. On all levels.
The Republican Party threw the American people under a high speed train fast tracked straight to hell.
Again.
Predictably Republicans made a pact with yet another devil. This time the GOP sold its and our souls, too, to the hottest and most irresponsible devil in hell.
Let me introduce the banking devil for whom we emptied our U.S. Treasury in an extraordinary effort to save the American economy.
Tragically the Bush Administration and its rubber stamping Republicans in Congress failed to set up any rules, enforcement mechanisms, proposals for accountability, transparency or pay back benchmarks before it allowed the devil to empty our national piggy bank. Sure, guys, just back up your 18 wheeler big mother trucks to the U.S. Treasury and we will help y'all load the bags of taxpayer cash.
Clearly the GOP is totally on board with the banker devil run lawless casinos on Wall St. The devil is gambling with our money that includes our savings accounts, investment portfolios, retirement savings and bail out taxpayer dollars. The GOP also gave its blessing to a continuation of the banks extensive abusive consumer practices. Usury level interests rates and fees anyone? Worse, the GOP obviously does not have a problem with the obscene Wall St. bonuses, earned on the backs of our savings accounts, portfolio investments, not to mention again, the sucker U.S. taxpayer bucks, thank you.
I guess the sold-out Republicans are also supportive of the banks refusal to lend money to small businesses and consumers because it is more profitable for banks to gamble with our money instead.
Hell, at least we know for certain that the Republicans are completely on board with obstructing our nation's economic recovery. If small businesses cannot get jump started with an influx of cash, it cannot do business. It cannot meet its inventory needs nor can it make payroll. If mortgages cannot be re-negotiated, bankrupted homeowners cannot hold on to their homes. Consumers cannot purchase new homes or cars if we cannot borrow money, either. Nor can we improve or make substantial repairs to our homes if the banks won't lend home equity funding.
Republicans don't care. They simply do not care about the people.
Yesterday Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) informed the Huffington Post that the GOP signed a political pact with the banks to kill off regulatory reform measures.
The allegation of a quid pro quo was based on an email that Durbin received last spring after his amendment to allow judges to modify mortgages for homeowners who enter bankruptcy was defeated on the Senate floor. During a discussion to promote publicly-financed elections on Friday, the Illinois Democrat relayed that, shortly after the defeat of his "cram-down" amendment, a "banker friend" forwarded him the note from Tanya Wheeless, president & CEO of Arizona Bankers Association.
It seems that 30 misogynist Republicans in the U.S. Senate are totally OK with rape, at least where women are concerned. Predictably in yet another routine attempt to serve their corporate masters, (this time the GOP stood by Halliburton) Republicans voted against women and for corporate contempt of rape victims.
Some Republican senators are taking heat for voting against an amendment that would allow employees of military contractors to sue their employers if they are raped at work -- and they want the Democratic senator who wrote the amendment to help them fight off the bad publicity.
In October, 30 Republicans voted against Sen. Al Franken's amendment to a defense appropriations bill that would de-fund contractors who prevent their employees from suing if they are raped by co-workers. Since then, those Republicans have faced outrage for what critics say amounts to support for rape.
Instead of standing up to take responsibility for or clarifying their disgraceful votes, Republican cowards are instead attacking Al Franken, blaming him for their votes.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) accused Franken exploiting the story of Jamie Leigh Jones -- a former KBR employee who says she was locked in a container in Iraq after alleging she was raped by co-workers -- to further his political agenda.
"Trying to tap into the natural sympathy that we have for this victim of this rape --and use that as a justification to frankly misrepresent and embarrass his colleagues, I don't think it's a very constructive thing," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in an interview.
I guess Franken held a sledge hammer over Cornyn's head and said if he did not vote against the anti-rape amendment Franken would crack it over his head.
Last Sunday, on Meet the Press, Kay Bailey Hutchison spewed one whopper after another about the recently passed Senate health care reform bill. KBH spouted the same fear mongering myths as had John Cornyn in his recent newsletter to his so-called constituents. Kay and John's grotesquely misleading talking points are also a clone of what John Culberson (TX7-TeabaggerR) stated in his pricey and slick brochure.
This week alone I have been bombarded by snail mail and electronic mail from my Texas lawmakers mentioned above. Sadly and outrageously, all of the letters and brochures are filled with nothing but fear mongering tactics and blatant lies.
From Hutchison:
After hearing from constituents over the last several months, some members of Congress have now learned that using the term "government plan" elicits a strong negative from voters (because you have been scaring voters about government for years.) so they have now latched onto a new way to describe the same thing: a co-op. Texans should not be confused by this new packaging of the same idea. The co-op is a back door to a government takeover of our health care. (Really? According to whom? You?) The co-op would be started with federal funds, and it remains unclear whether or not taxpayer dollars would be used if the co-ops begin to fail. The Administration has tried to bail out the banking, housing and auto-industry. Would the co-ops be next?
Wow. Let's talk about an exercise in deceitful fear mongering. This is the first time I have heard about a co-op that would replace the public option and would ultimately become single payer health care. This would be a true dream come true for the American people.
But it ain't going to happen.
Because if a single payer, universal health care reform bill had been introduced there is no way in hell that Republican enabling Lieberman and the three sell-out Democrats known as Blue Dogs would have ever in their dreams voted for the Senate HCR Bill. Like Cornyn and Hutchison, Lieberman and the Blue Dogs serve as major pimps and go to bitches for the insurance industry.
Kay Bailey Hutchison should also remind herself that banking, housing and the auto-industry collapsed under her and her Party's watch. Like most Republicans Kay Bailey has always been in favor of dismantling every living regulatory legislation and she has never supported government oversight, transparency nor checks and balances of any sort.
Based on the mail I have read from Senators Hutchison, Cornyn and my U.S. House Rep. John Culberson, it is obvious that the Republicans are repeating the same lies over and over. The cover of Culberson's brochure reads:
HEALTH CARE TAKEOVER
.
The brochure shows a stethoscope lying on a flag draped on top of a building called:
INSURANCE
A couple of Culberson's bullet pointed lies:
2.5% tax on all individuals who do not purchase government run health care.
8% tax on businesses who cannot afford to purchase government run health care.
Notice how the Republicans frequently use the term government run. They do this to attach a negative and fearful meaning of government. The intended message? The evil government will take over one's life and control one's destiny. The Republican Party has spent years demonizing government run anything b/c they'd rather have the sharks, i.e. their cash cow donors, on Wall St.,in corporate America and the insurance industry to remain permanently in the driver seats.
Let's take a peek at Republican and other pimped out lawmakers willingness to enable corporate greed and corruption.
First up, Culberson's lies. His are only the tip of the iceberg.
Hey dude, I am one of your constituents and quite frankly you are full of stupid nonsense. It is stunning to me that you would include me and other progressives in your district among your special interest groups and deluded teabaggers. I'd venture to suggest that you will have an election challenge in the very near future.
According to Culberson's brochure.
The uninsured should 1. don't get sick or 2. if you do, die quickly.
The Democratic leadership bill, H.R. 3962 costs over $1.2 trillion; contains $729.5 billion in new taxes, adds 111 new offices to the government (jobs anyone?); and creates, expands and extends 43 entitlement programs. (There they go again with their entitlement obsession. Apparently the only ones who are entitled to be entitled are Republicans.) Now here is a really huge whopper: The bill also prohibits the sale of private insurance after 2013; cuts more than $150 billion from Medicare; and exempts members of Congress from the public options but no one else.
If Culberson had really read the bill instead of dancing with teabaggers he would have known that his claim about prohibiting private insurance is a bald faced lie. It is outrageous for Culberson to think he can willfully insult the intelligence of so many of his constituents with such stupid nonsense.
What Republicans are not telling us is the fact that HCR will cut the deficit by $127 billion, coverage will be extended to 94% Americans, 31 million more than have coverage today.
What the heck is wrong with that?
Remember those evil doing non-existent WMDs in Iraq? And Iraq's non-existent ties to Al-Qaeda?
The GOP is promoting health care reform as if it is a WMD. It is one that exists only in their heads.
Big John apparently does not like to answer certain kinds of questions. Especially those about rape.
This week, over at TheCrookedDope.com, I've been interviewing every Republican Senator I can find that voted "nay" on Al Franken's anti-rape amendment. For the most part, the conversations have been exactly what I expected - Rachel Maddowish exchanges in which I speak the truth and Senators Thune, Burr, and Cochran do their best to obfuscate.
Michelle Bachmann's comments bring discussions on HCR to a new level of extremism and lunacy.
Some Republicans have obviously lost it completely over health care reform. I guess they can't stand it that their sugar daddies in the health care industry might not have so many bucks to give them if HCR should, God forbid, pass. Besides, Michelle Bachmann and her Republican colleagues in Congress have the best health care coverage that taxpayer money can buy. Why would they ever want the same for their lowly and undeserving constituents?
For full transcripts diarist Ministry of Truth over at Daily Kos provides them.
