Andy Stark’s story, and the stories of millions like him, should be plastered on every tv & newspaper throughout the country.

We can start with SC. What are the media there doing?

Way to go, Blue Texan! The President of the United States just cited Jim DeMint (IDing him only as “one Republican Senator”) word-for-word, from your post, I’ll bet.

The Constant Weader at http://www.RealityChex.com

Mauimom, you’re thinking the way I am – can we get together a good, well-produced response along these lines to run in SC, and elsewhere?

Just got off the phone with Joe Sestak’s office and talked with the LA on health care. So far he’s with us all the way but won’t commit to the pledge—too many unknowns. I think he needs this issue as much as we need his vote—Specter awaits him in the primary.

Have to run now. Check back later.

Don’t expect the media to educate the public. It’s in the corporate interests to defeat health care reform and their allies in the media will do everything they can to serve their corporate friends.

President Obama should take the Republicans and their allies in the media head on at his Wed. news conference. Quote the statements or DeMint, Steel et al and ask the American people is this what they want? It’s time to take off the gloves and go for the jugular or testicles and neuter them before they do any more damage to the nation and it’s people.

It’s not in most corporations’ interest to defeat health care, just insurance companies.

GM, Ford, other large corporations, even municipalities all benefit if they didn’t have to pay for health care for workers and retirees.

Some doctors would make a bit less. Insurance executives, claims processors would lose.

But, this whole thing is just about ‘beating Obama’ – it could be on something else, actually – but the Rethugs are drawing the line in the sand for healthcare because Obama has put a lot of emotional investment in it. They are hoping that if they can beat him on this, everything else will fall apart..because to THEM, it’s all politics. They could not care less about the consequences for everyone else — they just want to get a win to grind the Democrats’ faces in the dirt.

this is capitalism folks

it aint pretty but it does work for the have mores

and the have mores are smarter than the have nots when it comes to wealth generation

many of these people having problems lined up to vote for politicans that favored the have mores ie reagan economics

we are a failing nation near the end of the stages a nation goes through

but there is always hope :-)

hope wins elections does not fix the system

it is jefferson time in america but few in america even know who jefferson was or what he suggested every two hundred years

Love it. All the little Napoleons are heading into their Waterloo. Nobody tell them how that turned out for the “exceptional” little guy.

A more appropriate comparison. Republicans are headed to their Jonestown, with Billy Kristol passing out the Kool-Aid.

And here I thought GWB was the Napoleon Bonehead.

No, they’re not alone; they are becoming the norm. As employers march further down road of only hiring younger, fewer and more pliable talent, everyone’s hold on employment becomes more tenuous and the consequences of losing it more bleak. It’s happening in Ohio and Michigan, California and Texas, New York and West Virginia. To librarians, local government clerks, teachers, factory hands, miners, farmers, car salesmen and bio-tech laborers (the ones who turn ideas into useful products on the production floor or lab).

Anyone over 40 or with a serious or chronic health condition and who loses their employment can pretty much kiss subsequent employment goodbye. And figuring how to make sure they are among the first to go is like practicing three-point shots for an HR basketball team.

Credible health care reform would directly address the needs of citizens and families. It would also reduce employers’ claimed need to cut costs by letting go their most vulnerable staff – and they claim, the most expensive to employ and the least “productive”.

Next on Mr. Obama’s to do list would be to tell his cabinet to enforce the labor laws. That requires not just the Labor Dept., but OSHA, the EPA, the DoJ, IRS, the SEC and other agencies. He needs to walk the talk by better enforcing them in his own backyard, in the federal bureaucracy and the military.

The third leg on that three-legged reform stool – one on which both stimulus and recovery rests – is bankruptcy and consumer lending reforms.

Unemployment and health care are the primary reasons people declare bankruptcy. Already wrenching experiences beget the next, bankrutpcy, which still carries with it emotional and practical stigmas. It obviously makes getting credit harder. As credit scores become de facto hiring criteria – despite the illegality or inappropriateness of it for most jobs – it also makes finding new employment much tougher.

The predatory lenders who gave us meltdown won another victory four years ago when they succeeded in gutting bankruptcy protections for individuals – while leaving it intact for the GM’s and the Delphi’s. It made repaying credit card debt a top priority – over paying alimony and child support. It imposed other hurdles that combined to mock the protections for individuals. It made the notion of a “fresh start” as quaint as early 19th century paintings of a rural Manhattan.

Bankruptcy needs to be reformed to allow credit card and similar debt to be crammed down or written off, to shorten repayment periods. It needs to allow the same for student loan debts, after the debtor has attempted to repay them for a specific number of years.

Credible health care reform will mean a life or death difference for thousands of Americans this year and next. Which is one reason any trigger or irrational waiting period is so ruthless and brutal. Once the government recirculates tax dollars and oversight control to help make citizens healthier, it needs to help them get and keep jobs. So let’s get going.

The masks are coming off! The closer we get to real health care reform, the more frightened the opponents become. The people in Congress who oppose reform are catering to the needs of their finaciers, not their constituents. They could care less about their consituents. They embrace them every two to six years to get their votes and then go back to their plantation and suck up the money. Obama and his team should expose each one by posting a list of their contributers. Then perhaps, the link can be shown in black & white.

We need to talk about Natalie every day, all the time. Allowed to die at 17 because of Cigna. This is the most perfect case to use against the Rs that I can imagine.

just give us the same health care as you get, demint…either give yours up or bring us on board. simple, really…

At what point does politics cross the line into treason?

Citizen Bluetoe:

Right on, Citizen!!! No more “Mr. Nice Guy”…since Chuck Todd told us that everything includin’ murder and war are nuthin’ but partisan politics let’s go after the bastards! Obama needs to grab ‘em by the balls on Wednesday and we ken weild the knife.

Citizen Bluetoe:

“At what point does politics cross the line into treason?”

Since November, 1963.

howdy tex, left you a question in the Jindal thread

That privilege is reserved for those who, e.g., work for John Deere and then get promoted to the Senate to do the work John Deere needs to have done in Congress. (Btw, John Deere has manufacturing in China. Nice goin, Chuck!)

What IS IT about South Carolina,anyway?

Seems that “screw em” is the motto from Sanford on down-and let’s not forget Lindsay Graham!

mMybe they should embroider”Screw ‘EM” on that Confederate flag they have flying over their state capitol.

How’s about earlier than that-with the creation of the Federal Reserve?

Seconded.

I don’t know if anyone in the White House reads these things but if they do they need to know that well over half of the people, and probably well over half the voters, are counting on them to get this done right. And that includes a “public option” or whatever they need to call it to get it passed.

My opinion is they should just open Medicare to everyone.

Howard Dean is putting this way regarding the public option: you either vote with the great majority of the people, including 50% of Republicans, or you vote with the insurance company lobbyists.

76% of Americans want this if this fails its not the end lets hold a national referendum. Demint does know that we are going to run adds highlighting his and every other Republican and Blue Dog’s No vote on healthcare in the next election.
I have been thinking that we had to do something to weaken the GOP and the Blue Dogs but now I think opposing Health Care in a Recession with a likely Pig Flu plague coming?
A No vote on Health Care could be a ticket on the Titanic.

“just give us the same health care as you get, demint”..

Make that “the same government health care as you get, demint”..

Surprised no one has mentioned yet — I believe they think that torpedoing health care will “break Obama” because that’s what they did with Clinton. When health care failed, his whole agenda was stalled, then pushed rightward.

They plan on repeating history.

Health Care costs and Transportation-Energy costs are the make or break issues

Congress must show its true colors :

a) Ban antibiotics ( at least 7 types) from healthy chicken,pig and cattle, and to really show they care for the people , work to ban commercial cheap steroids and hormone mixes that push growth and are included in most feeds, a known cancer and huge stomach problem producer.

b) Pass a big Tax on sugar sodas and keep those “sugar and junk foods snacks ” window trucks away from schools and the kids, they are waiting for the kids to get out of schools every day and take the kids money and health, like vampires.

ALTHOUGH IF WE DON’T GET SICK, THEY CAN’T SELL US THE MEDICINES , RIGHT?

c) Ban ads for medications, the TV networks use the Taxpayers airwaves for free and yet they push ads for Pharmaceutical products like freaks screaming on an idiot’s show , which is what sends medicine costs through the roof, it’s the ads , the agencies, the reps, the talent , the lawyers , the TV executives and the TV LIES.

d) CBO’s Elmendorf comes from the Brookings think tank, the same spin center that insisted that the Iraq War was going to be a ” walk in the park” paid by Iraqi oil ,that biological bombs were going to rain on America if we didn’t invade Iraq, that America’s Foreign Oil and Gas dependency is a natural thing,they were the biggest pushers for financial de-regulation : “…Let the markets a free hand… Free Markets know best… ” , and on and on, a list of disasters that has cost taxpayers and consumers trillions of dollars , so why they even get to spin any more ?
and who the Brookings Institute works for ? who gives them the money ? who is behind their spin ?

e) The fact is that Japan and Canada are good places to check for health solutions, but since c-span and npr are run by neocons working for the Pharma-Insurance-HMO lobby, we never even get to compare…nothing but spin….so when are we going to : 1) take the neocon lobby out of c-span , 2 ) audit the Federal Reserve and end the sweet deals between some neocons inside the Fed and some Banks-Hedge Funds , some Pharma and some Insurance executives? when ?

and never mind the FCC and rural broadband , it will never happen, with the new executive team, they will pass all the contracts to Barry Diller,Rupert Murdoch,the Roberts of Comcast, Qualcomm,Haim Saban ,Slim Helu , Sam Zell and some of their associates in the Hedge-Fund world, a really nice deal, but about broadband for health care and national video-conference to cut costs : never ! , and about breaking the monopoly that Flash has over video on the Internet by giving consumers a choice with HTML 5 , JavaScript and Ajax : never ! it’s another lie …

http://www.w3.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript
http://www.theora.org/
http://www.xiph.org/

And they will use all these “fabricated” failures to show in 2010 that the Obama -Biden agenda is a disaster and to get votes, and all done from the inside , isn’t wonderful?

f ) when we read in the New York Times , July 19, 2009, that banks that got billions in taxpayers bail-out money get to have the chief of staff of the White House, general Emanuel, to visit their Board Meetings in D.C., probably to secure “after W.H.” multi-million dollar jobs,and make sure bankers know what to do to “be nice”, isn’t any wonder there is no money for Health Care but it took only 24 hours to spend 700 billion dollars in TARP for the Banks and Financial Institutions that created and benefited from the 2008 Financial Mess ? and they will blame Obama -Biden for having their staff visiting D.C. Banks Meetings while small businesses cannot get loans and Wind and Solar Energy Projects are stuck without finance, no money for anyone, but the chief of staff of the W.H. gets to secure his future “golden-job” in private industry … wonderful , eh ?

America cannot get out of the 2008 Financial Disaster while its workers can only choose between “Kantucka Fried Plastic Chicken” and “Popoyo greasy spoon on polymer left-over feed ” and all loaded with junk, with cheap cooking oils , with colorants and sugar, workers with sick stomachs cannot create solutions, America needs a revolution in foods, fast and slow, we need a total change.

Today America needs new advanced battery and hybrid-electric-plug-in motor factories , new solar and wind energy farms, new and up-graded electric grids, America’s homes and buildings are waiting for solar panels, wind turbines and geothermal pumps where possible, and millions of workers can’t wait to get some good training and a jump-start , and the time is right now !

The food and the fuel for transportation is what will break or make America, we cannot be what we want to be when workers must spend 10,20 0r 30 dollars a day on transportation, fuels,insurance, repairs,etc., etc., and workers can only afford junk food and bad stomach medication,
so it’s about cheap and easy transportation and good healthy and cheap foods, if we get this right, America can do it, but if we continue with junk foods and expensive fuels, we will go down, but will Washington D.C. stand up to the challenge? do they see it ? do they care ?

Fully support your analysis. This is one place where corporate America is divided; only insurers and Wall Street benefit by opposing reform. Obama appears to recognize this while the Republicans don’t.

Demint you do know we own the banks thanks to the bank bailout right? Sooner or later Obama will be forced to cancel all the banking and insurance cash (AIG not sure who else) cash going to the lobbyists.
After all some reporter will say Bank X got government bank bailout cash that bank hired a lobbyist for x amount of cash and then gave Politician X more money.
Politician X then spent a weekend with his mistress.
This headline will happen sooner or later. Mark Sanford and Ensign are both GOP Senators and the Healthcare industry is paying them I’m sure they probably got bank money after the bank bailout.
We just need to get the MSM interested. The scandal of bank bailout money going to lobbyists who oppose Obama is one thing. Lobbyist cash going to support scandal will get headlines. And Lobbyist cash always has a funny way of moving from the campaign fund to personal use.

cbl2 – answer posted. If you need more, I’m at tejanarus55 at yahoo [etc.]

Very good ideas get some links write a Diary or two:)

Links for points a,b, and c would be good

Is it not the height of irony ,sadly,that Pete Stark,mentioned in prededing diary upthread,and Andy Stark share the same last name?

PLEASE don’t tell me they are related…..

this from TPM:

Big Pharma, for example, is in line to get just what it wants. The Senate health panel’s bill protects biotech companies from generic competition for 12 years after their drugs go to market, which is guaranteed to keep prices sky high. Meanwhile, legislation expected from the Senate Finance committee won’t allow cheaper drugs to be imported from Canada and won’t give the federal government the right to negotiate Medicare drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies. Last month Big Pharma agreed to what the White House touted as $80 billion in givebacks to help pay for expanded health insurance, but so far there’s been no mechanism to force the industry to keep its promise. No wonder Big Pharma is now running “Harry and Louise” ads — the same couple who fifteen years ago scared Americans into thinking the Clinton plan would take away their choice of doctor — now supportive of Obamacare. Private insurers, for their part, have become convinced they’ll make more money with a universal mandate accompanied by generous subsidies for families with earnings up to 400 percent of poverty (in excess of $80,000 of income) than they might stand to lose. Although still strongly opposed to a public option, the insurance industry is lining up behind much of the legislation. The biggest surprise is the AMA, which has also now come out in favor — but only after being assurred that Medicare reimbursements won’t be cut nearly as much as doctors first feared.

I don’t know why one should expect Demint to be reasonable… C-Streeter who backed the right wing military coup in Honduras last month, ’cause it was a victory in the global struggle against the Soviet Union.. or something.

the important pp from the TPM article:
Obama has less than three weeks before August recess. Chances are dimming that he can get some form of universal health care passed in both Houses before the clock runs out. The Democratic National Committee is running ads favoring passage in Blue Dog states and districts, but that won’t be enough. Now is the time for the President to begin twisting arms and knocking heads. To control long-term costs, he’ll also have to take away some of the goodies that have been promised to the health-industrial complex, and maybe even cross Big Labor. He also needs to come out clearly and forcefully in favor of a way to pay for the whole thing — ideally, in my view, a surtax on the top.

When Sanford and Graham are talking about “people” they don’t actually mean “humans” or even “constituents”. They mean those individuals that attend their garden parties and 4th of July BBQ’s.

But not the ones who are there to clean or serve food. Or cut the grass.

I thought Pelosi made a good point on the surtax. I would have liked a compromise on imported drugs, enabling them from friendly countries where we could feel certain their manufacture, packaging and shipping were controlled properly. I can easily see reducing the subsidies to make the bill more deficit-neutral. Mostly, we need to be sure the bill isn’t so out there that we’re not certain of passing it. We can’t afford to fail. People’s lives depend on this.