Hi BT. Saw it last night. Kucinich might be the only D to vote against. Maloney said at her town hall on Sunday that there would be no PO, like it was a boring factoid.

Mornin’ BT and sleepy pups! Sun shining again. I could get used to this!

We’ve has a string of sunny spring days. My honey bees survived the winter in fine fettle and are gathering pollen with a vengence.

Glad to hear you’ve got happy bees.

Me too. It’s quite life affirming when they go out of hibernation and buzz about.

Dennis makes me proud to be from Ohio.

We need to flood his DC office with calls of support for his stance on a PO or single payer.

Dennis along with Wendell Potter should do a town hall.

He is spot on. Our economy cannot afford 5 years of double digit premium increases.

Hari is guest on democracynow, discussing his article in The Nation about corruption in the green movement.

Dennis was positively grumpy last night; and very effective, I thought.

eCAHN; wrt your bees, Hugh left you this message last evening,may have been epu’d; not sure if you saw it:
The Einstein quote mentions 4 years. He probably never said it. It first shows up in a pamphlet at a beekeepers’ protest in Brussels in 1994 nearly 40 years after Einstein’s death in 1955.
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/einstein/bees.asp

Barack Obama seems to have “rediscovered” that he does have the means to go public and herd the American public now that he has the HCR he wanted and intended a year ago minus any PO. What in essence is his pro AHIP/PhRMA/status quo “reform” that gives AHIP/PhRMA what it wanted all along. By law federal funding feed ins,force of law healthcare insurance mandate on Americans to buy AHIP shoddy products and HC regime control. Enables and allows AHIP/PhRMA to displace/constrict/undermine any national single payer plan conversation for a decade at least.

This is your Yes We Can POTUS who sabotaged single payer a year ago. Who undermined the compromise PO positions at every turn with benign neglect time after time. Now with the Congress kabuki play nearly depleted of any more capacity for more HCR duplicity or misdirection the POTUS decides to go public with his fraud based populism.

Undoubtedly the propaganda organs that constitute American political media will be playing loud while this sham and shameless HCR is nail gunned into place.

Only a year or two from now when the hidden tax loads,penalties and built in shortfalls begin to show up and register will the truth of this sham HCR become more clear. When the forced mandate under duress arises and realization that nothing really will happen until post 2012 for certain and somewhere beyond 2013 likely just how deceptive and cynically framed this Obama HCR pro AHIP/PhRMA was. The already poor American is not helped very much by this fake AHIP overlorded HCR. The new poor will soon find the money required to comply with Obama’s HCR is destructive and exposes Americans to having junk HI to placate the law that is useless otherwise.

Slick Barry will have long moved on to other issues and just try to hold him accountable. Just try.

This is OT but in the same Countdown last night there was a scathing piece on Massa that was totally conjecture, dismissing his claim that he was being forced out because of his no vote. Morning Joe just spent ten minutes laughing about him. This really strikes me as orchestrated when even MSNBC is focused on crap reporting like this. Does this strike anyone else this way. I guess I’m naive but I’m shocked.

I see we have a new troll.

Kick ass. Dennis is not taking any crap from anybody, he picked an excellent moment to make some demands. No doubt gave the progressives in the house a little spine, too.

: )

kucinich hits the nail on the head so many times doesn’t he;

“health insurance is in the business of declinging coverage”[paraphrased]

bingo

i’m with kooch. just like i have been for the last two elections.

i know, i know….

count me with Dennis.

A link to a brief interview of Elizabeth Warren by Charlie Rose. It’s both frightening and sobering, particularly the last 5 minutes. In some ways it makes the health insurance scam Obama is trying to shove down the collect5ive throats of the U.S. a moot point because if Warren is correct in her analysis “there will be blood.”

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10895

Dennis, Dennis he’s our man ……………..

PS: Watch your back!

Heard in the media that at yesterday’s photo op in Philadelphia Mr. Bipartisan had “the fire in his belly.” He always does when he’s out there playing “stump the chumps.”

Avoid flying on small private planes.

Mornin’, BT, pups

I don’t think Dennis is gonna have any problems getting re-elected this year. He certainly doesn’t do the dance the rest of these worthless muthafuckers do when they get on teebee.

Great news about your bees eCHANomics.

May it’s time to break out the Trexinator again.

Who are you talking about here Marion? All the comments seem appropriate.

I’m with Kucinich and clearly so are most of the public, regardless of political affiliation. Poll after poll shows the more liberal House bill to be more popular than the Senate’s insurance company welfare scheme and show that even more liberal hypothetical plans to be more popular still. Inevitably a defeat of HCR will cost the Democrats in November but it will be their own f***ing fault, not the liberals’ and not Kucinich’s.

Mayhaps if Dennis runs for prez again we might see a different attitude among the voters. I don’t think he’d have a problem pointing out all the Dem bullshit.

Rock the boat baby. The only guy with brains, principles and cahones. Tell us how we can help Dennis.

Morning, BT and pups.

I like Dennis, he’s the only man in congress with real balls. Good to see him forceful on the tube. Very effective.

I would love to think so. Dennis was my first choice in the Dem primary but as is typical, we wound up with my second to last choice. :

Any idea about when you’ll hear about da j-o-b?

I agree with Dennis Kucinich….! Insurance Companies are the problem. They make money by denying Health Care to Americans and for a Profit. Send Insurance companies packing, Problem Solved. Smile :-)

Over the next couple years I imagine Dennis is gonna show the public, particularly the Dems, that he is in fact prez material. He may have a few New Age things goin’ but that beats Obama’s neoliberal horseshit.

Can you say what was the particular point/s that will provoke the Blood?

Agreed. I’ll never understand the term “neoliberal” though. That must have started ironically because Obama is about as liberal as my dad and he was a Reaganoid.

M: Did you post the other day that you are in Austin? I had thought it was Houston. Thanks ;)

She was quoted in a piece last week as saying she wants to take the fight for an indepenent consumer protection agency to the floor and that if it doesn’t pass at least there’ll be “teeth and blood on the floor.”

Kucinich is consistent. True to his values and beliefs.

I wish that my rep., Lloydd Doggett would run for president. We need MORE unabashed liberals in the race, not fewer. Of the whole Democratic field in 2008, there were a total of two that I would consider liberal and one of those was more like an Alzheimer’s fueled libertarian liberal.

Nope Rev, you’re right on both counts: In Austin, from Houstopolis originally. Well, technically from a tiny little town southeast of Houstopolis.

Neoliberal is a label rarely used here but is used in Europe. Clinton was neoliberal as was Shrub.

Did you attend the Harwood class some years back? At the UW?

Yeah, I wondered at whom that was directed, too. Didn’t see any trolls.

It’s possible, I’ve attended a great many classes in my life but I’ve slept since then. Please refresh my memory.

Oh thanks. It did get epu’d.

I really fear that Obama used the “idea” of bi partisanship as a cover for his back door deals with Big pharma, and big insurance BEFORE he was elected. I think it’s quite possible that this is part of what helped him win his big win.

Whether we end up with this bill or not Kucinich is fighting for the right idea. Until we accept that healthcare should be a right…we are lost.

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.

US KIA Irak: 4,382

US KIA Afghanistan: 1,016

Iraki and Afghan casualties: estimates vary to over 1.5M

US MBS 2010: 8,308 and counting

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

O, it went on for 2-3 days…you would probably recall….

“Clinton was neoliberal as was Shrub.”

Naa. Clinton was a moderate Democrat. Shrub was a neocon, as is Obama. Both incompetent, too.

When the commercial real estate bubble bursts in the next 2-3 years there will be a collapse of the economy that will make the Republican Depression of 2008 look like a blip. That will result in social disruption and chaos the U.S. hasn’t seen since the 30′s. She didn’t say anything about impending “social chaos” but one would have to infer that could be a likely scenario.

The fetish of “bipartisanship” was merely a smoke screen for Obama governing from the right.

Thanks…And I think Warren is really sharp; makes me listen.

If I would recall it then probably not.Let’s see, I lived in Houstopolis from 1967 or so (when it swallowed up my hometown), to about 1985 when I joined the service and then again from 1991 until about 1998. It had just grown too much and gotten too big while I was gone. Though it was certainly big in 1985, much of it had become unrecognizable by the time I got out of the service. Even my hometown was no longer separate from the city around it. My parents are dead and there is nothing there for me anymore. I came to Austin and am a happier person for it.

New post up top…

Thanks…good for you. That’s the outlook we all fear for Austin, isn’t it?

Yep but hopefully the bursting of the tech bubble saved Austin from that fate

Clinton was/is a fuckin’ asshole. Moderate Dem. My ass.

K’s tactics seem little different from Stupak.

It would break my heart if he caved. That would be the end of my ability to care at all about politics.

Kucinich is the real deal!

I agree with both of you, on Houston and Austin.

“Dennis along with Wendell Potter should do a town hall.” I don’t trust Potter. He’s IMO a clever plant by the same Inds. he says he now hates. He came out on the Ed show last night and said pass this awful bill , even though he admits it gives the health Ins. Vampires exactly what they want the millions of new mostly healthy young people they have not been able to corral for decades. Potter is a double agent. He’s deep cover for these companies and his assignment is to be the hammer at the end of this non-debate. The Ins. creeps have planned and war gamed this for a very long time. They are putting up a mock battle against reform now. If they were really against it we’d be seeing cable TV adds and everything else you can imagine being thrown at this bill. Even Potter admits in public the provisions against pre-existing conds. are already gamed and hollow and that the so called rescission clauses are no change from existing statutes. So, in essence the Senate bill with NO PO or ext. of Medicaid and Medicare but a powerful FORCED MANDATE is ok by the Industry. Potter is a fraud and even if he isn’t he’s still cheer leading this awful authoritarian bill. The Industry is so fucking greedy that its now raising rates Congress be damned and its doing this to further garnish its bottom line in front of the huge forced customer base its going to have. These are truly some of the most EVIL motherfuckers on the Planet. True vampires and the Dems. and Obama are openly in their corner. There has to be a special political HELL for these people. This awful bill is single handedly going to revive the dead hand of the Goper party. Why are they doing this , especially now with terrible unemployment? Its stupid and its a disaster.

http://www.bgladd.com/Karen_bin_al_Ignagni.jpg

Pay it forward.

I disagree

Bill Clinton was a moderate Dem – meaning that like moderate Dem Obama he wanted corporate approval of his program – he was not like Hillary who was the only liberal/progressive in the mix during those 8 years.

Dennis is correct as to single payer and ins co’s stacking the deck via Congressional laws against states putting it into effect, but the Senate bill fills the moral need for coverage – and this needs to be a two step.

His no vote just stops the two step from starting. That said, I no longer care if this passes as the downside of giving a welfare check to ins co’s and thereby giving them more money and thus power in Congress seems to just about offset the value of taking the first step of coverage.

The “change fee for service” ignores the fact that other countries do better than us with this model because they use single payer. It is a good idea but is a “so what” in this discussion.

With the Bill the Health cost grows from 17% to 21% of GDP – with the bill the Health cost grows from 17% to 21% of GDP. I like the coverage increase and the I have a health care entitlement sinking into the public mind, but the system change is too minor to worry about.

Dear Ralph,
I mean Dennis, Fuck you

Quick. Somebody get Dennis a large glass of kool-aid. He off script, talking like a crazy man.

What is he trying to do to our blue-dog President?

Dennis, along with Stan Brock, should do a town hall.

Hey, I did not see him on Ed. I’ll take you word for it.

I imagine Stan Brock would pass the smell test.

(And Pups, do not feed.)

Clinton was definitely a neoliberal. NAFTA, full stop. Bush was a neoconservative, but really the different between neoliberalism and neoconservatism is exceptionally narrow.

With the Bill the Health cost grows from 17% to 21% of GDP – withOUT the bill the Health cost grows from 17% to 21% of GDP.

Typing is hard for old fingers – sorry about the typo.

The pathetic and scary thing about this is that Kucinich is the only member of Congress to stand on principle and tell the truth about HCR. This bill will do nothing but perpetuate the current broken system. The only difference is in addition to paying exorbitant premiums for under and limited health coverage, we will now also be taxed and fined on the back end to pay for it. I also like what he said concerning the Democratic party and Obama’s rhetoric about health reform. It’s all a bunch of disingenuous lies. I’m a life long Democrat and I voted for Obama, but this is an absurd joke.

Dennis is wrong. Despite your political view, his unwillingness to compromise is no different than Repugs. If you can’t negotiate, then you don’t belong in Congress.

Dennis is willing to compromise. He’s trying to make the ORahma piece-of- shit, sell-out bill better. Like Bernie Sanders getting the Community Health Clinics piece in (http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/20427), Dennis wants to remove barriers to state experimentation with single-payer plans.

You seem to be among the concern trolls on the left who think we have to negotiate with people like Stupak, but progressives like Kucinich, Grijalva, et. al. should just fold. Go read Yglesias. He needs support in his comments section for his abuse of progressive voices.

Dennis is smart, principled, well-informed, and focused.

You are wrong. IMHO ;-<

Kucinick would be wise to hold out for the inclusion of his ammendment that will allow the states to do their own, better plans. Complete info at The Real News: http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4896

And of course, the predictable response from the OFAs over at Orange: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/3/9/844343/-OK,-seriously,-Dennis-Kucinich.-Enoughs-enough.

This is another attempt by our blue dog President to hang the failure of the health care bill on the liberal wing of the party. Dennis has always been clear and consistant on why he wouldn”t support this mess. They figured there was enough sugar in that bowl of hemlock to swallow it. The President made a few deals too many, I hope it goes down.

being well informed, even maximally so is very good. It helps, however, to learn to process the aggregated information, max.

Thank you Dennis. His longtime conservative opponents like to dredge up his past, when as Cleveland’s enfant terrible he was labeled Dennis the Menace for trying to clean up an old steel town and prevent its largest power company from taking over the city-owned generator, moves that were later deemed progressive and ahead of their time.

Well, Dennis is main stream on the issue of health care and deserves to be listened to, followed and supported. He’s only a menace to the awful status quo, as he’s always been.

Clinton was no moderate. He pushed through everything Bush Sr. wasn’t able to get including welfare reform that set the stage for bankruptcy reform that set the stage for killing Social Security. Clinton went along with repealing Glass-Steagall, he endorsed WTO which is a big tool in the neoliberal toolbox, he let Rubin take care of all his Goldman Sachs buddies while Treasury Secretary before jumping ship to collect his reward from Citigroup for allowing the Traveller’s merger to go through before it was legal.

Clinton is as much to blame for the bubbles that have destroyed this economy as was Reagan and Bush Senior AND Dubya. They all had a chance to fix things but each one made it successively worse. Bill Clinton was no hero. And just so I don’t get tagged as a troll, I firmly believe that anyone in this country who voted for Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I or Bush II, or Clinton is complicit in the damage that has been done to our country by these criminals in the past 41 years. I was a Democrat my entire voting life until just after John Forbes Kerry rolled over shortly after saying he was going to fight for a recount in Ohio. That day I went to the county election office and changed my affiliation to independent.

This is the beginning of a fascist state here. We basically have a one-party system that is dictated to by the corporations and which controls the flow of information to the people even though the media is allegedly independent. Obama is in there for one reason, to kill Social Security. That’s it. At a time when the economy is in the shitter the last thing he should be letting himself be distracted by is the deficit, at least the budget deficit. The current account deficit is another matter which he also has no intention of attacking by letting the dollar weaken.

You don’t try reducing the budget deficit by attacking entitlements for the majority of the people while allowing tax cuts for the richest people in the country that deprive the treasury of needed revenues to continue unabated. The Bush tax cuts were set up to expire in 2011 so that the fiction that they were only temporary allowed that little prick to get his way. Both wars were kept off-budget so that the budget deficit would appear to be not so bad. Anyone paying attention could see that. And anyone paying attention around the time of the 2004 election knew from the growth in M-3 money that there was a big honkin’ bailout coming somewhere. Personally, I figured it was going to be the airlines again because I didn’t think even Bush would be brazen enough to bailout the goddamn banks.

Of course the numbers for M-3 stopped being reported by the Fed in March 2005 so no one could just look up what was going on. It had to be deduced from other sources.

It’s a damn disgrace what the Democratic party has allowed to happen to this country in the past 40 years. An absolute sin. If I’d known this was going to be what this country would look like when I was in Vietnam maybe I’d have been a little more daring because this certainly is not what any of us (except the Young Republicans) had in mind in 1969.

agree!

Look I said this months ago now, you don’t believe me? I guess I need Nate’s job.

Listen Kucinich knows Single Payer is not going to come from the Federal Government, he’s not stupid. He outlined HOW to get sweeping HCR by going State by State which is similar to what happen in Canada when the last province came online in 1972.

Just like Pot Legalization, CA and COLO are out in front along with a few States back East, it takes political will something the Federal Government no longer has as it keeps passing watered down bill after watered down bill. In many States you can’t play this partisan nonsense otherwise you’ll get booted out of office on a recall vote.

Don’t get me wrong SB810 is strictly down party lines, meaning the Republicans aren’t supporting it, no matter its passed without them before only to be rejected by the Governator.

This is a moment in time a watered down bill will largely do nothing and at this point nothing is better than something.

All Dennis wants is for ERISA laws to be weaken enough for State run Single Payers to be started with up to 90% Federal Funds.

So when Obama says there some good things in the bill, he’s right… Its just not the big shinny object people are looking for its buried deep inside the Senate bill and its Sanders amendment to allow States to start a Single Payer System with Federal Funds.

Support Kucinich and tell them in the Sidecar to strengthen the language to limit the ERISA law.

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Kucinich must be rewarded mightily for his principled stand in making it clear that the culprits that are wreaking havoc and ruin in health insurance are the private insurers. It is these private insurers that must be done away with.

His courage and clarity could not be more starkly different from that of that reviled weasel Obama.

We should begin to promote Kucinich as a viable and credible candidate to unseat Obama. With our help he must be elevated to a position as spokesman for single payer and to have real influence in the shaping of public policy. He must be held up as an alternative to the servile corporate ass kisser Obama.

“If you can’t negotiate, then you don’t belong in Congress.”

Negotiation infers give and take. Anyone who is at least minimally informed should have noticed these bills are all TAKE and no give. Negotiation! What a joke. Everything was negotiated away from the start.

Yes I agree whole-heartedly, especially given that the Senate is completely useless and corrupt and needs to be bypassed. State ballot initiatives for the estblishing of public health insurance schemes as well as other initiatives are perfectly reasonable and more directly responsive to the public.

Kucinich with our financial and vocal support should be elevated and given a greater platform and voice in espousing his and our views on public policy. He must be be seen as a clear and credible alternative to Obama.

If it wasn’t so tragic it would be hilarious. The high and mighty on the left want the purist bill or nothing. How is that different than the party of now? Obama’s bill needs to be passed for the ban on pre-existing conditions, if nothing else. There is a lot of good stuff in the bill and regulation has to start somewhere. People like Denny boy and yourself are what’s wrong with the country. What Obama knows is that opinions are like @ssh0les, everybody’s got one. So when you have a bill this large there is always going to be a some “heartland” Senator that’s throws a wrench in the bill.What I will say to progressives is, lose the hollier than thou attitude and start getting stuff done. Pass this then Congress can work with reconciliation and then DADT. Progressives are just as much of a road block as conservatives. @ Adams too. You call it concern troll, I call it realist.

What a crock o’ shit. In other words, do what the Rethugs want. Fuck that.

“He doesn’t sound like he’s in the mood to compromise”.

He is not in the mood to capitualte and why should he. The proposal he is being asked to support is not in the least in keeeping with his position which is that private health insurers are the problem and should be done away with.

The proposal he is being asked to support is that private health insurers should be granted the sole prerogative of financing health costs at a profit and in fact that those profits should be guaranteed to increase.

To maintain that Kucinich is not willing to compromise from his position is an absurdity and shows that the person asking him to compromise has no clue as to what his inital bargaing position is. What he is being asked is to cede his position for one he finds completely abhorrent and directly harmful to the public in order that private companies can increase their profit.

Compromise my ass.

Meant how is that different than party of No. Shouldn’t type in anger.

Haven’t been paying attention? The pre-existing thing has been gamed totally by this bill. Sure they can’t say no because u have bad breath or had a heart attack but then can still charge u an arm and leg. They can in fact make it so expensive you won’t be able to afford it anyway. The Ins. goons give NOTHING away unless they have rock solid way around it. They’ll make like they’re giving these things away and bury the work arounds deep inside the fine print. They desperately want this bill to pass so they can get the millions out here they consider slackers or as they call them free riders on the system. Greedy is what they are and the Dems. are they’re bitches.

LOL, I feel you pain. I still think Dennis K. is wrong. Kill this bill, and health care reform, won’t get done in my lifetime.

Simply put, the cons vastly outweigh the pros with this bill. I leave prognostication to the Karnacs of the world but I’m nowhere near finished fighting for what I think is the common good. I’m not wired to be a defeatist or a quitter.

Have you seen this piece over at Huff Po?
Is Kucinich the new Nader?
Why is it that the Democratic Party rejects and demonizes any politician who is not a whore?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/09/kucinich-nader-like-spoil_n_491571.html

Sounds like there’s fear mongering on the left too. Next thing you’re going to says is this bill with kill grandma. Government will regulate premiums because they would have to pay the subsidies.

You’re living in a dream world. You advocate handing over the farm to the extortionists with the excuse it has to be done now or we’ll never be able to accomplish anything… that’s just more of that good old democratic “can’t do” attitude. What an apparatchik.

“apparatchik” that’s a good word, I had to look it up. Next time just call me a socialist.

Listening to him, you feel like he’s the last sane person on a planet full of lunatics.

And then there’s this attack:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/3/9/844434/-Meet-the-Joker-and-View-the-Joke:-Kucinich-and-HR676

They just don’t know when to stop.

Congratulations, Dragon, you’ve come up with a new acronym: MDMA — Moderate Democrat My Ass.

Well said.

Why would I call you a socialist when you’re pushing a fascist agenda? You’re confusing party loyalism with ideology and seeing neither clearly.
Here’s a clue: Locking in the market for the crooks who’ve brought about the ruination of our nation’s healthcare is not in this country’s best interest and your party is complicit in the crime. Wake up, or at least admit you’re not here because you care.

theman!!!!!

The last honest politician. A foundation built on sand. Insurance companies make money by not providing care. Thanks for the truth, Dennis. AH great irony-if he WAS the vote that took the “win” from the great “health reform” that Obama is selling. Also unlike the other progesives, Dennis is SMART enough to realize Obama is a snake oil salesman. A darn good one too, but still-it’s not enough that our pols are decent human beings they also have to call a snake a snake.

I get an idea, lets do it you and Mr. Kucinich’s way and do nothing, because we can’t have everything. Your understanding of ideologues and fascism aside, keeping the status quo would be a far greater harm. We can agree to disagree without the name calling. However, I stand by my position that both you and Kucinich are as wrong as Reagan.

Potter is a sellout.. He supports the Senate bill.

Wrong again. The choice is not now-or-never, the insurance lobby’s way or no way. Nobody’s asking for everything. Wanting the ability to choose a government option is EVERYTHING?! WTF? Who’s projecting RAYGUN?
I (and a majority of Americans) want to have a choice. Obama and bots want to deny that. That’s not prudent governance, that’s political suicide. Bring it on. It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.

Potter is duplicit and a phony hypocrite. He was on Moyers supporting the Senata HCR bill.. Then Marsha Angell got on and told it like it was–a straight shooter.. armed with the facts.

Re: apparatchik. You’re confusing derivation with meaning. Sort of like not seeing the forest for the trees. Just because a word came from Russian during the Soviet period doesn’t mean it describes a socialist. Are you unclear that socialism is not Soviet Communism? Bernie Sanders is a self-described socialist. He’s not a communist.

Apparatchik is “often used to describe people who cause bureaucratic bottlenecks in otherwise efficient organizations. It is also frequently used to describe individuals, appointed to positions in any government, on the basis of ideological or political loyalty rather than competence” (Wiki). Or this: “An unquestioningly loyal subordinate, especially of a political leader or organization.” (i.e. Obamabot)

Perhaps this fuller definition fits you better than “socialist.”

Great Dennis, how do you get your version of health care reform passed through both houses of Congress?

If congress can’t represent us, we’ll just have to fix that first, won’t we? Vote for change, the real kind next November.

Dennis is now and has been as big an ass as Rahm Emmanuel. He is becoming in no short order as relevant as Ralph Nader. Dennis stop grandstanding start the reform process for health care. Firedoglakes beauty contest and money has paid off hasn’t it? I have been a progressive, no, flaming liberal since 63 and I am tired of centrist screwing us and I am tired of silly faux leftist like Dennis doing the same.

I love how 1. someone is being criticized for sticking to their convictions.
and 2. the compromised, insurance friendly, middle of the road reform meant to attract blue dog votes, isn’t attracting as much as they hoped.

And, Ralph Nader is as relevant as ever. Everything he said in 2000 that made so much sense.. makes even more sense now. Politically he’s irrelevant, yeah, because the democrat establishment has no interest in taking on corporate rule in this country. Not asking you to vote for Nader, just asking you to open your eyes to reality.

“often used to describe people who cause bureaucratic bottlenecks in otherwise efficient organizations.” Since when has our government been efficient? The bottleneck is being caused by Kucinich, at this point.

Wow, serious, serious Kool-aid drinker here today. Guzzling it appears.

Guess it’s OK when an administration and Congress acts just as badly as the last one so long as it has a “D” beside their name.

Fuck. That. Shit.

Private Health insurance is NOT the solution. It is the problem.

40 Million Uninsured Americans need a Universal Single Payer Insurance and Health Care Plan –an American, yes, and social insurance program.

What is being offered by the Democrats is NOT “REFORM.” Instead, they are drumming up more costumers for the private Insurance corporations and for a system that has already failed.

Let’s not be one-sided: The Democrats in Congress and the White House have been a grand success when it comes to funneling taxpayer money into the banks, lining the pockets of corrupt bankers, fattening the military machine for senseless and perpetual wars, and providing larges for multiple rounds of “Bankster Bonuses.” All of this while millions of families are facing eviction from their homes and while these bankers grab their bonus and go on exotic vacations. These bonuses have been extracted from our nation’s public revenue and provided as a gift by corrupt politicians, by elected “mis-representatives,” by members in Congress, by folks in the White House and in the Courts – by “political leaders” who are paid-off (bribed) by insurance and banking lobbyist, by a system bagged by weapons-makers and licensed drug-pushers.

But, so far, during this current Great Depression, government money (our money) has NOT been returned. Obama’s Policy –like Bush before him– is NOT based on sharing, money is NOT given directly to America’s working people: Public Revenue has NOT made its appearance on Main Street; it is NOT handed out to impoverished Americans; it is not given to people facing eviction or hospitalization if they happen to be uninsured or have lost their job. All the TARP and all the stimulus Bailout funds have been squandered, they have been given or are being given -as no-strings attached – GIFTS to America’s wealthiest individuals and to the richest corporate powers and to the largest monopoly entities.

The current policies will leave future generations of American with ever growing and unregulated premiums, with expanding and intensified economic inequality, and with generations of future debt and illness. And as our taxpayer money is funneled through Congress and through the Obama lobby, it will be wasted on their lame “Health Care” charade. We can all see what is coming our way. In the end, it will only help China, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and Israel who purchase our treasury notes and control the US currency through the Federal Reserve (which is neither “Federal” nor a “Reserve”). And , dear reader, you will be expected to eat the nuclear waste from the new Nuclear Power plants that Obama plans to give to the state of Georgia ( paid for, again, by the American taxpayers rather than covered with loans from private banks and investors.) All of this spending amounts to waste on top of waste with radioactive results. The Congress and the White House, the Democrats and Republicans, are playing Americans in their belief that we are a nation of suckers. The economic policies of the Federal Government and monopoly private sector are immoral, inhuman, and disgusting.

Dennis, keep fighting for real health care and real insurance reform. Don’t give up, don’t give in to the schemes of those who profiteer off sickness, don’t give in to doomed “non-solutions” and false choices currently before the Congress. Don’t be one of those compromised, lame, weak Democrats or Republicans that work day and night for the exclusive benefit the Plunder Elite or that seek to strengthen the plutocracy while destroying this country. Go Dennis!

So if you’ve been a liberal since ’63, when are you eligible for Medicare?

And now from the other side of the aisle –

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/3/9/844614/-Kucinich-is-a-Hero

Yes the so-called Pudding has been served and they are ready to cut their nuts off to meet their maker…

DK is not blocking reform, he wants at the very least the Hacker version of the PO or Strong anti-ERISA language.

How is this any worst than Stup-id asking for stronger language on abortion???

This POS will get passed anyway because the Dems wants to maintain control of Congress and to do that they’ll look like they are doing something.

When all the media outlets have poured over the final law and give us the highlights, pre-existing might be banned but like Massachusetts you may get a majority of the uninsured covered but they are still leaving a donut hole of people not covered and HOPE they’ll get in on the State’ Medicaid getting maybe 90-95% coverage because some are going to opt for the IRS imposed fine which I think is $95 once it goes into law.

I’ll take that risk, Brown just announced he is running officially, Whitmann and Pozier really stand no chance when we already tried a political novice in office. SB810 will be passed this summer and the Governor’s race is in Nov, if Brown wins and I believe he will, he will sign it. He’ll get a gift called legalized Pot and he’ll fast track HSR.

That is change I can believe in, not one bought off by the HI Mafia and Wall St.

Don’t let Markus see that, he might delete it…

I wouldn’t go that far, he just naively believes the Congress will go back and fix it while nobody is looking. They won’t touch this for another 10 years if not longer.

You’re just going to have to push from the State level. It won’t matter when three or four States have Single Payer, the other will copy and they’ll be hold outs like on anything Progressive, like Arizona unwilling to give MLK is own day…

Best thing to do is start at the State level.