CORRECTION UPDATE: According to Open Secrets.org, Rep. Joe Wilson’s second-highest campaign contributor during his eight years in Congress is the financial, real estate and insurance sector at $455,129; corporate for-profit health care is third at $414,246. ‘Misc Business’ is number one at $481,252.
In his speech to a joint session of Congress last night, did President Obama ‘hit it out of the park’ to use a dog-eared Big Media cliché? For the most part, he did. It was especially refreshing to hear someone in Washington say the word ‘lie’ as Obama did when he called out the Republicans for pushing their ‘Death Panel’ buncombe, and there were a few other ‘right on’ air pumping moments as well. He also clearly outlined what he wants in a health care bill, including a public option, a good first step to universal single-payer coverage, which is what we really need. As Keith Olbermann said on MSNBC post-speech, the most important thing was what Obama didn’t say – if Congress passes his plan, for-profit health insurers will finally be accountable to the elected government of We the People. Last night, President Obama came to work and earned his pay – now it’s time for the Democrats in Congress to do the same.
“I will not back down…we will provide you with a choice.”
– President Barack Obama in his speech to Congress on health care reform September 9, 2009, endorsing a public option.“It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance to those who don’t. And it will lower the cost of health care for our families, our businesses, and our government.”
– President Barack Obama in his speech to Congress on health care reform September 9, 2009, speaking about his health care plan.
BTW, I think you’re going to see a quick uptick in Obama’s approval ratings – America saw a real adult president in action last night, quite a change (you can believe in) after eight years of the Bumbling Bush Boy.
© 2009 R.S. Janes. LTSaloon.org.
“If you tell the same story five times, it’s true.”
– Larry Speakes, Ronald Reagan’s White House Press Secretary.
It’s a Given: President Obama must strongly stick up for a public option in his health care speech tonight or the game’s over. The Dems will lose big in 2010, maybe even a majority in the Senate, while Obama himself will be marginalized by the right, abandoned by his progressive base, and become a one-term president, battered into a cartoonish wimp by right-wing lies and smears. We’re begging you BHO – bring out your inner FDR; boil the corporate moonshiners in some salty Truman oil. Even if you don’t manage to pass a health care reform bill, at least stand up for yourself and those who supported you!
Camp Whiggy-Watchee: Howsomever, knees are knocking at Republican HQ these days at the idea that the GOP will be heading into the 2010 election without a solid trusted leader of the party and dragging the chock-full-o-nuts baggage of the screwy-squirrel teabaggers with them. While the shouters and doubters are good public theater for astroturf airtime to dilute health care reform, independent and MOR voters – most of us, in other words – are put off by these nattering ninnies yelling ‘Nazi’ at anybody who dares disagree with them. The TV shots of men armed with rifles and handguns at the various ‘protests’ didn’t help improve the GOP image of maturity and stability either. (White Ex-Republican Soccer Mom: “How can you trust Republicans when they cater to people like that?”) Outside of Old Dixie, how do you get Congress-Creatures and other GOP detritus elected without the moderates tossing in some votes? The Repos, to their distress, are about to find out the answer – you can’t, at least not without the help of quivering Democrats.
(Speaking of Teabaggers, Here’s Some Free Advice: Dip yourselves in boiling water for ten minutes, then add sugar or lemon to taste.)
Bell Curve to Hell-Care Reform: The Dems will also feel the pain in 2010 if they don’t smarten up their act on health care reform. The unions, as well as many progressive groups, have already said ‘nada’ to putting the ‘GO’ in GOTV in the next election, if a public option isn’t in the final bill. Some (alleged) Dems central to the health care issue – Max Baucus, Harry Reid and their mealy-mouthed, corporate cash compadres – may also feel the heat from the left as real progressives challenge their nominations. Sure, they might still win, but it would cost them a bundle and leave a residue of ill-will, making them easy pickings for the GOP. If somebody like a Gov. Brian Schweitzer challenged Baucus for the Dem nomination, I think Montana primary voters would dump Max in a mixed-cliche New York heartbeat.
Tireless crusader for liberal causes Sen. Edward ‘Ted’ Kennedy (D-MA) is dead at 77 from complications of a cancerous tumor in his brain. From a wealthy, famous, and well-connected family, Sen. Kennedy was perhaps one of the last practitioners, both personally and politically, of ‘noblesse oblige’ in America, the concept that those who have been fortunate in life have a moral obligation to be generous and kind to those less fortunate. (Literal French translation to English: “Nobility obligates.”)
“From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.”
– Jesus, Luke 12:48.
Over the next few days you’ll hear all sorts of eulogies and encomiums to Kennedy, but the best way his colleagues could honor him would be to pass a health care reform bill with a public option covering those who can’t afford insurance, something he strongly advocated during his more than 40 years in politics.
U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy Dies at 77
NBC News & news services
Questions, I Have Questions…
Your (Mostly) Obedient Tattlesnake is waiting for one of our Big Media professional interrogators, such as NBC’s David “We’ll Frame It Your Way!” Gregory, to ask one of these Congressional Republicans hyperventilating against the government paying for health care, why they accept health care paid for by government taxation. To my knowledge, not one member of Congress turns down this platinum perk of office preferring to pay for privatized health care themselves, as they think us average schmoes should do. If privatized for-profit health care is ‘the greatest system in the world,’ why don’t they avail themselves of it using their own money instead of Uncle Sucker’s, i.e. ours? (I won’t hold my breath.)
Speaking of which, when do the BM ‘journalists’ start questioning why the government ‘of, by and for the people’ should be in the business of protecting private for-profit corporations from competition? We know they’ve done this unofficially for generations, but now the merry free-marketeers of the Republican Party and Blue Dog Dem stripe are openly babbling we have to protect the health care industry from ‘unfair competition’ from a public option. Wasn’t their mantra, just a few years ago, that corporations could always do a better job at a lower price than the government? If so, what are they worried about in the realm of health care? Could it be that a public health care option would nakedly expose that lie, and the obscene rip-off that America’s for-profit health insurance system has been for the past forty years?
Beware, beware: Don’t be fooled by the retooled Harry and Louise ads featuring the loathsome couple updating their opposition to health care reform by announcing themselves now ‘for it’ as long as it is ‘bipartisan’ and not ‘political.’ This is wrong on so many levels, the Tattler’s thesaurus begs for new synonyms, but the fact that the health care industry is spending over a million dollars a day to stop health care reform, and Harry and Louise is a part of that effort, should give you a clue as to just how detrimental this industry is to the public health. When Big Medico and Big Pharma use the word ‘bipartisan’ it’s in the corporate Republican sense, as in ‘do it our way.’ What the health insurance industry wants is no public option, and a huge payday in that the taxpayers will foot the bill, at current exorbitant rates, for all of the cases the for-profits currently refuse, such as ‘pre-existing conditions.’ This means we’ll be paying for dollar-a-cap Tylenols and every expensive, unneeded procedure greedy industry types can conjure up, and they, and the hospitals and doctors in on this scam, will get their piece of the very profitable action. Without competition from a public option, health care in this country will be even more expensive, yet not work any better for most of us, it will just cost more. Under the industry no-competition plan, you’ll be able to see your terminally ill relative languish into the Great Beyond at ten times what it costs in civilized nations with single-payer universal health care coverage.
More to come after Obama’s press conference tonight.
Copyright 2009 R.S. Janes.
“The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of the nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies but would be ashamed to tell a big one.”
“Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.”
– Benito Mussolini, as quoted by the London Sunday Express, December 8, 1935.
Item 1: Let’s make this Independence Day National Waterboarding Day! Here’s the way it would work: At each major public gathering on Saturday, July 4, 2009, have a crew there ready to waterboard all comers. Bring your conservative friends and relatives who deny that waterboarding is torture and challenge them to personally experience this ‘enhanced interrogation technique’ for themselves. Let them deny it’s torture after they beg for it to stop after 6 or 7 seconds as Mancow Muller did. Just to sweeten the deal, offer a prize of $25.00 for anyone who lasts a full minute. Vets for Peace and other military groups could provide the waterboarders and the equipment is cheap: a few gallons of water, some water bottles, a board that can be slanted and some washcloths. I know this is short notice, but I hope MoveOn.org, True Majority and kindred liberal organizations pick this up and run with it.
Item 2: How did we ever get to the point where sacrificing our health for the profits of a large corporation is an acceptable idea? How did we get to the point where a faceless corporate bureaucrat in a for-profit business denying health care to a sick person is an acceptable idea? How did we go from doctors visiting your home when you were ill to making sick people sit in a waiting room to see the doctor? And, BTW, I’m tired of Congressional Republicans telling us that we have the best health care system in the world. Of course we do – if you happen to be a member of Congress. The rest of us have to take our chances. Want to see instant health care reform? Make the Senators and Congress-Creatures go to the Emergency Room when they get sick. After several hours in pain or feeling ill, sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair waiting for an overworked ER intern to see them, those Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats will be ready to sign on to anything that ends that scene from Dante’s Inferno.
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The Tattlesnake – Stossel Gets Foxed Up and ‘Lord’ Boustany Fizzles Edition
Plus: Obama’s Playing Health Care Reform Chess with the Death Party – and He’s Winning
It’s About Time: Pretend journalist and right-wing dipthong John Stossel and his gay-porn-star-mustache have joined Fox News, his ideological home for the past twenty years anyway. Actually, the AP article says he’ll have a regular show on the moribund Fox Business Channel – which has an audience of about 150 poor wretches employed by owner Rupert Murdoch – and pop up on Fox News occasionally. The story-behind-the-story? ABC News couldn’t wait to get rid of this strutting little pimple and they’ve been gently pushing him out the door for the better part of a decade. After years of bellowing the tiresome “Give me a break!” to the point where some of his viewers volunteered to administer one to his neck, Stossel is finally getting his – hee, hee — ‘big break’ on Fox. The spoiled Stossel’s lowest and most hilarious moment at ABC came when ‘Mr. Honest Libertarian’ admitted on-air that he had a luxury vacation beach house that had been flattened by a hurricane that he then had the evil government pay to rebuild through just the kind of program for rich idiots like himself that he railed against on a regular basis on ABC’s “20/20.” Hey, he didn’t like stealing the taxpayer’s money, but as long as the program was available, what the hell? And he’d do it again, too, he said, because he really loved that luxury beach house. Never occurred to his hypocritical ass to pay for it out of his own fat wallet. Give me a f*cking break indeed. Have a nice time working for Rupert and Roger Ailes, Johnny – maybe you they’ll let you trade quips with Glenn Beck and Orly Taitz about Obama’s birth certificate and do in-depth interviews with ‘morans’ at teabag rallies — you know, real news.
The GOP Sleep Doctor: Why did the GOP pick a potato-headed southern doctor in a bad suit who resembles a Hicksville undertaker to give the Republican response to Obama’s health care speech? Easy, they knew they didn’t have anyone with the firepower to outdo BHO, so they went the other way and dredged up this boring drone named Charles “Lord” Boustany who by some cosmic accident was elected to a Congressional seat from Louisiana. Well, at least the Republicans avoided the embarrassment of another humiliating pratfall by a Bobby “Big Checks!” Jindal, the lame Louisiana governor who is now running around the state taking credit for Obama’s stimulus money that he once indignantly said he would refuse. Most viewers probably ignored Boustany, the same way you’d turn away at a whiff of formaldehyde, but he was actually entertaining, in a demented GOP way – the Republican’s puny rant was obviously written before Obama addressed Congress, so Lord B. was getting pissy over things Obama had already clarified in his speech. Not that truth has ever been any hindrance to GOP BS, but seeing it in such stark contrast to what Obama had just said a quarter-hour before was hilarious.
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