"I think The Republicans have a level of energy but inside that energy they have their own problem and fissures. They're basically at the behest of a fringe group that's taken control of their own party and their own leaders are scared of it." - Rahm Emanuel
John Birch + thug mentality + religious extremism + solid record of stupidity = GOP
[W]e really judge the extremism of legislation based on the positioning of Republicans and Democrats. If I'd told you that the Obama administration was going to release a health-care bill that would attract every Senate Democrat -- from Bernie Sanders and Barbara Boxer to Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman -- and either endorsements or neutrality from the American Medical Association, the hospital industry, the pharmaceutical industry, AARP, labor, and much of the insurance industry (though their press releases have become more oppositional recently), you'd have thought that was a pretty moderate, consensus-oriented bill. Which it is! But most Americans don't think that because the Republicans decided to treat it as the second coming of fascism.
Seriously. Stick to the facts.
Over the last 24-48 hours -- coinciding with the release of the CBO score -- we've now moved into the second phase, which is counting up the yesses. And so far, Democrats are doing a pretty good job of it. Firm-seeming yes votes from different people representing different constituencies -- Kucinich (wavering liberals), Markey (swing-district), Gordon (retirees), Gutierrez (Hispanics) have been unveiled, with one or two others looking likely to follow. As Dayen pointed out earlier today, if you take the seeming yes votes and add them to the people who are uncommitted but voted for the bill last time around, they add up to 217. This math isn't foolproof but by any means but that's a pretty important threshold to pass.
In 90 days the donut hole is going to be filled - there goes the GOPs senior voters. In 90 days no child can be denied coverage because of preexisting condition - parents are going to love that. In 180 days all college age kids are going to have the option of staying on their parents plan until age 26 - both parents and kids are going to like that.
The GOP are screaming about "deah panels" when all these positive things are going to kick in. No just liars, but incompetent liars.
The nation's largest association of doctors and the AARP senior citizens' lobby are endorsing President Barack Obama's revised health overhaul legislation.
James Rohack, president of the American Medical Association, said Friday that the pending bill isn't perfect, but it's the next step toward real reform of the nation's health care system.
"This is certainly not the bill we would have written, but we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good," Rohack said.
Funny how a lot of FoxNoise fans who can't balance a checkbook, keep from maxing out their credit card(s), or figure their own taxes know *exactly* - to the penny - how HCR costs will develop for the next ten years, and exactly what medical care will be delivered, and to whom.
Republicans did nothing for 8 years except pass a Prescription Drugs bill it did not pay for. They now don't like the AMA or AARP because they endorse Obama. A bunch of do nothing cry babies.
They are just a bunch of misanthropes who hope everything bad they dream up will happen. They offer no positivity: it's all "this is going to destroy America". Competitive health insurance plans are going to destroy a robust, educated 300,000,000 people? I don't think so. It's all hype.
After being turned down for parole 16 times, Malcolm X’s only confessed assassin is about to gain his freedom.
Thomas Hagan has been held since moments after shots rang out in the Audubon Ballroom in 1965. He has been on work release for more than two decades, but he still spends two days a week locked up at the Lincoln Correctional Facility on West 110th Street in Manhattan.
He did the crime, he did the time. He even got his Master's Degree while in prison.
"I think Christians may have to accept that sin isn't the reason why we're frail. That frailty isn't even an enemy. That frailty is simply on the journey with us. To teach us, hold us, cry with us. And to transform us into whom we are meant to be. This last point is important to understand because "sin" isn't pathological. The Hebrew word for sin is chait, which, when modernized, suggests not making it to one's destination. The word directly refers to personal potential. And so sin isn't what's inherently wrong with us; it's the process whereby we learn to live out who we are meant to be. It is about how we can grow rather than how we are impeded. It's about who we are becoming rather than who we once were."
Why do religious people use what they don't know to support what they do know? It should be the other way around. You don't know how the world was crated or how man evolved, you're just using the myth you were born into to explain something that science has a way better understanding of. This is not 1600s pre-Enlightenment.
And if you're going to use the Bible as your guide, there is this thing called the New Testament, the part with Jesus. As for the 7 sins thrown around as a moral code, they are not even in the Bible.
God = you = sinner = God is a sinner. If I were to believe in a God, he would be so great, he would not need all these weak spokespeople giving out promises they could never fulfill or prove. The Pope is covering up child rape. End. Of. Story.
Be kind because it feels good.
The vindictive nature of certain Americans is unthinkable. The shame these people have, picking on the have-nots. What does Americans For Prosperity really mean? Isn't prosperity for everyone include decent health care coverage?
The Health Reform opponents have created fake scenarios and used them to distort the real issues. Once HRC is passed and America moves forward, we need to hold them accountable for all the misery they predicted that never happened.
Obama getting the HCR message out. Great video, very good production.
"This was such a nice holiday until the Irish showed up"
It's not exactly startling to see that Karl Rove has denied he was aware his own father was gay, even as he guided the GOP into anti-gay wedge politics in the last decade (the Christianists, he coolly calculated, had potentially way more votes for the GOP than gays and their families). But it is important to note that it is untrue that he had no idea his dad was gay or that he was unaware it was the reason for his parents' divorce. From James Moore, the author of The Architect, a biography of Rove:
When I went to Palm Springs in 2005 prior to the publication of The Architect, one of Louis Rove's neighbors literally laughed when I told him Karl claimed he didn't know what happened to his parents' marriage.
"He [Karl] was obviously hurt by the divorce. It's just absurd when he says, 'I had no idea what the problems were with my parents and their marriage.' He knew damned good and well what was going on. His father had decided to come out of the closet."
In fact, according to Louis Rove's best friend Joe Koons, Rove not only knew his father's sexual orientation but also was comfortable with it and had accepted his father's honesty.
People are complicated; families are only knowable from within; we should comment on their people's private lives with great reluctance. But Rove's cynical attempts to wage culture war against gay couples, servicemembers and our families surely make this a legitimate issue.
Rove and Cheney pander to the worst elements within the Conservative movement while having a gay parent and a gay daughter, respectively.
The total lack of empathy and compassion is mind numbing. You must have completely no soul to go out and use bigotry to destroy and alienate what is happening in your own home.
A priest is discovered to have been actively molesting children. His superior is notified in 1980. One of the things he is told of is the priest's forcing an 11 year old boy to perform oral sex on him. The superior does not contact the police. He approves a transfer of the priest to a different city, where the priest is required to undergo therapy but is also subsequently able to resume his work with access to children. Six years later, the priest is again found guilty of abusing children. This time, he serves a sentence, but he is subsequently allowed to resume work as a priest, with the church authorities hiding his past from future parishes, and is only removed from his position three days ago.
Church hierarchy in the US, Ireland, Germany and Australia all covered up sex scandals the same way. Can we assume this is church protocol?
If this person headed a secular organization, or if he were a politician, he would be forced to resign.
In the Catholic Church's eyes, the priest are the victims that need protection. This is not anti-Catholic rhetoric, this is the truth. More and more victims will come forward, when will the church followers demand justice?
The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday characterized its Congressionally mandated “national broadband plan” as a much-needed step for keeping the United States competitive.
The proposal, which the agency sent to Congress on Tuesday, “is necessary to meet the challenges of global competitiveness, and harness the power of broadband to help address so many vital national issues,” the agency chairman, Julius Genachowski, said in a statement.
The plan also includes a faster-Internet initiative that theoretically would equip 100 million households with 100-megabit-a-second access by the end of this decade. According to comScore, the average subscriber now receives speeds of three to four megabits a second.
What most Americans don't want to accept is that we are lagging far behind other countries in broadband adoption and speed.
"The F.C.C. says it can make some important changes on its own, without Congressional action, including changes to the Universal Service Fund, which spends $8 billion a year from telephone surcharges to ensure that rural and poor people have phone lines at home. Over time, the fund will spend more to support broadband availability."
In his statement Tuesday, Mr. Genachowski called the proposal “a 21st century roadmap to spur economic growth and investment, create jobs, educate our children, protect our citizens, and engage in our democracy.”
MUNICH — The priest at the center of a German sexual-abuse scandal that has embroiled Pope Benedict XVI continued working with children for more than 30 years, even though a German court convicted him of molesting boys.
The priest, Peter Hullermann, who had previously been identified only by the first letter of his last name, was suspended from his duties only on Monday. That was three days after the church acknowledged that the pope, then Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, had responded to early accusations of molestation by allowing the priest to move to Munich for therapy in 1980.
Pope Benedict, then as Archbishop Ratzinger, was in charge of the Vatican's review of sexual abuses for the last 20+ years. It was his job to withhold the truth. Infallible, my ass.
What a great honor for a guy who can lie and withhold information that leads to abuse of children: you get to be Pope.
"You see, the Massachusetts Supreme Court, when it started this move toward same-sex marriage, actually defined marriage -- now get this -- it defined marriage as simply, 'the establishment of intimacy.' Now how dangerous is that? I mean, I don't mean to be absurd about it, but I guess I can make the point of absurdity with an absurd point -- I guess that would mean if you really had affection for your horse, I guess you could marry your horse. It's just the wrong way to go, and the only way to protect the institution of marriage is with that federal marriage amendment that I support," - Senate candidate JD Hayworth.Cherry pick one line from a law, come up with an out of context example that will never, ever happen whatsoever, then use that asinine extremely fictitious example as the basis for why you need a more extreme law to prohibit it.
About 15-seconds in, a woman shouts "we need courage" and Obama runs with it.
America has to figure out what it wants to be. I'm relieved we have such a humane and intellectual leader.
Watch this clip and realize it will be edited to 10-seconds followed by a Mitch McConnell fabricated reaction and that is what we call journalism. We will overcome.
"Did God make man, or did man make many gods?"Don't swallow your moral code in tablet form.
"If this bill passes this year, children with pre-existing conditions will now be covered, there'll be an end to lifetime caps and annual caps on what the insurance companies will cover, so if you get sick you won't go broke, if you get sick they can't throw you off your insurance. The doughnut hole will be filled in so senior citizens will save hundreds of dollars on their prescription drugs, the life of Medicare will be extended, and on and on and on.
So, if the Republican Party wants to go out and say to that child who now has insurance or say to that small business that will get tax credits this year if he signs the bill to help their employees get health care. If they want to say to them, "You know what? We're actually gonna take that away from you. We don't think that's such a good idea." I say, let's have that fight. Make my day. I'm ready to have that. And every Member of Congress ought to be willing to have that debate as well," - David Axelrod.
"The incentives for people on Wall Street got so screwed up, that the people who worked there became blinded to their own long term interests. And because the short term interests were so overpowering. And so they behaved in ways that were antithetical to their own long term interests."Like all great men or women, hubris unchecked destroys not just what your predecessors have built but what you think you are building.
