Presidential Legitimacy - crazies stirred!

Where Did ‘We’ Go?

Let's sum this:

Politics has always been a dangerous game, and seeking political office is never for the thin skinned.

Legitimacy? Every president in my 53-year-long life has been legitimate, since the bar to entry is set pretty low - age and citizenship - and the Electoral College system is badly in need of revision.

Nixon? An angry, bitter man who wasn't a bad president but got no love when he was caught associating with common criminals, and he deserved what he got.

Ford? Probably a decent man, but when the criminal steps aside for you, and then you pardon him, you probably do not deserve re-election.

Carter? Still paying for the mistakes of his predecessors, and you know it.

Reagan? Held aloft as a muscled, tanned God above God by Republicans...he was reviled in his time yet legitimate evil stuff like Iran-Contra slid off his hide as if it were...teflon. I have in my posession a souvenier of the times which molds Reagan's head into a, well I won't say but it is not complementary. If rational, thinking humans don't finally see how his presidency, legitimate or not, led to today's ecomonic situation, I see little hope for this great experiment we call the United States. But even with a massive US and global opposition to his policies, he achieved re-election and got his VP, a wealthy WWII vet who had a couple of kids, elected to replace him.

When GHWB's presidency, again legitimate, floundered, things were ripe for, what's the word, change. The Republican politicians, already drooling over the prospect of a permanant Republican majority and an inflation of Executive powers heretofore unimagined, fueled by their bitter rage that Nixon was screwed simply because he was caught, were complacent, and saw Bill Clinton get elected.

The Republican overseers whipped their minions into a froth, and within a few years for the first time legitimized and institutionalized into our lawmaking process the means to slur and slander a president, with the end simply being a few more seats in congress. Led by a man named Newt, they publicly took every opportunity to obstruct any good work this legitimately elected administration wanted to pass, hogtying them to Don't Ask Don't Tell, shamefully defeating healthcare reform which would have transformed our country to one where we showed the world that we respect and love our people, instead of the one where the world sees that we let corporations steer our polititians to do whatever it takes to gain political power, instead of doing what's right.

Nothing short of convicting President Clinton of murdering Vince Foster with his bare hands on the steps of the White House would have satisfied these goons. Instead, we had taxpayer-robbing investigations that led nowhere, and a president who was not convicted of anything, even though articles of impeachment were passed. Every move this president made especially in his second term was open for labeling by an evil Republican machine and complicit media. When middle eastern terrorists were showing their intent to harm us, for example, every move by the President was called not-enough, Wag-the-dog, etc., - the very same acts that if the demigod Reagan had done them, they would have been held up as a shining example of strategic brilliance and our American superiority. Gingrich, the blood of 9/11 victims is on your hands for establishing a system where you can discredit an American presidency simply to elect more Republicans, hampering an existing president's ability to lead in the process.

GWB? Legitimately elected, but not by a majority of us. Put in office essentially by an activist Supreme Court, no wonder his actions were questioned. Even most in the US who didn't vote for him rallied around after 9/11, and GWB simply blew it going into Iraq, wanting to turn Social Security over to Wall Street, etc. Comparisons to Nazis were wrong, but in our quiet, sane, moments, we can see how a Bush steamrolling over Iraq might be held up on a banner by some as being like a Hitler steamrolling over Poland.

Yet, the Republicans, continue to argue that GWB was a legitimate - and infathomably, good - president, and that Obama is not. this is where Friedman is right, that against sanity itself, these Republicans continue to argue these things, and yes, it would be supremely ironic if GWB were to be considered in history books to be a legitimate president, and Obama not.

Friedman's point, obviously that idiot Grover Norquist in Politico's Arena never actually read it, is right, that percieved legitimacy can be very different from actuality, and that legitimacy can be used by nasty people to stir others to very nasty action, is right.

Fiscal Responsibility Requires Higher Taxes - Forbes.com

Fiscal Responsibility Requires Higher Taxes - Forbes.com

At some point, taxes have to be back on the table as the price that must be paid for profligate spending. Only then will the American people realize that they can't have their cake and eat it too, as Republicans have preached for the last decade. Only when the American people go back to believing that spending must be paid for will they stop demanding something for nothing and put the country back on the path to fiscal sanity.

I rarely agree with Bartlett, but thanks to him, and it should be obvious to all that cutting taxes for a few already-wealthy people during a deficit situation and passing the Medicare drug benefit without a means to pay for it - both simply to curry votes - were not conservative and just about the worst things that government could do for the economy. Yes, smash the tax code and rebuild it so corporations actually pay tax - a reasonable one, and rebuild it so everyone has the chance to benefit from itemized deductions - not just the already-wealthy.

This won't happen until we abolish the notion of corporate personhood, and stop deluding ourselves to believe that money is speech.

Daniel Henninger: From Bismarck to Obama - WSJ.com

Daniel Henninger: From Bismarck to Obama - WSJ.com

ObamaCare

Every time a reader or listener hears this term, he or she should run screaming. It is equivalent to "death panel." It doesn't exist, and hasn't been used by a sentient being to label this initiative. It shows how dull, misleading, and manipulative a publication like WSJ is.

the country has been waiting for "national health reform" for 70 years

Dude, try 97 years:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1447696 in 1912 Theodore Roosevelt’s insurgent Progressive Party included a health insurance plank in its campaign platform

Every time the state assumes an additional function such as health insurance, child care or benefits for the aged, the need for close family ties becomes weaker

Where to begin on support for such a stupid, inflammatory, and outrageous remark? Let's sum it up by saying that keeping your and my family healthy is right up there with keeping them housed and fed. Unfortunately, the deck is stacked against many of us. We can't win in the game - and the already-wealthy-and-powerful have made this a game, and a deadly one - to make enough money to afford even basic health care in some cases. And the rest of us who can afford it pay, and overpay, for those who can not afford it, it many, many egregious ways. And the tiny sliver of us who are among the wealthy overpay, but don't feel a thing from the inflation.

ACORN Obsession Kills GOP Chances in '10

News in November '10.

ACORN, socialist, Hitler...just posters on the crazy train.

I'm a Values Voter!

Let's start with Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness as values.

I value life. War of choice, started for the monetary and political profit of a tiny minority of wealthy white men, is murder. Capital Punishment, which doesn't act as a deterrent, is an egregious example of Big Government intrusion into our lives, and does not right a wrong, is murder. Having the best healthcare system in the world, yet denying it to many or making it so costly that even the insured can't afford it, is murder.

I value Liberty. Calling the president a socialist (when you are too ignorant to comprehend what socialism is) or a Nazi is political terrorism - it stirs the Reptilian Brain and causes the blind, outrageous outbursts we see, reported by a complacent and complicit media, and denies all of us the right to decent political discourse. Giving the previous president carte blanche to shred the constitution and allow public access to our private conversations is a sword through our rightful humanity. Getting your news strictly from radio and TV shriekers who invent facts and reinvent history to support a disloyal opposition keeps us as citizens of the United States from living freely.

I value the freedom to pursue happiness - no matter what skin color, gender, sexual orientation, or ability we are born with, we have a fundamental right to live that to the fullest. My activities, unless they are against our laws, can't be regulated or outlawed by inbred morons and shriekers who put their own cafeteria-Christianity above my life.

We have an Idiocracy who values usury over monetary responsibility, winning-at-any-cost over the support of the value of life, and extremist political and religious claptrap over the centerist nation that we truly are.

Yes, I vote, and I will never vote for anyone who transparently wants to destroy our right to a free life.

Study links 45,000 U.S. deaths to lack of insurance | Reuters

Study links 45,000 U.S. deaths to lack of insurance | Reuters

Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year -- one every 12 minutes -- in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found in an analysis released on Thursday.

"We're losing more Americans every day because of inaction ... than drunk driving and homicide combined

You bloggers and shriekers who prophesy with your pen...

Every one of you obstructing health care reform is a murderer.

Dear Senator!

Please stand up to the bill that Sen. Baucus has presented.

The current system murders people (and no, that's not too strong of a word), and this bill does nothing to address the needs of anyone but already wealthy and powerful insurance companies.

There is not enough regulation in this bill to fundamentally change how these companies work. Few people currently uninsured - including my two college-age sons, regretfully - will find a way to afford the ever-increasing costs to by fundamentally-flawed coverage. These insurance companies will continue to have clear ways to deny service paid-for by existing companies, and to deny coverage to those with pre-existing conditions.

The only way to relieve this horrible tax on small employers and the self-employed, the only way to keep people out of the clutches of corporate bureaucrats, the only way to return medical caregivers to the art of healing from the task of accounting, the only way to make our exceptional health care available to all regardless of wealth, is a single payer system.

You know this and I know this.

Cowardice and avarice are the only things keeping the status quo. Politicians' immediate political needs are murdering people. Politicians' immediate needs to feed from lobbyists' troughs are murdering people.

A single payer system is the only way to get the indemnity pool large enough to bring costs down, coverage broad, and to deliver quality care.

Please stand up to this bill.

Please do what you can to deliver a bill to the President's desk by the end of the year that sets in stone immediate, meaningful fundamental change in our healthcare.

Real Life 'Norma Rae' Murdered by Her Insurance Company to Get Chemo | Crooks and Liars

'Norma Rae' Dead at 68 After Struggle With Her Insurance Company to Get Chemo | Crooks and Liars

The woman whose life inspired the 1979 film Norma Rae has died of cancer after struggling with her health insurance company, which had delayed her treatment.

Crystal Lee Sutton was 68. She had struggled for several years with meningioma, a form of brain cancer.

Name the company.

Charge their CEO, each and every Board member, and each bureaucrat who delayed and denied coverage with murder.

Commentary: Don't cut our (public) health care - CNN.com

Commentary: Don't cut our (public) health care - CNN.com

"We worked hard to get it and we're going to keep it," said Nancy Snyder, one of the protesters attending this summer's health care town meetings.... she was interviewed by Michel Martin on National Public Radio's "Tell Me More."

When asked how she had insurance coverage, Nancy explained that because her husband was a retired coal miner, they received insurance and care through the United Mine Workers. She attended the town hall because she said she had "had enough of the government interfering with our lives, after working hard all of our lives, especially to get the health care."

As employment declined and mining families struggled in the 1960s, mineworkers launched widespread protest demonstrations and traveled to Washington to lobby for federal support of UMW hospitals. Presidents Kennedy and Johnson responded with the Area Redevelopment Administration, the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act, the Appalachian Redevelopment Act, and of course, Medicare.

Government stabilized and expanded the miners' health system. Miners were proud beneficiaries of Johnson's Great Society -- today so much maligned by the conservative talk show hosts. Miners continued their pressure, leading to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, marshalling public force to protect their health in the private workplace.

If Nancy Snyder "did not pay one penny" for her husband's cancer treatment or her surgeries, it's because government subsidized that care since Robert's early days as a miner.

This is the story of thousands, if not millions (sorry idiot Michelle Malkin, it wasn't even close to millions who marched on Washington last weekend, and the ones who did represent a constituency not large enough to elect a small-town city council seat) who's lives depend on the balance of public and private programs. They are renentive enough to hold onto words shrieked by radio entertainers, yet don't apply critical thinking and accept the conclusions of these media shriekers as fact.

Let's help each other build a strong foundation of fact, so we can all understand the current situation with our healthcare system in the United States. Only from there can we together make a bold step towards high quality affordable healthcare for all.

How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? - NYTimes.com

How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? - NYTimes.com

Economists got it wrong by:

Believing their own bullshit. Economy, as a science, is really a belief system. These mere mortals think that they are masters of the universe.

Politicizing their beliefs. Economists used the political tactic "if you repeat a lie (or a belief) often enough, people will start to believe it.

They forgot the definition of insanity - doing something repeatedly and expecting the results to change. Every strong Republican/supply-side/trickle-down administration has plunged the country into recession. Standing this ground on idealogical feet makes no sense, except to a complicit media and a public willing to accept lies.

Shreiking, Panicing, Pathetic Poster Boy: Rep. Joe Wilson!

(R) SC

Healthcare Reform - Now More Than Ever!

Universally available
No recsission
Coverage with pre-existing conditions
Highest Quality
Lowest cost
No Bankruptcy from high medical bills
Transportability

We can't afford not to!

Students - take responsibility for your education, set goals and do everything you can to succeed.

Today is a great day for students, parents, and educators to start to take education seriously.

Republicans to offer rebuttal of President Obama's Message to Students

Republicans plan to urge students to take no responsibility for their own education, to set no goals, and to not stay in school and never make the most of it.

No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick