Posted by Len on Saturday, February 6th, 2010 at 7:18 pm CT in Democrats, Politics
President Obama braved the blizzard in Washington, D.C. this morning in order to address the Winter Meeting of the Democratic National Committee…
Now is not the time for sitting on the sidelines, or blocking progress, or pointing fingers, or assigning blame. Now is not the time to do just what’s right for your party or your poll numbers. Now is the time to do what’s right for the country. Now is the time to do what’s necessary to see us through these difficult times. Now is the time to do everything in our power to keep the American Dream alive for the next generation.
The full transcript of the speech as released by the White House follows the break.
Posted by Len on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 4:42 pm CT in Democrats, Politics
Last week, President Obama met with House Republicans. This morning, he met with Senate Democrats. He spoke to them and then with them, just as he did with the Republicans. The meeting lasted about 75 minutes.
A Republican won the special election to fulfill the remainder of the late Ted Kennedy’s term in the United States Senate. (Though I personally refuse to recognize their victory since it was by less than 60% and, as everybody knows, you need at least a 60% majority to get anything done in the United States Senate.) To hear and watch their celebrations today, one would almost think they had reclaimed the majority in both houses of Congress and the White House to boot. Judging from the reactions of a lot of the Democrats, it would seem that they are in agreement. I think the Democrats would do well to heed the advice of their former chairman (the one who led them to victory in 2008)…
The following video is from MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast January 19, 2009.
The opening paragraph of the NYT story linked in the opening paragraph is startling, to say the least…
With Democrats reeling from the Republican victory in the Massachusetts special Senate election, President Obama on Wednesday signaled that he might be willing to set aside his goal of achieving near-universal health coverage for all Americans in favor of a stripped-down measure with bipartisan support.
It amazes me that nobody at the White House has yet figured out that no Republican is ever going to vote in favor of any health care reform bill favored by the Democrats. It does not matter to them in the least that people are out here suffering. Their one and only goal is to defeat the Democrats and see President Obama fail. This pipe dream of bipartisanship that the Democrats seem to want to hang on to simply must go away. It isn’t going to happen.
It was fun watching the screaming heads on TV predict the demise of the Democratic party all day today after two Democratic Senators announced their retirements. Steve Benen provides a bit of perspective…
In the House, 14 GOP incumbents have decided not to seek re-election, while 10 Democratic incumbents have made the same announcement…
In the Senate, six Republican incumbents have decided not to seek re-election, while two Democratic incumbents have made the same announcement…
So, to review, Republican retirements outnumber Democratic retirements in the House, in the Senate, and among governors. The preferred Republican/media meme of the day doesn’t match up well against reality.
Posted by Len on Sunday, December 20th, 2009 at 3:30 pm CT in Democrats, Politics
Dr. Howard Dean (medical doctor, former governor of Vermont, former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee) was interviewed by David Gregory on this mornings Meet the Press. The talked about the health care bill that is about to be passed in the United States Senate…
Me, personally? I think we should be listening to Dr. Dean. The health care bill as currently constituted in the Senate is, in the long run, going to do much more harm than good. I’m holding out hope (though that hope is fading more by the day) that it can be repaired in conference with the House of Representatives. As things stand now, though, bare-knuckled partisanship and lobbyist dollars have won out over the welfare of the American citizenry.
(Full transcript of today’s Meet the Press available here. David Axelrod, senior adviser to President Obama, appeared to speak in favor of the Senate bill.)
Al Franken is the Junior Senator from the state of Minnesota. He has been on the job for going on six months. Joe Lieberman and Johnny McCain have been in the Senate since dirt was invented. Watch as Franken makes complete asses of the two senior senators on the floor of the Senate yesterday…
As you watch Johnny McCain throw his little temper tantrum, keep in mind that he is the man that, had the Republicans had their way, would now be the President of the United States of America (with Sarah Palin at his side). It may also be worth remembering that Johnny and Joey are BFFs.
P.S. I would be remiss if I did not share with you Fox Snooze’s reaction to the above incident. It’s quite hilarious…
UPDATE: See “Flashback: McCain Refused To Grant 30 Seconds Of Time During Iraq War Debate.” Yesterday Senator McCain stated “I’ve been around here 20-some years. First time I’ve ever seen a member denied an extra minute or two to finish his remarks… I just haven’t seen it before myself.” Is dementia setting in? Will these clowns at Fox Snooze now be fired, since they seem either incapable of or disinterested in doing a few minutes’ research?
UPDATE #2: Senator Franken was simply following orders from the Senate leadership to keep all speeches to their ten minute limit. Will an apology be forthcoming from Senator McCain for his offensive and partisan attack on a fellow Senator?
UPDATE #3: The following video is from MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Dec. 21, 2009.
Posted by Len on Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 3:34 pm CT in Democrats, Politics
I will be the first to admit that it has been a lot of fun watching Rick Goodhair Perry and Kay Bailey Liar Hutchison tear each other apart, but the truth is there is not a nickel’s worth of difference between them.
Today we got the announcement for which we have been waiting.
I wanted to share with you the visit that Congressman Alan Grayson made to the lions’ den (CNN’s Situation Room) today. He looked those old lions right in their faces and handed them the truth. They objected mightily. It still amazes me the way that Republicans get their hackles up when somebody has the guts to tell the truth about them. He actually called them “nattering nabobs of negativism” and “knuckle dragging neanderthals.” They did not like it one little bit…
I hope a lot of Democrats were watching closely and taking careful and copious notes. It is past time for Americans to learn the truth about our Republicans.
UPDATE: The following video is from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast September 30, 2009…
While I do not agree with her that Rep. Grayson’s comments on the floor of the House were “over the top” (I thought they were spot on), the rest of her remarks and her interview with Mr. Grayson (aside from her insistence on and explanation for his use of the word holocaust, which again I thought was spot on) are worth the time to watch. She brings up some excellent points about the Republicans’ demand for an apology.
By the way, my dictionary defines holocaust as a great destruction of life. That, I think, just about covers the Republican refusal to reform and improve health care in the United States of America. Congressman Grayson used the word correctly. There is, I believe, a distinction to be made between holocaust and “The Holocaust.”
I like you a lot, Rachel, but there were a couple of points in last night’s show during which you went “over the top.”
UPDATE #2:
Video from The Ed Show, broadcast October 1, 2009:
Yesterday, Representative Alan Grayson (D-FL) stood up in the House of Representatives and accurately described the Republican health care plan:
The Republicans immediately called on Rep. Grayson to apologize. Somehow, having their health care plan so accurately portrayed and so publicly displayed hurt their feelings. They likened Rep. Grayson’s remarks to Joe Wilson (R-SC) screaming out “You lie!” during a presidential address to a joint session of Congress. In their view, it is perfectly acceptable for Sarah Palin (and other Republicans) to claim that President Obama and the Democrats want to establish death panels or for Michelle Bachmann (and other Republicans) to claim that President Obama and the Republicans want to put conservatives in detention camps. Those things are fine (though blatantly and demonstrably false). But to have a Democrat (who was properly recognized and given time to speak on the floor of the House, unlike Mr. Wilson) stand up and truthfully describe their health care plan somehow warrants an apology.
Our Republicans are getting crazier by the day. They really are. It’s starting to get more than just a little scary.
Rep. Grayson did apologize today, though I am not sure it was exactly the apology the Republicans were hoping for…
The audio in that video is not the best. In case you didn’t catch it, here is Mr. Grayson’s apology:
Last night here in this chamber I gave a speech. I’m not going to recount every single thing that I said, but I will point out that immediately after that speech, several Republicans asked me to apologize.
Well, I would like to apologize. I would like to apologize to the dead. And here’s why.
According to this study, “Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults” which was published two weeks ago, 44,789 Americans die every year because they have no health insurance. That’s right, 44,789 Americans die every year, according to this Harvard study called “Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults.” You can see it by going to our website, grayson.house.gov.
That is more than ten times the number of Americans who have died in the war in Iraq. It’s more than ten times the number of Americans who died in 9/11. But that was just once: this is every single year.
That’s right: every single year.
Take a look at this. Read it and weep. And I mean that – read it and weep because of all these Americans who are dying because they don’t have health insurance.
Now I think we should do something about that, and the Democratic healthcare plan does do something about that. It makes healthcare affordable for those who can’t afford insurance, and it saves these peoples’ lives.
Let’s remember that we should care about people even after they’re born.
So I call upon the Democratic members of the House, I call upon the Republican members of the House, I call upon all of us to do our jobs for the sake of America – for the sake of those dying people and their families.
I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner to end this holocaust in America.
Thank you, Representative Grayson! (And shame, shame on you, Republicans.)
It is high time for the Democrats to realize that bipartisanship is dead. They could hand the Republicans a health care bill written entirely by the Republicans themselves and the Republicans would vote against it. Why? Because it was handed them by Democrats. These attempts by the Democrats to “bring the Republicans into the process” are nothing short of ridiculous. The Republicans do not want to be part of the process. Their leaders Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have told them so. The sole purpose of the modern Republican party is opposition. Unless they are opposing whatever the Democrats (and most especially President Barack Obama) are proposing, they no longer have reason to draw breath.
David M. Herszenhorn hit the nail squarely on the head in yesterday’s New York Times…
Most Republicans have been deeply unhappy with the Democratic health care proposals so far, and Republicans on the Finance Committee were said to be bracing for two possibilities: a partisan proposal that they were going to oppose, or a bipartisan proposal that they were going to oppose.
Almost. He just needs to remove the word ‘most’ at the beginning of that paragraph and the words ‘on the Finance Committee’ from the middle. Then he needs to change to ‘unhappy’ to ‘opposed’ and… Well, here, let me rewrite it for him…
All Republicans are deeply opposed to the Democratic health care proposals and they are bracing for two possibilities: a partisan proposal that they are going to oppose or a bipartisan proposal that they are going to oppose.
There, that’s better.
The Democrats do not need the support of the Republicans to give Americans the health care reform that they so desperately need, and that is a good thing because they are not going to get it. Hopefully, the Democratic leadership (and President Obama) have by now come to that realization. It simply does not matter how many compromises they offer or on how many points they cave, the Democrats are not going to win one single Republican vote.
It is time for the Democrats to write the health care bill they want, pass it and have it signed into law by the duly elected President of the United States. They then need to move on and tend to other business. The Republicans have held the country back long enough. If our Republican friends want to act like petulant children, it is time to start treating like petulant children. Send them to their rooms while the adults take care of business.
