MSNBC's Keith Olbermann smacks down the obstructionist Republicans and Blue Dogs who are getting major contributions from the health care industry.
PBS pointed out that the health and insurance industries are spending more than a million, 400 thousand dollars a day, just to destroy the "public option" - the truly non-profit, wieldy, round-up and not round-down, government, from helping you pay your medical bills with about a billionth of the recklessness with which it is still paying Halliburton and its spinoffs to kill your kids.
And much of this money is going to, and through, Republicans.
But that's the real point tonight.
Not all of it is going through Republicans...
According to an article written in the Houston Chronicle this morning, John Cornyn, John McCain and Mitch McConnell met with a group of doctors at the Texas Medical Center in Houston. John Cornyn is apparently on a mission to destroy health care reform by misleading and scaring doctors and patients, alike.
According to Cornyn, the evil doer is a non-existent single payer option.
"This is where the government option is a competitor but the government's not exactly a fair competitor," said Cornyn, of Texas, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, which is considering health care reform proposals. "It's an 800-pound gorilla that has the capacity to undermine other competitors. We want to make sure we don't do anything to crush the kind of innovation that has led to cures and happier and healthier lives in Texas and around the world."
Dude, the only thing destroying innovation and cures are the crippling costs imposed by for-profit driven health care insurance companies.
The federal government agencies (i.e. the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Health etc.) and private foundations provide grants that fuel much of the innovation and cures. Is John Cornyn suggesting the public option will automatically become single-payer and federal grants will no longer be awarded to research faculty and doctors? The public option means no more federal funding for research?
If he is suggesting this he is both a fool and a liar.
I am supporting Lee Leffingwell and will not be posting much on the race, but this was just too good to pass up.
From Wells Dunbar's City Hall Hustle in the Austin Chronicle comes the latest reminder that the campaign could get a little nasty (emphasis mine).
... And just because some of Austin's heavier-hitting political organizations have already weighed in doesn't mean there won't be plenty of time for petty quibbling between the Leffingwell and McCracken camps. The latest round started in earnest with a press release trumpeting McCracken's website relaunch, among other things: "You may have heard that both of Brewster's opponents have chosen to run on the John McCain campaign message: 'a steady hand in troubled times.' Brewster believes we need to expect more of Austin's next mayor than simply trying to hunker down and weather the storm for a few years."
Is it a fair attack or just over the top? Decide in the comments.
Breaking news I know, but today was the day when the only votes that mattered for President got cast.
El Paso Times: Secretary of State Hope Andrade presided over the meeting until Peale was elected chair. The Austin Girls' Choir sang the national anthem, the Texas state song and "America the Beautiful."
Peale explained that Texas has the second-largest number of presidential electors behind California with its 55. New York has 31, and Florida has 27 electors. Pennsylvania and Illinois each have 21. The college was intended by the founding fathers to give all states a say in the election of the president.
Thanks to his brilliant grassroots efforts, his exhaustive and skillful community organization talents, President Elect Barack Obama has pulled off a landslide Election. Through his exhaustive campaign in which he elicited the support of thousands of volunteers, his extraordinary discipline, his tireless, never ending hard work, the severe lack of sleep, the sacrifice of his personal and family life, and despite the attacks and the attacks and the attacks and the misinformation and the misinformation and the blatant media bias, the bias, the bias, and the appalling regional ignorance, the ignorance, the ignorance, and the hate talk, the hate talk, the hate talk, somehow, despite all of the symbolic and vociferous right wing smearing and screaming, finally the majority of Americans heard through the deafening clamor and voted for truth, hope, change and a return to normality.
The president-elect won overwhelmingly among blacks, Hispanics and voters under the age of 30. He made inroads among important swing groups, including Catholics, suburbanites, political independents, even veterans. He won in the Midwest, where Mr. Kerry had lost. He even made small gains among groups that typically have been solidly Republican - whites, conservatives, Southerners, regular churchgoers.
And, according to the The Politico, the most affluent voters were key to Obama's win.
Thankfully, for the entire planet, the last eight years of the Republican Dark Ages and Reign of Financial Terror have crashed and burned, hopefully forever.
"The McCain campaign has made impressive strides over the last week of tracking." I am not exactly sure what Republican pollster Bill McInturff means by impressive strides. According to the Gallup Daily tracking poll since October 20th Senator Obama has not dropped below 50% in the poll and Senator McCain has not risen above 43%.
This morning on MSNBC McInturff pushed the idea that the majority of undecided voters, which is between four and eight percent, will break for McCain.
(Be sure to check out this awesome graphic as well. - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
Four years after it endorsed George W. Bush for president, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has wised up and endorsed Barack Obama for president.
This endorsement represents a healthy contrast to the helter-skelter reasoning the Dallas Morning News presented the week before in its ill-thought-out endorsement of John McCain (which was disgraceful at its base for its failure to address the huge issues presented by McCain's sad choice of Sarah Palin to be his running mate).
I have to admit I have been admiring Palin's taste in clothing, especially the red leather jacket she wore the other day. Thanks to recent news reports now I know why I've been paying attention to her wardrobe. Palin's outfits have been created by the finest designers in the world of haute couture. Sigh. Guess I'd better forget about ever owning that red leather jacket unless I can find a knock off at Chico's.
Sarah sure has exquisite taste in clothes. Price seems to be no limit when someone else is footing the bill. And like "Joe the Plumber" who is not a plumber, Palin does not like to pay her fair share of taxes, either.
Another grim lesson I have learned from Republicans who are running for office is that when they demonize something or something or attack someone for doing something they should not be doing, chances are the Republican is doing the very thing they are hyperventilating about.
Lately Sarah Palin has been stomping across the so-called red parts of America in her $600 a pop high heels and $12,000. suits while attacking Barack Obama whom she calls a socialist b/c he wants to redistribute the wealth. Duh, isn't that what taxes are supposed to do? Never mind.
According to Palin, Obama wants to steal money from the small business owners like Joe the Plumber who is not a plumber, nor does he own a business, and give it to other Americans who are very likely fake or anti-American.
The truth of the matter is Sarah Palin is the real socialist. Aside from the $150K wardrobe handout, as the governor of oil rich Alaska Sarah taxes the oil companies and transfers the revenues to her and the people of Alaska.
Senator John McCain has served his country but he has not served veterans. McCain has consistently said that he supports veterans, but his record shows that he has consistently not supported veterans.
