I knew there was a problem, but I was unaware of the sheer size of the problem.

"people employed in the health care sector are 16 times more likely to be faced with violence while they are at their job than workers in any other service profession."

These and other numbers are found in

"There's No Vaccine For Violence: An Inside Look at the Deadly Realities of Working in Health Care."

More after the fold.

I've screamed myself hoarse at the top of my lungs.  For the last three months I've decried HRC's inability to reach across the aisle and unite legislators in America each time I've been met with the "Obama hasn't done anything and is inexperienced" argument.

I finally saw an ad tonight in Pennsylvania which took hold of this very idea.  A Republican senator, speaking out about the uniting ability and respect Barack has within the Senate.  Speaking about the legislation he's passed through bipartisan efforts, which otherwise would have foundered and died on the table.  It's an argument in his favor that HRC can't touch, because as the record shows, she hasn't gone across the aisle in anything other than her personal beliefs and conduct.

It can't be long now, I can already hear the acceptance speech at the DNC...

Some of my family are avid Bush supporters... STILL...
ANd when I tell them that the Iraq War was all Bush's idea, and a REpublican war that we got into because of fabricated artificial facts (Lies!), they immediately want to share the blame with Democrats by bringing up these comments from the left?
So what do you say to explain these comments from pre- 9-11 and pre- bush?
ANd how do you explain the ones that are the result of BUsh's witholding of facts and misinformation propaganda?

I'm in need of some advice from my fellow Kossacks. I'm a committee member of a regional Democratic committee and I've uncovered rock-solid evidence of party disloyalty from another committee member. Basically, this committee member, who is also an elected official, was making donations to the campaign another local politician—a very powerful member of the local GOP. And all this happened while the committee was working hard to unseat this GOP politician from office.

I've presented the evidence to the local Democratic Committee, and I'm asking for a vote to remove this committee member. But some members of the committee are trying to stop me, saying that it will hurt the party.

My view is that the damage has done and not by me. Read below for my story, scribble some advice for me if you have it, and vote in my poll.

In recent weeks, the Clinton campaign has repeatedly argued that Barack Obama would be ineffective in foreign policy or international relations as President.  This is my best rebuttal to such dubious claims by the Clinton campaign.  There are many reasons why I strongly believe that a President Obama would be highly successful in international relations, much more so than either Hillary Clinton or John McCain.

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) crowed about non-partisanship in the Minneapolis Star Tribune today.  He explained how amazing things can get done when politicians work together.  He used the I35W bridge as his example.

What a crock.  And what a crock for two specific reasons.  

Apparently I'm not the only one who was looking for Congress and found my high school.  

This is allegedly the raison d'être of Barack Obama.  Is it a noble goal, sure it is and it is something each and every one of us wants.  Reaching is how Obama plans to start change.  So, why can't we sever the party BS and work together?  We, Democrats and Republicans, can learn to compromise on things like taxes, regulations, entitlements and healthcare.  Certainly the people men and women who defended George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to the death can see the more humane side of governing.  

Do I think this is possible?  No way!  Do I wish it was possible, I sure do because Republicans do have a lot to offer, as their minds see things that Democrats can't process.  However, that same energy in Republicans that make them so good at math and understanding financial concepts is part of who they are and what they are.

Careful, don't jump across the aisle........

A great article in the Nation evaluating the current state of Labor relations (which are "if you don't like it, there's the door") and suggests that the current lack of a opportunity to join together at work to negotiate wages violates the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery and involuntary servitude.  When there are no options to organize for better conditions at your job or even in your region, then you have no choice but to take what scraps your CEO will leave you.  Are you much better than a slave when you have no opportunity for group negotiations and there are wage freezes because people in the 3rd world will do your job for less?

Beyond the Labor Board  
Max Fraser  
http://www.thenation.com/...

This past September, the National Labor Relations Board issued a startling sixty-one decisions in a legal blitzkrieg on working Americans. The NLRB has been led by a pro-business majority of Bush appointees since 2002. Its bias was never more apparent than during this latest round of decisions, labeled a "September massacre" by the AFL-CIO.

Simply put almost all legislation that passes would be perceived as centrist by the public. "Centrism" is of course a meaningless concept set by the contingencies of history and sociology. The America political centre would be very right in Australia and lunatic right in Europe. That said "moderate" is a term with vast emotive power.

To a certain extent the Republicans have succeeded as portraying themselves as sensible moderates. The number of advertisements that describe X candidate or Y policy as far left is truly astonishing when, by both US and world standards, X candidate and Y policy are no such thing. Such rhetoric works because outside of a small minority being a radical is a Bad Thing in the mind of the public and today’s voter is a low information voter. Republican effort’s on this front are largely why Bipartisanship has come to mean "let the Republicans get away with things. Indeed the Republican party has pulled one of the greatest con acts in the history of politics, manufacturing acrimony and angst between the parties and then, to avoid further acrimony, painting cooperation with themselves as the only  way to overcome the acrimony THEY THEMSELVES HAVE CREATED. A sophisticated form of political blackmail.

I read the article referred to by textus about a blue ribbon gathering of political players pushing for candidates to "go beyond tokenism" in their efforts to forge a "government of national unity."  

Looking at the roster of participants -- Nunn, Hart, Cohen, Hagel, Whitman and Danforth to name a few -- I am impressed these are men (and a few women) of considerable talent, experience, and credibility.  I believe they care about the country first and their party second when they say:

Partisan polarization is preventing us from uniting to meet the challenges that we must face if we are to prevent further erosion in America's power of leadership and example.

However, their sense of moral equivalency gives me pause.  

Until you end the polarization and have bipartisanship, nothing else matters, because one party simply will block the other from acting.

Considering the last 15 years of GOP activity, chiding Democrats for the polarized and poisoned atmosphere in the public square seems to stretch the meaning of bipartisan to a point I don't recognize.  What's going on here?

As bobdevo noted earlier, Bill Clinton announced yesterday that -- if elected -- Hillary Clinton would send him and his predecessor, George Herbert Walker Bush, on a diplomatic mission around the world to -- essentially -- apologize for the mess George Walker Bush has made and to assure the world that the United States would be, once more, "open for business."

As expected, Poppy Bush is having none of it.

In a previous diary I proposed a Democratic philosophy that lies behind Kos’s slogan "Democrats are the party for people who work for a living".   I received a number of comments that I will address in this diary.  One noted that economics is not philosophy. My use of philosophy referred to the common use of the word (e.g. a philosophy of life) and not philosophy as a field of intellectual endeavor.  A better word might be a worldview or paradigm that to various extents is held by people who consider themselves Democrats.

With the new vote on SCHIP, I wanted to follow-up on my earlier diary SCHIP Vote Not Bipartisan: Relative Risk Republicans Hate Children.

One point is to suggest how to properly determine if a vote is really bipartisan or not.

The other question is whether we should consider being and voting Republican as the "Disease" (the outcome) or if it is more properly considered the Expossure (potentially prevcentable risk factor).

Please see the original proposal that I sent to every single member of the GOP running for reelection in 2008.  

http://www.dailykos.com/...

They have apparently taken the time to not only read it but work with the Dems to make it happen.

http://news.yahoo.com/...