Why Aren't Backers of Health Care Reform Talking About This?

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Thursday March 04, 2010 · 5:33 PM PST

2010/03/04 · 17:33

According to The Hill (so take it with a grain of salt), Howard Dean says that passing the Senate health care reform bill as is will destroy Dems in upcoming elections:

"The plan, as it comes from the Senate, hangs out every Democrat who's running for office to dry -- including the president, in 2012, because it makes him defend a plan that isn't in effect essentially yet," Dean said during an appearance on the liberal Bill Press Radio Show....

"It's easy to campaign on repealing something if no one knows what the something is," Dean said. "And fundamentally people don't understand what the president's healthcare plan is."

Poll

65 votes Show Results

Will you benefit from health care reform this year?

65 votes Vote Now!

Will you benefit from health care reform this year?

Yes

24 votes

32 votes

Still don't know - tell me more, Dems!!!

9 votes

UI: GOP Undermines Business and the Middle Class, Again

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Tuesday March 02, 2010 · 12:45 AM PST

2010/03/02 · 00:45

So Republican whip Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona thinks that letting people have unemployment benefits and other middle class social safety net benefits like COBRA is a bad thing because it makes them less likely to bother finding another job:

Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Republican whip, argued that unemployment benefits dissuade people from job-hunting "because people are being paid even though they're not working."

Unemployment insurance "doesn't create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work," Kyl said during debate over whether unemployment insurance and other benefits that expired amid GOP objections Sunday should be extended.

"I'm sure most of them would like work and probably have tried to seek it, but you can't argue that it's a job enhancer. If anything, as I said, it's a disincentive. And the same thing with the COBRA extension and the other extensions here," said Kyl.

Poll

59 votes Show Results

How long should people get unemployment benefits?

59 votes Vote Now!

How long should people get unemployment benefits?

Less than a year

4 votes

1 year

6 votes

2 years

9 votes

3 years

1 vote

4 years

3 votes

As long as they need them

36 votes

Liberal Atheists More Intelligent? Be Very Wary

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Saturday February 27, 2010 · 1:18 PM PST

2010/02/27 · 13:18

Before you start patting yourself on the back for your liberalism and/or atheism which supposedly means you're smarter than conservatives, consider the source.

Among the author's greatest hits are this:

Kanazawa's theories on race and intelligence are controversial. Kanazawa...has been accused of promoting "racist stereotypes".[13] In 2006 Kanazawa published a controversial paper suggesting that poor health of people in some nations is the result, not of poverty, but rather lower IQ.[14] In the British Journal of Health Psychology George T. H. Ellison wrote that the theory is based on flawed assumptions, questionable data, inappropriate analyses and biased interpretations. Ellison wrote that Kanazawa mistook statistical associations for evidence of causality and falsely concluded that populations in sub-Saharan Africa are less healthy because they are unintelligent and not because they are poor.[15]

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Tuesday February 02, 2010 · 2:15 AM PST

2010/02/02 · 02:15

Yesterday's CitizenTube/YouTube interview with President Obama is up:

Transcript here.

Some excerpts and thoughts on it below.

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Monday February 01, 2010 · 5:17 PM PST

2010/02/01 · 17:17

GOP Rep. Paul Ryan floats a budget proposal for getting rid of the country's massive deficit. All it will take is privatizing Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security:

To move us to surpluses, Ryan's budget proposes reforms that are nothing short of violent. Medicare is privatized. Seniors get a voucher to buy private insurance, and the voucher's growth is far slower than the expected growth of health-care costs. Medicaid is also privatized. The employer tax exclusion is fully eliminated, replaced by a tax credit that grows more slowly than medical costs. And beyond health care, Social Security moves to a system of private accounts...

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Saturday January 30, 2010 · 4:40 PM PST

2010/01/30 · 16:40

A good point from John Amato about the impact Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission will have in the real world versus the idealized world of unlimited "free" speech:

I've had some experience with trying to buy ad space during elections, and as the days creep closer to one, the ad space becomes more expensive, for the most part. At least in my experience.

My question is what happens when Big Corp decides to buy up the last month, or two or three, of available ad space on all major media outlets for a particular election? That would have an incredible impact on either an election or like we have in California, a proposition. We saw what happened when the Mormons bought up a ton of air time in California to oppose Prop. 8

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Thursday January 28, 2010 · 8:34 PM PST

2010/01/28 · 20:34

Chris Bowers looks at the challenge for Democrats in turning out the base in 2010 and wonders what can be done:

But what is the primary motivation behind drop-off voters, and what can be done to get Democratic drop-off voters to the polls in 2010?

I have a theory: nothing. There is nothing that can be done to bring the drop-off voters to the polls. The lack of participation among drop-off voters is consistent with long-term civic trends in the United States, and not specific to the current political situation.

Winning in 2010, he says, will therefore mean persuading on-the-fence voters rather than mobilizing the base, i.e., the natural constituency for the (at least faintly) progressive policies of the Democratic Party versus those of the more aggressively corporate-oriented Republican Party.

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Wednesday January 27, 2010 · 2:23 AM PST

2010/01/27 · 02:23

John Kiriakou was the CIA operative who managed to convince Americans that waterboarding was acceptable because it "worked." Now he says that not only was he not present for that supposedly dramatically successful interrogation, but that he himself was used by the Agency as part of a deliberate disinformation effort:

Kiriakou, a 15-year veteran of the agency's intelligence analysis and operations directorates, electrified the hand-wringing national debate over torture in December 2007 when he told ABC's Brian Ross and Richard Esposito in a much ballyhooed, exclusive interview that senior al Qaeda commando Abu Zubaydah cracked after only one application of the face cloth and water.

"From that day on, he answered every question," Kiriakou said. "The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks."

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Monday January 25, 2010 · 1:10 AM PST

2010/01/25 · 01:10

Cornel West calls out President Obama (via truthdig, transcript here):

My Dear Brother President Barack Obama,

I salute your unprecedented, historic victory. Just a year ago, we were there celebrating on the Mall. And here we are 12 months later, and I must say that, despite your brilliance, despite your charisma, I'm disappointed when it comes to the fundamental question, which is a question of priorities, a question of urgency: How deep is your love for poor and working people?

We need democratic policies, not technocratic policies. Your economic team has little or no concern about poor and working people. Job creation is an afterthought. You say the recession is over, but 10.2% of our precious citizens are still unemployed, and many of those have given up working. How deep is your love for poor and working people? Don't be seduced by the elite.

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Tuesday January 19, 2010 · 7:46 PM PST

2010/01/19 · 19:46

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill) gets the message right:

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) put all the blame on Coakley. "The big, profound message? Don't run a bad campaign. That's what I take from it," she said. "For me, it's that we have got to run strong, aggressive, clear-message campaigns. I tell you what I worry about, that the conventional wisdom will be that Democrats have to be less populist and less progressive. I think it's exactly the opposite of that."

Not enough health care polls distinguish reasons for opposition to the bill, she said. "I think a lot of people think it doesn't go far enough to really resolve their problems and they're worried that they still wouldn't be able to afford it or it still wouldn't provide for their health care needs," she said. "We need to identify who's been against change. People are frustrated because change hasn't come up enough. And against change are the insurance companies, the big banks and their spokespeople, who have been the Republicans in the Congress...We're going to absolutely move ahead with our agenda, unapologetically and as boldly as we can."

Poll

42 votes Show Results

What will Dems do now?

42 votes Vote Now!

What will Dems do now?

Come out fighting for solid progressive change

13 votes

Beg Republicans to pretty please be more bipartisan

6 votes

Install a Teabagger WH advisor to facilitate moving more to the right

8 votes

Cower in fetal position until they're thankfully swept out of office

15 votes

So, Does This Fire You Up?

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Thursday January 14, 2010 · 6:12 PM PST

2010/01/14 · 18:12

President Obama unveils the Dem strategy for the midterms, and it comes down to Do you really want to go back to what you had for health care?

If Republicans want to campaign against what we've done by standing up for the status quo and for insurance companies over American families and businesses, that is a fight I want to have. (Applause.) If their best idea is to return to the bad policies and the bad ideas of yesterday, they are going to lose that argument. What are they going to say? "Well, you know, the old system really worked well; let's go back to the way it was"?

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Tuesday January 12, 2010 · 9:52 PM PST

2010/01/12 · 21:52

America can't afford single-payer, but there's always more money for war:

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration plans to ask Congress for an additional $33 billion to fight unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, on top of a record request for $708 billion for the Defense Department next year, The Associated Press has learned.

Military commanders were briefed Tuesday on the Quadrennial Defense Review, which contains the most current version of U.S. military doctrine and on the administration's budget plans until 2015.

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Why Aren't Backers of Health Care Reform Talking About This?

UI: GOP Undermines Business and the Middle Class, Again

Liberal Atheists More Intelligent? Be Very Wary

President Obama's YouTube Interview

GOP Plan For Getting Rid of Deficit, Solving Healthcare

What Happens When the Corporations Buy Up All the Free Speech?

Death to Bipartisanship

False Claims About Waterboarding 'A CIA Dirty Trick'

Cornel West Calls Out President Obama

The Message of MA

So, Does This Fire You Up?

$33 Billion More For War