While the country hung on every word of James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday morning and then spent the rest of the day analyzing the Senators questions and his responses and the implications for the Trump/Russia investigation, House Republicans were quietly stripping away protections of the momentous Dodd-Frank Act.
For the party that talks so much about the value of life they sure put a whole lot of energy into polices that promise to be a slow death sentence
Republicans finally revealed their “replacement” health care “reform†that literally robs healthcare from tens-of-millions of Americans.
Americans are not interested in paying significantly higher income taxes to have ‘government-provided’ healthcare
Peter Wehner says the liberal claim that Republicans are the ones who have become more extreme over the years is a “self-flatting but false narrative.”
Boehner’s reaction to Senate dysfunction is to claim a change of leadership in the Senate has given us a Senate that is actually working.
Instead of waxing philosophically on the achievements of past presidents, it is worthwhile to take stock of the current President and recognize the monumental hurdles he cleared while battling Republicans who made destroying his presidency and the nation’s economy their sole reason for serving in Congress.
The media is quick to look for anything negative about Obamacare, but they protect the real culprit: insurance company behavior
Instead of decrying the Medicare prescription plan as an abject failure, Republicans denouncing the ACA’s rollout as a reason to abandon the entire law asked Americans to be patient.
The depth of Republican madness was revealed when Sen. Ted Cruz suggested shutting down the military if President Obama and Democrats fail to acquiesce and kill the ACA.
What Republicans are really angry about is the Black man in the Oval Office achieved a long-standing American, Middle East, and international goal without wasting one life or dollar of taxpayer money.
At issue is whether a secular corporation with no business relationship or involvement in a religion can be considered religious and force its employees to follow the corporation’s religious beliefs.
There is no doubt the Kochs and their corporate arm ALEC are out to end the healthcare system starting with Medicare and Medicaid.
Barack Obama, may go down as the only president in the nation’s history who excelled in spite of hostility borne of racism, and an opposition party intent on sabotaging his presidency.
Starbucks, which offers healthcare benefits to its eligible part time employees, is expanding with 1500 more cafes in America in the middle of ObamaCare.
Many victims of the Colorado shootings are facing ruinous financial debt due to expensive surgeries and rehabilitation for their wounds.
Unsatisfied with their callous performances as governors, some of the GOP’s cruelest politicians have ratcheted up their psychopath game to the level of endangering the lives of their taxpayers.
Without question, the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Healthcare bill makes this a great day for Americans who would be denied access to healthcare, if the GOP had its way.
Ignoring the looming November 16 deadline for states to submit plans for their health insurance exchanges, Walker is going to wait for the ‘next president’ and Congress to repeal it.
If Republicans were called on every one of their lies during interviews, on political talk shows, or during the evening news, they may abandon lying as their modus operandi.
A president Romney will allow health insurance industry to offer bare-bones coverage with higher premiums and pre-existing conditions will not be covered. In other words, don’t get sick.
Opposition to the individual mandate has nothing to do with civil liberties and (surprise!) everything to do with avarice and political power.
They blame healthcare reform but if any physicians drop their patients, it won’t be because of “Obamacare.” It will be because of the 1997 Balanced Budget Act.
You can search and search; you can look high and low, but you won’t find much. Right now, the closest thing the Republicans seem to have to a real policy is orchestrating a win for Bristol on DWTS.
If a government has no right right, and moreover, no obligation to protect the people on whose behalf it was established in the first place, then what rights and obligations do governments have?
Today is the day we go to vote in the 2010 midterm elections. The results of this election will reverberate far beyond our localities; they will affect the entire country and indeed, the entire world.
Unregulated capitalism gave us the evils of the Gilded Age. Unregulated capitalism gave us the crash of 2008 that has left not just America, but much of the world, reeling.
Women of the progressive voting bloc, how long have we been sleeping? I’m not sure how we got here, but our medical rights are not being honored as they should be. The administration is currently going to ban abortion coverage in the newly created Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plans. This ban would prevent women with serious pre-existing medical conditions — like cancer or diabetes — from getting the abortion coverage they need to protect their health.
The brewing battle between the journalists at Fox News and Glenn Beck took a new turn today as Hill reporter Carl Cameron refuted the right wing, including FNC’s own Glenn Beck’s attack, on the so called Slaughter Solution as an unprecedented move to pass healthcare reform. Cameron said, “Deeming has been used literally for centuries.”
On his radio show today, Glenn Beck claimed that the concept of social justice is a perversion of the gospel, and that social justice is not something that Jesus would talk about. Beck said that social justice is, “a perversion of the gospel.” Beck’s point was that the gospel is really about capitalism and free market economics. According to Beck, Jesus was an anti-government conservative.
On The Daily Show last night host Jon Stewart and correspondent John Oliver satirized Republicans like Rep. Todd Akin for invoking the rapture and asking God to stop healthcare reform. Oliver said that the rapture would, “link healthcare reform with lakes of fire, marauding demons, and the destruction of mankind on earth in the minds of surviving swing voters.”
On his FNC program The O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly engaged in full blown fear mongering tonight as he compared President Obama’s attempts to pass healthcare reform with George W. Bush’s belief that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States. Only in the fractured realm of Fox News could a healthcare bill be equated with an unjust war that has killed thousands of people.
Last night on her MSNBC program, Rachel Maddow went after the Senate Republicans’ hypocrisy and lies against healthcare reform, but she specifically targeted Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). Maddow characterized Hatch’s recent op-ed in The Washington Post as containing, “blatant, outright, laugh out loud falsehoods.”Hatch responded by Twittering to complain about how Maddow ran him down and he called it a badge of honor.
The most interesting portion of President Obama’s statement on healthcare reform today was not that he called for an up or down vote on the bill, but that he rejected both the positions of the left and the right on healthcare reform. Obama said, “I don’t believe we should give government bureaucrats or insurance company bureaucrats more control over health care in America.”
Republican Sen. John Thune was on Fox News’ Studio B program trying to sell the talking point that healthcare reform would raise premiums but host Shep Smith would have none of it. Smith went off, “That’s not true, senator. That is not true that is not what the CBO said. I know your talking points. I know the other side’s talking points…”
On his radio show today, Sean Hannity claimed that no conservative opposes healthcare reform. Hannity said, “No conservative is against healthcare reform…all there’s been is alienation and derisive comments by the Democrats.” He actually said this with a straight face, seriously.
On his radio show today, Rush Limbaugh proclaimed that he too is one of America’s 47 million uninsured, and that he is providing leadership by demonstrating how cheap healthcare really is. Limbaugh said, ” If you can afford a pretty expansive media room, you can afford what I spent in the hospital.”
While leaving a Hawaii hospital that he was admitted to for chest pains, Rush Limbaugh used himself as an example of why the health care system does not need reformed. Limbaugh said that the healthcare system works, “just fine and dandy,” but the Hawaii system is the model for the Democratic reform plan, and the hospital is unionized. Limbaugh has cluelessly endorsed socialized medicine and unionization.
We have done it. We corralled a dispirited Democratic caucus, fought a rabid right wing media machine, overcame our own ennui, to arrive here. At the beginning of a great moment in American history. Landmark moment. We will all be able to tell our grand kids that we were a part of this. And they won’t understand how this great country could have ever let her people suffer and die due to lack of healthcare.
On the Senate floor today, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) sent Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) a strong message today when as acting president he denied Lieberman’s request for more time to speak. The message was simple. If Lieberman is going to destroy healthcare reform, then he shouldn’t count on getting any future help from Democrats.
As House Republicans continue to play blind, deaf, and dumb, various Jewish organizations came out today and condemned the anti-Semitic signs that were visible during yesterday’s tea bagger protest of healthcare reform in Washington, D.C. Elie Wiesel said, “This kind of political hatred is indecent and disgusting.”
Rep. Michele Bachmann turned up on the Glenn Beck Program, which is minus one Glenn Beck, to promote her healthcare protest in Washington, D.C. tomorrow. Bachmann turned up the military rhetoric and called the protesters freedom fighters. I guess to her protesting healthcare reform is just like risking your life in war.
In an interview with CNS News, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch admitted the real reason why the Republican Party is opposed to healthcare reform is that they are worried that people will like it and vote Democrat in future elections.
This morning House Democrats took to the floor to point out that it has now been 126 days, and Republicans have still not offered their healthcare reform proposal. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) said, “Rather than working with Democrats, Republicans are choosing to be the party of no and the status quo. No is not a solution.”
Two different amendments that would have added the public option to the Senate Finance Committee’s heathcare reform bill were defeated today. Five Democrats joined the Republicans in voting against the Rockefeller amendment, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, Tom Carper, Kent Conrad, and Max Baucus. These five are Democrats in name only.
Former president Bill Clinton returned to Comedy Central’s The Daily Show last night, and he had some interesting comments and insights about the current healthcare reform debate. Clinton expressed optimism that a healthcare reform would be passed this year. He said, “I have always believed from the night of the election, he would pass healthcare.”
Sen. Max Baucus released his Finance Committee’s healthcare reform bill today with no support from Republicans and outrage from liberal Democrats. The one group who did like the bill was insurance companies, whose stocks rallied across the board once Baucus released a bill that contained no public option.
Last night President Obama called death panels a lie in his joint speech to Congress. Obama also promised to call out anyone who spreads lies about healthcare reform. This led Sarah Palin to not only continue to stand by her death panels claim, but also promise that she will call out Obama on death panels, but there aren’t any death panels, so this should be interesting to say the least.
In a comprehensive speech before a joint session of Congress, President Barack Obama laid out his plans for healthcare reform, dispelled myths about reform, and invoked the late Sen. Ted Kennedy to argue the morality of healthcare reform. The intention of this speech was to change the tone and focus of the reform discussion.
Congressional Democrats have been sending President Obama some strong signals about what they would like to hear him say in his address. For instance, powerful Finance Committee Chair Sen. Max Baucus today told Republicans that healthcare is moving forward with or without their support. This is something that many Democrats would like to hear the president say.
President Obama spoke today at the AFL-CIO Labor Day picnic in Cincinnati, OH, and supporters of the public option are sure to be disappointed by the fact that Obama dedicated exactly one line of his speech to the public option. Obama did say that that the nation has never been this close to healthcare reform, but it seems that his idea of reform does not have to include a public option.
At a town hall protest in San Diego over the weekend a town hall protester tried to say that healthcare reform is unconstitutional, but it didn’t quite come out that way. He said, “I got a book here called the U.S.S. Constitution.” Ahoy, matey, the U.S.S. Constitution may not give the government authority to reform healthcare, but the U.S. Constitution does.
Since Sen. Ted Kennedy’s death, the cry from the right wing has been that Democrats are going to exploit his death to pass healthcare reform, but it turns out that is the opponents of heathcare reform that are doing the exploitation. Dick Morris’ group the League of American Voters is using Kennedy’s death to raise funds to fight reform.
The Omaha City Weekly recently went to Sen. Ben Nelson’s town hall meeting and conducted an interesting experiment. They asked 40 attendees who were pro-healthcare reform, and 40 who were anti-reform to find Iraq on a map. While 75% of those who favor reform could locate Iraq, 52.2% of those who are anti could not.
Former DNC chairman Howard Dean talked today about healthcare reform and the death of Ted Kennedy. Dean wrote, “When President Obama signs a Health Care Reform bill late this year, Ted Kennedy’s may not be standing there next to him, but his presence will be deeply apparent in the Oval Office as the President’s pen moves across the page.”
The one reality about the healthcare reform debate is that both the liberal and the conservative arguments contain their share of myths. From the right we are told that malpractice lawsuits cause the enormous increases in heathcare costs, and from the left we are told that cost increase due to health insurance company bureaucracies, but neither of these claims are true.
Freedom Works has set up a page where concerned Americans can tell Blue Dog Democrats to vote no to President Obama’s heath care plan. The problem is that the message is completely customizable, so with a few minor changes, you and your friends can use Freedom Works to tell the Blue Dogs to support health care reform. Here is how to do it.
Here is a story that you won’t be seeing on MSNBC. According to Media Matters, CNBC sent an email to a national Tea Party coordinator looking for a mob to cover at a healthcare protest. They were looking for a location with, “lots of energy and lots of anger.” Low and behold, CNBC may be trying gin up anti-healthcare reform coverage.
At a town hall meeting in Lebanon, PA today, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) was booed for having the nerve to claim that President Barack Obama is an American citizen, thus providing more evidence of who is really yelling the loudest at these town halls. It isn’t average Americans, but right wing activist doing the loudest screaming.
President Obama used his weekly radio address to continue to push, prod, and tug Congress towards passing healthcare reform. He got on his bully pulpit and addressed all of the critics of his plan. Obama said, “I don’t believe that government can or should run health care. But I also don’t think insurance companies should have free reign to do as they please.”
In a huge blow to the opponents of healthcare reform, Wal-Mart has come out in support of a mandate that employers provide affordable healthcare to their employees. Wal-Mart is the nation’s largest employer, and its uninsured employees are one of the biggest drains on the healthcare system. Wal-Mart’s position creates a giant crack in the coalition against healthcare reform.
The Republican Women of Anne Arundel County have posted a letter from their president, Joyce E. Thoman on their website that compared Barack Obama to Hitler and claims that Obama is blitzkrieging the American economy in an attempt to destroy it. Without seeing a bill, the letter also called healthcare reform terrifying.
Yesterday former President Bill Clinton advised President Obama to stand strong when it comes to a including a single payer option in the healthcare reform bill. Clinton advised Obama not to sell the store, just to get 60 votes to get a healthcare reform bill passed.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell was on CBS News’ Face The Nation today, where he continued to call the Obama healthcare reform proposal government run healthcare, and he said that a public option is a non-starter on healthcare. McConnell claimed that America has the best healthcare in the world, but he offered no ideas to give more people access to healthcare.
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley is very upset with President Obama for going sightseeing in Paris, while telling Congress to get moving on healthcare reform. Grassley posted, “Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us”time to deliver” on health care.”
Powerful Senate Democrats Max Baucus and Ted Kennedy released a joint statement today saying that they will have a healthcare reform bill ready before the Senate takes its August recess. The fact that Baucus, who opposes single payer, released a statement with Kennedy is a clear sign that single payer is in trouble.
While trying to make the case for keeping Guantanamo Bay open as a detention center, Republican Sen. John Ensign said of the detainees, “They get better health care than the average American citizen does.” I think Ensign just gave the Democrats their best argument in favor of healthcare reform.
Rush Limbaugh went into full paranoia mode today over healthcare reform. Rush claimed that healthcare reform will allow government to control every element of our lives, but the truth is that Rush and the Republicans are running a con when it comes to healthcare reform. Rush is trying to pull the ultimate distraction.
Since joining the Democratic Party, Sen. Arlen Specter has voted against the bankruptcy reform bill, and the Obama budget. Specter has also claimed that he won’t be a loyal Democrat, and that he won’t support the Employee Free Choice Act. If Arlen Specter won’t show loyalty to the state’s Democrats, then why should they show loyalty to him in the 2010 Democratic primary? Democrats need to weigh their options before they support Arlen Specter.
On the surface Bill Clinton and Barack Obama seem to have a great deal in common. They are/were both young Democratic presidents who also have/had Democratic controlled Congresses, who inherited recessions, but each president’s first 100 days took different paths.
President Barack Obama will mark his first 100 days in office this week. To mark the anniversary, here is a comparison of how Barack Obama and George W. Bush spent their first 100 days in office. You may be surprised to learn that both presidents were/are still popular after their first 100 days.
Tom Daschle dropped a political bombshell today when he withdrew from the process of being appointed HH
With the return of Sen. Red Kennedy to the Hill today, we are reminded that healthcare reform will be not only a prominent issue, but also it could be the biggest challenge that President Obama will face. Here are some of the pitfalls, and possibilities for healthcare reform.
https://www.politicususa.com/en/Obama-healthcare-taxes-mccainDemocratic presidential candidate Barack Obama hammered John McCain on the issue of taxes today, while speaking in Dover, NH. Obama specifically pointed out that McCain’s healthcare plan would tax workers’ health insurance benefits.
Democratic front runner Barack Obama is now only 154 delegates short of wrapping up his Party’s nomination after Maine Rep., and 2008 Senate candidate, Tom Allen endorsed him this morning.
Today, John McCain trotted out the same old “healthcare reform” that Republicans have been pushing for years. How would McCain help the 48 million people who currently lack health insurance? Once again, tax credits are his answer for everything.
CNN’s Dr.
Former Lt. Gov.