Everyone Both Democrat & Republican, Is Now Hip To That "White Folks Only" Divisive Political Code Messaging And Its NOT Working!!
Its NO Longer Effective On Today's Campaign Trail. i.e., 2011 & 2012.
In Fact I Strongly Believe Most Voters (White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Indian) Are Tired Of Racially Motivated Politics & Really Want To Support Pres. Obama's Continued Efforts To Help Heal OUR Country.
I Believe That Most Voters Regardless Of Their Ethnicity & Socio-Economic Status Are Ready For A Unified Nation!
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) attacked MSNBC hosts Contessa Brewer and Melissa Francis on Thursday, questioning their “integrity” as journalists and calling them “irresponsible.”
The scuffle started with Francis asking Gregg to name specific areas of the budget he would cut after he criticized the White House’s proposed freeze on nondefense discretionary spending, saying President Barack Obama has done little to reduce the size of government.
“That’s good in theory,” Francis started to say before Gregg cut her off.
“It’s not a theory,” Gregg said. “Don't tell me it's good in theory. What are you? How do you get off saying something like that?”
Francis then jumped in to offer Gregg a chance “to tell us how to practically put it to work.”
Gregg then launched into an attack of the administration for increasing spending and the federal debt, quickly getting interrupted by Brewer.
“My partner Melissa, Sen. Gregg, is really asking for specifics,” Brewer said. “If you don't believe we should have a $1.3 trillion budget, which programs are you willing to cut?”
“Are you willing to tell schools, no money for you?” Brewer asked.
“Nobody is saying ‘no money for schools,’” Gregg responded. “What an absurd statement to make, a dishonest statement to make.”
“Sen. Gregg, what we're both asking is which programs to cut?” Brewer said. “Senator, you're going to be asked to cut certain programs if you're on the senate Banking Committee — just tell us which one you'll cut?”
Gregg said he’d ‘eliminate’ the money for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, cut stimulus spending and reform entitlement programs. But after being given his chance to outline his proposals, Gregg still clearly had an ax to grind with the two hosts.
“I've made very specific proposals and I'm willing to stand by them. The problem is that this administration’s view of governance is economic prosperity created by growing the government dramatically,” he said. “Then it gets misrepresented by people like yourself that say if you do this you're going to end up not funding education. That's the most irresponsible question.”
“You can't be duplicitous about this,” he added. “You can't make a representation and then claim you didn't make it. You know, it just shouldn't work that way. You've got to have some integrity on your side of this camera, too.”
MSNBC may be obsessed with the four men arrested for trying to tamper with Sen. Mary Landrieu’s telephones, but the network says reporter David Shuster crossed the line when he attacked one of them via Twitter.
Just before leaving for New Orleans to cover the story, Shuster used a Twitter message to tell Conservative Filmmaker James O’Keefe — one of the four men arrested by the FBI — that he’s “not a journalist,” that he “intended to tap phones” and that he “will go to prison.”
“The comments were inappropriate,” an MSNBC spokesperson told POLITICO Thursday. “We have talked to David about them.”
Still, Shuster continues to cover the story for MSNBC. At 3 p.m. Thursday, he’s expected to interview Andrew Breitbart, who pays O’Keefe a salary and published his undercover anti-ACORN videos on his website Big Government.
MSNBC has been all over the arrests at Landrieu’s New Orleans office, dubbing the alleged attempt to tamper with the phones of the Democratic senator “PhoneGate” and “Bayou Break-In.”
On Wednesday night — when other news networks were focused on President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address — MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann devoted the first 20 minutes of “Countdown” to the Landrieu case.
In addition to speaking with Shuster from New Orleans, Olbermann talked with analyst Richard Wolffe and former Nixon counsel John Dean, famous for his role in the Watergate coverup.
Fox News, by contrast, has spent relatively little time on the story.
Media Matters, a liberal watchdog group, reports that Fox devoted roughly 4½-half minutes on O’Keefe’s arrest Tuesday during its evening and prime-time shows, while spending over an hour on the ACORN tapes when that story broke on Sept. 10.
It’s quite a contrast from last fall, when Fox gave loads of airtime to the undercover videos in which O’Keefe pretended to be a pimp seeking help from ACORN. The 25-year-old activist appeared on “Glenn Beck,” “Hannity” and “Fox & Friends” and was named the “Power Player of the Week” by Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”
A Fox spokesperson did not return a request for comment.
Ari Rabin-Havt, vice president of research and communication for Media Matters, said that in addition to the airtime Fox gave the ACORN story, the network also allowed O’Keefe, Hannah Giles — who appeared as the prostitute in the undercover tapes — and Breitbart to talk up their legal defense fund.
Rabin-Havt said that given the amount of time Fox provided for what he considers an “unethical piece of journalism,” the network has “some culpability” for whatever O’Keefe may have done next.
But while Media Matters sees Fox as overhyping the first O’Keefe-related story, those on the other end of the political spectrum now see MSNBC giving too much play to the second.
Seton Motley, director of communications for the Media Research Center, said that MSNBC is “hyperventilating in their coverage” and that O’Keefe’s been “convicted in the court of Twitter by David Shuster.”
“I think what the MSNBCs of the world are trying to do is to undo what [O’Keefe] did to ACORN with this,” Motley said.
Breitbart also thinks the media have gone overboard.
“For those in the mainstream media committed to report the false and libelous narrative of ‘Watergate Jr.,’ ‘wiretapping’ and ‘bugging,’ I predict much egg on your J-school grad faces,” Breitbart wrote on his Big Journalism site.
Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, noted that the different levels of coverage between the ACORN story — presumably bad for liberals — and the O’Keefe arrest — presumably bad for conservatives — is just par for the course.
“One thing we’ve seen repeatedly on ideologically oriented shows, in cable and radio, is not only the ideology evident in how a subject is treated but whether a subject is covered,” he said.
During the campaign, Jurkowitz pointed out that Fox hosts Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity focused more on issues such as the controversy over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, while MSNBC hosts Olbermann and Rachel Maddow offered more coverage of issues relating to Sen. John McCain’s campaign tactics.
“If you were watching the Fox hosts or the MSNBC hosts, you’d be getting different subjects of the campaign covered,” Jurkowitz said. “You are getting in some ways a different world.”
MSNBC host Ed Schultz is tearing into Robert Gibbs and the rest of President Barack Obama’s team, telling the White House press secretary that he is “full of sh—.”
Speaking at the progressive Blue State Bash event at the Minneapolis Convention Center on Saturday, Schultz relayed a combative exchange he had off the air with Gibbs, who last appeared on his program “The Ed Show” on Thursday.
“I know it’s being recorded, but I wasn’t told it was off the record,” Schultz said in a video posted on theuptake.org. “Mr. Gibbs and I had quite the conversation off the air the other night. I’m gonna tell ya, I told him he was full of sh—.”
“I did,” Schultz continued. “And then he gave me the Dick Cheney f-bomb the same way Sen. Leahy got it on the Senate floor. I told Robert Gibbs, I said: ‘And I’m sorry you’re swearing at me, but I’m just trying to help you out. I’m telling you you’re losing your base. Do you understand you’re losing your base?’”
Schultz set a fiery tone in the nearly 20-minute speech that eviscerated the Democratic Party for not listening to its progressive wing.
“We have to get these people who have infiltrated the Democratic progressive movement and get them the hell out,” Schultz boomed. “We are still in an ideological fight for this country.”
The liberal talk show host — who was asked by North Dakota Democrats to run for the Senate seat vacated by Sen. Byron Dorgan’s retirement — implored the audience to hold the Obama administration’s feet to the fire.
“We have to make sure President Obama gets the message: We’re with you, but you have to be with us,” he said. “If we don’t speak up and tell the White House they’re wrong right now, who will do it?”
Schultz also said that despite turning down an opportunity to run for the Senate, he would have used the same aggressive tone on the campaign trail.
“I want all of you to know that I am not running for the United States Senate,” he said. “But I also want you to know that if I did, I’d kick their ass.”
The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.
For the pundits on MSNBC and the liberal blogosphere, the prospect of a Scott Brown victory in the Massachusetts Senate race has provoked the kind of doomsday rhetoric not heard since a certain Texan was president.
Liberal talker Ed Schultz recently told radio listeners that if he lived in Massachusetts he’d try to vote 10 times, claiming that he’d “cheat to keep these bastards out.”
Conservatives howled that the MSNBC host was inciting voter fraud, so Schultz apologized on the air Monday — well, sort of.
“I misspoke on Friday. I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” Schultz said. “I meant to say, if I could vote 20 times, that's what I'd do.”
“Let me be very clear,” Schultz said a few minutes later. “I'm not advocating voter fraud, I'm just telling you what I would do. That's how bad I want Scott Brown to lose!”
Atlantic senior editor Andrew Sullivan described the election on his blog as “a nihilist moment, built from a nihilist strategy in order to regain power ... to do nothing but wage war against enemies at home and abroad.”
Sullivan, a longtime conservative who announced he was leaving “the right” last month, concluded Monday on his blog that “Democrats can stop hoping at this point” and predicted a double-digit victory for Brown.
“What comes next will be a real test for [President Barack] Obama,” Sullivan continued. “I suspect serious health insurance reform is over for yet another generation.”
Other pundits have had their own grand pronouncements on the possibility of Democrat Martha Coakley losing the seat once held by Ted Kennedy: “Good Morning America” host George Stephanopoulos —who once worked for someone dubbed the “Comeback Kid” — wrote on his blog Tuesday that a Brown victory “would certainly be the biggest political upset I have seen in my career.” PBS’s Judy Woodruff, quoting someone from the White House, described the situation on ABC’s “This Week” as “a tragedy of Greek proportions if Ted Kennedy's successor is the one ... who was responsible for the death of health care.”
The imminent “death of health care” has been a constant theme. For Democrats — who’ll continue to control the White House, House, and Senate, with at worst 59 seats — there’s been a steady stream of doom and gloom when talking to the press.
Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts told reporters Friday that a Brown victory would “kill the health bill,” and his House colleague New York Rep. Anthony Weiner expressed a similarly dire view on Tuesday’s “Morning Joe.”
"I think you can make a pretty good argument that health care might be dead,” Weiner said.
But while Weiner focused his criticism on what President Barack Obama could have been doing in states like Massachusetts before this weekend to promote his health care agenda, along with the repercussions of losing a seat in the Senate, MSNBC’s prime-time liberal hosts have been turning up the volume in attacks on the Republican candidate.
On Monday’s “Countdown,” Keith Olbermann told viewers that in Brown, “we have an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, tea-bagging supporter of violence against women and against politicians with whom he disagrees.”
“The Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” Olbermann added in his special comment, “is close to sending this bad joke to the Senate of the United States.”
Following Olbermann was Rachel Maddow, who played a 2008 clip that’s been making the rounds in which Brown suggests that Obama may have been born out of wedlock.
“Massachusetts, meet Scott Brown,” Maddow said Monday. “He could be taking his claim that President Obama was secretly born to an unwed mother all the way to Washington, D.C. in your name as your senator.”
Maddow, who’s hosting her show from Boston on Tuesday, said that she understands “all the election withdrawal hyperventilation over the prospects of an Obama conspiracy theorist-red state Republican-in-blue-Massachusetts [but] there’s still an election to be fought for here.”
Chris Matthews on Tuesday said that Democrats were facing a “disaster in their works,” and expressed the view that it was better in the old days when the party leadership would have made sure Democratic voters got to the polls.
"You get them lunch; you get them a car,” Matthews said.“You’d make sure they got there, and in some cases you’d be buying people to get them, not officially buying them, but getting them there as block secretaries, as block captains; you’d be getting them there with street money — legitimate but it’s a little bit old school."
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is set to testify before a House probe into his role in deals that sent billions of bailout dollars to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and other big banks.
Staffers for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform say Geithner is confirmed to appear at a hearing Jan. 27 on the bailout of American International Group Inc.
The committee wants to know why the Federal Reserve Bank of New York paid banks to cancel their contracts with AIG and didn't demand concessions. The deals might have cost taxpayers billions more than necessary.
An earlier watchdog report said Geithner approved the decisions as president of the New York Fed.
The staffers spoke anonymously because they are not authorized to discuss Geithner's plans.
North Dakota Democrats are actively pursuing liberal MSNBC talk show host Ed Schultz as a candidate to replace Sen. Byron Dorgan, who announced Tuesday he would not seek re-election.
State House Minority Leader Merle Boucher told POLITICO he made an official overture to Schultz late Tuesday night about launching a campaign and said he believes the TV commentator is "intrigued by the idea."
"We have to find someone that has a high profile and a national fundraising base and I can't think of anyone better than Ed Schultz in that regard," said Boucher. "He certainly didn't say no to me by any means," he added.
Dorgan's retirement announcement took state Democrats by surprise and immediately sent party leaders scrambling for a viable opponent to take on likely Republican candidate, Gov. John Hoeven. Hoeven, who led Dorgan by double-digits in public polls this fall, is expected to announce his candidacy within weeks.
"Very few people have the resources and the backing to take on John Hoeven and Ed has taken on John Hoeven before on his radio show. I don't think anyone knows John Hoeven and his record better than Ed Schultz," said Boucher.
Minutes after Dorgan's announcement, Schultz began receiving e-mails from across the country, urging him to run.
"We've gotten a ton of e-mails," said Vern Thompson, programming manager for Schultz's nationally syndicated radio show. "I think it's something he would be interested in, but it is a little early. To be honest, I don't know what he will do," added Thompson, who served as executive director of the North Dakota Democratic Party from 2001 to 2004.
In that role, Thompson tried to recruit Schultz to run against Hoeven for governor in 2004. He said Schultz seriously considered it, but passed on a race to pursue his broadcasting career.
"It was the right decision because now we have this huge voice at 30 Rock," Thompson said.
MSNBC host Ed Schultz said Wednesday during his show that he might run for the seat, and noted that state Democrats requested that he consider it.
Schultz said he's "flattered" and "honored," but "can't say that I'm even considering it right now."
Schultz said on his show Tuesday evening that he believes North Dakota law holds that a candidate would have to be a resident for the past five years to run, and he hasn't been living in the state.
State Senate Minority Leader David O'Connell said Schultz would be a strong candidate not only because of his ability to rake in cash from around the country, but due to his detailed knowledge of Hoeven's record.
Throughout Hoeven's first term, Schultz repeatedly lambasted Hoeven as "an empty suit" during his morning Fargo radio show—a characterization he repeated Tuesday on his show.
"But, you know, if I was still there," Schultz said, "I'd love to run against the empty suit, because that`s what I used to call John Hoeven, the sitting governor."
"A lot of people think he's blowing hot air, but the thing is, he never put anything on the air until he confirmed it. He'd always call about stuff and wanted to check his sources," said O’Connell.
Boucher said he didn't expect Schultz to make a snap decision and Democrats acknowledge that it might be hard for the talk show host to give up a lucrative and glittery broadcasting career for the tiring and tedious campaign trail.
"He said he would visit and get back to me and I'm going to give him all the time he needs to make that decision," said Boucher.
MSNBC's Ed Schultz claimed Friday that the White House communicates with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski during their "Morning Joe" program.
Schultz said he observed this when he was on last Thursday's program:
So Mika starts looking at her Blackberry and so does Scarborough and obviously the White House is texting them or emailing them or whatever and they didn't like the show. Because Arianna had been on there, I'm on there, Howard Dean had been on there and they wanted some balance.
Now think about that - here's the White House getting in contact with 'Morning Joe' because they're afraid there's too many lefties on the air! Now if that's not sensitivity at its highest level, I don't know what is! I told ya a few days ago they had rabbit ears! They don't like anything that's being said right now, they're getting beat up!
In reality, this isn't as shocking as it might seem.
NewsBuster Mark Finkelstein reported in October that the White House e-mailed NBC's Savannah Guthrie while she was on the "MJ" set.
According to Guthrie, a senior White House advisor wanted her to tell Scarborough to "stop being an a**hole."
Honestly, you can't make this stuff up.
*****Update:
Ed Driscoll has an October video of Mika receiving an e-mail from the White House.
What a morning at Morning Joe! First, a "senior White House official" sent an email calling Joe Scarborough an "a-----e" for mocking Pres. Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. A bit later, responding to Rush Limbaugh's depiction of Scarborough as a "neutered, chickified moderate," Scarborough repeatedly claimed that Pres. George W. Bush had Rush's "testicles in a blind trust."
Scarborough and Time's Mark Halperin—whom no one would accuse of being a right-wing hack—had some good-natured fun with the Nobel news. A laughing-out-loud Scarborough suggested among other things that Marisa Tomei was more deserving of her Academy Award. But the Messiah will not be mocked, and it wasn't long before NBC's Savannah Guthrie, on the set, announced that she had received an email from "a senior White House official" telling Joe to "stop being an a------e" [spelled out in the original, according to Savannah]. Mika Brzezinski tried to soft-pedal the insult, claiming the White House was "joking." Real side-splitter! Is this the new standard of civility from Dems so offended by "you lie"?
No Peace Prize is likely to be awarded to Scarborough or Rush Limbaugh anytime soon. War has broken out between the two. Scarborough initiated hostilities by criticizing Rush for reveling in PBO's Olympic failure. Rush returned fire yesterday, calling Scarborough a "neutered, chickified moderate." This morning, Scarborough repeatedly claimed that W had Rush's "testicles in a blind trust" for eight years. Joe asserted that he had early and often warned Republicans against profligate spending during the Bush years, while others stood by in support of the president.
Will Rush riposte? Tune in at 12!
Note: who was that "senior White House official" who sent the 'a-----e' email? My guess is Robert Gibbs, a frequent Morning Joe guest. We know Gibbs has been on the Nobel beat since early today, Morning Joe mentioning it was he who woke PBO at 6 AM with the news.
UPDATE:
Another top Democratic official has thrown his hat in the ring and derided conservatives for mocking Obama's Nobel prize, this time likening the Republican party to "the terrorists" (via Ben Smith at POLITICO).
"The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists - the Taliban and Hamas this morning - in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize," DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse told POLITICO. "Republicans cheered when America failed to land the Olympics and now they are criticizing the President of the United States for receiving the Nobel Peace prize - an award he did not seek but that is nonetheless an honor in which every American can take great pride - unless of course you are the Republican Party.
"The 2009 version of the Republican Party has no boundaries, has no shame and has proved that they will put politics above patriotism at every turn. It's no wonder only 20 percent of Americans admit to being Republicans anymore - it's an embarrassing label to claim," Woodhouse said.
In a stunning reversal of fortune for President Barack Obama, top progressives are attacking the health-reform plan moving through the Senate as “hollow,” “unsupportable” and a sellout to corporate interests.
Republicans, after plotting for months to sink the signature legislation of Obama’s first year, suddenly think that Democrats might wind up doing it for them.
Most dangerously for White House chances of assembling 60 Senate votes, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean launched a third day of attacks on the emerging bill, arguing in a Washington Post op-ed that it meets none of his benchmarks for “real reform.”
“[A]s it stands, this bill would do more harm than good to the future of America,” Dean wrote, then took to the airwaves to amplify his case.
Ed Schultz, an influential liberal radio host, declared on his “Ed Show” on MSNBC: “The base is restless. They are wandering in the wilderness, Mr. President. … They want to know, where are you? … Right now, Mr. President, your base thinks you’re nothing but a sellout — a corporate sellout, out that. … The only people who like this current bill right now, Mr. President, is the insurance industry — they get a bunch of new customers.”
Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos, wrote on his Twitter feed: "Time to kill this monstrosity coming out of the Senate." And "Kos" blogged: "You pass a s——-y program now that further bankrupts our nation, and we won't be talking about 'fixing' it in a few years, but whether it should even exist."
With polls showing erosion in both Obama’s popularity and in support for health reform, the White House mobilized to try to tamp down the rebellion from such essential allies.
Senior adviser David Axelrod called in to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to argue that Dean’s criticisms are "predicated on a bunch of erroneous conclusions."
“To defeat a bill that will bend the curve on this inexorable rise in health-care costs is insane,” Axelrod said. "I think that would be a tragic, tragic outcome. I don’t think that you want this moment to pass. It will not come back."
Liberals contend that the bill has been watered down so much that Congress should kill it and start over. The White House warns that health reform could be doomed for the rest of this presidency, and probably beyond, if it falters now.
The attack from the left comes at a delicate juncture when a delay of more than a couple of days could sink any remaining chance that the Senate can pass it by Christmas. Senate Democrats are circulating a possible schedule that would have them taking the final vote on Christmas Day.
Right now, Democrats are at least two votes shy of the 60 they need to pass the bill, with liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) saying he has not committed to vote for the bill in its current form.
The other, moderate Sen. Ben. Nelson (D-Neb.), has a completely different set of concerns, saying he’s still looking at compromise language designed to bar federal funds from paying for abortion – though the National Right to Life Committee has said the proposal by Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) is not acceptable.
But Obama’s problem now is on the left. MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann told viewers Wednesday night that the Senate version has become “unsupportable … a hollow shell of a bill”: “This is not health, this is not care, this is certainly not reform.”
Pulling back the curtain on White House efforts to rein in Dean, Axelrod said the former governor “got on the phone with Nancy-Ann DeParle, our point person on the health care issue, [who] went through point by point.
“She explained why he was wrong,” Axelrod continued. “And he simply didn’t want to hear that critique. I saw his piece in The Post this morning, and it is predicated on a bunch of erroneous conclusions.”
Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post, said on “Morning Joe” that business lobbyists “are winning” on a host of Washington issues, including health reform.
“There is no cost containment here,” she said. “Reconciliation [a Democrats-only strategy requiring only 51 votes] is a very pragmatic alternative.”
Asked if she would enthusiastically support Obama for reelection, Huffington replied: “This is not really the question. … Depends on the alternative. … The American middle class was let down. … Can you really say this White House is on the side of the American people?”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) accused the Democrats Thursday of abandoning the goal of true reform to the political imperative of simply passing any bill they can label health reform.
“It's now an effort by a political party to protect itself. They're in a political panic, quite frankly,” Graham told reporters. “Nobody really cares what it is anymore as long as they can get it passed, signed, and claim a political victory. That is going to do a lot of damage to long-term health care reform efforts. And I would urge them not to do this. They're walking off a cliff.”
Peggy Noonan, the columnist and former Reagan speechwriter, told Axelrod on “Morning Joe”: “On the issue of health care, you are losing the left, you are losing the right, you are losing the center. That looks to me like a political disaster.”
(Ed Shultz says to let Pres. Obama's bill go to Conference and put the Public Plan back.)
If I were a senator, I would not vote for the current health-care bill. Any measure that expands private insurers' monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health-care reform. Real reform would insert competition into insurance markets, force insurers to cut unnecessary administrative expenses and spend health-care dollars caring for people. Real reform would significantly lower costs, improve the delivery of health care and give all Americans a meaningful choice of coverage. The current Senate bill accomplishes none of these.
Real health-care reform is supposed to eliminate discrimination based on preexisting conditions. But the legislation allows insurance companies to charge older Americans up to three times as much as younger Americans, pricing them out of coverage. The bill was supposed to give Americans choices about what kind of system they wanted to enroll in. Instead, it fines Americans if they do not sign up with an insurance company, which may take up to 30 percent of your premium dollars and spend it on CEO salaries -- in the range of $20 million a year -- and on return on equity for the company's shareholders. Few Americans will see any benefit until 2014, by which time premiums are likely to have doubled. In short, the winners in this bill are insurance companies; the American taxpayer is about to be fleeced with a bailout in a situation that dwarfs even what happened at AIG.
From the very beginning of this debate, progressives have argued that a public option or a Medicare buy-in would restore competition and hold the private health insurance industry accountable. Progressives understood that a public plan would give Americans real choices about what kind of system they wanted to be in and how they wanted to spend their money. Yet Washington has decided, once again, that the American people cannot be trusted to choose for themselves. Your money goes to insurers, whether or not you want it to.
To be clear, I'm not giving up on health-care reform. The legislation does have some good points, such as expanding Medicaid and permanently increasing the federal government's contribution to it. It invests critical dollars in public health, wellness and prevention programs; extends the life of the Medicare trust fund; and allows young Americans to stay on their parents' health-care plans until they turn 27. Small businesses struggling with rising health-care costs will receive a tax credit, and primary-care physicians will see increases in their Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates.
Improvements can still be made in the Senate, and I hope that Senate Democrats will work on this bill as it moves to conference. If lawmakers are interested in ensuring that government affordability credits are spent on health-care benefits rather than insurers' salaries, they need to require state-based exchanges, which act as prudent purchasers and select only the most efficient insurers. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) offered this amendment during the Finance Committee markup, and Democrats should include it in the final legislation. A stripped-down version of the current bill that included these provisions would be worth passing.
In Washington, when major bills near final passage, an inside-the-Beltway mentality takes hold. Any bill becomes a victory. Clear thinking is thrown out the window for political calculus. In the heat of battle, decisions are being made that set an irreversible course for how future health reform is done. The result is legislation that has been crafted to get votes, not to reform health care.
I have worked for health-care reform all my political life. In my home state of Vermont, we have accomplished universal health care for children younger than 18 and real insurance reform -- which not only bans discrimination against preexisting conditions but also prevents insurers from charging outrageous sums for policies as a way of keeping out high-risk people. I know health reform when I see it, and there isn't much left in the Senate bill. I reluctantly conclude that, as it stands, this bill would do more harm than good to the future of America.
Sources: Politico, Washington Post, MSNBC, Morning Joe, Google Maps
On last night's The Ed Show, MSNBC's Ed Schultz didn't take too kindly to Virginia Representative Eric Cantor's suggestion to a constituent, whose relative was diagnosed with cancer and who could not get health care, that she should seek out an "existing government program" or a "charitable organization" to, you know... save her life and whatnot. I can understand why Schultz was so angry! Here's Eric Cantor, knowing full well that America has the "best health care in the world," suggesting that health care was somehow rationed or something!
Well, if Schultz didn't care for Cantor sloughing off the concerns of a constituent in that manner, the straw that seems to have broken the camel's back was a call from a Cantor spokeperson, "chiding him for going after the congressman," reports ThinkProgress. This would not stand!
SCHULTZ: I want you to email or call Cantor's office and ask him why he won't go head to head with me on this issue. Why he doesn't have an answer for that woman that would give her coverage, and why he is against the public option that would give her coverage. She obviously now has a pre-existing condition and can't get helped. She is left behind and the Republicans don't have a plan for her, and they're just comfortable with the fact that she...you know...she's either got financial ruin, or she's going to die.
Schultz then played the original exchange between Cantor and fulminated a bit more before reiterating his call-slash-invitation to have Cantor come on The Ed Show for the entire hour to debate the matter and elucidate the Republican health care plan in full:
SCHULTZ: Call Cantor's office or e-mail him and ask him if he'll go head-to-head with me for a full hour on the Ed show. A full hour. I'll give him a full hour! To explain what the Republican plan is to help that woman out, or is she just left to die?
Then there was some stuff about roulette tables and ass-kickings. Schultz was pretty het up! He concluded by saying, "Come on, Cantor. Don't hide behind your press secretary. Let's get it ooooooonnn."
Anyway, get excited, America, at the prospect of Ed Schultz and Eric Cantor yelling at each other for an hour, which will solve everything except for the part where it's actually Blue Dog Democrats killing meaningful health care reform because lobbyists paid them to do so.
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No Intentionally Malicious Slander, Libel or Defamation of Character content will be published and I will always Credit all Sources.
NOTE TO ALL ELECTED OFFICIALS, APPOINTED OFFICIALS & PUBLIC FIGURES:
Per the Landmark U.S. Supreme Court Case: 1964 case of New York Times v. Sullivan………
The Public has a Right to Criticize the People who Govern them, so the least Protection from Defamation is given to Public Officials. When officials are accused of something that involves their behavior in office, they have to prove all of the above elements of defamation and they must also prove that the defendant acted with “actual malice.” (For a definition of actual malice, see the “History of Defamation and the First Amendment, below.”)
People who aren’t Elected but who are Still Public Figures because they are influential or famous — like Actors, Actresses, Movie Stars, Singers & Entertainers, Journalists, TV Hosts, Bloggers, etc., — also have to Prove that Defamatory statements were made with Actual Malice, in most cases.
To the Associated Press and other Media Organizations:
When I use your Content Links., I’m also citing the Fair Use Doctrine (Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107) for further Copyright permission.
Posts and Links published on Black Political Buzz are not endorsed by Black Political Buzz Blog Author Laurel’s Employer, nor the Employers of other Black Political Buzz employees.
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Comments, Links and Opinions of site visitors are Independently-Owned and not endorsed by Black Political Buzz employees, Blog Author Laurel or Laurel’s Employer.)
(No Personal Offense intended) Please know that Black Political Buzz is not responsible for nor do I endorse Requests for Donations from Third Parties on this Blog.
I will Only Endorse Requests for Donations made on behalf of BLACK POLITICAL BUZZ Blog for Business Purposes & Operating Expenses.
I will also Only Endorse Requests for Donations on behalf of Legitimate Politicians and Legitimate Political Candidates. PERIOD!!
If anyone else or another Organization wishes to post a link to Request Donations, I am NOT endorsing ANY of those Requests!
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God Bless
Laurel @BLACK POLITICAL BUZZ
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