Patrick Leahy, Democratic Senator, Mocked By Progressive Group For Batman Appearance

It's a controversy because nothing that Republicans have managed to do for the past 30 years could have happened without Democrats signing on.  Without Democrats compromising, without Democrats' attention diverted, without Democrats focusing on their jobs.

For Leahy, his distractions have been Batman, the Grateful Dead, and long martini lunches which is obvious to anyone who hears him speak on the floor of the Senate after the lunch break.  His lapses helped to get conservatives through the Judiciary Committee and onto the Supreme Court when what was needed was a sharp intellect blocking the extreme rightward assault on our judiciary.

For other progressive senators like Barbara Boxer, it was pursuing writing novels, two of them, murder mysteries, during the Bush-Cheney years.  She actually said that ""It was always something I wanted to do if I had the time."  All the while collecting her salary with benefits from the government.  

Democrats have been more than willing to sell any group's interests, but particular­ly women. Even the most pro-choice of Democrats in Congress, alleged stalwarts who've spent entire careers, decades in public office, have failed miserably to protect women's rights and have let it get to this point.

In 2006, Democratic senators and the Democratic machine publicly supported Democratic candidate NedLamont who was running for senator in Connecticu­t against newly independen­t JoeLieberm­an.  Privately, working behind-the­-scenes, Democratic senators and former president BillClinto­n were working to help Lieberman raise money to beat Lamont, and Republican AlanSchles­inger.

Before Lamont won the primary, when Lieberman was still a Democrat, Boxer stumped for Lieberman.  She was asked how she could support him given that Lieberman supports hospitals receiving public monies refusing to give contracept­ives to rape victims, and instead of dodging Lieberman, dropping him like the bad character he is, she dodged the issue.
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Republicans' Obamacare Stance Is 'Height Of Hypocrisy,' House Democrats Say

Regarding the public option. Obama never dropped it. HE NEVER PICKED IT UP. Not once did Obama advocate for a public option and no matter where you search you will never find a quote of him doing so. Because he never did. The closest he ever came was saying if congress sent him a public option he would sign it.

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From Huffington Post:

The Obama campaign clearly did incorporate the public option into its health care agenda. The then-candidate signed a statement put together by the pro-reform group Health Care for America Now,which included the provision as part of its principles for reform. On issue forms Obama filled out for several publications he pledged to "create a new public health plan for those currently without coverage." His campaign arm, Organizing for America, continues to champion a "public health insurance option to provide the uninsured and those who can't find affordable coverage with a real choice." The White House website says that: "The President believes [public health insurance option] will promote competition, hold insurance companies accountable and assure affordable choices. It is completely voluntary."

It does, indeed, seem fair to say that a public option for insurance coverage was a component of the Obama health care agenda

Obama, in his own words (see this video, at 4:20): 

“That’s why any plan I sign must include an insurance exchange — a one-stop shopping marketplace where you can compare the benefits, costs and track records of a variety of plans, including a public option to increase competition and keep insurance companies honest, and choose what’s best for your family.”

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Republicans' Obamacare Stance Is 'Height Of Hypocrisy,' House Democrats Say

How about a fact or two. What is this "campaign pledge" you speak of regarding the public option. Obama never dropped it. HE NEVER PICKED IT UP. Not once did Obama advocate for a public option and no matter where you search you will never find a quote of him doing so. Because he never did. The closest he ever came was saying if congress sent him a public option he would sign it. So what was that campaign pledge?

==========================

Really?

Obama Takes Up Public Health Care Option In AMA Speech

"The public option is not your enemy, it is your friend," Obama declared at one point.
His prepared remarks were a bit more detailed:

If you don't like your health coverage or don't have any insurance, you will have a chance to take part in what we're calling a Health Insurance Exchange.... You will have your choice of a number of plans that offer a few different packages, but every plan would offer an affordable, basic package. And one of these options needs to be a public option that will give people a broader range of choices and inject competition into the health care market so that force waste out of the system and keep the insurance companies honest.

And from the Obama ’08 campaign document, "Barack Obama’s Plan for a Healthy America":

The Obama plan both builds upon and improves our current insurance system, upon which most Americans continue to rely, and leaves Medicare intact for older and disabled Americans. The Obama plan also addresses the large gaps in coverage that leave 45 million Americans uninsured. Specifically, the Obama plan will: (1) establish a new public insurance program available to Americans who neither qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP nor have access to insurance through their employers, as well as to small businesses that want to offer insurance to their employees; (2) make available the National Health Insurance Exchange to help Americans and businesses that want to purchase private health insurance directly; (3) require all employers to contribute towards health coverage for their employees; (4) mandate all children have health care coverage; (5) expand Medicaid and SCHIP to cover more of the least well-off among us; and (6) allow state flexibility for state health reform plans.
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Cheney, Mayors Worried Over Looming Defense Budget Cuts

The Lily-Pad Strategy: How the Pentagon Is Quietly Transforming Its Overseas Base Empire and Creating a Dangerous New Way of War

The first thing I saw last month when I walked into the belly of the dark grey C-17 Air Force cargo plane was a void -- something missing. A missing left arm, to be exact, severed at the shoulder, temporarily patched and held together. Thick, pale flesh, flecked with bright red at the edges. It looked like meat sliced open. The face and what remained of the rest of the man were obscured by blankets, an American flag quilt, and a jumble of tubes and tape, wires, drip bags, and medical monitors.

That man and two other critically wounded soldiers -- one with two stumps where legs had been, the other missing a leg below the thigh -- were intubated, unconscious, and lying on stretchers hooked to the walls of the plane that had just landed at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. A tattoo on the soldier's remaining arm read, "DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR."

I asked a member of the Air Force medical team about the casualties they see like these. Many, as with this flight, were coming from Afghanistan, he told me. "A lot from the Horn of Africa," he added. "You don't really hear about that in the media."

"Where in Africa?" I asked. He said he didn't know exactly, but generally from the Horn, often with critical injuries. "A lot out of Djibouti," he added, referring to Camp Lemonnier, the main U.S. military base in Africa, but from "elsewhere" in the region, too.

Since the "Black Hawk Down" deaths in Somalia almost 20 years ago, we've heard little, if anything, about American military casualties in Africa (other than a strange report last week about three special operations commandos killed, along with three women identified by U.S. military sources as "Moroccan prostitutes," in a mysterious car accident in Mali). The growing number of patients arriving at Ramstein from Africa pulls back a curtain on a significant transformation in twenty-first-century U.S. military strategy.

KEEP READING
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Cheney, Mayors Worried Over Looming Defense Budget Cuts

The Lily-Pad Strategy: How the Pentagon Is Quietly Transforming Its Overseas Base Empire and Creating a Dangerous New Way of War

The first thing I saw last month when I walked into the belly of the dark grey C-17 Air Force cargo plane was a void -- something missing. A missing left arm, to be exact, severed at the shoulder, temporarily patched and held together. Thick, pale flesh, flecked with bright red at the edges. It looked like meat sliced open. The face and what remained of the rest of the man were obscured by blankets, an American flag quilt, and a jumble of tubes and tape, wires, drip bags, and medical monitors.

That man and two other critically wounded soldiers -- one with two stumps where legs had been, the other missing a leg below the thigh -- were intubated, unconscious, and lying on stretchers hooked to the walls of the plane that had just landed at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. A tattoo on the soldier's remaining arm read, "DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR."

I asked a member of the Air Force medical team about the casualties they see like these. Many, as with this flight, were coming from Afghanistan, he told me. "A lot from the Horn of Africa," he added. "You don't really hear about that in the media."

"Where in Africa?" I asked. He said he didn't know exactly, but generally from the Horn, often with critical injuries. "A lot out of Djibouti," he added, referring to Camp Lemonnier, the main U.S. military base in Africa, but from "elsewhere" in the region, too.

Since the "Black Hawk Down" deaths in Somalia almost 20 years ago, we've heard little, if anything, about American military casualties in Africa (other than a strange report last week about three special operations commandos killed, along with three women identified by U.S. military sources as "Moroccan prostitutes," in a mysterious car accident in Mali). The growing number of patients arriving at Ramstein from Africa pulls back a curtain on a significant transformation in twenty-first-century U.S. military strategy.

KEEP READING
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James Carville Advises Obama: Talk About Tax Returns? Sure, But Health Care Above All

Do you really not know who is donating to these groups for ads?  Assume it's your worst nightmare.  Assume it's Rove/Kochs/Adelsons/Cheney's hunting buddies.  So what?  It doesn't matter the who behind the ads, but the fact of the ads.  

Everybody knows who is behind Fox, and that still doesn't change the fact it has more viewership than the other cable channels, with both parties appearing on it and giving it legitimacy.  Fox viewers, the lowest information voters of all, believe whatever they see on it, and they know who is behind it.

The candidates with the most money win 94% of the time.  

How is it you condemn Republicans for not voting for transparency in campaign spending yet when Obama, operating the most secret and opaque government in our history, prosecuting whistleblowers (something not even Bush-Cheney did) at breakneck speed, has you with a thumb up your butt?

No, the parties are not equal; Democrats are worse.  Democrats ran on knowing better.  Clearly it was a lie.
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