Another pretty decent week, especially for us Phillies fans (GO PHILS!).

The HCR Public Option is not only alive and kicking, it's picking up steam.  So much for the teabag protests.  Maybe if you learned to spell in some of your signage people would take you seriously.

Speaking thusly, at last report the National Association of Free Clinics (www.freeclinics.us) raised about $1.2mil and are up to THREE free health care clinics (New Orleans, LA; Little Rock, AK; and Kansas City, MO), all thanks to our own unique form of protest that actually HELPS people.  While the teabaggers are busy waving their guns in the air, shouting and screaming vile names at anyone who disagreed with them, and bowing to their gods at FOX News, we've been doing what they claim, putting COUNTRY FIRST!  Particularly our fellow man.  This is what real grassroots is all about.

One last thing, in case FR doesn't do the "Week Ahead" thing.  Why is President Obama wasting time calling out FOX News anyway.  Aside from the queasy feeling I get when any administration starts calling out news outlets (regardless of how I feel personally about them), frankly FOX isn't worth the oxygen it takes to speak it's name.  It's a fight unworthy of this president and he should just let it go.  We (and the majority of Americans who actually THINK as part of their existance) know that FOX is nothing more than a propaganda channel for the right-wing.  Fighting with them only legitamizes them, and they truly don't deserve it.

Speaking of cluster-fox, if you're having a bad day, turn on Glenn Beck sometime.  Really, this guy is truly laughable in some of his rantings.  It's like watching bad comedy that's morbidly and perversely funny.  Sad that for a commedian (which he IS, BTW) he doesn't seem to know the difference between people laughing with him, and people laughing at him.

Have a great weekend fellow libs, and the 1 in 5 people still calling themselves Republicans.  I may actually put in a blog entry this weekend, if I can squeeze in the time between picking out a halloween costume for my brother's party.  I'm thinking about dressing up as a teabag protester.  Anyone got any ideas on how to pull it off?

GO PHILS!  WORLD SERIES #2
http://jawillie.blog.com

Let it be written... are you writing this?

Little CYA going on by Pelosi.

We must preserve our precious boldily fluids.

Tea time Nancy. One lump, or two?

Nancy Pelosi is still "counting votes"?

Seems that dithering has become the new Congressional pastime.  Right after blithering.  Idiots.  

Wait wait wait... I'm STILL going to have to pay for my own health insurance?  Dude, what in the heck did we elect these people for if not to let us all mooch off Uncle Sam? I thought they promised that only RICH people would have to pay taxes! Oh, I am just so disillusioned. Politicians that promise and don't deliver - what is this world coming to? It's that George Bush - this is all his fault.

Pelosi needs to realize that the majority of the country is not wacko, like her district, or like her.

Oops.  I forgot slithering.  

I'm a-thinking that all this brouhaha is being brought forth to appease the far leftist wackeroo's that are in control of the party but have lost control of their sense of reality. The support of Cap & Trade is waning as unanswered questions abound, the support for a "Public Option" is dropping faster'n'faster and the credibility of the Dem's leadership is all but gone. They've only about 11 more weeks to go until we enter fully into the 2010 election cycle where anything you say can and will be used against you, and they've absolutely nothing to show for the Trillion dollar boondoggles they've spent and the future looks much bleaker now than it did when they took office with much chest thumping prowess. And with a treacherous and cold winter coming down on us with a lackluster and very slim Holiday season ahead, It's going to be very interesting indeed to watch them struggle and squiggle and blatantly lie around the fact they've brought nothing to the American people except abject grief, malaise and worry. What comes around goes around, Obama and his keystone cop minions are going to learn a very harsh lesson. Their inept limp wristed attempt at governance is going to catch up to them because other than loads of congressional fecal matter nothing has been done to relief the pain and suffering of Americans and nothing that Obama promised has been brought to bear. He has purposefully lied.

Slithering.  That goes for Dick Cheney, too.  

The "Pay Czar". Sounds Russian.

Thats SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE not just Nancy Pelosi cant you losers give anyone their due the woman has reached where no other women has been able to go and you call her NANCEY well GET USED TO" SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE" show a little respect for the position if not the person.

FRead: "They add that the House bill will have a public option. "


And it will have rainbows, and sunshine, and all sorts of wonderful things. And when it's done, we can have a parade and serve hot hors d'oeuvres.

The politico peice (and I am continually amazed that legitimate political sources like FR quote the political equivalent of The National Enquirier) can be fixed with the following edit:

"Politico had reported that after a whip count at last night's caucus, Pelosi realized she didn't have the votes for the most sweeping public option... yet."

The fact is that the Republican strategy of delaying the HCR bill is working in favor of progressives.  Everyday that goes by without these bills being brought out to the floor, is another day that people like me can call our Senators and Congressmen/women to lobby them in favor of the Public Option.  

What Politico didn't mention was that the whip count is somewhere between 205 and 210 votes in favor of a robust public option.  So progressives need to bring into the fold 8-13 House members in order to get the votes for Medicare +5.  That's not outside the realm of possibility by any stretch.  

Since this game of "slow the reform down" was begun by the Republicans the Public Option has gone from something that was dismissed out of hand in the Senate to something that is continually reported as on the table.  

Simply put, the longer the American public has to think about this issue the more they agree with the Publicn Option.  Poll after poll after poll confirms this for anyone with eyes to see.  

So thanks, Rep. Cantor, and Senator McConnell.  Your delay tactics have given the progressives the time we needed to get our message out and to preasure our pols to do the right thing. The Republicans have lost this one, but they don't realize it yet.  2010 is going to be a fun cycle!

When it was pointed out that a Public Option would bankrupt and ruin the country, Pelosi said: "Well, I, uh, don't think it's quite fair to condemn a whole program because of a single slip-up".

Why not have a public option that isn't as robust as some would like but with the caviat that certain benchmarks must be met in price reductions or the public option becomes more robust? Triggers that will give the insurance industry a last minute chance to reform or face forced reformation seems to be a good idea. Many ideas are being floated and discussed. There will be a combination of these ideas in the end and we will have a HCR with public option when all is said and done. The insurance industry has been socially irresponsible and now we are going to have to force responsibility upon them.

The public option can't be implemented because it is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face.

Nancy Pelosi is denying today's Politico hack report because she does have the votes but wants more than the 218 to assure a robust Public Option.

Give it up "Dopes of Nope' you're cutting your dirty noses off to spite your ugly faces.

If Soupy Sales were alive I wish he could lob a pie to your ugly faces. RIP Soupy Sales

Save your hateful keystrokes.

Have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water?

The Democrats need health care reform to expand the base of the party:
“Now we have the unions (largest DNC PAC contributor), we have the gambling (state lottery and casino taxes) and they're the best things to have. But narcotics (healthcare) is a thing of the future. And if we don't get a piece of that action, we risk everything we have. I mean not now, but, ah, ten years from now.”

This is a good example of a non-story. Nancy Pelosi told Andrea Mitchell that whatever House bill comes forward, it will contain a public option and will not be named Medicare-E in order to differentiate the new program from the old.

As to why the Senate Democrats worked so hard to get Snowe's yea vote in committee, the answer is a simple political one. The media has not been inundated with cries of Democrats going it alone. She is more than the fig leaf of bi-partisanship because real concessions were made to obtain her vote.

That said, the Democrats knew all along she would not vote for the final bill with a public option (though I think she might, given that her support in Maine by Democrats is now larger than her support by Republicans.) Political calculation is a cold business and Olympia Snowe is now left to twist in the winds of growing support for a public option. Her vote broke the logjam, the pent up desire now being expressed for the public option. I hope she votes for the merged Senate bill--her political future may depend on it.

We must continue to push for a good public option.  Without this the insurance companies will take every advantage.  They have already shown how predatory they are and want a mandate that would require everyone to purchase their plans without any accountability on their part.  While a single payer plan is the best solution we do not have that option.  We must insist on a government sponsored plan to provide some competition.

Nancy is counting votes, but she loses track after she gets to 23 and runs out of fingers and toes.

Jason Reality: So thanks, Rep. Cantor, and Senator McConnell.  Your delay tactics have given the progressives the time we needed to get our message out.

Too funny. Pelosi, Reid, and Obama wanted the bills passed, in secret, with no reading allowed, by August 1st. We now see who is going to pay for this monster of all entitlements, the middle and lower class, and that's the message you wanted to get out?

Too funny.

What started out as an ugly tactic for the Left (character assassination and personal attacks) has morphed into a mind-set. The Left is now locked into identifying "enemies" and demonizing them.
JoeyR, Stamford, TX (Sent Friday, October 23, 2009 10:30 AM)
=====
It’s not like we didn’t learn from the best the last 8 years!  Now you know how we felt. Quit your whining and take it like a man joey. It's called politics for a reason.

It’s comical that after 5:00 or so when FR shuts off the lights the righties FLOCK here like moths to a flame…  lol lol lol



Maybe because Republicans are working during the day.

i'm all for ending subsidized insurance for everyone and make all of you get out here in the real world and pay 100% of your own healthcare costs...many of you whining about the public option are already on a  public option, its just you are too blind to see it.

If you or a loved one is on medicare, medicaid, VA, Tricare, or any other care you already have the public option. If its so bad why aren't you whining babies all leaving your 'public option'?
Hmmmmmmm?

Let me get this straight.

We're going to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose head says he doesn't understand it,
passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it, signed by a president that also hasn't read it, and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't  pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and
financed by a country that's nearly broke.

What possibly could go wrong?

Cheney and Bush

Finally ganging up on the Obama administration.
Who da thought? They seeem so nice. The anti-Obama.

Politico was looking for a headline, when there was no headline. Who in their right mind thinks there will not be a public option? It will be there.  Creating chaos is something Fox News does.

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