SoonerBlue

I followed last night's election results with great interest...Democrats won a couple and lost a couple. Looks like voters are the most upset about jobs and the economy.

I already knew Republicans would win governorships in NJ and VA. Democrat Jim Corzine ran a lousy campaign based on Karl Rove's dirty tricks and deserved to lose NJ.

We had a sucky candidate who ran a sucky campaign in VA...enough for Republican Bob McDonnell to get by with that thesis he once wrote on keeping women subjugated. He also probably won because he didn't buy into Tea Party ideology and kept Sarah Palin at bay.

So Teabaggers can relax....New Jersey and Virginia are safe from a Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

Let's party like it was 1871! The NY-23 Democratic win against the Tea Party Conservative candidate sure helped me sleep a little better. Looks like the traditional wing of the Republican party said "hell, no" to the crazies.

Take that Teabaggers and Birthers! You drink too deeply from the cup of Palin, Beck and Limbaugh.

But don't get too giddy, lefties... this doesn't mean the Teabagger movement is smothered in its crib. They won't give up this easily. But if NY-23 was a trial run for Florida.... if the Republicans don't want to see Florida go the way of NY-23, somebody better rein 'em in.

In a way, I hope no one does...we Dems love to see them run wild.

It was a shame that left-wing zealot Republican Dede Scozzafava got chased off from NY-23 by Glenn Beck and the Teabaggers -- hey, nice name for a rightie rock band -- but the crazies didn't have the smarts to back a moderate who could win in a moderate district by just being moderate.

It was good that Dede threw her lot in with loyal comrade Democrat Bill Owens...and if he isn't up to the job of crushing those capitalist pigs, Chairman Obamovich can always exile him to Siberia...or North Dakota.

Is anybody amused because the Republican Party spent $900,000.00 on a Republican who dropped out and endorsed the Democrat? Or because the combined votes for Scozzafava and Hoffman would have given them a win? In a district that had been held by the GOP since 1871...when Ulysses S. Grant was President....

The GOP might be better off taking a Hoffman loss, rather than emboldening third parties in 2010. Remember Ralph Nader and Florida in 2000? Third parties are suicide...but the hard-left and hard-right wings often get impatient with the moderates and try it from time to time.

I know the Republican establishment is spineless and out of ideas, but for us to have a decent two-party system, someone needs to save the GOP. It dang sure ain’t gonna be me...but if someone wants to try, I'’ll loan you my garlic necklace, silver bullets, crucifix and wooden stakes....oh, and you might need some pitchforks and torches.

And don't worry, there's not all that many of them...they call themselves the base of the party, but they're just the fringe...the lunatic fringe.

I have a year's supply of popcorn, I'm going to love every minute of the Loony Teabagger Revolution. It's going to make the Goldwater thang look like a walk in the park.

Seventy five years ago, Republicans fought tooth and nail against FDR and the Democrats as they were trying to set up a national safety net for our most vulnerable citizens -- the elderly. Those seniors who had built this nation with their own hands, their own sweat, and sometimes with their own lives. It was Social Security.

Today that same party of NO! still lives in the last century...still think the government has no obligation to those it governs. And they are fighting tooth and nail again against Obama and the Democrats as they try to provide affordable health insurance and medical care to all Americans.

So, let us consider two things -- what kind of country would we be living in today if those cold crusty backward Republicans had had their way? It would have meant no Social Security. And no Medicare. Talk about "pulling the plug on granny!"

Let's also please remember that if it had been up to the Republicans, not only would there not be any Social Security and Medicare, there would also be:

No to the 13th amendment, which ended slavery

No to Brown v. Board of Education/ integrated schools

No to interracial marriage

No to black combat troops

No to Civil Rights

No to women's rights, including the right to vote

No to rights for gay people

No to public Colleges and Universities

No to the 40-hour work week

No to paid vacations or paid sick leave

No to child labor laws

No to worker's compensation

No to workplace safety laws (i.e. OSHA)

No to a livable minimum wage

No to the Clean Water Act

No to strong regulation of the banking and securities industries

No to any environmental regulation with actual teeth

No to federal family planning funding at home or abroad

And I'm sure there are many more...

Now, let us also consider this:
From CNN: Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found in an analysis released on Thursday. "We're losing more Americans every day because of inaction ... than drunk driving and homicide combined," said Dr. David Himmelstein, a co-author of the study. Overall, researchers said American adults age 64 and younger who lack health insurance have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those who have coverage."

Is it Healthcare Reform?

I do understand that overhauling the American healthcare system will probably be the most complex legislation in modern history...and maybe we are expecting way too much...way too soon.

Mr. President, you have done a lot of things that I'm happy with, and maybe I just don't understand your long game...but I'm not happy with how you're handling healthcare reform.

Please don't forget how many of us gave time, effort and hard-earned dollars in small donations to help elect you. Do not dismiss our concerns...we will not stand by quietly while you sell out to the highest bidder.

I have always found Bill Moyers to speak the absolute truth and be a very smart deep-thinking man. I've followed his TV programs and read his writings for years. He was on Bill Maher's HBO show the other night and I was saddened to hear what he had to say about how the Democratic Party is losing the healthcare debate.

"MOYERS: I don’t think the problem is the Republicans . . . .The problem is the Democratic Party. This is a party that has told its progressives -- who are the most outspoken champions of health care reform -- to sit down and shut up. That’s what Rahm Emanuel, the Chief of Staff at the White House, in effect told progressives who stood up as a unit in Congress and said: "no public insurance option, no health care reform."

And I think the reason for that is -- in the time since I was there, 40 years ago, the Democratic Party has become like the Republican Party, deeply influenced by corporate money. I think Rahm Emanuel, who is a clever politician, understands that the money for Obama’s re-election will come from the health care industry, from the drug industry, from Wall Street. And so he’s a corporate Democrat who is determined that there won’t be something in this legislation that will turn off these interests. . . .

Money in politics -- you’ve had in the last 30 years, money has flooded politics . .. the Supreme Court saying "money is free speech." It goes back to the efforts in the 19th Century to give corporations the right of personhood -- so if you as a citizen have the right to donate to campaigns, then so do corporations. Money has flowed in such a flood into both parties that the Democratic Party gets a lot of its support from the very interests that -- when the Republicans are in power -- financially support the Republicans.

You really have essentially -- except for the progressives on the left of the Democratic Party – you really have two corporate parties who in their own way and their own time are serving the interests of basically a narrow set of economic interests in the country ... these narrow interests seem to win, determine the outcomes, no matter how many Democrats are elected, no matter who has their hands on the levers of powers, these narrow interests determine the outcomes in Washington, even when they have to run roughshod over the interests of ordinary Americans. I’m sad to say that has happened to the Democratic Party.

I'd rather see Barack Obama go down fighting for vigorous strong principled public insurance, than to lose with a [corporate-dominated] bill . . . . the insurers are winning. Everyone already knows the White House has made a deal with the drug industry -- promising not to import cheaper drugs from Canada and Europe – promising not to use the government to negotiate for better prices -- that deal has been cut . . .

There’s this fear that Barack Obama will become the Grover Cleveland of this era – Grover Cleveland was a good man, but he became a conservative Democratic President because he didn’t fight the powerful interests – people say Obama should be FDR – I’d much rather see him be Theodore Roosevelt – Teddy Roosevelt loved to fight – … I think if Obama fought instead of really finessed it so much . . . I think it would change the atmosphere...[..]"

They showed the video of Obama PROMISING to get rid of lobbyists...and then the headlines about how Obama had worked out a deal with the drug companies.

It wasn't pretty.

Moyers also speaks about the ongoing escalation in Afghanistan. The entire discussion is about 30-min and really worth watching...you can see it here, here and here ...until HBO takes it away.

I'm sad to see what is happening to my Democratic Party...though I do understand the dirty game of politics. I understand how the president's handlers, like Rahm Emanual, feel they have an obligation to do whatever it takes to get their boss re-elected. Because they surely can't further the Democratic agenda if they lose the next election.

But I don't like it...I was hoping that Obama would bring more of a change.

What we have here is a Democratic Party that's torn between whether to stand for some kind of values and principles -- or go after enormous donations from corporate interests.

How sad that so many senators, especially the leadership, find it so difficult to simply do the right thing. Why can't they raise money from elsewhere? Insurance company money is blood money. Why can't they see that?

Polls show that the majority of Americans want a public option -- a chance to buy government healthcare insurance like Medicare. But private insurance company CEOs would not be very happy with the Democratic senators in their pockets if they vote for a public option.

The same CEOs who are given Christmas bonuses for letting people die.