It has taken more than fourteen months for Obama to vindicate as president the leadership potential that we saw on the campaign trail; fourteen months to give up on the fantasy of bipartisanship; fourteen months to start truly inspiring ordinary people as he did as a candidate. But in the springtime of March 2010, we have seen a president who evidently has learned how to lead, who relishes winning, and who is primed to become a more effective progressive. For that we should be grateful. It should whet his appetite as a fighter -- and ours.
I have been working for Democratic and progressive causes for 29 years, and I don't think I've ever been prouder than today. When David Obey swung that gavel, it made a joyful noise unto the Lord.
The passage of Obama's health care reform bill is the biggest thing Congress has done in decades, and has enormous political significance for the future.
I love this country. I love this President. And I love my brothers.
Obama has been bombarded day-in-day-out for months, his reputation skewered from both the left and the right of the spectrum. With tonight's vote, the momentum shifts. Chapter Two of his presidency can now begin.
Palin -- whose duplicitous allegation of "death panels" helped establish the rancorous tone of the national debate over health-care reform -- has consistently shown her capacity for deceit throughout the debate.
Now that this major victory has been won in Congress today, I realize that what I really had at the start of Obama's term was not hope, but optimism. Optimism is a luxury for those who can afford to lose. Hope inspires endurance.
I'll be taxed heavily on the value of my coverage. It'll be about seven thousand after-tax dollars a year out of my pocket. And I couldn't be happier about it. That seven grand is going to help provide insurance coverage for 32 million people.
We do not get all we pay for in this world, but we are certainly paying for everything we get. We have paid an incredibly heavy price to get to this moment on health care: now is not the time to falter.
Since the right has had no trouble reducing nuanced issues to sound bytes, I have no choice but to provide more accurate characterizations than some of the common themes being pushed on the right.
Armed with a successfully enacted program for progress and led by an articulate, capable and intelligent leader, the war for truth is being waged against the corporate funded right wing. The passing of health care reform is the first step.
The American people have had enough of this double standard. The Democrats were elected to govern and to address the horrendous problems this country faces. It is time for the Democrats to use the reconciliation rules.
Here is a playlist for our elected officials in Washington who were actually working today -- or at least what passes for working in Congress.
As Congress convenes today to pass health reform, I'm reminded of one of the last times we voted on a Sunday: March 2005, when Republicans forced an extraordinary vote to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo.
While there are reasons not to like the health reform bill, none are good enough to stand in the way of an estimated 32 million people gaining health insurance.
Thousands of self-styled Teabaggers marched on the Capitol today to make the point that, in the words of one of their number, "Voting has no place in Congress."
The venom directed yesterday at John Lewis, Emanuel Cleaver, and Barney Frank by Tea Party protesters should serve as a wake-up call. The epithets spewed by the Tea Party bigots are not protests. They are defamation.
Today -- the seven year anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq -- I forwarded an appeal from Ayad Jamal Aldin to Joe Biden, urging him to take action and support a full recount of votes cast in the election.
The decision to leave millions of immigrants out of the health care reform bill makes little sense from a public policy or fiscal perspective.
The story of Gene Hackman, who quietly turned eighty just two months ago, is one of raw will and talent overcoming a host of limitations that would have defeated most people.
If we can shift a common perception of plastic from waste to a valuable resource, we can slow and, in some places even reverse, the alarming environmental damage occurring around the planet.
If Republicans vote "no" on the fixes, they'll have endorsed the deals in the Senate bill they opposed. If they vote "yes," the Democrats will have a bipartisan vote in the Senate plus the supermajority on the initial bill.
Obama is a man who does what works, rather than scoring ideological points. He will disappoint ideologues and purists of the left and the right. He's already made them angry. And because he did that he just won a huge victory.
