BillN's Comments (1906)

“Nelson's vote is to get the bill out of the Senate - not for final passage. Call it a bribe it you must, but I believe Nelson stated this as a requirement before he would agree to anything.

Sounds more like blackmail and extortion to me.”

“Everybody at the left end of the spectrum has rejected tort reform, hands down. That's because the republican definition of "tort reform" is the protection of their corporate masters from litigation, absolving them of any guilt or liability for making professional mistakes that ruin or cost lives.

The right presents tort reform like it's the "end all, be all" solution to the entire problem of rising health care costs... which is pure, utter nonsense. What's more.... they know this is nothing more than another typical "attack and distract" tactic supporting their overall obstructionist strategy.

At the very least, this tired tort reform mantra serves as nothing but a convenient excuse for republican inaction on health care and other issues important to our society, and to our economy. We don't need their votes. But they are going to have to live with the fact that history will show that they contributed nothing to this effort, and went way out of their way to obstruct it at every turn. That's something I would NOT want on MY resume.”

“I would suggest that you read up on the "North Atlantic Conveyor'' (you can Google it), which describes what happens to weather patterns when too much cold, fresh water from melting polar ice enters the North Atlantic Ocean. Google "Greenland Ice Sheet" while you're at it.

This is information brought to you by the same "unqualified" scientists who put us on the moon, cured Tuberculosis and Polio, pioneered organ transplantation, and the list goes on. Of course, this automatically makes them evil "scam artists."

Or so the right-wing corporate media would have us believe.

Please explain to me what possible ulterior motive any scientist could have in warning us about an impending climatological event, caused by the abuse of the atmosphere by heavy industry, oil refineries and coal-burning power plants. These scientific facts are inconvenient because it cuts into their traditional, irresponsible way of doing business, and into their gross profits and inflated CEO bonuses.

Ask yourself why a company like Exxon-Mobil can boast openly about their record billions in profits of the past few years, yet they still will not pay their fines to the State of Alaska for the Exxon Valdez disaster. What kind of a SCAM are they running on the citizens of Alaska, many of whom saw their livelihoods destroyed by the actions of a drunken tanker captain?

The humor in this (if there is any) is that even the deniers will be affected if this disaster is allowed to continue.”

“And a special shout out to all those IMPAIRED DRIVERS out there...

PLEASE turn on your freaking headlights in obscured conditions. This is so WE CAN SEE YOU - not the other way around.”

“The republicans said they were going to capture Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive" and increase domestic oil reserves by drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge and other restricted places.

They told us that lifting restrictions on free market capitalism would make us all rich, but that didn't happen either.

We can't have everything, now can we?”

“Where is the removal of the anti-trust exemption for the insurance companies?

This alone would break the monopoly.

Alas, it is conveniently missing from the latest version. Another giveaway to the monied interests and more business-as-usual.”

“I see a deduction out of every paycheck for something called Medicare - that pesky public program that takes care of most of the pasty-white, overweight teabagger hyenas who want to deny this level of care for everyone else but vigorously protect their own.

I'm already paying for one specific group of people to have health insurance. If the pool of those who could buy into Medicare was increased (especially to the younger, more healthy crowd), actuarial analysis would confirm that Medicare's financial woes would be over... and the health care dilemma in this country would be over as well.

This works everywhere else in the free world. The well-paid deniers can say what they want about it, but I've been there and I've seen it for myself. I've lived in Germany, but I also have family in Canada and the U.K. They ALL love their public health care system. Neighbors, friends and other relatives in those countries confirm that.

Remove the corporate money and greed from the equation, and it could work here too.”

“It took Paul Wellstone's plane crash and Walter Mondale as the "replacement candidate" on the Democratic side to put Norm Coleman into the Senate. I wouldn't call that a mandate of the populace.

In fact, I think the margin was about the same for George W. Bush in Florida when all was said and done in 2000, wasn't it?”

“Typical smug, arrogant DLC @$$hat. Obviously a legend in his own mind.

This guy advises our president? Well, that certainly explains a few things.”

“Fanned!”

“You must be talking about Senator John "the fundamentals of our economy are basically sound" McCain... right before the collapse.”

“As always, the republican apologists feel that republicans - and some republican-minded independents - are exempt from the rules of the House, and the rules of the Senate.

Like Joe "You Lie" Wilson, and our latest example, Senator Joe Lieberman.

In case anyone has forgotten what suppression of free speech is, let me remind you of the time(s) not that long ago, that James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and other "honorable" republicans cut off the microphones and even the lights in the House chamber before Democrats had an opportunity to speak, and relegated other Democratic committee members to janitors closets in the basement of the capitol if the topic of discussion was contrary to the republican agenda.

Lets also not forget about the "free speech zones" into which American citizens were corralled a "safe" distance from Bush, Cheney, and other "prominent" republicans.

Quite a different situation from today's teabagger "hyenas" with a handgun strapped to their leg and carrying signs with swastikas on them.

Minnesotans should be proud of the three very honorable Senators in their history - Hubert Humphrey, Paul Wellstone, and Al Franken. As always, the Minnesota GOP are too dense to realize when they have a good thing going for them. Senator Amy Klobuchar deserves a lot of credit as well for holding it together during Norm Coleman's "sore loser" period.

There is nothing honorable about the behavior of Senator Lieberman. The American people would be much better off without him.

Kudos to Senator Al Franken.”

“Doubtful”

“So you're here because you're happy?”

“Hey Gibby,

Please fill us in on the details of Rahm Emmanuel's deal with big Pharma. That shouldn't be a problem in your "transparent" administration... right?

Let's see how responsible that is.”

“Guess all that's left now is the republican plan, so I'll have to give it a careful look.

OH, wait... there isn't one.”

“Yes - and replace it with something with some meat in it... and get it DONE this time.”

“Now we know that it's probably been Rahm Emmanuel all along - whispering in Obama's ear the entire time. This is the wrong time in our history for DLC Democrats to be calling the shots.”

“Couldn't agree more. Yeah, the situation as it stands right now really sucks.. but the stupidest thing we could do is put the people who architected this mess, back in power again.

They are the ones who got us here in the first place.”

“Which shade of Democrat parrots the talking points of, hangs out with and supports republicans, and speaks at their convention while caucusing with Democrats? What kind of Democrat takes bribes in the form of large sums of cash from health insurance and pharmaceutical company interests and pays little or no attention to the wishes of their constituencies?

The kind of Democrats (and Independents) that we need to get rid of.

The mindless lemmings of the republican party vote in unison against their own, and our best interests - because they were told to do so by their corporate masters, and have thus become incapable of having a thoughtful idea of their own... yet they can still move their agenda forward - even when it's bad.

The lack of party unity is the problem. Republicans march in lock step with each other while Democrats are all over the place. As much as I hate to quote a republican, a wise one from the 1860's once said that, "...a house divided against itself cannot stand."

The Democratic party is badly fractured - and this fact is being accepted rather than corrected. It's a cop out for the sake of getting something - anything - passed through the senate within somebody's fictional time line. This is what happens when the DLC division of the Democratic party makes policy.

Granted, a new "progressive" party wouldn't be a majority - but even when we have one, we can't get anything done.”

“Exactly. Why would Obama want to keep the people in his administration who were the architects of this disaster in the first place? Geithner, Summers, Bernanke, Gates... they should all be gone. Who is Obama placating?

While he's at it, he should get rid of the DLC blue dog Rahm Emmanual as well.”

“Well, the solution certainly isn't to bring Bush (or any republican) back. They had their chance. Ask yourself what was done to solve the health care crisis during the eight-year republican debacle, and what they're doing to solve it now.”

“I could go along with that, but I think under those circumstances, it WILL fail. We can count on republicans, the blue dogs, and Lieberman making that happen. With republicans, blue dogs, and Lieberman on record for having been behind the death of a badly-needed piece of legislation, the desired outcome of that would be more Democratic seats in the House and Senate. Hopefully the numbers would be more in our favor the second time around... and pukes like Lieberman, Nelson, Lincoln, and Landrieu will be unemployed.”

“Amen. Kill it.”

“What specifically is great about it? For the insurance companies it is certainly great - they get 30 million new customers, forced by a government mandate. There is no drug re-importation, no price controls, no competition (public option and Medicare buy-in) and the anti-trust exemption is still there.

Sweet deal.... if you're an insurance executive. For the American consumer, it basically sucks... by design.”