huffingtonpost

For $549 a plate,you’d think they could get the old girl some index cards.. I mean sure, she or any GOP member for that matter can’t ever use a teleprompter again after all of their mocking of  Obama’s admitted overuse of them, but are they  really back to 7th grade cheating?

huffingtonpost

ok, here’s the thing… you can’t come out on stage and  one of the 1st things you do is mock the President’s  use of teleprompters  when you’ve got freaking crib-notes written on your hand..  a cheat sheet  for your one-on-one Q & A session. Not if your honest anyway.

We’re past hypocrisy when you do this kind of thing and well into ridiculous and petty!  Not that I mind ridiculous or petty,  it’s the mocking of your betters that bothers me. While I’m at it, what kind of ‘grass-root’ movement charges so much to get into their convention that only the elite of the cream of the crop can get into the convention. $549 a plate? In this economy? If it’s truly as Sarah put it, and not about the money, then why is she making $100,000 off the speech that would cost her ‘real American’ family of four $1400 to get in? That’s just to get in the door, that doesn’t include the flight to get there, or the gas to drive or food and lodging.

Do you think  she understands the irony of this ‘let them eat cake’ atmosphere she’s promoting while calling for another revolution?

Yeah,me either.

As for this idea that these people are the model of conservative? Is it that the Tea-party movement doesn’t care about the truth or that they don’t understand it? While Governor, Palin not only took that money for her bridge to nowhere but she forced oil companies to pay each resident of the state a stipend each year. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with this policy, but since my counter-part calls me a socialist, I would be in agreement with a socialist policy like taking money from private companies and spreading it to the populist. But can you really be a conservative when you take such huge amounts of money from the government  and from the private sector and spread it around to people who didn’t earn it?

If you’re Sarah Palin or a Tea-party member, the answer is yes.  It’s those other socialists and pork-spenders that they don’t like.. the ones with (D) after their name, the ones who elected a black man, the one who is a black man. Oh yeah, that’s something else we learned this weekend, finally the Tea-party movement declared their belief..

[Tom Tancredo]...former Colorado congressman told the first National Tea Party Convention in Nashville this weekend, where he lathered up the crowd with a speech that offered this reason for Obama’s election: “We do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.”

Obama was elected, Tancredo said, because of “people who could not even spell the word ‘vote’ or say it in English.”

That’s right, we don’t have literacy tests anymore..you know the tests that kept blacks from voting. But hey, this is a good thing, there is no reason to hide behind a hood anymore Tancredo has de-robed the party and frankly I’m happy for them. think about it, it must be difficult to hide behind your hate that way for fear that if you let it out, people will know you really are racist. From the sounds of the cheers and applause, those waiting for Sarah Palin and listening to Tancredo are also glad to finally drop their mask!

I guess it’s just part and parcel of what we have to look forward to, an entire section of the country who believe Palin is more equipped to run this country over the likes of not just President Obama, but Hilary Clinton and *gasp* John McCain.  I guess as long as she has her cheat-sheet written on the palm of her hand, we’ll be safe when Putin ‘rears his head’.

What do you think the Tea-party group will do when they realize that  she is not like them and she is taking money out of their childrens mouths to not be like them?  It is about the money and fame for her, if it wasn’t she would have donated the money she ‘laundered’ through her PAC back to the Tea-Party cause.  How much more proof do you need in order to believe  she’s as phony as a $3 bill and as sincere as a prostitute. People, she used the money donated to her PAC to buy her own books. On the face of it that’s not to horrible, but when you look at how she received royalties for all those bought and paid for books.. you wonder which mob-boss taught her how to launder money so well. This isn’t the liberal media coming after her for taking donations to the RNC and using it to buy clothes for her and her family, this is a pretty shitty deal she’s pulling on her donors. It’s no wonder some Tea-party member were worried about ‘profiteering’ and the ’scammy’ feeling they were getting from this convention Sarah was headlining. These people are out of work and hurting, her answer is to use their much needed money to buy her book and since she can’t just out right keep their donations,  this is the 2nd best thing.

I feel bad for the real  tea-party member who was sucked into this abyss. I do believe there are people out there who really do want less government spending and intrusion. I believe that for the 1st time in their lives, after mocking the ‘left’ for all of the grass-root protesting, they finally got up their own moxie and listened to the hoopla Foxnews was spewing to  them and backed the party that they thought was the real deal. These people are about to be disillusion more than they ever were before and for them I am sorry. I only hope they wise up to the scammy-ness of where their party is going. I know these people don’t like the ‘Harvard educated’ elite, and the idea of a Nobel being awarded to a President is akin to treason,  but is this really the person you want at the next G8  summit?

HuffingtonPost asks 2 great questions on this cheating issue..

This would mean:

A) That she knew the questions beforehand and the whole thing was a farce. (Likely.)

and

B) That she still couldn’t answer the previously agreed-upon questions without a little extra help.

I don’t know, but I don’t like either answer. One proves she’s a hack and not only does she and the promoters of the convention know it but they’re doing everything in their power to make you sure never find out, and the other proves she’s an idiot. Regardless of the spin, neither prove she’s capable of commenting on politics, much less running a country.

At the end of the day the ‘true believers’ will not believe even what their eyes show them and their ears tell them. Ironically it was not us Obama-phytes who drank the koolaid, it is the Palin/Tea Party supporters.  Obama-phytes didn’t believe he was a bastard son who was really born in Africa, because we didn’t we were called pod-people, I should know, I called them that.  But anyone who says Sarah Palin is a real Conservative, is really smart, is really capable of running this country over the likes of even John McCain..stay away from them because that is your pod-person. That is the Jim Jones follower and like those poor souls, these are just as dangerous. They will do everything in their power to elect this woman to the Presidency of the United States even if it’s forcing her poison down throats of every “real” American and real conservative in this country. I don’t believe all members of the Tea-party movement are as race-hating as those who Sarah Palin read her hand to, but if the ones who aren’t don’t stand up and renounce her and this kind of call for the good old days of Jim Crow, they might as well be.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Tea Party movement: five highlights (newstatesman.com)
• Stefan Sirucek: Did Palin Use Crib Notes in her Tea Party Q&A? (huffingtonpost.com)
• Tom Tancredo to Tea Partiers: ‘Thank God John McCain Lost’ (blogs.wsj.com)
• Tancredo says Obama won because we lack a ‘literacy test before people can vote in this country.’ (thinkprogress.org)
• Tandredo Sets Tone For Tea Party Convention: People Who Can’t Speak English Put Socialist In White House (alan.com)
• Tea Bagger Tancredo Yearns for Return of Jim Crow-Era ‘Literacy Tests’ at Polling Place (bradblog.com)

This is who you protect when you wish for Obama to “fail”. This is the side you have chosen to stand with, protect and help defend.

Insurer ends health program

rather than pay out big

Ian Pearl has fought for his life every day of his 37 years. Confined to a wheelchair and hooked to a breathing tube, the muscular dystrophy victim refuses to give up.

But his insurance company already has.

Legally barred from discriminating against individuals who submit large claims, the New York-based insurer simply canceled lines of coverage altogether in entire states to avoid paying high-cost claims like Mr. Pearl's.

In an e-mail, one Guardian Life Insurance Co. executive called high-cost patients such as Mr. Pearl "dogs" that the company could "get rid of."

That's right, Mr. Pearl, is a "Dog" that the company needs to "Get rid of"

Let's put this is perspective for just a second. I told you about a friend of mine recently to try and put a face many of us know on this healthcare debate.  I wanted Chuck's story to be on everyone's mind as they were regurgitating the latest poison from Glenn Beck's mouth. I wanted people to have a visual of the person they were condemning in their almost orgasmic need to have a United States President fail. A failure that  some of these people  dream of, masturbate to...pray for every chance they get. "At all costs" is the motto, "At any cost" is the pledge.

I failed of course, not even the plight of a great man and amazing friend to many of us made a scratch in the shell that surrounds these ideologues.

So I will try again.

Instead of Mr. Pearl, who has the same condition as Chuck, I want to you again put Chuck's name, his face, his interaction with you, his "self".. put him in this story. Does that do anything for you ideologues? Can you sit there and hear that Chuck is just a "Dog" who needs to be gotten "rid of" because he dared to buy an insurance policy, he dared to pay it, he dared to get a debilitating degenerative disease and most of all  he dared to not die quickly enough?  The company that waspaid to cover health costs  can't cancel one 'dog'  because it would be against the law, so they just cancel an entire state of 'dogs'. Is there any face I can put on this problem that will make a dent?

You may say "Oh but Kelly, I'm sure the courts will stop the insurance company from canceling everyone with this kind if policy. I'm sure a judge will see that this man, Mr. Pearl will die if this insurance company is allowed to cancel his policy." But you would be wrong.

A federal court quickly ruled that the company's actions were legal, so on Dec. 1, barring an order by the federal Department of Health and Human Services, Mr. Pearl will lose his benefits.

So much for that 'check and balance'.

For those that abhor government intervention, will you cry with Glenn Beck if the  Health "Czar" Kathleen Sebelius orders the company to live up to it's contract.

Sadly, we all know the answer to that... Yes, yes  you will.

Will those of you who even thought about trying to explain just how President Obama was creating "Death Panels" care to pick up your pitchfork against this actual 'death panel'?  Mr. Pearl needs 24 hr nursing care, he is on a ventilator and needs hourly breathing treatments and continuous intravenous medication. Without this he will die, here is your Death Panel Sara Palin, will you 'tweet' about how evil this is? Will you take hundreds of thousand of dollars for a speech on this kind of injustice, will the people who aped your stupidity write Mr. Pearl or even Chuck's name on a sign and demand they not be forgotten?

Sadly, we know the answer to that is.. no, no you won't.

Guardian, a 150-year-old mutual company, reported profits of $437 million last year, a 50 percent increase over $292 million in 2007. It paid dividends of $723 million to policyholders and had $4.3 billion in capital reserves, according to its annual report. The company's investment income totaled $1.5 billion that year, a small increase from the year earlier.

This is who you protect with your hatred of a President. This is who you protect with  your 'at any cost'  ideologue.

"In an e-mail to four other Guardian executives entered into evidence in the Pearls' suit, company Vice President Tim Birely discussed how the company could "eliminate this entire block to get rid of the few dogs."

.. and don't think you can get away with the argument of "Well, you Democrats are in power now and we can't do anything stop you." It's condescending, it's insincere and it's bullshit. Most insulting of all.. you know it, snicker and use it anyway.

20 years ago a friend of mine took a ride with a person he had just recently started hanging around. He didn't know him too well but he seemed cool and they got along. That night the new guy told my friend he was going to rob a local mom & pop grocer for some extra cash. My friend wasn't a violent person, he wasn't a criminal, he wasn't a bad person in any way... but he because he was 17 and stupid he didn't speak up.

The new guy went into the store while my friend waited in the car, he could have left at that point but for whatever reason he didn't. After a few minutes the new guy came running back out, jumped in the car and away they went. They never spoke of what went on inside the store and it wasn't until the next morning when the police showed up at his parents house to arrest him that my friend found out that the store owner had been shot and killed by the new guy. My friend was tried and convicted as an accessory to the crime and is on death row awaiting his date with the executioner. Does he deserve to die for a crime he had no part in? Some would say yes he does, but then again.. they would also be the ones to tell Mr. Pearl to go out and get a job if he wants health care.

The real "Dog" here isn't Mr. Pearl and it isn't Chuck or any of the other poor souls who have paid their premiums each month only to have them canceled because they did not die quick enough. The real "dogs" are the insurance company who cares more about an enormous bottom line over the lives they are supposed to be protecting. You all fighting reform at all costs.. at any cost, this is the dog you have allowed into your bed by not saying anything even when you know what they are doing is not only wrong, dangerous and against humanity, but could possibly be murderous. Just like the saying "Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas"  this is on you whether you like it or not.

Lindsey Graham is currently finding that sad fact out. Arlen Specter and Colin Powell could have told him, but a conservative republican of Grahams stature, with his conservative record would have ignored their warnings just as the rest of the ideologues will ignore this liberal's warning. When you go against the beast you create, the beast you've allowed to take over to fight your battle for you, when you go against it... you pay their price. It's apropos that Graham is now the one to fight off charges that can not be defended because they have no basis in reality. "Fake Republican," "RINO" (Republican in name only), a "traitor," "disgrace," "asshat," "democrat in drag," and a "wussypants, girly-man, half-a-sissy".

The beast you fed,nurtured, appeased every step of the way while pretending "that's  not what my belief..it's theirs".. and "Hey, you guys are in power not us".. that beast is self-aware and is devouring your party.  That is who your next leaders will have no choice but to cater to. The metaphorically date with the executioner that you await for being an accessory to the crime, would be justice in and of itself if so many truly innocent people weren't being punished along with you. Don't believe there are 'truly innocent' people being punished? Well, I give you one final story

17-Pound, 4-Month-Old Baby

Denied Health Insurance

for Being Too Fat

Underwriters, the people who are in charge of assessing risk for insurance companies, have decided that baby Alex's pre-existing condition — obesity — makes him a high-risk patient and have denied him coverage.

His parents were shocked.

"I could understand if we could control what he's eating. But he's 4 months old. He's breast-feeding. We can't put him on the Atkins diet or on a treadmill," joked his frustrated father, Bernie Lange, a part-time news anchor at KKCO-TV in Grand Junction. "There is just something absurd about denying an infant."

The beast you continue to actively support or just ignore because the end is justified by the means for you... denied a 4 month old, breastfed baby for the pre-existing condition of  obesity.

I hope you are happy with your creation.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Fox wonders why White House sees them as reflexively anti-Obama. Then its pundits bitch about his Nobel Prize (crooksandliars.com)
• Gov't investigates health insurance company mailer (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Obama's Health-Care Speech: A Test of National Character - TIME (time.com)

I know it’s ‘en vogue’  to wish the downfall of your country these days, but is there some reason why people want to rush it to such a catastrophic  end?

Look at Drudge recently.. I know he’s a hack whose only concern is President Obama’s failure and how much he can hasten the end of the free world, but really? how is this a good thing?

KISS THE DOLLAR GOODBYE

His apocalyptic story today, like his equally frightening story last week

ARAB STATES LAUNCH SECRET MOVES WITH CHINA, RUSSIA, FRANCE TO STOP USING DOLLAR FOR OIL TRADING-

Drudge report

which I admit, I fell for..can cause some serious damages to the people who live in this country. I am OK with putting this stuff out there if it’s true because I believe information is a good thing, but when it’s  been proven if not completely false,  then exquisitely tainted and still being used as news, news reporting is no longer the goal.

Since the 1st story’s headline and reaction, it has been learned that everyone from head of the Saudi central bank to U.S. officials have been scrambling to get the word out that it is not true. The source for the original is a unknown, the reason for the original story is unknown… but the effects of the story that even Glenn Beck latched on to.. are known.

But one thing is for certain: With the price of gold jumping to $1,048.20 per ounce, traders who moved early enough stood to make millions.-

Politco

Ironically enough, the jump in gold prices was also a major Drudge headline “GOLD HIGH! *” just one day after his siren-waling headline ARAB PLOT TO DROP DOLLAR headline. I would hope ‘greed’ isn’t the only reason for what is going on here. I know there is money to be made in the failure of an empire but please don’t tell me that is what this is really about.  At least tell me this is more ‘pure’( if there is such a thing) than just simple greed. The Politico story refers to man who wrote the original, unsourced claim as a British journalist who has lived in Beirut for over 30 years and is the one of a few people to have interviewed Osama Bin Laden,  but it also saysthat he is  “increasingly associated with more radical theories thus weakening the credibility of the story.” Please tell me good old fashion foreign hatred of America is behind this, not domestic greed.

I mentioned Glenn Beck. He did a scare-tactic.. I mean “show” a few days after the Drudge line on the sinking dollar and rising gold prices.. what exactly is his reason for this ‘dollar dropping- woe is me’ story?

Goldline is Glenn Beck’s Choice for Gold

"Before I started turning you on to Goldline, I wanted to look them in the eye. This is a top notch organization that's been in business since 1960." Glenn Beck

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Paranoid Style in American Politics Revisited (seminal.firedoglake.com)
• Glenn Beck exploits 9/11 tragedy for ratings: Because cheap symbology matters more than people (crooksandliars.com)
• Race-baiting Drudge Throws Fuel on Fire (deepbraindiary.com)

Well hey, when the website that John Stossel formally of ABC, and coming to Fox news blogs for calls for the military to take care of “the Obama problem” with a “bloodless coup” and install “an interim government“… or have a kind of ‘family intervention’ and then run the government with a “form of limited, shared responsibility”….and the only thing the right can say is that President OBama shouldn’t have gone to Copenhagen for 18 hours,  things may be spiraling out of Rights control.

There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America’s military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the “Obama problem.” Don’t dismiss it as unrealistic.
America isn’t the Third World. If a military coup does occur here it will be civilized. That it has never happened doesn’t mean it wont. Describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it.

[...]
Will the day come when patriotic general and flag officers sit down with the president, or with those who control him, and work out the national equivalent of a “family intervention,” with some form of limited, shared responsibility?
Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.
Military intervention is what Obama’s exponentially accelerating agenda for “fundamental change” toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama’s radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.
Unthinkable? Then think up an alternative, non-violent solution to the Obama problem. Just don’t shrug and say, “We can always worry about that later.”
In the 2008 election, that was the wistful, self-indulgent, indifferent reliance on abnegation of personal responsibility that has sunk the nation into this morass

Of course newsmax removed the piece and pretended like it never happened…and they pretended that the author was just some random blogger.

The columnist, John L. Perry,“has no official relationship with Newsmax other than as an unpaid blogger

But that’s not exactly true, especially when you read his Bio Newsmax.com wrote about Perry , where he wasn’t just  a former senior editor for the site, but was also described as

an “award-winning newspaper editor and writer” who “contributes a regular column to Newsmax.com.”

But this sounds exactly like what some people are hoping for..

The coup — which would be “civilized” and “bloodless,” according to Perry — would consist of a “patriotic general” sitting down with the President and working out a new system in which “skilled, military-trained, nation-builders” would “do the serious business of governing and defending the nation” while Obama would still be allowed to make speeches..

yes, it’s the evil of Obama..Who is not an American, but who is in fact an African with his, fascist, socialist,communist, Marxist march(yes, I know)  should be stopped with a military coup that installs the same overthrowing military  in charge  of the serious business over governing this country and that is the right path to restore this to the country that so many lost on November 4, 2008.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama’s radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.

Don’t be fooled..There is a need to get rid of this problem ..

“Unthinkable?” Perry asked. “Then think up an alternative, non-violent solution to the Obama problem. Just don’t shrug and say, ‘We can always worry about that later.’”

For more and the full text of Perry’s NewsMax column.

I wonder if that did anything to the results of that facebook poll, you know the one on whether the president should live or not..  the choices of that one  didn’t have anything to do with Afghanistan or Iraq or the Olympics, just healthcare..

The question, “Should Obama be killed?” had received 730 responses since its posting on Saturday. The four possible answers: Yes. Maybe. If he cuts my healthcare. No.

What’s unfortunate here is we know people are paying attention to this kind of bullshit, all you have to do is look at what Michelle Bachman had to say about the evil census workers President Obama is hiring to round GOP’ers up and ‘intern’ them, and then read the brutal story out of Kentucky…

(CBS/AP)  It was a bizarre and gruesome discovery in a remote section of eastern Kentucky: Bill Sparkman, a 51-year-old teacher and part-time worker for the United States Census, was found two weeks ago hanging from a tree with the word “Fed” scrawled on his chest in felt tip pen.

A man who said he was among those who found the body told tells the Associated Press that Sparkman was naked, bound at the hands and feet with duct tape and gagged – details that have not yet been confirmed by authorities.

Jerry Weaver of Ohio told the Associated Press he was visiting a cemetery in rural Kentucky with family members on Sept. 12 when he, his wife and daughter saw the body.

“The only thing he had on was a pair of socks,” Weaver said. “And they had duct-taped his hands, his wrists. He had duct tape over his eyes, and they gagged him with a red rag or something

[...}

"And they even had duct tape around his neck," Weaver said. "And they had like his identification tag on his neck. They had it duct-taped to the side of his neck, on the right side, almost on his right shoulder."

Both of the people briefed on the investigation confirmed that Sparkman's Census Bureau ID was found taped to his head and shoulder area. Weaver said he couldn't tell if the tag was a Census ID because he didn't get close enough to read it. He could see writing on Sparkman's chest, but could not read that it said "fed."

It is probably just a coincidence this happened on Glen Beck's 9/12 protest day...But what if it isn't?  What if a poll, 2 crazy talk show host crying to millions every night and millions more for hours everyday about how this President is taking their country, a crazier congresswoman who envisions this President's interment camps for Republicans and finally this article from a popular Right-Wing rag actually convinces someone to act, whether that someone is a general leading the military as Perry seems to yearn for, or tea-bagger inspired by Beck..Would those in the GOP who should be speaking out loudly against this finally say something to the fringe they have left to take over their party because that fringe is working to help them with their "Obama Problem"? I seriously doubt it, like Michelle Bachman, they will just cringe and jump into their limo if ever confronted with what they created.

I am remind of some words that were spoken once.. of course they were spoken against anyone voicing any dissent against the President at the time, but I think those words apply to what is going on now.. I know that I will surely lump the silent ones altogether if the pleas of these right wing speakers is answered..

"But all nations, if they want to fight terror, must do something."

"You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror."-GWB November 6, 2001

How very apropos.. You are either with us in this fight against smears,lies,inciting of riots,assignations and military overthrow and occupation.. or you are with them.  Staying silent is no longer an option, it has gone too far to ignore any longer. Who will be the first from across the aisle to step up and end this?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Newsmax: Military Coup Would Take Care Of "Obama Problem" (crooksandliars.com)
• Newsmax, the Military Coup Column Call, and Conservatives (themoderatevoice.com)
• Cowards: Newsmax Scrubs John Perry's "Military Coup" Article (crooksandliars.com)
• Further Thoughts on Kentucky Lynching (themoderatevoice.com)
• Going There (talkingpointsmemo.com)

Anecdotal evidence is never a game-changer unless the subject of the evidence is a great friend who has accomplished so many things in his life and has made the best out of a crappy hand life dealt him. Then, sometimes.. not always but sometimes.. that kind of evidence strikes the right cord in the right people and then change really does come.

I’ve tried to give you guys the examples of people I knew, in the hopes that you may have known people like them and/or could feel the desperation of their situation and maybe want to find a way to help them, but I failed in bringing the people I was targeting over to just the idea that change is needed, much less my idea of what that change should be. But maybe this time, with the example being someone we all know, we all respect and care for.. maybe this is the straw that breaks the camels back for some people and maybe some of those will go on to help fight for what is desperately needed in this country, instead of trying to kill any hope at all of a reprieve for those that are stuck in a situation they had no control over.

Even though he gave me permission, I  still thought about changing the name in this piece and just sticking to the story. I knew that even with omitting the name most of us would know who I was talking about with just one or 2 words about him so there was no need for him to be anything other than anonymous to the rest, but I don’t want him to  be just another blind example, I want you to say his name in your head when you are fighting against health care reform. When you look at the words of the President

But what we can do is make sure that at least some of the waste that exists in the system that’s not making anybody’s mom better, that is loading up on additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care, that at least we can let doctors know and your mom know that, you know what? Maybe this isn’t going to help. Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.

I want the name Chuck Conners aka Uselesslegs in your thoughts when you blithely mock  this very real problem in our very broken system. I want Chuck’s story in the forefront of your brain, when you argue that we have the best care anywhere, that there is no such thing as that silly concept of doctors charging for a surgery when you only need a pill.. I want you to tell Chuck’s story to a friend or family member, and then explain to them why President OBama and the Democrats are just trying to kill this country and kill our ‘wonderful’ healthcare.

Before I continue, after Chuck told me his story and I started writing it I realized that this is the story for not having a public option, this is the reason why the government shouldn’t be in the medical insurance field. I know that there are blind loyalists  out there who will miss the point of this story and only latch on to the easy part of the problem, they’ll do this because they don’t have the intellect to see the big picture, they are the ‘death panelists’.. and ‘birthers’…the ideologue,  to them I will just nod and say “Yes Dear”.. I  was worried about writing this because the lack of brain mass some of these people have is more than made up by their vocal abilities and abhorrent behavior, but if I want to be true, if I want to be honest.. this type of story should never happen. It should not happen with private  or government run care. We need reform and anyone not seeing that, or not seeing that this is also a problem in the private sector needs to just go build another sign and leave the serious matters to the adults to figure out.

First a little back story for those that don’t know. Chuck has muscular dystrophy and it has progressed so over the past few years that he is completely dependent on a wheelchair to get around and someone to help him in and out of it. At 42, he’s already lived well past anyone’s guess…and he’s done so with a kind of dignity,humility and humor that I never knew existed. Chuck understands that people are uncomfortable with the disabled,  we don’t know how to act, where to look, what to say, so Chuck takes it upon himself to break that uncomfortable moment with a self deprecating joke or a well-rehearsed fart noise. My oldest daughter was one of the people he endeared himself to immediately with his ‘ice-breaking’. She knew of him and his disability, but she didn’t know of his humor..yet. When he called my house and she answered, she very innocently asked “How ya doing Chuck?”.. His reply was a simple scream “I”m in a wheelchair.. HOW DO YOU THINK I’M DOING!”. She immediately stared to cry because she thought she had done something to offend him, she was in the act of throwing the phone at me and spilling the story out when I couldn’t control my laughing any longer, I told her to listen to the phone, and there was Chuck laughing while at the same time trying to soothe her into knowing he was just kidding around with her. He hadn’t joked with her to be mean to her, but he knew, like all people in his or similar situations know, that us ‘normal’ people just don’t know how to react to them. He taught not only her, but my younger daughter, that it’s ok to look at someone in a wheelchair, or someone who is disabled, it’s ok to talk with them and be relaxed around them.. He taught them that it’s ok to treat them as normal and to laugh with and enjoy them just as they would anyone else. For that I say Thank you, because I didn’t learn this ease and comfort until I was much much older and Chuck was the one who taught it to me also.

But, the perfect example of Chuck and the way he looks at life is right there on the back of  his car, his registration tag, which simply reads…. “Gimpy”. The humor in that one word sums up the man that’s sitting the wheelchair inside that van.

When you hear Chucks life story, you can’t help but wonder what it would have been had he been physically ‘normal’, personally I don’t think he would have been as colorful, as funny.. and unique, what God took, he gave back in other ways.  The stories he can tell you about how his father scared him with a tarantula, how because of the ‘fear’ practical jokes his father would play on him, he ‘accidentally’ hit his father in the head with hammer to save his older brother, the teenage girl who peed on his couch when a stuffed squirrel was thrown at her, and my family’s favorite.. when his poncho got stuck in the wheels of his wheelchair and he was stuck going in circles until his companions could stop laughing long enough to extricate him.. These are the stories that make him who he is and had he not had a debilitating disease, I wonder if would he have had the same sense of humor?

At one time Chuck was THE Jerry’s Kid. His face graced many a magazine and poster. Not only was he part of the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon’s we all used to sit around and watch all weekend, but he was also the youngest Jaycee and was an honorary member of the VFW. He’s made the best of what was given to him, but even with all of the support he was given by all of these great and selfless people and an amazing organization, if it wasn’t for the Medicaid/Medicare program, he wouldn’t have lived past his early teens.  The Muscular Dystrophy Association helps with what they can, but they are not equipped to deal with it all.

For people like Chuck, the idea of a private insurance is laughable.. to them, the idea that a government run system would destroy what this country was built on, is an insanity. It’s because of medicaid/medicare that people like Chuck aren’t regulated to some orphanage or ditch out behind the woodshed. It’s Medicare/Medicaid that pays for his medicine, his doctors, his wheelchair. It was medicaid that came into his house recently and installed rails on his ceiling for a ‘body lift’ that can take him from his bed, to his toilet, to his bath. Until that day earlier this year when the rail was installed, Chuck  hasn’t had an actual “bath” in years. Showers and sponge baths, sure, but a tub bath? No.  He doesn’t measure life in grand increments, he’s never been able to, but to be able to finally sit down in a tub was a grand day for him.

It wasn’t until the other day that Chuck also found out just how horrible our system really is. Government run or not, he found himself in a pile of shit with no way out of it.   The sad part is that I’m not exaggerating or hyper-ventilating hyperbole..

Chuck’s mother moved in with him some years ago when it became apparent that he was going to start needing more intensive around the clock care. He’s been able to do for  himself for so many years, but his disease isn’t one that goes into remission or gets better over time, even the strongest or most lucky eventually fall victim to disappearing strength due the shrinking muscles. It’s because of his mother that he doesn’t need a daily visiting nurse, or God-forbid to live in an assisted living facility. It’s also in my opinion what has kept him going all these years, had she been like other parents who just couldn’t do it anymore and put him in a state run, or if by some stroke of luck, privately  funded assisted living care, disease and disregard would have killed him years ago. It’s not that these places would have necessarily treated him poorly,  but it’s just the nature of the beast that they zap  your will to live in small increments over time and then there is the spread of colds,flu’s and other disease that affects someone like Chuck so detrimentally and are so rampant in the close confines of these homes. Yes, it’s my belief that his mothers sacrifice all these years has lead to his longevity, not just in the extended  years of  his life, but in the life he has lived over the years. A nursing home would have curb his spirit, his joy, his imagination.. it would have killed what makes Chuck, Chuck.

A couple of weeks ago Chuck’s mom was struck by an acute illness that required emergency surgery, which required an extended hospital stay and a long convalescence at home. In other words, now she needed to be cared for and not only was Chuck unable to do this in return for her sacrifice all these years for him, but his physical capabilities have deteriorated so much that he was left wondering who was going to care for him.  He knew that his brother would come up and help him once, maybe twice a week, but he was also painfully aware that there were going to be times when he would be in need of assistance and no one would be there to help. I don’t mean in need of showers or baths, cooking food to eat, or help getting into bed. No, Chuck has learned to go without a bath or shower and use a washcloth, he’s learned to eat whatever is handy in his line of reach, and as for sleeping.. well he can just roll his chair up to the dining room table and rest his head on his arms and get a few winks that way.  Things we all take for granted, things that are the extreme of simple to us.. well, he’s found his way to enjoy also. No, the help I am talking about is our own basic body functions..  urination and defecation.  Chuck has found a way around those too, he just stops eating and drinking.  But even this is not perfection.

Because he knew that he was going to need just a few minutes help each week until his mother had recovered, he called his medicaid office to ask for a visiting nurse or nursing assistant to come out 30 minutes a week to help him. Before I go any farther I want you to think about that. Try for a minute to think if you could limit yourself to a bathroom break at a predestined time, once or maybe twice during a 7 day period.  Do you have that kind of control, do you think it would be easy on a Monday to just say to  yourself  “Ok, I can’t poop again until Thursday at 9am” .  Welcome to Chuck’s world.

When he made his request to the insurance office, he didn’t ask for someone to come out every other day and bathe him, or every day to help him  on the toilet. Like I said, those things he’s been able to curb by not eating or drinking. But even the best starvation doesn’t keep you from having to use the bathroom for an entire week and he knew that. So Chuck’s humble request was for someone to come out once a week and help him with that problem, the rest of the time he would ration his food and drink and ‘hold it’ until his brother could come up on the weekend. The medicaid representative  was very helpful, she understood what he needed and told him she had just the thing for him.. a 90 day stay in an assisted living facility. Now, besides this being a death sentence for someone in Chucks condition, it was an absurdity to him because he didn’t need that kind of help, he just needed someone to come out and help him in and out of his chair for a couple minutes a week. He explained this again to the woman on the phone, but as sympathetic as she was, she couldn’t give him a visiting nurse or CNA.. she could only give him a 90 stay at his local old-folks home. Chuck, understandable upset, refused and then started the process of limiting his food,water and ‘holding it’…. and he almost made it.

It had only been a few days, he’d gone longer in the past, but whether it was something he ate that didn’t agree with him or whether nature just had to take it’s course, he failed in his attempted to not soil himself. It wasn’t much, just a little bit of a bowel movement, but it was enough that he knew he was sitting in his own shit and worse than that, there was nothing he could do about it anytime soon. Even if his brother came up right then, he was an hour away and Chuck would be sitting there in his own mess the whole time, and that is exactly what happened.

I’ve noticed that even the most ’shy’ of us reach a point where it doesn’t matter who sees or smells what, we just need help and we need it right then. That’s the place were Chuck was, sitting in his own shit, waiting for his brother to come up and help wash him up. Help wash the area on Chuck off, was his clothes off and wash his chair off. What a humbling experience this must have been, it had to have the most humbling hour of his life. But it eventually came to the point where he didn’t care who came in and saw or smelled what… he just wanted help. He found out those moments waiting for his brother to come up and clean him, just what it meant that he was disabled. I’m know that through the years there had to be many other moments that came up and made him realize this fact, but I’m not sure that any humiliated him the way this time did.

The next day he again called and begged the insurance company for 1-30 minute visit a week so he could avoid a repeat of the day before, he was again denied. They would of course be happy to spend tens of thousands of dollars for him to unnecessarily stay in a 24 hr facility for 90 days, but no. .. they would not under any circumstances pay  $50-$75 a week for 5-6 weeks for a nurse to come to his home.

…and people say reform is not needed, that there is no waste in healthcare, that to cut any unnecessary procedures means a ‘rationing’ of care, that doctors don’t prescribe  that which is unnecessary over that which is needed in the name of greed and the all mighty dollar?

Chuck’s story has ended well, he finally got a hold of a worker who would listened to his sense that he didn’t need a 90 day,thousands of dollars treatment… he just need a 30 minute weekly visit. She set him up with not one, but 2 visits a week.

Whether it’s medicare,medicaid or private insurance.. reform is needed.  Had Chuck decided to take the medicaid office up on it’s offer, thousands of dollars would have been wasted when only a couple hundred were all that was needed. Those thousands could have gone to someone else care instead, someone who didn’t have insurance.. or 100 someone’s without insurance but in need of a flu shot this season. There are a million different ways that money could have been used properly, but because it is a Democrat asking for that reform, the psycho ‘right’ has an apoplectic  fit about him wanting to pull the plug on grandma, him wanting to stop seniors from getting hip-replacements and heart surgery or him wanting to kill of  the ‘damaged’ children of our society.

When a party says that the President who wants to talk to kids about the value of eduction and to stay in school is really trying to ‘indoctrinate’ them into a new version of ‘Hitler’s Youth’.. it’s time the adults stand up and tell these crazies to shut the fuck up already…the adults on both sides of the aisle. The sad part is the GOP’s lack of caring in all that is going on.  Some know that the fringe they are courting and allowing into the debate field are as bat-shit crazy as they come, but they know that they are also so desperate for an answer that if the Liberals are distracted enough by the insanity, they themselves will have time to actually come up with that answer. The crazies will eventually be throw out of the party,  the Conservatives aren’t that stupid, but until then the rest of will just sit in our chairs… not eating.. not drinking.. and praying that we don’t shit ourselves before our brother comes to rescue us from situation that we can’t just ‘pull our boot-straps up’ and get out of on our own.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Well: A New Heart, Tangled in Red Tape (nytimes.com)
• Nearly $60.5M Raised in MDA Telethon (abcnews.go.com)
• Late Night: Oh, Tosh. Are There No Emergency Rooms? (firedoglake.com)
• Mr. President, Don’t Compromise Our Health Away. We Need Help, Not Worthless Mandates. (crooksandliars.com)

There is a great discussion going on on the muchedumbre forum..

“Fear here… I got fear here… 1 trillion dollars… get your fear…“

sorry, 900 billion… like any of us really know the difference…

So, is Obama simply repeating the mistakes of Bush II by selling important things to the American people with fear?

fear here, fear now.. we must stop it.

Well, we must stop it when it is President Obama doing the mongering, when it is a Democrat’s agenda, when it is an issue that 70% of the country’s population want.

We are being led to believe that the ‘fear’ the President it ‘mongering’ on the rise of insurance prices, the crippling effect that the uninsured have on the medical system, and the eventual crash of medicare/medicaid  is just fanciful and over-the-top unnecessary rhetoric. But this isn’t about the country, this isn’t about helping the 70% majority get what they are begging for,the Republican’s  only goal here is to stop Obama by ending his hope of healthcare for everyone. The idea behind  stopping the healthcare reform the President is asking for is that it will  bring his popularity down enough for Republicans to  hope for a chance to win a majority of congressional elections is 2010. This isn’t about you or me to the Republicans, this is about beating Obama and winning congressional seats. Just ask Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK). He isn’t afraid to admit the Republican agenda.

“When you tell people that the mortality rate in Canada is 25% higher for breast cancer, 18% higher for prostate cancer, you know, they say why in the world would we emulate a system like that?”

Of course they are telling them a lie, because that is not the system we are trying to emulate.. but what good is a little truth when your goal is fear. Why bother with the truth when the  the mortality rate for mortality is 3% higher in the United States than Canada? Because then, you lose your argument all together.

This idea of pretending that our healthcare system would suffer or the bonus-cuts the poor and destitute health insurance CEO’s would have to endure are not the issue, is ridiculous. The issue is to do what it takes to win at all costs.

“I just hope the President keeps talking about it, keeps trying to rush it through. We can stall it. And that’s going to be a huge gain for those of us who want to turn this thing over in the 2010 election.”-Sen. James Inhofe

The majority of us who support a public plan and are willing to pay for it, are sadly not as important as those who donate millions to coffers of our elected officials both Democrat and Republican. Oddly enough, the ones taking the most money from Phamra and Big Insurance are the one blocking reform by calling for bi-partisanship. Which in this case means a bill so watered down and useless that it will do more harm than good. And yet to call them on this, to explain the immediate need for reform, to try and give a democracy what it’s demanding.. is to be out there ‘fear mongering’ and scaring the public and this just isn’t to be born!

We had to wire-tap our own citizens for fear that the terrorists were  making covert plans over the wires.

We had to torture  subjects who were captured for fear that they might  know something. In order to do that though, we had to change the wording of strict Geneva convention guidelines to change these POW’s into ‘enemy combatant’ for fear that the laws may protect them.

We had to detain  combatants  in secret holding facilities all over the world for fear that they would escape or worse, join together and become a ’super-terrorist cell’.

We could not try these combatants  in our own courts on our own soil for fear that they would  get off and be released into the population and begin collaborating with one another on another attack.

We could not house these combatants in our own maximum security prison system for fear that they may do what no one else has done, and escape.. or for fear that they would join in with the other extremely dangerous inmates housed with them and created new terrorists  networks.

We were even told to vote for the Republicans because they tried  to make us fear that they were the only one capable of keeping us safe in these uncertain times.

It’s telling that when these issue were brought up and the fear mongering was pointed at as an unnecessary tactic, he reply from the same people complaining about the supposed fear mongering President Obama is spreading, was

“So the Prez tells you stuff that you don’t like and don’t want to hear, and for his trouble of actually treating you like an adult and not sugar coating it, you call it “fear mongering.”

or

It’s legitimate and warrants some extra consideration.“

That’s almost as “fair” as the people deciding the fate of the health reform being recipients of millions of dollars from the insurance companies… but not quite.

The scary idea that some Republicans are trying to make into some kind of truth, that once this reform is enacted, our elderly will be put out to pasture, is some of the most ridiculous and preposterous yet to be voiced in this debate. In country where a doctor is criminally punished for aiding terminal patients with only hours to live in excruciating pain, it’s asinine to believe that we would all of a sudden kill off an entire segment of our population. But fear is what the Republicans peddle to get their way, even if their way goes against what 72% of the population and 50% of their constituents are asking for.

The scariest part of all.. is that we and the Democrats in Congress will let them get away with it.

The only thing there is to fear here is the money Republicans and some Democrats will lose from the Health sector if they don’t get out and pimp for them now.

Oh…and to the Republicans who complain that bureaucrats should not be involved in the decisions between a doctor and patient, first I ask, is the  17 year old high school student working after school and weekends at the insurance call center denying  the care your physician is asking for now, doing that job any better?.. and then I say to those crying a whoa is me over politicians not being a deciding factor in the doctor/patient conversation.. Thank You for joining the ‘Pro-choice’ movement, the ‘Pro-medicinal marijuana’ movement and the ‘pro-assisted suicide’ movement, can we count on your support in 2010?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Obama Should Say: To Hell With A Second Term, I’m Just Doing This (tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com)
• Inhofe and the Ugly Truth about the GOP (dailykos.com)

Here’s another edition  of… Friday Rewind.

I think this weeks talking points, make this rewind apropos..

So without further ado,

Will you help me?

-I’m desperate and really need some help. I don’t know what to do so I am appealing to anyone who reads this. My sister is missing. We have not heard from her in a few days and it is not like her to just take off. We are organizing a search for her Monday morning in the woods around her home in Brevard County. My family and I are not wealthy and we don’t know how long we can sustain our economic livelihood during this time since the worry and stress make us unable to work, if you would like to help we have set up a fund at any Wachovia bank.-

-I’ve lost everything. I tried to evacuate but I am not a wealthy person and I don’t have a car. I don’t know what I am going to do, I have nothing. I lost my entire life in the flood, I can’t work because my job was washed away. I believe there is a fund where you can send donations, please…. Please for the love of God help me.-

-My cousin went to Aruba for graduation. She only drank a little and only did a little drugs, and went home with 3 boys she had just met. She’s missing now and we just know she was raped and murdered. I am a wealthy woman, I can afford to fly back and forth from my home to Aruba, but I don’t know how long I can do this. I will NOT leave my suite at the local 5 star hotel room where I am comp’d my meals, transportation, alcohol, and clothes, until she us found. If you would like to help me in this trying time, there is a fund set up at any local bank.-

-My 82 year old maid will be signing autographs today, there will be a donation bowl on the table. Thank you for making an old woman’s day.-

-My father was killed in a terrorist attack. I don’t know what I am going to do with out him. Please send money to help me thru this trying time.-

Please help me, my job does not offer healthcare, my husbands job does offer it but the monthly premiums are over $800 for a family of four. I have some medical issues that I really need to see a doctor about. Neither of my kids have seen a doctor for a well-check in over 4 years. When they are sick or injured, even if it is just a case of strep throat I have to take them to the ER because I cannot afford to pay the doctor visit at the time of service. If my kids would only get sick or injured before I pay the mortgage and utilities things would be a lot easier. My husband and my combined income is over $50k a year so we do not qualify for any Medicaid and we are not old enough for Medicare.. Is there anything, anything at all you can do to help me?

Which one of these will get the most help? Which will get the least? If we banded together as a race of humans, which would help all of us more in the long run? Which one will we just roll our eyes and tell the person to get a better job and stop asking for the government to supplement you?

Why is that? Why can we, as Americans, be so giving when see or hear of a disaster?

Tsunami a world away? No problem we can band together and donate 100’s of millions.

9/11 attack? Oh my god how horrible, and NO Timmy you can’t have an ice cream today because I have to send money to those poor people who had families in the buildings.

Your child is missing? How can I help? I can take some days off work and drive over to your county to help you search anytime I can.

Yet be so Goddamn stingy when it comes to helping people who didn’t have a building fall on them.
No healthcare? Well get a job you dead-beat subhuman.

The one thing we can help everyone in the country on is the one thing we will complain about giving money to. It’s Charity for the unworthy, it’s Socialism at its finest, it’s taking my hard earned money and giving to the lazy drunks of the world.

We’re not unfeeling. We give when there is a cause to give. Just look at this list and see how giving we can be

• September 11th Victim Compensation Fund paid out approx $7 billion to the families

• September 11th Fund collected and dispersed an additional $534 million from more than two million donors

• $950m from the US Government to the Tsunami victims

• An additional $515m donated by the private sector for the Tsunami relief fund

• $800m for hurricane Katrina relief in just the first 2 weeks

• $7m donated to Virginia Tech Memorial Fund after the shootings

And a rumored $20m donated to the Natalie Holloway Fund for her mother, friends, family, searchers and friends of searchers. Even though they were all comp’d everything from their plane tickets to Aruba to the bathing suits and the Gucci sunglasses they needed.

See, we’re not heartless…

So why is it ‘Welfare’ when we want to help a single mother and ‘Socialism’ when we want to help anyone who is a part of this country? If you added up all of those donations it seems to be you would have nice start to paying for Universal Healthcare.

Cuba doesn’t have a car newer than 1965 or anything but corrugated metal roofs on their hut homes… but they have universal healthcare.

France, Italy, Britain, Canada…. All have universal health care. The argument here against it, is that healthcare would decline if we switched. Well, the World Health Organization already ranks us 37th in healthcare, which is below places like Costa Rica, Columbia and Dominica. When we’re ranked below a place such as Columbia does it matter if we decline any more? What’s the worst that can happen? That we only rank up there with Canada (30)? Or that we rank below Slovenia (38)?

France is number 1 and Italy is number 2 on the WHO’s list. Sure they pay more taxes to be number 1 and 2, but is that such a big deal? We donated $20m to a mother who lost her daughter when she went out and got shit-faced and went home with 3 men she had never met. We paid $7 million to people affected by a shooting in Virginia. We don’t seem to mind when we pay for stuff like this, so what the hell is wrong with paying for a universal healthcare plan that will improve everyone’s health?

It’s not Socialism or Welfare when we give when we want to. It’s the Christian thing to do. So why isn’t Christian to help some of the 45 million people in this country without healthcare?

What’s the worst that can happen? Will homes suddenly be foreclosed on in record numbers? Will gas prices suddenly rise? Will milk go up to $4.89 a gallon? Will one pain pill cost $60? Will the cost of an MRI go up over $2400 or will a hospital ER visit take longer? What’s the worst that can happen???? Besides the insurance and pharma companies making $2B in profit instead of $3B and the middle class living a healthier life….what IS the downfall to making sure every American has the right to Life, Liberty and a Free pap smear and colorectal exam?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Providing free medical care (medicineandtechnology.com)
• Top Dem Defies Obama Health Care Deadline (cbsnews.com)
• Costs v Coverage: Krugman gets it–Brooks is almost quite close (thehealthcareblog.com)

In another discussion with Lil Mike, I’ve come to realize that I just talk to freaking much-LOL.. But seriously, it struck me that if he doesn’t understand.. then maybe others don’t see the big deal either, and that scares me. If we could for once.. just once take the political party out of the equation and base our verdict on the facts, I don’t think any of us would see things differently..  But we can’t take the (R) and the (D) out of the equation because then our entire world crumbles when we find out we’ve been duped and in the end supported a lie. Where we should be angry at the one who made us into the fool, we are angry at ourselves and not many of us like the idea that we were taken for a ride. It’s why ponzie schemes work so well.. Who wants to admit that they really believed the 40% return they were promised was real and legal..

I wrote a blog the other day

The special powers an (R) next to your name gives you…

In it, I talk about the mess we find ourselves in today, the news that the Investigators General found that the White House inserted it’s own wording into a threat assessment from the CIA and then used that paragraph to enact an unconstitutional doctrine..

To explain it more would take to much space and this reply isn’t about the paragraph as much as it’s about how that deceitful act is more detrimental to the principals this country was build on.. Life,Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness then anything we’ve seen so far.

Once again, my reply to Mike..

“That[inserting of the paragraph] opens a whole can of worms, but the actual paragraph, I don’t find a lie or contraversal. Do you? How would that change anything?”

The easiest 1st.. How does it change anything? If the White House is allowed to make up what they want, to get what they want.. how does that NOT change anything?  Please explain how you support any President doing this? Because I think you are slowly realizing that just because we had an (R) President for awhile, doesn’t mean we will always have an (R) president, we will eventually get a (D) and you can’t be ok with allowing this to continue when a (D) has the precedent..

But more than that… where do you draw the line?  The President can make up what he wants for security reasons that hamper constitutional rights… he can hold false PC hearings that tell us the ‘news’ he wants us to hear… he can use ‘plants’ to steer the topics of real PC’s to the direction he wants..   where do you draw the line? You don’t like the MSM being liberal, but you’re ok with the complete fabrication coming from your oval office?

Now the other part of your justification…that you don’t find it a lie… How do you know this paragraph is true? Because  it fits in with your opinion?

Had it been true (or a true threat) the CIA would have put it in there right? But they didn’t find anything like that so, the White House made it up.. at that time atleast, you were made to believe a falsehood that the Oval office told you.. and worse than that.. that falsehood was then used to convince you the NSA program (and so many others just because of the butterfly effect-) was needed, because that statement saying it was needed, was also inserted falsely..

In this instant, I won’t make your head swim at how much of a can of worms it is because I don’t think you would ever acknowledge it.. but in this instant, you..we were hoodwinked.

Bush/Cheney wanted the NSA program.. we’ll leave off the ulterior motives for that right now and just stick to that.. They wanted it and asked the CIA to give them a reason.. The CIA did what it was supposed to do, it investigated and put together a threat assessment.But, it wasn’t threatening enough to get Bush/Cheney what they wanted so they made up their own assessment and then used what they made up to bring to Congress and the American ppl to get that NSA program..

I really can’t believe you don’t see the implications of this. I don’t care whats going on in the world.. a President of the United States cannot make up a story, attach the CIA’s name to that story… and then steal rights from the citizens of the country because of that story.. That’s not what this country is build upon!

I won’t get into the problems this creates for the CIA… but take a minute and think about that…

Let’s look at the broad implications.. If, as you say, the paragraph was true then how can anything from the CIA ever be useful again? If they can’t get the threat right,  and it takes someone from the White House..(and we both know there might be 2 people in the White House who would know as much as the CIA on any given intelligence assessments)..but if it takes someone from the White House to see the real threats and tell people about it, then how do we believe anything from our intelligence division again? How can we trust their competence?

Ask yourself this, if it was so true, why didn’t they(the White House) put that paragraph out there themselves? Why did they attach it to  the CIA’s briefing. They had to have some intelligence from somewhere saying these things right? So why did they have to put it in a CIA memo? Why didn’t they make the intelligence division who gave them  the information, put out their own memo? Who was that intelligence division anyway and why are they to be believed over the CIA?

Or did the White House just make it up?

You can’t ignore those scenarios because they are the only two that exist.

Let’s go farther..
You will admit that the NSA program is a massive invasion of privacy.. one that, in your opinion is needed though..-yes?  Well, now you’ve just been told that the CIA did not find  reason enough for it and  the President made up a reason on his own and stole privacy from the American people.. your reason for it was made up! You may have felt there was a good reason, you may have been happy that the CIA report backed you up.. but the truth is, it didn’t!  I may love the idea that a chocolate diet helps me lose weight, but I can’t write my own little paragraph and insert it into Jenny Craig’s website saying it..

Bring this down to an easier level. You’ve been accused of killing someone. The local PD gets involved and investigates you, sure you look guilty and you probably did do it, but while everything looks bad against you, there really isn’t much to report. At an internal briefing on the status of your case the DA says.. Ok, well I want this guy wire-tapped.. The cops say, “well..we do too, but we can’t find a reason for it” .. So the DA decides to write a paragraph that does implicate you, it’s not  based on anyting he’s been told-he just makes it up on the spot and he hands it to the cops and says.. “Now go get your wire-tap“. The cops go to a judge and say “Judge, read this paragraph right here, that’s why we need this wire-tap” and the judge says “Ok”..

Is this legal? and more than that..is that what you are saying you are happy to go along with in this country..

Is this what you want your President to do and will you ignore it now that you know what he did?

Is this the level of power you wish to give to the already most power office in the world?

If you want to allow a President and Vice President to arbitrarily make up their own reasons to do things that are unconstitutional…then why are you fighting government run health care.. why are you fighting government   run anything?

You didn’t’ serve this country for the last 25 years to allow your president to make up a fantasy to get something he wanted..did you?

I know this is difficult.. because to admit this opens a can of worms that could devour a country. You wouldn’t believe a liar who lied to you, or a thief who stole from you in your personal life.. but to believe this?  Wouldn’t this alone make you question.. What else did they do this on?

and I think that is why you will ignore this as a problem, because the  answer to that.. is something you don’t want to know..

Let’s face it, larger picture is extremely  frightening.How many other times did this happen? Besides just the NSA program, what other things did the White House insert it’s own wording into and then use that wording to get their way on… Is it possible it’s all been a lie or based on a lie? and what do we do about it? To investigate further might tell us the scariest truth we’ve ever dreamed up.. but to ignore it–well, that blesses every President from now until we resemble Russia Circa Stalin, which on that path, would be in our lifetime.

This can’t be what you and thousands of others like you served their country for..your oath didn’t say to protect the President when he lies to get his way-even if you agree with that way… did it?

It always seems like there is something in an (R) and (D) psyche that is almost like they feel if they acknowledge this.. like a house of cards, the whole thing will crumble. But if that house of cards is an illusion built on a lie, why would you want it to stand in the 1st place?

Where is your anger over what was done in your name?

Where is the line? Would it be OK for the Oval Office to make up a threat assessment with the intelligence community’s name on it, that says we must nuke a rival country and then go out on every “Meet the Press” tv show that will have them and promote this insertion?

Where does your tolerance end?

Related articles by Zemanta

• The “Mystery” of the “Other Intelligence Activities” (emptywheel.firedoglake.com)

I’m sitting here refreshing Drudge and Cnn while simultaneously flipping through all the headline news shows… and no hoopla!

You’d think with months of screaming, ranting,crying, and those  tea-parties, someone would have mentioned that we are now  ‘less Socialistic’ …

If I could stomach listening to Boss Limbaugh, I would see if he was sweating and dancing to the tune of Beck’s  “Loser”. Since President Obama has most certainly failed in his attempt to turn the USA into the county of the New National Socialist Party,  with his ingenious take over of the banks and car companies.. whilst driving the rest of the country into the shittier by stealing our wealth and spreading it amongst the elites…

but nope, nothing.. instead I get the news from my favorite ‘Mo…

Chrysler Financial repays $1.5

bln US gov’t loans

DETROIT, July 14 (Reuters) – Chrysler Financial said on Tuesday it has paid off $1.5 billion in loans it had received from the U.S. Department of Treasury in January to fund vehicle loans and incentive programs for Chrysler consumers…

BB&T repays TARP money

Seven months after it accepted $3.1 billion from the federal government, BB&T Corp. – a longtime opponent of big government – repaid the money with interest Wednesday.

$93 million in profit was made off that investment.. Not too shabby in my opinion.

FirstMerit repaying TARP

loan this month

An Ohio bank with more than a dozen branches in the region announced plans this week to repay the federal government’s more than $125 million investment under the Capital Purchase Program.

In fact, if it had not been for the ‘mo..and the 2nd story I never would have known that American Express, Bank of New York Mellon, Capital One, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Northern Trust, State Street and U.S. Bancorp also announced that they had repaid their loans from TARP, or the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

I should be surprised that I haven’t heard anything from the biased and untrue liberal MSM.. right?

Then again, if the media really was a ‘liberal slanted monster’ this would be on every headline news crawler and program just to rub it in to the faces of the Chicken Littles who were screaming that we were being taken over by our government…ironically while ignoring that were already  ‘taken over’ by our government..

I guess they are moving on to make more accusation about the Democrats evil attempt to bring socialism to the shores of the country by giving every baby born, house cleaner working, and any one else who likes to choose things for themselves instead of having someone else choose for them, that deplorable option of…. Health Care. So like everything else we’ve seen ignored in the last week.. Chrysler’s repayment will go unnoticed because it’s easier to keep throwing the kitchen sink of accusations than it is to actually give it a minute to see if it just might work.. It’s more patriotic to wish failure for the Government attempt to stop the slide into another depression era than it is to say “OK, that was my bad.. Carry on”.

Anyway, thank you for the $93 million in profit BB&T.. it was a pleasure doing business with you.. Come again soon.

Related articles by Zemanta

• 10 banks to repay $68B in TARP money (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Jill Schlesinger: Payback’s Not a Bitch: 10 TARP Recipients Get Green Light to Repay $68 Billion to Treasury (huffingtonpost.com)

Related articles by Zemanta

• CIA ‘often lied to congressmen’ (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Report Says Wiretaps Got Too Little Legal Review (nytimes.com)
• Still Writing This Chapter of Bush II (talkingpointsmemo.com)