For all the Obama haters out there

And keep in mind, this isn't including more recent improvements since 2008. This is a partial list of benefits for and to America (click on picture for easier viewing).

Yet another reason to support this healthcare reform

Still don't support this Affordable Care Act? "Obamacare"?

Then read on:

Affordable Care Act means $1.1 billion insurance rebate

The nation’s health insurance companies will refund approximately $1.1 billion dollars to their customers this summer. It’s one of the new benefits of the health care reform law.

The U.S. Health and Human Services Department expects 12.8 million Americans to get some of this money – although in the majority of cases that refund will be sent to employers.

Under the Affordable Care Act, health insurance companies are required to disclose how much of your premium dollar they actually spend on health care and how much they spend on administration, such as salaries and marketing. In the past, consumers did not have a right to this information.

But here’s the real game-changer: The 80/20 rule. If the insurance company spends less than 80 percent of premiums on medical care it must rebate the excess. For large group plans (the kind provided by companies that employ 50 people or more), health insurance companies must spend 85 percent of the premiums on medical care.

“The 80/20 rule helps ensure consumers get fair value for their health care dollar,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement.

So here's yet one more reason, as if we needed it, that we--the "working man and woman of America--should be for this sorely needed health care reform.

Heaven knows the health insurance companies have been gouging us on our premiums to them. Now, they have to give some of that back. Their little "money party" is, if not over, at least made less luxurious.

And we gain the benefits.

As I've said before, no, it's not perfect, far from it. But it was and is for us, as least in some big ways. This is just further, strong proof of that.

Link: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/03/12525490-affordable-care-act-means-11-billion-insurance-rebate?chromedomain=leanforward&lite

On Mitt Romney: Let's stop asking the obvious

Could we please stop asking whether Mitt Romney is a flip-flopper? Please? I mean, come on. Go to YouTube and watch any number of videos, showing him giving his stand at the time it was recorded. We can hear him, time and again, saying he's for this, then later, against it. Let's put that to rest. Either you're for him (mistakenly, I believe) or you're not, that's all there is to it.

American Academy of Family Physicians in the news today

Yes sir, our own hometown organization of the AAFP is in the news today. They've pointed out 5 different ways companies and organization could cut our health care costs nationally. It's a "PBS Newshour" article online today: Top 45 Ways to Cut Health Care Costs, According to Medical Groups. And thank goodness. Someone's got to do it. But they won't unless they're forced. Link here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/04/top-45-ways-to-cut-health-care-costs-according-to-medical-groups.html

Nothing good for us in Health Care Reform??

It seems like the big difficulty Americans have, if they have any, with the Health Care Reform Act of 2010 is that they will be required to buy health insurance. That's their big beef.


Sure, it stinks. I'm not crazy about it, either, but they're trying to work within this insane system we have so that's what they came up with and the fact is that there is a great deal in the reform that is good for America and Americans.

No benefits to this reform?

Right. Because apparently you don't have a pre-existing condition that the insurance agencies can--or have--thrown you and your policy out on. Since it doesn't effect you, you don't recognize that one, significant benefit. That alone was/is pretty monumental but it certainly doesn't stop there.

The GAO recognized that it benefits the US, nationally, fiscally:

The GAO states that the new health care legislation could provide “notable improvement” to our economic outlook.

From the GAO report: “The federal government faces long-term fiscal pressures that predate the economic downturn and are driven on the spending side largely by rising health care costs and an aging population. GAO’s simulations show continually increasing levels of debt that are unsustainable over the long-term. Under the Alternative simulation, debt held by the public as a share of GDP would exceed the historical high reached in the aftermath of World War II by 2020. Both of these simulations incorporate effects of health care legislation enacted in March 2010, which includes a number of provisions to control the growth of federal health care spending. There is a notable improvement in the long-term outlook under the Baseline Extended simulation, which assumes full implementation and effectiveness of cost control provisions, although some–including the Trustees, CBO and the CMS Actuary–have raised questions about the sustainability of certain of these cost controls.”

Link to source, including link to GAO report: http://www.dirtandseeds.com/gao-finds-fiscal-notable-improvement-in-obamacare-republicans-hate-it/

Then there are these, additional benefits for Americans:

--Pre-existing conditions are covered (which was obscene on the insurance companies' part they weren't covered up to now);

--There are small business tax credits for health care;

--Lifetime caps on how much the insurance agencies will pay for your health care are eliminated (no benefits for you, you say?);

--Seniors get a "donut hole" rebate (see link below for explanation);

--More young adults are covered by their parent's health care plans whereas before they had no insurance;

--"Recissions" are ended so you don't get dumped from your coverage once you do get sick even though you've been paying premiums for years (again, HUGE improvement for Americans and it wouldn't have happened without this administration's work);

--New insurance plans must include coverage for preventative care, too (which only makes good sense both for our own health and for the fiscal health of the country);

--Insurers must now, with this legislation, reveal how much money they spend on overhead so there's far more transaparency in the industry and we can see how they're ripping us off AND how much they're making on us and on us getting and being sick;

--There is now, with this reform, a customer appeals process that didn't exist before so you aren't automatically screwed because you're the "little guy" and they're the big, powerful corporation that just tells us what we get, take it or leave it;

--New screening procedures will be implemented to help eliminate health insurance fraud and waste;

--There will be medicare expansion to rural areas, too, because, after all, they're Americans, too and they need health care;

--Non-profit Blue Cross organizations will be required to maintain a medical loss ratio -- money spent on procedures over money incoming -- of 85 percent or higher to take advantage of IRS tax benefits;

--Chain restaurants will be required to provide a "nutrient content disclosure statement" alongside their items so we can make better choices in what we eat and so, stay healthier;

--The bill establishes a temporary program for companies that provide early retiree health benefits for those ages 55‐64 in order to help reduce the often-expensive cost of that coverage;

--The Secretary of HHS will set up a new Web site to make it easy for Americans in any state to seek out affordable health insurance options The site will also include helpful information for small businesses;

--A two‐year temporary credit (up to a maximum of $1 billion) is in the bill to encourage investment in new therapies for the prevention and treatement of diseases which is good for businesses, research AND the American public;

And these are just the first, immediate benefits of the HCRA of 2010. There are more in years to come.

So please don't say this health care reform doesn't help you or it doesn't help Americans or that there's nothing good in it for us. There is, there is a great deal of good in it for us and it is long, long overdue.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/22/health-reform-bill-summary_n_508315.html#s75147&title=undefined

One last look at the year that was

Welcome to 2011, y'all.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Is no one going to challenge the judge's partiality on his ruling??

This US District Judge Henry Hudson, who ruled that the Health Care Reform Act is unconstitutional this past week is a) a Republican (though I'll discount that) and b) the part-owner of a company that paid solid money for and fought health care reform this last Summer.

Can you say "highly biased"?

So I ask you, is no one, ahead of time, going to challenge this very partial clown on the fact that he should have recused himself from this case, since he was and is so clearly against health care reform and because he has "money in the game", so to speak, against there being any health care reform in this city? 

Is this ruling going to go on of it's own weight, without being questioned?

Does fairness play any role in this man's court?

Our courts?  Our judicial system?

Link:  http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2010/12/13/judge-health-care-reforms-coverage.html?ed=2010-12-13&s=article_du&ana=e_du_pub

Opposition to Health Law Is Steeped in Tradition

The quote:

“We are against forcing all citizens, regardless of need, into a compulsory government program,” said one prominent critic of the new health care law. It is socialized medicine, he argued. If it stands,he said, “one of these days, you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”

The health care law in question was Medicare, and the critic was Ronald Reagan.   (by David Leonhardt, The New York Times, 12/14/2010)

We’ve lived through a version of this story before, and not just with Medicare. Nearly every time this country has expanded its social safety net or tried to guarantee civil rights, passionate opposition has followed.

The opposition stems from the tension between two competing traditions in the American economy. One is the laissez-faire tradition that celebrates individuality and risk-taking. The other is the progressive tradition that says people have a right to a minimum standard of living — time off from work, education and the like.

The federal income tax, a senator from New York said a century ago, might mean the end of “our distinctively American experiment of individual freedom.” Social Security was actually a plan “to Sovietize America,” a previous head of the Chamber of Commerce said in 1935. The minimum wage and mandated overtime pay were steps “in the direction of Communism, Bolshevism, fascism and Nazism,” theNational Association of Manufacturers charged in 1938.

After Brown v. Board of Education outlawed school segregation in 1954, 101 members of Congress signed a statement calling the ruling an instance of “naked judicial power” that would sow “chaos and confusion” and diminish American greatness. A decade later, The Wall Street Journal editorial board described civil rights marchers as “asking for trouble” and civil rights laws as being on “the outer edge of constitutionality, if not more.”

Really, people, this is tiresome.

More than 50 million of us have no health care insurance at all.  Millions of us have insurance but can't truly afford to have any services because the cost, first, of our insurance premiums are too high and then the cost of the care is also too high.

We need the Health Care Reform Act that passed this year.

Actually, we need even more than that but for right now, we're not going to get it.


Enjoy your weekend, y'all.

Link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/15/business/economy/15leonhardt.html?_r=2&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a2

PolitiFact's Lie of the Year: 'A government takeover of health care'

For anyone and everyone that thinks or thought that the Health Care Reform Act--because some people still think the government's "taking it over"--the pulitzer prize-winning site Politifact just announced that this untruth is "the lie of the year."

Not that it will change their minds.

By Bill Adair, Angie Drobnic Holan


In the spring of 2009, a Republican strategist settled on a brilliant and powerful attack line for President Barack Obama's ambitious plan to overhaul America's health insurance system. Frank Luntz, a consultant famous for his phraseology, urged GOP leaders to call it a "government takeover."

"Takeovers are like coups," Luntz wrote in a 28-page memo. "They both lead to dictators and a loss of freedom."

The line stuck. By the time the health care bill was headed toward passage in early 2010, Obama and congressional Democrats had sanded down their program, dropping the "public option" concept that was derided as too much government intrusion. The law passed in March, with new regulations, but no government-run plan.

But as Republicans smelled serious opportunity in the midterm elections, they didn't let facts get in the way of a great punchline. And few in the press challenged their frequent assertion that under Obama, the government was going to take over the health care industry.


And the purveyors of this bald-faced lie won't stop here, either.  They'll keep on perpetuating this story and do all they can, sadly, apparently, in their effort to repeal the Health Care Reform Act of 2010.


For the nation's loss.


Links:  http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/dec/16/lie-year-government-takeover-health-care/
http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/political-lie-of-the-year-23541124

Health care in America today

"“We are at a crisis,' Margaret Flowers,  a pediatrician from Maryland who volunteers for Physicians for a National Health Program said. 'Health care providers, particularly those in primary care, are finding it very difficult to sustain an independent practice. We are seeing greater and greater corporatization of our health care. Practices are being taken over by these large corporations. You have absolutely no voice when it comes to dealing with the insurance company. They tell you what your reimbursements will be. They make it incredibly difficult and complex to get reimbursed. The rules are arbitrary and change frequently.'”


"Ms. Flowers  was blacklisted by the corporate media. She was locked out of the debate on health care reform by the Democratic Party and liberal organizations such as MoveOn. She was abandoned by those in Congress who had once backed calls for a rational health care policy. And when she and seven other activists demanded that the argument for universal health care be considered at the hearings held by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, they were forcibly removed from the hearing room."


Link:  http://www.truth-out.org/power-and-tiny-acts-rebellion65351

Republicans: get on with the country's business

Because people still deny it, we needed--and still need--health care reform.  We truly needed the "public option" so we could truly get and keep insurance premiums and  health care costs lower.

I post this now because the Republicans are talking about repealing the health care reform we got this year.

I say again, we have the most expensive health care system in the world, literally, and yet we're ranked 37th--behind Costa Rica--in mortality rates.  You're more likely to live longer in Costa Rica and 35 other countries than here in the US.

We needed change.  We needed this reform.  We've gotten it, watered-down as it is.  It shouldn't now be taken away.

This next Congress needs to work and focus on our problems at hand, not on repealing health care reform.

Some Hallowe'en education from Bill Maher

Oct. 29, 2010 New Rule: No Tea Party Halloween

It can't get any better said than that.

Sadly true.

Our health care system is killing us. True

From Reuters today:  Americans die sooner than citizens of a dozen other developed nations and the usual suspects -- obesity, traffic accidents and a high murder rate -- are not to blame, researchers reported on Thursday.

Instead, poor healthcare may be to blame, the team at Columbia University in New York reported.

They found that 15-year survival rates for men and women aged 45 to 65 have fallen in the United States relative to the other 12 countries over the past 30 years.

Such figures are frequently cited by supporters of healthcare reform, and critics often point out that the United States also has higher rates of obesity, more traffic fatalities and more murders than these countries.

Three things to keep in mind, folks:  

1)  America has the MOST EXPENSIVE health care system IN THE WORLD;

2)  We rank 37th--behind Costa Rica, for pity's sake--in mortality (we die sooner than 36 other nation's inhabitants);

3)  According to this study, our own health care system is likely having a negative impact on our health and longevity.

If you only know these 3 facts--and believe me, there are many, many more to be shown and known--you know our health care system is broken and badly broken, at that.  It needed fixing.  It needed even the small, watered-down reform it got this year.

Another thing we need to know--and do:  We need to be sure we don't repeal this health care reform.  Far from it.  If anything, we need to revisit it (won't happen) and make it stronger (also won't happen) and include, this go-round the "public option" of government offering competitive insurance for us all, so insurance companies don't have the situation they do now of not having real competition so they can increase our costs ad infinitum.

I can dream.

Link to original post:  http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69609H20101007?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+reuters/topNews+(News+/+US+/+Top+News)

Don't look now but the health insurance companies are going to screw us--again

This is rich. This is perfect for the health insurance companies. I see online just now how the health insurance companies are going to A) raise their rates yet again and B) blame it on the health insurance reform that just got passed this year in Congress. Man, that is a beauty. That is so maniacally wonderful for them so they can get higher rates and profits but also so they can say "I told you so" and blame this President and Congress for trying to pass meaningful, helpful health care reform in this country. Wow. Machiavelli would be proud. This rate hike totally serves their purposes. It can put more pressure on President Obama and the Democrats AND it gives political ammunition and "talking points" to the health care industry's best friends--the Republicans. I can hear them now, going on Fox "News" saying how it's all the President's and this Congress' fault for doing it--and for doing it without them. Baby, that is some cynical, callous, beautiful moves. You can't get too much more cynical or devious than that without out-and-out killing someone. Link to original post: http://finance.yahoo.com/insurance/article/110602/health-insurers-plan-hikes?mod=insurance-health

Quote of the day---and you're still voting Republican?

Notes From a Class Worrier Robert Reich, Nobel Prize-winning economist The decline of America's middle class can be charted directly. In the three decades after World War II, the median wage (smack in the middle) grew rapidly, right along with productivity gains. Even as late as 1980, the richest 1 percent of Americans received only about 9 percent of the nation's total income. But starting in the 1980s -- and increasingly since then -- the economy has made the rich far richer without doing squat for the vast middle. The median hourly wage has barely grown, if you take inflation into account. Indeed, it dropped in the last so-called "recovery" between 2001 and 2007. And health-care and pension benefits have declined; we've gone from defined-benefit pensions to do-it-yourself pensions, while health insurance premiums, deductibles, and co-payments have skyrocketed. Meanwhile, the rich have been getting a larger and larger portion of total income. From 9 percent in 1980, the top 1 percent's take has increased to 23.5 percent in 2007. CEOs who in the 1970s took home 40 percent of the compensation of average workers now rake in 350 times. Financiers who forty years ago made only modest fortunes today, even after the Great Recession they helped bring on, routinely earn seven and eight-figures. In 2009, when most of the nation's middle class was deep in recession, the 25 best-paid hedge-fund managers took in an average of $1 billion each. (Their marginal income tax, by the way, was barely over 17 percent, while the typical family paid a marginal tax far higher.) What happened? It wasn't just greed. It was also the systematic and ever cleverer manipulation of laws and rules by those able to pay lobbyists, legislators, lawyers, accountants to do their bidding. As income and wealth have risen to the top, so has the power to manipulate the system in order to acquire even more money and more influence. ...Our choice in the years ahead is either demagoguery that turns Americans further against one another and the rest of the world, or genuine reform that enlarges shared prosperity. It is the responsibility of all of us to fight the former and work toward the latter. Back to me: As if you didn't know it, our legislators are being bought and sold. But we're letting it happen. We let it happen by not pushing for campaign finance reform and not limiting our political campaigns as Britain does and, finally, by not putting the "Fairness Doctrine" back into our political discussions. In the meantime, NASCAR and NFL comes on soon. Pass me a beer. (Right?) Link to original post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/notes-from-a-class-worrie_b_676140.html

Election Day--get out and vote today, people (please?)

Yes, this is the requisite blog entry pointing out that it's election day and imploring you to go to the polls and vote. I'll also add one more thing---vote no on proposition C. We need health care reform, people, even in this form. Our health care system isn't working and doesn't work well for all of us. This gets us closer to having it work. Now, get out there, have a great day and above all, keep cool.

Quote for the day--from a Bush family member, on health care

She may have been born into a Republican family, but Barbara Bush, the 28-year-old daughter of former President George W. Bush, sounded more like a Democrat this weekend during an interview with Fox News. When "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace asked her whether she supports President Obama's health care reform plan, she responded: "I guess I'm glad the bill was passed."

"Why do, basically, people with money have good health care and why do people who live on lower salaries not have good health care?" she said. "Health should be a right for everyone." She is president of the Global Health Corps, an organization that champions global health equity.

There is, apparently, a heart beating in a Bush family chest somewhere after all.

Just not a Cheney.

Link to original quote:
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/06/14/barbara-bush-health-care/

Needing and wanting reforms--health care, banking and more

Bill Maher: telling it like it is



Note/warning: some adult (crude) language

An open letter to conservatives

Guest post from AmericanDad's Blog via TPM. See link at bottom. (Btw, I don't think for a minute that many--any?--people will read all of this but it's all very true, by my way of thinking. So much so that, if you go to the original link--again, at bottom--you will see that each line (accusation?) has a link to a source proving what Mr. King wrote. So please don't claim that any of this is untrue. Don't waste our time).

March 22, 2010, 3:16PM

Dear Conservative Americans,

The years have not been kind to you. I grew up in a profoundly Republican home, so I can remember when you wore a very different face than the one we see now. You've lost me and you've lost most of America. Because I believe having responsible choices is important to democracy, I'd like to give you some advice and an invitation.

First, the invitation: Come back to us.

Now the advice. You're going to have to come up with a platform that isn't built on a foundation of cowardice: fear of people with colors, religions, cultures and sex lives that differ from your own; fear of reform in banking, health care, energy; fantasy fears of America being transformed into an Islamic nation, into social/commun/fasc-ism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more. But you have work to do even before you take on that task.

Your party -- the GOP -- and the conservative end of the American political spectrum have become irresponsible and irrational. Worse, it's tolerating, promoting and celebrating prejudice and hatred. Let me provide some examples -- by no means an exhaustive list -- of where the Right as gotten itself stuck in a swamp of hypocrisy, hyperbole, historical inaccuracy and hatred.

If you're going to regain your stature as a party of rational, responsible people, you'll have to start by draining this swamp:

Hypocrisy

You can't flip out -- and threaten impeachment - when Dems use a parliamentary procedure (deem and pass) that you used repeatedly (more than 35 times in just one session and more than 100 times in all!), that's centuries old and which the courts have supported. Especially when your leaders admit it all.

You can't vote and scream against the stimulus package and then take credit for the good it's done in your own district (happily handing out enormous checks representing money that you voted against, is especially ugly) -- 114 of you (at last count) did just that -- and it's even worse when you secretly beg for more.

You can't fight against your own ideas just because the Dem president endorses your proposal.

You can't call for a pay-as-you-go policy, and then vote against your own ideas.

Are they "unlawful enemy combatants" or are they "prisoners of war" at Gitmo? You can't have it both ways.

You can't carry on about the evils of government spending when your family has accepted more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts.

You can't refuse to go to a scheduled meeting, to which you were invited, and then blame the Dems because they didn't meet with you.

You can't rail against using teleprompters while using teleprompters. Repeatedly.

You can't rail against the bank bailouts when you supported them as they were happening.

You can't be for immigration reform, then against it .

You can't enjoy socialized medicine while condemning it.

You can't flip out when the black president puts his feet on the presidential desk when you were silent about white presidents doing the same. Bush. Ford.

You can't complain that the president hasn't closed Gitmo yet when you've campaigned to keep Gitmo open.

You can't flip out when the black president bows to foreign dignitaries, as appropriate for their culture, when you were silent when the white presidents did the same. Bush. Nixon. Ike. You didn't even make a peep when Bush held hands and kissed (on the mouth) leaders of countries that are not on "kissing terms" with the US.

You can't complain that the undies bomber was read his Miranda rights under Obama when the shoe bomber was read his Miranda rights under Bush and you remained silent. (And, no, Newt -- the shoe bomber was not a US citizen either, so there is no difference.)

You can't attack the Dem president for not personally* publicly condemning a terrorist event for 72 hours when you said nothing about the Rep president waiting 6 days in an eerily similar incident (and, even then, he didn't issue any condemnation). *Obama administration did the day of the event.

You can't throw a hissy fit, sound alarms and cry that Obama freed Gitmo prisoners who later helped plan the Christmas Day undie bombing, when -- in fact -- only one former Gitmo detainee, released by Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, helped to plan the failed attack.

You can't condemn blaming the Republican president for an attempted terror attack on his watch, then blame the Dem president for an attempted terror attack on his.

You can't mount a boycott against singers who say they're ashamed of the president for starting a war, but remain silent when another singer says he's ashamed of the president and falsely calls him a Maoist who makes him want to throw up and says he ought to be in jail.

You can't cry that the health care bill is too long, then cry that it's too short.

You can't support the individual mandate for health insurance, then call it unconstitutional when Dems propose it and campaign against your own ideas.

You can't demand television coverage, then whine about it when you get it. Repeatedly.

You can't praise criminal trials in US courts for terror suspects under a Rep president, then call it "treasonous" under a Dem president.

You can't propose ideas to create jobs, and then work against them when the Dems put your ideas in a bill.

You can't be both pro-choice and anti-choice.

You can't damn someone for failing to pay $900 in taxes when you've paid nearly $20,000 in IRS fines.

You can't condemn criticizing the president when US troops are in harms way, then attack the president when US troops are in harms way , the only difference being the president's party affiliation (and, by the way, armed conflict does NOT remove our right and our duty as Americans to speak up).

You can't be both for cap-and-trade policy and against it.

You can't vote to block debate on a bill, then bemoan the lack of 'open debate'.

If you push anti-gay legislation and make anti-gay speeches, you should probably take a pass on having gay sex, regardless of whether it's 2004 or 2010. This is true, too, if you're taking GOP money and giving anti-gay rants on CNN. Taking right-wing money and GOP favors to write anti-gay stories for news sites while working as a gay prostitute, doubles down on both the hypocrisy and the prostitution. This is especially true if you claim your anti-gay stand is God's stand, too.

When you chair the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, you can't send sexy emails to 16-year-old boys (illegal anyway, but you made it hypocritical as well).

You can't criticize Dems for not doing something you didn't do while you held power over the past 16 years, especially when the Dems have done more in one year than you did in 16.

You can't decry "name calling" when you've been the most consistent and outrageous at it. And the most vile.

You can't spend more than 40 years hating, cutting and trying to kill Medicare, and then pretend to be the defenders of Medicare

You can't praise the Congressional Budget Office when it's analysis produces numbers that fit your political agenda, then claim it's unreliable when it comes up with numbers that don't.

You can't vote for X under a Republican president, then vote against X under a Democratic president. Either you support X or you don't. And it makes it worse when you change your position merely for the sake obstructionism.

You can't call a reconciliation out of bounds when you used it repeatedly.

You can't spend taxpayer money on ads against spending taxpayer money.

You can't condemn individual health insurance mandates in a Dem bill, when the mandates were your idea.

You can't demand everyone listen to the generals when they say what fits your agenda, and then ignore them when they don't.

You can't whine that it's unfair when people accuse you of exploiting racism for political gain, when your party's former leader admits you've been doing it for decades.

You can't portray yourself as fighting terrorists when you openly and passionately support terrorists.

You can't complain about a lack of bipartisanship when you've routinely obstructed for the sake of political gain -- threatening to filibuster at least 100 pieces of legislation in one session, far more than any other since the procedural tactic was invented -- and admitted it. Some admissions are unintentional, others are made proudly. This is especially true when the bill is the result of decades of compromise between the two parties and is filled with your own ideas.

You can't question the loyalty of Department of Justice lawyers when you didn't object when your own Republican president appointed them.

You can't preach and try to legislate "Family Values" when you: take nude hot tub dips with teenagers (and pay them hush money); cheat on your wife with a secret lover and lie about it to the world; cheat with a staffer's wife (and pay them off with a new job); pay hookers for sex while wearing a diaper and cheating on your wife; or just enjoying an old fashioned non-kinky cheating on your wife; try to have gay sex in a public toilet; authorize the rape of children in Iraqi prisons to coerce their parents into providing information; seek, look at or have sex with children; replace a guy who cheats on his wife with a guy who cheats on his pregnant wife with his wife's mother;

Hyperbole

You really need to disassociate with those among you who:

•assert that people making a quarter-million dollars a year can barely make ends meet or that $1 million "isn't a lot of money";
•say that "Comrade" Obama is a "Bolshevik" who is "taking cues from Lenin";
•ignore the many times your buddies use a term that offends you and complain only when a Dem says it;
•liken political opponents to murderers, rapists, and "this Muslim guy" that "offed his wife's head" or call then "un-American";
•say Obama "wants his plan to fail...so that he can make the case for bank nationalization and vindicate his dream of a socialist economy";
•equate putting the good of the people ahead of your personal fortunes with terrorism;
•smear an entire major religion with the actions of a few fanatics;
•say that the president wants to "annihilate us";
•compare health care reform with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a Bolshevik plot the attack on 9/11,or reviving the ghosts of communist dictators (update: it's also not Armageddon);
•equate our disease-fighting stem cell research with "what the Nazis did";
•call a bill passed by the majority of both houses of Congress, by members of Congress each elected by a majority in their districts, an unconscionable abuse of power, a violation of the presidential oath or "the end of representative government";
•shout "baby killer" at a member of Congress on the floor of the House, especially one who so fought against abortion rights that he nearly killed health care reform (in fact, a little decorum, a little respect for our national institutions and the people and the values they represent, would be refreshing -- cut out the shouting, the swearing and the obscenities);
•prove your machismo by claiming your going to "crash a party" to which you're officially invited;
•claim that Obama is pushing America's "submission to Shariah";
•question the patriotism of people upholding cherished American values and the rule of law;
•claim the president is making us less safe without a hint of evidence;
•call a majority vote the "tyranny of the minority," even if you meant to call it tyranny of the majority -- it's democracy, not tyranny;
•call the president's support of a criminal trial for a terror suspect "treasonous" (especially when you supported the same thing when the president shared your party);
•call the Pope the anti-Christ;
•assert that the constitutionally mandated census is an attempt to enslave us;
•accuse opponents of being backed by Arab slave-drivers or of being drunk and suicidal;
•equate family planning with eugenics or Nazism;
•accuse the president of changing the missile defense program's logo to match his campaign logo and reflect what you say is his secret Muslim identity;
•accuse political opponents of being totalitarians, socialists, communists, fascists, Marxists; terrorist sympathizers, McCarthy-like, Nazis or drug pushers; and
•advocate a traitorous act like secession, violent revolution , military coup or civil war (just so we're clear: sedition is a bad thing).
History

If you're going to use words like socialism, communism and fascism, you must have at least a basic understanding of what those words mean (hint: they're NOT synonymous!)

You can't cut a leading Founding Father out the history books because you've decided you don't like his ideas.

You cant repeatedly assert that the president refuses to say the word "terrorism" or say we're at war with terror when we have an awful lot of videotape showing him repeatedly assailing terrorism and using those exact words.

If you're going to invoke the names of historical figures, it does not serve you well to whitewash them. Especially this one.

You can't just pretend historical events didn't happen in an effort to make a political opponent look dishonest or to make your side look better. Especially these events. (And, no, repeating it doesn't make it better.)

You can't say things that are simply and demonstrably false: health care reform will not push people out of their private insurance and into a government-run program ; health care reform (which contains a good many of your ideas and very few from the Left) is a long way from "socialist utopia"; health care reform is not "reparations"; nor does health care reform create "death panels".

Hatred

You have to condemn those among you who:

•call members of Congress n*gger and f*ggot;
•elected leaders who say "I'm a proud racist";
•state that America has been built by white people;
•say that poor people are poor because they're rotten people, call them "parasitic garbage" or say they shouldn't be allowed to vote;
•call women bitches and prostitutes just because you don't like their politics ( re - pea -ted - ly );
•assert that the women who are serving our nation in uniform are hookers;
•mock and celebrate the death of a grandmother because you disagree with her son's politics;
•declare that those who disagree with you are shown by that disagreement to be not just "Marxist radicals" but also monsters and a deadly disease killing the nation (this would fit in the hyperbole and history categories, too);
•joke about blindness;
•advocate euthanizing the wife of your political opponent;
•taunt people with incurable, life-threatening diseases -- especially if you do it on a syndicated broadcast;
•equate gay love with bestiality -- involving horses or dogs or turtles or ducks -- or polygamy, child molestation, pedophilia;
•casually assume that only white males look "like a real American";
•assert presidential power to authorize torture, torture a child by having his testicles crushed in front of his parents to get them to talk, order the massacre of a civilian village and launch a nuclear attack without the consent of Congress;
•attack children whose mothers have died;
•call people racists without producing a shred of evidence that they've said or done something that would even smell like racism -- same for invoking racially charged "dog whistle" words (repeatedly);
•condemn the one thing that every major religion agrees on;
•complain that we no longer employ the tactics we once used to disenfranchise millions of Americans because of their race;
•blame the victims of natural disasters and terrorist attacks for their suffering and losses;
•celebrate violence , joke about violence, prepare for violence or use violent imagery, "fun" political violence, hints of violence, threats of violence (this one is rather explicit), suggestions of violence or actual violence (and, really, suggesting anal rape with a hot piece of metal is beyond the pale); and
•incite insurrection telling people to get their guns ready for a "bloody battle" with the president of the United States.
Oh, and I'm not alone: One of your most respected and decorated leaders agrees with me.

So, dear conservatives, get to work. Drain the swamp of the conspiracy nuts, the bald-faced liars undeterred by demonstrable facts, the overt hypocrisy and the hatred. Then offer us a calm, responsible, grownup agenda based on your values and your vision for America. We may or may not agree with your values and vision, but we'll certainly welcome you back to the American mainstream with open arms. We need you.

(Anticipating your initial response: No there is nothing that even comes close to this level of wingnuttery on the American Left.)

Written by Russell King

Update: removed the mouth kissing reference and tried to clean up spelling

Link to original post at TPM:

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/a/m/americandad/2010/03/an-open-letter-to-conservative.php?ref=recdc

The Republican Party today

You know, no one likes angry people.

And angry, old white people are just about the worst.

Note to Republicans: We wanted health care reform. We got it. Get over it and work with the rest of us--Americans, all--to fix more of our problems.

Hateful old goats.

Thanks and a hat tip to The Osterley Times for this "heads up."