Democrats have done a terrible job countering the "It costs too much!" screams from the teabaggers and other Republican miscreants regarding health care reform. How difficult is it to get this across:
• Passing a health care bill, say the Senate bill, which will cost $849 billion over ten years, SAVES money- billions and billions - because the government would spend MUCH MORE than $849 on health care over the next ten years without the bill.
• Again: The government already spends money on health care. We just do it horribly. Passing the bill would save billions and billions of government dollars.
• Passing the bill would save money - while providing thirty million more Americans with coverage, and ending the odious practice of denial of coverage due to preexisting conditions.
How hard is that to get across to the "It costs too much!" crowd?
The workers are trimmers, gardeners and cloners. Cloners clone different strains of marijuana, depending on its medical needs, said Lou Marchetti, the business agent for Local 70, which organized the workers and negotiated the contract. Marjyn Investments provides medical marijuana used by patients suffering from cancer, HIV and other life threatening illnesses.
[...]
Under the two-year contract, the company will pay for the workers’ health care costs. The workers will receive pensions under the Western Conference of Pensions Fund, and their wages, currently at $18 an hour, will increase to $25.75 an hour within 15 months. They also get 10 paid holidays and 60 hours of personal time per year.
Now TPM has unearthed a 1997 C-SPAN video that shows O'Donnell voicing concerns that a drag queen ball "celebrates the type of lifestyle which leads to the disease," objecting to terming those with AIDS "victims" and calling AIDS a consequence of a certain "lifestyle which brings about this disease."
I'll hide behind a smile
and understanding eyes
and I'll tell you things that you already know
so you can say
I really identify with you, so much
and all the time that you're needing me
is just the time that I'm bleeding you
don't you get it yet?
I'll come to you like an affliction
and I'll leave you like an addiction
you'll never forget me
you wanna know why?
cause I'm a liar
After 9/11, President Bush praised Islam as a religion of peace and asked for tolerance for Muslims not necessarily because he was a humanitarian or knew much about Islam but because national security demanded it. An America at war with Islam plays right into Al Qaeda’s recruitment spiel. This month’s incessant and indiscriminate orgy of Muslim-bashing is a national security disaster for that reason — Osama bin Laden’s “next video script has just written itself,” as the former F.B.I. terrorist interrogator Ali Soufan put it — but not just for that reason. America’s Muslim partners, those our troops are fighting and dying for, are collateral damage. If the cleric behind Park51 — a man who has participated in events with Condoleezza Rice and Karen Hughes, for heaven’s sake — is labeled a closet terrorist sympathizer and a Nazi by some of the loudest and most powerful conservative voices in America, which Muslims are not?
We are all, to a great or lesser degree, the inevitable product of how we were raised, what we were taught and experienced as children.
Dr.Laura:don't retreat...reload! (Steps aside bc her 1st Amend.rights ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence"isn't American,not fair")
One man drove 12,238 miles across 30 states to scrawl a message that can only be viewed using Google Earth. His big shoutout: “Read Ayn Rand.”
"They hate Jews, they hate Chrisitans, they hate women, they hate dogs," Serain said. "[The idea of the new mosque] scares the daylights out of me."
Still, Serafin insisted she's no bigot.
"I want you to stress this -- I'm not prejudiced," Serafin told me.
Lawyer Who Defended 'American Taliban' Now Heads DOJ Suit Against Arizona
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Keep in mind again, federal candidates, this was a war of Obama's choosing. This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.
Well, if he's such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that's the one thing you don't do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? All right, because everyone who has tried, over a thousand years of history, has failed. And there are reasons for that. There are other ways to engage in Afghanistan.
By stopping unemployment benefits, the Senate will force those lazy Americans enjoying "funemployment" to get off their backsides and get back to work.
I have read and enjoyed your blog for a couple of years. I am very conservative and always have been, but I have to say your comments on this issue are short-sighted, callous and deeply hurtful. I am staunchly for the private sector free enterprise capitalist way of life and hate what this current administration is doing to our economy, but I don’t have a great deal of hope it will get better until they are voted out of office. I thought I would put a face on this for you to perhaps enlighten you to what it is like to be one of those currently unemployed. I realize there are a percentage of unemployed workers who abuse the system, but the majority of unemployed workers are probably similar to me. I just turned 61 and I have worked without interruption for 39 years. I have been out of work since November 2008. My job was eliminated. My company was one of the large investment banks that no longer exist. I spent two consecutive 18 year employment turns: One with a large corporation that is about to go bankrupt after over 100 years in business and 18 years with this bank. My retirement was virtually wiped out when the bank went under and what was left I had to use to attempt to remain solvent through last year while I continued to seek employment. I have applied to every sector, public and private that I could think of and have looked out of state for jobs paying 75% less than what I earned before. I have had four interviews in the 20 months I’ve been looking. I’ve encountered endless examples of age discrimination and am vying with kids right out of school for the same job. Do you think I can get a job flipping burgers or working at Home Depot? Guess again. When hiring managers see my experience (I am a former Managing Director) they promptly move on to the 1-5 year experience range category. I’m not eligible for social security for another year; my husband who is 61 is not eligible and is disabled. We no longer have health insurance. My severance ended in December of last year and I exhausted all my savings until I could no longer pay my mortgage and the majority of my bills with the $1,600 a month I get from New York State. As a consequence we are facing foreclosure and bankruptcy and I have four weeks of unemployment checks left; the proposed extension would buy me a little more time until hopefully I can get a job. I have seriously contemplated suicide; perhaps you think I am adding this for melodrama - I am not. I have one child who is 25 and struggling in his first job to make ends meet; we tell him he is blessed to have a job and he alone prevents me from completely giving up. I remind those of you who would brand me a social pariah and leech that I paid far more into the unemployment insurance system than I am getting out of it, I hate my situation and find it unbearable and I am deeply ashamed to be in this position. I am happy for all of you who have jobs but you need to understand that these unemployment checks barely pay the necessary utility bills, gas and feed one’s family in the majority of cases. Please don’t be so quick to judge those of us who are good honest people who have worked hard all our lives and lost everything we had to show for it through no fault of our own and put us with the minority of losers who abuse the system.
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex) featured an article on his own website Wednesday morning, in which a conservative author defends the Texas Republican for apologizing to BP for the "shakedown" it received from the Obama White House.
The crisis exploded when a legendary general whose reputation overshadowed the president's, a general who was not willing to settle for stalemate after suffering a shocking defeat at the end of a fabled career, would not cease public disagreement with American policy and strategy.
WASHINGTON – Rep. Joe Barton , R-Arlington, apologized to BP CEO Tony Hayward on Thursday morning for the "political pressure" his company is facing.
Barton condemned the White House's handling of a meeting Wednesday with BP officials, in which President Barack Obama pushed the company to create a $20 billion escrow account for damage claims from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The congressman called the account a "slush fund."
