Despite some inner bickering, one thing Kentucky Progressives agree on is that Congressman John Yarmuth of Kentucky's Third Congressional District is Congressman awesome. A co-sponsor of HR 676 and constant friend to the working American Yarmuth has been a leader in the Congress since first elected in 2006. Yarmuth was at it again in a video released today, linking the lack of Universal Healthcare directly to the loss of jobs in his district and calling out Mitch McConnell for delaying the process of fixing a broken healthcare system.
As many of you may know, Kentucky's Second Congressional District did field a Democratic challenger to Brett Guthrie. His name is Ed Marksberry and his website is up. Hopefully, Kentucky Democrats will rally around him and help him to expand the electoral map for our party.
During the healthcare negotiations we got pretty disgusted with Ben Chandler and his whole "Blue Dog" coalition. Instead of negotiating in faith and coming up with a real healthcare reform bill Chandler and his cronies in that Corporate Democrat coalition decided to poison and delay the process turning it into Corporate Welfare or nothing at all. Well, for millions of Americans unfortunately these folks got what they wanted and we will get nothing at all as usual. Now, he wants our sympathy for stabbing us in the back.
In keeping with the theme of the last couple of decades it appears as if the very rich and Corporate America will not be asked to sacrifice a damn thing to cure the ills of this country. As always, our government is bought and paid for and the working class are the only folks who will be expected to foot any bill. These newest developments have made what was going to be a horrible bill much worse.
Well, they say that cats have nine lives. However, compared to the public option for purchasing healthcare, our feline friends have relatively few lives. Yes, the public option has been killed and reincarnated time and time again by "Blue-Dogs", "Centrists", and "Moderates" all of whom are just code words for Corporate-Whore Democrats. Of course it does not help that "Progressives" in the Senate and our President had not the spine to fight for it. Now, it appears as if it will suffer it's final, long-awaited death.
We have been pretty disappointed here for most of the heatlhcare debate. I mean, we lost single-payer before sitting down to bargain, and now barring a Christmas miracle from sixty or so House members we have lost the public option while being mandated to buy coverage. Folks like myself with a pre-existing condition in my case Type 1 Diabetes can still be discriminated against for five long years. Now in retrospect we lost another battle that shows nicely just how bought and paid for our Congress really is.
As everyone knows now the Senate version of the healthcare bill has passed and it mandates coverage without a viable public option. While much fanfare was made about 60 votes in the Senate and how that had to kill the public option to get them. That makes Progressive House Democrats our last line of defense in keeping the public option. There are over sixty of them who have pledged not to vote for a bill without a public option.
Today Democratic Party leaders got what they will consider bad news. However, I see things a different way. A Democratic Congressman from Alabama with one of the most Conservative voting records in the caucus has decided to defect to his kindred spirits in the Republican Party that wrecked this country. I see this as nothing but a victory for our party and all I can say to Parker Griffith is goodbye and good riddance. Would you please take a few of those Blue Dogs with you??
The Democratic Party has definately found a voice in Alan Grayson. While there are some Democrats in the House that have found their spines, it sure would be nice if they would lend some of that spine to their colleagues in the Senate. One thing about Grayson he seems to have enough backbone to go around.
As some of you that read here regularly may have noticed, I have not refrained from ripping into Democrats and Congress here lately when I feel that they are wrong. Unfortunately, too many times here lately I find myself almost as disgusted with Democrats as Republicans. However, this is not something I take particular pleasure in. I would much rather be talking about the good things my party is doing for our country and today I finally get a chance to do that, although as always it is tempered by the fact that many elected Democrats are quite simply bought and paid for, gutless, and belong in the elitist, uncaring party on the other side of the aisle, the Republicans.
Remember last year when the stripping down of regulations on the financial industry over the last couple of decades allowed these institutions to pick the economy clean, crashing it?? I would bet that many folks who lost their jobs, and many folks like me who lost huge percentages of their 401ks remember that too well. Unfortunately their are two groups of people who seem to have completely forgotten the lessons of late last year: Corporate Democrats and Republicans.
You know all the bluster and BS Republicans are always feeding us about how they believe in lowering taxes on Americans?? Well it now appears as if they only believe in lowering taxes on CERTAIN Americans. You know, like the ones that invest other people's money and are international tax cheats?? The rest of us however, do not deserve our tax breaks extended in the twisted, warped minds of modern Republicans.
In America the one option that would have solved the Healthcare crisis was taken off the table almost immediately, single-payer. Now, to add to that failure a new policy paper has emerged that shows that the weaknesses of the public option both in the House and Senate were a huge mistake, and calls for the dreaded "trigger" for a public option.
Here in Kentucky's First Congressional District we are represented by Exxon Ed Whitfield. It is no secret to many of us here that he has been for sale every since he was elected. The Congressmen voted in on the "Contract with America" pledge to serve two terms is now running for his eighth term. It seems the money rolling in is too much for him to resist.
The opponents of Progress in our country are showing just what they are made of. There latest target is Tom Periello of Virgina. Think what you want of him but this guy has made some gutsy votes. On one important vote he has already taken a stand and sounded like a real Democrat in doing so. Now for his efforts it appears that the Chamber of Commerce may be running illegal ads against him and that the classy folks within the delusional "Tea-bagger" movement may burn him in effigy, of course right along with Nancy Pelosi.
Before opening your big mouth, sometimes it is best to know what the hell you are talking about. This is one lesson Republicans in Congress just refuse to learn. For so very long, they offered up no ideas for healthcare reform and when they did they offered TORT Reform and allowing insurance companies to prey upon consumers across state lines. As if that were not bad enough, now a Republican Congressman has opened his mouth and once again inserted his own foot in it.
After winning two Gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey we have heard all the doomsayers in the Republican bigmouth radio scene and in the Conservative blogosphere spelling out certain doom for Congressional Democrats in 2010 and telling how Republican have gained much ground, possibly enough to take back Congress.
Oh, those poor souls who are crying so hard about the legislation provided for Universal Healthcare in the House. I mean, our "leaders" were so concerned with helping the average working American who do not have and cannot afford to buy private insurance for whatever reason that they just were so very unfair to those who have contributed so much to the problems we now face. My heart just bleeds with sympathy for these groups of people.
While many were celebrating the historical nature of the House vote there are also reasons for real Democrats to temper celebration. Of course, we all know the ripping the House version, which actually did include some good things will get in the "House of Lords" we all know as the U.S. Senate. Of course, we know that we actually have a paltry majority in the Senate or quite possibly still a Republican majority, but the House Healthcare vote should give us a sobering reminder of just how small of a majority we have in the House.
Well, we have a healthcare bill passed in the House. While I have very mixed feelings on the bill, it is at least a step in the right direction, albeit a baby step. However, as while I wanted the bill to be stronger and fear it's fate in the "House of Lords" known as the U.S. Senate, I will not sit idly by as Conservative idiot "pundits" lie about the process which gave birth to this historical vote.
