National Politics 
Fri Sep 04, 2009 at 15:15:06 PM EDT
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The 75 percent or more of Americans who support health reform with a public option have more to worry about than the Health Insurance and Drug companies, the lobbyists, politicians and "advocacy organizations" fronting for them, and the frightened, misinformed citizens manipulated into being anti-reform protesters. Turns out that doctors may be having more of an impact on this whole national debate than we realize. Here in Florida, as is true around the country, many physicians who oppose President Obama’s vision of health reform with a public option are taking their case directly to their own patients -- often right in the middle of examinations and consultations. You know how it goes, probably something like, "Okay, Mary, it’s just a mild Flu, so take two aspirin, drink plenty of liquids, and tell Congress to say No to Obamacare". |
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Tue Sep 01, 2009 at 23:39:42 PM EDT
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“Cockamamie” -- That’s what the Republican governor of Florida - a state where four out of eighteen million residents have no health insurance - has publicly called President Obama’s efforts to use the power and best experience of our federal government to provide coverage for the state's massive uninured population - third highest in America - and for nearly all of the more than forty-three million other uninsured Americans. According to the Encarta World English Dictionary, cockamamie is an adjective with two meanings: 1. having very little importance or meaning
2. having little or nothing to do with reality The irony here is as obvious as the shameless demagoguery exhibited by Governor turned U.S. Senate candidate, Charlie Crist, the ultimate political opportunist. In fact, only one side in the health reform debate has relied on relentless factual distortion and outright disinformation. It’s clear to anyone willing to do even a little digging that the opponents of health reform have largely made their case based on arguments having “little or nothing to do with reality”. And just how much “importance or meaning” this kind of opposition will have in the long run remains to be seen. So Governor Crist, in an attack mode effort to throw oratorical red meat at a hungry partisan crowd and offer them an easy, nasty label for the President's health reform efforts, chose the very word that best describes most of the “opposition” to national health reform. Thanks, Charlie.
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Wed Jul 29, 2009 at 14:04:52 PM EDT
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I have never entered a diary here before. Earlier this morning I wrote a letter to my congressman Ron Klein regarding Healthcare. I understand the Rep. Klein has not come out in support of a Public Option as part of the proposed overhaul of our health Insurance system. At this point in time, I am not sure such a system would benefit the nation as much as a Single Payer system. I wish to address healthcare in a more global manner for the consideration of the inpact that continuing to remain as the largest, if not the only, Commercial Health Insurance market remaining on the planet. Simple fact is there is no Free Market remaining as the USA is the last remaining pool of potential unlimited profit left in existance. We are the world's healthcare Dodo bird, to big, slow, and unresponsive to escape our predators.
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Fri Jun 12, 2009 at 02:16:18 AM EDT
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{First, a cheap plug for my blog Senate Guru.}
While 2010 will be chock-full of exciting races at all levels of government. In 2009, though, there will be two marquee races across the country: the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey. Republicans are favored in both races, but both races should come down to the wire, and Democrats can hold both seats - with your help.
In Virginia, Democratic State Senator Creigh Deeds won an impressive, come-from-behind victory for the nomination this past Tuesday, demonstrating a strong ground game. The Republican nominee will be far-right-winger Bob McDonnell. The best description for McDonnell's brand of Republicanism is that he is a Pat Robertson disciple. You can learn more about McDonnell at TheRealBobMcDonnell.com. Deeds and McDonnell have tangled before, in the 2005 Virginia Attorney General race, where McDonnell barely edged Deeds by 323 votes (yes, just 323 votes - that's not a typo with zeroes missing) out of over 1.94 million votes counted. This race will be exceptionally close, so every single dollar contributed and every single hour spent volunteering will make a real difference. A bit of good news is that the first poll taken after Tuesday's primary, by Rasmussen Reports, shows Deeds with a 47-41 lead over McDonnell, but this could just be due to a primary bump. Rasmussen's last poll showed McDonnell leading Deeds 45-30. Your support will help Deeds sustain his new lead.
In New Jersey, Democratic incumbent Governor Jon Corzine will square off against Republican former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie. Christie is very much at home in the Republican Culture of Corruption. Republican Christie has faced scandals involving no-bid contracts, abuse of the state pension system, pay-to-play, and even allegedly cutting a deal to get his younger brother's sentence reduced after being implicated for fraudulent trading practices on Wall Street. Despite Christie's mountain of scandal, New Jersey's lagging economy has hurt Governor Corzine's poll numbers. Recent polling gives Christie a 7 to 13 point lead over Corzine. Research 2000, May 25-27: Christie 46, Corzine 39; Rasmussen Reports, June 4: Christie 51, Corzine 38; and, Quinnipiac, June 10: Christie 50, Corzine 40. In other words, Christie has an edge, but the fundamentals of the race moving forward favor Governor Corzine. As the economy gradually picks up over the coming months and voters learn more about Christie's corrupt background, New Jersey's blue state status will shine through and Governor Corzine should tighten the race back up. Your support will help Governor Corzine tighten the race up even faster.
Below are the links to how you can connect with the gubernatorial campaigns (and - please - contribute anything you can to these campaigns, and spread the word!). Republicans are expecting (and expected) to win both of these races. However, after being upset in the NY-20 special U.S. House election and losing a U.S. Senator to a Party switch, the GOP is reeling. Losing either (or both!) VA-Gov or/and NJ-Gov would be a major body blow and simply crush Republicans heading into the 2010 calendar year. If Democrats across the country are able to support these Democratic campaigns, we can flush the conventional wisdom down the toilet and deliver two more embarrassments to the Rush-Newt-Cheney Republican Party and two more losses to the Michael Steele RNC.
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Thu Jun 11, 2009 at 23:12:39 PM EDT
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While writing about the Florida flavor of politics for the last couple of months, I've been watching as battle lines get drawn over Obama administration initiatives meant to fix some of the more badly broken pieces of The American Dream - the healthcare system, the environment, the working middle class, for starters.
And I want to get in the game. While I'll keep covering Sunshine State doings, I'm also going to start writing more about these core national issues, and the related legislative reform efforts so necessary to restore -- and create anew - some semblance of socioeconomic equilibrium in our American Democracy.
But first, I need to get some Big Picture context off my chest - hanging a frame, if you will, in which the canvas of those and related stories can then be methodically mounted for maximum cumulative impact.
Because, if taken individually and out of their larger context, each of the aforementioned political battles now raging - and those yet to come -- may seem to some Americans to be just another round of partisan political bickering and business as usual BS - which is just what cynical Conservative and Republican politicians and pundits want people thinking.
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Wed May 20, 2009 at 19:10:51 PM EDT
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When Florida ACORN member Tamecka Pierce first got her employer-provided health insurance, she was ecstatic. No more dealing with the limitations and bureaucracy of the Medicaid system, which had been her sole option as an unemployed single mother with three children.
That joy was short lived. Just after she was accepted into the Blue Cross/Blue Shield program, she was diagnosed with lupus, an auto-immune disease in which the body slowly eats away at itself. The treatment is complex, ever-shifting, and life-long as there is no cure.
Predictably, Blue Cross/Blue Shield spent months fighting not to cover Tamecka. When she finally won, her problems didn’t end. As the sole breadwinner, money is always an issue. On a monthly basis, Tamecka found herself choosing between medications and visits to specialist, or between health care and other bills.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Follow me over the flip to find out the solution.
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Sat Oct 25, 2008 at 01:00:00 AM EDT
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Cross-posted at Daily Kos
An email from my father: Hi Rey,
Today I went to Immokalee to get from Jonathan the list of voters I need to call. While I was there an elderly Haitian lady, Lucia Noel, came in asking for help to vote for Obama. I took her to the early voting place and Lucia successfully voted for Obama and Joe Garcia. While I was at the voting venue helping Lucia I noticed that one of the scanners had failed earlier in the day and had to be replaced. The second scanner had a paper jam while we were there, and we saw the Clerk (election poll manager) on her hands and knees working out the paper jam. This, of course, requires the opening of the box at the bottom of the scanner where all completed votes are stored, while the spoiled ballot that caused the paper jam is removed. All this needs to happen under the watchful eye of impartial observers. The possibility of scanners failing at a peak hour in the voting location is, in my opinion, a weak link in the logistics of voting...
Continue below the fold for the outcome . . .
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Fri Oct 17, 2008 at 17:10:24 PM EDT
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Mon Oct 13, 2008 at 14:54:08 PM EDT
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I'll bet if you check McCain's position papers you'll find he's for privatizing Social Security. Can anyone imagine how SS Accounts would have been affected in the past weeks? While the Wall Street brokers would have made tens of millions of dollars in fees, retirees and near retirees would have had no secure backstop to their dwindling retirement accounts. Obama's campaign should be hitting this hard in the last weeks of the campaign in Florida!
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Tue Oct 07, 2008 at 00:51:15 AM EDT
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John McCain and Sarah Palin may have no compunctions about stretching the truth to meet their short term goals. But every time they attempt to gain a tactical advantage, they manage to paint themselves into an embarrassing strategic corner. Take health care reform. First, Sarah Palin unveils the McCain-Palin revenue neutral tax credit during her debate with Joe Biden. Too good to be true? Well, yes, there is that sticky matter of a massive middle-class tax increase on employee health benefits purchased by employers. But, no, that won't make the tax credit revenue neutral. To balance the budget, a senior McCain policy advisor told the Wall Street Journal that McCain "always planned to fund the tax credits, in part, with savings from Medicare and Medicaid," federally funded programs that provide health care to seniors, poor families, and the disabled. Cut Medicare to pay for a $130,000,000,000 a year shell game. Just what the doctor ordered.
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Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 10:06:28 AM EDT
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From yesterday's St. Petersburg Times. A must read for all Floridians and Americans. Click here for the link to the article.
Cousin John, where did you go?
Recently, my father gave me an envelope full of press clippings which chronicle the history of a very notable part of our family. Most of the articles come from the Florida Times-Union, a Jacksonville-based paper he read during the '60s and '70s when he taught at Lake City Community College. They detail the years in which my cousin, then-Lt. Cmdr. John S. McCain, was imprisoned in North Vietnam.
John and I are related through our grandmothers. Katherine Vaulx McCain and Huetta Vaulx Boles, both of Fayetteville, Ark., were sisters. My side of the Vaulx family represents a long line of Democrats, but it is with no small amount of pride that we've followed the life and career of now-Sen. John McCain.
My dad knew John when he was a child, and maintained a close relationship with his father, Adm. Jack McCain. When my dad was a teenager, the McCains visited his family in Arkansas around the time my great-uncle, John's grandfather, was commanding an aircraft carrier group in the Pacific during World War II.
He and Jack remained close over the years, exchanging many letters while my dad was in Lake City and Jack was commanding the fleet in the Pacific during Vietnam. When John was taken prisoner, the letters my dad sent took on a tone of deep concern and sympathy.
My father is, above anything else, dedicated to his family. Although he had never met John's then-wife, Carol, he knew that she lived an hour away, just outside of Jacksonville. He did everything he could to make sure she was taken care of during that time.
Although neither my father nor I have ever voted for a Republican, when John threw his hat in the ring in 2000, we were both very proud and encouraged, and not just because he's our relative. This was the first Republican who, on a national stage, was saying things like, "If we repeal Roe vs. Wade tomorrow, thousands of young American women will be performing illegal and dangerous operations," and, "Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer-reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance." Wow!
Here was a man who was not abiding by partisan lines, who was, instead, living up to his promise of "straight talk" and commonsense thinking. The right-wing Republican base may not have agreed with everything he said, but the rest of America certainly respected him for speaking his mind honestly.
Jump ahead to the campaign Sen. McCain is currently running. Clearly, a lot can change in eight years. Our nation has gone from a time of unparalleled prosperity and peace to one marked by debt in the trillions of dollars, record foreclosures, and a global reputation for warmongering and neo-imperialism.
So, where is the straight-talking, commonsense John McCain of 2000? I'm afraid he is long gone, replaced by a desperate version of himself who seems to contradict nearly everything he once stood for.
What becomes apparent in his ideological about-face is just how out of touch McCain really is with America's working families.
In a time when the country is facing the worst housing crisis in the memory of most Americans, McCain couldn't even recall how many homes he owns. When asked how many homes my side of the family owns, I can answer you pretty quickly. Zero.
Just like so many working families in this country, we were nearly ruined by the ongoing mortgage and foreclosure crisis. Our family home of three generations was sold at auction last year. The story is a familiar one: We were suckered into a refinance deal during the real estate boom, and when times got tough, the near criminally deregulated mortgage companies changed the rules on us.
What was John McCain's response to this? He lumped together all the families who fell victim to the smarmy sales pitches from subprime lenders, calling us "irresponsible," a move the New York Times described as "mean-spirited and economically naive."
What contortions has this new John McCain twisted himself into in order to win this election? When asked last year about his stance on abortion, he told a group of supporters, "I do not support Roe vs. Wade. It should be overturned." This statement not only sharply contrasts with what he said back in the 2000 election cycle, but is also at odds with a majority of American public opinion, according to the most recent Harris poll on the subject.
Further, McCain's decision to put the antichoice, creationist Sarah Palin on his ticket appears to be motivated completely by a political desire to shore up the radical right evangelical base with whom he's been at odds for so long. This is the same woman who claimed in June "that our national leaders are sending (our soldiers) out on a task that is from God."
A part of me is made very sad to write this article. As I've said, my family has followed John's life and career with no absence of pride. If there ever were a Republican we might consider voting for, it would have been my cousin John.
But, as he continually demonstrates in this campaign, my cousin John is long gone. "Straight talk" has been replaced with "flip-flop." Saddest all, this is the same man who, when campaigning in 2000, told a crowd of supporters, "I don't think Bill Gates needs a tax cut. I think your parents do."
My parents, John, need some help after the economic destruction Bush has wrought in the last eight years, but it's clear you're not the one who'll give it to us. America's working families no longer recognize you, nor does your own.
Adam Vaulx Boles lives and works in Tallahassee.
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Thu Sep 11, 2008 at 16:28:45 PM EDT
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I met Herb the day we moved my mother into an assisted living facility in our small coastal town in California. Herb announced himself by scooting into the room with his walker asking, "Where's my New York Times? I haven't had it for days!" It was pretty clear that he not only read the Times regularly, he retained what he read, and so we engaged in some political chit chat from time to time. I started bringing him my old New Yorker magazines, thus avoiding having to recycle them myself and giving him the chance to catch up on more in-depth news analysis.
One day I noted that there was an interesting article in The New Yorker about Michelle Obama that I thought he might be interested in. "Oh yes," he said. "I've read about the Obamas, but I don't know much about them. I'll read it!" That prompted me to lend him my copy of Obama's book, Dreams from My Father , and it started us off on conversations about politics whenever I would visit my mother. Halfway through the Obama biography, he confessed that he was a little worried about how Obama got himself out of his teen age rebellion. "I have to finish it," he said. "I have to find out how he turned out so good!"
I'm not sure how old Herb is - but certainly over eighty - he has had a stroke and is still a little wobbly. But there is nothing wobbly about his brain. He reads everything and watches a fair amount of news on his own flat screen TV as well. During the primary season, one day he declared triumphantly, "I made my son drive me down to the County Building so I could change my political registration." "Really," I said. "What political party did you change to?" "Oh, I've been a lifelong Republican, but I changed to Democrat so I can vote for Obama. I really like the guy! Of course I can't tell my brother who lives in New York about this. He would disown me!" When I walked in one day in my "Got Hope" Obama t-shirt, Herb asked if I would order one for him, and I did. When his came, he proudly declared, "I'm having dinner with my son tonight. I bet HE doesn't have an Obama t-shirt!"
Today as I was leaving, Herb called out from the dining room, "What is Obama's plan for Medicare? I need my Medicare!" Of cousre I explained to him that Obama actually did have a plan to keep Medicare solvent, while the Republicans have always been chipping away at it and would love to replace it with a completely privatized system. As I drove home, I thought to myself -- with all this talk about young people getting involved in this election, we may have missed an important population -- octogenarians are fired up and ready to go!
(Parts of this article were published in the Huffington Post)
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Wed Jun 18, 2008 at 10:19:33 AM EDT
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The latest Quinnipiac swing state polls are full of good news for Barack Obama, especially in Florida, where he leads for the first time this political season.
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Tue Jun 17, 2008 at 09:38:21 AM EDT
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How out of touch is John McCain? Apparently, out of touch enough to throw Florida under the bus in order to pander to voters in red states he's likely to win anyway.
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Sat Jun 07, 2008 at 21:12:41 PM EDT
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It isn't that Mario Diaz-Balart doesn't daily provide plenty of grist, if not outright laffs, for the quick Joe Garcia's response team. And these words today are the typical kick ass work of his DGarcia's press folks:I will never compromise my principles for a photo-op and put party politics before the interests of our families and the Everglades. South Florida deserves an independent voice in Washington, not a White House rubber-stamp. Mario Diaz-Balart's decision to abandon his votes, just so he can appease the nominee of his party, is a pathetic display of political cowardice. But there's something extra special about this phrase in the release:"John McCain isn't even the President and Mario Diaz-Balart is already bending over backwards to gratify him" I can't quite put my finger on it, but it is a visual I want to avoid at all costs.
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Mon May 19, 2008 at 12:28:51 PM EDT
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My first impulse was to simply dismiss without dignifying with response the viral emails circulating about Senator Obama. I couldn’t believe that people might actually embrace whatever trash comes in their inbox as if it were the truth. Then again, I guess there is a reason that Nigerian businessman keeps sending me email requests to send him my personal bank account information so that he can send me millions of dollars.
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Tue Jan 15, 2008 at 17:44:31 PM EST
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Cross posted from my daily kos diary with my permission.
Yes, I'm here to tell you (oh no it's not PC), that this race is about gender. If you don't want to hear my analysis then please go elsewhere rather than shooting me for something you haven't even read. I mean, why read when you can just blast away at the nasty, woman supporting hillbot who is playing that gender card thing?
Frankenoid at dKos did a hilarious great job giving us the inside scoop on Mary's labor woes.
But Mary Mother of Jesus and Virgin Wife of Joseph is not who the republican's fear.
They fear the lowly, Mary Magdalene.
They know that the day a woman is nominated for President millions upon millions upon millions of Marys will register to vote for the first time in their lives.
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Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 06:50:57 AM EST
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The Florida Progressive Coalition's "27 Stories to Read". Our review of today's Florida political news and punditry follows.
"The problem: He spoke up"
"Richard Harvey was there in 1999 when federal officials unveiled a plan for restoring the Everglades."
For seven years, he was the voice of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at meetings on repairing the River of Grass.
Now, Harvey's bosses have decided their top water quality expert in Florida no longer will work on the $10-billion Everglades restoration program.
The problem: He spoke up. "EPA removes expert who criticized Everglades program".
Barbarians at "the gates of Disney's Magic Kingdom"
"An unprecedented deal struck this month by Gov. Charlie Crist and the Seminole Tribe of Florida would, for the first time, bring high-stakes gambling practically to Orlando's doorstep -- clearing the way for Vegas-style slot machines, blackjack and baccarat at a Tampa casino about an hour's drive from the gates of Disney's Magic Kingdom." Now tourism executives in Central Florida, which has spent billions building Orlando into perhaps the best-known family-vacation destination on the planet, say it is only a matter of time until gambling interests seek access here, too. "Orlando-area tourism officials fear Crist's gambling compact".
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Tue Oct 09, 2007 at 20:11:51 PM EDT
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Over at Daily Kos, the Gore-iacs are working on there own across the country to get Al Gore on state primary ballots. Declared candidate or not. And even with Florida's delegates in question, supporters of the Draft Gore movement press on...
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