No You Can't (Featuring John Boehner)

Open Letter to Conservatives: Return to Reality, Please

In one of the most detailed smack downs of conservatives that you will ever read, a blogger named Russell King absolutely takes apart pretty much every single Republican talking point you have heard over the last year — and does so with references for each. His critique is broken down into four parts: hypocrisy, hyperbole, historical inaccuracy and hatred. While the article obviously exposes the modern Republican party for the farce that it has become, King is simultaneously asking conservatives to rejoin America, since a democracy can't function when a significant portion of its population has gone off the deep end.

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/fascism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more. But you have work to do even before you take on that task.

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Video: Boccieri speech draws cheers on House floor

U.S. Rep. John Boccieri, D-Alliance, gave an impassioned 75-second speech on the House floor Sunday in support of the Democrats’ health care bill, sparking cheers from colleagues.


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Former Obama Campaign Field Officer in Wayne County Publishes Column in Huffington Post

David Litt, now a speech writer at West Wing Writers, a firm in Washington, DC, ran the Obama campaign field office in Wooster in 2008. In a Huffington Post column, Litt recalls a woman who came into the Wayne County Democratic Party offices (the acting Obama campaign office) to make calls to undecided voters. Here is her story:

When Wendy came into our Northeast Ohio office, she would stay on her feet. Pacing back and forth with a phone in one hand, she'd call undecided voters, urging them to support Barack Obama. If we offered her a chair, she wouldn't take it. If we told her she could take a break, she would turn us down. Later, I learned why she made phone calls with such passion, and why she made them standing up.

"I have to," she said. "I have two herniated disks in my back, and sitting down is too painful. And if I don't make these calls, I won't get the healthcare I need."

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Republicans Suffer Crushing Defeat -- So Says Conservative Columnist

Conservative columnist David Frum has some extremely critical observations of today's Republican party. He is one of the few sane voices left on the conservative side. He published an article titled Waterloo, which is worth reading. Here are some excerpts:

Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:

(1) It’s a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.

(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.

So far, I think a lot of conservatives will agree with me. Now comes the hard lesson:

A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.

And his thoughts on the Teabaggers:

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the "doughnut hole" and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

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Immediate Benefits of Health Care Reform

In addition to the world not ending as Republicans would have you believe, here are nine benefits which come online within six months of the President's signature on the health care bill:

1. Adult children may remain as dependents on their parents’ policy until their 27th birthday
2. Children under age 19 may not be excluded for pre-existing conditions
3. No more lifetime or annual caps on coverage
4. Free preventative care for all
5. Adults with pre-existing conditions may buy into a national high-risk pool until the exchanges come online. While these will not be cheap, they’re still better than total exclusion and get some benefit from a wider pool of insureds.
6. Small businesses will be entitled to a tax credit for 2009 and 2010, which could be as much as 50% of what they pay for employees’ health insurance.
7. The “donut hole” closes for Medicare patients, making prescription medications more affordable for seniors.
8. Requirement that all insurers must post their balance sheets on the Internet and fully disclose administrative costs, executive compensation packages, and benefit payments.
9. Authorizes early funding of community health centers in all 50 states (Bernie Sanders’ amendment). Community health centers provide primary, dental and vision services to people in the community, based on a sliding scale for payment according to ability to pay.

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