Been a little too obsessed to post lately.

I love this.
I truly believe America wakes up this morning a little better, fairer place to live.

Who is responsible for this?

Take a quick look at Health Care Reform's popularity since the beginning of the year.

Have you no Sense of decency!!!!

The "Al-Qaeda 7" is a smear campaign going on right now that I have been watching over the interwebs. It has gotten coverage but not what it deserves. A group of right wing necons. Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol are smearing Department of Justice lawyers who have been assigned to act as defense attorney's for detainees in Gitmo.

This is a situation in which I will simply ask you to read what Eugene Robinson has to say on this matter as he does a much better job than I could attempt.

"The word "McCarthyism" is overused, but in this case it's mild. Liz Cheney, the former vice president's ambitious daughter, has in her hand a list of Justice Department lawyers whose "values" she has the gall to question. She ought to spend the time examining her own principles, if she can find them."

No Good Lazy Bums.

This graph dovetailed with a thought process I had when I was out running. It is a simplification of Conservative dogma. Essentially a free market based system is most effective and better because it rewards the hardest working smartest people. The government should not waste money and effort on the poor. They are poor because they don't offer the market anything.

This graph is kind of a visualization of my thought. Best get richer and more powerful. First they outperform and drain the resources of the "lazy" and weak. After that has been drained they set their targets on the middle class. A person could be the hardest working mechanic in the world but does he stand a chance against a Wall Street Banker, A Corporate Executive. If the free market is to be allowed to allocate the resources to best and brightest (now the biggest) are we not destined to world with a handful of Billionaires.




All I can tell you is that we have had seriously lazy middle class over the last 20 years according to the graph above.

A pictures is worth a Billion Dollars

Budgetary impact of two Bush Tax Cuts, and Proposed Health Care Reform. Note Tax cuts were passed via Reconciliation HCR passed 99% through Supermajority (slight fixes proposed via Reconciliation).(Thanks Rachel)

What a good discussion on HCR sounds like

Ezra Klein of the Washington Post has been the best pro reform analyst reporting on the whole process. While he is in favor of Health Care Reform he deals in honest analyst. He had a conversation with Representative Paul Ryan. Rep Ryan has come out of this as probably the most knowledgeable Republican in this debate. The two have a good conversation, while they might not agree they have a seemingly honest and honorable conversation. It is worth a read. It is a little detailed but well worth it.

And Go!

Be careful who you pick a fight with

@maddow (Rachel Maddow) ran me down on her show last night over my views on health care reform. Wonderful badge of honor. #utpol #utgop
about 5 hours ago via web

Dear @OrrinHatch: http://is.gd/9CnhP I didn't actually address your views, sir, just your misrepresentation of the facts.
about 1 hours ago via web

something to sleep on

Funny or Die's Presidential Reunion from Will Ferrell

Hillary Scott of Lady Antebellum / Stops by my Wife's store

I got to say it's hot when she says "Kurt"

Hey look the Dems are coming around too.

Remember down below when I talked about using reconciliation to pass fixes and not to pass Health Care Reform. Well you know what it is catching on. Here are a couple of examples

New York Times

As for the legislative strategy, the Democrats are not trying to pass an entirely new bill under the reconciliation process.

Instead, a reconciliation measure would include only provisions to change the Senate-passed bill in ways reflecting compromises with the House and the White House. Then, in a legislative two-step, the House would adopt the original Senate bill, the House and the Senate would approve the package of changes, and Mr. Obama would sign both into law.

Even Conservative Democrat Kent Conrad Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee is talking the the talk when speaking with Ezra Klein.

So I never thought reconciliation would work for a comprehensive bill. But we don’t need to use reconciliation for the comprehensive bill. That bill passed with the supermajority, with 60 votes, not using reconciliation.

If the House passes that legislation as well, it can go straight to the president. But there’s a potential role for reconciliation in what we call a sidecar. It’s there to improve or perfect the package, and it only will include items that score for budgetary purposes.

Speaking of that Coffee Party thing

A release of liberal activism

Shorty story, Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln who has been hiding behind the bipartisan rock all year on Health Care has just received a Primary opponent. (I don't say that lightly, reminder she is the one who appealed to the President to basically push back against those in the Democratic party on Health Care Reform and spend more time and effort working with the Republicans?)

The announcement came this morning. A sudden rush of of excitement burst forward from the Left. This can easily witnessed by the Act Blue page for her opponent.

Act Blue is a web site set up to accept donations for Democratic politicians. Take a look at his haul in just a few short hours. Bill Halter.

For comparison sake, note that he was at $63,000 as of 1:00 pm central time.

Add that to the story of Coffee Party Movement. A lady started a webpage in response to the uncivil hyper negative energy of the Tea Party. The Movement was featured in the Washington Post last Friday and the number of people that signed on was explosive. Look at the Facebook page to see the current number last count was 34,000.