R.I.P. Senator Kennedy
Michelle and I were heartbroken to learn this morning of the death of our dear friend, Senator Ted Kennedy.
For nearly five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well-being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts.
His ideas and ideals are stamped on scores of laws and reflected in millions of lives — in seniors who know new dignity; in families that know new opportunity; in children who know education’s promise; and in all who can pursue their dream in an America that is more equal and more just, including me.
In the United States Senate, I can think of no one who engendered greater respect or affection from members of both sides of the aisle. His seriousness of purpose was perpetually matched by humility, warmth and good cheer. He battled passionately on the Senate floor for the causes that he held dear, and yet still maintained warm friendships across party lines. And that’s one reason he became
not only one of the greatest senators of our time, but one of the most accomplished Americans ever to serve our democracy.
I personally valued his wise counsel in the Senate, where, regardless of the swirl of events, he always had time for a new colleague. I cherished his confidence and momentous support in my race for the Presidency. And even as he waged a valiant struggle with a mortal illness, I’ve benefited as President from his encouragement and wisdom.
His fight gave us the opportunity we were denied when his brothers John and Robert were taken from us: the blessing of time to say thank you and goodbye. The outpouring of love, gratitude and fond memories to which we’ve all borne witness is a testament to the way this singular figure in American history touched so many lives.
For America, he was a defender of a dream. For his family, he was a guardian. Our hearts and prayers go out to them today — to his wonderful wife, Vicki, his children Ted Jr., Patrick and Kara, his grandchildren and his extended family.
Today, our country mourns. We say goodbye to a friend and a true leader who challenged us all to live out our noblest values. And we give thanks for his memory, which inspires us still.
Sincerely,
President Barack Obama
Gen. Colin Powell Remarks on the Death of Senator Ted Kennedy
“I knew Senator Kennedy very, very well. He was a great legislator, marvelous representative of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and I considered him a very close friend.
I have known him for something like 46 years – if I count, properly longer, more like 47 years. And I knew him at the very beginning of his career when he first got out of the Army, and he started to run for office.
He was for the underprivileged. He was for the poor. He was for those who did not have health care. He was for the reduction and elimination of racial barriers.
And so Ted Kennedy was somebody who reached out for all of those who were not yet benefiting from the American dream. And he strongly believed that America had the potential to give all of its citizens an opportunity to lead a good quality, healthy life.”
Dick Cheney rolls in his grave… too good (and true) not to share…
Dick Cheney rolls in his grave
Of course, he’s not actually dead. He just wishes you were
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, August 14, 2009
Did you feel that? That sickly sort of rolling wave, that disquieting, genital-shriveling temblor of seething grumpiness that swept through the land and made dogs spasm, trees shudder and giant SUVs spit oil and misfire?
You might’ve missed it. It happened just after Bill Clinton returned from his rather astonishing rescue mission to North Korea, two exhausted, grateful, grinning, tearful young American female journalists in tow, Al Gore standing by with a giant smile and President Obama and much of his administration off in the wings, nodding approvingly, as the entire nation found itself a bit dumbfounded at the calm and rather effortless brand of new, intelligent, humble, hugely effective humanitarian patriotism on display here.
The churning, teeth-grinding rumble of disquiet? It was coming, of course, from Dick Cheney.
(Author note: From here on out, the phrase “Dick Cheney” shall hereby refer not merely to the former vice-president himself, but also to the sour, clenched worldview he so perfectly encapsulated and still so lovingly represents.
Dick Cheney is a lexical wonder. He can be a violent action verb: “Dude I just Dick Cheney’d that squirrel with my F-150.” He is a dark intention: “Let’s pull a Dick Cheney on that queer kid in the locker room.” He is, most of all, a state of being, a mindset, a fixed position of general disgust. “Sorry lady, I can’t save you from this burning building. I’m far too Dick Cheney to give a damn.” Clear? Excellent. Let’s continue).
See, I’m guessing Dick Cheney the man/mindset was none too pleased at the recent turn of news events. I imagine Dick to be right now re-watching the various video clips of the North Korea fiasco, scowling deeply at the silly/surreal photos of Clinton seated next to — and towering over — little Kim Jong Il, the former a natural statesman and the latter trying like hell not to look like some sort of scruffy hunk of semicomatose lint.
Dick is right now hurling his razor-filled oatmeal at the TV screen, wondering just what the hell happened to the true-blooded, trigger-happy, America-as-a-clenched-fist country he worked so hard to devolve and decimate and turn into a giant itchy shotgun. Sending a former president to talk with this pipsqueak terrorist? Giving a nuke-happy dictator a face-saving photo op on the NYT? Dick despises every goddamn liberal hippie second of it.
See, what Dick would’ve done is, Dick would’ve marched right in to Pyongyang — or rather, let some unlucky Marines march over there — with a few nukes, about 50 tons of C4 and a squadron of fighters, and shown that wobbly pipsqueak tyrant the what what.
Oh sure, an insane, intractable pseudo war with a destitute, pathetic country like North Korea would’ve been a disaster in roughly 1,000 ways. Who the hell cares? Dick would’ve made a fortune. He and his hawk buddies would’ve never let America look so weak in the eyes of dismal tyrants the world over as Obama and Clinton just did — no matter how well it worked, no matter that it might lead to renewed talks about shutting down N. Korea’s nuke program, no matter that the two reporters are now home safe and happy, and it didn’t cost the U.S. hundreds of billions, waste soldiers lives and earn us the hate and disrespect of the planet. Dick wants none of that crap.
Former U.N. Ambassador and noted hunk of anger meat John Bolton was quick to parrot the Cheney worldview in a hissing little Op-Ed in the Washington Post, saying the entire rescue reeked of American wimpiness, of dangerous, kowtowing diplomacy, when what we should be doing is saber rattling and making macho threats and maybe bombing a few hundred thousand innocent civilians to death to make some sort of point. Hey, it worked in Iraq! Oh wait.
Dick Cheney reminds us of one thing: this is a perfect moment to reflect. It is a moment to pause, take a look around and offer a giant heap of gratitude and a huge dose of awe for just what it is that Barack Obama hath wrought.
It is a moment, mainly, to compare governing styles, dominant political attitudes, the directions and worldviews of two very, very different Americas: The one Dick so brutally represented and drove like an ice pick so deeply into the national heart, and the one President Obama is now working to unravel, redirect, heal.
The difference is staggering. See, right now the kill-’em-all-and-let-God-sort-’em-out crowd is utterly disgusted that President Obama clearly has zero qualms about taking a notch or five out of bedpost of American machismo bulls–t, about swiping the cancer stick from the mouth of the long dead Marlboro Man and replacing it with something like integrity, calm words of wisdom, tact.
To the Cheney metaverse, this is a disgusting and shameful way to do America’s business. With the North Korea situation, we didn’t come out looking like sweaty, bulbous titans. There was no red-faced screaming, no flag-draped caskets. Most of all, America didn’t get to thump its chest. And if America can’t thump its chest and pull out the biggest gun and let the world know who’s still boss, well, America has no power whatsoever.
Who the hell wants to be known for demonstrating peaceful, effective humanitarianism and calm diplomacy, and saving human lives if it makes us look like a bunch of weak-kneed pansies? Where is the glory? Where’s the firepower? Image is everything. Strut the plumage. Carry the biggest stick. In Cheneyland, sneering intimidation is not only useful, it’s vital. There is nothing else.
Or maybe not. Maybe the Obama Way is already turning out to be far more effective, more subtle and intriguing, and much more in America’s favor, as tyrannical psychopaths like Kim Jong Il are stupefied into compliance by even the pretense of being taken seriously by the Great Satan, and sane world leaders across the globe finally see a country they can deal with intelligently on pressing matters instead of merely joining them at the gun range to blast stuff to hell.
You might say Dick is not pleased. In fact, Dick Cheney — and the entire hawkish, antagonistic worldview he embodies — is downright furious at this country’s dangerous new direction. Which, in its way, just might be the best news I’ve heard all year.
Current Mood:
*Wink* & 
Amused & 
On my soapbox
Weighing in on Health Care Reform
So my pals at the DNC called me today to help pay for their advertising up-tick to promote their health care reform bill and to negate all the evil coming from Emporer Limbaugh, Darth Hannity, Sith Witch Coulter and the rest of the Republic. While I do want to see a health care reform bill get passed this year, I am on the fence as to what it should look like. Why, you ask? Aren’t I a bra-burning liberal?? Well, yes, on most issues, especially social issues. But on this particular issue I have a very close-to-home conflict of interest. I work for one of the biggest insurance companies in the country.*
So… depending on the bill that actually gets through, I could potentially be out of a job. And with 4 kids to feed I have to step back and really scrutinize what’s trying to be accomplished. That said, I would still like to see a national health care system but I think there should be a private offering as well. How would that work? Well, we have it in place already really. Medicare and Medical Assistance are available to seniors and families with children, respectively, when they don’t have the means to provide for their own health care. Now I think that these offerings would have to be tweaked a bit and made better overall but the base is there to start from. The big change would be opening those programs up to a bigger population with less restrictive requirements (i.e. income, age, family, etc).
Then leave the private insurance in place — they will have to become competitive financially and where benefits are concerned to keep the cash flowing. So, someone like me, with 4 kids, now has an option. I can stick with my private, employer-based insurance or I can opt-out and go with the federal insurance plan. Or maybe I can stay with my company’s insurance and just get pharmacy bennies from the fed since mine suck. Or any number of combinations of the two options that work fiscally and are best for the health of my family. I think that people in general want better health care, I think they also want choices. I think that our government can do both. So, as I told the nice gentleman from the DNC today… I won’t be donating until I see a better defined and what I think is a helpful plan put out to the public for review. So if they want my donation they will need to step it up a notch.
Interestingly enough, right after that phone call I saw the following message from Herb Kohl (D-WI):
Over the past several months, people in Washington have been working to carefully craft a health care reform package. Though progress has been steady, there are still several proposals in flux. Please be aware that neither the House nor the Senate has formulated one bill, and that no final decisions have been made about what will be included in health reform.
Most of us agree that reforming and improving our health care system is necessary, and we cannot afford to wait another 10 or 20 years until health care costs consume an even greater percentage of the economy and the budgets of American families.
Consider this: The United States spends $7,290 on health care per person, per year – while the average spent by the 30 most developed countries is $2,960. It is unacceptable that we have so much more of our money tied up in health care, yet we are not delivering demonstrably better health care than many of these countries. Studies show that the U.S. ranks below average on major health indicators, including infant mortality and life expectancy, when compared with the rest of the world.
We currently rank 44th in infant mortality and 30th in life expectancy, with the average American living to 78 years of age. By comparison, Japan spends $2,550 on health care per person each year – just over a third of what the U.S. spends – and boasts a life expectancy of 83 years.
There is no doubt that American health care is breaking the bank and making us less competitive in the world economy. Money that should be going to wage increases and helping to make our businesses more competitive is instead going to pay for increases in health care costs. This will not change until we get a handle on those costs.
Controlling costs is a goal we can all support in principle, especially when other countries have demonstrated that quality health care can be delivered at a much lower cost. We can start controlling costs by paying for value of care, not volume, and eliminating duplicative testing and over-treatment. If we can do that, then our health care system – and America’s patients – will be in better shape. We need to ensure that all health care systems provide better care in a more efficient way, and reward those systems that already do so, such as the ones we have in several locations in Wisconsin.
America’s health systems should expand the use of health information technology, which has been shown to save lives by reducing medical errors and save money by promoting efficiency in testing and communication. We can support the use of generic drugs and get generic equivalents on the market faster. And we can encourage Americans to engage in preventive care and healthy lifestyles.
Many of these money-saving ideas are not controversial. The fact is that there is a lot that we can all agree on. We agree that we need to expand coverage to most, if not all, Americans. We also agree that people should not be denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions. The principles we agree on far outnumber those on which we differ.
In addition to saving costs, health reform can do so much good for the average American. We want to limit your out-of-pocket expenses and co-pays. We want to make sure your coverage is not dropped just when you get sick and need it most. We want to eliminate caps on coverage, offer free preventive care and protect small businesses from the crushing costs of health care.
Despite all these positive changes that will benefit individual Americans, the debate surrounding health care threatens to get out of hand. False reports about what will be included in health care reform have taken on a life of their own. We need to strip away the rhetoric and dispel some of these rumors, many of which are meant to scare older Americans.
The most important thing for seniors to know is that health care reform will not diminish Medicare, the health care program those 65 and older have come to value. As we all know, Medicare provides older Americans with quality health care at a cost that is affordable.
Seniors are happy with Medicare. In fact, Medicare, a government-run program, boasts a satisfaction rate even higher than private insurance. The reform proposals to date are intended to strengthen Medicare, and will not make any significant changes to the way seniors receive their health care services.
As for the rumors out there about how health care will be drastically changed for the worse, you can rest assured: Health care reform will not limit choices, take away treatment options, ration care, eliminate private insurance, or tell you how or when to die. These things are not going to happen.
In the meantime, we hear you. We hear your needs and we hear your concerns. Your perspectives are invaluable, and we will continue to keep American families in mind as we work to complete a health reform package that starts to get costs under control, continues to provide high quality care, and begins to expand coverage to include most, if not all, Americans.
I tend to agree (he says it much better than I). I especially like the part about the cost-benefit between America and other countries. Really opens an eye. The fact is, we are not going to lose choices, have reduced care or increased waits for care. And while I don’t necessarily promote Michael Moore, Sicko made a few valid points; though I obviously don’t agree with him that all insurance companies should be abolished*. If I can choose between putting $400+ per month into my company’s insurance plan or in taxes to a federal plan that probably has better benefits… well it seems like a no brainer, doesn’t it??
Anyhoo… that’s my two-cents. Thanks for listening, we now return you to your regularly scheduled program.
Current Mood: On my soapbox & 
Thinking!
