Prairie Recommends: Andrew Sullivan on Chris Wallace, Propagandist

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Andrew Sullivan's take on the sycophantic propaganda-pushing by toady Chris Wallace sums up the Cheney "interview" on Sunday Fox quite succinctly.

Book sales? Jury nullification? We report...you decide.
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The Last Link

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As the weekend continues apace with news media filling time between events of the memorializing and burial of Senator Ted Kennedy, we are learning about the prodigious legislative record of the Senator.

The enormity of the links of all-inclusive health care reform that have already been forged. Stamped with his name, but bearing the mark of the progressive values that reflect both the spiritual -- to the least of my brethren -- and the secular -- We, the people.

While the GOP ghouls attack, because they know not how to govern and proved it when they had the chance and drove the entire country into the mire of division and destruction, the mantle of healthcare reform now turns to the rest of us.

To those who fear change, who respond to the fearmongering worst that the GOP and status quo have to offer, I say simply this:

We have one more link to forge and the chain will be complete. Judge the last link by what has gone before. Social Security. Medicare. Americans with Disabilities Act...the list is virtually legion.

The chain becomes the circle of life unbroken. Strength found in each individual circling link that comprises the whole.

To those who say we don't have the votes, it can't be done, it's too hard, I say simply this:

We have one more link to forge and the chain will be complete.

How can we do any less?
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Coda

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We
carry
on....
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R I P Senator Edward M. Kennedy

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1932 - 2009

Others will pontificate and write and judge and blather.
I just have this simple hope:

The Senator Edward M. Kennedy Health Reform Act
of 2009

Passed and signed. With the public option.

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Would that this becomes the clarion call the Senators will be compelled to heed. It's already begun:

Noted over at daily kos’ pundit roundup, from the legendary Iowa political reporter David Yepsen:

This passage ought to fill Democrats with a new resolve to do something about health care. Much will be said about this man in the coming days, yet there can be no greater tribute to him than for Democrats to pass health care reform. While the party has lost his powerful voice, perhaps it can now find its own backbone.

Amen.

Prairie Recommends: Bob Herbert on The Ultimate Burden

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Vacation state of mind, everybody's got it right now, except for the young college kids flooding the campuses to begin a new year. The preschoolers clutching their Crayolas heading off to kindergarten for the first time.

And then there's the precious few with something else entirely on their minds, as Bob Herbert poignantly reminds us today. Will we have a thought for them? Will we take time out to do something for them? Do our own part?

Or will we just go along to get along until those little kindergarteners are grown up enough to send off where the blood is spilled for naught.

Four soldiers were killed near Kabul today, an I.E.D. Did you know?

Do you care?

Well, then, what are you going to do about it?
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Prairie Recommends: Joe Klein on GOP Nihilists

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Yes, I had to look it up. Nihilism.

Why didn't you just say it plain, Joe. Your argument strikes a familiar chord with my own belief, yes from the crucible of end-of-life circumstances for my dear husband, that the current Republican party is driven by their own sense of entitlement, bereft of a moral compass that would lead them to make their case based on facts rather than lies, distortions and fearmongering, and bowing down terrified to the Golden Calf that is Limbaugh. That reason and common good are anomalies in the Republican party and The Family's C Street mindset is the juggernaut that rules.

Moderation has been neutered in the Republican Party as decisively as Sarah Palin guttin' a goat*. Moral bankruptcy that preys on the muttonheads. Where is a Ralphie** when you need him? I've deliberately left out William Munny***, because unlike the Republicans who cower while right wing extremists and militia types have hijacked their party, I do not recommend violence or threat of violence as a solution.

Just courage from any of the cowering conservatives who have compromised every so-called value they bleat at the rest of us. Standing up, speaking out, not backing down.

Must reading today from Joe Klein.

* goat: antelope. Yes, I have hunted and gutted one myself. No faux bona fides here.
** Ralphie: Gene Shepherd's Christmas Story
*** William Munny: Clint Eastwood's The Unforgiven
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

An Open Letter to My Senator

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Dear Kent,

I support the public option. I believe we need a government that protects us from the powerful, not one that gives the powerful carte blanche to practice politics and profiteering as usual.

You say there aren't the votes for public option.

Then you must lead. Find those votes. Show those Senators why public option is the common sense responsible...and moral...thing to do.

Along with running around wee towns in North Dakota, take a couple days and go visit Mayo. It's about a six hour drive from Fargo. Plenty of time for thinking.

We just made that trip... and despite the outcome, I know they get it on healthcare.

The big insurance companies, the big pharma companies only get vampire capitalism...draining enormous overhead from the system. Draining the lifeblood from families and businesses and the U.S. economy.

Soylent greening all of us for their corporate bonuses and profits and toys. That's not capitalism.

We know about what some call "socialism" in North Dakota...it's in our state bank and state mill and elevator...heck, it's in the highways and township roads we drive every day. Isn't that what we call "government"?

Isn't that what "We the people..." is at its fundamental best? Or should we follow the same ol' trail of dysfunctional every-family-for-themselves anarchy which is all the Republicans are offering these days?

Please don't tell us it can't be done, there aren't enough votes...find the will, find the way.

With respect,
your friend,
Sandy Huseby
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Prairie Recommends: wesgpc on Jefferson's reality

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Here's what the muttonheads, teabaggers, rightwing hate radio screeders, shallow stenoing big media parrots, and big money corporate monopolists don't want you to think about...ever, ever...ever.

A reality check on what Jefferson said...and the full context of his words...about the tree of liberty. And our responsibility.

kudos to wesgpc for this must read.
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Put Grassley Out to Pasture

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As a daughter of the heartland, a pioneer homesteaders' grandchild of Dakota Territory, I'm hereby issuing a call to my fellow midwesterners down there Io-way.

Time has come to send the double-talking Senator back to his farm. His knuckling under to the extremist fear-mongers in his party, his spreading the lie about end-of-life care like so much manure in the barnyard tells me it's long past time to send Farmer Grassley back to the farm.

Democrats in Iowa, please run a strong candidate and campaign against Farmer Grassley. Republicans, if you have any sense of decency, tell Farmer Grassley he's become rootbound in the mire of sleazy partisan politics.

Heck, right now, even this guy...ooops, make that This Guy is looking better than the overripe senior Grassley.

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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Prairie Recommends: Olbermann on Death Panels

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Tonight Keith Olbermann in Special Comment eviscerated the opportunistic and cynical Republican Anarchist Thugs who are fearmongering health care reform and egging on the basest of human darkness.

Example: the power junkie Glenn Beck who goes from tellin' his listeners not to do anything like...oh, what he's talkin' about...to fantasizing about poisoning the female Speaker of the House in some sort of snuff porn lollapalooza.

Beck is one sick mofo. Mrs. Beck best watch her own safety.

And Sarah Palin's crazitudinous griftin' speaks for itself.

So Olbermann reaches out to the ordinary people, and even the muttonheads who might yet listen to reason, and implores them to think. To reason. To use common sense.

When the rabid RATs are determined to destroy this presidency, this president at any cost, one hopes the nation of muttonheads will realize that they've been listening to wolves in sheep's clothing.

And the flock that will suffer most if they continue closing their eyes, their ears, theirs hearts to that reason, that common sense, is their own.

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UPDATE: LINK HERE to Keith Olbermann's Special Comment to Palin, Beck and the rest of the RATs...oh, and the rest of us.

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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Shame on Savannah (Guthrie)

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Proving she can steno with the worst of 'em, NBC's Savannah Guthrie blithely regurgitates the talking points of Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin on NBC's Sunday Nightly News broadcast with zero regard for oh, what's that antiquated obsolete Cronkitian word I'm looking for?

Oh, yeah. Facts.

Fact: The so called "death panel" Palin propagandizes about, the euthanasia Newt fearmongers about...that's a simple proposal that when someone wants to have a conversation with their doctor about end-of-life care, they can do so. If they want to create a living will, they can do so.

Fact: Senator Johnny Isaakson of Georgia put that on the table. So has Senator Susan Collins. Last time I looked, both were Republicans.

Savannah Guthrie, as Atrios would say...Super Wanker of the Day. Takes more than a pretty face to make a real journalist.

And as Newt-the-toot would say, somewhere in America there are people who believe that incompetent journalists who shallow report from Republican talking points should be, you know, fired.

Oh, and the mute "moderate" Republicans who go along with this claptrap? Gutless cowards. And that's a fact, too.

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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Homecoming Reunion

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Welcome home, Laura and Euna, welcome home.
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Heartwarming moments of reunion speak for themselves, and this one surely does.

But it is worth noting that when Laura and Euna and their families and the notables left the microphone area after making their first public comments, Bill and Al were arm in arm.

And that speaks for itself, too.
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal