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.

Teddy's Surgery

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While the rest of us are bustling about our busy lives today, Senator Ted Kennedy will be on a surgeon's table for some six hours responding to the surgeon's questions as he undergoes a process meant to remove the tumor from his brain.

The surgeons and oncologists at Duke University face a daunting task. And our hopes and good wishes and prayers go out to Senator Kennedy, his family, and his medical team.

There is nothing about cancer that is easy. It is a dragon that shadows your days and nights from the first diagnosis. It it the great equalizer, knowing no boundary between rich and poor, young and old, black and white. But the quality of care may not be so egalitarian.

Senator Kennedy will have the finest of care, Duke's reputation is outstanding. As Senator John Edwards has noted about his wife, Elizabeth, his family have the best of care for her, too, where she receives medical care.

The network anchors recently announced they will be hosting a telethon to raise funds for cancer causes.

While the Bush Administration has cut cancer research over the past seven years.

A statement from Senator Kennedy says he is looking forward to getting through his treatment process so he can get back to the Senate and to doing everything he can for the election of Barack Obama.

You can't separate who you vote for from the everyday realities of your life. Right now, some Clinton supporters threaten to vote for the Republican if she doesn't get the nomination. I ask you, how can you vote for the party that takes away medical research; fights and obstructs against stem-cell research; stonewalls scientific reports when it can't edit and distort them into fitting their selfish policies; tears down education advancements; pours trillions of dollars into a botched and corrupt war of choice in Iraq....

Anyone tells you it doesn't matter who gets elected is lying.

It is a matter of life and death.

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UPDATE: Senator Kennedy's surgery completed in 3-1/2 hours. The surgeon, called a thought leader in the field of surgery on malignant gliomas, said the procedure today was "successful and accomplished our goals."

Get Well, Teddy

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Sending the warmest of caring wishes from prairie country to Mass General—for healing for Senator Kennedy, and for strength to his family and friends and colleagues as Teddy Kennedy faces this difficult challenge on life's road.

There is no one in this country whose life has not been enriched by the life's work of the Senate's Liberal Lion, and we wish him well.