Health Care Plus

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It's a little blustery in Prairie Country these days. A lot of hot air coming out of the special interests on the right, and the RPMs [Republican Propaganda Machine], as they try to enshrine their candidate in North Dakota's only seat in the House side of Congress.

Rick Berg's been as elusive as Sharron Angle, and that Nazi dresser in Ohio that John Boehner's meeting up with at country Republican headquarters in Ohio to promote. Funny, he sneaked in and out of Fargo for Berg. Is this the best we can do?

One of the biggest lies has been about health care reform. So it's refreshing to see plainspoken North Dakotans who are our caregivers and healers speaking with gentle grace against the screaming hordes of Republican distortion.

Give a listen. And then, vote Dem. Because elections have consequences.



And you can judge a man by the company he keeps.
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Learning from the Protests of France

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There's a bit of an uproar in Paris these days. What with the flying rumors of threats from Al Qaeda in Yemen. And then there's that second-volcano-in-Iceland that was supposed to happen following past models, spewing ash hither and yon for weeks.

But what poked through my hectic, multi-layered life these days is the protests against raising the retirement age from 60 to 62. The shallow thinker might say, hey, what are they whining about? We're going from 65 to 67 to .......

It took the students to get me to thinking.

The more countries raise retirement age, the more they strangle the job prospects of students entering the work force.

Because big corporations have already outsourced a ginormous share of the job market. And the struggling economy and reduced buying power of middle class incomes have forced some seniors to work long beyond retirement age to pay their rising costs that don't show up in the COLA stats, while workers are downsized, laid off, early-retired, half-timed, part-timed, two-timed out of their previous standard of living.

And banksters on Wall Street have cynically, criminally, corruptly enriched themselves at the private trough while calling themselves masters of the universe.

So the current generation of American students and recent grads are already facing the fate the French students protest.

Unless we make election day our firewall — because as frustrating as the pace of change is for some of us, the alternative is more of the de-peopleing of democracy, the Constitution, and this country.

But rather than take to the streets, I hope America's students and all the rest of us* will take to the ballot box. I'm counting on you. And so are my grandkids comin' up behind....
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* Yes, I have voted already.
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Monday Morning Blogtree: the ultimate death panel

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Spreading important blog-conversation this morning about the power of constituents. We can vote, we can be vigilant. We can influence the people who represent us.

If we choose to do so.

Or we can be part of the ultimate death panel — the death of democracy.

We can't count on the media to do it. Or the Beltway self-interest circles. Or some other guy....

So how about it? Will you choose to help democracy live? Or turn a blind eye, a deaf ear? We have free speech—for now—how will we, how will you, choose to use it?
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crossposted at firedoglake's Seminal

Coleman and Burris—The Senators Who Won't Go

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The machinations of former Senator Norm Coleman and current-as-of-this-keyboarding Senator Roland Burris to occupy seats in the U.S. Senate have now taken on the toxicity of the Menendez brothers.

You know: don't sentence us for murdering our parents...we're orphans.

Norm Coleman breezes into lunch with the GOP caucus—doubtless to attempt some kind of public appearance framing on a day when he will not be in the well of the House for the President's speech. And doubtless to solicit more funds for Ben Ginsberg aka Red Skull's legal fees in the we'll stall for a bazillion years before we let a Democrat sit in that chair court case.

Roland Burris scuttles behind closed doors to meet with fellow Illinois Senator Dick Durbin. And doubtless hints, whines, blathers about the legal fees [thousands of dollars, says Durbin] he's accumulating as the Blagojevich circus plays on.

Meanwhile, two states—Minnesota and Illinois—are deprived of the full representation and effectiveness their citizens need in these challenging economic times.

We're heading into blarney month. Maybe soon the luck o'the Irish will liberate both states from these two tainted story spinners so the rest of us can meet the challenges ahead.
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crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette