Will Blue Dogs Help GOP Extremists Destroy Obama's Presidency Over Their Donations From Insurance Industry CEOs?

The Republican Party response to the debate over health care reform is in.

I've been in Asia all summer. I stand out and no one thinks I'm a native. People tend to ask me where I'm from. I sometimes say "L.A.," sometimes "California," and sometimes "USA." The response is always the same: "Obama!!" And it's a very, very positive expression of overwhelming pro-American sentiment. Apparently they're not paying any attention to the violently anti-Obama American corporate media, which is largely onboard the conservative clarion call to stop at nothing to derail health care reform and use it to deal a devastating blow to Obama's credibility and his ability to lead.

I'm not quite sure why the House of Lords thinks its August recess is more important than solving the country's health care crisis but I know I'd feel a lot better about Reid's reading about GOP talking points postponing the vote if he had also announced a suspension of health care benefits for all members of the Senate and their families until the crisis is solved for the rest of America.

The worst of the conservative partisans and bribe taking corporate shills in Congress have no interest in solving the crisis, only in scoring political points against President Obama. Neo-Confederate and right wing extremist Jim DeMint has said so openly and Jim Inhofe jumped on board the Obstructionist Express yesterday too. "This is a losing proposition for them," drawled the Oklahoma arch-reactionary. "And for those out there who believe, that would like to have something optimistic to look at, we are plotting the demise on a week by week basis of where Bill Clinton was in 1993 and where Obama is today and his demise ratio is greater than Clinton’s was in 1993. So, he’s trying to do the same things, except more extreme."

New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez had a good answer for Inhofe, DeMint and the extremists: "Slowly but surely the Republicans are revealing their true strategy on health care: partisan gamesmanship comes before getting something done. If Republicans believe doing nothing will ingratiate themselves with the American people, they have not learned a single lesson from the last two elections. Their do nothing approach is why health care costs have skyrocketed, and it’s why Republicans are in such a bad place today. This strategy is bad politics, but it is also a deeply troubling way to govern." But is anyone (aside from conservatives like pervert John Ensign) hearing him?

Apparently Blanche Lincoln (DLC-AR) isn't. She's still using Republican Party talking points when discussing health care and in her latest Lincoln eLetter she's doesn't mention the public option, only insurance company priorities. Our last ads TV spots in Arkansas ran today. You can let us know if you want us to run some more by donating to the Blue America Campaign For Health Care Choice here.

Yesterday one of the most corrupt Republican leaders, Roy Blunt, currently running for the open Missouri Senate seat and supposedly the GOP point person on health care in the House, admitted the Republicans have no plans for health care other than the failed status quo dictated for political campaign contributors at the Big Insurance companies. “Our bill," he told The Hill, "is never going to get to the floor, so why confuse the focus? We clearly have principles; we could have language, but why start diverting attention from this really bad piece of work they’ve got to whatever we’re offering right now?”

The same Republican leaders who are now doing all they can to undermine President Obama politically and who are howling about stopping socialism, were very recently-- when they were in the majority and helping Bush drive the economy into a ditch-- telling Democrats that unless they came up with an alternative plan to what the GOP and their corporate allies were ramming through, to STFU.

Pea-brained Indiana fanatic Mike Pence on May 17, 2005: "The ridicule has taken a variety of forms including denouncing the President's motives and intentions ... Beyond that slur, there has just been, to date, simply silence. No ideas. No counterproposals." Sounds like he's describing his own party's response to the health care crisis? He isn't alone. Three months earlier John McCain pontificated at Fox News that "to have no alternative, no plan of their own, smacks of demagoguery.”

While self-serving reactionary Blue Dogs have been bolstering their ideological brethren across the aisle, they have been busy filling their bowls with corporate cash while making it difficult for President Obama and progressive allies to move forward and bolstering the dual Republican agenda: stopping progress on health care reform and crippling the Obama presidency. There are now 86 co-sponsors to H.R.676, John Conyers' single-payer health care proposal, the real progressive legislation before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, where the Blue Dogs and Republicans have vowed to kill it. A vote could come today. Democrats.com is keeping careful track and rallying citizens to call their representatives and tell them that we want real health care reform. Yesterday Obama was at a town hall meeting in Ohio talking about real reform. He was inspiring to Democrats who were listening. But either shills like Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson, Max Baucus, Mark Pryor, Mary Landrieu, John Barrow, Jim Cooper, Dan Boren, Allen Boyd aren't listening... or they aren't Democrats.

Whenever I hear people say that it's happening too soon, I think that's a little odd. We've been talking about health care reform since the days of Harry Truman. How could it be too soon? I don't think it's too soon for the families who've seen their premiums rise faster than wages year after year. It's not too soon for the businesses forced to drop coverage or shed workers because of mounting health care expenses. It's not too soon for taxpayers asked to close widening deficits that stem from rising health care costs-- costs that threaten to leave our children with a mountain of debt.

Reform may be coming too soon for some in Washington, but it's not soon enough for the American people. We can get this done. We don't shirk from a challenge.

Shameful that progressives have to resort to this, but with enough die-hard conservative Blue Dogs on the House Energy and Commerce Committee working with reactionary Republicans like Roy Blunt, Joe Barton, John Shadegg and Marsha Blackburn in opposing Democratic Party values and real reform, the House leadership is considering bypassing the committee and taking the legislation right to the floor. Forcing sleazy lowlife scumbags like John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA), Mike Ross (Blue Dog- AR), Jane Harman (Blue Dog-CA), Zach Space (Blue Dog-OH) and Baron Hill (Blue Dog-IN) to come out of the closet as full-blown conservatives and vote with Republicans against health care reform on the floor of Congress will, in all likelihood, end their shameful and freakish political careers. Why can't we have more Democrats like this one today (see how long it takes you to guess who it is)?

The Democratic Party represents the people... The Democratic Party puts human rights and human welfare first... These Republican gluttons of privilege are cold men. They are cunning men... They want a return of the Wall Street economic dictatorship.

Something happens to Republican leaders when they get control of the government... Republicans in Washington have a habit of becoming curiously deaf to the voice of the people. They have a hard time hearing what the ordinary people of the country are saying. But they have no trouble at all hearing what Wall Street is saying. They are able to catch the slightest whisper from big business and the special interests.

Republican candidates are apparently trying to sing the American voters to sleep with a lullaby about unity... They want to kind of unity that benefits the National Association of Manufacturers... the real estate trusts... [the] selfish interests... They don't want unity. They want surrender. And I am here to tell you people that I will not surrender.

Some things are worth fighting for... We must fight isolationists and reactionaries, the profiteers and the privileged class... Our primary concern is for the little fellow. We think the big boys have always done very well, taking care of themselves... It is the business of government to see that the little fellow gets a square deal.

That's Harry Truman, campaigning in 1948-- unfortunately not Harry Reid in 2009.


UPDATE: Conservative Slimebag Resigns In Disgrace

Pinellas County Medical Association president Dr. David McKalip apologized for the email he sent out with the image of President Obama (above) and resigned as president elect. I'll bet he was a Marco Rubio supporter. Substantial political contributions from him and his wife have gone to Ron Paul, Tom Feeney, Connie Mack, Mitt Romney, and other extreme right figures (as well as $500 to DLC Senator Bill Nelson.) How would you like that kind of narrow-minded bigot as your physician?