Washington Washingtons will kill Healthcare reform
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Thune
Olbermann; Sen. Thune is a bald-faced liar and prochoice
If you missed Olbermann’s special commentary tonight, google that shit tomorrow, I doubled up on healthcare funnies tonight. He called Thune’s ass out tonight about getting government healthcare while denying it to the rest of us, he also told us Thune’s healthcare industry contributions this year:
$1,206,176
About 48 times more then the average South Dakotan makes a year in wages.
Thune, please go away. Please. You are delusional.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbWw23XwO5o[/youtube]
Here is the text (H/T – Gus)
Keith Olbermann to Expose Congressional Opponents of Universal Health Care Tonight!
Monday, August 3rd, 2009
We’ve just received an advance transcript of tonight’s Special Comment by Keith Olbermann on his MSNBC show. It is nothing short of brilliant — and if all of America were to hear what he is going to reveal tonight, we are certain the vast majority of Americans would be on the phone to their elected representative immediately, calling for an end to the private, for-profit, rip-off health insurance companies who have wrecked our country.
Here’s a brief section of Keith’s editorial tonight:
“Congressman Mike Ross of Arkansas. Leader of the Blue Dogs in the House. You’re the guy demanding a guarantee that Reform won’t add to the deficit. I’m guessing you forgot to demand that about, say, Iraq. You’re a Democrat, you say, Congressman?
“You saw what Sandy Barham said? Sandy Barham is 62 years old, she’s got a bad heart, and she’s hoping her valves will hold together for three more years until Medicaid kicks in, because she can’t afford insurance. Not just for herself, mind you. For her employees. She needs the public option. So do those six people who work at that restaurant of hers, Congressman Ross.
“And why should you give a crap? Because Sandy Barham’s restaurant is the Broadway Railroad Café, and it is at 123 West First Street North in Prescott, Arkansas. Prescott, Arkansas, Congressman Ross. Your home town. You are Sandy Barham’s congressman. Hers, Sir. Not Blue Cross’s and Blue Shield’s, even if they do insure 75 percent of the state and they own you.”
And here’s what Keith has to say about Senator Thune:
“Senator John Thune of South Dakota? You gave the Republican rebuttal to the President’s weekly address day before yesterday. You said the Democrats’ plan was for ‘… government run health care that would disrupt our current system, and force millions of Americans who currently enjoy their employer-based coverage into a new health care plan run by government bureaucrats.’
“That’s a bald-faced lie, Senator. And you’re a bald-faced liar, whose bald face is covered by… your own health care plan run by government bureaucrats.”
So will the SD MSM wakeup and cover this story over the recess? Don’t hold your breath.
Ironic Johnny our teflon senator
As many in the National media have been covering the ‘C’ Street Mafia, including Rachel Maddow’s extensive coverage over the past couple of weeks, it seems the SD Media is asleep at the wheel. It is widely known that John Thune is either a member or a past member of the group, but no one in this state’s media seem to be concerned about it. Why? Good question. A couple of weeks ago I emailed KELO, KSFY and the Gargoyle Leader about the story and did speak with a Gargoyle journalist about it. Still no story. I guess the lingering question is pretty simple;
Senator Thune, do you still belong to the group, and if so, is it’s Christian Theocratic mission anti-democratic?
I don’t know what bothers me more, that Thune belongs to this group, or that the SD MSM is ignoring his association. Please, someone, anyone, ask the questions.
Soooo, Ironic Johnny thinks he is a big wheel now
From my email box (H/T – Helga);
Thune gave the republican radio address Saturday.
| Thune kicks off August health battle in GOP address |
| Posted: 08/01/09 09:09 AM [ET] | |
|
The August recess battle over healthcare started early Saturday, with Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) arguing that Democratic proposals to reform healthcare “fall short” of what’s needed.
“Republicans want health care reform that works. Reform that brings down costs for families and small businesses, and reform that provides better care to more people,” Thune said in the weekly Republican radio address. “On all these points, the current proposals by the president and the Democrat leadership in Congress fall short.” |
Thune, who is a potential 2012 presidential candidate, argued that the bills under consideration would only worsen healthcare costs for consumers in the long term, while adding to the national debt and reducing quality — rhetoric which has dominated GOP opposition to the legislation in recent weeks.
Thune touted Republican proposals, such as limiting medical malpractice lawsuits, encouraging preventative medicine, and allowing small businesses to pool toegther to provide insurance, as examples of a “better way” to reform healthcare.
“These and other commonsense solutions would provide real reform for our health care system rather than the dangerous and costly experiment that Democrats are proposing,” Thune said. “It’s time for real reform that works, not the same old answers of more money and more government.”
While I do agree with some things John is saying, I know he doesn’t want those changes to help us, but to help the status quo. While I agree that some rewards in medical malpractice are high, I do believe people deserve the right to sue. If a doctor maimed you due to malpractice, how would you feel. I think we know. I also agree with preventative care, but that will only come if people have good insurance, like John Thune does. Which is the irony of this whole debate. It seems socialized medicine is good enough for our vets and armed services, seniors and members of Congress, but not good enough for the rest of us. I have often said that Republicans who oppose reform should release their free medical care and get private insurance like the rest of us. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. In fact a congressman that is promoting healthcare reform introduced a bill last week that would eliminate medicare, he basically was being cynical about the debate, and asking Republicans, “If you are so against socialized medicine, then vote to get rid of it.” Of course, not too many Republicans supported the bill, go figure. As for Thune’s suggestion that we co-op insurance, we have been doing that, with group plans, I am a part of one on my own. Trust me, my premiums keep going up and up, monopolies don’t work, competition does.
UPDATE: More of Thune’s ‘C’ Street Lunacy, circa 2005 – H/T Helga
Here are some interviews from 2005 where Thune is talking about the ‘C’ Street Mafia. I don’t have time to add commentary, I am still laughing my ass off.
Jesus plus nothing:
Undercover among America’s secret theocrats
By Jeff Sharlet
The Education of Senator Thune
22 February 2005
Sharlet: Daschle defeater John Thune cites spiritual influence of a man who cites spiritual model of Osama Bin Laden. In this Q&A Christianity Today conducted with Senator Thune (R, SD), he says that the “C Street ministry” of Doug Coe helped keep him on the Christian path when he was a Representative. As it happens, I’ve witnessed that “ministry”; here’s what I wrote about it in Harper’s: “The day I worked at C Street I ran into Doug Coe, who was tutoring Todd Tiahrt, a Republican congressman from Kansas…. ‘We gotta take Jesus out of the religious wrapping,’ [Coe said.] ‘All right, how do we do that?’ Tiahrt asked. ‘A covenant,’ Doug answered…. ‘Like the Mafia,’ Doug clarified. ‘Look at the strength of their bonds.†He made a fist and held it before Tiahrt’s face…. Coe listed other men who had changed the world through the strength of the covenants they had forged with their ‘brothers’: ‘Look at Hitler,’ he said. ‘Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Bin Laden.'”
Sharlet: Daschle defeater John Thune cites spiritual influence of a man who cites spiritual model of Osama Bin Laden. In this Q&A Christianity Today conducted with Senator Thune (R, SD), he says that the “C Street ministry” of Doug Coe helped keep him on the Christian path when he was a Representative. As it happens, I’ve witnessed that “ministry”; here’s what I wrote about it in Harper’s: “The day I worked at C Street I ran into Doug Coe, who was tutoring Todd Tiahrt, a Republican congressman from Kansas…. ‘We gotta take Jesus out of the religious wrapping,’ [Coe said.] ‘All right, how do we do that?’ Tiahrt asked. ‘A covenant,’ Doug answered…. ‘Like the Mafia,’ Doug clarified. ‘Look at the strength of their bonds.†He made a fist and held it before Tiahrt’s face…. Coe listed other men who had changed the world through the strength of the covenants they had forged with their ‘brothers’: ‘Look at Hitler,’ he said. ‘Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Bin Laden.'”
Interview with Thune 2005
Do you find fellowship with other legislators?
I do. There are several different Bible study groups on Capitol Hill. I’ve not had an opportunity yet in the Senate to really get immersed. But when I was a member of the House, there were a couple of organizations, one called Christian Embassy that is affiliated with Campus Crusade for Christ whose mission it is to reach out and reach and disciple people in the legislative branch, the executive branch, and in the military at the Pentagon. And also the C Street ministry, which initially came from Doug Coe. Coe was influential at Chuck Colson’s conversion too. But those are a couple of ministries that are active out there. And there are other members of Congress who come to those events. There are a number who are very serious about their faith. I do have a chance to interact with them.
In the campaign, you sharply criticized those who blocked the President’s judicial nominations. What’s ahead?
To shut off a filibuster, you have to have 60 votes in the Senate. We still don’t have 60 votes. But we have new leadership on the Democratic side. I hope members of the Senate who previously had been held hostage to their party’s leadership will now feel more freedom to vote their conscience. I don’t know, maybe they did. But it seems to me that some of these guys who represent states that are more conservative than their national party, might now be thinking twice and might be more inclined to support not only legislation but also judicial nominations that are more in line with their state’s interest and their state’s fundamental beliefs and values.
Skipping back to foreign policy, why might Christians have a special interest in seeing democracy spread in the Middle East?
Christians obviously want to see people come to the Christian faith, but they want to see people have the choice to be able to choose. Religious freedom, political freedom, political liberty, and economic freedom all tend to go hand in hand. Liberating Iraq from decades of tyranny and dictatorship, bringing about political freedom, will create an atmosphere of where religious freedom will come to Iraq. And that opens the door, obviously, for the Christian faith there as well.
Christians look around the world and want to see people who are in a position to be able to make decisions, to have the freedoms that we enjoy in this country. That is, like the President says, our birthright. Our Declaration of Independence, our Founding Fathers said, “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” And those rights are endowed by our Creator, they’re not bestowed by any government.