BJean

And I'm very proud of you Cleo's... you do an excellent job!!

Oooh I vote for the valium in the water supply option. I'd suggest we start with Rush Limbaugh but he's so doped up already, he'd be immune. The mental image of all the Red State wackos taking a chill pill is exciting enough to give me some serious fantasies tonight.

I understand that it is possible for the individual states to work out a way to get the public option as long as they stay within the framework of the recently passed legislation. I have absolutely no hope of that here in bf Texas, but perhaps in Cali and other civilized states, you will have a chance at it.

you know kartman, with age comes wisdom. My better half worked in defense contracts for many years and worked for the government before that. It tends to make you favor the dudes who like war. But my heart and mind know better and I've never let my personal well-being cloud my political judgement. Much to my husband's chagrin.

Oh my sides! That was one of the best laughs ever!! My new favorite place too.

kartman I believe that the reason that Republicans stay on point is pretty much the same as you. They have a very solid set of values that are across the board the same, no matter what the issue. Free reign to allow capitalism to flourish, no matter what it costs us individuals. Allow the wealthy sector to grow because they will take care of the people who are not wealthy. Their strategy is to sell that agenda so that the American people believe that it is right and good. That's what they do so well. It isn't complicated, like you inferred. It is much simpler than the Democratic agenda, which is to work hard to make everything fair and better for most Americans. That's a very big set of goals. And some of those things are easily debated especially on the actual process of how to make them happen. Republicans always work for big money and against the little people. But they disguise it so expertly in words that people like Reagan became famous for - like the one about the government being bad. Another one is that health care reform will make your taxes go up and increase the deficit to such an extent our children will never be able to pay for it. The list goes on and on. And they have enlisted a bunch of actors to play parts to sell their message - the message that they are trying to keep taxes low and government small. Rush has the starring role with Glenn Beck, Palin and others as backup players. The Republican politicians lie to our faces. They look at us in the eyes and lie to us. They raise their voices in indignation and act like we'd be crazy to question their motives. And that's why they're so convincing. And that's why so many people are utterly fooled by them. Otherwise how can you explain that millions of Americans have embraced the Republican party and tea partiers and birthers, etc. when everything that party stands for and those wackos do, is contrary to their personal well-being?

Yeah, and if you believe that, I have some ocean front property in Arizona to sell you.

kartman that's hilarious. Very scary, but hilarious none the same.

If you look up the word "hyprocrisy" in the encyclopedia you'll find a picture of John McCain with a quote beneath saying "I reach across the aisle and work with my fellow senators to get the work done for all Americans."

ariscus: Is your perfect utopia a full on socialized nation? Communism? Or is it something else? Enlighten me." Gladly - if you'd only actually listen. No one expects to achieve a perfect nation and no one that I know wants a communistic country, be it socialism or facisim or any other form of communism. (Of course if you actually understood these forms of communism you probably wouldn't throw the terms around so casually.) What progressive Americans want, at least what this progressive American wants, is fairness. Plain and simple. Fairness in government. Equal treatment for all. What we have established under Republican rule is a government that favors the wealthy. In fact, it has become so favorable to the wealthy it is beginning to create two classes of Americans to the exclusion of a strong middle class. If all Americans are not treated equally in this country, we certainly do not have a democracy and it is not what we are promised in our Constitution and Bylaws. America cannot be a strong country - the strongest country in the world - unless everyone has the opportunity to have good health and a decent education. These things should be very basic to our existence as American citizens. That's what I expect and want for America. Now explain yourself and why you're so supportive of capitalistic greed beyond reason.

Amen, Leisha!! My answer is simple... Americans deserve to have the best health care in the world. Not only provided by the smartest and most skillful doctors, but also the best drugs and diagnostic equipment. Right now those things are only guaranteed to the very wealthy. Others have insurance that will often defray the costs to the patient so that they can afford them. But too many Americans either do not have good insurance or insurance at all. And it is a crap shoot whether those with insurance will be covered by their insurance carrier or for some reason determined by that company, be denied treatment or the ability to be diagnosed in a timely manner. So with the system we have now, most Americans are often stressed to the limit when they become seriously ill. They have to not only deal with the physical problems they face, but they also have to psychologically deal with the fact that a nameless-faceless entity holds their health and perhaps even their life in its' hands. And the process by which they must obtain "approval" is often lengthy and requires more than one attempt and in some cases the patient must beg for what their doctos says they need. The Democrats have fought long and very hard to make this right for America. The Republicans have fought the Democrats every step of the way. Which would be totally acceptable if they did it in a fair and honest way - on the merits - instead of their fantasy of what they've said "might" happen if we change our HC system. But they haven't even stopped at that. They, as has been their modus operandi since this president took office, tell untruths, make up lies, misrepresent the truth and manufacture every false and misleading thing they can think up to defeat what they believe is the president's "waterloo". That's what the Republicans are doing for Americans. Instead of being representatives for the people, they are hoodwinking their constituents into thinking that this bill is something to fear. And further, that this bill will ruin our health care system. Now they have been worked into such a frenzy, it has become personal and they advocate throwing bricks, lying, filing bogus lawsuiits, spitting, hurling epithets at congresspeople, threatening to shoot the people who have brought this bill forth and much, much more. In November we the people need to not forget this insane behavior and throw them out of office. If Americans put up with this kind of behavior on the part of their representatives, we certainly do not have a democracy in America. What we have is anarchy and it reminds me of the political climate of the 60s and 70s. Let's hope that the National Guard doesn't have to be called out and wind up using bullets to restore order in America. Remember Kent State?

Thanks for your responses so far. I hope we get even more input right away. The political climate in this country has many of us perplexed. Maybe this poll will explain some of that. I have no idea how it will wind up but right now it's 2-2-1.

Do you think that the healthcare reform bill is a good thing or a bad thing? Or do you intend to reserve judgement until you learn more?

patty rest assured, "you two" are just as sick of reading your nonsensical diatribes. But on the upside, the more idiotic stuff you find to post, the better opportunity we have to show valid information that debunks it. Actually I'm not responsible for the good stuff. I only enjoy giving my opinion and telling about my own observations. So you have Cleo's and others to thank for debunking your myths. It is fascinating to see you stick to your guns no matter how wrong you're proven to be. In fact, you seem to dig your heels in further each time. Right now it must be tough to be you. I remember how I felt on the night that Bush dropped bombs on innocent human beings. Perhaps you feel a tiny bit of that right now with the health care reform package. All I gotta say is paybacks are hell.

hey, I don't know about kartman but I want socialized medicine for all. The fact that some of you are scared to death of it because you're so afraid of it, is very unfortunate.

What has happened is that Americans voted the Democrats in. They did it because they were fed up with the Republicans and they trusted the Democrats to try to fix what is wrong in America. Now that's what the president and congress have been trying to do - take care of the business of the United States of America for the Americans who voted them in office. But we have disgruntled Republicans who won't play ball on any level and now have talked certain Republican governors to file lawsuits against this duly elected body of representatives because they disagree with the outcome and the way it was accomplished. Is this America or not? Why was Bush able to do the things he did behind the scenes and with false data presented to congress to get their approval to let him decide to take us into war, among other things, but we never heard a peep out of them when at least some of the shennanigans were revealed? They don't give a rip about how this bill was passed. They only want to wreak havoc because they aren't in power anymore and they don't like the president. It has become personal and they aren't working for the people. They have their own agenda and the citizens be damned. Unless of course you're talking about the birthers, deathers and other obstructionists who are pea brained nincompoops. Unfortunately the president will do all he can do handle this matter fairly as will the Attorney General, if it comes to that. What the Republicans are hoping is that it will eventually go to the United States Supreme Court where they have the deck stacked. I just hope that the president and attorney general will put this thing in the incinerator where it belongs.

And to think that John McCain promised to "reach across the aisle" if he was elected. No more divisive politics, total cooperation and bipartisanship would be his order of the day. What a jackass.

Rush Limbaugh said something like, we've got to get those people! Inferring that they need to go shoot them. These dummies aren't thinking this stuff up all on their own. They have their disciples to tell them what to think and say and who to shoot.

patty, who are you talking to and quoting??

I'm afraid the extremists will only try to defend the offenses in that article by naming a few Democrats who have had inappropriate sexual relationships. Which only goes to help everyone understand where they are coming from, right? It's the same as them excusing the behavior of the tea baggers by saying that people demonstrated against Bush and his war. Bush demonstrators legitimize the bigoted, hypocritical displays of emotion so whatever the tea baggers do, no matter how horrific, is excusable. With hearts and minds like that, we don't need foreign enemies to cause us harm, we have plenty of problems within our borders to worry about. I can just envision the terrorists watching the U.S. melting down on CNN or the BBC everyday. They must be having a great time. What scares me is that those terrorists seem to be smarter, way smarter, than so many of the right wing extremists here in our country.

Good point Leigha. I can't imagine someone saying that Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were both acts of war. If the U.K. thought that, they would have gone to war with Muslim nations that have been committing terrorist attacks in their country for a very long time. And they'd also have to declare war on certain militant areas of Ireland, eh? Oh wait, Ireland is part of the U.K. so I guess those bombings would have to fall under the term "domestic violence" and would be more like the Timothy McVeigh and the abortion clinic bombings in the U.S. You could hardly call them declarations of war. The funny thing is that even if you could stretch the imagination and intellect to call 9/11 a declaration of war on the U.S. Who would you retaliate against? Letsee, oh if you're the Bush administration, you'd declare war on and bomb a country that had nothing to do with it, just to scare everybody in the Middle East, right? So thousands of Americans and thousands of innocent Iraqi people are killed so the U.S. can shake its' fist and stamp its' foot like a petulant bully on a playground. That makes so much sense. That is sarcasm, for those who just don't get it.

So your iphone inhibits good spelling and grammar? Oh, pardon me I had no idea that iphones had that built in glitch. And I'm not the police, I just notice things like that and sure, go ahead and go through my posts and pick out my own grammatical and spelling mistakes. That ought to keep you busy for a while. :-) I forgot that I wanted to take issue with one of your other statements. The one where you said I HATE George Bush. And I want to take issue with it because I do not HATE George Bush. I have many strong feelings about him but HATE is not one of them. That's funny... it just occurred to me that patty also loves to accuse people of HATE a lot. Yeah phil does use parentheses often in odd places. But I have noticed other things about his posts to call attention to. And I have done that. I didn't mention your mistakes to complain about them. I mentioned them in reference to what loserbob posted. And I dunno, maybe loserbob has a point...

I cannot believe that anyone would actually defend the kind of behavior that the tea partiers have been shown doing. That's unthinkable to me. But then, so is the tea party behavior. As I said earlier, if these are the things that have been caught on video, just think of all the incidents that they have pulled that weren't documented. As for the man with Parkinson's, I saw the video, you saw it. To suggest that a man sitting on the ground with an incapaciting disease would be capable of inciting the hate-filled, obscene behavior is absurd. His presence obviously made the ignorant demonstrators uncomfortable and they couldn't handle it. They couldn't handle it because they thought there was safety in numbers and because they do not care about their fellow countrymen. They are an embarrassment to every decent human being in this country. And if people can't see the difference between the folks protesting a war and folks insulting (physically and verbally) a sick person, then they have some very serious problems themselves.

The possibility of my being killed by foreign terrorists is slim to none and it has absolutely nothing to do with anything George W. Bush did while in office. I'm glad you saw fit to refute my questions. And just so's you know, it was mostly done tongue in cheek. As for the final question, I was just kidding around because someone said you're actually patty in disguise. (I think that might be for the reason that you and she have similar political views, use similar grammar and misspell some of the same words.)

"fighting them over there so we dont have to fight them here Wonder how our military feels about being simply pawns put out there to die so we don't have to feel threatened. Good Lord! This has made me sick to my stomach when I've heard those freaks of nature say it. George W. Bush is such a pansy-ass, that is probably the primary reason he wanted our armed forces over there.