Political Terrorists and Death Panels

Once again I am compelled to say that the Democrats need to get off their asses and grow a set. Gentle reader, the nonsense that the GOP is saying in regards to the healthcare plan put out there by President Obama is crazy, and the biggest loon of them all—Sarah Palin—decided to add her measly two cents the other day on Facebook. Come on people, I thought Facebook was for sharing your thoughts on the latest box office offerings and letting your 200 closest "friends" know what you ate for lunch, not implying that the President want's to off your developmentally disabled spawn. But I have been wrong before.

So Palin says that the healthcare plan will create death panels that will determine whether the infirmed or disabled will be allowed to live or die. Hogwash. The stuff that Palin and her buddies in the Republican party are coming up with are so off base as to be laughable, but the problem is the Democrats aren't busting their chops on this. Maybe they are waiting for the lunacy to die down, but meanwhile, the lunatics are growing in number.

Take for instant these town hall meetings where middle aged, lower to middle class white people are asking for their country back. Well I have to agree with Mr. Maher on this one, what they mean is they want their country back from the black guy. Nice, huh?

But speaking of growing a set, the Dems could take a page from Hillary Clinton who when questioned recently about John Bolton's response to her husband's efforts to return the two American journalist being held in N. Korea, laughed uproariously, and then said basically that what had been done was far from out of the ordinary. See for yourself below:



Now that is what I call balls, ladies and gentleman. More democrats need to pay attention to her easy, breezy way of just blowing off the GOP as ridiculous fossils that are out of touch with reality.

But getting to the political terrorists part of things. Steven Pearlstein wrote recently in The Washington Post, about the Republican's efforts to derail heathcare efforts:

The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.

The Congress may be taking a break, but this ain't over yet. Far from it.

Axing the Boys

Maybe I just need to stop reading Newsweek?

The April 20th issue ran a piece by Zachary Karabell that said the current unemployment woes were not affecting the sexes or the classes equally. That in fact, more minority men were getting the ax then anyone else.

Now admittedly my friendships with minority males is lacking in numbers, and I work in a professional/white collar world, but I see mostly women getting laid off around me. (And yes, this may have more to do with the fact that I have more female friends than male.) So what gives?

And in other less than cheery news, my home state got a nod from the Washington Post recently as having the highest percent of uninsured residents as a result of recent job losses. Yahoo! We are Number One! Even in this article, the person interviewed is a woman. (Although I suppose you could go on that old chestnut that women are more likely to seek regular healthcare than men.)

Are the laid off men just less vocal? What is going on here?

Wynken, Blynken & Nod

I am tired today folks—nothing like a croupy toddler to put a spring in your step (but for a personal moment, there is nothing like said croupy toddle giving you eskimo kisses at 4am to make you smile either). So I am going to blatantly steal for today's post (since I am still doing that everyday posting and have yet to miss a day—yeah me).

A while back I came across an interesting blog, Rebel Dad, for stay at home dads. I read it because my husband is a stay at home dad and I like to pretend that I am getting into his head and seeing things from his side of the fence. This may or may not be effective, you would have to ask him. Anywho, the writer behind Rebel Dad, Brian Reid, also writes a parenting column for The Washington Post. He recently did a comparison of the two candidates stances on some family-related policies. Here's the nut-nut:

• McCain would push for legislation that allows employees to swap overtime pay for comp time.
  
• Obama would allow workers to formally petition for flexible schedules.
  
• Obama would work to make paid sick leave available to all.
  
• McCain would not support paid sick leave, though the comp time proposal could help employees take time away from work without suffering economic difficulty.
  
• McCain would not expand FMLA or push for paid leave.
  
• Obama would expand FMLA and give the states $1.5 billion to begin providing paid leave.
  
• Obama would quadruple the number of children eligible for Head Start.
  
• McCain would work to better spend the $25 billion in early education funding now in place at the state and federal level.
  

Of course who knows how much either one of them will stick to these proposals, but I continue to feel that the United States policies on family leave are beyond backward and the fact that all workers are not given paid sick time is heinous and cruel. But then I am a flaming liberal, what do I know?