From CNN:

“What I mean is they have got no plan,” Grayson told Wolf Blitzer. “It’s been 24 hours since I said that. Where is the Republican plan? We’re all waiting to see something that will take care of the pre-existing conditions, to take care of the 40 million Americans who have no coverage at all.

“That’s what I meant when I said that the Republican plan is don’t get sick. And if you do get sick, die quickly.”

That was just the beginning of a bold defense Alan Grayson made on CNN yesterday. Blitzer and the same old tired crew did their best to try and define his words as outrageous, but the American people know better - and this particular Congressman doesn’t mince words.

It’s sad that it had to be refreshing to hear the FIRST PERSON in this debate say what others seem afraid to say - the Republicans priority is not the American people. It will ALWAYS be their business interests - and the insurance companies want this discussion shut down.

Unfortunately, there is one man who’s supposed to be on our side but is helping the other side in every possible way he can.

Harry Reid. I’ll be simple in my rhetoric and make what I feel is a truthful claim here. This man - the inneffectual, weak, sorry excuse for a “leader” - has sunk the public option and in-turn any real reform we might have had in healthcare.

Harry Reid is solely responsible for the failure of the democrats in this debate. No one else. Just him.

Think I’m wrong, Mr. Reid?

Why is it then that you can’t rise to the strength of the position you’ve been given? Ever since the democrats gained the majority several years ago, the democrats in the senate have caved AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN to the wants of the republicans.

We VOTED THE REPUBLICANS OUT! Do you understand this, you stupid, lame fuck? This is the time to push through an agenda the people actually WANT.

Why is it that other senate members are constantly making excuses for your inability to rally your side on any democratically-backed proposition, let alone this one? Why is it you are always blaming the republicans for your inability to get YOUR job done? Bill Frist had no problem doing your job. He got the votes he needed and when he didn’t, he’d ram through legislation and get the President’s signature.

What have you done except complain?

Do you understand that there is no excuse for failure or compromise with this job, in this climate, on this subject - right now? I see you in the news looking the way you’ve always looked - a man who simply wants to hide behind the mechanics of the system, never challenge it, never get angry, never scream. You minimize every discussion with your pathetic, tired demeanor.

If this bill fails to have a public option, THAT will be your legacy. Don’t worry about your next election. You’ll be done - and you’ll bring the party down with you.

There is no excuse for being weak. Just none. What did your dad teach you when you were young, to give in all the time? Take a page from the book of Alan Grayson. That’s what it means to be right and know it. Unfortunately, I doubt you’d recognize that kind of truth even if it shoved a two-by-four up your puny ass.

Politics, Verbal Paintball Alan Grayson, harry reid, republican losers

– To be a republican politician means you make sexual proposals in men’s bathrooms stalls, then lie about it.

– To be a republican politician is to take lots of money from the health insurance companies and support legislation that limits Americans from having control over healthcare or having any financial access to health insurance at all.

– To be a republican politician is to vote again and again for pre-emptive war and troop increases but when it comes to having your own children fight for the same cause - with the exception of one or two of you - they are conspicuously absent.

– To be a republican politician is to look the other way - or coverup - when one of the your members is sexually harrassing young male interns.

– To be a republican politician is to get in the way of you and your family in issues of euthanasia.

– To be a republican politician is to accuse others of being bad Christians or subversives if they do not agree with the republican platform 100%.

– To be a republican politician is to line your pockets with lobbyist money, add tons of pork to bills you approve unanimously for the entire time you have a majority - then vote against the same exact type of bills once you lose the majority because the money is no longer prominent.

– To be a republican politician is to believe it’s all about survival of the fittest when you had a privileged upbringing, have a $150,000 job, government health insurance and no connection to real people.

– To be a republican politician is to be callously indifferent to the suffering of others unless you can profit from it.

– To be a republican politician is to stand behind people like John Boehner, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Anne Coulter, Alberto Gonzalez, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, and Sarah Palin who either curse, divide, lie or do all three.

– To be a republican politician is to vote against the needs of the individual and always for the needs of the wealthy and corporate.

– To be a republican politician is to look at the world in black and white and think concretely because you’re too dense to accept that most things are gray or abstract - or are just unwilling to accept it.

– To be a republican politician is to hire right wing bloggers to shill for you in an attempt to fool the public and sway opinion on the internet.

– To be a republican politician is to support a party platform that would be find acceptance and unity with people like David Dukes

– To be a republican politician is to blame the people of New Orleans for their own demise during Katrina.

– To be a republican politician is to block proposals for guidelines in the financial industry for 10 years and then feign ignorance that such a lack of oversight would encourage corrupt behavior.

–To be republican politician is to secretly wish that Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid - and, for that matter, any proposal that shows a little mercy on those who have less than you or are older than you - is dismantled.

– To be a republican politician is to lie to the American people about everything because you have no respect for them whatsoever.

– To be a republican politician is to be a narrow minded, ignorant lemming.

– To be a republican politician is to convince the general public that you are none of the things mentioned above, didn’t do any of the things mentioned above, and are quite out for them (mainly because you know deep down how immoral your beliefs truly are and if the stupid public remembered any of these things - or connected the dots - the money would stop coming. So you lie all the time at our expense).

Verbal Paintball Mark Foley, republican losers, republican politicians

From Reuters:

Some of President George Bush’s advisers, notably Vice President Dick Cheney, contended that a sitting president had the power to use the military on U.S. soil to sweep up the men, known as the Lackawanna Six, and brand them as enemy combatants, the newspaper said.

Bush eventually decided against the proposal, which was floated in 2002 without consulting senior military officials, the Times said.

And regarding the CIA and Al Qaeda (New York Times):

Mr. Panetta scuttled the program, which would have relied on paramilitary teams, shortly after the C.I.A.’s counterterrorism center recently informed him of its existence. The next day, June 24, he told Congressional Intelligence Committees that the plan had been hidden from lawmakers, initially at the instruction of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

And, of course, his approach to due process in court:

After 9/11, the Bush regime scrapped due process rights for captured suspects. Cheney said his new legal approach “guarantees that we’ll have the kind of treatment of these individuals that we believe they deserve”—an incredible prejudgment as only a tiny handful of suspects ever saw the inside of a courtroom.

I have one question for you, Mr. Cheney. Why do you HATE America so much? Are our laws not good enough for you to follow? Do you really feel our government is weak and too compliant with the rest of the world and every issue facing us needs to be dealt with in concrete terms?

Explain to me why you would put a CIA operative at risk - a woman who has worked for the government for years who’s identity was a well-kept secret - just to exact revenge on a bad article? Is your contempt for freedom of speech in this country that huge that the potential murder of a very vulnerable group of black ops are worth the threat from you?

How about this new revelation about the Buffalo sleeper cell (which has since proven to be false)? Do you really feel that some Americans have less right to privacy than others? How do you define this? Do you feel you’re BETTER than most people and can therefore decide who deserves the rights they are born under and who doesn’t? Hey, If someone wants to hurt this country I have no issue with strong-arming them. But how do you decide this fate? Aren’t there gray areas to consider, or do you just don’t care?

And this constant harping on the pardon for Scooter Libby. Let me remind you, this man LIED while under oath and obstructed an investigation based on a treasonous act. You feel he’s a good soldier for the country and deserves the benefit of the doubt? Well, Benedict Arnold served his country well in the Continental Army. In fact, he was promoted many times and fought in many honored battles along the way. Still, he defected to the British and betrayed his country. Isn’t that what Libby did in no uncertain terms when he lied about committing treason? I guess that’s of no consequence to you because our country’s legal system is simply a tool for you to manipulate.

Really, Mr. Cheney, most of these questions are simple ones, but I don’t expect you to give simple answers to them. Your rhetoric over the last 15 years has been so muddied with lies, large and small, that you wouldn’t know the truth if it shoved it’s fist up your ass, opened its hand and did spirit fingers inside your rectum.

As far as the country is concerned, you owe it an apology. As for me, I don’t want your apology. I don’t even want you to try to answer the questions I asked you because, sir, your actions against this country deserve nothing short of a prison sentence. You probably won’t get that but you will get a few choice words from me right here in this post that sum up my attitude about your attitude:

You’re a piece of shit. You’re a disgrace to your office. You deserve to live the rest of your life as an outcast and an example of the worst kind of scum this country has ever elected into office. And, by the way, your daughter doesn’t seem any better than you. Nice child-rearing, asshole.

Verbal Paintball Dick Cheney, George Bush, panetta

If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.”

From Huffington Post:

Senator Jim DeMint, R-S.C., who has taken a particular glee in pushing the argument that health care could be Obama’s unraveling, did little to calm the rhetoric between him and the White House on Sunday.

Appearing on “This Week,” the South Carolina Republican said the president was “out of control” and offering false promises and panic in an effort to get health care legislation passed.

Such are the various words of self-centered little prick named Jim DeMint. This is the exact kind of person we want to avoid working for us in public sector - someone who’s need to win an argument or black another party’s bill over doing the work of the people. His statement about “breaking” Obama is both ugly and nakedly political, but beyond that it’s the rallying cry of the republican party. This asshole truly has no feelings for the electorate and his intentions are suspect:

DeMint’s co-panelist, Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D, is not, necessarily, the best defender for the White House, having refused to get on board such items as a public option for insurance coverage. But the North Dakota Democrat offered ample push back, saying that while he agreed that it is “critical” to get health care right - even if it means slowing down the process - DeMint’s objectives were far more sinister.

“Jim has been very clear,” Conrad said. “He wants to kill it. And I think that would be a tragedy because we’ve got a crisis here for the country.”

It’s been half a year since Obama has become the President and the Republican party has offered nothing but immaturity. They’ve consistently slapped away every hand of bipartisanship offered to them. They’ve forced compromise on bills, but when the time came to vote they all backed away. They’ve not offered ONE SINGLE THOUGHTFUL, USEFUL SUGGESTION for the stimulus, the healthcare initiative or anything else that hasn’t reeked of the same lame bullshit we’ve heard from them for 10 years.

Thankfully, Obama has been bold enough to ask them to put up or shut up.

So, Republicians, what do you have to show us other than your indifferent to the lives of every American out there. What great new idea will lift us out of this recession (oh, yeah, by the way we’re technically out of it no thanks to you guys) and solve a healthcare crisis? What pearls of wisdom have you learned form eight years of fleecing the public, licking the rear ends of big business and lining your own pockets? Anything useful? Or are you STILL living with the fantasy that your disaster of a party platform, one that has proven Reaganomics is a complete failure, still has the best ideas when they have NO IDEAS.

I think the party functions on something more basic: hatred for the anyone who would spoil their eight year party. They STILL cannot believe that Obama is President and their Sodom and Gamorrha political reign is over. They can’t fathom that the American people are smarter than the sods they had them pegged as, one of the reasons they’re using the same hateful, divisive, ugly rhetoric they’ve been using for decades (the only difference is it’s not working anymore).

Guys like Jim DeMint are nothing more than the head that grew where those of Gingrich, Delay, Bush, Cheney, and others were cut off recently. He’s a nasty little character who offers only obstructionism. If it were a bar fight instead of politics, he’d be on the floor bleeding a long time ago.

Verbal Paintball

From The Hill.com:

Prefacing that she is going to use her right to free speech, Palin told the media to “quit makin’ things up,” and told Hollywood that it “needs to know we eat, therefore we hunt.” Palin attempted to make a stance for the right to bear arms and hunt in Alaska against the “second amendment circuses from Hollywood.”

Excuse me, Sarah Palin, but who in hell told you that you had ANY experience defining what is “made up” and not “made up” in the media? For a woman who spent a few pathetic moments in the spotlight, someone who attended five colleges to graduate and was unable to even simple questions about HERSELF to a softball reporter, you sure have a lot of uninformed opinions about how the “media” that reports on you is getting the story wrong.

Here’s what I think:

You are an ignorant, opportunistic moron who’s not only too dense to know your place in the political process (Siberia, that is) but have decided to scrape up whatever audience you can to further your questionable political career no matter the consequences to this country.

What you SHOULD be doing is attending to the things that actually matter in this life, like the shambles that is your family and the good fight of doing what is morally right for the majority of the people, not just your own selfish interests.

But that doesn’t wash for someone like you, does it? Someone who bases the needs of the world on your own small-minded wants. Someone who can’t seem to see beyond her own navel because of an enormous superiority complex - a complex conservative ignoramuses enabled you to develop from a platform created by a Presidential candidate too old, feeble and politically expedient to understand the insult.

You are a joke - the kind of person we despise and push away because you’re the only one who doesn’t know the curtain has closed. You throw yourself on us, reminding us of your “importance” when we all know better that you are a distraction and poison in our lives and not any kind of help.

Sure. You think this pomp and circumstance around means something. You’ve been brought up over the past few years to believe that you are of greater importance in this world because you were able to fool a small state with large acreage that there was more behind your folksy, simple talk than just “folksy simple talk.” Unfortunately for you, the rest of the country knows an ambitious idiot when they see one and sent you and your campaign packing.

Some advice from me. Reach into your pocket, pull out a twenty and go buy a clue. Get a good one. You’re going to need it.

Getting up in front of the press, spewing hateful, whiny rhetoric and making an ignorant, angry minority even angrier is not the beginning of a movement. It is the end of a large-scale puerility that should have died right after 9-11 but was given a full life by a group of cynical, evil politicians who felt they could benefit, financially and otherwise, by it.

I don’t expect you to understand anything I’m saying. You are so far up your own ass you’ve probably not heard the words of anyone but yourself for a long long time. But mark MY words, Sarah, because I speak as someone who sees the world through a much larger prism than yourself: Your masquerade is over. We know what you’re doing. We don’t like you or it and, if you continue, there will be a day when you’ll reap what you’ve sown. Hopefully, you’ll learn a thing or two before that happens, but given your own self-absorbed nature, I doubt it. Enjoy the fruits of ignorance, you self-centered shrew, because it will be fleeting and afterwards you will be whining about being a victim of the media - again. The difference is, when that happens a second time you won’t even have crickets to accompany you.

Stop being a self-centered, callous idiot and go away. There are real problems in this world that do not have to do with you and your relationship to the media. Furthermore, the smart people of the world want nothing to do with you. The small group of like-minded morons you speak for are political ghosts. Know your place and take an exit - or please just go fuck yourself.

Verbal Paintball ignorant, republican party, Sarah Palin, syfch

There’s quite a difference in the attitude of our two majority leaders. Here’s Pelosi:

Pelosi announced during a news conference on health care reform Wednesday that she had “no question” that Democrats in the House have the votes they need to secure the passage of the bill.
This announcement was a surprise to many, given recent opposition to the bill from the party’s more moderate members who call for drastic changes to provisions thus far set forth by President Obama.

and here’s Harry Reid:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid confirmed today that the Senate will not take a vote on a massive health care overhaul proposal before lawmakers return home for the August recess — meaning a key self-imposed deadline that Congress has been working toward for months will be missed.

“Working with Republicans, one of the things that they asked for … was more time,” Reid said during a press conference. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable.”

Quite a contrast, these two - and while some of the bravado or lack thereof is the result of the balances of votes in each branch, Harry Reid always seems to be lacking in motivation, strength and political will. Reid forever reminds me of the weakling from the Charles Atlas cartoon “The Insult That Made a Man Out Of Mac.” The only difference is Harry doesn’t get angry, doesn’t become strong and doesn’t beat the bully. He just sits there.

As Senate leader, he is the poster child for inaffectual leadership and hollow rhetoric. Personally, I think he’s the most useless politician of the last 25 years and his inability to get ANYTHING done is pissing me off to the point where I’m willing to run against him myself - even though I don’t live in Nevada. Everytime he speaks, the following personality points come through:

• My beliefs and powers of persuasion are not strong enough to win a debate.
• Cave on everything. It’s easier than losing in an actual fight.
• Never embrace a controversial issue.
• Never “own” any issue.
• Show you’re an individual against the President’s suggestions at the expense of everything else. It’s really a form of cowardice, but maybe others will see it differently.

Reid and the Senate democrats are willing to go down in flames by NOT trying to agree with anyone in their party (seemingly a badge of honor for these people) and sacrificing the larger good so they can hold onto their small, sometimes insignificant piece of the puzzle. Reid has no sway with the Blue Dogs, all of whom should be shot as they are rabid hounds.

Healthcare reform MUST pass and, in the end, Reid is the roadblock - a man without one ounce of courage when it comes to the good fight, but can bark aggressively behind the glass as long as he knows it will result in absolutely nothing.

Verbal Paintball democratic cowards, harry reid, nancy pelosi

From KYMA Arizona:

Four Phoenix boys are behind bars. They are young, only between 9 and 14 years old, but allegedly committed a heinous crime. Police say the four boys raped an 8-year-old girl last week.

The boys allegedly lured the girl into an empty storage shed July 16th, offering her gum. There they restrained the young girl and sexually assaulted her.

In a devastating twist, the girl’s parents disowned her. Police say the parents blamed her for the attack and said she brought shame to the family.

The girl is in custody of Child Protective Services.

Being a parent of two children, the thought of this action by 9 - 14 year olds sickens me, but what makes it worse is the callous attitude of these parents. This child has just gone through a horrifying ordeal and their response is, what, TO DISOWN HER?

As much as the kids should be rehabilitated so they never commit this kind of crime again, I would personally like to see some measure of authority beat the living shit out of these parents. Now, I’m aware of certain idiotic cultural issues that certain groups have regarding shame on a family. I don’t really have any sympathy for these cultural issues. Pakistan men sometimes kill their wives for leaving their house on their own and “shaming” a family in doing so. This has less to do with culture than it has to do with dramatically insecure and immature people who have no idea how to face complex problems.

What this girl needs is parents who can comfort her. What she gets instead are two pieces of shit that, in the long run, she’s probably better off without. Here’s hoping she finds a good foster home with people who actually care about her well being over their own petty self-image.

Fuck these two parents. I hope they rot in hell.

Verbal Paintball gang rape, Phoenix rape

From Washington Post:

Wall Street, helped by improving profits, is on track to pay employees as much as, or even more than, it did in the pre-crisis days. So far this year, the top six U.S. banks have set aside $74 billion to pay their employees, up from $60 billion in the corresponding period last year.

The increase in set-asides for employee pay has raised the ire of Washington, where lawmakers denounced financial leaders for returning to old habits and vowed to enact measures governing executive compensation.

Is it me, or does it seem like banks and financial firms look for any excuse to increase employees and management pay. In contrast, I’ve worked at companies where I busted my ass for years and got a 10% pay raise. I’ve had to LEAVE companies to move up on the corporate ladder and get considerable pay increases.

These people produce NOTHING, but play with large numbers. Those firms seem to be intent on increasing the reality of a salary in the marketplace by making obscene salaries the norm.

While I don’t work at these companies (I actually went to college and studied a profession that requires me to do more than make a few calls and shift a few papers), I suspect some of the conversations go something like this:

“Hey, Bob, I saw you cleaned your desk this month. I’m raising your bonus pay by $300,000!

“Hi Sheryl. It seems you’ve brought in four clients accounts that increased our investment capital by $90,000. We’re giving you a $250,000 raise!

Now, I could be completely ignorant on this, but HOW do you explain this rush to incent? There are millions out of work across this country because of the reckless actions of these people. Their actions have created this result. Whatever results they’ve created in the last 1/2 year, it can’t possibly make up for the massive depletion of capital they were responsible for the previous three years or more.

In my opinion, none of these people deserve one cent more until everyone who’s lives they’ve destroyed are able to create new lives, maybe with the help of a loan from them. Until that time, they should live the lives the rest of us do:

– Work hard, and when there’s real, true legitimate increases in revenue (not projections based on money that may or may not exist - or is the result of tax payer funds) then you get a pay increase…of 10%.

– Stop telling the rest of us you NEED this $300,000 bonus increase because your Summer home’s deck is only 1600 square feet and it is dwarfed by those of your neighbors.

– Live within your means (i.e. your “MEANS” do not mean personal expenditures of over $100,000 a month and a mortgage of $12,000 a month).

If you cannot do that, well, maybe your bank doesn’t deserve tax payer bailout money. Maybe your bank needs to have a special increase in corporate taxes based on the percentage of salary and bonus increases.

Want healthcare reform paid for? Increases in social security and medicare? THESE firms will be your cash cow unless they stop acting like arrogant, callous little bitches who have NO UNDERSTANDING OF THE VALUE OF A DOLLAR.

Verbal Paintball bank bonuses, salary increases, wall street bonuses

From Huffington Post regarding Obama’s birth certificate:

Asked directly by King if she actually thought Obama was born in Kenya, Cheney responded, “No, I’m not saying that.” But then she kept going. “I’m saying that people are fundamentally uncomfortable and fundamentally I think increasingly uncomfortable with an American president who seems to be afraid to defend America, stand up for what we believe in.”

Fellow guest James Carville seemed momentarily flabbergasted before responding, “These poor pathetic people are believing stuff just like Ms. Cheney tonight. She refuses to say this is lewd, ludicrous because she wants these people to believe this.

What an absolute trash bag this woman is. The Cheney’s, I’m sure, are very proud of themselves and their child-raising skills. They’ve sired a daughter that’s a chip off the old block.

This family really seems to get off on NEVER answering a question directly, insinuating falsehoods and, in no uncertain terms, allowing them to fester and grow. Dick Cheney did so very cleverly with the Al Qaeda/Iraq connection - wording his answers so carefully as to ensure that the not-so-sharp portion of society (a very large portion) concluded that there WAS direct connection to the two.

This practice is abhorrent. More than abhorrent. Thousands have died as a result of actions taken based on these kind of lies. Unfortunately, most of the news media doesn’t have the balls to call her on it so, like the Bush’s, the Cheney’s get a pass.

In Liz Cheney’s case, she’s attempting more than just question-raising about Obama’s birth home. She’s playing a not-so-subtle game of descrimination that she knows her far right constituents - those who still feel it’s unfair for a black man to have the same rights as they do - will lap it up.

These people are not worthy, nor responsibly capable, of holding any power in our society. They are bottom dwellers of the human experience and morally vacant, content to stir the pot of hatred for their own benefit, the rest of us be damned.

Verbal Paintball Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Liz Cheney

From Washington Post:

Lacking unity on an alternative agenda to Obama’s health-care plans, Republicans have instead focused on a strategy of rallying public opposition and wooing the conservative Democrats in Congress, whose votes will ultimately determine the fate of any health-care bill. That plan depends in large part on Congress going on break before it votes on a bill. On Monday, though, Republicans made clear that they see an opportunity to derail the legislation now.

Here are the current members of the Blue Dog Coalition (from House.Gov):

Blue Dog Leadership Team

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Administration
Rep. Baron Hill (IN-09), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Policy
Rep. Charlie Melancon (LA-03), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Communications
Rep. Heath Shuler (NC-11), Blue Dog Whip

Blue Dog Members

Altmire, Jason (PA-04)
Arcuri, Mike (NY-24)
Baca, Joe (CA-43)
Barrow, John (GA-12)
Berry, Marion (AR-01)
Bishop, Sanford (GA-02)
Boren, Dan (OK-02)
Boswell, Leonard (IA-03)
Boyd, Allen (FL-02)
Bright, Bobby (AL-02)
Cardoza, Dennis (CA-18)
Carney, Christopher (PA-10)
Chandler, Ben (KY-06)
Childers, Travis (MS-01)
Cooper, Jim (TN-05)
Costa, Jim (CA-20)
Cuellar, Henry (TX-28)
Dahlkemper, Kathy (PA-03)
Davis, Lincoln (TN-04)
Donnelly, Joe (IN-02)
Ellsworth, Brad (IN-08)
Giffords, Gabrielle (AZ-08)
Gordon, Bart (TN-06)
Griffith, Parker (AL-05)
Harman, Jane (CA-36)
Herseth Sandlin, Stephanie (SD)
Hill, Baron (IN-09)
Holden, Tim (PA-17)
Kratovil, Jr., Frank (MD-01)
McIntyre, Mike (NC-07)
Marshall, Jim (GA-03)
Matheson, Jim (UT-02)
Melancon, Charlie (LA-03)
Michaud, Mike (ME-02)
Minnick, Walt (ID-01)
Mitchell, Harry (AZ-05)
Moore, Dennis (KS-03)
Murphy, Patrick (PA-08)
Nye, Glenn (VA-02)
Peterson, Collin (MN-07)
Pomeroy, Earl (ND)
Ross, Mike (AR-04)
Salazar, John (CO-03)
Sanchez, Loretta (CA-47)
Schiff, Adam (CA-29)
Scott, David (GA-13)
Shuler, Heath (NC-11)
Space, Zack (OH-18)
Tanner, John (TN-08)
Taylor, Gene (MS-04)
Thompson, Mike (CA-01)
Wilson, Charles (OH-06)

Now, I’m not necessarily one to promote bullying or threats as a tactic of persuasion, but what we have here in the healthcare debate are a group of people who see obstructionism of this issue as constructive. I’m sure there are some that are genuine about getting a healthcare plan through, but, being a cynical person, I assume most of them are either owned by their healthcare lobby, motivated only by politics alone - or just plain cowards.

Whatever they consider themselves to be as politicians or human beings, we have a duty in this debate to brand them as obstructionists if they decide to become the Ralph Nader’s of this reform bill. As a blogging community we actually have the power to shape the votes of these folks - and the power to punish them if they don’t show the backbone necessary to do the job. Most posts from the Daily Kos alone show up on the first page of a Google news search for any particular subject - and I’ve found that lists like these are very closely monitored by Washington (one of my most viewed posts on my own blog involved republicans who voted against the stimulus but took the money. Every other visitor to the site was from either the Congress or the Senate according to my tracking software. One senator even enlisted a blogger to debate me on that particular subject and put in a good word for him).

Advertising, branding and PR are powerful tools. While we all need to call their offices and push them to pass this bill, we also need to threaten that we will duplicate this list on thousands of blogs and brand the proper people as “Healthcare Reform Obstructionists” or maybe “Hx’s”. (Come up with something more catchy, anyone. I don’t work for BBDO).

Going after the republicans on this one is a lost cause. They’re so thoroughly owned by special interests that their only action can be whatever is worst for us. Fuck them.

These folks above will turn this debate. Not Obama. Not Harry Reid (useless) or Nancy Pelosi. The republicans spent years strong-arming their fence-sitting members. We cannot shy away from doing the same here.

What this group needs to know is that no matter what they do in the future or have done in the past, their obituary will say “Obstructed healthcare reform, subjecting millions to bankruptcy and certain death.” They may feel their conservative stance on this issue in commendable. What they need to know is how long its tentacles are and how vulnerable they are to get caught in them. We ACTUALLY as a group have the capability to produce this kind of result.

Duplicate this list above and speak your mind on this.

Verbal Paintball blue dog democrats, healthcare reform, republican obstructionists