Cleo's Mom

I am glad the government has "forced" certain things, like mandating vaccinations for children for polio and smallpox or we'd still have children dying of these horrible diseases. But I guess those who call themselves pro-life and oppose government "interventions" and "mandates" would prefer the children's deaths to these government "intrusions".

And let's not forget that there is only one correct interpretation of the bible - pattygreen's. Every other interpretation, including those of organized religions, that doesn't mesh with pattygreen's is wrong, according to her.

You mean like when the anti-abortionists want to be called pro-life when they're not? They just want to criminalize abortion they don't care about anyone's life - like the lives lost of those who don't have health insurance: If you don't have health insurance you have a 52% greater chance of dying from a heart attack compared to someone who does. If you don't have health insurance, you have a 49% greater chance of dying from a stroke compared to someone who does. But remember, those lives don't count to those who wrongly call themselves pro-life because 1) they're already born 2) healthcare isn't a right 3) they should have saved for their heart attack and or stroke care. 4) and basically, if you don't have healthcare, well, too bad, you're on your own, tough luck. Go get a job with healthcare, blah, blah, blah - yap, yap, yap.

This is the elitist, country club republican attitude that the rich have for the working class people. I have warned those on these boards that that is the ultimate goal of the right wing - to make the rich richer, the poor poorer and eliminate the middle class until there is a two class system - and we know which class they'll be in: The Rich: "Lazy" Unemployed Should Get A Job And Cut My TAXES Now! With views reminescent of Dickensian England, the Rich are back with a vengenance! You can't keep good billionaires and their intellectual lackeys down: At the Atlantic Magazine's "Aspen Ideas Festival," the idle rich go to a ski resort town and pay the Atlantic Media Co. a great deal of money to listen to rich people with intellectual credentials of some kind talk at each other for a while. It may surprise you to learn that these wealthy elites think the biggest problem facing America today is that the wealthy elite have to pay taxes, while the poor and unemployed sit around collecting "Social Security" and "food stamps" and "unemployment benefits." Salon, Rich people have solution to economic crisis: Make lazy poor get jobs [Niall] Ferguson called for what he called "radical" measures. "I can’t emphasize strongly enough the need for radical fiscal reform to restore the incentives for work and remove the incentives for idleness." Jonathan Chait, The New Republic, Scenes From The Ideas Festival Those damn incentives for idleness. We should ignore that there are 6 unemployed for every job opening. Let them eat cake if they have no bread.

Republican Logic - 6 July 2010

Failed? Hardly. Everything I print is the truth. You are in denial and have blinders on and I have proven that over and over again. Even your fellow republican doesn't agree with you. The tea partiers are nothing more than the same 20% ultra right wing extremists that we've always had in this country but since a progressive, black democratic president now resides in the white house, they are accepting corporate donations and becoming vocal to serve as the mouthpiece (read: w***es) of corporate america and the extremist right wing agenda which is opposed to the successful agenda of Pres. Obama.

The misspelling of scholar wasn't done by the scholars themselves but by the author of the article. :thumbup:

I agree with you and thank you for your sensibility.

I think Jesus would be appalled and outraged at the hatred and anger shown in this video. Listen to the stupid/ignorant woman at the beginning saying "they" are called racists because they believe in the second amendment and their guns rights are being taken away little by little? :thumbup: HUH??? Are you freakin' kidding me?? In what alternative universe does this woman live??? The supreme court just ruled that we can all run around with our guns strapped on us. It just shows how completely out of touch and ignorant these people are. Yup, I'm a Racist - 4th of July T-Shirt - FAIL Shirt I am so glad that I don't support or identify with these people. Wow. I am still reeling about their mindset. But hey, freedom of speech is extended even to those who don't know what they're talking about. Guns and religion - so true when the interviewer said that is what Al-Qaeda supports. As do these people. And Jesus walked among the poor, healed the sick (even those without healthcare insurance or with pre-existing conditions) and preached peace, love and forgiveness, hardly the basis of the hateful, mean spiritied hateful right wing agenda. And please, please, please, don't respond with all your bible quotes. Spare me, spare all of us - we have seen them all before. No one here really supports you on them or cares about them. So, suffice it to say we all know where you stand.

Another survey - same results. File this under: If you don't like the results (e.g. CBO healthcare score) then just demonize or dismiss it, but if the same agency/poll has results you like - well then their word is gold. What hypocrisy, as usual. And by all means please show us where the conservatives rank bush as one of our best presidents. :thumbup: Historians Rank George W. Bush Among Worst Presidents Lincoln and Washington were rated as the best By Kenneth T. Walsh Posted: February 17, 2009 President George W. Bush is near the bottom of the heap in the latest survey of historians on presidential leadership. Bush received an overall ranking of 36 out of 42 former presidents—in the bottom 10. [was rated 10th best, up from 11th in a similar survey taken in 2000; Bill Clinton was rated 15, up from 21 in 2000. George H.W. Bush went to 18 from 20. The five best presidents, according to the historians, were Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, and Harry Truman, in that order. Rounding out the top 10 were John F. Kennedy at six, Thomas Jefferson, Dwight Eisenhower, Woodrow Wilson, and Reagan. The worst presidents, according to the survey, were James Buchanan at 42, Andrew Johnson at 41, Franklin Pierce, William Henry Harrison, Warren Harding, Millard Fillmore, George W. Bush, Herbert Hoover, and Rutherford B. Hayes. The survey was conducted for C-SPAN, the cable network, among 65 presidential historians and scholars, who ranked the 42 former occupants of the White House on 10 attributes of leadership: public persuasion, crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, international relations, administrative skills, relations with "vision/setting an agenda," "pursued equal justice for all," and "performance within the context of his times." Supervising the survey were historians Douglas Brinkley of Rice University, Edna Medford of Howard University, and Richard Norton Smith of George Mason University. "How we rank our presidents is, to a large extent, influenced by our own times," Medford said in a news release. "Today's concerns shape our views of the past, be it in the area of foreign policy, managing the economy, or human rights. . . . Lincoln continues to rank at the top in all categories because he is perceived to embody the nation's core values: integrity, moderation, persistence in the pursuit of honorable goals, respect for compassion; those who collect near the bottom are perceived as having failed to uphold those values." Among the historians and political scientists who participated in the ratings were H. W. Brands, Thomas Cronin, Robert Dallek, Alvin Felzenberg, Fred Greenstein, and James McPherson.

238 Presidential scholars from colleges and universities from around the U.S. are surveyed by Siena College. They have been doing this since 1982. Since the outcome isn't to your liking, you make the assumption that these presidential scholars are all "liberal" instead of being able to recognize a truly bad president like bush. I will believe a long recognized survey done by presidential scholars. Even the majority of american people recognize bush as one of the worst presidents in history. Some people are in denial, though. A new poll of leading presidential scholars ranks Barack Obama as the 15th best president of the United States, just below Bill Clinton but ahead of Ronald Reagan. The Siena College poll, which surveyed 238 presidential scholars at U.S. colleges and universities, asked scholars to rate the nation’s 43 chief executives on 20 attributes ranging from legislative accomplishments to integrity and imagination. In the overall ranking, Obama rated two places below Clinton, who was 13th best, and three better than Reagan, who is ranked as the 18th best. Franklin D. Roosevelt again earned the top spot, as he has every time since the poll was first conducted in 1982. He and the Mount Rushmore presidents — Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson — have consistently been the top five presidents in the poll’s findings. Obama’s 15th ranking is slightly higher than other presidents who have taken office since the poll started nearly 30 years ago. Most start out at about number 20, said Siena statistics professor and poll director Douglas Lonnstrom. “[Obama’s] doing a little better, but he’s generally in the same ballpark,” he said. While he ranked high on traits like imagination (6th), communication ability (7th) and intelligence (8th), Obama rated poorly ratings on background (32nd), which was composed of traits like family, education and experience. Lonnstrom said the main factor that gives a president a top-five or top-10 ranking is his accomplishments — and an all-around high ranking in most categories. FDR, for example, ranks in the top 10 for every category except integrity, he said. “The experts really are looking for consistency, a president who is looking good across most of these categories,” he said. Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, was ranked at number 23 in 2002 — the last time Siena’s presidential expert poll was conducted — but has since dropped to number 39, qualifying him as one of the five worst presidents. Bush came in at number 42 — second to last — on issues such as handling the U.S. economy, foreign policy accomplishments and intelligence. (Warren G. Harding was rated the least intelligent president). Bush joins Harding, Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce, all of whom have consistently ranked as the worst presidents since the poll started, in the bottom five. Several other presidents also saw movement in their ratings this year. Bill Clinton moved up five places, from No. 18 in 2002 to No. 13 today; John F. Kennedy also moved up, from No. 14 to No. 11. Carter, Reagan and Nixon all dropped in the rankings this year — Carter dropped seven spots, from No. 25 in 2002 to No. 32 now; Reagan dropped two spots, from No. 16 to No. 18; and Nixon fell four spots, from No. 26 to No. 30.

A poll of American voters: bush tops the list as the worst. And we are living daily with his failures. Quinnipiac University poll A Quinnipiac University poll, taken May 23–30, 2006, asked 1,534 registered American voters to pick the worst U.S. President of the last 61 years.[17] "Which of these eleven presidents we have had since World War II would you consider the worst president — Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Senior, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush?" George W. Bush (34%) Richard Nixon (17%) Bill Clinton (16%) Jimmy Carter (13%) Don't Know/No Answer (5%) Lyndon Johnson (4%) George H. W. Bush (3%) Ronald Reagan (3%) Gerald Ford (2%) Harry Truman (1%) John Kennedy (1%) Dwight Eisenhower (<1%)

Trust a neocon to justify racism as sarcasm. Nice try, but it won't fly. They're racists and proud of it. And if you think I or other liberal/progressives "know in our hearts" that what you stand for is right and good, then you need to get out of the sun and quit drinking the kool aid for that is about as outrageous and wrong statement as you've ever made. :thumbup: We liberal/progressives take pride in the fact that our programs helped create the middle class in this country. We have a long history of helping the least among us. Almost everything that the middle class has is owed to the liberals/progressives and what democrats have done. -social security -medicare -medicaid -civil rights -women's rights -disability rights -worker's rights -unemployment -workplace safety -minimum wage -food & drug standards -clean air & water standards -healthcare for the uninsured and more ALL of these are enormously popular and necessary among the american people and they don't want them eliminated. We DO NOT, despite your delusions, support the right wing agenda which includes, among other things: -criminalizing abortion -wall street greed -de-regulating corporations (can you spell 29 dead at massey mine and bp oil spill?) -tax cuts for the rich who don't need or deserve them -reaganomics (a/k/a trickle down or voodoo economics) -war at any cost - private businesses discriminating -private businesses self-regulating :eek: -balancing the budget on the backs of the poor while supporting corporate welfare -unlimited military spending and the cold-hearted, mean-spirited list goes on. And you neocons know in your country club hearts that we liberals/progressives are right. And BTW, your first spelling of sarcasm was wrong. I'm sure it was a typo as was the word scholar in the article. But since you brought it up, I felt compelled to also.

Yup, I'm a racist" t-shirts sold in Lexington, KY In the age of Twitter news travels fast. So when I heard that there were people at the Lexington July 4th Festival selling t-shirts with the slogan, “Yup, I’m a racist” emblazoned on the front, I just had to see for myself. So I jumped in the car with my trusty video camera in hand, and drove down to the festival. It was not long before I found what I was searching for. In an earlier piece, I took a stand against those who would use patriotism for personal or political gain. The folks in front of the Fayette County Courthouse in Lexington, Kentucky took pimping patriotism a disturbing step farther. Not only were they promoting themselves as defenders of the Constitution, they openly fueled the right-wing paranoia that inches ever closer to violence. You see the don't tread on me snake symbol often used by the backwoods right wing, government hating militias sprouting up all over. These people are probably proud of their pointed white hoods too.

Loudonville, NY – For the fifth time since its inception in 1982, the Siena College Research Institute’s (SRI) Survey of U.S. Presidents finds that experts rank Franklin D. Roosevelt as the top all time chief executive. The 238 participating presidential scholars round out the top five in order with Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Teddy Roosevelt had, more than any other president the “right stuff”, and tops the collective ranking of a cluster of personal qualities including imagination, integrity, intelligence, luck, background, and being willing to take risks. Lincoln, according to the experts, demonstrated the greatest presidential abilities while FDR ranks first in overall accomplishments. I'm sure if you're interested you could contact the Institute and ask for names. I will trust their expertese as I'm sure you would have had saint ronnie or dubya been ranked higher. And when you couldn't list any of bush's accomplishments you said you were sure that people would -(So, I can't give you a list of his accomplishments. I belive that his accomplishments will be recognized when looked back upon in a decade or so) well these are the people that do that and he fell far short of many other presidents. And it doesn't take a decade to recognize failure. No surprise there.

The healthcare reform bill that passed does not provide free healthcare beyond those who qualify for Medicaid, which has been around since the 1960's. The uninsured will be able to buy insurance now because of government subsidies, based on income. Those who have lost their insurance due to unemployment will be able to do also. Insurance companies will no longer be able to deny or drop someone due to illness or pre-existing condition. But people will be paying premiums for this insurance, it is not free. States are getting subsidies to help create a high risk pool for those who have been denied insurance due to a pre-existing condition until that part of the bill kicks in. Senior citizens will be getting checks to help pay for the donut hole in their prescription plan. And children up to the age of 26 will be allowed to stay on their parents healthcare plan. This is paid for by a tax on insurance companies that provide cadillac insurance plans and by getting rid of waste, fraud and duplication in the medicare program. The cost of mandating installing and using seatbelts pales in comparison to the cost of medical care for those injured from not wearing one. And we all bear that cost.

Nice try but when bush took office unemployment was 4%- when he left office it was 8.1%, so his tax cuts caused unemployment to double. So, try again!!! the republican agenda: Leave no millionaire behind.

Critics Still Wrong on What’s Driving Deficits in Coming Years Economic Downturn, Financial Rescues, and Bush-Era Policies Drive the Numbers Updated June 28, 2010 Related Areas of Research Some critics continue to assert that President George W. Bush’s policies bear little responsibility for the deficits the nation faces over the coming decade — that, instead, the new policies of President Barack Obama and the 111th Congress are to blame. Most recently, a Heritage Foundation paper downplayed the role of Bush-era policies (for more on that paper, see p. 4). Nevertheless, the fact remains: Together with the economic downturn, the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explain virtually the entire deficit over the next ten years (see Figure 1). The deficit for fiscal year 2009 was $1.4 trillion and, at nearly 10 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), was the largest deficit relative to the size of the economy since the end of World War II. If current policies are continued without changes, deficits will likely approach those figures in 2010 and remain near $1 trillion a year for the next decade. Look at the dark orange part - that is what bush's tax cuts to the rich added to the deficit. The events and policies that have pushed deficits to these high levels in the near term, however, were largely outside the new Administration’s control. If not for the tax cuts enacted during the presidency of George W. Bush that Congress did not pay for, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that were initiated during that period, and the effects of the worst economic slump since the Great Depression (including the cost of steps necessary to combat it), we would not be facing these huge deficits in the near term. While President Obama inherited a dismal fiscal legacy, that does not diminish his responsibility to propose policies to address our fiscal imbalance and put the weight of his office behind them. Although policymakers should not tighten fiscal policy in the near term while the economy remains fragile, they and the nation at large must come to grips with the nation’s long-term deficit problem. But we should not mistake the causes of our predicament. Bush Tax Cuts, War Costs Do Lasting Harm to Budget Outlook Some commentators blame recent legislation — the stimulus bill and the financial rescues — for today’s record deficits. Yet those costs pale next to other policies enacted since 2001 that have swollen the deficit. Those other policies may be less conspicuous now, because many were enacted years ago and they have long since been absorbed into CBO’s and other organizations’ budget projections. Just two policies dating from the Bush Administration — tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — accounted for over $500 billion of the deficit in 2009 and will account for almost $7 trillion in deficits in 2009 through 2019, including the associated debt-service costs. [6] (The prescription drug benefit enacted in 2003 accounts for further substantial increases in deficits and debt, which we are unable to quantify due to data limitations.) These impacts easily dwarf the stimulus and financial rescues. Furthermore, unlike those temporary costs, these inherited policies (especially the tax cuts and the drug benefit) do not fade away as the economy recovers (see Figure 1). Without the economic downturn and the fiscal policies of the previous Administration, the budget would be roughly in balance over the next decade. That would have put the nation on a much sounder footing to address the demographic challenges and the cost pressures in health care that darken the long-run fiscal outlook.[7]

Typical republican/neocon response to everything: give tax cuts to the rich. All that does is make the rich richer. If it worked, the unemployment wouldn't have continued to rise during the eight years of the bush administration. AND IT DID. Additionally, the tax cuts were not paid for and have added HUGELY to the deficit. So, when it's convenient we suddenly don't care about the deficits?? Typical hypocrisy :thumbup: The above op-ed piece is BS!!!

We don't know much about U.S. history Poll finds stumbling block Monday, July 05, 2010 By Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post WASHINGTON -- A new poll gauging American knowledge on a basic question about the nation's history -- "From which country did the United States win its independence?" -- is either good news or bad news, depending on your expectations: Twenty-six percent of those surveyed did not know that the United States achieved its independence from Great Britain, according to the poll, conducted by the nonprofit Marist Institute for Public Opinion. Six percent named a different country, including France, China, Japan, Mexico and Spain. Twenty percent said they weren't sure. The pollsters broke down the numbers and found gaps in knowledge according to region: 32 percent of Southerners weren't sure or named the wrong country; 26 percent of Midwesterners were in the same category, as were 25 percent of Westerners and 16 percent of Northeasterners. More depressing results -- depending on your expectations -- were found in a 2007 poll conducted by the U.S. Mint. It showed that only 7 percent of those surveyed could name the first four presidents in order: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Thirty percent knew that Jefferson was the third president, 57 percent identified Jefferson as the main author of the Declaration of Independence, and 57 percent knew that Washington led the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. I'm willing to bet that a lot of the 32% of southerners who didn't know what country we got our independence from march around with tri-cornered hats as tea partiers. But I'll bet 100% of them know what the second amendment is. Also, I am glad to see that the northeast, where I live, did the best.

I love America, too, and am glad to be living here. If this country gets taken over by the teaparty zealots it would no longer be the America I love and I might think of leaving. That being said, if you look at the study, the people of Denmark are the happiest. They pay 2/3 of their income in taxes but their taxes provide them with the things in life that we all need - education, healthcare, maternity and child care and old age care. They never have to worry about those things like people do here. They don't look at taxes as a punishment as we do. We all have to pay taxes so why not for the things we all need in life instead of for things we don't? Anyway, I don't believe that everyone else aspires to come here. I think they envy some of our stuff, but I think many people love their country like we do ours and have no desire to leave it and move here.

Seven Untrue Things Most Americans Believe I have the good fortune (and the interesting experiences) of both living with and working with a number of people who are not Americans by birth; including my husband and the clients I work with who hail from all over the world. I have noticed recurring themes that my fellow ‘mericans seem to adamantly believe and or assume about this country and the world. The only problem is these strongly held beliefs are untrue. That doesn’t make them insane, of course; just wrong. With no further ado, time and again I find that American people believe: The USA is the best, most desirable place in the world, and everyone in the world, if they had a choice, would want to live here. Absolutely untrue. Study after study, year after year, (not just recently) has shown that the happiest and most satisfied people in the world are NOT Americans. People in Sweden, Belgium, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and Norway are all reported to be much happier than Americans, and much more satisfied with their lives/their countries. One source for this statement is here: http://www.marketwatch.com/... . There are many other sources that would underscore this point. 2.When politicians and regular folk talk about "Protecting our American Way of Life" ™ they are referring to our "freedoms," our ability to worship the way that we wish to do so, dress the way we wish to do so, and so on. Nope. In general this is code-speak for "The continued ability of the US to use up 24% amount of the world’s energy, although we only have 5% of the world’s population." It also means that we "want to be ‘free’ enough to NOT pay enough taxes to have a sustainable infrastructure." Note the link above; people in those "happy" countries actually pay more taxes than Americans do. "You get what you pay for" is a pretty inescapable truism. It also refers to paying low prices for goods and services- both domestically and abroad- which of course keeps American wages low – and this is done, intentionally or no, on the "backs" of people in poverty, both American and otherwise. See: http://www.mindfully.org/... 3. America and Americans are the most giving people in the world – we help out other countries more so than any other country does. Wrong in the first case, partially true in the second. From the American Governmental perspective, "Foreign Aid" is only about 1% of the federal budget (per Wikipedia – yes, I know that’s not the strongest source in the world, but I’ve seen that citation elsewhere as well.) To quote from http://www.globalissues.org/... (emphasis mine) "USA’s aid, in terms of percentage of their GNP has almost always been lower than any other industrialized nation in the world, though paradoxically since 2000, their dollar amount has been the highest." The part that is partially true, is that as individuals – not as a country- Americans are fairly generous. But not to the level of "more than any other country." Again, quoting from the site above, " Americans privately give at least $34 billion overseas—more than twice the US official foreign aid of $15 billion at that time." (2002 figures.) However, some argue that those figures aren’t even from Americans – they say that these are remittances from foreign nationals living in the US. Americans should feel proud of the help that is being given as individuals/small groups of people to others; but should not make the assumption that cutting out foreign aid as a country will help solve the country’s financial problems- (an assertion I have seen repeated over and over...) it’s a drop in the bucket that wouldn’t even pay one hour’s interest on the national debt. For more on this topic see the link above, The US is rated very far down on this list. 4. America has the best health care system in the world. Anyone who needs care can go and get it at an emergency room, whether they have money or not. This is such an absurdly incorrect idea as to be sickening. No matter what measure you use, whether it is access to care, cost of care, patient outcomes, or any other – The USA is nowhere near the top. Yes, there is a federal law that if you show up at a hospital emergency room, and are in danger of losing your life, they have to treat you. However, if you chop your hand off with a chainsaw, and don’t have health insurance – they will stop the bleeding and keep you from dying, but if you think they’ll sew your hand back on, guess again. Some charity hospitals might but the cold reality is that most just plain will not. They are only federally required to keep you from dying. Period. Back to the original point re: "best" health care system, to quote from the link below, "The U.S. ranks last when it comes to providing safe care, and next to last on coordinated care. U.S. patients with chronic conditions are the most likely to report being given the wrong medication or the wrong dose of their medication, and experiencing delays in being notified about an abnormal test result." See: http://7thspace.com/... Per this report linked to from CNN below, about 60% of bankruptcies in the US are due to medical bills. How is that humane, sane, or the mark of a civilized country – much less the "best" system in the world? http://www.cnn.com/... (hint: it isn’t) Anyone who truly believes we have the "best" system in the world here, cannot possibly be making frequent use of this so-called system. As a cancer survivor, who has had other ongoing medical issues her whole life, Ms. Sanity knows what she’s talking about. I am less than 45 years old, I have a college degree, I have been working full time for more than twenty years, and yet there have been several times in my life where I’ve had to make a choice between buying food and buying medicine. How is that reasonable? Or acceptable? Oh yeah, wait, it’s all MY fault. See #7. 5."The Government" (and/or Government employees/employment, and/or "bigger government") is bad/useless, and private sector employees are always more useful/valuable/productive. Granted, the above position is generally taken by conservatives and libertarians, but there seems to be an underlying theme of this belief among many, many Americans. The problem is that we can’t make useful or sensible or meaningful blanket statements like this. Government is meant to be about more than just invading other countries in this day and age. Ms. Sanity cannot however disagree with the point of view some people espouse that "The government can only ethically operate with the amount of money that the governed consent to give to the government." That bit is true. However, Americans would do well to look at what they are currently "getting back" for their investment into government. The largest budget expenditure in the US is on the military. I’m not anti-military by any stretch of the imagination and I think that they should be paid well for what they do. But I also think we should question how or why in this day and age we need a military budget that is larger than the expenditures of the next forty or so countries combined. Private sector employees and employers are not, in and of themselves, by their very nature, more virtuous or productive than government employees. The people screeching a la Norquist that we need to make the government so small we can drown it in a bathtub are deluded. Going back to frontier style society is not going to help anyone. Roads and bridges and schools don’t maintain themselves. What are you going to do? Make them all toll roads? Charge parents for all schools?I have heard it said correctly that private sector employees in the US are generally paid with no rational regard to their usefulness to society. We cannot live for long without, say, the people who come and collect our trash. I can live eternally without the CEO of a health insurance organization, who will be paid say $60 million dollars this year, vs. the trash guy who will be doing very well if he takes home about $48k (the national median income, give or take.) How is this sensible? 6.The American people have the most civil (and other) rights, freedom and privacy on the planet. Not by a long shot. The Patriot Act, (which, I might remind you, is still in force) severely curtailed any privacy and long-held rights vested in the people; notably "Habeas Corpus" – which had been around since the Magna Carta – it basically means that the government can’t hold you indefinitely without actually charging you with a crime. Now they can. Some of the most appalling parts of the Patriot act were apparently fairly recently overturned/curtailed in court but not all of them. I can’t claim to understand it all (I am not a lawyer, after all.) It used to be if you were in trouble, the people charging you with something had to say what you were being charged with, and produce you in court. This is no longer always the case, and it apparently applies to American citizens and to non-Americans alike. It is my understanding that the Patriot act also gave law enforcement agencies the right – without a warrant- to come into your home, search it, (sometimes referred to as a "sneak and peek,") and they don’t even have to tell you that they did so! For more recent information, see this link: http://leahy.senate.gov/... which includes a letter written by Senator Leahy that includes the fact that we now know that National Security Letters (a provision of the Patriot Act) were severely misused in recent years. Your internet activities,your telephone calls, your library books, all of these things can be monitored by the US Government even today should they want to do so. In February of this year, under the Obama administration, the Patriot act was extended for another year. If you think this has nothing to do with you, or me, as law-abiding natural born citizens of the US, think again. See: http://www.aclu.org/... They can tap your phones, they can pretty much do whatever they want, if you become for some reason, a person of interest. Last comment on this topic: Workers in other countries, I’m thinking of the UK, specifically, have far more legal rights than they do here. If you get fired in the UK because you refuse to sleep with your boss, it’s my understanding that there is a nonpartisan, independent, watchdog tribunal – which has actual power – which will hear your case, and you can end up getting your job back, financial remuneration, or both. In the US, in most states, you are imply out of a job – unless you have the money to sue. 7.Liberals/Progressives and their leaders just want the government to take care of all of their needs, from the "cradle to the grave," they don’t believe in personal responsibility, they expect the government to somehow magically make everything fair, and they want the population to be controlled by the government. That’s how it is in Europe, and that’s what the Liberals want here too. Ah, no. I do not, myself, want or expect the government to provide for my every need. I already know from experience (I did my first professional job at age 9) the satisfaction that comes from working and working hard, I learned early that there is no such thing as a free lunch. I have known lots of well to do people and even more not very well to do people, and never once have I heard any of them say: I think the Government owes me a living, I wish there was a robin hood to steal from the rich so that I can sit around and do nothing. In Europe, which of course varies greatly country to country, there is simply a stronger commitment to the provision of a strong social safety net. Generally speaking, there seems to be a more compassionate view of each other than there seems to be (again, very broadly) here in the US. For some reason, in the USA, if a person or a family falls on hard times, many people seem to take the attitude that "it’s your own fault... you didn’t work hard enough/plan enough, etc." When of course, like it or not, hard times/disaster can happen to anyone, rich or poor, etc. I have heard with my own words the (oddly famous and listened to right-wing conservative blowhard) Rush Limbaugh say in these words: "look, folks, liberals don’t trust you individuals to do the right thing, that’s why they want to make all these laws to control you." That has not been my experience in the very liberal and progressive circles I’ve been working in for more than a decade now. What "the libruls" do not trust, is that just because an organization is not the government, that it will be responsible or behave ethically or treat people well or even follow the law. There are far, far too many historical examples where corporations both large and small – took the little guys to the cleaners. Oh wait, Wall street Just did that... and you and I footed the bill, and will be doing so for generations. Do the "libruls "expect the government to prevent that sort of crap – whether it’s done by Wall Street, Enron, or the coal mining operation down the road? Yes, they sure do. And they are not wrong, to do that. Life is not and never has been and can never be made "fair." Anyone with one functioning brain cell is aware of that dailykos I think all of these untrue things have been well represented on this thread by various posters.

People are coming around as time passes and as they see that the lies spread by the healthcare opponents were just that - lies- and they start to see the benefits of the healthcare reform like: This week, www.HealthCare.gov, a new online portal where anyone can go to find insurance options in their state, went live. It's a very handy resource for information that used to be difficult to find. It's available to help millions who need insurance find it, and as a resource for those who want to shop around for new options or find out their new benefits under the new law. States are starting to create new insurance pools for hundreds of thousands of people with serious medical conditions who had previously been unable to get insurance. Federal grants to help with setup are on their way to states right now. In June, 80,000 checks were mailed to seniors to help with prescription drug costs not covered by Medicare. By the end of the year, an estimated 4 million checks will go out. And of course, many of the key insurance reforms—allowing young adults to stay on their parents' insurance until age 26, and making it illegal to deny a child or baby insurance because of a "pre-existing condition"—have already started to take effect. As the following poll shows, except for the 65+ age group (who have government run healthcare) - in all the other age groups, the majority think healthcare is a good thing. And the polling for those over 65 will improve as 4 million get those checks.

Beachcitygirl: You have your picture, city and state along with your post and the internet is everywhere and accessible to all. I only hope that no one recognizes you and betrays that personal confidence. Just a thought. You had every right to make the decision that you did to have and keep your baby. That is what choice is all about. Good luck to you.