What if we all as a nation stopped selling American designed weapons, like airplanes, ships, subs, missiles, helicopters, tear gas, et cetera to foreign nations and groups?

What if we brought home all of our overseas troops, no matter where they are, discharged all of them except the ones we need to secure our own borders, and sent all of them to University or Trade School?

What if we create a new kind of entity called a Corporation that had to die after 75 years? All the corporate patented and trademarked assets would become public domain, and physical assets liquidated and distributed to shareholders.

What fs we taxed at 100% all estates above a certain threshold, and ensured that a hereditary oligarchy would be stopped in its tracks?

What if we increased the highest tax rates to 65% of income or capital gains or any kind of investment income?

What if we became a single-payer nation for health insurance, and reinvested in creating upward mobility by making our public Colleges and Universities the inexpensive wonder of the world they once were?

Just imagine if the purpose of government was to provide for the general welfare and common defense by taking care of certain things like infrastructure, environmental regulation, education, and health care so that people could focus on the more important things in life, like becoming the best, most creative, generous, kind and loving person in their work and personal lives, fully invested citizens. If we all recognized that we are all in this together, that “E pluribus unum” are words by which a great nation should live.

We can make this progressive dream happen.
Doesn’t that world, where all pursue their dreams because all the stuff that government does really well are being taken care of sound great? The only way to make it happen is to pay attention, wake up, organize, and vote!

As Keith Olbermann said last night, let’s get rid of the phrase “Public Option.”  It does no one any good, and provokes fear.  If it’s public, does that mean there’s no private?  If it’s an option, can it be taken away?

Instead, let’s start saying “Medicare for Everyone.”  Everyone already knows what Medicare is, and as it seems, everyone seems to like it.

We should, in all likelihood, just open up the rolls of Medicare to everyone.  If there are still deficiencies in coverage, then we could have supplemental policies, much like they do in France, and here already in the United States.  There would still be a private insurance industry that way, but they would be largely de-fanged.

What are the benefits?  Well, it seems likely that costs would go down, as Medicare payments are a known quantity.  Payment to doctors and hospitals would become much more streamlined, as there wouldn’t need to be huge staffs of people who’s job was to deal with the balky insurance companies, saving money.  The uninsured wouldn’t need to visit Emergency Rooms for non-emergencies, another savings.  And I’m sure there are probably lots of other ways that the system would become less expensive, too.

Why can’t we do this?

The GOP doesn’t have much sense of humor – they can dish it out, but they can’t take it. So the false outrage of the Republicans over Representative Alan Grayson’s (D-FL) recent floor speech where he said “The Republicans have a back up plan in case you do get sick … This is what the Republicans want you to do. If you get sick America, the Republican health care plan is this: Die quickly!”

Meanwhile, although the public option amendment was voted down in the Senate Finance Committee, momentum is still building for it outside the beltway, as people realize more and more how important this fight is for universal health care.

Call and write your Congressional Representatives in the House and Senate today and urge them to support the public option!

What can you do today, right now, to ensure health care reform that includes a public option?  Call your congressional representatives, call your friends and ask them to call.

And Clinton inadvertently sent the bloggers a very different message. Lane Hudson interrupted his speech to challenge him on the unconscionable “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military. Clinton’s famed temper flared as he defended himself:

“You wanna talk about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” I’ll tell you exactly what happened. You couldn’t deliver me any support in the Congress and they voted by a veto-proof majority in both houses against my attempt to let gays serve in the military, and the media supported them. They raised all kinds of devilment. And all most of you did was to attack me instead of getting some support in the congress. Now, that’s the truth.

“Well, not quite, since many of the bloggers in the audience were teenagers or younger when this debate took place. But the former president provided clear strategic insight for the current moment. We don’t want a former President Obama to say, a decade from now, that the reason we didn’t get a public option was that we “couldn’t deliver” any support for him in the Congress. It’s time to deliver that support.

So no surrender; no retreat. Don’t start embracing “half a loaf,” or thumb-sucking about the reasons for the demise of the public option. Real reform has the support in the country, the Democratic Party, the House of Representatives and the White House. It has support of a majority of Democrats in the Senate. Now it is time to deliver the president the votes he needs for the public option he favors. Full court press on the handful of Democrats that are standing in the way, and then real pressure on the two or three Republicans who have yet to surrender to the obstructionist extremes of their party.

Pull out the stops. Do whatever you can think about doing to weigh in at this time – and then enlist your friends to join you. We are very close. We don’t have to overcome a presidential veto, or the opposition of the congressional leadership. All we need to do is to get Democrats and a couple Republicans to commit to giving the president a majority vote on this critical reform, and then get 50 members of the Senate to join the majority of the House in supporting it. Forget the naysayers. This is in reach. Let’s make it happen.

via Robert L. Borosage: Health Care: Let the Majority Be Heard.

Barney Frank (D-MA) displays the proper attitude when dealing with the teabaggers – contempt and scorn.

Seriously, it’s about time the Democrats in Congress stood up and called these idiots out for what they are: contemptible and vile.

I was calling my congressional representative, Nancy Pelosi, this morning to express my opinion about keeping the public option, or better yet, single-payer health care, and as I started to say hello, the aide who answered the phone put me on hold and transferred me to voicemail!

This is horrible service and a terrible way to treat one’s constituents.

President-elect Obama has as a goal the elimination of deaths by malaria by 2015.  To global public health officials dealing with the malaria epidemic, that sort of date gives them hope for the future.

You can help: for a $10 donation, you can help the Nothing But Nets campaign buy a bed net, deliver it to a family, and explain its use.  This simple device can protect a family of four for up to four years.  In places where bed nets are in widespread use, malaria transmission drops 90 percent.  The nets are the number one way to prevent the spread of malaria.

TAKE ACTION: visit the Nothing But Nets site and make a small donation to the cause to end malaria.

s John McCain so aptly said yesterday morning on Meet the Press when asked by Tom Brokaw if he and George W. Bush share a common philosophy:

Do we share a common philosophy of the Republican Party? Of course.

John McCain voted with George W. Bush’s philosophy “90 percent of the time.”   He said so himself.  Isn’t a maverick supposed to go his own way?

Do we need more commonality with the last 8 years?

John McCain thinks that the health of the mother is meaningless.

Based upon his Congressional record, here’s what a John McCain women’s health clinic would look like:

That’s right:

• No prescription birth control
• Abstinence-only Sex Education
• No Abortion

These views are extreme and far outside the mainstream thought on this important issue.  But that’s the Maverick McCain for you.

The summary paragraph of last Tuesday’s study of John McCain’s healthcare plan says it all (emphasis mine):

Achieving Senator McCain’s vision would radically transform the U.S. health insurance system. His plan would alter the nature, source, and financing of coverage for the nearly 160 million Americans who now receive health insurance through their employers. We estimate that twenty million Americans–about one in every eight people with job-based coverage–would lose their current coverage as a result of the change in the tax treatment of coverage. Initially, this loss of job-based coverage would be offset by an increase in coverage in the nongroup market (although not necessarily for the same individuals). Within five years, however, the net effect of the plan is expected to be a net reduction in coverage relative to what would have been observed if the tax treatment of employer-sponsored coverage remains as it is now. The decline of job-based coverage would force millions of Americans into the weakest segment of the private insurance system–the nongroup market–where cost sharing is high and covered services are limited. Senator McCain’s proposal to deregulate this market would mean that people in it would lose protections they now have. These changes would diminish the security of coverage for most Americans, especially those who are not–or someday will not be–in perfect health.

As has been said in plenty of places online and off, after seeing the disaster in de-regulating the banking industry, do we really want to de-regulate the healthcare system?