Displaying 1,081 To 1,110 Of 5,146 Comments food – probably for the best! None of us could catch our breath for laughing!!! » Posted By choicelady On February 7, 2012 @ 6:57 pm OMG!!!! How AWFUL and how awfully funny!!!! » Posted By choicelady On February 7, 2012 @ 6:55 pm LOL!!!!! AB – you can do any damn thing you want because you really do get it and you make us crack up no matter what. We miss you, too, dear heart. We’re here if you want us, here if you need us. And we laugh deliciously a lot because of you! Be well! » Posted By choicelady On February 7, 2012 @ 6:54 pm YOU, girlfriend??? NEVER! » Posted By choicelady On February 3, 2012 @ 1:02 pm Be strong! Not your fault! Technology gremlins live! We love you! » Posted By choicelady On February 3, 2012 @ 8:20 am BullyProgs – Tea Party Tactics by Progressives Kill Single Payer in CA YIKES! What a dangerous process they’ve allowed themselves. I hope they understand what power they’ve handed the little guy. This Grand Old Party is in tatters. Wow. » Posted By choicelady On February 11, 2012 @ 7:02 am Murph – thank you! Lots of anger out there about “dissing the movement”, but if our tactics cause harm, then we have to rethink the tactics. Seems simple enough, right? But the fundamental issue for too many people is – no damn critic is gonna tell ME what to do! How people can get involved in the democractic process and know so little about it is beyond my ken. I guess as our parents feared from our watching too much TV, we DO learn all we know from the actions of others. Being the Tea Party seems to be the standard. How depressing is that? I like your summary of the process – spread that far and wide please! » Posted By choicelady On February 11, 2012 @ 6:58 am Thanks for you faith in those of us who are seriously depressed about this! We will fall back and regroup I hope. But – how to keep this from happening again? I don’t know. » Posted By choicelady On February 6, 2012 @ 8:53 pm Tweet away, my friend, tweet away! BTW – yup, that’s my alter ego over on the other pages. Nice of you to notice! Always keep ’em confused, I say. » Posted By choicelady On February 4, 2012 @ 10:42 pm I KNOW you are right about a great number of them. The tales I could tell that are NOT written here! BullyProgs begin as EmoProgs. (Maybe that’s the tadpole stage?) Watching people pound tables and insist they are absolutely right when they are absolutely WRONG is one of the more stunning spectacles of all of this. First rule of the advocacy business – know how your system works, follow the rules, and know your bill contents. Second rule – be polite even when you’re losing. Third rule – figure out what was left undone then do it right the next time. Fourth rule – don’t act like Baggers, not EVER. Hope we get a repeat. But I fear we won’t. It is totally unclear who’d ever work with these folks again. Even the nice folks got tarred with THIS brush, and it would not be possible to keep the BullyProgs out of any future actions anyway. Democracy can be a bitch that way. Sigh. » Posted By choicelady On February 4, 2012 @ 7:17 pm You know your stuff! That is right on the money, KQ. The systems are all so different, and most were built piecemeal as this will be. What I do not understand is the presumption that following the very nations we admire is somehow a sell out. The IgnoProg who said smugly that it would cost “only 17% of your income” (YIKES – it better NOT be that expensive) I think is confusing it with the Canadian VAT of 17%. That is nowhere near that percent of your income. However, Canadian means of paying via the VAT is highly REGRESSIVE putting the greatest burden on the poor as all sales-level taxes do. I don’t know if there are rebates to those in need (as there are for tourists!) but it’s not the best way, and we should not go there FIRST. I am sick at heart that the very people who ought to know this stuff cold actually don’t have a clue. So all they had left was rage at people whom they had perplexed from that lack of essential fiscal information. Sigh. » Posted By choicelady On February 4, 2012 @ 7:11 pm Thank you, Nirek. We are trying to find a route to salvage this. But unless we are utterly undemocratic and throw the rascals out (as if we could!) I’m not sure what to do. We in the single payer community OUGHT to be homogenous but have very different views of how to proceed. I guess it was naive to think that basic civility toward strangers (legislators and staff) would be a part of anything we did. I was wrong. The bad taste it has left for the issue is WRONG, but it’s inevitable. Don’t have a clue yet what are our next steps. But we WILL keep trying if we can. » Posted By choicelady On February 4, 2012 @ 9:59 am KQ – you’ve defined one of the essential issues that never was addressed. In Michael Moore’s “Sicko” he never raised the issue that in France, Germany, Switzerland and many other countries, universal coverage comes via highly regulated private insurance. From the early days of legislation, that issue was raised – and rejected – by single payer true believers. They wanted the Canadian system or Medicare for All which is fine, but it might have moved more smoothly to figure ways to integrate insurance payers. NOT that it would have been easy! The insurance industry hates ACA for its rate regulation! But the issues was never discussed since it feel immediately under the bus of “stickin’ it to the insurance industry.” People do NOT care how their health care is paid for, just so long as it is genuinely affordable, does not have caps, does not burden them with debt even when they have it (a massive weakness in the Massachusetts plan that has very high deductibles and out of pocket costs), does not obstruct care decisions by doctors, does not deprive them of choices in doctors, and does not involve huge paperwork for them to do. If you can achieve that with insurance? Fine. Via a Medicare type system? Fine. Just DO it. To shift the focus from wanting to provide truly universal health care to wanting to gut capitalism loses the point entirely and makes single payer via government a political rather than a health care issue. If we had private insurance with tight rate regulation and care coverage provision mandates, we’d be France or Germany. And that supposedly is excellent care admired by CA single payer people. But just not here. How foolish. » Posted By choicelady On February 4, 2012 @ 7:56 am Thanks, Sally. Yes – I hope another route can be found. The hundreds of “outside” groups that worked so hard for this plan will have to find out whether there’s anything to salvage then try to do so. Only time will tell. » Posted By choicelady On February 4, 2012 @ 7:44 am They promised numbers. They delivered nothing. They promulgated total distortions about the bill – things that made it appear very expensive to families and individuals – even though Sen. Kuehl had some fairly decent workups in a very early version. They never even read their OWN bill. They could not be bothered to do the work of interacting with health care people seeking to administer the federal reform (since they saw it as a sell out and refused to know what was IN it) so there was no way to work on how single payer would dovetail with ACA. Pounding tables and snarling at legislators is all they know. They are true believers – except they cannot even explain what it is they believe! Good luck moving this to the ballot. There was no money for it before for whatever reason. It would be a massively expensive signature drive and campaign, and they raised nothing for their first foray. They would still need fiscal analysis, a spending and benefit plan, a program to work this in as the ACA option – and none of that is of interest to them. They have a committee to DO that made up of fiscal experts on health care, but they could not even get up the energy to raise the $250,000 it would take to get that done. Nope. All it takes is accepting THEIR word single payer is the only way to go. No evidence, just their declarations of superiority. Everyone else who needs numbers and policy is just stupid and a sell out to the insurance industry. Yeah – that’s why so many people in so many organizations spent all that time working on this. It’s those people, the ones who really did believe single payer was really important but ALSO understood the hard work, whom the blowhard bullies have betrayed. » Posted By choicelady On February 4, 2012 @ 12:40 am Hi Sue- Well, we’d have been the SECOND. Vermont passed theirs in May last year. One of the sidebar problems with the group is that they would never believe that Obama had promised a waiver to VT that when they did pass single payer AND had a concrete plan for their program, he would see that HHS gave them a waiver. This would make VT single payer the state option in 2014. NO ONE believed me when I said it. I gave sources (Bernie Sanders’ web site newsroom, Feb. 28, 2011) so then they said, sneeringly, “Well, it’s only a PROMISE.” Arrrgggh! Of course it is – until the bill passed and the plan was documented, it could not APPLY for the waiver!!!!! What part of reality do these people NOT understand? None of them would approach Boxer or Feinstein to see if WE could have them ask for a waiver. None of them would work with the existing health care departments and programs to figure out how we could dovetail single payer with what CA was doing on the ground to implement federal health care. They were too GOOD to do that. But they ALSO would not do their own internal work, namely the fiscal policy. Instead, the meme, as KQ has so rightly pointed out, is that they never “promised” it. Well – YES THEY DID. But then they got their attention diverted with the next bright shiny object, and they lost interest in fund raising or doing the work needed to move votes. I suppose it’s remotely possible some of this will smooth over, but the bill cannot be re-introduced until 2013 in any credible fashion, and Senator Leno is highly UNlikely to wish to repeat this performance. Maybe I’m wrong, but sentiments everywhere this week were: single payer with THOSE people? Are you insane? Opportunity lost to laziness, ego, and angry posturing. Despicable. » Posted By choicelady On February 3, 2012 @ 6:07 pm es – it’s taken me a very long time to get used to new/old celebrations of hags. It’s when a woman turns 70. Period. But yeah – now we use it as a nasty image. Same with crone (when you turn 60.) But this woman was the negative personification of the BAD meaning of hag – and she is not even that old. I think of Dorothy Parker’s comeback when I think of this woman. Someone said to Parker that a mutual acquaintance was “her own worst enemy”, and Parker retorted, “Not as long as I’m alive.” I’m there with respect to this bitch/hag/asshat. Not as long as *I* am alive! Especially now that I know what she said to YOU, one of the most thoughtful and valuable people EVER. Fie on narcissistic faux progressives! » Posted By choicelady On February 3, 2012 @ 4:37 pm I know, KQ. I know. Thanks. » Posted By choicelady On February 3, 2012 @ 2:16 pm Hi funk – I ordinarily would understand the suspicion, but these four (turned out there were five at the vote) were people whom we knew – or should have known. They were not troglodytes, and EVEN IF THEY WERE, they and their staff members are human beings. Staffers are mostly at the bottom of the totem pole and are part of the 1%. It is FINE to be really strong and affirmative – “I really want you to vote for this, I care about this issue intensely, and your vote will affect MY vote” – but it’s another to start calling people fascists and sell outs and screaming at them. It might even be helpful to ask WHY the legislator abstained. In every case – I asked this myself – it was real worry over the fiscal implications and the lack of evidence to erase those concerns. I am all too familiar with wacko RW actors. We have them. Yes! Even in CA! But in no way does it make sense to harass and abuse them and their staff members. Once – OK only once – an extremist and we wound up on the same side of an issue. (Even blind pigs can find an acorn once in awhile…) You never know where your support will be on another issue. You also never know if you might change minds. We have a GOP supporter for a government reform bill challenging Citizens United! Screaming at him would not have been a good idea. What transpired in WI etc. required exactly what the labor folks did – mass demonstrations, media, large-scale actions. Our “mass” demonstrations for single payer total about, oh, 100 people on a really good day. Only once – at the world premier of “Sicko” with Michael Moore present – did we have thousands. If we can’t do better than that, firm but courteous opposition under fire is a must. It’s a sad, sad day when progressives act like Baggers. The harm done is incalculable. And I for one feel betrayed that this issue that our members so strongly supported was killed with hateful speech and lousy manner. It would have been so productive the other way ’round. » Posted By choicelady On February 3, 2012 @ 2:15 pm I want to follow up on SueinCA’s observation. I realized that what you wrote about this blogger and what she said, that she boasted she’d not take health care until EVERYONE had health care, makes me pretty sure I KNOW HER. Not online – in person. It did not sink in immediately, but if it’s the same Firedogger who was once part of single payer, she is the ONLY person in 10 years that had me quietly but determinedly back in her face, with my teeth gritted, flames out my ears. I don’t want to go into the details of what she said to get me that furious – but I came out significantly ahead in a quiet but unrelenting rebuttal of her total assholery. She never got within 20 feet of me EVER again. My parting words to her were, “Oh, get OVER yourself!” I will now think back on that encounter with REAL pleasure, and consider it as “taking on the bitch for escat!” That line – “I won’t take health care…” – was her brazen signature boast. Turns out she had private insurance. Presuming there are not two such jerky women in the world with the same bad line, you can think of yourself as already vindicated! Hah! It might please you to know she worked for a single payer advocacy group – and eventually got fired ’cause she was too obnoxious even for them. Double HAH! » Posted By choicelady On February 3, 2012 @ 1:46 pm escat – HOORAY! I’m so glad you have coverage at last! And this was sneeringly rejected by single payer people – which means, in essence, that they reject YOU. The two plans can and should work together, but EmoProgs have no clue what is in federal reform and how it helps people. The 2014 coverage cost schedule is virtually identical to CA’s single payer! It’s NOT “RomneyCare”. It has, by default, a “public option” now, and that’s what is covering you I imagine. The High Risk Pool has given millions the affordable NON-private care coverage they need and want. Shock! Horror! Awful! But you and I and several others here know how GREAT this program is, and if the EmoProgs would focus on health care and stop deciding they want to “overthrow the system” – whatever THAT means – then compassion for you would be the FIRST, not the LAST thing they care about. I celebrate your health, and I’m SO happy it’s working for you! That’s great news, and thank you for sharing it with us. » Posted By choicelady On February 3, 2012 @ 1:01 pm AdLib – I think your last lines are the essence: you have to be Progressive in your humanity as well. I fear that this story will take on the “urban Capitol legend” quality so many others have. Lots and lots of things do or do not occur because of past practices. I can’t see this escaping. The assumptions too many Progressives make is that a legislator does not vote because he or she is either stupid or in hock to some special interest. Well, a GOOD legislator needs information, and this slate of legislators do not have it. Why would someone vote for a bill without knowing if it will help or hurt their constitutents? One of advocates for single payer went around bragging, “Oh – it’ll only cost you 17% of your incomes!” WHAT??? That’s what we pay for PRIVATE insurance NOW. Furthermore, that is double – DOUBLE – both what the original fiscal analysis a decade ago thought it would cost individuals and families, AND also twice what one would pay for federal health reform coverage up to 400% of the federal poverty level. Who in their right mind would inflict TWICE the cost on someone? So proponents are spreading WRONG and DAMAGING information, too. It is a sad day when good sense cannot prevail, when the heavy lifting of providing good insight into cost effectiveness is, well, too heavy, and when emotional self-gratification of “stickin’ it to the man” trumps winning a critical piece of legislation that benefits us all. » Posted By choicelady On February 3, 2012 @ 12:56 pm It might benefit California residents AND everyone else to know that the Fair Political Practices Commission determined that Citizens United did NOT prohibt each state from demanding full disclosure of contributors to PACs and 527 independent expenditure campaigns. While they did not ask a great deal of them, FPPC does currently demand that the top TWO donors be publicly revealed. The DISCLOSE Act died Tuesday, but it is coming back loudly in about a month. It is AB 1148 all you Californians (though it might have a new number when it’s re-entered) that insists the top THREE funders be public on ALL CAMPAIGN ADS, regardless of whether they are independent expenditures or candidates’ ads. And the top FIVE have to be disclosed to FPPC (that has a very public web page where you can learn that information.) So everyone in CA – watch for the updates. I WILL be keeping you informed. Other folks, other states (OK – Ohio? Probably not going to work there) can do the same. Demand your state political regulation commission or agency gets disclosure of at LEAST the top two. Use CA as a precedent. The man who did this was Dan Schnur – a Republican. » Posted By choicelady On February 2, 2012 @ 7:27 pm It’s damn well about time! PBGC exists for hardship NOT for cushy living for corporate bottom lines. Do the execs at AA NOT remember that they lost people on 9/11? These are NOT fungible commodities, Board members, they are the backbone of your service! Pensions are THEIRS, and the sooner we stop deciding the “corporate contribution” belongs to the corporation the better off Americans will be. No – they belong to the employee – it’s the market contract you’d not abrogate with anyone but, well, REAL people. Stick it to ’em, PBGC! » Posted By choicelady On February 2, 2012 @ 7:21 pm It’s a delicious variant on the joke about the road outside the coloseum lined with people dying on crosses as the gladiators, soldiers, beautiful women on litters, musicians and acrobats, jugglers, and flower-strewing maidens all stream by ahead of the Emperor. As the Emperor draws near, he spots one man still alive whose lips are moving. He commands his servants to take a ladder up and see what the man is saying. When they get up there they hear the man singing: “I-I-I-I love a parade…” » Posted By choicelady On February 2, 2012 @ 8:53 pm jj – not to be pushy since I do NOT know where you live, but please, please go to: Fill in the easy queries – state, needs, etc., and it will direct you to what is available in low cost health coverage. No matter if you’re living in a scum-sucking we-hate-health-reform state, there may well be a federal outlet for you that you CAN afford now. And if your ‘free’ clinics are not free, there may be a fraud or some kind of means testing. If it’s federally funded, you kinda might want to have someone check that out. Most free clinics ARE free! Hope you’re better and recovering. There is a lot of supernasty stuff floating around. Be well and stay in touch with us! We’ll worry about you! » Posted By choicelady On February 2, 2012 @ 8:49 pm Wince – he misquoted. I LOVE that he said it, but it reads: “From those to whom much is given, much is required.” Oh well – I don’t want him for Pope. It is tres cool he said it since that’s one of the lines I use in lobbying the conservative christocrats in the legislature: “stop gouging the poor and rewarding the rich, you suckers! Jesus SAID so!” LOVE this president! » Posted By choicelady On February 2, 2012 @ 8:44 pm VERY cool! » Posted By choicelady On February 2, 2012 @ 8:40 pm Kalima and AdLib – especially AdLib: You both are better theologians and far more passionate spiritual people than Pat Robertson, Jack Van Impe, James Hagee, and all the gaggle of “televangelists” ever dreamed of being. These birds are NOT Christians. They are Old Testamentarians for whom Jesus is just the “get out of jail free” card. They invoke JC’s name to hope they’ll fly right up to Heaven. I suspect they’re in for a major surprise should that be what happens “after”. Thanks for JC’s letter, AdLib. I just want to know though – when JC plays Angry Birds with Steve Jobs – has he substituted Dominionist Christians and Sap Sucking Mormons for the birds? It’d be a new twist to the game. He should patent it. Though where they’d send the royalties is a puzzle. Anyway, AdLib, we knew you were thick with God, but knowing you’re on first name basis with JC just increases your cred! And Kalima – JC will be SO glad you understand his message! So many who profess, do not. Have a great day, y’all! Just be sure you don’t text and drive… » Posted By choicelady On February 2, 2012 @ 7:37 am Congratulations on the “bicentennial” of Daily Planet, Cher! What you provide us is priceless, and we can’t thank you enough for all you do – and do and do and do. (No – not 200 of them. What? You don’t have enough to read?) We love you, thank you, and read everything ever day. Oh the other printed papers should have such devoted followers! And – NO ADS! Please know how much we appreciate all this great information. It’s one of the best posts or “daily papers” in the nation. Thank you! » Posted By choicelady On February 1, 2012 @ 8:21 amComments Posted By choicelady
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