Did Obama commit to a public option? Or did he waver enough to let it be dropped? While reading his remarks from last night I noticed Obama was very direct about calling out some of the lies; but I also noticed he was somewhat circumspect regarding a government run insurance program.

Text of last night’s Presidential remarks follows:

Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery

Address to a Joint Session of Congress on Health Care

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

Washington, DC

Madame Speaker, Vice President Biden, Members of Congress, and the American people:

When I spoke here last winter, this nation was facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We were losing an average of 700,000 jobs per month. Credit was frozen. And our financial system was on the verge of collapse.

As any American who is still looking for work or a way to pay their bills will tell you, we are by no means out of the woods. A full and vibrant recovery is many months away. And I will not let up until those Americans who seek jobs can find them; until those businesses that seek capital and credit can thrive; until all responsible homeowners can stay in their homes. That is our ultimate goal. But thanks to the bold and decisive action we have taken since January, I can stand here with confidence and say that we have pulled this economy back from the brink.

I want to thank the members of this body for your efforts and your support in these last several months, and especially those who have taken the difficult votes that have put us on a path to recovery. I also want to thank the American people for their patience and resolve during this trying time for our nation.

But we did not come here just to clean up crises. We came to build a future. So tonight, I return to speak to all of you about an issue that is central to that future – and that is the issue of health care.

I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last. It has now been nearly a century since Theodore Roosevelt first called for health care reform. And ever since, nearly every President and Congress, whether Democrat or Republican, has attempted to meet this challenge in some way. A bill for comprehensive health reform was first introduced by John Dingell Sr. in 1943. Sixty-five years later, his son continues to introduce that same bill at the beginning of each session.

Our collective failure to meet this challenge – year after year, decade after decade – has led us to a breaking point. Everyone understands the extraordinary hardships that are placed on the uninsured, who live every day just one accident or illness away from bankruptcy. These are not primarily people on welfare. These are middle-class Americans. Some can’t get insurance on the job. Others are self-employed, and can’t afford it, since buying insurance on your own costs you three times as much as the coverage you get from your employer. Many other Americans who are willing and able to pay are still denied insurance due to previous illnesses or conditions that insurance companies decide are too risky or expensive to cover.

We are the only advanced democracy on Earth – the only wealthy nation – that allows such hardships for millions of its people. There are now more than thirty million American citizens who cannot get coverage. In just a two year period, one in every three Americans goes without health care coverage at some point. And every day, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage. In other words, it can happen to anyone.

But the problem that plagues the health care system is not just a problem of the uninsured. Those who do have insurance have never had less security and stability than they do today. More and more Americans worry that if you move, lose your job, or change your job, you’ll lose your health insurance too. More and more Americans pay their premiums, only to discover that their insurance company has dropped their coverage when they get sick, or won’t pay the full cost of care. It happens every day.

One man from Illinois lost his coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because his insurer found that he hadn’t reported gallstones that he didn’t even know about. They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it. Another woman from Texas was about to get a double mastectomy when her insurance company canceled her policy because she forgot to declare a case of acne. By the time she had her insurance reinstated, her breast cancer more than doubled in size. That is heart-breaking, it is wrong, and no one should be treated that way in the United States of America.

Then there’s the problem of rising costs. We spend one-and-a-half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren’t any healthier for it. This is one of the reasons that insurance premiums have gone up three times faster than wages. It’s why so many employers – especially small businesses – are forcing their employees to pay more for insurance, or are dropping their coverage entirely. It’s why so many aspiring entrepreneurs cannot afford to open a business in the first place, and why American businesses that compete internationally – like our automakers – are at a huge disadvantage. And it’s why those of us with health insurance are also paying a hidden and growing tax for those without it – about $1000 per year that pays for somebody else’s emergency room and charitable care.

Finally, our health care system is placing an unsustainable burden on taxpayers. When health care costs grow at the rate they have, it puts greater pressure on programs like Medicare and Medicaid. If we do nothing to slow these skyrocketing costs, we will eventually be spending more on Medicare and Medicaid than every other government program combined. Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close.

These are the facts. Nobody disputes them. We know we must reform this system. The question is how.

There are those on the left who believe that the only way to fix the system is through a single-payer system like Canada’s, where we would severely restrict the private insurance market and have the government provide coverage for everyone. On the right, there are those who argue that we should end the employer-based system and leave individuals to buy health insurance on their own.

I have to say that there are arguments to be made for both approaches. But either one would represent a radical shift that would disrupt the health care most people currently have. Since health care represents one-sixth of our economy, I believe it makes more sense to build on what works and fix what doesn’t, rather than try to build an entirely new system from scratch. And that is precisely what those of you in Congress have tried to do over the past several months.

During that time, we have seen Washington at its best and its worst.

We have seen many in this chamber work tirelessly for the better part of this year to offer thoughtful ideas about how to achieve reform. Of the five committees asked to develop bills, four have completed their work, and the Senate Finance Committee announced today that it will move forward next week. That has never happened before. Our overall efforts have been supported by an unprecedented coalition of doctors and nurses; hospitals, seniors’ groups and even drug companies – many of whom opposed reform in the past. And there is agreement in this chamber on about eighty percent of what needs to be done, putting us closer to the goal of reform than we have ever been.

But what we have also seen in these last months is the same partisan spectacle that only hardens the disdain many Americans have toward their own government. Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics. Some have dug into unyielding ideological camps that offer no hope of compromise. Too many have used this as an opportunity to score short-term political points, even if it robs the country of our opportunity to solve a long-term challenge. And out of this blizzard of charges and counter-charges, confusion has reigned.

Well the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action. Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together, and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. Now is the time to deliver on health care.

The plan I’m announcing tonight would meet three basic goals:

It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance to those who don’t. And it will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government. It’s a plan that asks everyone to take responsibility for meeting this challenge – not just government and insurance companies, but employers and individuals. And it’s a plan that incorporates ideas from Senators and Congressmen; from Democrats and Republicans – and yes, from some of my opponents in both the primary and general election.

Here are the details that every American needs to know about this plan:

First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. Let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.

What this plan will do is to make the insurance you have work better for you. Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick. And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies – because there’s no reason we shouldn’t be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse. That makes sense, it saves money, and it saves lives.

That’s what Americans who have health insurance can expect from this plan – more security and stability.

Now, if you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans who don’t currently have health insurance, the second part of this plan will finally offer you quality, affordable choices. If you lose your job or change your job, you will be able to get coverage. If you strike out on your own and start a small business, you will be able to get coverage. We will do this by creating a new insurance exchange – a marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for health insurance at competitive prices. Insurance companies will have an incentive to participate in this exchange because it lets them compete for millions of new customers. As one big group, these customers will have greater leverage to bargain with the insurance companies for better prices and quality coverage. This is how large companies and government employees get affordable insurance. It’s how everyone in this Congress gets affordable insurance. And it’s time to give every American the same opportunity that we’ve given ourselves.

For those individuals and small businesses who still cannot afford the lower-priced insurance available in the exchange, we will provide tax credits, the size of which will be based on your need. And all insurance companies that want access to this new marketplace will have to abide by the consumer protections I already mentioned. This exchange will take effect in four years, which will give us time to do it right. In the meantime, for those Americans who can’t get insurance today because they have pre-existing medical conditions, we will immediately offer low-cost coverage that will protect you against financial ruin if you become seriously ill. This was a good idea when Senator John McCain proposed it in the campaign, it’s a good idea now, and we should embrace it.

Now, even if we provide these affordable options, there may be those – particularly the young and healthy – who still want to take the risk and go without coverage. There may still be companies that refuse to do right by their workers. The problem is, such irresponsible behavior costs all the rest of us money. If there are affordable options and people still don’t sign up for health insurance, it means we pay for those people’s expensive emergency room visits. If some businesses don’t provide workers health care, it forces the rest of us to pick up the tab when their workers get sick, and gives those businesses an unfair advantage over their competitors. And unless everybody does their part, many of the insurance reforms we seek – especially requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions – just can’t be achieved.

That’s why under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance – just as most states require you to carry auto insurance. Likewise, businesses will be required to either offer their workers health care, or chip in to help cover the cost of their workers. There will be a hardship waiver for those individuals who still cannot afford coverage, and 95% of all small businesses, because of their size and narrow profit margin, would be exempt from these requirements. But we cannot have large businesses and individuals who can afford coverage game the system by avoiding responsibility to themselves or their employees. Improving our health care system only works if everybody does their part.

While there remain some significant details to be ironed out, I believe a broad consensus exists for the aspects of the plan I just outlined: consumer protections for those with insurance, an exchange that allows individuals and small businesses to purchase affordable coverage, and a requirement that people who can afford insurance get insurance.

And I have no doubt that these reforms would greatly benefit Americans from all walks of life, as well as the economy as a whole. Still, given all the misinformation that’s been spread over the past few months, I realize that many Americans have grown nervous about reform. So tonight I’d like to address some of the key controversies that are still out there.

Some of people’s concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Such a charge would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.

There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false – the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up – under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.

My health care proposal has also been attacked by some who oppose reform as a “government takeover” of the entire health care system. As proof, critics point to a provision in our plan that allows the uninsured and small businesses to choose a publicly-sponsored insurance option, administered by the government just like Medicaid or Medicare.

So let me set the record straight. My guiding principle is, and always has been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition. Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75% of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. In Alabama, almost 90% is controlled by just one company. Without competition, the price of insurance goes up and the quality goes down. And it makes it easier for insurance companies to treat their customers badly – by cherry-picking the healthiest individuals and trying to drop the sickest; by overcharging small businesses who have no leverage; and by jacking up rates.

Insurance executives don’t do this because they are bad people. They do it because it’s profitable. As one former insurance executive testified before Congress, insurance companies are not only encouraged to find reasons to drop the seriously ill; they are rewarded for it. All of this is in service of meeting what this former executive called “Wall Street’s relentless profit expectations.”

Now, I have no interest in putting insurance companies out of business. They provide a legitimate service, and employ a lot of our friends and neighbors. I just want to hold them accountable. The insurance reforms that I’ve already mentioned would do just that. But an additional step we can take to keep insurance companies honest is by making a not-for-profit public option available in the insurance exchange. Let me be clear – it would only be an option for those who don’t have insurance. No one would be forced to choose it, and it would not impact those of you who already have insurance. In fact, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, we believe that less than 5% of Americans would sign up.

Despite all this, the insurance companies and their allies don’t like this idea. They argue that these private companies can’t fairly compete with the government. And they’d be right if taxpayers were subsidizing this public insurance option. But they won’t be. I have insisted that like any private insurance company, the public insurance option would have to be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects. But by avoiding some of the overhead that gets eaten up at private companies by profits, excessive administrative costs and executive salaries, it could provide a good deal for consumers. It would also keep pressure on private insurers to keep their policies affordable and treat their customers better, the same way public colleges and universities provide additional choice and competition to students without in any way inhibiting a vibrant system of private colleges and universities.

It’s worth noting that a strong majority of Americans still favor a public insurance option of the sort I’ve proposed tonight. But its impact shouldn’t be exaggerated – by the left, the right, or the media. It is only one part of my plan, and should not be used as a handy excuse for the usual Washington ideological battles. To my progressive friends, I would remind you that for decades, the driving idea behind reform has been to end insurance company abuses and make coverage affordable for those without it. The public option is only a means to that end – and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal. And to my Republican friends, I say that rather than making wild claims about a government takeover of health care, we should work together to address any legitimate concerns you may have.

For example, some have suggested that that the public option go into effect only in those markets where insurance companies are not providing affordable policies. Others propose a co-op or another non-profit entity to administer the plan. These are all constructive ideas worth exploring. But I will not back down on the basic principle that if Americans can’t find affordable coverage, we will provide you with a choice. And I will make sure that no government bureaucrat or insurance company bureaucrat gets between you and the care that you need.

Finally, let me discuss an issue that is a great concern to me, to members of this chamber, and to the public – and that is how we pay for this plan.

Here’s what you need to know. First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits – either now or in the future. Period. And to prove that I’m serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don’t materialize.

Part of the reason I faced a trillion dollar deficit when I walked in the door of the White House is because too many initiatives over the last decade were not paid for – from the Iraq War to tax breaks for the wealthy. I will not make that same mistake with health care.

Second, we’ve estimated that most of this plan can be paid for by finding savings within the existing health care system – a system that is currently full of waste and abuse. Right now, too much of the hard-earned savings and tax dollars we spend on health care doesn’t make us healthier. That’s not my judgment – it’s the judgment of medical professionals across this country. And this is also true when it comes to Medicare and Medicaid.

In fact, I want to speak directly to America’s seniors for a moment, because Medicare is another issue that’s been subjected to demagoguery and distortion during the course of this debate.

More than four decades ago, this nation stood up for the principle that after a lifetime of hard work, our seniors should not be left to struggle with a pile of medical bills in their later years. That is how Medicare was born. And it remains a sacred trust that must be passed down from one generation to the next. That is why not a dollar of the Medicare trust fund will be used to pay for this plan.

The only thing this plan would eliminate is the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud, as well as unwarranted subsidies in Medicare that go to insurance companies – subsidies that do everything to pad their profits and nothing to improve your care. And we will also create an independent commission of doctors and medical experts charged with identifying more waste in the years ahead.

These steps will ensure that you – America’s seniors – get the benefits you’ve been promised. They will ensure that Medicare is there for future generations. And we can use some of the savings to fill the gap in coverage that forces too many seniors to pay thousands of dollars a year out of their own pocket for prescription drugs. That’s what this plan will do for you. So don’t pay attention to those scary stories about how your benefits will be cut – especially since some of the same folks who are spreading these tall tales have fought against Medicare in the past, and just this year supported a budget that would have essentially turned Medicare into a privatized voucher program. That will never happen on my watch. I will protect Medicare.

Now, because Medicare is such a big part of the health care system, making the program more efficient can help usher in changes in the way we deliver health care that can reduce costs for everybody. We have long known that some places, like the Intermountain Healthcare in Utah or the Geisinger Health System in rural Pennsylvania, offer high-quality care at costs below average. The commission can help encourage the adoption of these common-sense best practices by doctors and medical professionals throughout the system – everything from reducing hospital infection rates to encouraging better coordination between teams of doctors.

Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan. Much of the rest would be paid for with revenues from the very same drug and insurance companies that stand to benefit from tens of millions of new customers. This reform will charge insurance companies a fee for their most expensive policies, which will encourage them to provide greater value for the money – an idea which has the support of Democratic and Republican experts. And according to these same experts, this modest change could help hold down the cost of health care for all of us in the long-run.

Finally, many in this chamber – particularly on the Republican side of the aisle – have long insisted that reforming our medical malpractice laws can help bring down the cost of health care. I don’t believe malpractice reform is a silver bullet, but I have talked to enough doctors to know that defensive medicine may be contributing to unnecessary costs. So I am proposing that we move forward on a range of ideas about how to put patient safety first and let doctors focus on practicing medicine. I know that the Bush Administration considered authorizing demonstration projects in individual states to test these issues. It’s a good idea, and I am directing my Secretary of Health and Human Services to move forward on this initiative today.

Add it all up, and the plan I’m proposing will cost around $900 billion over ten years – less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration. Most of these costs will be paid for with money already being spent – but spent badly – in the existing health care system. The plan will not add to our deficit. The middle-class will realize greater security, not higher taxes. And if we are able to slow the growth of health care costs by just one-tenth of one percent each year, it will actually reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the long term.

This is the plan I’m proposing. It’s a plan that incorporates ideas from many of the people in this room tonight – Democrats and Republicans. And I will continue to seek common ground in the weeks ahead. If you come to me with a serious set of proposals, I will be there to listen. My door is always open.

But know this: I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than improve it. I will not stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are. If you misrepresent what’s in the plan, we will call you out. And I will not accept the status quo as a solution. Not this time. Not now.

Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result. We know these things to be true.

That is why we cannot fail. Because there are too many Americans counting on us to succeed – the ones who suffer silently, and the ones who shared their stories with us at town hall meetings, in emails, and in letters.

I received one of those letters a few days ago. It was from our beloved friend and colleague, Ted Kennedy. He had written it back in May, shortly after he was told that his illness was terminal. He asked that it be delivered upon his death.

In it, he spoke about what a happy time his last months were, thanks to the love and support of family and friends, his wife, Vicki, and his children, who are here tonight . And he expressed confidence that this would be the year that health care reform – “that great unfinished business of our society,” he called it – would finally pass. He repeated the truth that health care is decisive for our future prosperity, but he also reminded me that “it concerns more than material things.” “What we face,” he wrote, “is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.”

I’ve thought about that phrase quite a bit in recent days – the character of our country. One of the unique and wonderful things about America has always been our self-reliance, our rugged individualism, our fierce defense of freedom and our healthy skepticism of government. And figuring out the appropriate size and role of government has always been a source of rigorous and sometimes angry debate.

For some of Ted Kennedy’s critics, his brand of liberalism represented an affront to American liberty. In their mind, his passion for universal health care was nothing more than a passion for big government.

But those of us who knew Teddy and worked with him here – people of both parties – know that what drove him was something more. His friend, Orrin Hatch, knows that. They worked together to provide children with health insurance. His friend John McCain knows that. They worked together on a Patient’s Bill of Rights. His friend Chuck Grassley knows that. They worked together to provide health care to children with disabilities.

On issues like these, Ted Kennedy’s passion was born not of some rigid ideology, but of his own experience. It was the experience of having two children stricken with cancer. He never forgot the sheer terror and helplessness that any parent feels when a child is badly sick; and he was able to imagine what it must be like for those without insurance; what it would be like to have to say to a wife or a child or an aging parent – there is something that could make you better, but I just can’t afford it.

That large-heartedness – that concern and regard for the plight of others – is not a partisan feeling. It is not a Republican or a Democratic feeling. It, too, is part of the American character. Our ability to stand in other people’s shoes. A recognition that we are all in this together; that when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand. A belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play; and an acknowledgement that sometimes government has to step in to help deliver on that promise.

This has always been the history of our progress. In 1933, when over half of our seniors could not support themselves and millions had seen their savings wiped away, there were those who argued that Social Security would lead to socialism. But the men and women of Congress stood fast, and we are all the better for it. In 1965, when some argued that Medicare represented a government takeover of health care, members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, did not back down. They joined together so that all of us could enter our golden years with some basic peace of mind.

You see, our predecessors understood that government could not, and should not, solve every problem. They understood that there are instances when the gains in security from government action are not worth the added constraints on our freedom. But they also understood that the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little; that without the leavening hand of wise policy, markets can crash, monopolies can stifle competition, and the vulnerable can be exploited. And they knew that when any government measure, no matter how carefully crafted or beneficial, is subject to scorn; when any efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American; when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter – that at that point we don’t merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges. We lose something essential about ourselves.

What was true then remains true today. I understand how difficult this health care debate has been. I know that many in this country are deeply skeptical that government is looking out for them. I understand that the politically safe move would be to kick the can further down the road – to defer reform one more year, or one more election, or one more term.

But that’s not what the moment calls for. That’s not what we came here to do. We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it. I still believe we can act even when it’s hard. I still believe we can replace acrimony with civility, and gridlock with progress. I still believe we can do great things, and that here and now we will meet history’s test.

Because that is who we are. That is our calling. That is our character. Thank you, God Bless You, and may God Bless the United States of America.  

Blessed by birthright, Lil’ Tom has well-fared.

But for prime time, he’s seemed ill-prepared.

With Jim’s other good boys,

He’s tried hard to make noise

But in the end, turns out nobody cared.

Jim Douglas was quoted in the Free Press saying that Tom Salmon’s switch to the Republican Party should be seen as a wake up call to the Democratic Party. Douglas said that Democratic Party members are out of touch with ordinary Vermonters. First of all, doesn’t the Left alliance of Democratic and Progressive Party members hold a super majority in the state legislature? Isn’t it true that Vermonters voted Democratic for every state office except for Governor and Lt Governor? Isn’t it true that our entire Federal Delegation is in the Democratic caucus? Surly this isn’t all a coincident. I could see maybe a seat or two being a coincident, but not a super majority it the legislature, almost every state office and the entire Federal Delegation. The other question one should ask is would Salmon have been able to get elected in the first place as a Republican or Independent? And will it be possible for Tom Salmon to win re election as a Republican, given Vermont’s voting record? If I were Jim Douglas I would ask myself these question before I ask the opposition party to ask themselves why they are out of the main stream. With all due respect Governor Jim Douglas, it’s not a coincident that the majority of elected offices are held by the Democratic Party. It’s also not a coincident that Douglas isn’t running again, I wouldn’t want to be the third Governor voted out of office in Vermonts history either.

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Robert Reich neatly and clearly sums up exactly what’s going on. Very hard to argue with. Wonder if any of the opposition would have the nerve to watch it.

My latest for the Guardian UK’s “Comment is Free” website sort of overwrites my previous one, as the Obama Administration and its centrist allies seem primed to do the impossible after all – unite the tea party right and progressives against them on health care – unless Congressional Dems can save them from themselves:

Obama has lost his way on healthcare

His strategy has been reduced to crude political horse-trading, and is not grounded in a reasoned discussion of public policy

[…] Consider: a bill with a serious public option brings the progressives on board. A bill without a public option, but with reforms such as community rating and support for primary care brings most progressives on board, albeit grudgingly.

But the ideas being discussed now split the difference in the worst possible way. The centrist option may in fact include the worst of all possible worlds; an “individual mandate” that citizens purchase health insurance without a government administered option that could be fine tuned to meet the needs of low and middle class Americans squeezed out by prohibitively expensive (and wholly inadequate) private coverage.

To the progressives, such a bill supplants concerns of altruism and empathy with Singerian utilitarianism. Simply forcing the uninsured into private plans, already virtually unaffordable for many, and without any meaningful cost containment or regulatory scheme, is as crazy as it sounds, particularly when one considers the twin realities of recession, and the fact that health care spending is projected to be fully double 2007 levels in just over eight years.

The radical right wing has one thing correct about Obama … he is adamantly opposed to individual freedoms.

This has been well reflected in Obama’s love of the Kennedy/Bush massive federal mandate on local schools known as No Child Left Untested/Behind/Whatever and Obama’s willingness to mandate we all purchase health insurance that supports the well heeled CEO’s of corporate Unamerica.

Here’s  bit more:

The new federal steps, which do not require congressional action, include:

_ Making it easier for small companies to set up 401(k) retirement savings plans in which all workers are automatically enrolled unless they ask to be omitted. Employers can set default amounts of each worker’s pay – perhaps 3 percent – to automatically be deposited into the accounts without being taxed. Workers can raise or lower the contribution levels, and they choose how to invest the money. They will pay taxes on the money only when they withdraw it as retirees, when their tax rates are likely to be lower than when they are working full-time. A similar process would apply to savings plans called SIMPLE-IRAs.

_ Allowing such plans to automatically increase the amount that workers save over time unless the workers object.

(Obama expands workers’ retirement savings options, RawStory, 09/05/09)

(Yeah: love the headline about expanding choice over an article describing the degradation of such.)

Obama is doing a fine job of carrying on with the cheney/bush administration: expanded war, Wall Street/bank/insurance co bailouts, governmental secrecy, all the above and more.

The wing nuts are correct … Obama is about militant and controling government melding with corporate leadership … the definition of fascism. They just haven’t figured out that Obama is their very own.

Speaking for myself.

Now normally I don’t get fired up over something unless it deals with Israel-Palestine or something similar, but Van Jones’ resignation struck a nerve in me, as I’m sure it did with others who follow Green Mountain Daily. I wrote something similar over at Blue Hampshire, but here’s what I wrote.

Van Jones was one of rare true progressives in the Obama Administration. He was one of the rare people I respected. Now he’s gone because he said something that politicians say all the time about the opposite party.  So where was Obama? Why didn’t he speak up? Where was the rest of the administration? Where was the rest of Democratic Party? Did they realize who they had on their side?

More below the fold.  

As for signing the petition on whether the Bush Administration had a hand in the 9-11 terrorist attacks, I don’t see anything wrong with that. I think there are a lot of questions that remain unanswered what happened that day. I don’t think there’s anything controversial with signing something like that. In fact, Jane Hamsher writes today that “35% of Democrats surveyed believed as of 2007 — that George Bush knew in advance about the attacks of 9/11.” So it’s not like Jones is alone on this. There’s so much more Hamsher writes about this. I’ll leave it for you to check out.

John Nichols, of The Nation said it best today about Jones and the Democratic Party’s capitulation.

“President Obama and his aides let the right spin a fantasy about a man who led the highly-regarded Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and was recently listed as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential player’s of 2009.

In so doing, they allowed Glenn Beck to define the administration.

This won’t make the Obama presidency stronger; nor will it position the president to work more effectively with Congress on issues such as health care reform – let alone “green jobs” initiatives.

The right now knows they can make this administration blink. And they will keep poking and prodding White House aides and appointees until Obama and his inner circle push back.”

But the person who said it best today was a well-known anti-racism activist Tim Wise.

Tim Wise said the following about Jones’ departure.

“If you think it’s merely a coincidence that the right has sought to make [Van] Jones such an issue–rather than some of the other administration officials they are now threatening to “expose”; (two of whom are white)–then you haven’t been paying attention to Republican and conservative politics for the past forty years. This is what they do. It’s the only language they speak, at least fluently.”

Wise titled this article “The Afrikaner Party Draws First Blood: Van Jones, Barack Obama and the Audacity of Capitulation.” I think that title is 100% accurate about the state of the Obama administration today. The Obama administration seems to me like the party that is willing to throw  any respectable leader, even a civil rights leader, under the bus if it meant winning elections. If standing for what’s right and what’s principled means losing elections, then the Democratic Party, my party, will compromise their integrity.

I realize that politics is not perfect.  But if I were in Obama’s shoes, I’d draw the line, keep Jones in my administration and tell the bloviators at Fox and co. to #@! off. I would not expect the Obama administration to believe what Beck says on his shows, nor react to what he says. They know Jones well and what he’s all about. The fact that they can’t stand up for a man like him, doesn’t say much about the party and the president I voted for. Thankfully my former governor and current Senator have the courage to stand up for him. Where’s Leahy and Welch? Hopefully they’ll have something to say.  

Maybe Alternet’s Don Hazen was right. Jones is too classy to be involved with the Obama administration. I’m sure he’ll do a lot more outside of government than to work with a bunch of weak-minded politicians.

Not a good weekend for being a Democrat.  

Can't someone stop this dangerous fanatic?

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

It’s Time to ‘Take Off the Gloves’ and Reveal Orly Taitz’s True Motivation For Her Stubborn Effort to Force Obama Out of Office: She’s a Rabid Islamophobe With Backing From a Radical Jewish Extremist Group That Adamantly Insists Obama Is a Muslim and Poses a ‘Dangerous Threat’ to the Survival of Israel

(Posted 5:00 a.m. EDT Monday, September 7, 2009)

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A ‘SKEETER BITES REPORT EDITORIAL

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Enough is enough!

The time has come to “take off the gloves” and reveal the true motivations of Orly Taitz, the so-called “Queen of the Birther Movement” that bullheadedly insists President Obama is not a U.S. citizen and is holding the presidency illegally — despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Taitz’s stubborn campaign to remove Obama from office resumed anew Friday with her filing of yet another lawsuit in a California federal court, accompanied with yet another certificate allegedly documenting the president’s birth in Kenya.

But, just as in her previous lawsuit, the alleged Kenyan birth certificate of the president that Taitz filed with the court was immediately exposed as a forgery.

Her absolutely hell-bent determination to remove Obama from office despite her “evidence” against him getting shot down as fraudulent again and again and again would be laughable, were it not for her extreme prejudice in pursuing it.

That, unfortunately, has made it necessary to once and for all expose Taitz for what she is: A rabid Islamophobe who tenaciously clings to the false belief that the president is a Muslim and considers him a “dangerous threat” to the security of Israel.

That Taitz is motivated by extreme anti-Muslim hatred can no longer be ignored. In early April, Taitz — an immigrant from the former Soviet republic of Moldova who holds dual U.S. and Israeli citizenship — made an appearance at a gun show in Knob Creek, Kentucky, according to Esquire magazine, and unleashed a fusillade of anti-Muslim invectives against the president:

“I am extremely concerned about Obama specifically because I was born in [the] Soviet Union, so I can tell that he is extremely dangerous,” the magazine quoted Taitz telling the crowd. “I believe he is the most dangerous thing one can imagine, in that he represents radical communism and radical Islam. He was born and raised in radical Islam, all of his associations are with radical Islam, and he was groomed in the environment of the dirty Chicago Mafia! Can there be anything scarier than that?”

TAITZ BACKED BY RADICAL JEWISH EXTREMIST FOLLOWERS OF KAHANE

The ‘Skeeter Bites Report has subsequently learned that Taitz has support from the Jewish Task Force, a radical extremist group whose members, according to its Web site, follow the teachings of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the militant Jewish Defense League (JDL), who later emigrated to Israel and founded the far-right extremist Kach Party.

The JTF, like Taitz, adamantly insists that President Obama is a Muslim — despite overwhelming evidence that he is, in fact, a Christian — and considers him a traitor to the U.S. and a direct threat to Israel.  “We are opposed to Israel surrendering land for ‘peace,'” the JTF declared on its Web site. “We are also opposed to Islamic terrorism, which we believe is an integral part of Islam.”

The JTF regards critics of Israel in both the U.S. and Israel itself as “domestic fifth columnists who attempt to undermine America’s and Israel’s will to defend themselves and to properly fight their wars [against Islamic terrorism],” and included Obama as a “fifth columnist.”

The group formed another organization, Jews Against Obama, “to expose him as being just that” and it strongly supports Taitz’s efforts to oust the president from office. It has posted a highly inflammatory video online that claims Obama “wants to destroy Israel.”

KAHANE MOVEMENT BANNED IN ISRAEL AS ‘RACISTS,’ ‘TERRORISTS’

In 1988, Kahane’s Kach Party was branded racist by the Israeli government for its rabid anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hatred and banned from the Israeli Parliament.

In 1994, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Kach Party member Baruch Goldstein, an American-born immigrant, opened fire on a group of Muslim worshippers at the al-Haram al-Ibrahimi Mosque in the Palestinian city of Hebron, killing 29. Following the massacre, the Israeli government outlawed Kach as a terrorist organization.

The Anti-Defamation League, in a report on Jewish extremists, noted that while followers of Kahane — who was assassinated in New York in 1990 — “advocate militant Jewish nationalism as a means to protect the Jewish people, the Kahane Movement, in its 35-year history, “has demonstrated a pattern of xenophobia, anti-Arab bigotry and violence in the U.S. and Israel.”

The ADL report notes that in 2001 — exactly two months after the September 11 attacks — JDL leader Irv Rubin and Earl Krugel, the group’s former West Coast coordinator, were arrested in California just days before they planned to launch apparently retaliatory attacks. They were charged with plotting to blow up the San Clemente offices of Darrell Issa, a Lebanese-American Republican congressman; the Los Angeles offices of the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the King Fahd mosque in Culver City, south of Beverly Hills.

Rubin committed suicide while awaiting trial in November 2002. In September 2005, Krugel was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in the plot.

DESPITE SETBACKS, TAITZ PRESSES AHEAD WITH NEW CLAIMS AGAINST OBAMA

Taitz cannot practice law anywhere outside California because she never passed the bar exam and received her law degree from an online university that is not accredited. And her previous lawsuit against the president was undermined when an alleged birth certificate showing Obama’s birth in Kenya was almost immediately exposed as a forgery.

Undaunted, however, Taitz went ahead with yet another lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California claiming yet again that the president was not born in the United States, but in Kenya.

Taitz filed as part of her new lawsuit yet another alleged birth certificate showing Obama having been born at “Coast Province General Hospital, Mombasa, British Protectorate of Kenya” on August 4, 1961.

And this time, Taitz claims to have a witness: Lucas Daniel Smith, a 29-year-old Iowan, who, according to Taitz’s lawsuit, “went to Coast General Hospital in Mombasa, Kenya in February and paid ‘a cash consideration’ to a Kenyan military officer on duty to look the other way, while I obtained the copy of the birth certificate of Barack Hussein Obama.”

A POINT-BY-POINT DISMANTLING OF NEW KENYA ‘BIRTH CERTIFICATE’

But, as was the case in her previous lawsuit, no sooner than the alleged “Kenyan” birth certificate Taitz filed in her new suit was made public, it was immediately exposed as a forgery. Even the Orange County Register, the largest newspaper in California’s most staunchly conservative Republican county, cast doubt on the authenticity of the document.

In the first place, the city of Mombasa was not Kenyan territory in 1961; it was part of Zanzibar. Although the city was administered by the British under its Kenya Protectorate, Mombasa remained Zanzibari territory until it was formally ceded to Kenya in 1963 — after Kenya won its independence from Britain.

Second, as we pointed out in a previous editorial on this matter last month, British law requires a birth certificate to bear the signatures of a newborn infant’s parents in order for the certificate to be legally valid. This new alleged certificate — as well as the previous one filed by Taitz — do not bear the signatures of either the president’s father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr. or of his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham.

Third, this new alleged “Kenyan birth certificate” lists the time of the future president’s birth as 7:24 p.m. local time  — which happens to be the precise time he was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, according to a widely-distributed copy of Obama’s birth certificate issued by the State of Hawaii.

Any serious student of geography can tell you that there is a 13-hour time difference between Honolulu and Mombasa. When it was 7:24 p.m. on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, it was 8:24 a.m. the following day in Mombasa.

Hawaii state law forbids the release of birth or marriage certificates to anyone but the persons named in the documents or their immediate relatives. A copy of the president’s birth certificate released by his campaign in June of last year to the nonpartisan Web site FactCheck.org carries a date stamp of June 6, 2007 — which the Web site noted “has bled through from the reverse side.”

“It’s therefore probably a copy obtained by Obama himself at that time,” said FactCheck.org’s Brooks Jackson, a former correspondent for CNN. “This document should put to rest [all this] groundless speculation.”

Fourth, Dunham, who, contrary to what both alleged “Kenyan birth certificates” say, kept her maiden name throughout her three-year marriage to the senior Obama — and, in fact, did not adopt the surname of her second husband, Lolo Soetoro, until after their divorce in 1980, altering the spelling to “Sutoro.”

OBAMA’S MOTHER WAS NEVER IN KENYA . . .

Fifth — and most important — Dunham was never in Africa at the time of her son’s birth. It would have been extremely dangerous for Dunham to be in Kenya in 1961. Tribal warfare between the Kikuyus and the Luos was raging in Kenya at the time of her pregnancy.

The ethnic warfare erupted in the immediate aftermath of the Mau Mau uprising against the British colonialists. There’s no way that Barack Obama Sr., a Luo, would have dared to bring his pregnant, white American wife to Kenya at the time, knowing full well that her safety — and that of their unborn son — would have been in grave jeopardy.

There was another reason the senior Obama, a Muslim who later became an atheist, dared not bring Dunham to Kenya: He was married to three other women there — a fact he kept secret from Dunham.  It is not unusual under Muslim tradition for a man to have as many as four wives, but the senior Obama knew that would have been deeply offensive to his Christian-raised American wife. In addition, the senior Obama’s marriage to Dunham was fiercely opposed by several of his Kenyan relatives at the time.

Ultimately, Dunham did learn of her husband’s other marriages and filed for divorce in 1964.

There is no evidence whatsoever that Dunham ever set foot outside of the United States before 1967, when she moved to Indonesia to live with her second husband, Lolo Seotoro.

. . . AND HIS FATHER LIVED IN THE U.S. FOR SIX YEARS

And then there is the not-so-small matter that the government of Kenya flatly denies that the U.S. president was born on its soil.

In Washington, Jon Chessoni, administration secretary of the Kenyan Embassy, told the online journal The Washington Independent last month that his office has received many questions about the president’s alleged birth in Kenya, which he called “baseless.”

“It’s madness,” said Chessoni, pointing out that the president’s father, had been out of the country when his son, the future U.S. president, was born in 1961. “When this matter first came up, the Kenyan government did its research and confirmed that these are all baseless claims,” he said.

In fact, the senior Obama left Kenya in 1959 after he was awarded a scholarship from an American program offering educational opportunities to Kenyan students and did not return to his homeland until 1965. During those six years in the United States, the senior Obama was a student at University of Hawaii, where he first met Dunham in the fall of 1960.

They married in February 1961, only to separate a little over a year later. After graduating from the University of Hawaii in 1962, Obama Sr. left Hawaii for Boston — leaving behind his wife and son — and took graduate study courses at Harvard University before returning to Kenya three years later.

TAITZ’S ‘WITNESS’ FALSELY CLAIMS KENYAN P.M. IS OBAMA’S COUSIN — AND ADMITS BRIBERY

In a written declaration filed with the court as part of Taitz’s lawsuit, Smith claimed that he “traveled to Kenya and Mombasa in particular with the intent to obtain the original birth certificate of Barack Hussein Obama, as I was told previously that it was on file in the hospital and under seal, due to the fact that the prime minister of Kenya Raela [SIC] Odinga is Barack Hussein Obama’s cousin.”

Smith’s claim that Raila Odinga is the president’s cousin is false. In a January 2008 BBC interview, Odinga did assert that he was the Obama’s first cousin.  But Obama’s paternal uncle, Saiid Obama, denied any direct relation to Odinga.

In an interview with the Reuters news agency in January from the president’s ancestral village of Kogelo, Saiid Obama acknowledged that “Odinga’s mother came from this area” and is of the same Luo community as the Obamas, “so it is normal for us to talk about cousins,” he said. But “he is not a blood relative,” Saiid Obama told Reuters. Even if Odinga’s claim were true and he was the president’s first cousin — the son of his uncle Saiid — then why does the prime minister of Kenya not bear the Obama family name?

Smith continued in his declaration that “I had to pay a cash ‘consideration’ to a Kenyan military officer on duty to look the other way, while I obtained the copy of the birth certificate of Barack Hussein Obama.”

While it’s well known that corruption is widespread in Kenya, Smith incriminated himself by admitting in court that he paid a government official to “look the other way.” In any country, that’s a criminal offense — bribery of a government official. That Smith admitted it in court renders this new so-called “Kenyan birth certificate” inadmissible as evidence, even if it was authentic, because it was obtained illegally.

No court in its right mind can accept evidence that was obtained by illegal means. Are Smith and Taitz really that stupid?

TAITZ NOW FACES POSSIBLE BAN FROM PRACTICING LAW IN CALIFORNIA

Now Taitz will have to defend herself against an attempt to ban her from practicing law in California — and she’s already lost a lawsuit from an erstwhile ally in the “Birther” movement.

A formal complaint has been filed with the California Bar Association against Taitz, on the grounds that she has “indiscriminately hurled charges of treason and called for an armed revolt against the federal government” — the latter of which is a federal crime under the Smith Act of 1940, under which Taitz can be prosecuted.

Taitz is also accused of “actively recruited clients in a state where she is not licensed to practice law;” of “repeatedly disrespected judges and officers of the court;” of making  “false and misleading claims in court filings” and of “not properly” accounting “for money she has raised to further her crusade.”

Taitz was also sued by Philip Berg, a Pennsylvania lawyer who sought unsuccessfully to declare Obama ineligible to be president on the grounds that he is not a native-born U.S. citizen, as the Constitution requires.

Berg accused Taitz of “harassing” him and fellow plaintiffs in Berg’s unsuccessful lawsuit against then-candidate Obama, which went all the way to the Supreme Court. He won a default judgement against Taitz in June after Taitz failed to respond to his lawsuit by a court-imposed deadline.

Yet despite all this, Taitz stubbornly continues her campaign to oust the president, even as others in the “Birther” movement have begun to give up, frustrated by their inability to come up with any concrete evidence to prove their claims against him. Only an extremist would continue to carry on despite having no chance whatsoever of winning.

And make no mistake, Orly Taitz is an extremist. She deserves absolutely no credibility whatsoever and we have every confidence that the courts will toss her latest lawsuit into the wastebasket, where it clearly belongs.

Sincerely,

Skeeter Sanders

Editor & Publisher

The ‘Skeeter Bites Report

Copyright 2009, Skeeter Sanders. All Rights Reserved.

The rumor mill says Lt. Governor Brian Dubie will not run for Governor. I believe that is correct and I predict he will not run. While I don’t have any inside information, his public actions speak volumes.

What and why – after the flip. . .

In 2002, Peter Shumlin and Doug Racine both announced they were running for Governor.

Many Democrats who wanted to avoid a primary at all costs (as well as folks in Racine’s camp), convinced Peter Shumlin to run for Lt. Governor instead.  So Shumlin took-one-for-the-team, bowed out of the gubernatorial primary and ran for Lt. Governor rather than Governor.

Early in the 2002 campaign, Peter met with a group of potential supporters/donors/volunteers etc. He told us the following disarmingly candid statement, which is also a basic truism of Vermont politics although the majority of Lite Gov. candidates don’t seem to admit it.

Shumlin said:  “I hope you’ll support me. I also hope you’ll consider your support of me as an investment in a future Governor. Let’s be honest here, kids don’t grow up saying ‘I want to be Lt. Governor someday’ and neither did I. Don’t get me wrong, I want to be Lt. Governor, but if I’m elected, I will also be coming back to you because I want to be Governor at some point.  I want to use this campaign and my time as Lt. Governor to demonstrate the type of Governor I can be for you.”

Point well taken.

2009:  So what’s up with Lt. Governor Brian Dubie?

Over the past 30+ years, virtually every person who ran for Lt. Governor did so because they wanted to be Governor.

In fact, if you go back to 1974, when Brian Burns was elected to be Thomas P. Salmon Sr.’s Lt. Governor, every Lt. Governor DID, with varying degrees of success, run for Governor of Vermont (Brian Burns, Peter Smith, Madeleine Kunin, Howard Dean, Doug Racine).**

Where does that leave Brian Dubie?

Countless Vermont politicians have run for, coveted, or served as Lt. Governor for the sole purpose of positioning themselves to be the “Next Governor Of The State Of Vermont.”  

So Dubie is running, right?  No. Here’s why.

First, Brian Dubie has had since the summer of 2002 to think about being Governor and, at some level, the idea of being Governor has appeal to him. It has appeal to anyone who has the least bit of political ambition and has run a state-wide campaign.

But here are just a few of the considerations he’s mulling today. One, he can’t win and he knows it. Two, he can’t win and I suspect there is no shortage of people telling him just that. Three, if he truly wanted the job, he would have been geared up a nano-second after Jim Douglas announced he was being pushed stepping aside. Let’s face it, number one is a show-stopper and number three is as clear a look into his thinking as we can possibly have.

Brian Dubie’s public behavior has telegraphed far more than anything he has said on the subject. He is not running.

There are a lot of Republicans glued to their cell phones this beautiful Labor Day weekend.  Enjoy folks!

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** The two notable exceptions are T.Gary Buckley who was eaten by his own in the ’78 GOP Lt. Gov. primary by Peter Smith and once again by a dozen or so other Republicans in a senate primary in 1980. The other exception is Barbara Snelling who served in the State Senate until health problems forced her to retire.