Voices of Reason!

[Bingo]

While I am not usually a fan of Dick Durbin, our esteemed Illinois senator, I was clapping yay when I read Marlene's post on FB where Dick Durbin challenged those Republicans and tea partiers who are going after health care reform to give up their socialist health benefits. Loved it!!!

Admittedly I prefer a better health care reform than what we currently have cooking, but would love to have access to what Congress enjoys. I would even pay for it.

[Guardian Angel]

If I read the bill right, the list that will be offered to people to choose from is the same one Congress chooses from.  It will be in effect in 2014.  There are several sites that explain the plan in detail, I will see if I can find a link.

[SpiritMan]

A STATEMENT TO THE VIEWERS OF COUNTDOWN

by Keith Olbermann

I want to sincerely thank you for the honor of your extraordinary and ground-rattling support. Your efforts have been integral to the remedying of these recent events, and the results should remind us of the power of individuals spontaneously acting together to correct injustices great or small. I would also like to acknowledge with respect the many commentators and reporters, including those with whom my politics do not overlap, for their support.

I also wish to apologize to you viewers for having precipitated such anxiety and unnecessary drama. You should know that I mistakenly violated an inconsistently applied rule – which I previously knew nothing about – that pertains to the process by which such political contributions are approved by NBC. Certainly this mistake merited a form of public acknowledgment and/or internal warning, and an on-air discussion about the merits of limitations on such campaign contributions by all employees of news organizations. Instead, after my representative was assured that no suspension was contemplated, I was suspended without a hearing, and learned of that suspension through the media.

You should also know that I did not attempt to keep any of these political contributions secret; I knew they would be known to you and the rest of the public. I did not make them through a relative, friend, corporation, PAC, or any other intermediary, and I did not blame them on some kind of convenient 'mistake' by their recipients. When a website contacted NBC about one of the donations, I immediately volunteered that there were in fact three of them; and contrary to much of the subsequent reporting, I immediately volunteered to explain all this, on-air and off, in the fashion MSNBC desired.

I genuinely look forward to rejoining you on Countdown on Tuesday, to begin the repayment of your latest display of support and loyalty - support and loyalty that is truly mutual.

--K.O.

[SpiritMan]

http://tv.gawker.com/5730178/watch-jon-stewarts-poignant-speech-on-the-arizona-shooting?skyline=true&s=i

[SpiritMan]

On Monday, the New Yorker's George Packer observed:

"In fact, there is no balance -- none whatsoever. Only one side has made the rhetoric of armed revolt against an oppressive tyranny the guiding spirit of its grassroots movement and its midterm campaign. Only one side routinely invokes the Second Amendment as a form of swagger and intimidation, not-so-coyly conflating rights with threats. Only one side's activists bring guns to democratic political gatherings. Only one side has a popular national TV host who uses his platform to indoctrinate viewers in the conviction that the President is an alien, totalitarian menace to the country. Only one side fills the AM waves with rage and incendiary falsehoods. Only one side has an iconic leader, with a devoted grassroots following, who can't stop using violent imagery and dividing her countrymen into us and them, real and fake. Any sentient American knows which side that is; to argue otherwise is disingenuous."

http://mediamatters.org/columns/201101140041

[SpiritMan]

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/06/19/it-s-still-the-economy-stupid.html

[SpiritMan]

Quote of the day:

Dalai Lama

[Guardian Angel]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/09/1053088/-An-open-letter-to-the-people-who-hate-Obama-more-than-they-love-America