I am so, so very tired of Sarah Palin. I vowed to myself that I would not write about Palin here, but I have no choice. She won’t go away. Every time she surfaces, she sounds more and more bizarre.

Her book is due out next Tuesday. I’ll not buy it, but I know many of you will. Just read it carefully, and, remember, please, John McCain is a good man. He simply chose poorly when he selected Palin as his running mate.

The Washington Post has a piece on the book by Jason Horowitz:

In the book, “Going Rogue: An American Life,” Palin contends that the McCain campaign stuck her with a $50,000 bill for the cost of her own vetting, botched the announcement of her teenage daughter’s pregnancy, outfitted Palin with all those infamous costly ensembles, and shielded her from reporters. Even so, Palin goes on to belittle two famous interlocutors, Katie Couric and Charles Gibson, according to the Associated Press, which found and purchased a copy of the book before its sale date.

There is no way I believe that John McCain stuck Sarah Palin with a $50,000 tab to pay for her own vetting. I don’t know John McCain, but I have friends who do. I respect their opinion. McCain is honorable to the core of his being. He ran for President of the United States and lost, but he ran well.

Palin is way off base.

Yahoo News did a fact check, and all members of GOP even considering the possibility of backing Palin for president should read it — and remember she resigned from her executive position as governor of Alaska. How could we possibly trust her to serve the people of the United States of America when she selfishly abandoned every man, woman and child in Alaska?

Here’s Yahoo News:

Ignoring substantial parts of her record if not the facts, she depicts herself as a frugal traveler on the taxpayer’s dime, a reformer without ties to powerful interests and a politician roguishly indifferent to high ambition.

Palin goes adrift, at times, on more contemporary issues, too. She criticizes President Barack Obama for pushing through a bailout package that actually was achieved by his Republican predecessor George W. Bush — a package she seemed to support at the time.

Here’s a taste of what Yahoo News uncovered:

• Sarah Palin was not frugal or financially responsible when traveling on state business in Alaska;
• Palin did not run her campaign for governor on small donations, unless $500 is pocket change for Alaskans;
• Palin wrongly attributes the taxpayer-financed bank bailouts to President Obama, which instead John McCain voted for and President Bush signed into law;
• The current recession is far worse than anything President Ronald Reagan faced. Palin is wrong to say otherwise;
• Alaska is hardly libertarian. It is one of the states most dependent on federal subsidies.

There are more here.

Palin is no conservative.  She is a Movement Conservative politician, cut from the same cloth as those self-serving and socially malevolent mega-corporations that have torn to shreds the economy of the  United States States of America.

Conservatives need leaders capable of critical thinking, capable of grappling with complex ideas independently,  beyond blind devotion to ideology.

Sarah Palin will forever be about one thing and one thing only: Sarah Palin.

I defer to the President of the United States on the passage of the Affordable Health Care for America Act.

Tonight, in an historic vote, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would finally make real the promise of quality, affordable health care for the American people.

The Affordable Health Care for America Act is a piece of legislation that will provide stability and security for Americans who have insurance; quality affordable options for those who don’t; and bring down the cost of health care for families, businesses, and the government while strengthening the financial health of Medicare. And it is legislation that is fully paid for and will reduce our long-term federal deficit.

Thanks to the hard work of the House, we are just two steps away from achieving health insurance reform in America. Now the United States Senate must follow suit and pass its version of the legislation. I am absolutely confident it will, and I look forward to signing comprehensive health insurance reform into law by the end of the year.

Source: whitehouse.gov

Only one Republican crossed the aisle. Only one.

We need more conservatives with courage from the United States Senate.

We need Republicans with the courage to cross the aisle. We need Republicans who realize that it is more important to represent the American people than it is to represent insurance companies, no matter how much they pay to campaigns.

The GOP has performed shamefully in the debate on health care insurance reform.

I want to make that clear: the debate in this country is about health insurance reform. Our conservative friends in Congress accept incredible amounts of money from the health insurance industry. They are tainted and completely unable to participate in this debate objectively. Personally, I have had enough the whole lot of these ruffians in Congress and in the health insurance industry who are amassing mountains of wealth while this nation’s poor die from a lack of or inadequate health care.

We must support all who live in this country, not just the rich. As long as I have worked in finance, I have had coddle the egos of countless wealthy individuals who were convinced that God gave them their wealth, that God had somehow rewarded them for being rich. I have heard far too many times the rich who believed they were entitled to their wealth.

These are the kind of people I have worked with and for.

From Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois:

This week I had an opportunity most Americans would relish, just as I did. I was able to unload on two top executives of Goldman Sachs who descended from on high to my office because I clearly needed some educating. One was a Vice President and the other their Chief Risk Officer.

I had authored a letter on October 28, along with Congressman Peter Welch, that read, “We understand Goldman Sachs is expected to award its employees $21 billion in bonuses this year…Goldman Sachs is good at what it does, but its profits this year…were supplemented by the generous financial support of American taxpayers. In particular, Goldman Sachs benefited from a taxpayer payment of $12.9 billion from AIG on credit default swaps, insurance lending, and other contractual obligations between the two firms. AIG’s payment to Goldman Sachs was, in fact, a taxpayer payment…Should taxpayers be repaid the $12.9 billion before bonuses are distributed to Goldman employees? We believe they should. We therefore urge Goldman Sachs to repay taxpayers the $12.9 billion it received from them through AIG.”

The letter was signed “Sincerely” and I let them know just how sincerely I felt about it.

Amazingly, these visitors from another planet told me with very straight faces that I must realize that the $21 billion in bonuses were “accrued” bonuses. “Aaaaah,” I nodded. “That will make all the difference in the world to my constituents who are losing their homes as well as their jobs.” That’s when I asked them exactly which planet they were in fact from.

“Forgive me for saying this,” I said disingenuously, “but neither of you, as smart as you surely are, is worth 4,000 of my constituents,” referring to the difference in the average salary of top executives in the financial sector and the average working person.

“Well we can’t compare our employees with minimum wage workers,” they pointed out. “We know that a $10 million salary sounds like a lot of money, but we are trying to get people who can make double that (that would be $20 million, I quickly calculated in my head) elsewhere. It’s what the market demands.”

Rep. Schakowsky represents the 9th Congressional District north of the city of Chicago. The district includes Evanston, Skokia, Morton Grove, and Rosemont, among others. This is hardly an area of “minimum wage workers.” I promise you there is wealth in that district, in spite of the recession.

I regret that I must admit: the current Republican members of Congress serve the likes of these super-wealthy at Goldman Sachs who are without conscience.

Here are the facts: the world’s other Democratic spend less on health care, provide health care for all, and their citizens live longer.

These are the most recent health care statistics from the World Health Organization for the United States and other democratic nations:

Statistics for the United States:

Total population: 302,841,000

Gross national income per capita (PPP international $): 44,070

Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 75/80

Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2003): 67/71

Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 8

Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years m/f (per 1 000 population): 137/80

Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2006): 6,714

Total expenditure on health as % of GDP (2006): 15.3

Statistics from Canada:

Total population: 32,577,000

Gross national income per capita (PPP international $): 36,280

Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 78/83

Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2003): 70/74

Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 6

Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years m/f (per 1 000 population): 89/55

Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2006): 3,672

Total expenditure on health as % of GDP (2006): 10.0

Statistics from France:

Total population: 61,330,000

Gross national income per capita (PPP international $): 32,240

Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 77/84

Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2003): 69/75

Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 5

Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years m/f (per 1 000 population): 124/57

Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2006): 3,554

Total expenditure on health as % of GDP (2006): 11.1

Statistics from the United Kingdom:

Total population: 60,512,000

Gross national income per capita (PPP international $): 33,650

Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 77/81

Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2003): 69/72

Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 6

Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years m/f (per 1 000 population): 98/61

Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2006): 2,784

Total expenditure on health as % of GDP (2006): 8.4

Statistics from Germany:

Total population: 82,641,000

Gross national income per capita (PPP international $): 32,680

Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 77/82

Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2003): 70/74

Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 5

Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years m/f (per 1 000 population): 106/55

Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2006): 3,328

Total expenditure on health as % of GDP (2006): 10.4

This must change now. Our Republican colleagues have brought nothing forward that even begins to change the horrible state of the health insurance industry in the United States, and I regret that Republicans have removed themselves from the debate. They should be ashamed. They could have participated. Instead, they gave up.

I urge my the true Conservatives in this country to call their Representatives in Congress and support health care reform.

Government working to keep people alive is not socialism. Government keeps people alive through a strong national defense, with guns and bombs.  A strong military is not socialism.  Keeping people alive is not socialism.

Life is the only entitlement that matters here. Conserving life by working to provide health care for the citizens of this country is the definition of conservatism.

We urge the Republican Party to support health care reform for all Americans.

I was moved to tears when I saw this poster from Congresswoman Michele Bachman’s Tea Party. This is shameless exploitation of lives lost at Dachau. Do our conservative brothers and sisters not value human life?

I am appalled. We should all be appalled.

Conservatives in Congress need to rise to the challenge to lead. Instead, they shame us all.

Albert