Sadly, I agree with some of my friends on the “near” left when they say much of this started with Ronald Reagan. As much as I admired the Gipper back in the day, I see now how much of a polarizing figure he was indeed.

I simply do not see how conservatives can be opposed to our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters wanting to do one of the most conservative things imaginable: get married. My marriage would in no way be threatened if my gay friends and family members (yes, we all have them) were to tie the knot with someone they love. There is no way the state could ever force any church to perform gay marriages, so those arguments, being made most loudly from our friends in the Catholic Church, are completely without merit. Might the Catholic Church be compelled to offer benefits to same-sex spouses of their employees? Perhaps, if they take public dollars. But there is no way the Catholic Church or any other church could ever be compelled by the state to marry same-sex couples.

I’ve said this before: we as conservatives need to get over ourselves. We all have gay and lesbian friends and family members. Frankly, I’m waiting for the next Evangelical minister to be forced out of the closet.

To our conservative Christian friends, stop it already. Let them love in peace.

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.

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.

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

A convicted mass-murderer was spared the death penalty today in Chicago. Two jury members, apparently, decided to offer mercy to one who showed none. Consider the following from the Chicago Tribune:

Cook County jury today spared James Degorski of the death penalty three weeks after he was convicted in the murders of seven workers at the Brown’s Chicken restaurant in Palatine in 1993.

He will be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

As the verdict was announced, one juror shook his head as if disappointed by the outcome. But another juror nodded her head in apparent agreement with the verdict.

The original jury vote was 8-4 in favor of death, according to the jury forewoman. The two sides explained their positions, then they took another vote. That time the panel favored death 10-2.

"It did get a little heated and frustrating until we reached the point where we decided we wouldn’t reach a unanimous version," the forewoman said.

Degorski — dressed in a blue Oxford shirt — showed no emotion as the verdict was read. His mother Patricia cried and hugged her son’s attorneys.

She thanked jurors for sparing her son. "I appreciate the jury’s decision. My heart goes out to what the families of the victims have been through with this whole trial. I appreciate just how kind and caring they have been."

Degorski’s sister, Kathy, nodded and offered a small smile when asked outside the courthouse if she was relieved by the verdict.

"Yes," she said softly.

Diane Clayton — mother of one of the victims, Marcus Nellsen — sobbed, looked up at the ceiling and clutched her arms after hearing the verdict.

She later fainted after telling reporters she disagreed with the jury’s decision but would respect it. She gained consciousness moments later, but paramedics were called.

I’m particularly taken with this statement from Mark Levitt, a senior Cook County assistant public defender:

"Finding mercy where it shouldn’t exist is exactly what mercy is," said Levitt, who spoke in a soft tone during closing arguments and referred to Degorski as "Jim."

Levitt recounted Degorski’s abusive childhood and showed school-age photos of Degorski and his four siblings while recalling the sexual and physical abuse they suffered at their father’s hand. Levitt portrayed Degorski as a young child willing to take extra blows in the hopes of protecting his siblings, a role that left him with deep psychological wounds.

At moments, a typically stone-faced Degorski swallowed hard and looked away as Levitt described a tyrannical and sexually perverse father. Levitt said his client suffers from neurological problems, was in special-education classes from an early age and wet his bed until the age of 14.

Returning to the theme of a child who never had a chance, Levitt recalled the testimony of Degorski’s first-grade teacher, who described him as quiet and "cuddly" but also easily startled.

Levitt asked jurors to consider life in prison, explaining that such a sentence was far from lenient. "It is not a good thing, being caged like an animal," he said. "He will spend the rest of his days rotting."

I know as a conservative I’m supposed to reject this finding by the jury, but I don’t. I accept it.

According to local news reports in Chicago, the first vote was 8-4 in favor of the death penalty. In the end, two relented to the majority, and the final vote was 10-2.

It took two Americans to spare a man from the death penalty.

I know I should be crying for blood, and eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But I can’t find it in my heart to do so. I have been so angry, so long, taking up every conservative cause that I was told to take up.

Sitting here alone, in the night, I support this decision for mercy. Degorski will spend his remaining days rotting.

And may the victims and their families finally find peace.

Instead, we read only jeering from FOX News:

In a clear dig at former President George W. Bush, a State Department spokesman compared President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize to the flying footwear his predecessor faced in Iraq.

“From our standpoint, you know, we think that this gives us a sense of momentum … when the United States has accolades tossed its way, rather than shoes,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters on Friday.

Crowley was referring to a 2008 incident in which an Iraqi reporter hurled his shoe at Bush during a news conference in Baghdad. The act of protest struck a chord with millions in the Arab and Muslim worlds who had been captivated and angered by daily images of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

This is from the only article on the FOX News home page this evening relating to the honor afforded the president today:
State Department Lauds Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize by Making Jab at Bush.

This is not a dig at former President Bush. This is the truth. It was not a long ago that President Bush stood at a podium and dodged shoes thrown at him. Look:

FOX News should be cheering the fact that the United States of America has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Instead, FOX News is still fixated with former President Bush.

We should all cheer America today. This is our day.

We’re finished with FOX News.

Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kans.) told reporters on Wednesday that opposition to the president’s health care package was driven, in part, by knee-jerk partisanship and he urged Congressional Republicans to consider backing a version of reform.

The 1996 Republican presidential candidate also predicted, following a speech at a health care reform summit in Kansas, that “there will be a signing ceremony” for a reform bill sometime this year or early in 2010.

But the comments that seem likely to create the most ripples were those that dealt with Congressional opposition to the White House. Dole, according to reports, framed the pushback to Barack Obama’s reform agenda as almost perfunctory in nature.

“Sometimes people fight you just to fight you,” he said, according to The Kansas City Star. “They don’t want Reagan to get it, they don’t want Obama to get it, so we’ve got to kill it…”

“Health care is one of those things,” he added. “Now we’ve got to do something.”

In a statement to the Huffington Post, an aide to the former majority leader clarified that Dole “believed there is an opportunity to do something on health care” but that he wasn’t urging Republicans to simply get on board a final package.

I have been watching this debate closely, and I’m not pleased with the Republican reaction to the need for reform.  The GOP must realize the need for reform.  I believe Republicans outside of Congress get it.  Those who currently hold seats in Congress have become radicalized.  They are simply incapable of participating in rational debate.

Is there anyone in the GOP who can lead and participate in the crucial discussions we need to have in this country?

Personally, sometimes I can relate more with the Conservative Democrats than with the radical fringe holding power in the GOP.  Is there no one left who can discuss issues?

Bob Dole is right.

Albert

All of it.

We almost cringe to write this, but we must return to the economic philosophy of the New Deal.  Otherwise, America is lost.

And all she holds dear.

The wealth of most conservatives will vanish.  There is a finite amount of money in the world’s economy, and a small percentage of people holding vast amounts of that wealth leads will only result in a few people holding the majority of the wealth.

That is happening now.  And a gilded economy will bring down America.

I must ask, are you married to an ideology, or are you capable of discussing ideas?

Drop your ideology.  Let’s talk IDEAS.

Unbridled capitalism will return us to a gilded age. And, if that happens, most of us will lose our wealth.

The only way conservatism will survive is if enough conservatives have money.  And that means we must be learn to accept and be comfortable with less.

Unbridled capitalism will return us to a gilded age. And, if that happens, most conservatives  will lose their wealth.

By William Herman

Karl Marx was wrong about a lot of things. He was a heavy drinker who rarely worked a day in his life. Instead he opted to hang out at the library and pontificate on issues out of context with his personal reality.

But ‘ol Karl hit one nail on the head….Dialectics. ..The concept of the pendulum swing of social thought and behavior. The notion that social behavior and action tends to move from one extreme to another.

Moving forward to the year of our Lord 2000 A.D., George W. Bush was elected president of the United States by the slimmest of margins. Under the banner of “Compassionate Conservatism”, George W. became our 43rd president.

Early on in his presidency, Bush was faced w/dealing with the worst catastrophe to hit American soil. To his credit, he responded righteously. With megaphone in hand, the former Yale cheerleader rallied America to come together as a nation. He crafted a solid plan to hold those accountable for their horrific acts on 9/11. It was his finest hour.

But beyond 9/11, the Bush presidency was flat and ineffectual. Though necessary, the war in Afghanistan and the amassing of the ginormous Office of Homeland Security, came w/heavy financial burdens. And despite being a nation at war, he pushed forward tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, which further exacerbated fiscal concerns.

Bush continued to spend money like a drunken sailor. What has now been proven to be a war entered under false premises, the second combat offensive in Iraq began. While some argued the removal of ‘the Butcher of Bagdad’ justified the means, others countered the lose of life and added fiscal burdens did not.

On the home front, lax banking regulations and even laxer enforcement, opened the doors for Wall St speculators to essentially rape and pillage, amassing unheard of and undeserved fortunes. Wall St. CEO pay continued its meteoric rise, while the standard of living of most everyone else declined.

At the other end of the financial spectrum was Hurricane Katrina. The dismal failure of the FEMA response and the visual images thereof, left little doubt in the minds of most Americans, that “Compassionate Conservatism’ was a sham. It became clear America was broken.

Finally, at the end of Bush’s 2nd term, the 300 lb. gorilla entered the room. Soaring budget deficits, the housing and banking debacles, and rising unemployment created a perfect storm. Bush’s response….give everybody a check for $1000, and a two page plan to rescue banks. Not only was this response woefully inadequate, it exposed the naivety and lack of vision of the Bush administration…..The pendulum of social change had furiously swung, and opened the door for sweeping change.

To date, the verdict is out on who will heed the lessons of historical dialectics. While the Obama administration continues to bring its vision of sweeping change, it is doing so on the thin ice of mounting fiscal deficits. Both, how much Obama’s plans will cost, and how much debt the American taxpayer can stomach is still open for debate.

What is not open for debate, is the need for the Republican party to redefine it’s line of conservatism. Conservatism needs to recognize the falling economic expectations of the middle and lower classes. It needs to be more inclusive to changing American demographics. And while it clearly must grab the mantra of fiscal responsibility, in need do so in a manner consistent to both these new ethnic and economic demographics.

Republicans must move beyond their current path as ‘the party of No’. They must redefine themselves as the party with new conservative ideas. Otherwise, conservatism as we know it, is doomed to extinction. And with its demise, so too will Liberalism come crashing down; because ‘the Left’ simply cannot exist without ‘a Right.’…..Such are the lessons of dialectics.