Thoughtful commentary on Obama's Tucson speech--Worth viewing

Newhour’s Gwen Ifil hosted an excellent thought-provoking discussion on the significance of Obama’s speech in Tucson.  Well worth watching here:

or go here.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june11/historical9_01-12.html

A more civil and honest discourse

President Obama offered these words of wisdom tonight about the Arizona massacre.

"Let's remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy, it did not, but rather because only a civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation, in a way that would make ( the victims) proud."

Enough said.

Who needs a Glock?

You can’t hunt with it unless, of course, you are hunting people.  The only thing you can do with it is kill people, lots of people, quickly.  I'm talking about the Glock 19 semiautomatic handgun, particularly when it is loaded with a high capacity magazine that lets you fire 31 rounds as fast as you can pull the trigger.  It is the gun Jared Lee Loughner is accused of using to shoot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the head, kill six others including a nine year old and wound 14 more. 

Between 1994 and 2004, Glocks with high capacity magazines were banned.  Loughner might have been able to get one anyway but it would have been much harder.  He would have been stuck with a plain old gun, one that shot maybe 10 rounds or less before he had to reload.  He might still have been able to shoot Gifford but the others he killed and wounded might have had a fighting chance.  He would have run out of ammo a lot sooner.  Someone might have been able to wrestle him to the ground while he was trying to reload and a nine year old and the others might be alive today. 

Instead, this apparently mentally ill, drug using, failure could just walk into a store and buy a Glock and all the high capacity magazines he wanted.  Then he was able to walk to a shopping center and spray 31 rounds into a crowd in just  a few seconds. 

We don’t have a law banning assault weapons like the Glock today.  Congress has been too afraid of the National Rifle Association to pass an extension of the assault weapons ban.  So we let just anyone buy a Glock and fit it out with a high capacity magazine.  If they are in Arizona, they can walk around concealing the weapon and a pocket full of high capacity magazines for as long as they want without the need for a permit or any kind of background check to insure they aren't a homicidal maniac. 

Next time you go to the supermarket or go shopping at a mall think about it.  Some crazy may be walking next to you packing a Glock, ready to unload 31 quick rounds just for the fun of it or just because they think killing a bunch of people fast will make them somebody.

Tell me members of Congress and you NAR folks, I want to know.  Who needs a Glock with a high capacity magazine beyond members of the military or law enforcement officers?  Why is it so important for any American to be able to buy weapons in this country that fire off 31 rounds in a few seconds, weapons they can easily conceal until they pull them out to kill lots of innocent people, fast?  How would our sacred Second Amendment rights be violated if we could only buy guns that shot 10 rounds in a few seconds or six rounds?  Would that be so bad?   Tell me, I want to know.  Explain your support for letting Americans continue to buy people killing assault weapons to Loughner's victims and there families.  Defend the right of people like Loughner to get easy access Glocks with high capacity magazines.  Go ahead.  Explain yourself.

Republicans want to increase deficit by $230 BILLION, Deny health insurance to 32 million MORE Americans

House Republicans say they are determined to repeal health care reform. Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf warns them repeal would increase the deficit by $230 billion from 2012 to 2021, the 10-year estimating period for budget projections AND repeal would cause 32 million more people to become uninsured by 2019. Republicans say, they don’t care if the deficit goes up and millions go uninsured.  They just don’t care.

See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/06/AR2011010604419.html

Republican plans for your health care

Republicans have set as a top priority repealing Health Reform.  What they really want to do is to strip your health care coverage of key benefits and return to the bad old days when health insurance companies were in charge.  By repealing health reform the Republicans would: 

• Allow health insurance companies to deny you or a member of your family coverage because you or they have a pre-existing condition.
• Allow health insurance companies to cancel your health insurance coverage when you get sick.
• Allow health insurance companies to set arbitrary annual and lifetime limits on your coverage.
• Allow health insurance companies to require you to pay huge out of pocket sums if you or a member of your family develops a serious illness.
• Allow health insurance companies to discriminate based on gender.
• Allow health insurance companies to decide what doctors you can see and what treatment you can receive.
• Allow health insurance companies to refuse to renew your or a member of your family’s insurance because you or they got sick.
• Allow health insurance companies to raise premiums without having to justify the increases.
• Allow health insurance companies to create monopolies to avoid competing for business on the basis of cost and quality
• Remove protections in the existing law to protect Americans who lose their jobs, change jobs, move out of state, get divorced or get sick from losing their health insurance coverage.
• Allow members of Congress to have better options for purchasing health insurance coverage than most Americans.
• Eliminate hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits to working Americans to help them pay for health insurance.
• Eliminate the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
• Eliminate billions in tax credits to small businesses for offering insurance coverage to their employees.
• Allow health care expenditures to reach 21 percent of GDP—on fifth of our economic output—by 2019.
• Allow spending on Medicaid to reach 8 percent of GDP by 2019.
• Make it next to impossible for 19 percent of the non-elderly population, or 54 million Americans, to obtain affordable health insurance by 2019.
• Require families with health insurance to pay a hidden tax of $1,000 to cover the cost of uncompensated care by 2019.
• Allow the cost of health insurance for Americans who rely on employer-sponsored health insurance to reach 26 percent of total compensation by 2019.  More than 1/4^th of your pay will go to health insurance.
• Pay private health insurance companies 14 percent or more to provide the same level of benefits to Medicare recipients as regular Medicare.
• Keep the donut hole in Medicare Part D that has forced more than 4 million seniors every year to pay exorbitant costs out of pocket or go without the drugs they need.
• Insure that Medicare will run out of money in 8 years.
• Cut funding for investigation of Medicare abuse and fraud by $250 million over the next decade.
• Increase the deficit by more than $100 billion over the next ten years – and more than $1 trillion over the ten years after that.  In other words, increase the deficit by $1,100,000,000 over the next 20 years.

Is this what you want?  If not, you need to get on the phone to your Congressman and say in no uncertain terms:  “LEAVE MY HEALTH CARE ALONE!!”