What a debate! It is because of things like this that we do politics, events that make us do this work despite the little money we earn. For the first time, I was made to watch the debate with the rest of the ST team, and the 7 hours was worth it.

For the first time, the debate was very clean, civil. There were no unnecessary distractions. Characters shone through and others faltered. If ever people want an introduction to what the parties are about, tell them to watch the clips of this mammoth health-care session.

The only disappointment that initially pist me off was with Senate leaders, Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell. They had terrible body language and were behaving like 10 year old girls not talking to each other. Leader McConnell was sitting with his arms folded and Leader Reid had the stench of arrogance.

Because of them, I thought it was going to be ugly. How wrong I was! This session had the notion of a sporting event. The first half was exclusively Republican. All the Democrats did was to say, “We agree on this and that.” They were spineless and pathetic.

A character who really stole the “first half” was Senator Tom Coburn. I have been told by some member of the team that he was a wing-nut from the right, but that was not how he came off at all. This guy oozed sincerity, something nobody else in the room had. He was passionate and very real. He reminds me of people like Representatives Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, whose politics we do not agree with but we respect their sincerity in service to our country.

Senator John McCain deserves very special mention for his substantial input. He pointed out the flaw that there were many “special deals” in the Senate bill which had little or nothing to do with healthcare. The Democrats were caught with their pants down here.

I saw Representative Eric Cantor perform today, and he was outstanding. He was cool calm and even though we heard all the points being recycled, one could still be impressed with the way that Representative Cantor made his case. Mark my words, this guy is headed for bigger things. Senator McCain made a huge mistake not giving him the VP nomination.

The star of the Democrats was the President. He was the only one that actually put up a fight against the Republican arguments. I liked some of his logic. For example he rebutted the Republican talking point of regulation driving the cost of things up by saying that we could make food significantly cheaper, if we get rid of the meat inspectors. But would you want that? That was well done.

In the first half, the Republicans were very strong in their arguments, but they just could not kill the argument. The reason was that they kept hovering back to talking points which were obviously planned and lacked substance. They kept on harping about the mandate without going for the jugular early. They spoiled their arguments by keep on mentioning things like ,” The American people do not want this bill” and kept complaining about the bill being over 2000 pages long.

President Obama was enough to hold the Republicans off. The only one that he could not beat was the amazing Senator Coburn, so he absorbed some of Senator Coburn’s ideas. The attacks from the Republicans were relentless and they came thick and fast. The first half for the Democrats was so bad that VP Biden intervened in frustration, stating that the ideas weren’t that different, but the approach was.

So what would happen in the Second half? It was something that we would have to watch to believe. All this was thanks to a blunder from a very senior Republican, which game the Democrats with the ammo to attack….

For more, read the 2nd half!

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is now being bombarded with attacks from the Republicans on his comment “linking” slavery and the health care bill. What I would like to see, is the mettle of the Leader of the Democrats in the Senate, a good indicator for the future.

This is the exact phrase he used. “When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said slow down, it’s too early, let’s wait, things aren’t bad enough.” Now this phrase has brought about a tirade of Republican opposition to it. RNC Chairman Michael Steele has demanded an apology. Others have gone down a path of bashing, with even CNN’s David Gergen, one of television’s most respected pundits, slamming this statement.

This exposes a media double standard. When Republicans do something rough, everybody expects it to be so. When Republicans say that this Health care deal would pull the plug out of grandma, everybody was okay with it. When Governor Sarah Palin and company still has the cheek to come out and question the citizenship of President Obama, it is okay.

But when Leader Reid comes about and say that delaying health care reform is the same as delaying the abolishment of slavery, it becomes a big deal. I think this saga, along with the fact that the Tea Baggers who represent 5%pf our population gets a ton more coverage than the Public Option which is supported by 60% of the population; should shut the Conservative myth of a liberal media up.

Now, I am an Independent. I am a person that would love to see the discussion being about substance and details. I would prefer to see the discussion being set in Maine where it is more sane rather than the backdrop of the rest of the country.

But that is not how American politics work. If there are drawbacks of having a democratic system, this is it. Of course it is also fun to watch! It is the reason we are doing sites like this, to showcase our point of view in a sea of mess.

In this case, it is very interesting to see how Leader Reid is going to react to the barrage of Republican criticism. So far, he has stuck to his statement, but appear to be hushing it. This to me is the significance of Democratic weakness. Democrats shy away from a fight, Republicans take it up by its horns no matter how stupid it sounds.

To save his election next year, this is what he should do. Focus the media attention on himself. Reiterate the statement that not doing anything about this is the same as not doing anything about slavery. He is not entirely wrong, as health care would bankrupt our country by 2016 if nothing is done about it as soon as possible. The urgency is there. He should declare that. He should expose the Republican’s plan and the fact that it only covers 2 million uninsured Americans.

That is how the game should be played. But do you think he would do that? No. the reason is that Democrats are dumb! The only Democrat that knows how to fight back is Senator Alan Grayson. A good example is the “rape” bill. That is the most obvious thing for the Democrats to have pounced on, say that the Republicans voted for “rape” while Democrats voted to protect rape victims. Sounds unfair, but that is how the game is played.

Too bad for the Democrats, they do not know how to do it. Anyway, Leader Reid is an ass of a lawmaker anyway. He is way too far left and is not fit to lead a body in the Senate. His loss next year, and I predict that he will, may be devastating to the Democrats, but is inconsequential to the rest of us.

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Liberals are the losers in American politics. One of the furthest left wing person in America is MSNBC’s Rachael Maddow. In these two examples, I am going to highlight some recent issues she brought up that we might have agreed on in general BUT yet she is wrong.

Rachael Maddow claiming that the Public option bill is not enough:

She went against the proposition that Senator Harry Reid put on the floor, which is the public option with the option for states to opt out. I am all for this and I think that the Republicans really got no excuses here. I even went as far as to say that this means that health-care should not be a state matter with state level funding rather than a federal level.

However, Rachael Maddow disagreed. This is what she said : “ Thank goodness we have 60 Democrats in the Senate right! Of all the different things that (Leader) Harry Reid could have put forward… a really modest conservative version of the public option. … How well would this work? It is public option just for uninsured people and it probably won’t be available in some states? One of the main arguments for the public option is that it would be big….”

No Rachael, sensible people do not support the public option because it is big, people support it because it is an option! It is competition to the health insurance companies. I really do not care if it is big or small! As long as it can bring my cost down, by competing with the insurance companies, I am for it!

She said that it is only for people that are uninsured, this is misleading. It is only for the uninsured because the health bill does not kick in straight away. The rest of the population would have it around 2014. The uninsured get it straight away. It is as simple as that.

Thirdly, this is the conservative option? There were options being put out where people can buy across state lines, we have mentioned in the past that those methods would not work. But that is a more conservative option than the public option. We threw out ideas of starting a trade war between health insurance companies, opening up the industry to foreign companies as well as to give a federal reward to the company with the highest customer satisfaction. I guess these are all way too right wing for you huh?

Rachael Maddow claiming that Senator John McCain wants to rig the Internet.

Come on! To put it in simplest terms, it is customers right to view content vs Internet Service Providers to cut up the content to sell (think one plan for e-mail only, one plan for social sites only, etc). I agree with her position and I am all out for net neutrality but listen to what she has to say.

“The government say, the Internet should be free. Big companies should not be able to rig the Internet for their own purposes. (Senator) John McCain bill says that they should. That is the same Senator McCain who back in 2008, when asked if he preferred a Mac or a PC, said this: ” I am a(n) illiterate (who) has to rely on my wife for all the assistance that I can get.” ”

Oh, give me a break! Where did she get that Senator McCain has evil intention to want to rig the Internet? Why must it be that he is evil rather than Senator McCain just have a different opinion? That is what makes you a wing-nut. I disagreed with him on this issue and the Rape Bill recently, but I still maintain the respect I have for respect him.

And to rub it in, she gave a very mean spirited attack on Senator McCain, over his honest answer last year. I learned something this year that I did not know last year? Does that mean that I cannot comment on that program language I learned? So if Senator McCain was a IT-illiterate, does that mean that he must be stuck in that state forever?

These are the kind of instances that can turn an Independent like me off. It also make a news-shy citizen turn off too with those blatant lies. Don’t get me wrong, the right wing bullshits too. But they do not do it as stupidly as the Liberals do. Bar Bill Maher and Alan Grayson, I cannot think of one that can match the right wing in terms of attacks. Add this to the Democrats lack of spine and what do you get : L-O-S-E-R-S!

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In every country in the world, there are always people that stand out for making extremely stupid comments. In the past 8 years, there was President Bush who made a ton of stupid comments. Now that he is gone there are others to fill his shoes.

First there is the career of Vice President Joe Biden. This guy has an encyclopedia of screw ups. Some of them are so obvious and hilarious. Can anyone remember the time when he can go on air and say “There is a 30% chance that what we do would be a failure.” Or how about the time when he copied a speech from some British politician as he felt that that speech was very good.

His latest gaffe comes in the middle of a crisis that has gripped the country with fear. He said that he would not let his family go on planes and trains as it is a very confined area. The best thing was that he said in such convincing and as-a-matter-of-fact view. It is just hilarious to me that on the one hand President Obama is trying to tell his countrymen to be concern but not panic and on the other end, VP Biden then tell viewers what kind of public transport not to use.

The best part of this comedy routine was how the VP office tried to fight fire. “He was just referring to Mexico.” That was so funny as it was obviously untrue. Anybody that watched the NBC interview would know that he was not telling the truth.

Then comes the Republican party latest product of lady-lacking-logic Michelle Bachman. She is of the fit of Governor Sarah Palin and Miss Prajaen. Like Governor Palin, she is also a person that is so divisive and one sided that there is bound to be the silliest of mistakes coming out from her. She can go on anywhere, take facts, make it untrue and make it her ultimate case. She does it from time to time, but this time round she got 2 coming within days of one another.

First she went about trying to point to many people’s attention that there was a coincidence that another Democrat is in charge when the swine flu broke out. You see, the problem with that is this. When swine flu broke out in 1976, it was under President Ford, a Republican! And even if President Carter, as Representative Bachmann thought was the President at that time, was the President, that does not mean that Democrats caused swine flu! 9/11 happened under President Bush’s watch, does that mean that Republicans cause terrorism?

A couple of days later, she came about with another huge mistake that can so easily be caught. She went about virtually saying that the President that caused the Great Depression is the one that actually took America out of the hole in the first place. I would not go after her when she got the names mixed up. I think that is just a human mistake, a slip of the tongue.

But what was unforgivable is the fact that she did not check the facts about the things that she was talking about. The Smoot-Hawley Act was a bill that was signed by President Hoover and was authored by 2 Republicans that wrote the bill. She just shot herself in the foot in that one.

Then comes the atom bomb news that really blew me over. While she is out there as a Republican, and going all out to attack the Democrats, she wanted to try to switch parties to become a Democrat! That really got me laughing so hard. I do not know how true this is though as it only appears on some liberal sites that a friend sent me.

Senator Harry Reid was like “If she becomes Democrat, I an independent!” Imagine a party that has nuts Representative Kucinich (his wife is the best looking though) and Gravel but would not accept Bachmann. That to me was just hilarious.

Slashing Tongue would like to wish all readers a happy May Day and hoped you enjoyed a special light hearted article for today.

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