Tell Congress that the American people need a strong public health insurance option NOW. (202) 224-3121.

Warning: Health Care Reform Should Not Be the Circus Anti-Choice Extremists Are Trying to Turn it Into

During a health care rally at the University of Maryland, a man took it upon himself to interrupt the president while he was attempting to speak to the crowd about health care reform and shout “Obama you’re a liar. Obama, your health care kills children. Abortion is murder.”

Every day there are around five stories like this–People heckling politicians who are trying to facilitate real and genuine conversations about a topic that a lot of people still don’t know about or understand the specifics of and completely throwing the entire event off course and stealing the time away from people who go to these rallies to learn, to engage in respectful (to the facilitator as well as their fellow rally-goers) conversation and who support the right for every American citizen to obtain adequate health care. As I’ve already stated, the right has an agenda and that is to interject themselves into each and every health care reform discussion and spread the delusion that all health care reform will do is create “death panels” and set out to kill your grandmother and force every tax-paying citizen to pay for the abortions of every fertile woman in the country. These ideas, of course, as completely blown out of proportion, especially considering that in case anyone wasn’t adequately educated about the history of reproductive rights, abortion is legal. You know, just in case the people on the right who feel it is their duty to crash health care rallies didn’t know or forgot this fact.

Health care reform is not something to be taken lightly. It is not the circus that the right is determined to turn it into. Health care reform would save people’s lives and it would greatly improve the lives of those citizens who are currently plagued by illness and by pain every day of their lives. Health care reform is about people, not about your fucking political agenda or the twisted delusions that you’re being fed by those who see no need for health care reform because they already have access to health care.

My Favorite Patrick Swayze Moments

Patrick Swayze passed away earlier this week surrounded by his loving family after a 20-month battle with advanced pancreatic cancer. He was only 57 years old.

I didn’t have a chance to blog about the death of Patrick Swayze here, but I did blog about it as soon as news broke on another website I write for. It is undeniable that the world lost a great talent and the man who simply made some of the greatest and most-loved movies (by women, mostly) what they are today. So I thought it would be a good idea to compile some of my favorite Patrick Swayze moments from two of my personal favorite Patrick Swayze movies. Sure, these clips are pretty cliche in the respect that they are probably everyone else’s favorite clips as well, so in that case, enjoy watching them again because no, they never do get old.

And lastly, here is a little tribute to Patrick Swayze from Whoopi Goldberg, Demi Moore and Jennifer Grey.

American Life League Uses the Death of Senator Ted Kennedy to Take Down Health Care Reform

[Photo source Lauren Miller]

The photo above was taken during the much talked about 9/12 rally in DC this past weekend. We have seen a great deal of hatred coming from those opposed to health care reform Barack Obama and the 9/12 rally just wouldn’t be everything we thought it would be without some gravely distasteful and downright hateful signage. Like the one above.

But this isn’t just your average homemade sign-o-hate (like the sign being held by the man standing behind him,) this is a special sign that does its best to hit us health care reform activists where it is still mourning and specially made and paid for by the anti-choice group American Life League. I, for one, have come to expect nothing more from these people who have proven again and again that they merely cannot have an opinion or work to spread the word about that opinion; no, they must have their opinion backed by often racist, sexist, misogynist, nonfactual, purposely hurtful, shameful and harmful images and/or wordage. We know that the American Life League knows no better, but to use the passing of Senator Ted Kennedy, a man who dedicated his career to helping each and every person in this country obtain the health care that they deserve as citizens of a civilized country, to try to defeat health care reform is despicable. It blatantly disrespects the late Senator as well as his family, loved ones, as well as every American citizen who had worked with Senator Ted Kennedy and continues to work towards a universal health care or public option to be made available for citizens unable to obtain adequate health care.

But the American Life League did not just make these signs available for people to carry during the 9/12 rally; no, they are also selling the signs on their website.

Anti-choice extremism has interjected itself into the health care reform debate and you would think that Sarah Palin herself wrote the bullet points that the anti-choice extremists are attempting to capitalize on; according to anti-choicers against health care reform, health care reform is broken down into two points–death panels and taxpayer-funded abortion; both of which have been brought up to state legislatures as well as to the president himself and both of which have been said would not be part of health care reform. However, we also know that these are the only two points that anti-choicers have to pull out of their back pockets at a moment’s notice.

Don’t let the American Life League and its lemmings be the only voice of health care reform. Contact your members in Congress today, tell them that it’s about time that anti-choice extremism does not intimidate such important legislature that could save lives.

Update:

Here is a clip of the sign on Rachel Maddow (starts at 3:20)

Who else isn’t surprised that the American Life League refuses to defend their own sign?

h/t Blog for Choice

The Late Liberal Lion and Healthcare Champion, Senator Ted Kennedy

The morning of August 26, 2009, news broke that Senator Ted Kennedy had died after a long battle against brain cancer. The loss of the “Liberal Lion” is a great one; we have surely lost one of the good guys–and he was one of the few we had left to begin with. However, while we have surely lost a progressive voice, it is important to recognize and celebrate all that he has accomplished while proudly serving this country and to continue the fights left unfinished that he dedicated his life to.

Senator Ted Kennedy proudly served his country, but he served each and every single person within it, which is something that not many politicians can have on their resume. He truly looked at the people of this country with a nondiscriminatory lens and fought to reverse the injustices that his fellow humans encountered daily. He was a strong supporter of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and later authored amendments strengthening enforcement of key provisions of the Act. He played a central role in fighting discrimination in both the Age Discrimination Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. In 1994, he was the original Senate lead on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, in 1996 he voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, leading opposition to a federal marriage amendment and opposed an anti-marriage measure in Massachusetts, and in 1997, he was the original sponsor of hate crimes legislation. Senator Kennedy also fought to end the funding of abstinence-only education programs, increased funding for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment and was an outspoken supporter for the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

But what Senator Kennedy is most known for and what he devoted his career to is ensuring that each and every American citizen has the right to affordable health care. He first introduced a bill calling for universal health care coverage in 1970 and over the next four decades, he never ceased in his efforts to make his bill a reality for all Americans without adequate access to health care they need. This past summer Senator Kennedy wrote an essay on the need for universal, affordable health care services, appropriately titled ‘The Cause of My Life.’

It is a key reason that I defied my illness last summer to speak at the Democratic convention in Denver — to support Barack Obama, but also to make sure, as I said, “that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American…will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not just a privilege.” For four decades I have carried this cause — from the floor of the United States Senate to every part of this country. It has never been merely a question of policy; it goes to the heart of my belief in a just society. Now the issue has more meaning for me — and more urgency — than ever before. But it’s always been deeply personal, because the importance of health care has been a recurrent lesson throughout most of my 77 years.

Health care reform is about people, which I have recently written about here entitled with the same sentiment and explaining my own horrific story with the health care industry and my inability to receive the health care I desperately need because of my lack of finances and no one willing to help in sight. As I also wrote in that post–This country will inevitably always be comprised of the have’s and the have not’s, but access to health care that people so desperately need should never be lumped into those categories. Senator Kennedy felt the same way and fought throughout his career in hopes of people like me and people like you being able to receive the health care that we not just need, but that we deserve.