Another three audacties by the republican party .... AGAIN  

1 - They have a scheduled debate and appropriate platform for the healthcare bill tomorrow. Tonight's discussion was about honouring veterans, and the republicans did them a disservice by taking the focus off the topic at hand, knowing their own schedule, and knowing they have the time slotted for the healthcare debate tomorrow. Their tactics are highly inappropriate, in poor form, and childish.

2 - You honestly think that people who would die and have died to protect your freedoms should "wait"? That says a lot about you.

The Democrats could have waited a day longer to discuss veterans issues. I see it as nothing more than another maneuver by the Democrats to shut down debate. The time they have allocated for debate tomorrow is b.s. And I'll tell you what it says about me, as the daughter of a WWII veteran, who opposes this bill, as do I, it says I'm fed up with the Democratic maneuvering going on to pass this bill.

You support a guy who wouldn't think twice about aborting his own grandchildren. What does that say about YOU?

hofferp - I am willing to guess that this veteran bill has been on the schedule for some time now. Things get scheduled, much like when people go to court, they go in a scheduled time. Some people may feel their case has more of a priority factor, but, once its on calendar in a certain order, it is there. Does that mean the prosecution and the defense talk about the second case when the first is being heard?

irishidid - It says about ME, that when you are talking about a MAN aborting HIS grandchildren, that I have the knowledge to realize this hypothesis is a physical impossibility. A man can not carry a fetus, certainly not that of his own grandchild. And his kids are what - elementary age? They are not even ovulating yet.

So - are you trying to say that Obama is in support of women's reproductive rights?

You knew exactly what I meant. I was willing to enter this debate with respect for your opinion but YOU were the one who got nasty about it. Keep supporting a liar, see how far it gets you in the end.

Did I misinterpret something you said, or sling an insult your way? I was basically translating what you said. You said you were glad that the republicans discounted the work and sacrifices made by our soldiers and fallen heroes, and suggested that a debate that is already on schedule should preempt honouring these veterans. In fact, you said this veteran issue should wait.

So, when our military now goes to fight for your freedoms, perhaps they should view your freedoms the same way you view their issues - they should wait, as there are more pressing matters to discuss. Keeping in mind that the discussion of the "more pressing matter" was already on the roster.

I never did support W or any member of the GOP. Ergo, I never supported a liar.

We currently have the most transparent administrator in office.

Thanks to him, I just may see my fellow hard-working citizens secure themselves some healthcare. That'll get our country pretty far.

I am hoping things work out to everyone's advantage.

I wish to extend my thank you to your husband and your family for the time served protecting future generations.

I appreciate your kindness and we are both proud to have protected all generations.
It's every man, woman and child's place to put their best foot forward in protecting our freedoms.
MY husband's endeavors are mirrored by millions of American soldiers who have also fought for all our next generations and we would not be the proud country we are wihtout our Veterans.
I do hope all see that veterans have paid a dear price for the freedoms we enjoy.
And, by the way, one of our freedoms is being able to convey our fears, our loves and other emotions on a site such as mylot :)
Take care and pray today goes in our veteran's favor.
God Bless every veteran.
God Bless you too !!
Thanks again !

Shhhhh! This is a thread for republican bashing, not facts! If it were about facts she might have actually named names so we could check her claims for ourselves. Instead she made it all ambiguous so nobody could verify or disprove what she said.

Oh, snap!

http://www.c-spanarchives...

I didn't get to watch it all, but, it substantiates everything I stated.

Tell me which part of it substantiates your claims. You admit you haven't watched it but then you go and criticize me for not sitting through 6.5 hours of it trying to find what you are referring to.

I watched the first two hours, which is where I got all the details for my post. The first ten minutes shows the republicans blatant disregard for the veterans, and the rest shows everything my post says.

Enjoy.

President Obama is trying to pass a bill where he can employ line item vetoes. Things get piggybacked into one bill, which is what has slowed our progress in pulling out of the two wars.

Line item vetoes are wrong and should NOT be allowed. It gives the executive branch too much power and can ruin bills, especially if the president and congress are from different parties which they may be after the November elections. Nope, the president needs to deal with bills as they are written.

Bobmnu, you are right of course. Republicans only voted against VA funding on the one bill where a withdrawal date was part of it.

Well said! What kind of parliamentary system is in place in Australia? How many parties, is there a strong divide, etc?

We have two major party like in the UK. Labor and Liberal.
Labor is supposed to be for the working class, and it is the party which has structured our social and health system.
Liberal support the rich by reducing their taxes and making the working class pay.

So what happen is...
Labor comes into power, and spend the surplus the Liberal have saved by being scrooges. Labor spend the money on health, infrastructure, and raise the elderly people's pension like they did 6 months ago.

The Liberal come into power and stop all spending. They start saving to repay Labor's debt.

These days people say that there is very little difference between the 2 party. And in many ways it is true. But the working class still suffers under Liberal while the rich gets richer.

In some ways, our Liberal would be your Republicans.
And our Labor, your democrats.
Except that our Liberals don't have a constitution which give them the power to get away with murder.

Besides that, we have half a dozen small party, but they don't have the money to win an election. Only the two major party can win. So before the election, the small party tell the people to which major party their vote will go to.
Quite often the major party win the election because of the votes of the small party. Like John Howard from the Liberal, who won an election with only 36% of the votes, but had the votes of the small party to take him over 50%.

It has always seem like a crazy and unjust system to me. But that is the way it is. At least we vote in Australia. lol
They made voting compulsory decades ago.
If you don't vote, you get a fine.
But it is better to vote, than not vote and whinge. lol

However, the small party has some power. It can win seats in the Senate by winning within their electoral boundaries. Once in the Senate, they can block the government policies if they don't like them.

I couldn't have said it better.

I'd like to add that Gates is talking about raising Tricare Premiums as well.

cain, one of the first things I did when this bill became available online was to look for anything related to veterans because, as you know, my husband is a disabled Vietnam vet and I'm currently covered by CHAMPVA.

On page 333, line 16 (v), the bill specifies "the veteran's health care program under Chapter 17 of Title 38 of the United States Code." as one of the government sponsored programs. If you look at Title 38, SUBCHAPTER VIII - HEALTH CARE OF PERSONS OTHER THAN VETERANS you'll find 38 USC 1781 - Medical care for survivors and dependents of certain veterans. This bill does nothing to change the U.S. code. While it does not mention CHAMPVA or the other programs that are currently supported, it does indicate early on that veteran's health care includes them. I saw nothing that specifically excluded them. I didn't research TRICARE because there are several things I'm looking at in the bill and, as you know, it's huge.

http://www.naus.org/news/news_tricare.html

3/19/10 - House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) intends to introduce legislation to explicitly state in law that TRICARE meets all of the health care requirements currently under consideration by Congress for individual health insurance. Although the health care reform legislation passed by the House explicitly exempted TRICARE from being affected, the Senate bill did not include such specific language presuming that existing IRS Code language is sufficient protection for TRICARE, and the parliamentary rules of the reconciliation process underway this weekend did not allow for the inclusion of the House language that specifically protects TRICARE. Skelton said he will also include the language in the FY2011 National Defense Authorization Act.


They have left the door open here. If there isn't specific language written into the bill they could easily change the rules at a later date.

And further down,

No TRICARE Fee Hikes in 2011 Budget, But…
2/3/10 - TRICARE beneficiaries will face no fee hikes in 2011, assuming Congress approves that part of the President’s budget request, as NAUS expects. However, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in a Pentagon news briefing that he wants to work with Congress to find ways to control rising military healthcare costs that are absorbing an increasing percentage of the defense budget (officials estimate that health care costs will grow from around 6% of the budget now to more than 10% by 2015). "We absolutely want to take care of our men and women in uniform and our retirees," Gates said, "But at some point, there has to be some reasonable tradeoff between reasonable cost increases or premium increases or co-pays or something and the cost of the program." He added, "I ask anybody to point me to a health insurance program that has not had a premium increase in 15 years," referring to the fact that TRICARE premiums have not changed since 1995. The Secretary admitted that TRICARE benefits are and should be generous, but compared the $1,200 average out-of-pocket costs for a family of three under TRICARE to about $3,300 for the same family under a health maintenance organization plan in the Federal Employees Health Care Program. "We see a lot of people coming back into TRICARE because the benefits are so good and the costs are so low," he said.

I know political double speak when I hear it. He's telling you what a great deal we already have to prepare us for an eventual rate increase. You can bet on it.

The VFW clearly sees this as a betrayal and I trust them a hell of a lot more than I trust Pelosi and 0bama. Neither of them give a damn about the military.

Doctors already complain about the low reimbursement rates Medicare pays, and in some cases, this causes doctors to limit the number of Medicare patients they treat. With the linkage of TRICARE For Life with Medicare (Part B), this affects TFL beneficiaries. If cuts proceed, the American Medical Association asserts that many more doctors would be forced to limit acceptance of TFL/Medicare patients, or even stop seeing current patients. The potential adverse impact on TRICARE For Life is clear if the Medicare reimbursement rate cuts take effect – less access to health care providers.

sndcain -

I don't know if I have properly thanked you for the work your husband has done in protecting all of our families, but I would like to.

I don't have enough details verbatim as to what will happen with the veterans, outside of the fact that the democrats are the ones who have always fought to preserve veterans benefits while the republicans fought against it.

In the cspan video I linked to taskr, it shows a very saddening debate about honouring our heroes, and the republicans doing what they could to get off the subject.

Considering this is a democratic bill adopting some bipartisan views, and the democrats have always been the primary advocates for veterans, I feel this is going to help you and your family.

Some cherry picked doctors are going on air complaining of low Medicare rates, but, they are basically planted there by the opposition to the bill and are in no way indicative of a majority stance on any of this.

Do you know what the VFW is? Do you know that I get my information directly from Tricare and the VFW and not from any "cherry picked" doctors planted by the "opposition"?

This is going to screw my husband over. In fact, the VA has already tried to cut my husband's disability, so save your speeches about how great the Democrats are to vets.

One more thing: our quality of life under Clinton was crap. Quality of life and benefits for the military under Bush were far superior. That's the truth.

Veterans benefits actually ran out of money under the Bush administration and it was the democrats who managed to extend it, despite the republican obstruction then. It's actually commented on without refute in the video I linked to.

Agreed 100%. The unspoken truth is that most of us are just waiting for the grand old party to die off. It's a shame they can even recruit young republicans into their mix, but, luckily, the majority of the youth today falls in the left wing.

I look forward to a congress made of liberals and the green party.

0bama's disapproval rating is 51%. Congress dissapproval rating is much much higher. The GOP isn't going anywhere. However, Democrats are going to find themselves out of a job in November.

http://politicalticker.bl...

I hate having to repeat other things that have been stated elsewhere, but we all know that we can get a poll to support whatever we want. If the best Anti-Obama poll you can post is one saying that 49% approve of him, then I’d say the left is in good shape.

I could easily go to a Peta convention, and take a poll, and post it saying that 100% of Americans support being vegetarian.

There are different controls involved, numbers, questions posed, etc. I am surprised you couldn’t find one without a 2% margin.

The Democrats are trying to do the right thing, and trying to improve life in the US. Over the eight years Bush was in office, I didn't see that.