Motley Moose – Archive

Robert Novak died today.

Years ago I would often say that guys like Novak should just die off and let the world progress.

My sympathies to his family.

Please feel free to use the text below to let your representatives know your opinion on this issue. Select and copy the text below then click here to send a message to your congressional representative and senators.

It is obvious to any thinking American that health care reform is urgently needed in this country. As a constituent and voter I want to let you know my feelings on the issue of a public option in the current reform effort.

The private insurance industry has had several decades to deal with the problems regarding the availability of health care. They have only made things worse. The only way to get them to take this matter seriously is to provide people with a choice that does not involve private companies. Only then will they face up to reality.

Government employees, including representatives such as yourself, receive health care paid for with taxpayer dollars. Are the average citizens of this country any less deserving than government employees?

Please support the option of a strong public plan in the current reform. A plan that will be able to negotiate prices with providers in the same way that private insurance companies do today.

Any reform bill without a public plan option will be a weak bill and will reflect poorly on those politicians who support it.

Recently, the lunatic fringe began demonizing the National Health Service of Britain, and in response world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, who suffers from Lou Gehrig’s disease spoke out against this madness.  Paul Krugman took up the matter in the New York Times, and I thought that I would take a raw look at the benefits of the NHS.  These statistics arm those of fighting for health care reform with more FACTS to fight against the tales from the darkside.

The political blogosphere is like a virtual universe. Every political view forms its own galaxy in this universe. And like the real universe, travel between those galaxies seems to be impossible. Oh, we can take a peek at those galaxies through a telescope (or a quick visit to the other side of the political divide), but our interaction with them is extremely limited. This leads to the claims that the blogosphere is little more than an echo chamber where beliefs are reinforced, but rarely changed.

When this blog was originally founded by a diverse group of bloggers it was intended to be a place where rational discourse could take place. It has proven to be a fairly civil place that is troll-free. However, even here the dialog is mostly one-sided.

If there was one thing we wanted from this blog it certainly wasn’t a one-sided conversation. The tag line for the site is “Progress through politics.” There can be no progress if we are only reinforcing each other. That is why we’ve decided to take a tiny step forward to break that echo chamber.

Click here to send a message to your representatives and senators in Congress.

Click here to view a list of pre-written messages for various subjects.

Democracy imbues the citizens of that democracy with many rights. Along with those rights come some responsibilities. The United States of America is a representative democracy. All this means is that we elect individuals to represent us in our government instead of our having a direct voice about how laws are passed.

Voting is only one way we can influence our government. The other way is by letting our representatives in Congress know how we feel about various issues. In some ways, this is more important than our votes. It does little good to vote someone into office if they end up not representing our views.

That is why the Motley Moose has provided this section of our web site. You can use the link on this page to send a message to your representatives through www.rallycongress.com. The site uses your zip code to identify your representatives and senators.

While we encourage everyone to use their own words to tell their representatives what they think, we have also provided some pre-written text that you can cut-and-paste into the contact form. Please browse through the list below to see if your subject is covered.

Available message texts:

Health Care Reform:
• I support a single-payer plan – Medicare for All
• Increase choice – Keep the public option
• Support Sec. 440 Home Visitation Programs for Families with Young Children and Families Expecting Children
• End the health insurance industry’s immunity to anti-trust laws by repealing the McCarran-Ferguson Act

Politics:
• Senate Committee Chairmanships – End the seniority method and switch to a secret ballot every 2 years.

Civil Rights:
• Repeal DADT
  You can also sign an online petition in support of Senator Gillibrand’s effort to repeal DADT
• Repeal DOMA

Finances:
• Pass true credit card reform

Click here to send a message to your representatives and senators in Congress.

Democracy imbues the citizens of that democracy with many rights. Along with those rights come some responsibilities. The United States of America is a representative democracy. All this means is that we elect individuals to represent us in our government instead of our having a direct voice about how laws are passed.

Voting is only one way to we can influence our government. The other way is by letting our representatives in Congress know how we feel about various issues. In some ways, this is more important than our votes. It does little good to vote someone into office if they end up not representing our views.

That is why the Motley Moose has provided this section of our web site. You can use the link on this page to send a message to your representatives through www.rallycongress.com. The site uses your zip code to identify your representatives and senators.

While we encourage everyone to use their own words to tell their representatives what they think, we have also provided some pre-written text that you can cut-and-paste into the contact form. Please browse through the list below to see if your subject is covered.

Available message texts:

Health Care Reform:

I support a single-payer plan – Medicare for All

Increase choice – Keep the public option

End the health insurance industry’s immunity to anti-trust laws by repealing the McCarran-Ferguson Act

Politics:

Senate Committee Chairmanships – End the seniority method and switch to a secret ballot every 2 years.

Civil Rights:

Repeal DADT

Repeal DOMA

Finances:

Pass true credit card reform  

Please feel free to use the text below to let your representatives know your opinion on this issue. Select and copy the text below then click here to send a message to your congressional representative and senators.

President Obama and Secretary Kathleen Sebelius have called for “choice and competition” as part of health care reform.  However, the health insurance industry has been given immunity from the federal anti-trust laws under the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945.  Without Congressional repeal of this Act, Americans will not have real “choice and competition” because the insurance industry will continue to operate outside the free market.

In 2007, a bipartisan coalition of Senators, including Sens. Harry Reid, Arlen Specter, Patrick Leahy, and Trent Lott, presented the Insurance Industry Competition Act, which sought to repeal McCarran-Ferguson.  The House also presented companion legislation at the same time.  These Congressional representatives spoke out against the blatant collusive and non-competitive actions of the insurance industry in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.  This bill, however, was not passed, but Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) has introduced a similar bill this year, which is currently stuck in committee.

Real Health Care Reform requires choice and competition, and repealing McCarran-Ferguson is part of fostering this competition.  Like every other industry in America, the health care insurance industry should be required to abide by our federal anti-trust laws and regulations.

I truly have been getting crabby lately over the nonsense on health care this past month. I am old enough to have watched this type of politics win over and over again. It is a brand of republican fear mongering that has worked for the past 40 years I have been politically aware.

What frustrates me the most, is that it succeeds more often than not.

It looks like Bill Mahr is pissed off as well.

Joe Klein is worried.

The fact is that we do have laws against threatening the President and members of Congress. And yet, do we feed the fuel of mistrust and even more treason, when we follow the correct procedures to protect our elected servants?

Slightly edited and re-posted from November 5, 2009. I was listening to Tavis Smiley this morning and was reminded of this earlier post. I will update with the clip from Morning Joe-Boy (or “Jughead” as Stewart calls him), if I can find a tube. Tavis rocks. I have liked him forever. And I really like Jughead. Heh.

Ask Not…  

by: Hollede

Wed Nov 05, 2008 at 16:24:19 PM EST

I have a couple of important issues that I want addressed by our new President. God, after eight long years, it feels so good to call someone President again. President Barack Hussein Obama.

However, I am going to skip over my desires and speak to something I think our new President needs. Something our country needs. Something our world needs.

The Sunday morning political talk programs were filled to the brim with health care reform discussions, and central to these discussions is the idea that the insurance industry needs competition.  Competition, in the form of a public option or in health care cooperatives, is supposed to level the playing field and bring down premiums for all Americans while providing as close to universal coverage as we can do right now.

There’s just one itty bitty, teeny weeny problem.  The insurance industry has federal IMMUNITY from competition!