Bill Maher, 16 June 2009 (video)

“Sorry, folks, but this President is not fighting for real health care reform. It’s nibbling that leaves insurance companies still running the show. … This is not getting the job done. This is not what I voted for. And this is why I don’t want my President to be a TV star, because TV stars are too worried about being popular and too concerned with getting renewed. … Folks, Barack Obama needs to start putting it on the line in fights against the banks, the energy companies, and the health care industry… I’m glad Obama is President, but the Audacity of Hope part is over. Right now I’m hoping for a little more audacity.”

Cyrus Vance, 14 June 1977

“If terrorism and violence in the name of dissent cannot be condoned, neither can violence that is officially sanctioned. Such action perverts the legal system that alone assures the survival of our traditions. The surest way to defeat terrorism is to promote justice in our societies—legal, economic, and social justice. Justice that is summary undermines the future it seeks to promote. It produces only more violence, more victims, and more terrorism. Respect for the rule of law will promote justice and remove the seeds of subversion. Abandoning such respect, governments descend into the netherworld of the terrorist and lose their strongest weapon—their moral authority.”

Barney Frank: My answer to you is, as I said before: It is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated. [...] Ma’am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table; I have no interest in doing it!

Quoted for truth!

For all Americans who are absolutely fed up with the multi-billion-dollar private health care industry raking in staggering profits for its CEOs and shareholders off keeping Americans sick.

Which do you prefer having between you and your doctor? (1) A duly elected government body representing and subject to We the People that wants health care for everyone, or (2) a multi-billion-dollar profit-minded private corporate body representing CEOs and shareholders that routinely denies health care for so many through unethical exemptions, loopholes, and similar practices?

Send a strong message to "Blue Dog" Democrats in the House of Representatives, using an already filled out web form provided by the FreedomWorks web site but inverting the message:

1. Click on the following link: http://tinyurl.com/lfxh3t (FreedomWorks web site)
2. Change the Subject line to "Vote YES on Obamacare"
3. Copy-and-paste the following altered form of the message body:

Public support for Obamacare has been faltering the last few weeks, and I believe that much of that is due to the incoherent scare tactics by the opposition. I hope that the American people can count on your courageous support of a government takeover of health care.

Small businesses can’t afford the trillions of dollars being wasted through the private health care industry. Given the growing size of our deficits and debt, neither can the taxpayers. Please provide your political support of a government plan that would put a votes-minded government body between me and my doctor, which is far better than a profit-minded corporate body. Government represents we the people, corporations represent CEOs and shareholders.

Despite the feelings that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expresses about the United States, it seems that his recent presidential campaign in Iran took careful notes from the Bush campaign of 2004 [1]. For better or worse (and history will decide), official reports are that Ahmadinejad has won the Iranian elections [2].

My feelings about this are very mixed at the moment.