Cafe Blog

Pass Health Care Reform Now! Write Your Democratic Representative.

2010-03-05T21:24:03Z

Dear reader,

Whether you are anti-abortion or pro-choice, if your Representative is a Democrat, I urge you to write them and demand that they commit to voting for the current health care reform legislation. In my proposed letter, below, I will explain why concern over the language used to prohibit federal funding of abortion should not be used to block this legislation.

Senate Republican Mitch McConnell Tells Democrats How To Win In November

2010-03-05T00:35:20Z

No Kidding! Wednesday March 3, 2010 Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) laid out a major condition for Democratic success in the mid-term elections. The Democrats must pass the current health care reform legislation.

That, of course, is not what McConnell said. He said that if Democrats succeed in passing this Health Care Reform Legislation it will ruin them. He said Republican candidates will win by running to repeal this reform. He said red unicorns will descend from dark clouds and trample Democratic voters right at the polls.

But consider this,

Reconciliation Is Destroying The Senate! Run For Your Lives!

2010-03-04T00:58:33Z

The Senate’s grand and noble tradition of suppressing all commercial, social, and cultural progress through the use of the filibuster is about to be ripped to shreds by savage democrats slashing the senate’s grand body with the shunned and shameful bloody blade of reconciliation. Ah, wait. This Republican version of reality may be a tad hyperbolic.

On aspect of this discussion is actually quite frightening, according a January 28, 2010 Pew Survey only 26% of Americans know that it takes 60 votes in the Senate to cut off a filibuster. That means that 74% of the country does not understand the Senate legislative process well enough

Wake Up And Smell The Bracing Odor Of “We Don’t Care About The Little Guy.”

2010-03-03T01:56:44Z

This weekend I got the chance to watch Battleground. A nominee for best picture, among other awards, in 1950, Battleground lacks the blood, guts and explosions of modern war films, but it is big on heart. It is one of those war films that centers on the lives of a group of enlisted men and noncoms coping with the demands of war—the little men who in every war fight and die to get the job done. These are the kinds of people I try to root for in my political writing.

For fairness sake, I would love to write about how Republican politicians also are out their working for the little guy, the everyman/woman,

Obama’s Best Moment Shows The Way

2010-02-27T02:01:52Z

President Obama’s exchange with Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) on catastrophic coverage and health savings accounts was one of the highlights of the Bipartisan Health Care Reform summit and shows the kind of worker-centered communication that Democrats need to adopt. It is their natural vernacular.

Senator Barrasso, illustrated the much repeated--but sadly erroneous—claim that the US has the best Health Care system in the world by noting that the primer of a Canadian province and a member of the Canadian Parliament had recently sought medical treatment in the United States. He went on to advocate the use of catastrophic coverage and health savings accounts.

President Obama asked Senator Barrasso, “Would you be satisfied if every member of Congress just had catastrophic care? Do you think we'd be better health care purchasers? I mean, is that a change that we should make?” which led to the following exchange:

The Republican Call For “Starting Over” On Health Care Legislation Is Not A Reasonable Position.

2010-02-26T01:54:14Z

Today’s Health Care Reform Bipartisan Summit began, following the President’s opening remarks, with Senator Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, saying that Obama's plan is too similar to the Senate plan. His proposal was to put the current bill “on the shelf and starting from a clean sheet of paper." (He also wants the Democrats to forswear the use of reconciliation—a Senate procedure that the Republicans have defended and used many times—which could pass healthcare reform with a mere majority.)

Many independents on the center right may feel that such a request sounda reasonable.

Supporting Health Care Reform: A Brief Letter to Senators. (They don’t need a long letter.)

2010-02-24T22:09:35Z

Below you will find the text of a letter supporting Health Care Reform that I sent today to my Democratic Senators (Boxer and Feinstein).

I encourage my readers to use this link (Senate Addresses) to find the e-mail address for their senators and write to them supporting this important legislation. (Those of you who have one or more Republican Senators will want to read my suggested letter to a Republican Senator which follows the letter to Democratic Senators

The Zen of True Bipartisanship: Or Is Lucy Holding The Football Again?

2010-02-23T01:51:15Z

liberation from the self,” (Albert Einstein). “The true value of a politician can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from his party,” (Giles A. de Mello).

Today we may have seen the true face of bipartisanship in the US Senate. Today five Republican Senators crossed party lines to vote with 58 Democratic Senators to move the Senate’s 15-billion-dollar jobs bill forward. One Democratic Senator (Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska) crosses the other way and voted against the bill.

Despite Republican screaming, this is how bipartisanship is supposed to work.

Help Wanted: My Short Vacation From Writing

2010-02-17T03:37:28Z

One problem with being a one-man-band here at the Café de Mello is that if my rather surly and temperamental muse goes on strike, or I am abducted by aliens, or I go on a bender, or life intrudes—as it did last week (I will explain shortly)—everything comes to a halt. I am, therefore, looking for one or more of my readers who would like to supplement my efforts on a regular basis. Any reader who thinks he or she would like to post here regularly is welcome to e-mail me at giles@maildemello.com for more information. This will be a paid position, if the Café ever begins to turn a profit.

As the more alert of you will have gathered from the paragraph above, my absence last week was not due to my muse’s reticence, my going on a binge or my being abducted by aliens (either foreign or extra-terrestrial), mores the pity. Instead it was due to

I Agree With Sarah Palin . . . That’s Why I Donated To “Organizing For America” Today

2010-02-10T03:02:00Z

I have to admit, I had to agree with part of what Sarah Palin had to say in her speech to the Tea Party Convention. And no, that doesn’t mean I have gone out of my mind (although listening to Palin left me dizzy and disoriented. Her lack of logical consistency was stunning.)

However, early in her speech Palin said:

While I hope you give the candidates that you choose your best effort, please understand they're human. There's no perfect candidate. And they're going to disappoint occasionally. And when they do, let them know, but don't get discouraged and sit it out, because the stakes are too high.

As my cynical self wondered what new disappointments Sarah’s supporters can expect (she is after all only human and lazy and greedy and dishonest), I had to admit that was a good admonition to Democrats and the Independents to swept Barack Obama into office.

In office Barack and the congressional Democrats (both Representatives and Senators) have been less than perfect. We liberals, particularly, have much about which to be disappointed.

The right may paint Obama as the new Carl Marx, but we liberals see him as road kill with the double-yellow, middle-of-the-road stripe running down his back.

Still unless we want the Republicans and the Tea Party we cannot “get discouraged and sit it out.” The stakes during these mid-term elections are too high. Without having sixty votes to overcome the Republican perpetual filibuster, the Senate is caught in a mire from which there is no escape. Those of us who prefer living in the 21^st (or at least the 20^th) century, have to get off our butts and find a way to push for our Democratic candidates because the Republicans are not going to allow any liberal initiatives. I urge you to donate to Organizing for America and other Democratic campaign committees, and tell your liberal friends we have to stand and be counted.