"mind-numbing Handmaid's Tale theocracy (Is that what you call O's personality cult of adoring worshippers?)

plus a robber-baron oligarchy

and an environment trashed beyond all hope of repair, ever

Oh yeah, and the debt

and the never-ending wars on terror

and the manipulation of the public paranoia on the eve of any significant democratic participatory event

All courtesy of Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. You don't like never-ending wars on terror, write another letter to your cult leader.

-- squaresville"

Sorry bud, you don't have any credibility around here. Leave me out of your disinformation drive.

Not when you blame everything Bush did on Obama and the Democratic Party, as you did in that post to Juliebird. That's just projection-stuff. You're throwing anything at the wall to see what sticks. That ain't good-faith dialogue.

I'm telling you I don't buy your fear-mongering, like Margaret Hamilton's.

Now be gone, before someone drops a house on you too.

I'm actually surprised by the number of posters here who seem to be less than flush with cash (present company included). I think Bernbart is hurting on health insurance too, if I recall. The recession has been going on more or less officially for 1.5 years, but it seems closer to 2. You're right - healthcare reform is only meaningful with the Public Option - it's a dealbreaker otherwise.

Here's a link to a Bloomberg article saying Obama and advisors are making a plan to bypass Senate Republicans in September:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20090822/pl_bloomberg/a9fjicd6ygqk

And here's a TPM article about Howard Dean being pleased with Harry Reid's (!) plan to break up the bill and use "reconciliation" (a favorite Republican method during their control) to get what we want:

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/08/dean-reconciliation-threat-a-reminder-that-were-getting-a-health-care-bill-this-year.php

Not bad for one week of push-back. Johnny Quest is a go!

How to get a march moving? There are a lot of connections here at Salon to other blogs and sites (Fire Dog Lake, Huffington, Andrew Sullivan). Anybody heard of other plans being discussed?

It would be incredible to see seniors, poor people, middle class, all colors, together for such an innately positive result. My 80-year-old mother might even go. She remembers vividly the fight for Medicare, and how the scare tactics were exactly the same. She's pissed.

No kidding - we won't win anything if we don't win healthcare. Let's post any links we find about march plans. I'll bet it would be extremely well-attended. There's a lot of energy for positive change, and we know now how easily it can start to slip away, even with the "stars aligned".

Answering your own questions is nothing new for you, even when you've been answered.

1. The Public Option is NOT headed for failure. You have no grasp of the will of so many people who understand it is the one component that will help everyone in controlling healthcare costs - one of the great drains on our economy and the bulk of our citizens. If the exponential rise of healthcare costs don't affect you - relax and have a V8.

2. Cuchulain2007 is NOT mistaken about taxes. You refuse to acknowledge what's been said over and over - any tax increase will affect the upper tax brackets. And BTW, GOP talking points can't have it both ways - saying that government management is inefficient, but poo-pooing savings that can be culled by efficiencies. In a pinch, we can always take a few pennies from the defense budget. Imagine what we could do if THAT system was efficien-ized.

3. The specifics on Medicare savings are being worked out. You can't see it till it's finished. But in the meantime, please see Jon Stewart's terrific interview with Betsy McCaughey, available unexcerpted, which talks about how the INTENT of the bill is to save money, not prevent Ma and Pa from having hip replacements. You do believe in intent don't you - like Bush's good will in everything he did, despite the dire results? We're gonna do it better.

Here's a link to plans for healthcare marches in several cities (already posted here, but good to repost every so often):

http://marchforhealthcare.com/

Hopefully Joan and Co. will help keep us abreast of developments they hear about, or point us to the sites like FDL, etc. that have more info. Thanks Salon for any leg-ups you can give us.

You might want to check the difference between "comedian" and "clown". Jon Stewart is definitely the former; all of Fox News the latter. It is indeed sad that we can't get better MSM info. Rachel Maddow is it for right now, but I'll take Stewart any day over GOP talking points. He's much fairer, and usually much more correct.