I so agree! And even if it was not a moral issue, what about the medical issues (sm)

• For all you pro-choice people - Chele
  • In 1982 - me
  • Upon this we agree - gourdpainter
    • gynecological procedures are already different - - Amanda
      • Who pays for these procedures? My guess - wannie
        • you are right - but it is the privacy laws - - Amanda
          • They're children, though. They're not - wannie
        • No--you and I pay for them. - Kendra
          • why would we be paying for it? - Amanda
            • if you are there and know about the visit - Kendra
          • that is, if the child does not want the parents to know at all - Kendra
            • as a minor, it is not up to them!! - nm
            • so you think the doctor is going to let me walk out and not pay? - Amanda
              • If your child goes to an OB/GYN - Kendra
                • well they don't in Georgia - - Amanda
                  • are you sure? - Kendra
                    • off the subject of gyno and onto mental health - - Amanda
                      • And that wasn't right either. He was a minor. It is your - wannie
                      • wow--sorry about the problems with your son. NM - Kendra
                        • thank you - but it is better - he just graduated basic training Friday - - Amanda
                          • Glad to hear it! NM - Kendra
                    • I know we never not charged a parent for a visit - - Amanda
                      • so how do you think that children - Kendra
                        • I never meant to discuss the money - - Amanda
                          • not it's not, but that doesn't make it right. - Kendra
              • But the conversation is about kids who are having - wannie
                • my point was it is already happening - - Amanda
                  • I know and it's a sad state of affairs that is already - wannie
  • Exactly. And the government can stay out of my pocketbook.... - sam
  • Great post, Chele. I agree. Besides, - sm
  • I so agree! And even if it was not a moral issue, what about the medical issues (sm) - MeMT
    • There is more to it than that... - Kendra
      • Oh I totally agree with you nm - MeMT
  • amen. - nm
  • you are right - nm

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Child molestation is on the top of the list for moral decline.

I think all children deserve free or at least affordable health care right now.  I think that should be this country's #1 priority, and sadly, it is not.  I don't care what facts you throw at me, the truth is many children are going without health insurance because many families have to choose between buying groceries and paying the enormous premiums, and sometimes you just have to choose what is most important to survive right now.

I'm disgusted every time someone has to have a fundraiser when their kid gets cancer just to pay the medical bills.  I'm disgusted that families lose their houses every day because they have to sell them to pay off medical bills.  This bill may not have solved all of those problems, but it would have been a step in the right direction.

So go ahead and spout your pro-life "every baby deserves a chance to live" speeches, and then when that same child gets diabetes and can't afford healthcare, go ahead and look away and act like that child no longer matters.

I'm not seeing any discussion about issues.  Can we stick to the issues.  Jeeze - I want to hear good and bad about both candidates but with facts to back whatever is being said.

P-L-E-A-S-E.....I want issues.  How can I make any kind of determinatons about who I'm going to vote for if I don't hear about the issues.  Reading some of this I'm thinking I'd get more truth if I read the National Enquirer.

...is that with each job cut that is announced, more than likely there is another American who becomes uninsured (since many can't afford to pay COBRA payments).  So if we had 47 million people previously uninsured, that number has increased by a few million or so (at least) since it was last researched.

I believe that medical represents a HUGE cost to companies, which is another reason I don't believe medical coverage should have anything to do with employment.

As you pointed out, for overseas auto industries, medical insurance isn't part of employment.  Those countries are way ahead of us in terms of medical care for their citizens, and as a result, they have the upper hand in competing against us.

President Theodore Roosevelt, 1918:  To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

Senator Robert A. Taft (also known as Mr. Republican), 1941 (after Pearl Harbor):  I believe that there can be no doubt that criticism in time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government..... Too many people desire to suppress criticism simply because they think it will give some comfort to the enemy.... If that comfort makes the enemy feel better for a few moments, they are welcome to it as far as I am concerned because the maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country more good than it will do the enemy, and it will prevent mistakes which might otherwise occur.

reflection of whether or not she has a child out of wedlock.  My 18-year-old niece was raised in church, had good Christian parents and got pregnant before marriage.  You can only teach a child.  You can't force him or her to live by your own convictions. 

(And his tax returns and military records?)  I came across this link while surfing around:  Shouldn’t John McCain Release His Medical Records? 

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/09/14/shouldnt-john-mccain-release-his-medical-records/

>> John McCain has not yet released his medical records to the public. McCain is 72 years old, and has been diagnosed with invasive melanoma. In May of this year, a small group of selected reporters were allowed to review 1,173 pages of McCain’s medical records that covered only the last eight years, and were allowed only three hours to do so. John McCain’s health is an issue of profound importance. We call on John McCain to issue a full, public disclosure of all of his medical records, available for the media and members of the general public to review. >>

originated, I believe, during FDR's New Deal.  When wages were capped, employers found a way to circumvent this by providing ''sickness insurance'' for their employees, thus giving them a raise without violating the wage caps. 

Another example of government meddling.  Had they not imposed wage caps, employers would have been able to keep paying their employees and give raises to enable them to afford their own healthcare.  But instead, we grew the employer-provided healthcare system we have now and people experience ''job lock,'' unable to move to another employer because of pre-existing conditions which may not be covered by a new company's insurance plan. 

Of course it's income, always has been.  Same as use of a company car, or executive housing provided by a company (both of which are taxable to the extent they are used outside of actual business activities.)   I'm amazed nobody until now has taxed insurance.

Does this constitute a new tax on people earning under $250 thousand (or $235 thousand, or whatever the new number is?) 

Lying and the Culture of Life

What Moral Values?

By M. JUNAID ALAM

Strong moral values, decency, propriety, and honesty: conservatives long ago declared these ideals essential to their belief system, achieving political ascendancy with promises of restoring honor to a government they view as tainted by liberal immorality and excess.

A fine notion, indeed, but one question lingers: what happened?

Barely a year into Bush's second term, the American political landscape is brimming with blatant examples of conservative deceit, dishonesty, cronyism, and hypocrisy.

Foremost among these examples is Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's right-hand man, who has been indicted on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements before a grand jury. Not that this is cause for embarrassment among conservatives--indeed, many are relieved, pointing out that Libby is in trouble only for lying. It seems conservative standards on morality have slipped a bit.

Of course, the Libby indictment is but the tip of the beast's horn. The larger case is about a vengeful administration that was bent on destroying an undercover CIA agent's career by leaking her name because her husband, Joseph Wilson, also a CIA agent, challenged shoddy evidence buttressing the case for war in Iraq.

Let us forget for a moment the value of simple honesty. Let us forget also the importance of not undermining the nation's intelligence services when one's entire platform is national security.

What does this event tell us about the oft-invoked conservative call to respect the culture of life, so often invoked in abortion debates? Let us not pander to fools: this war was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, based on manifest lies and exaggerations. Therefore, can anyone seriously claim that this administration showed even the slightest respect for the lives of the 2,000 American soldiers, or the lives countless Iraqi civilians now lost to the war's horrors? Most intriguing, then, is this culture of life--a culture which champions life when it does not yet exist, and abandons it when it does.

Surely, however, could the Republican Party not redeem itself through its philosophy of Christian compassion? Apparently not. Congressional testimony two weeks ago revealed that when FEMA's sole representative in New Orleans--who was there only accidentally--found thousands of Americans stranded without food or shelter during the hurricane, he issued a desperate call for help to FEMA chief Michael Brown. Brown's aide replied--several hours later--with the following instructive example of compassionate conservatism in action: It is very important that time is allowed for Mr. Brown to eat dinner. The locale of choice? Baton Rouge. Marie Antoinette would have been impressed.

Equally impressive is the Republican Party's idea of taking responsibility and not blaming others--a key conservative tenet--in the case of Tom Delay, the House majority leader indicted for pouring corporate money into Texas' 2002 state elections, which saw the reconfiguration of the state's congressional districts along even more pro-Republican lines. Censured three times in 2004 alone by the bipartisan House Ethics Committee, Delay nonetheless views the indictment as a kind of vast left-wing conspiracy, calling the prosecutor an unabashed partisan zealot. Heaven forbid.

It goes without saying that Republican contrition for any of the outrages outlined above is unlikely: the arsonists are running the firehouse, and they take great pride in fanning the flames.

We would be sorely remiss, however, if we ignored the role of the Democrats in this affair. They have sat on their firehoses and idled their fire engines on key issues, enabling Republican misbehavior to go unchecked. Most Democrats, it must be remembered, voted in favor of granting Bush unprecedented war powers. And it was the liberal New York Times, with its neo-con pseudo-journalist Judith Miller at the helm, who led the drumbeat procession to invade Iraq based on the thinnest of lies.

Naïve liberal Democrats were also quite pleased to see conservatives break ranks during the Harriet Miers debacle, taking it as a sign of some kind of impending right-wing implosion. They apparently forgot the basic fact that it was the far right--not what passes for the left--that tore apart Miers' chances for judicial confirmation. Now, a staunch conservative, Alito, has been nominated and the implosion has disappeared into thin air. As usual, we can soon count on the usual centrist Democrats--those Klan-minus-costume-crats and heirs to the Dixiecrat legacy--to help vote Alito onto the bench.

Thus, while conservative wrongdoing is obvious, liberals must take a long, hard look at their own party's role in producing the present state of affairs. Americans are told, after all, that there are two major parties, and that one is supposed to act in opposition to the other.

A fine notion, indeed, but one question lingers: what happened?

M. Junaid Alam, co-editor of Left Hook, can be reached at alam@lefthook.org

Certainly I agree the issues you mention must, must, MUST have our attention.  However, what we are doing this year is chosing a leader.  In my most humble opinion it is of the utmost importance to know what kind of person we are chosing to lead us.  We absolutely must look beyond what the politicians say; we must study their character and with whom they associate.  As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together.

 As a life long Democrat, I am totally against Obama.  There are a number of reasons, not the least of which is his choice of pastors.  I believe his chosen church is a radical, devisive, racist group.  If Pastor What's His name isn't enough; what about the priest who delivered the sermon ridiculing Hillary in that same church?  By no means am I a supporter of Hillary Clinton but that show was disgusting.  Neither can I support John McCain.  I have changed my registration from Democrat to Independent because neither mainstream political party represents my values.  My voice will be heard in the election but I will do a write-in for Lou Dobbs.  Would he make a good or great leader?  I don't know.  He talks the talk but would he walk the walk?  The only thing any of us can do is to vote and vote our convictions......and pray.