My name is River, and I have kidney failure. I’m on peritoneal dialysis, which is covered by my partner’s employer group health plan and by Medicare. Not only does McCain want to gut Medicare, including Medicare’s ESRD program, which keeps most kidney patients on dialysis alive in the U.S., but he wants to take away my partner’s employer’s incentive to keep offering health insurance benefits to their employees, and make it a form of taxable income. The equation in my case, and in the case of every other dialysis patient out there is very simple: give us health care, and we live. Take it away, or make it too expensive to afford, and we die within a matter of weeks, a slow and very unpleasant death.
I do not exaggerate when I say that John McCain wants to kill me without knowing who I am. He doesn’t know that I am disabled and have no income because I spend 9 hours a night on dialysis. He doesn’t know that we are making do on one person’s income. He doesn’t know – or doesn’t care – that dialysis costs $13,000 a year more than my partner’s gross pay. All he knows is that his buddies in the insurance industry aren’t able to discriminate against the sick as much as they would like, and that we need to pay for the privilege.
So John McCain wants to make it infeasible for my partner’s employer to offer him health insurance at a price we can afford, and instead wants to tax it. To make our lives more interesting, he wants to throw us out onto the open market. My partner is a diabetic. So am I. That, according to my nephrologist, is probably what took out my kidneys. I am on a national list of people who have kidney failure, a list maintained by our very own government, which has the effect of making me permanently ineligible for health insurance on the private market, the very same private market that Senator McCain wants to force us into. My partner might be able to pay $3,000 per month or more to buy insurance for himself, as a diabetic, but it’s not likely. I will never be able to buy insurance at any price.
It’s been a while, sorry about that. The question on many blogs is this: will disgruntled Clinton supporters vote McCain instead of Obama?
Maybe. But they shouldn’t. As much as I hate to jump on the Obama train, the situation is this: Obama has more of the same ideals Clinton brought to the race than McCain does. The only way to undo the damage the Bush government has done is to back Obama. Who knows, Obama may screw America up too, but McCain won’t fix what Bush has done because they play for the same team.
At the risk of sounding cliched, a vote for Obama is a vote for change.
Hillary Clinton’s concession speech has made it onto Youtube (of course!), so here it is in it’s entirety. It is an amazing, amazing speech, but it is seriously too bad that she had to give it.
I’m not commenting, because there really isn’t anything else to say except, vote Obama in November.
During her quest to become the first American woman to win a major party presidential nomination, Clinton obliterated the persistent notion that women aren’t tough enough to be commander in chief. And despite criticism that she battled Barack Obama for too long, with tactics at times too ugly, Clinton established herself as a major political force independent of her husband.
“She did a remarkable thing,” says Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who called Clinton, 60, the nation’s most polarizing political figure in years. “By the end, I don’t think anyone doubted that if Hillary Clinton were in a room with Russian [leader] Vladimir Putin or any other adversary, she would hold her own or come out ahead.”
“Billary” may not be a thing of the past—former President Bill Clinton was an architect of his wife’s flawed strategy and a constant, if not always helpful, presence on the campaign trail. But whether Hillary Clinton ends up as Obama’s running mate, returns to the U.S. Senate, runs for New York governor, or takes another shot at the Oval Office, she has earned her own national authority. Her historic run also cast a harsh light on the sexism that can run through even the most public conversations about powerful women, says Debbie Walsh of the Center for American Women and Politics. Clinton was frequently cast as the schoolmarm, the nagging wife, the pant-suited power-grabber. “People have said the slurs were not really about women but about Hillary,” Walsh says, “but they used slurs instead of saying, simply, ‘Here’s what I don’t like about Hillary.’ “
So George W’s been sponsoring peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians in hopes of securing a deal on a Palestinian state before he leaves office in January and Obama with his newly secured Dem. nom. under his belt goes and says “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.” In Washington in a speech no less. Long story short, the Palestinians reject his remark saying “We are very disappointed… He has failed to understand that without East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state there won’t be peace with Israel.”
According to USNews.com Hillary is set to exit the presidential race Saturday. Additionally according to “sources”, Hill is going to encourage her supporters to endorse Obama.
When I voted in the 2006 Canadian federal election, I voted for Liberal MP Mike Savage. That’s right, Paul Martin was running for Prime Minister, but the guy on my ballot was Mike Savage and the explanation is actually quite simple. Whereas Americans vote for their president, we vote for our members of parliament. Which ever party gets the most seats gets in. So, if the Liberals had got the most seats, Paul Martin would’ve got in.
Undeniably the worst part is that you have to vote for the party that you feel is best for your riding. So sure, the Liberals would be better up top, but many communities (especially those large senior populations) voted for the Conservatives because they did good things for their riding.
And that’s just a brief look at the Google Alert that floated into my inbox this morning. Confusing? You bet. But HillaryClinton.com was clear:
This has always been your campaign, and tonight, there’s no one I want to hear from more than you. I hope you’re as proud as I am of what we’ve done and that you’ll take a moment to share your thoughts with me now at my website.
I want to congratulate Senator Obama and his supporters on the extraordinary race that they have run. Senator Obama has inspired so many Americans to care about politics and empowered so many more to get involved, and our party and our democracy are stronger and more vibrant as a result.
Whatever path I travel next, I promise I will keep faith with you and everyone I have met across this good and great country. There is no possible way to thank you enough for everything you have done throughout this primary season, and you will always be in my heart.
Yesterday former president Clinton called a Vanity Fair writer a “sleazy, dishonest, slimy scumbag.” When in a jam, third grade insults are always appropriate, yes sir!
