Tons of travel these last few weeks and through year-end -- all customer-facing, all great.  Baltimore/D.C./Kansas City today alone.

Great country, this....

Obama's eulogy was beautiful.

Kristof reminds us of why America needs TeddyCare:

...Eventually, after the expenses whittled away their combined assets, her husband could go on Medicaid -- but by then their children's nest egg would be gone, along with her 401(k) plan. She would face a bleak retirement with neither her husband nor her savings.

...

So M. divorced the man she loves. I asked him what he thought of this. He can still speak, albeit not always coherently, and he paused a long, long time. All he could manage was: "It's hard to say."

...A study reported in The American Journal of Medicine this month found that 62 percent of American bankruptcies are linked to medical bills. These medical bankruptcies had increased nearly 50 percent in just six years. Astonishingly, 78 percent of these people actually had health insurance, but the gaps and inadequacies left them unprotected when they were hit by devastating bills.

...A 2004 study by the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, found that lack of health insurance causes 18,000 unnecessary deaths a year. That's one person slipping through the cracks and dying every half an hour.

This is what GOP RushHate does to America.

I prefer TeddyCare.

Been adding up the price of GOP blocking health care and energy reform.  Scientists just came out with revised UN estimate on per-year cost of global warming -- $200 billion to $300 billion.

Recent economist estimates of cost to U.S. economy of our rich-only, inefficient healthcare system; $100 billion per annum.

So... $400 bill per annum divided by 130 mill < 18 years old in U.S. = $3,000 per year GOP tax on every kid under 18 in America.....

Party of Death...

Saturday, Republican brownshirts sent to shut down democracy in Colorado vandalized cars with union stickers as part of their effort to close down Representative Ed Perlmutter's citizens' meeting on health care reform in the Denver area.

My co-worker, Mike Ditto, went to Congressman Ed Perlmutter's Town Hall meeting on Saturday to listen to him talk to constituents about health insurance reform. While he was there, his car was badly vandalized.

The side mirrors were smashed off.  Big dent on his hood. And scratches and dents on every door and nearly every other panel of his car. All because he had an SEIU Healthcare Rally flier in his car.

$3,000 worth of damage. 

Limbaugh makes $50 million per year.  Tancredo is fomenting hatred against immigrants and Democrats because he's desperate for cash and hopes to become a 'mini-Limbaugh' media personality.Just two of the tools of the same rich GOP Billionaires who tried to overthrow the government in the Clinton era, who are paying to send brownshirts to shut down democratic discussion about health care all across the country: 

FreedomWorks Vice President Max Pappas boasted about "blowing" the town halls "apart"

"increasingly ugly scenes of partisan screaming matches, scuffles, threats and even arrests," .. ... which were part of an orchestrated conservative strategy"

Kristallnacht, anyone? 

While the rest of us are digging the country out of the mess they made the last eight years, these elite old rich white men of the GOP are conspiring to steal it back using the exact same fascist tactics the Nazis used in the 1930s in Germany.

Will you appease or stand up and oppose?

I used to be a Republican, but became a big-time anti-GOP activist when the right-wing tried to steal the Presidency over the will of the people by impeaching Clinton (remember, 'high crimes, misdemeanors, etc).

They're at it again -- now trying to throw Obama out over his heritage.  I remember a number of folks worrying that the right-wing would try to use their take-over of the Supreme Court to overthrow the popular vote (remember Roberts' 'mistakes' in the swearing-in?).  Thought the fact they'd ruined American here and abroad would shame them a bit.... 

Birthers = thinly-disguised racism, but mostly yet another effort to steal America from Americans.

Time to reactivate all the populist sentiment that threw them out of power last go-round.

No stronger sign of the death-grip the extreme rightwing has on the Old Party than the perfervid fear-based opposition to health care reform.

Indisputable that 50 million Americans are uninsured; health care problems biggest factor in bankruptcy; and that we have the highest cost, lowest ROI health care system among developed countries. 

Republican response?

Rip and resist; monger fear; spread hate.  (and, pocket $$ from insurance companies, of course)

The party that's never content to ruin just half of America.

Looks like it's time to revive all the activism that finally shut them down last election cycle... ..

We don't celebrate them enough.  

Ruined the economy, so now whining that their black hole is being filled and new jobs are being created.

Ruined America's standing abroad, so whining that we won't go to war in Iran.

50 million Americans without health insurance; half of bankruptcies due to health care costs; highest cost lowest value health care in the world -- all on GOP watch -- so of course opposing health care reform.

Why do they hate America so much?

At least they're not hypocritical moralizers. 

Oh.

Travelled back from NYC very late last night JetBlue.

The good;  watched the Nuggets win while en-route (woo-hoo!)

The bad: flight left 90 minutes late.

The OK:  JetBlue terminal fun --- Microsoft-cafe-style food offerings (lots of variations, roll-your-own, etc), lots of space, lots of places to work on a laptop WITH POWER!

The interesting;  different sociodemographic flying -- less experience with TSA, for sure --- and both pilots foreign nationals, which I'm guessing is to keep costs down.

The gorgeous --- 40 minutes of flying just south and over massive cumulus clouds on the plains. Multiple cloud lightning strikes simultaneously the entire time.

I"ve had my head-down building an American business the last few months, so was a little startled to hear Republican Bush-Wannabee Governor Perry publically call for Texas to secede from America today.

My first thought was that, having destroyed America's global standing and economy they now want to blow up the remnants.

My second thought was that this is just the same old politics of fear, hate, and division that they've used the last 20 years ... to destroy the country.  In that sense, predictable.

My third thought was to recall the recent literature I've been reading about Lincoln --- the single issue that nearly destroyed America through the Civil War was the South's desire to secede.

I guess Perry wants to own slaves, or perhaps become King of Mexico.

But I know this is a systematic effort on the part of the increasingly small right wing fringe nuts with money to undermine America's ability to recover as one nation, united....in hopes they can regain power for their personal aggrandizement...

Remarkable moral as well as intellectual fraud....