John Kerry speech on why the bill should be passed

Kerry spoke for almost an hour today taking on Republicans, Howard Dean and other critics. It is well worth the watch

link

the reason is because even though he agrees with allowing drug re-importation, the offered amendment would have made the overall bill unpassable. On other words, strategy - get what we can get now.

Or just those trying to get a better bill?

Behind the scenes they all have the same masters, and it aint us.

*

of winning over. They need 60 votes. Kerry could easily have torn Lieberman apart on all the things he has done. It likely would be cathartic, but it would likely eliminate any chance to get Lieberman to not create havoc on this or anything else.

It is much wiser than Al Franken refusing Lieberman's routine request for 30 seconds. I know I was angry when McConnell refused Kerry 5 minutes on Alito to finish up. It is simply rude.

The ONLY people Kerry spoke of were Olberman and Dean - and to them he spoke of good things that were in the bill. The likelihood is Olberman simply doesn't know some of the details. Dean was wrong on the specific thing he spoke of and he is wrong - according to EVERY Senator who has spoken of reconciliation - on its use.

Olberman is NOT a force making the bill better. Dean saying to "Kill it" was counterproductive.

BTW - name a lawmaker in DC who has uncovered and exposed more government corruption of the last 40 years than Kerry has. Try naming ONE.

bartcop likes to TALK about the illegalities of the GOP administrations but can't stomach mentioning that he wouldn't have HAD that info but for Kerry's dogged work uncovering IranContra, BCCI, Iraqgate and CIA drugrunning.

And bartcop is also loathe to admit that Clinton's SERVITUDE to Poppy Bush is what protected Bush, his cronies and their secrecy and privilege throughout the 90s. Bush2 and a 9-11 event would never have happened but for Clinton's covering up for Poppy Bush's ass.

Dean told you the truth and you're denying his words.

:sarcasm:

I think Kerry is far more likely after 4 terms in the Senate to know Senate procedure better than Dean who never spent a day there.

But he went by what he heard rather than what is in the bill itself. Most people on this board are doing the same thing. Not to mention...Dean is all over the place when it comes to his support. I got tired of the jumping back and forth he was doing. Thanks Karynnj, DU is getting to me and I do know that Kerry knows what he's talking about.

hell out of me for giving up immediately in Ohio in 2004 when the overwhelming evidence showed the votes for Bush had been extremely padded and rigged. He completely let down massive amounts of passionate voters who wanted him to fight back.

I have a hard time giving him a lot of serious thought since then.

I back Dean, I wish Obama had lived up to my expectations and like the rest of the country,I am sitting back in resigned anger waiting to see where this fiasco ends up.

The fact is that with a Democratic Secretary of State in Ohio since 2006, there is still no proof that more votes were cast for Kerry. The RFKjr analysis showed that by including an estimate of VOTES NOT CAST due to insufficient voting machines.

without kicking a dead horse and regurgitating a very repulsive voting history, here are some examples:
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2920
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen

Ken Blackwell was the Secretary of State during these twisted elections and he was CORRUPT.

My own experiences living in the same community where Diebold makes and headquarters its voting machines, and having worked closely with the Democratic Party on election day, poll sitting and watching firsthand elderly voters turned away because there name wasn't on the *right lists* at the tables, I, and fellow poll workers saw things that never even made it to *official* reports. Dielbold has a long history in this town of manipulating any frikkin thing they want.

Regardless. Kerry did nothing, even when John Conyers put himself out of a political limb to report all these findings. I will never back Kerry again. He let down thousand of very passionate supporters.

The RFKjr analysis includes estimates of votes not cast. They can not be counted and the means of suppression were not even something that could be challenged after the fact. The Democratic and Republican county people got the machine numbers before the election and no one noticed that they were too low. The Freepress article says that 2 years after the fact Brunner said the machines COULD have allowed the election to be stolen. Teresa Kerry made the same point months after the election arguing that there was a problem if the machines could be hacked. In both cases, they are saying that the election process is not secure - neither was saying they could prove Kerry won.

I think there is a real possibility that Kerry was cheated, but the fact is NO ONE could prove that he really won Ohio. Had Kerry held out, I doubt the party would have supported him - and the Democrats would have been harmed by the action.

I agree that Blackwell was corrupt. The Kerry team fought them on several issues before the election including when he wanted to reject registrations that were not on the right paper.

Kerry did speak out on the voter suppression, both in the Senate and out of it. The fact is that the Democratic lawyers, who told Gore to challenge, told Kerry no case could be made. Kerry himself was an outstanding prosecutor and he could not find a way to make a case.

of fraud and skullduggery in Ohio. But when you mount a legal challenge you need hard and convincing evidence and there was not enough of it.

If you have that evidence, you should be encouraged to contact the authorities, present the evidence, and make the evidence public.

Not least, you should have offered it when the turmoil in Ohio was still fresh, in the days following the election, when it would have done the most good.

Insofar as you did not offer that evidence, I'm assuming either that you also did not feel it was hard and persuasive enough to mount an actionable challenge, or you withheld for reasons of your own.

We reported what we saw and documented to the party's local officials. They were definitely taking notes and figures and numbers. They expected it.

But my lack of power doesn't change my opinion of Kerry. :)

I think John Kerry has served the country with distinction in several ways.

The harsh language directed at him in this thread is cowardly.

but you may call names as you wish.

I passionately supported Kerry. I felt totally let down.
It is my prerogative.

and 'cowardly' stays with me.

There isn't a lawmaker in DC who has uncovered and exposed more government corruption than John Kerry, and he did so at ENORMOUS personal risk to his life and that of his family.

I have been an ardent supporter of Kucinich since 1972 - drawn to his stances against the powerful. I love Dennis Kucinich and his speeches against the corruption of government, but, I wish he would actually take the time and do the painstaking work to investigate and uncover the corruption through all the access and legal channels he has as congressman. That takes 24/7 dedication that could last many months, and, in the case of IranContra, BCCI, and Iraqgate, many years.

And I concur on all counts, especially the painstaking high-risk investment in public service by the tall guy from Massachusetts.

I go back with Kucinich to his mayoral days in Cleveland. But John Kerry's testimony to the Congress in the Vietnam era was one of the most stunningly convincing and clarifying moments in the history of the country. It moved critical mass toward clarification, something the Pentagon certainly did not encourage the citizenry to pursue, let alone embrace.

Kerry did the homework. Kerry took the risk. Kerry got it done.

A lot of his detractors on this site were not even born then, so I understand the disconnect. But some (not all) of those same detractors are the very first to assail the media for not using facts. The same rules should apply to the voting public, seems to me.

Hard work as an honored personal ethic and public service as a condition of citizenship are embodied big time in the example of John Kerry.

Iraqgate and CIA drugrunning were monumental and did more than any other lawmaker to preserve the REAL historic record of this nation's last 40 years, even though too many citizens are still unaware of that history.

broader profile.

I liken the Swiftboaters' character assassination of Kerry to you and I defacing public property and then somehow being excused for it.

is *just b.s.* to me, so I guess we cancel each other out.

I gladly read what the other intelligent posters on this sub thread have to say and can respect their input and opinions. Everyone had different experiences and emotions during that election. I abhorred what the swiftboaters did and was a highly vocal supporter of Kerry.

I don't need to further validate my personal feelings of being let down when Kerry didn't fight the way I wanted him to for the votes he deserved and in truth had won. I was very let down. Period.

come out. Under the bus you go Senator. Who is next besides Obama?

:sarcasm: :sarcasm:

"I am against this war in iraq but I'm voting for it."

he's my Senator and there;s much about him to admire. Howver he is rather too cold and calculating when it comes to issues that matter.

No. Out of your own ass is not a source.

Based on his info, the bill should be passed.

Oh...wait.

If anybody believes that every single Republican in the entire Senate is simply a bitter old man who's not voting for the bill out of spite, you're a lost cause. They're not voting for it because there's too much that goes entirely against the grain of conservative thought.

That's just Kerry up there going, wa wa wa!!!!!!

Kerry, we had 60 seats, filibuster proof, and you still couldn't get a good bill through? Just left pushing through this picked apart skeleton?

Stop blaming the Republicans, the Democrats have just simply failed us.

had NOTHING to do with it.

Maybe if they realized how fucking hypocritical they're being--what with worrying about the deficit suddenly now that a Democrat's in office--we'd have had a better time of it. And they are bitter old men who think they're better than us--that's why they're not voting for it.

but ALL republicrapers are sicko's.

I was sick of it when the Republicans did it when they controlled both houses and the presidency.

And, I'm sick of when now that the Democrats control both houses, the presidency, AND the wildcard of being filibuster proof.

With the extra power, it's even more inane now than it was then.

The idea that every single Republican is voting against the bill just to be vindictive is silly. They're not voting for it because it has so few of their ideas. And, if you close your ears and demand the Republicans never had any ideas, I"m laughing at you all the more. Tort reform anyone? Remember what Howard told us? The reason it isn't in this bill just because Democrats didn't want to take on trial lawyers?

There was a bill that had bipartisan support before Obama started pushing the liberal-only way through Congress. It was called the Healthy Americans Act. Leaders in the Democratic party could have chosen that as a bipartisan route. They chose not to go that way.

They chose a liberal route. And, if they had been successful, I'd have been delighted. But, we're left with this piece of crap bill and the tired old excuse of blaming the Republicans.

The repukes vote as a block because they have no brains. The Democrats do not have a filibuster proof Senate. Ben Nelson isnt a Democrat, he is a piece of crap. As is your soul mate Lieberman. Republicans set a new worlds record for filibusters, that's obstruction.

Time to kick the blue dogs out of the party. Send them to the repukes where they belong.

Do you know what a corporatist is? A fascist a republicant.

When you can satisfy yourself with simply labeling people and being under the impression that you actually know something about them...

And, I love the "new worlds record for fillibusters". Were you not watching the Senate at all in '00-'06? The filibuster was the only power the Democrats had in Washington. You don't remember the Republicans getting so frustrated they were talking about the nuclear option? Right now, the Republicans can't even count on a successful filibuster they've been so set back.

Lieberman's not my hero. I was fine with the public option. I didn't want it government controlled though. Government is a mess! You see how they handled the health care thing? I wanted it as a private co-op. Where the policy holders owned the company.

My concern was over the costs incurred with the bill. All the political trickery, then Obama just flashing cherry-picked numbers to run around touting to the public, like he thinks we're stupid or something.

Face it man, you're bill is dead!

Time for Plan B. I suggest the Healthy Americans Act. A health care reform bill written by the fine Democratic Senator from Oregon, Ron Wyden. For introductory reading on the bill, read here: http://wyden.senate.gov/issues/Legislation/Healthy%20Americans%20Act/haa_faq.cfm">Click.

rhett man, check out the last question in that Faq! We can even get some Republicans on board! Don't have to cow tow to every last stubborn Democrat who wants $100 million in pork for their state!

During the years you chose the numbers of cloture votes are as follows:
99-00 (58 total cloture votes),
01-02 (61 votes),
03-04 (49),
05-06 (54 votes)

AND
07-08 (139 total cloture votes) by my count that is over twice the previous high in modern history.

You say "Government is a mess" which of course is a reigh-wing talking point, but I agree with you. It is a mess because of the corporate intervention. We must get the greedy corporations out of our (WE THE PEOPLE, NOT WE THE CORPS) government. Corporatism is fascism.

By the way I do have links to the above facts but I assume you are not interested.

Conservative thought has NOTHING to do with it.

Fascists trying to hide behind their screams of socialism.

You have to count Lieberman and i don't think he can be counted on.

about it, then they need to sign up for it. Somethings fishy when we have all these politicians telling us how good this plan is yet they exempt themselves from it. If it's good enough for the poor then it should be good enough for the rich!

that's a right wing myth

wife would sign up for the public option if it was available, who else in the Senate or the House said the same thing?

The entire Democratic side of the HELP committee said they would agree to all Senators taking the public plan.

Kerry is already on Medicare per Kerry.

in a public option, so in effect they exempted themselves from it. If this health care plan is so good or so good with a public option then why aren't they being forced on it? I don't trust any of them, and with the figures I've read from the CBO stating that Medicare for those 55-65 would cost at least $600 a month, and private insurance for a family of 4 costing over $15,000, who the hell can afford this? This is was supposed to be cost effective and in fact it's raising the costs to the average American.

and why is it significant that Senator Franken said it. The fact is that Kerry has said he is very much for a public option and personally he is for Medicare for everyone, but it is not passable. No one has "exempted" them from anything.

Your numbers differ from the numbers that Nate Silver, known for his accuracy quoted. The fact is that the average plan now for a family is in the range you cite. An individual purchasing insurance under the bill will be able to get group rates currently available to large companies. (Those prices, if nothing is done, will rise as they have each year.)

The medicare option, and it was an option, is no longer likely in the bill.

In addition, you are ignoring the subsidies for people up to 3 times the poverty level.

I know they'd lose, but with time they could build public support. As it is, by not introducing bills, making the case on the House (eg Weiner) or Senate floor, and getting a vote, they arouse the suspicion that they don't really care much to pass their stated preference, and are just throwing a sop to liberal voters and pressure groups by stating the preference, or that they are caving to more conservative Democrats who don't want to be embarrassed by having to cast a No vote.

busy working on what could pass. Kerry is on the Finance Committee and he did bring up the issue of single payer, but he spent more time working to insure that women and men pay the same rate, that the ratio of what the oldest people pay to the youngest was reduced from 5:1 to 3:1 (Kerry preferred it lower, but could not get any support making it 2:1 or lower), and getting a provision in that lowered premiums by 6% in MA (yeah - the one Dean praised and said was not there). These are a few of the improvements that he personally fought for and won.

Would you really rather he spent his and his staffs time writing a bill that had no chance to pass? Now, when we have likely the best chance in several decades to make things better by passing something?

(Kerry is not afraid to introduce something he knows is good but will fail. He wrote and introduced Kerry/Feingold. It got 13 votes and Kerry was attacked and derided by Republicans and many Democrats. It is clear he is proud of that and variations of it became Obama and HRC's positions, 7 months after they called it a bad idea. That made sense and it did what you said, but there was nothing that Kerry or anyone could introduce that would change the situation in Iraq that could pass.)

public plan. The fact is that Kerry has answered that - he has Medicare now. So, he is on a public plan.

I suspect that you are more likely Sarahgal.

I new it!11!2

as Obama.

debate on this very subject with Senator Kerry.

I believe Senator Kerry would accept the invitation.

I hope so.

Seriously, this would be a great and informative debate.
Do you think they would agree to not allow personal attacks and actually debate on the merits? That would be so refreshing.

a refreshing discussion.

I don't discount Dean's insights as a physician. But I think the senior Senator from Massachusetts would carry the day big time.

How are you Tay?

Dean has debated Kerry before and even then in one debate, Kerry did an excellent job in explaining how Senators can make many significant pieces of legislation law by getting them accepted into bills before the committee writes the bill or in the markup of the bill or sometimes later.

Kerry has quietly made many contributions to this bill and you can tell even in recent interviews that, in addition to his own efforts on healthcare, he sees this as something he wants done for Kennedy. I saw Kerry speak to crowd in Hyannis, MA the day before the election. Kerry was standing in for Kennedy, who always did an election eve rally there. Kerry spoke of Teddy being down in DC working on the health care bill and how his hope was to see President Obama hand the first signing pen to Teddy.

I have heard Dean speak about the bill - sometimes positive and sometimes negative, but always in a vague way - saying things like it is not reform if there is no public option. Now, Kerry and Dean agree a public option would be very useful. But, Dean seems not to consider the many things Kerry listed. The odd thing is Dean did NOT have a public option in his 2004 plan.

two men.

A formal debate on the merits of the bill would be more telling, perhaps, than a debate on the need for health care reform. I think Kerry is in the stronger position.

I also like it that his contributions, which are generally very significant ones, are made quietly. He's the least likely Democratic Senator, IMO, to grandstand.

He's a good man.

I think it would be very instructive for Dr. Dean to schedule a debate on this very subject with Senator Kerry.

Or Sen. Rockefeller would be another good choice. Publicized debates between Dems and Repubs on this issue would be great too.

rather than less would be of practical use to the voting public, and your addition of Sen. Rockefeller to the mix would be a huge plus. He has certainly come through on this issue.

I'd love to see that.

I think it would have a clarifying impact on the public debate.

Naturally FOX wouldn't cover it but it would be on C-Span, for example, and would create considerable buzz.

Soon enough the video clip would be on the web and all across the world.

I learned that even though premiums for older Americans can be up to 3 to 1 to young people (Kerry wanted 2 to 1) which is not ideal, but RIGHT NOW in some states it is ..... 25 to 1!!!!! Holy crap that's bad. I had read a post on Kos about the injustice of 3 to 1. But seeing what it is now, it is absolutely an improvement, and hardly nothing.

He talked about the elimination of pre-existing condition that is in the bill. I admit that this is extremely important to me, and it alone is a major change in how our health care system would work.

Kerry definitely brought up Dean and Olbermann, and how he disagreed with them. But it was respectful. He didn't call Dean "insane" or anything, like some perhaps grumpy tired White House spokesmen and advisors did. He referred to those who want to kill the bill as "our progressive friends".

Thanks for the speech!

your post.

yeah I don't think people understand just how much free reign companies have now like you said 3 to 1 is nothing compared to 25 to 1

for "union busting law firms". Neither wife is a lawyer and neither worked for a law firm at all. John Kerry worked as a prosecutor when he got out of law school and then for about 2 years worked as a trial lawyer in a small firm he and another lawyer started. They were not corporate lawyers. He then became Lt Governor, and then Senator.

Are you thinking of the Edwards, who were briefly corporate lawyers, though I have no idea if they busted unions?

I was reading material on Tom Daschle, his spouse Linda and their work on behalf of union busting law firms before I posted this.

And yes, I do make mistakes and when I do I'm not hestitant to acknowledge them.

I have made mistakes as well - everyone does. (I did suspect that you confused him with someone else here - and that's what I said - though I guessed the wrong lawyer pair.) I never heard that Linda and Tom Daschle did, but I do know that they both have made a fortune lobbying.

.

involvement in the white slave trade, financed by heroin from poppies grown in their very own basement.

Straight out of your ass

You are so far off base here that I hope no one gets your post deleted. It will stand as a shrine to your (lack of) credibility.

Deleted

access to the Beatles' MP3 catalog.

If you would start on that project first, I'd be personally grateful.

... didn't Sen Kerry say that he would carry Kennedy's torch on health care? That he would fight?

We saw him lay down and die. He's doing the same thing right now.

To get done what can be done in this political climate, despite attacks from both the right and the "left".

Senators backing Barack Obama for the 2008 nomination.

Both of their endorsements mattered to me in a huge way.

And those endorsements boosted Obama, validated his candidacy as necessary.

I liked the historical spark those two endorsements gave off.

that they intend to perpetuate and expand.

without citing exactly what he said, which isn't exactly as it has been depicted by some DUers who clearly do not like him, I do agree with Kerry on this.

Bill Moyers Journal last evening was excellent, with Robert Kuttner and Matt Taibbi as guests. Both Taibbi, who believes that the bill should be defeated (and who is younger than my own sons, sigh!), and Kuttner, who, much as he doesn't like it, believes that it should be passed, still believe that the Obama Administration should NOT be thrown under the bus, like Obama generally, and are hopeful that Obama will finally "get" it about the need to return to the Dems' populist roots. Frankly, I believe that Kuttner's argument is the better one. Otherwise, we are playing right into the hands of the Republicans and the radical RW (mostly Republican, but generally just crazy) and we essentially have the same untenable mess that will literally break us.

But do check out the website and see. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/12182009/profile.html

It wasn't.

Kerry was in Copenhagen and I think all he heard and what he was responding to were the CHARACTERIZATIONS of what Dean said - and not just by corpmedia, but, ironically, the MISCHARACTERIZATIONS of Dean's position from the left bloggers and his sp-called supporters who wanted the black and white media version 'Kill the Bill' position to be true.

He's been on the right side of this issue all along. BTW, since I am currently one of those blanketed under in the snowstorm along the East Coast right now, I've been occasionally picking up some C-Span between spates of Xmas baking. Bernie Sanders was just on, talking about the community health care centers and the increase in primary care physicians that are included in the bill.
No, it's not a perfect bill and no, it's not what I personally hoped to see.
But it's still much better than the status quo.

Many actually listened to the entire speech?

two. I have read the bill up to this point and it is garbage. Kerry can paint it however he likes and it still is garbage. Worse, it is the Senate making fools of us. Those arrogant bastards think they can get away with that garbage is a big slap in our face.

KILL THE BILL