In the third presidential debate with John Kerry, President Bush said the words “I believe that freedom is a gift from the Almighty” and I got chills.  I think it was one of the most powerful things President Bush ever said.  And he said it with authority.  Lately all things political annoy me too much to try to care about.  I’m just keeping my head down because I thought maybe it doesn’t really matter in the end.  But then I started reading about the protests in Iran and I remembered why it matters.  Freedom is a gift from the Almighty.  And people have always recognized that.  People have always fought for freedom and died for freedom.  Why is that?  What makes freedom so important to people across all religious and political lines?

In case you are hiding under a rock, the jist of the Iranian conflict is: An election was held and last Friday President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected, a lot of Iranians are crying fowl.  From the Los Angeles Times

Days after Khamenei blessed the election of Ahmadinejad and urged Iranians to rally behind the president, the spokesman of the Guardian Council urged Mousavi’s supporters to wait for the “final results” of Friday’s election until after the fraud investigation, which will begin today.

For some reason the people of Iran have lost faith in the political process, for some reason, a lot of Iranians do not believe that a rigged election can be fixed through any kind of “fraud investigation”.  Hmm.  So, despite being threatened with beatings or worse a million people took to the streets (from the same article)

Monday’s crowd — estimates of which ranged to more than 1 million — defied Interior Ministry warnings broadcast on state television and radio that anyone showing up would be beaten or worse, and even ignored Mousavi’s last-minute call to cancel the event.

The protesters found out about the rally despite a media clampdown that brought the shuttering of numerous opposition websites, including those linked to Mousavi, the jamming of satellite news channels and the shutdown of text messaging systems.

In an attempt to help keep information flowing, a Twitter co-founder wrote in a blog Monday that the company had delayed an important maintenance operation.

Yeah, seems to me that if a government is threatening violence to its own people for speaking out–they probably aren’t going to take a fraud investigation very seriously.  So all kinds of people came out.  They came out to Azadi [Freedom] Square.  To quote some of the folks quoted in the LAT article,

“I am fed up with the rigging of votes,” said Nargess Hassanpour, a 24-year-old architect. “I had never voted until last Friday. I am here and I march toward Azadi [Freedom] Square as far as I can reach, and let come what may.”

and

“If I died today it would be perfect,” said Hossein, a 60-year-old retired schoolteacher in the crowd who didn’t want to be further identified. “The nation of Iran has woken up.”

and (this is a chant, not a direct quote, but still)

As night fell, people ascended to their rooftops and chanted “God is Great!” in what is becoming a nightly ritual of protest against Ahmadinejad’s reelection.

And this is what it looks like:

I don’t know why freedom and blood go hand in hand.  I guess it is because our blood is the most precious commodity we have.  Exchanging blood for the concept of freedom, of a free election, of personal freedom is the most powerful way to say that freedom is indeed a gift from God.  And anyone who tries to come between that gift and people who recongize its worth will eventually be defeated.  I believe that.  There is a lot of evil in this world.  And for the purpose of this article I’m defining evil as any power that seeks to take away liberty.  It happens all over the world in many different ways.  I have no doubt that eventually freedom will prevail.  Until then I will always be inspired by those who stand up and give everything they have to make it happen.

We have taught our children that when someone has beat you in a race, it is very important to congratulate them.  I would have preferred a different outcome from this election but I had to put on the big girl pants last night when it was obvious very early on that my candidate was not going to win.  Not only did McCain lose the presidential bid, but Kay Hagan beat Elizabeth Dole for the senate AND Bev Perdue beat out Pat McCrory for the governor’s office.  A triple blow.  My only consolation is that if everything was decided by my county alone, it would have been a huge blowout for republicans.  It is what it is.  I am happy for my friend who campaigned tirelessly for Obama and spent all day yesterday driving people to the polls.  I am happy for this moment in history where America has overwhelmingly put their confidence in an African American candidate.  I am happy that we finally have proof that racism has no power over the general consciousness of the United States.  I am happy for Obama.  He overcame a lot to win this race.  Not his race, but his name.  Barak Hussein Obama.  Can you imagine what people would have thought on 9.12.2002 if someone predicted that our next president after George Bush was going to be Barak Hussein Obama?  I think that also says something good about America.  I wish Obama well, he’s got a mess on his hands and I sincerely hope that he is able to take this on and surprise us all with his leadership ability.  He’s got the congress and the senate on his side, so it shouldn’t be impossible.  The next four years should be interesting….

Thanks Nikki!

Dear Members of the Republican Party,

Like millions of other PUMAs, the only thing I’ve decided about this election is that under no circumstances would I be voting for Barack Obama. However, like millions of other PUMAs I have also realized that the only way to ensure that Barack Obama is not elected President is if John McCain wins on November 4th.

In the last few months, I have watched with amazement as you have worked hard to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the Presidential election. In your public and private utterances you have been pessimistic, downcast, fatalistic and have shown signs of being mentally out of the game.

How easily you forget that compared to Barack Obama, in John McCain you not only have a candidate who was legitimately elected by your party, but you have a better candidate, a better message, and a better connection to Main Street, USA. Despite all this you carry on like the election is over and Barack Obama has already won.

It is sad that compared to the rank and file of the GOP, PUMAs are more steadfast in their belief that an Obama presidency is not inevitable. All over the MSM, in the blogosphere and in conversations with people everywhere, members of the GOP who should still be fighting the good fight are talking like a party that has already lost. Why should this be so?

As PUMAs, during the primaries we took the Obama machine on and won, we kept our faith and acted from the realization that no matter what our contributions were, doing something was infinitely better than doing nothing. Either way we knew that sink or swim, till it was over, it iwas not over. The GOP needs to come to this same realization in regards to this election immediately.

The reason Hillary prevailed till she chose to give it all up for the sake of party unity (my a..) is because those of us in her corner supported her candidacy against all odds. Despite all of Hillary’s flaws, and believe you me, there are many, when it came to supporting her candidacy we never showed hurt, never showed fear, never backed down, and never gave up. You can do the same.

As PUMAs we worked our butt off to ensure Hillary Clinton won the Democratic Party’s Primary, against all odds, including being outspent 4 : 1, the MSM being in Obama’s corner, charges of racism and blatant displays of sexism by Obama and his surrogates, and last but not least, electoral fraud perpetuated by ACORN. Folks, indeed the more things change the more they stay the same, nothing has changed, except John McCain has taken the place of Hillary Clinton.

How dare you back down, how dare you give up on John McCain and Sarah Palin? Right now they are the only two people in the world standing between the America we love and cherish and a society remade in the image of Barack Obama. Obama is a man whose political ideology is more in line with that of Daniel Arap Moi, a founding father of Kenya who thrived on the cult of personality, than it is in line with that of our founding father, George Washington, a man who put it all on the line so that our country would truly be greater than any one man.

Is it going to be hard to do this, but you must fight. You must stop griping, complaining and talking about how the deck is stacked against your candidate and your party, yes, life isn’t fair, but it has never been. Instead get in the trenches to fight for McCain/Palin. There must be no retreat, there must be no surrender, till it is midnight in Hawaii and the election is over in all parts of the United States, the election is not over.

Go out and talk to people, educate people on McCain and Palin’s strengths, also educate people on Obama and Biden’s extremely obvious character deficiencies. Nobody who truly loves America and the American way of life can compare the candidates and give any sort of edge to Obama/Biden.

Not everybody is going to listen to you, but who cares? If people don’t want to listen to you, go talk to someone else, if they don’t want to listen to you, go talk to yet another person, eventually, you’ll find someone who has been waiting just to hear your message, and that person will at the minimum NOT vote for Obama, even if s/he does not vote for McCain/Palin. Every single not cast for Obama is a vote that keeps Obama out of the White House, it is that simple.

None of this is going to be easy, pleasant or maybe even enjoyable, because hard work is required, but guess what? The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.

Lastly, Republicans, you can count on PUMAs to work till the bell is rung to prevent Obama from being elected, you must do the same!

Posted by PUMA Pundit

Hat tip David Foster

I have not had a lot of nice things to say about John McCain.  Watching the debate tonight though, there is only one clear choice for me.  McCain demonstrated restraint, integrity and experience in this debate.  I thought McCain schooled Obama on small business, foreign policy, and health care.  Interesting to me was how Obama’s criticism of McCain’s health care plan was that it would be the end of employer-based health insurance.  Hallelujah!  If only.  I really think that would solve a lot of problems.  I do not agree with the analysis of the debate that I saw.  To me it appeared that Obama was on the defensive quite a bit and McCain was the one who was pretty fluid and calm.  But what do I know, I actually want McCain to win.  As I’ve said on many occasions, its painful to have a stake in the election.  At one point it didn’t appear to matter who won.  But now that the economy is in the toilet and it appears that tough, tough times are ahead I can not imagine a bigger disaster than to have an Obama Presidency to further plunge us into chaos.  Well, its pretty much out of my hands.  I know who I’m voting for.  Whatever America decides I hope we’re paying attention right now.  Vote wisely!

I get a little gloomy around September 11.  I had no personal connection to anyone who died in the terrorist attacks, but all the same it makes me sad to think about.  And not in the way that it was sad on that day 7 years ago.  It was devastating and horrifying then.  Now I’m just completely puzzled.  I was searching YouTube the other day for a tribute video I’d seen a few years ago.  I found all kinds of videos of September 11, none were the one I was looking for.  But what I found troublesome were the ones created by conspiracy theorists claiming that our own government was in league with the terrorists and they allowed, or aided in the attacks.  I don’t get their motivation.  I mean, to the point of being infuriated I don’t get it.  If it was something asinine like that woman on Fail blog who is all freaked out about a rainbow in her sprinkler I could easily laugh it off.  But the fact is, September 11 was something so sinister, so horrifying I just don’t get how people can insert their idiotic need to be “in-the-know” about it.  And I also don’t get why these people, cynical as they are–feel good about suggesting that the government was involved in this attack and still continue to live here.  If the government was really so evil it would explode its own city, its own people…wouldn’t you get out?   Granted, some of them are probably insane.  When we lived in California I got a huge kick out of walking through our neighborhood to this man’s house who was a total nut job.  He posted all his conspiracy theories in a plastic tube on a palm tree outside of his house.  He was convinced “they” were after him so he’d only be at home one day a month.  Among his conspiracy theories were that all CIA agent’s wives were purposely infected with cancer.  And government officials had a device that could infect you with any kind of disease if they shook your hand.  I was amused and disturbed at the same time.

The truth of the matter is, terrorists perpetrated this attack on our country.  They murdered thousands of innocent people.  They murdered children, mothers, fathers, siblings, friends.  People who died and left a huge hole in their communities, in their families.  Some people jumped to their deaths to escape being burned alive.  Some people didn’t have a second to react before they were pulverized.  Some people, when they realized what the hell was going on decided to fight back.  Some people were climbing up dozens of flights of stairs to rescue people trapped in the buildings. To focus on anything but these people is just pointless and insane.

9/11

The ashes spread a clear mile in an instant.

Groaning and shuddering into oblivion.

Unceremoniously cast over the city streets, cars, people…

People who are so easily compartmentalized.

Except they are some father, some mother, somone’s child…

Its ugly to think anyone, anything could think so little of human beings to do this…

to take pleasure in causing death. Unthinkable.

In shock and desperation we watched it happen, over and over, blacked out in our minds.

The millions of papers, fluttering like ghosts.

Billowing clouds of ashes and concrete showering down, exploding outward.

The moment of impact, once, twice exploded, exploded a hundred times, three hundred times over.

The moment where two thousand nine hundred and seventy four people died, its like some familiar old

cartoon.

In my book this is a must read post over at Cara Ellison.

“Imagine being from a country where 2,230,000 people are buried in the ground upon which you walk every day, a place such as Belarus. Rotting layers of soldiers, twelve deep, for miles and miles, nourishing the roots of your grandmother’s apple tree.”

One of the most interesting classes I took in college was the “anthropology of war”. We live in a blessed nation, we exist in the world parallel to where “starvation, massacre, rape, 9-year old boys with Kalashnikovs is just an average day in the hood.”

Its a sobering thought. I am the type who wants to bury my head in the sand. I don’t want to hear it, I don’t want to see it. For years BJay has been preaching about how oil is going to get too expensive to drill and refine and our gas economy is going to come to a grinding halt. He gets an odd thrill out of the news that automakers can’t sell SUVs and Chevy trucks are being dethroned as the best selling automobile in this country. BJay has been saying for years that people are going to have to start growing their own food. You know what that says to me? My kids are going to have to go without food. I was pregnant with Asher when 9/11 happened. I was home by myself and I got down on the floor and cried my eyes out. I was just so devastated for my baby, this was the world he was coming in to. Well the shock wore off and I’ve had 3 more children and this is the world they are living in now. The sobering part is that this has been the norm pretty much since the beginning. There will always be something that threatens to destroy our peace. Wars, plagues, civil unrest, food shortages… that’s just another day as a human on this planet. We just keep driving on, against the horrifying tide because somehow in the middle of it all… life is still beautiful. Especially here.

I’ve been commuting between my house and the hospital where I’m having my treatments every day this week.  During the hour + drive I listen to NPR because, frankly, I wouldn’t begin to know what music channel to listen to.  The other morning a story came on that was an endearing trip down memory lane.   Like a lot of GI’s kids I had the great privilege of living in Germany as a child.  We lived in a German neighborhood for the first year or two and then on Rhein Main AFB for the rest of the time.  When we lived off base we were bussed in to school.  I attended Halverson elementary school.  Our school was named for the famous “Candy Bomber” known to post WWII East German children as “Uncle Wiggle Wings”.  This story always makes me cry.  After the war Germany was sliced up like a pie.  The Allies (US, France, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union) took control of portions of Germany.  The Soviet Union’s plan to rebuild Germany differed so much from the other allies plans that they ordered everyone out and stopped supplies from getting in to East Germany.  The people in East Germany, having just been through a war had lived on sub-starvation rations for years already.  Tensions were high, any attempt to alleviate suffering could easily have led to WWIII.  A British Commander suggested an alternative, an airlift.  Allied forces would drop food, fuel and supplies from the air.  It was a beautiful moment in history in my opinion.  Lt. Gail S. Halverson was one pilot who was a part of the effort to get food to the East Germans.  The NPR story talked about how Halverson split two sticks of gum he had to share with some East German children.  He was so struck by their reaction that he decided to do something he named “operation little vittles”.  He told the children to look for his plane and he’d drop candy to them.  When they asked him how they’d know it was him, he said he’d wiggle his wings as a sign.  He bought up all the candy he could find and took up donations from his friends and coworkers from their rations and tied chocolate and gum to handkerchiefs so that he could drop candy from his plane.  These were children who didn’t have enough food to eat.  The idea of candy was magical for them.  The NPR story said that to this day, Col. Halverson is a celebrity in Berlin and 70 year olds will come up to him with the handkerchiefs they collected from his candy drops.  Then Lt. Halverson was breaking the rules to do this sweet act of compassion and charity.  He was nearly courtmartialed, but when other pilots heard about his operation, they began dropping candy as well.  I got to meet Col. Halverson when he came to Germany for our elementary school dedication.  I also attended church with his grandchildren so as an added bonus he also was there for my little brother’s first pinewood derby race in cub scouts.  I shyly asked if he would pose for a picture with my brother and his car.  He was such a sweet, down to earth guy.  He not only posed for the picture, but he hammed it up as well.  I have got to dig up those pictures somewhere.  It is men like Halverson that keep hope alive  in this world.  Things are looking bleak, there are so many things to worry about and get uptight about.  But I know that whatever is likely to descend on us there will be people who will hold up beacons of hope and compassion.  I know it because humanity is created by God, its in our nature to bridge the chasms of ugliness and brutality.

BJay has been talking about this concept for months now, and I think its brilliant.  His idea was to privatize health care and take it out of the hands of employers.  Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel has just come out with a book that lays out this type of Universal Healthcare plan.  I am willing to eat my words–if any candidate is smart enough to use this plan I WILL VOTE FOR HIM!

From PBS Now in the News

DR. EMANUEL: Our proposal is for universal healthcare vouchers. It’s a plan where everybody in America gets a voucher to buy health insurance from an insurance company or health plan or a managed care organization. And they get a basic benefits package. If they want to buy more, they want—wider choice of doctors, they want better services, say, better eye glass services, or they want more mental health services, they can pay more and they can buy up.

Their employer isn’t involved, so there’s continuity. They stay—stay with the same plan whether they change jobs, or unfortunately get fired. The plans cannot, say, “We’re going to exclude you for preexisting conditions.” They have to reinsure that.

BRANCACCIO: What’s in it for—’cause you still have insurance companies in this plan. You haven’t eradicated insurance companies. So—what if you’re decrepit, and you show up—with your little voucher. Why should they take you?

DR. EMANUEL: So every insurance company would, to participate, would be required to take the voucher. That’s the first thing. The second thing is that doesn’t mean that they would get paid the same amount no matter what people—what illness people have. The point you’re saying is, look, some people use more healthcare resources.

And there would be a reason for the insurance company not to cover them. We take care of that by what is called risk adjustment. That is the national health board, when they give money to the insurance company to cover a person, pays extra for sicker people, and less for healthy people. That eliminates the incentive for insurance companies to skim the cream, or drop the lemons.

BRANCACCIO: Cherry pick I believe is the term these people use.

DR. EMANUEL: Or that’s right. That’s another one.

BRANCACCIO: Well, let’s review some of the other advantages of the plan as you see it. So you wouldn’t have employers doing this.

DR. EMANUEL: Absolutely.

BRANCACCIO: Which would relieve some burden on America’s overburdened corporations.

DR. EMANUEL: Absolutely. I think—I think—some of the biggest supporters of this plan will be businesses. They want—their employees to have insurance, but the costs are becoming too high, too astronomical for them.

So they would get out of the game entirely. And I think that’s a good thing. One of the benefits for employees would be they would probably see their wages go up. ‘Cause, right now, employers—are playing whatever it is, ten, 15 percent, of—of their labor cost to health insurance. That money would be, if the economists are right, transferred as increases in wages.

BRANCACCIO: Not just a shareholder value?

DR. EMANUEL: Well, it might go to shareholder value. But, again, they’re going to have to compete for workers. And it probably—I mean the economists think it would go—predominantly to—workers in—increase in wages. So that would be a benefit.

BRANCACCIO: Now if I can speak for the—two million suspicious people watching us right now, when you talk about a basic package of—

DR. EMANUEL: Right.

BRANCACCIO: —medical coverage, what are you talking about? Are you talking about—the most advanced cancer care? Or what are you talking about?

DR. EMANUEL: You would probably get the same plan you have now as a basic benefits plan. Look at what the average employer is providing to their employee today. Take that premium and multiply it times all Americans. And how much does that come out?

BRANCACCIO: I thought a component of this was an added tax. What the Europeans call value added tax, sales tax, sort of.

DR. EMANUEL: Right. Well, if the states aren’t paying Medicaid anymore, and employers aren’t paying for insurance, we would have to find the money to pay for this. We wouldn’t add more money, but we’d—you’d have to get basically—recoup somehow how employers are paying for it and how the states are paying for Medicaid. And that would be—we’ve proposed to finance this by a value added tax.

That means that, when you buy something, the added value is taxed. The tax would be about eight to ten of purchases—if you eliminate food and some other items that—poor people disproportionately buy. And, again—it—you’re going to have to pay for this somehow. It is going to be a tax.

BRANCACCIO: This seems a little shocking if you add the ten percent to the nine percent sales tax they’re already charging in California. Nineteen percent sales tax.

DR. EMANUEL: Well, but—remember what you get for that. So—your wages should increase—because you’re no longer paying—your employer is no longer paying for you health insurance, and should transfer that money to your salary increase. And there is this benefit of guaranteed healthcare. The overall—and your—by the way, your state taxes should go down if Medicaid is no longer part of the state—budget demand. So all of those things—should—we’re not demanding any more money devoted to healthcare. We’re just shifting how we get it.

BRANCACCIO: But still insurance companies there in the middle. They’re sort of—I love insurance companies as much as the next guy. But they’re kind of middle men. And there have been arguments by health—policy experts—

DR. EMANUEL: Right.

BRANCACCIO: That they’re kind of noise in the system.

DR. EMANUEL: One of the things that I think is important going forward, to make healthcare more efficient, and to get continuity of coverage better—is to have vertically integrated health plans.

Where your doctor works with the hospital, works with the pharmacy. Works with the home health aid. Works with skilled nursing facilities. So that you’re not sort of picking and choosing in the—in the whole system is just broken into parts.

That does require someone to vertically integrate health plans, health insurance companies. Where we would change from the current system—is the following. Right now in America there are about 1,300 health insurance companies. Many of them very small niche players. They cater to very small companies, but they add a lot of administrative costs —in the sense of they’ve got a different billing system. And so people have to keep up with that. In our plan, we would estimate that we would cut that down to about 50 or 60 plans throughout the country.

BRANCACCIO: You’d also get rid of those insurance companies, and there are some, who only like to insure people who will never get sick.

DR. EMANUEL: Absolutely. You can—in—again, in this proposal you’d have to take whoever walks through the door.

BRANCACCIO: Is it not troublesome to you that, under your plan, a wealthy person could buy some really “souped” up coverage that a poorer person could not get access to. There’d be this basic inequality.

DR. EMANUEL: You don’t think that happens now? From a practical standpoint, the rich can always buy. It seems to me the ethical question, the question of justice, is are people getting a good basic benefits package? And is—the—is everyone getting that?

It is not required, I don’t think, from an ethical standpoint, from a matter of justice, for that government to provide everything that could possibly be—be done for everybody in the country. We would go bankrupt.

BRANCACCIO: You think Republicans and Democrats could embrace a voucher plan? Of the sort that you’re discussing?

DR. EMANUEL: I think so. And I’ll say why. I think for the Democrats—the universality. The fact that everyone’s in the system. Everyone gets the same basic benefits package, is appealing

I think Republicans, I think what they want to be sure is, it’s not a—big government entitlement with no—with unlimited—budgets like Medicare. They want to make sure that Americans get choice. That we retain a private delivery system.

We have all of those in the voucher program. So I think the universal part appeals to the Democrats. The voucher part appeals to Republicans. And I think it should make us one big happy family. And we should just pass it.