Obama wins surprise Nobel Peace Prize: Republicans call for bombing of Norway

I take it Republicans don't vote for the Nobel Peace Prize. Because if that were the case, you can bet President Barack Obama certainly wouldn't have been named the 2009 recipient and instead whoever contributed the most to their campaigns over the last year would have most likely come away the victor (can you say health insurance company CEO).

But thank god the Nobel Prize committee does not except money from lobbyists, which allows them, if nothing else, to preserve the idea of peace on earth. Which would probably explain why the war mongering, in it for themselves, swine's of the Republican party are usually being lectured by the Nobel Peace Prize committee and not praised. I can just imagine what Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck will have to say about this. We'll probably be talking about a Tea Party rally in front of Noble Prize committee's Norwegian head quarters next week (Rabble Rabble Rabble), maybe even the total annihilation of Norway all together.

But enough about those sick bastards, because while they sulk over our president's monumental win (like they would if he reached world peace, stopped global warming or cured cancer), the rest of us should be proud that we now have a president, who is praised by the Nobel committee, instead of being chastised for unilateralism like his predecessor George W. Bush had been.

The Nobel Prize committee cited President Obama's "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" in declaring him the winner of the acclaimed award. The Committee also attached a "special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons."

"Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened," The Nobel Prize committee said in a press release. "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

President Obama becomes the third sitting U.S. President to win the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt won the award and President Woodrow Wilson was awarded the prize in 1919. President Jimmy Carter most recently took home the award in 2002, for his mediation in international conflicts.

Obama has not commented on his victory yet, but he does face a major decision in world peace in the upcoming days as he is scheduled to make a decision on General McChrystal's request for 40,000 additional troops in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, the award says a lot about the shift in U.S. foreign policy since Bushy left office. It is now up to Obama to take his vision and rhetoric and turn it into real action, so that future generations can live in a more peaceful world than we find ourselves living in today.

"For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that 'Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges,'" The committee concluded in the press release.

Congratulations Mr. President!

The power to choose: Why not a public option?

The debate over health care has been waging on in Congress and amongst the public for months now and our leaders, like children, still haven't agreed on a health care bill that will provide competition and give everyone the opportunity to acquire affordable coverage. At the center of the debate is the argument over the public option, which would create a government run health care system much like Medicare, in order to facilitate competition by giving people an additional option other than a private insurance agent to choose from. If it seems so simple to me, then what is all the fuss about?

Not that strong opposition to a government run health care system hasn't been met with extreme opposition in the past. When Harry Truman became the first president to suggest a universal health care system in the 1940s, after he became concerned with the quality of health care to all Americans especially those living in rural areas, opponents to the idea attacked him by using many of the same accusations that have been slung at the Obama administration like "Socialism," Communism" and sometimes even "Nazism." These same people also spread heinous rumors about "euthanasia" and "death panels" that we hear today.

But 70 years later, and all the stories of how health care has ruined millions of innocent, hard working Americans lives, not to mention directly caused many of the economic problems facing the country, I am boggled by the fact that there are actually individuals in our society and elected officials, well not so much the Republicans, that continue to use the same accusations in an effort to stop all Americans from acquiring affordable health care. What bothers me even more is that the majority of Americans are in favor of a public option (New York Times/CBS poll: 65 percent favor public option; 26 percent oppose such a plan), while a recent poll taken of American doctors shows that 63 percent support a public option

While I understand why politicians like John McCain (R-Ariz.), $546,000; Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), $425,000; Max Baucus (D-Mont.), $413,000, Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), $257,000; and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), $249,000, oppose such a bill that would include a public option based on their campaign contributions they have received from top insurance companies, I am always mesmerized how, not the majority, but a good portion of Americans continue to oppose an option that not only makes common sense, but would benefit them by creating more competition and lowering costs of private insurers. Insurance companies are so powerful in Washington they have spent nearly $1 billion in lobbying over the past two years, so if you are one of those people who oppose the public option, you are just another example of people being manipulated by big insurance.

But I still don't get what these lunies don't understand about competition and why the same people who oppose health care because they are afraid people on welfare or illegal immigrants will receive the same rights they have - although these groups already have better health care through a government run system called Medicade - are opposing something that will not lower insurance costs and at the same time line the gold plated pockets of the rich insurance company executives. Why is it that people who complain about being poor, and bitch about the rich, always end up sticking up for the rich and knocking down the poor when they have a chance to make a difference. I guess that is a question for a psychiatrist, but on the surface you would have to say because most average Americans don't know any rich people and don't want the dirt bag living down the street to have the same rights they have - yeah, it's fucked up.

However, in the end these pathetic Americans are just caught up in the same web of lies that have stopped our nation from getting universal health care for more than 70 years. But the people we should really be blaming are the swine's in the Senate and House, who would rather line their own pockets with campaign contributions than vote in the best interests of voters in their own districts - for example Republican John Boehner's district favors a public option by more than 50 percent, but he continues to wage war against such an idea in order to do what is right for himself and not the American people or more importantly the people of his district. These sick fucks are willing to mortgage the future of a nation for their own political gain - the type of people that would sell their own children into child slavery for a guaranteed reelection.

What bothers me most though, is that as a Democrat we thought with a majority in the House and Senate, coupled with a Democratic president in the White House, would guarantee that we got the type of legislation passed that would finally work for everyone instead of a few. However, hope, promise and doing what is in the best interest of the people has once again fallen to the all mighty dollar. Because if you think about it, it really makes no sense not to have a public option other than you fear that people would one day decide they like it better than what is offered by public insurance agencies, who have killed millions of Americans and sent millions more into economic catastrophe all to save a few pennies. I mean what else is there to be afraid of? What else is stopping us from having the same type of health care system that has worked so well for our grandparents with Medicare, and most every other civilized nation on this planet. That is why the only ones who should oppose the government run option is the health insurance companies that have everything to lose, not the people that have everything to gain through such a plan.

So I ask all of you who oppose or are leaning one way or the other on the public option, without any of the ignorant accusations and excuses, what you have to lose by the implementation of a government run health care plan. Give me one reason why it is a bad idea and one reason why private insurance companies would lower such rates without any competition and then we can actually start to have a real debate over the whole public option issue. Because in the end all of us will be mandated to have health care, so why don't we just make it easier for the waitress, the office assistant, the convenience store employee and everyone else who works tirelessly to make this country what it is, the chance to have affordable health care once and for all. And anyway we all really lost when the single payer system was never even seriously considered as an option in the first place.

Grayson's attack on Republicans: Good, bad or just plain funny?

Florida Congressman Alan Grayson is taking a new approach at combating the Republican lies that are clouding the real debate over sensible health care reform. He is telling people if you get sick, Republicans want you to "die quickly."

Grayson's move is along the same lines as the Republicans continued accusations that Democrats are trying to "socialize" medicine in America, through a plan that included death panels to rid the country of the old and chronically ill.

Many Republicans are trying to compare Grayson's comments on the House floor along the same lines as Congressman Joe Wilson's "You Lie!" outburst to the president while he addressed congress. They have even called for him to be reprimanded as Wilson had been by House members.

Now some would say Democrats should be held to the same standards as Republicans, but Joe Wilson offended not only Congress, but the office of the presidency through his choice words during a joint session of Congress, while Grayson made a two minute speech to members of the House. And there is a huge difference. But if Republicans want to hold Democrats to standards then they should also take on the responsibility of living up to those standards themselves - for they are the ones who started this volatile health care debate in the first place.

But while I believe Grayson had every right to say what he said in the setting that he said it, as well as every right, when asked to apologize, to stick it right back in Republicans faces by apologizing to the more than 40,000 people who die each year because of a lack of health insurance, Democrats need not follow the lead of these bullies and instead lead by example. It has been shown that most Americans today are sick of the petty bickering and lies that are spread by most notably the Republican party. We see these nuts on TV, like the woman who called then candidate Obama an Arab during a McCain rally last year. This type of idiocy is exactly what the majority of Americans are sick of hearing. When Bush first left office, I liked to think as a nation we were going to leave behind the Karl Rove politics of fear, but I guess I was wrong.

So while deep down I commend Grayson for giving the Republicans a taste of their own medicine (Man was it funny to hear their reaction! I am laughing as I write), I also believe that for Democrats, and all elected public officials for that matter, to be effective leaders, they must live up to a certain standard that exceeds the politics of hate and fear that is currently being directed out of the Republican party. But it is still funny to see the angry right cry about Grayson's accusations, espeically while they continue to try to sell their fairy tale death panels to the American people.

"Kill Obama" Facebook poll goes too far

Q: Should Obama be Killed?
1. No
2. Maybe
3. Yes
4. Yes if he cuts my health care



Death panels, concentration camps, organ-harvesting, gun touting radicals, Republican mutiny and angry mobs have been just a few of the attacks launched against America's first African-American President, Barack Obama, since taking office.

While all of these hate filled attacks are associated with a small, but overexposed movement against our nation's young, African-American President, one recent poll on the popular social network site, Facebook, asking whether or not President Obama should be "killed," has taken the level of hate that currently exists in our nation to new levels.

While the poll has since been taken down and the creator received a pleasant visit from the Secret Service, it is a disturbing thought that a person would even consider such a heinous and inhuman act of assassinating our leader. On top trying to insight a possible assassination attempt, this poll shows a level of naivety among the Facebook/MySpace generation, and the anti-Obama supporters, that feel they can say or do anything without repercussion.

First of all this person is lucky they asked such a question in a democratic nation, because if this had been posed under another regime, you can bet this person would probably never be heard from again. But this is America, where such stupid actions raise concerns and visits from men in dark suits, but nothing else.

While I find the poll to be appalling as an American citizen, and yes I would have found it just as appalling if it had been posed about President Bush, I believe this type of action is a direct result of the president's race and more importantly the crazed verbal attacks being waged against him by a small group of right-wing nuts, conservative talk radio hosts and Republican officials, who have relentlessly attacked him on every front since taking office.

The culture that Obama's presidency is breeding among conservatives is exactly what he promised to change during last year's election. But if we don't start acting in a reasonable, civil manner as a society, then there is no chance of our president ever achieving the success and togetherness he envisions for our country.

It is not President Obama that is the problem with America as many of his dissenters would lead you to believe, but rather it is these bastards, who care more about their egotistical self-interests than aiding their fellow countrymen and respecting their nation's leader. And while I stress such an attack is as much against Obama as it is the Presidency itself, we must also remember when you call for assassination, you are calling for the death of an innocent human being, who has a wife, two kids and has never done anything directly to harm any Americans.

As a citizen and patriot of this country, I am fed up with these lunatics attempting to bully our president and our fellow countrymen around at the expense of their own gain. We must begin to stand against such tyranny and say that no more will we allow the office of the president to be disrespected in the way it has been for the past eight months, and in many ways the past eight years.