SPEAKER PELOSI REBUTS SEN. MITCH MC CONNELL IN DEFAMING HEALTH CARE REFORM

I want to commend Speaker Nancy Pelosi for objecting to Sen. Mitch Mc Connell's silly but low arguments against the Democrats' health care reform bill.

James Rowley and Lorraine Woellert write in today's Bloomberg web page:

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ridiculed criticism by Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell of Democrats’ health-care plans, saying he’s echoing an insurance industry which makes “exorbitant profits” at the expense of Americans’ well being.

"The speaker said McConnell’s comment yesterday that the Democrats’ plan “means sticking it to seniors with cuts to Medicare” isn’t true."

It's really amazing to see what the Republicans like McConnell will do or say in their effort to stop a health care reform bill.

But remember, the Republicans have been trying to thwart important social legislation for at least the last 80 years. The Republicans called Social Security retirement income "socialistic," they said that Medicare was "socialized medicine," and now the Republicans call the health care reform bill that tries to extend health insurance to the 40+ million uninsured Americans an example of "socialism."

BUSH SEEKS FOREIGN HELP IN PRESSURING SPEAKER PELOSI ON FREE TRADE WITH COLOMBIA

Now we have George Bush asking Felipe Calderon president of Mexico and Stephen Harper of Canada to come out and publicly ask Nancy Pelosi to reconsider not holding a vote on the Colombia free trade pact.

Stephen Lee Myers writes in today's The New York Times:

"President Bush pulled the leaders of Mexico and Canada into an unusually direct involvement in his domestic political efforts to expand free trade on Tuesday when his two North American allies joined him in a foray into both Congressional politics and the presidential campaign.
President Felipe Calderón of Mexico and Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada lent their weight to what has been something of a lonely campaign by the president as he has traveled the country to make pro-trade speeches and angry statements about the “petty politics” that he sees threatening one of his administration’s major legacies. They joined Mr. Bush in sharply criticizing a decision by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to scuttle a vote on a free trade agreement with Colombia."

This shows how impotent has become the Boy King. Not able to admit defeat for his lack of meaningful negotiations with Congress on other pressing national needs, Bush appeals to outside authorities to petition Speaker Pelosi.

Consider what is being sought. A free trade with Colombia, a country that on this past March 1st, launched an illegal intrusion into neighboring Ecuador to shoot and kill some 25 "members" of the FARC as they slept in their beds. The dead included four visiting Mexican college students who happened to be the camp to judge for themselves what was happening with the insurgent Colombian group.

The same Colombia which has a history of killing farmers by right-wing militias and justifying it by saying that the campesinos were FARC members. Just yesterday, Mario Uribe, cousin of Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe, was arrested by Colombian prosecutors and charged with complicity in the doings of the death squads. Mario immediately tried to seek refuge in the Costa Rican embassy, lending basis to the speculation that he did not want to answer questions about his cousin Alvaro.

So again, I say to Speaker Pelosi, don't be bullied by Bush to rush into this Colombian agreement. If George Bush is so desirous of the Colombian free trade pact, let him first agree to an expansion of the S-CHIP program granting health insurance to children. Let Bush first get serious about helping New Orleans, a project that he has forgotten about almost as soon as the flood waters receded.