Greetings Friends! 

It’s been almost a year since I’ve written something for the Seminal, so I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.  I’d like to say that I’ve been busy: My band released an album no one knows about, I joined another band for a few shows, and I moved 279 miles east of my beloved Seattle to a place called "Spokane."  Never been to Spokane?  Sure you have!  Its middle-America, located on the border of Idaho about 100 miles south of Canada in a place the locals call the "inland northwest." 

Spokane is the exact opposite of Seattle.  It’s high desert: No moisture, no traffic, no liberals, no bullshit.  It’s basically Southwest Ohio without the freak flash floods. On my first official visit I saw a large group of people protesting a Planned Parenthood and, separately, five local banks, presumably for some bail-out related reason.  So yes, Spokane is not Seattle.  Oh well, I survived 8 years of Bush/Cheney, I can survive anything.

Now onto the health care war. (It’s not a debate anymore people, it’s a war.)

Where are the Obama people?  Where is the new majority?  This group called Blue-Dog Democrats – "centrist" Democrats who happened to be heavily backed by the medical insurance lobby – run by Congressman Who Gives A Shit (D-OH) are all of the sudden controlling whether I (yes, I have no health care, shoot me…wait a minute, please don’t…oh wait, I have 2 more days left on my crappy catastrophic plan, so, ok, shoot me but loan me $1,000 to cover the cost, or $102.96 so I can keep my crappy ass plan) can have the same health care that they do. 

The worst part, the ABSOLUTE worst part of the whole health care war is the continued pussyfication (a George Carlin word, sound it out) of not just the Democratic Party but the liberal majority in the United States. 

President Obama should’ve been doing these town halls in March, at the rate of one a day.  Remember how Former President Bush got his war?  He pressed the flesh!  Every single member of his cabinet was out there everyday in the trenches shooting bullshit cannons at MSNBC and CNN (I’d say FOX too, but in this war they were like Belgium). But President Obama wants so damn much to be everyone’s friend. 

And this, my friends, is his fatal flaw.  I almost want to grab a newspaper and hit him on the nose and say, "Stop it!" 

This "friendship" phenomenon started during the 2000 election when the media asked people which candidate you’d rather have a beer with, and now all politicians are concerned with "likeability."  You know what, President Obama? Just knock it off.  You’re a nerd.  Actually, you’re like Urkel from Family Matters. You shoot great hoops and can transform yourself from uber-nerd to suave-ultra male (Stefan Urkel anyone?), but you are not my friend.  I do not have friends that wear sweatpants around their waist with their shirts tucked in.

Get it done, and get it done now. 

You have no friends in the Republican Party, because once election season returns (three months from now, give or take) they’re going to try and kill you to save their jobs.  Because that’s what Americans do and that’s why America is beautiful and amazing and ugly and horrific all at the same time. 

In other news that’s completely related to health care, the great Senator from the State of Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy, died the other day due to complications from a brain tumor.  I had the great honor of meeting Senator Kennedy a few years ago on several occasions, and yes, yes yes yes, he was a great man.  Great man doesn’t even describe it.  I was 22 years old at the time, and he was larger than life.  Senator Kennedy was an amazing man, a great Senator, an advocate for pretty much everything I believe in, and a man who you can honestly say in some way or another impacts your life on a daily basis.  Some have said, stupidly, that one man or woman can’t truly make a difference. Senator Kennedy proves that sentiment false.  Chris Matthews said it best when he said (I’m paraphrasing here), "He was a wealthy guy who thought everyone should have what he had."  But here’s where it gets interesting:

The 2008 Republican presidential candidate [Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee] suggested during his radio show, "The Huckabee Report," on Thursday that, under President Obama’s health care plan, Kennedy would have been told to "go home to take pain pills and die" during his last year of life.

Yes, my boy Mike Huckabee went there.  Good!  Good for him.  I mean that, I really do. 

As I stated earlier, this isn’t a health care "debate," this is a health care "war." Sure, it’s poor taste to talk-down Obama’s plan (not to mention the absurd ‘forced death’ claim that Republicans have been selling lately), but do you actually think that the great Senator from Massachusetts named Ted Kennedy wouldn’t have done the SAME EXACT THING? 

C’mon, ignore your liberal guilt for a second and face the facts:  This is politics.  There is no such thing as "poor taste." Democrats should re-name the health care package after the Late Great Senator, but only if they REALLY do it in his honor.  Give it some BALLS, or (for my female readers) OVARIES (I tried).  Do you think Republicans would waste this political capital?  Of course not! That’s why they win a lot and we, Democrats, are still trying to find our footing in a war we aren’t prepared to fight. 

In wars people die.  Great people die.  But they died for something.  Senator Kennedy died fighting for health care, so do what he would’ve done and politicize his death for a good cause:  Full Universal Health Care.

If Congressman (or woman) from Who Gives A Shit (D-OH) isn’t willing to back Kennedy’s dream then President Obama should find some random somewhat upstanding citizen to run against the sitting congressman (or woman). 

Fuck the party of compromise! Compromise gets you nowhere fast.  Compromise gets you where we are now, arguing dollars and cents while real people struggle. 

I say this: If President Obama can’t get health care the way Senator Kennedy would’ve wanted it, then President Obama should eliminate these "blue dog special interest junkies" from the party altogether.  For the betterment of the nation, if you’re not on board then here’s the door.  President Obama shouldn’t be working WITH Senator Grassley; he should be campaigning against him, now.  Congresswoman Michelle Bachman of Minnesota said her answer for universal health care was "Prayer and Fasting."  Are you kidding me?  I don’t believe it’s beneath the President to try and ruin this woman’s political career. 

But that probably won’t happen, because we’re all "friends" now.

There is a new wave of change all around us, and if we set our compass true, we will reach our destination — not merely victory for our party, but renewal for our nation.  And this November, the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans, so with Barack Obama and for you and for me, our country will be committed to his cause. The work begins anew. The hope rises again. And the dream lives on.

-Senator Ted Kennedy, at the Democratic National Convention, August 2008

Seriously folks. A guy with the middle name "Hussein" is President, and you’re telling me that health care isn’t possible? 

Please.