More Christmas 'toons

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The Sprit of Christmas award goes to my sister Rebecca Mandel

Rebecca and one of the Burundi Children

Last week my sister hosted a party for thirteen Burundi refugee children at her home. For some months Becky has been volunteering to tutor the Burundi refugee children once a week. The kids are living in Nashville, resettled from refugee camps in Rwanda.

Becky bought gifts for each of the children, which they took home to open on Christmas morning. Rebecca also bought gifts for each of the children’s siblings and parents. In all Rebecca bought over 60 gifts. The parents got much needed things like scarfs and gloves. The children wrapped the presents to take home to give to their family.

Becky served them a traditional Christmas meal of turkey and ham and all the fixings. After the meal, she had all the ingredients and they made banana splits. The food was new to them but they quickly took to it. They danced and they sang Christmas songs. My sister, Kathleen, read to them The Night Before Christmas.

For opening her heart and home to these children, I give Becky the Sprit of Christmas award.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas

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Christmas Cartoons

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The war on Christmas

I guess with the health care debate and a crumbling economy and growing deficits and climategate, the defense of Christmas has taken a back seat. Thank goodness! I don't know who won but the war on Christmas seems to be over. I read lots of blogs and follow lots of groups and for the last two years there have been outraged Christians mad that someone wished them a "Happy Holiday" instead of "Merry Christmas." Also, there was a politically correct crowd that seemed to go out of their way to avoid use of the word "Christmas" and tried changing the "Christmas break" to the "winter break" and called Christmas trees, "holiday trees." I have seen almost none of that this year.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

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Rudolph

In the days before the fall of communism in Russia, there was this couple sitting in their home one cold winter night. Outside it was misting a light mixture of rain and sleet and snow and the man looked out and said to his wife, "It is raining, dear." His wife looked out and said, "No, it is snowing." He looked out again and said, "No, that is rain." The wife said, "I don't think so; that looks like snow." He then looked at her more intently and in a less conversational, more serious tone he said, "Rudolph, the red, knows rain, dear."

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Will have sex for health care reform.

OK, let’s think about this. Say you are the kind of gal who if she likes a guy and the chemistry is right will sleep with him. You meet some guy, he is oh so cute, and you both just love Chinese food and you enjoy the same movies and have the same favorite rock band. There is some definite chemistry going on. He takes you home. You invite him in. You get into some nuzzling and kissing and caressing and groping. You move it to the bedroom and then you turn to the guy and say, “I have to ask you something.” He thinks you are going to ask about birth control. Instead, you say, “Do you support health care reform?” While looking you in the eye, the guy will smile and look adoringly at you and whisper, “yes.” The sex is great.

Now, if the next day he calls and ask you out again and you have a more detailed discussion about the news of the day and you discover he is for health care reform but not the single payer system, will you feel betrayed? Will you have more great sex with him or not? Or, let us say, he is for health care reform but not the Medicare expansion, does that end the sex? Will you feel used? What if he tells you he is for health care reform, but the reform he favors is tort reform, removing the ban on purchasing insurance across state lines, and shifting the income tax deduction for health care from the employer to the employee and he favors health insurance tax credits? Will you feel dirty? Is the sex over?

What if the next day you discover he is for the Senate version of health care but not the House version? How will that make you feel? Is the sex over? So, before you jump in bed be sure you really know what the guy believes about health care reform. I know that is not as much fun as talking about food and movies and rock bands but don’t make a fatal mistake and bed someone who doesn’t agree with you on this important topic. Also, you might want to make sure you agree about the war in Afghanistan and the death penalty and cap and trade and expanding the minimum wage and immigration reform. What if you agree about health care reform but disagree about some of this other stuff?

Here is another consideration girls: guys lie for sex. I hate to be the one to tell you this but it is true. They will lie about birth control, liking Chinese food and their favorite band. To get laid they would definitely lie about their position on health care reform.

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More MoveON email

Kay, keep up the good work. I hope everyone calls Cooper and tells him not to compromise and tells him to stand firm. The Senate bill is a sell-out. It needs to be defeated. I called Cooper and expressed my view.

Cooper as you know is a leading Blue Dog. I hope the good progressives like MoveOn can get the most progressive candidate they can find to run against Cooper in the primary. He needs to be challenged by a true progressive. I think Cooper is a DINO (Democrat in Name Only).

We don't need no stinking compromise!

Defeat Cooper!

Power to the People!

Rod Williams

--- On Mon, 12/21/09, Kat Barr, MoveOn.org Political Action wrote:

From: Kat Barr, MoveOn.org Political Action
Subject: Fix the Senate Bill
To: "Rod "
Date: Monday, December 21, 2009, 12:58 PM

Can you call Rep. Cooper right now? Tell him that you're counting on him to fight for the real reform that the House passed—including the public option—when the Senate and House health care bills are merged.

Representative Jim Cooper
Phone: 202-225-4311

Report your call

Dear MoveOn member,
At one o'clock this morning, the Senate health care bill cleared its last big hurdle, putting it on track to pass on Thursday.

Unfortunately, the Senate bill was badly weakened by conservatives. It doesn't have a public option, doesn't do enough to make insurance affordable, and doesn't create real competition for insurance companies.

The House bill is much better. So as the two bills get merged, we need House Democrats to insist that the best pieces of the House bill are included.

Can you call Rep. Cooper right now and ask him to demand that the key elements of real reform—including a public option—are in the final bill before the House and Senate vote on it?

Representative Jim Cooper
Phone: 202-225-4311

Then, please report your call by clicking here:

http://pol.moveon.org/call?tg=FHTN_05&cp_id=1218&id=18377-15255949-8YIEYWx&t=3

The House health care bill included vital provisions that were dropped in the Senate. Unlike the Senate bill, it has a public option to keep insurance companies honest. It does more to make health insurance affordable for the lowest income Americans. And it pays for these reforms with a small surtax on the wealthiest Americans. (The Senate bill taxes many middle class families' insurance benefits instead.)
All these differences will be worked out between House and Senate leaders and the White House during the "conference" process.

We've already seen that progressives can exercise real leverage when they make it clear that their votes can't be taken for granted. Senator Bernie Sanders just won billions of dollars in extra support for community health clinics in the final hours of negotiation in the Senate. But House Democrats will be under intense pressure to give in to the demands of conservative senators who are threatening to hold the process hostage again.

So we need Democrats in the House to insist on real improvements before agreeing to vote for the final bill.

Can you call Rep. Cooper right now and tell him you want him to fight for the public option, for making insurance more affordable, and for other progressive priorities in conference?

Representative Jim Cooper
Phone: 202-225-4311


Then, please report your call by clicking here:

http://pol.moveon.org/call?tg=FHTN_05&cp_id=1218&id=18377-15255949-8YIEYWx&t=4

Thanks for all you do.

–Kat, Ilyse, Daniel, Lenore, and the rest of the team




Want to support our work? We're entirely funded by our 5 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. This email was sent to Rod on December 21, 2009. To change your email address or update your contact info, click here. To remove yourself from this list, click here.

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Ben Nelson played “Let’s Make and Deal” and found “The Price is Right.”

First we had the Louisiana Purchase where Mary Landrieu sold her vote for a special Medicare deal for Louisiana estimated to cost the taxpayers $300 million. Now, Ben Nelson got a similar deal for Nebraska. The new health care bill has the federal government permanently paying 100 percent of the cost to expand Medicaid in Nebraska, while other states will pay 2.2 percent of the price to expand the program. All of the other Senators who voted for health care reform are suckers who should have held out for their own pay-off.

This whole process of passing health care reform is disgusting. The first disgusting thing about the Democrats approach to health care reform is that there was never even any consideration given to tort reform which forces doctors to practice defensive medicine. The fear of being sued is why doctors order unnecessary test and duplicative test and send patients to specialist. Defensive medicine may account for as much as 25% of health care cost yet the Democrats never considered crossing their friends the Trial Lawyers. Tort reform should have been a starting point to reform health care but was never even given consideration.

The next most disgusting deal was the deal with the pharmaceutical industry to prohibit drug reimportation. This bill insures the pharmaceutical industry will continue to make their profits on the backs of the American people and that the American people will pay the bulk of the cost for drug research and development while the rest of the world gets a free ride.

This process stinks of corruption. We do not need to be lecturing Afghanistan or anyone else about government corruption and the virtuous democratic state. Transparency? A new way of doing things in Washington? Change we can believe in? Give me a break!

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