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From this Friday evening's forum “Vision for a New America: A Future without Poverty” hosted by Tavis Smiley, which included guests Cornel West, Jonathan Kozol, Mariana Chilton, Newt Gingrich, Jeffrey Sachs, Rep. Marcia Fudge, John Graham and the National Nurses United Executive Director RoseAnn DeMoro, I wanted to share a portion with Smiley and DeMoro which was also highlighted over at Daily KOS here: 'We Need a Real Economy' to Eradicate Poverty in the U.S.:

“We have to have an economy – a real economy. What do we have now? We want our jobs back. We want our pensions. We want our healthcare. We want to raise standards for everyone in America. We want a civil society…. Where’s our country?”

These questions, posed by National Nurses United Executive Director RoseAnn DeMoro set the stage last night as TV and radio host Tavis Smiley convened a group of eight individuals for a landmark national broadcast promoting his goal of a “Vision for a New America: A Future Without Poverty.” [...]

Smiley is calling on President Obama to convene forthwith a White House Conference to Eradicate Poverty. He is asking people to sign on to this letter to the President. [...]

One solution for both the healthcare crisis and poverty, DeMoro said, is a single-payer healthcare system. “ It would cover everyone. The insurance companies would be gone. We could have cost, quality and access and the ability to be a civil society. If we had a single payer healthcare system, we could generate almost three million jobs, which would actually serve to stimulate the rest of the economy so you’re building and actually taking care of the people of America.” [...]

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The Young Turks Cenk Uygur with some follow up to the story Karoli wrote earlier this week, on the CEO's having fits over Obamacare -- Papa John’s owner can afford a turntable for his limousines, ‘but he doesn’t have enough money for health insurance for his employees’:

Cenk and Current TV correspondent Jacki Schechner call out Papa John’s Pizza owner John Schnatter for claiming he can’t afford Obamacare. Schnatter took home almost $3 million in 2011 alone, and holds Papa John’s stock worth $297 million. “He has a moat! This dude has a moat on his house,” Cenk says, and but he’s still complaining about needing to pitch in for his employees’ healthcare.

As Cenk rightfully pointed out, maybe they could afford to pay for health insurance if they just quit giving away so many of those free pizzas.

And as this article from Forbes reported, the cost per pizza may be quite a bit lower than was originally estimated -- Breaking Down Centi-Millionaire 'Papa' John Schnatter's Obamacare Math

Here's more from The Daily Show where, as Cenk opened with above, Jon Stewart tore into the CEOs as well -- Jon Stewart Rips Attempted Secessionists And CEOs For Whining About Obama's Re-Election.

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Former Florida Rep. Alan Grayson and Blue America candidate Alan Grayson joined Current TV's John Fugelsang in the War Room to discuss the Fast and Furious and what the Republicans are really after with their witch hunt of Attorney General Eric Holder.

Grayson: Fast and Furious ‘circus’ will backfire on Republicans:

Former Florida Rep. Alan Grayson (D) on Wednesday blasted Republicans in Congress for continuing to grill U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder over the “fast and furious” gun-running scandal.

“Why won’t they launch an investigation of why 50 million Americans don’t have health care?” he asked on Current TV. “When are we going to see those investigations?” [...]

Grayson said the documents requested by Republicans could put law enforcement official at risk if released publicly. He described their investigation as a “circus” that was solely intent on harming the Obama administration.

“I think it is already back firing on them,” he said. “People are fed up with the Republicans. They understand the only thing they care about are tax cuts and giving the President a hard time — and I’m talking about tax cuts for the one percent.”

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Lawrence O'Donnell started his show off this Wednesday evening by stating the obvious. If we'd gotten single-payer, Medicare for all as a solution to the broken health care system in America instead of the compromise which left employers in the business of providing insurance for their employees, we wouldn't be dealing with this debacle of the Catholic Church fighting the Obama administration on whether they're going to have to cover birth control in their health care plans.

As he noted, employers and the Catholic Church shouldn't be in the business of providing health care and we should not be settling for a system that still leaves millions of Americans uninsured if they lose their jobs and can't afford to pay for the premiums that are sky high when you're out there on your own.

Sadly we're seeing our politicians and a good deal of the media gladly turning this into another culture war and trying to paint the Obama administration as waging some war on religious institutions, instead of it leading to a discussion on exactly what O'Donnell was talking about here and the fact that this debacle is proof of exactly why we should have single-payer and everyone insured at a reasonable cost instead of lining health insurance company CEO's and stockholders pockets.

Why should women in America be put in a position where birth control pills, which have health benefits beyond just preventing pregnancy, and which are a far cheaper to pay for than the cost of a woman becoming pregnant, be subjected to the whims of their employers if those employers happen to be a religious institution? It's wrong. And as O'Donnell said, this is a debate we shouldn't even be having right now, but here we are, still having arguments about birth control and listening to right-wingers try to conflate it with abortion. I feel like I died and landed back in the 1950's listening to this nonsense.

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Since as Rachel Maddow noted on her show tonight, John Boehner decided to allow open debate and endless amendments during the House debate on the budget, we got to see Anthony Weiner giving this speech. Rep. Weiner asked the House Republicans to defund their own health care plans since they don't want every day Americans to have the same options that they have as members of Congress.

I still want single payer but if we're going to argue about how completely hypocritical Republicans are on this issue, Congressman Weiner is exactly right. There are a couple of models you can take with reforming the health insurance industry and with making sure you provide affordable services to everyone in the country. You either have the government replace the insurance industries and they manage the plans or you still have everyone pay in to private corporations and you regulate the insurance industries the way utility industries are regulated and they are not allowed to make excessive profits from those who are covered.

Sadly the bill that was passed took some steps in that direction but didn't go far enough. I would hope that as Americans perceive having health care coverage as a right and not just a profit model for the insurance companies, that bill ends up being strengthened instead of weakened as the Republicans are looking to do.

I said this before when the debate was going on over the new law and I'll say it again. As bad as a lot of us thought the bill was, Republicans will do nothing to make it better, but make it worse instead. They're proving those words true as they look to ways to defund any enforcement of the new law.

As usual, it's what's good for me if I'm a Republican member of Congress is not good enough for the rest of the public. We didn't get single payer during the last battle, but these right wingers don't even want us to have the same access to the private market in a pool to keep costs down that they do. And as Anthony Weiner pointed out, they don't want to give that coverage up for themselves.

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican candidate Sharron Angle squared off for their first debate tonight in Las Vegas, and one of the questions was on the issue of healthcare. Sharron Angle was asked by the moderator "Is there anything you think health insurance companies should be forced to cover?"

Angle hedged and said that "Forcing someone to buy something that they don't need is not the way to solve the problem" which of course didn't answer the moderator's question. When pressed again on whether there is anything at all the insurance companies should be forced to cover Angle replied.

I think that what we have here is a choice between the free market and Americanism. America is about choices and we need to allow people to have those choices. The free market will weed out those companies that don't offer as many choices and don't have a cost effective system. Let the people decide where they want to buy their insurance. You don't have to force them to buy anything and you don't have to force anyone to offer a product that no one wants.

Moderator: Okay, so no insurance mandates?

From reading some other accounts of the debate, I believe he got a nod in the affirmative.

Harry Reid rightfully pointed out that insurance companies don't "do anything out of the goodness of their hearts" and noted how horribly the premiums for most Americans were going through the roof if the government continued to sit by and do nothing.

This debate was painful to watch. Angle was terrible and Reid was so bad as well he didn't take advantage of it. This portion alone should have been like shooting fish in a barrel and would have been for someone with some better debating skills than Reid has. I'm sure most of the readers of this blog could come up with about a hundred better and more sharp and concise responses that would resonate with the public to Angle's nonsense than Reid did.

Sharron Angle's "free market solutions" boil down to people being "free" to have the insurance companies let them die because they'd rather line their CEO's pockets and pay their stock holders than cover the policies of the saps who paid into them when they actually get sick.

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Fox's Stuart Varney followed up with one of the GOP's "most prominent members" Tom DeLay on his statement that the Repubicans have to repeal the health-care law if they regain control of the Congress. Just another preview of what we're in for should they regain control; repeal, obstruct and defund everything while holding endless hearings.

DeLay: GOP in 'big trouble' if health law not repealed:

The Republican Party will be in "big trouble" if it does not repeal the healthcare reform law, former House GOP Leader Tom DeLay said Friday.

DeLay (Texas), who was recently dropped as the subject of a federal investigation, threw some sharp elbows at the Obama administration in an interview on MSNBC when asked what new ideas the GOP would put into place if it takes control of Congress this fall.

"They are going to have to reverse everything the Obama administration has done," he said. "If they don't repeal healthcare reform, they are going to be in big trouble."

Debate has swirled over what Republicans will do to block the healthcare law from taking effect.

Many lawmakers in the party now say a full repeal would not work with President Obama in office since he could veto the proposal. Some have argued that stripping the law of its funding would be a wiser strategy.

Still, other candidates and lawmakers want to push ahead with a full repeal measure, at least to show that they are committed to the idea.

DeLay rejected the argument that campaigning on healthcare repeal would hurt the party by drawing attention away from the economy, which is rated by voters as the top issue for the midterms.

"No, all you have to say is healthcare reform is destroying the economy and it will destroy it even more if it is allowed to go into effect," he said.

DeLay, whose pugnacious style earned him the nickname "The Hammer," accused the Obama administration of "trying to bamboozle the American people ever since it took office" and defended the GOP's governing credentials.

"Oh, they're definitely ready to govern," he said. "The leadership is in place" and the candidates are the type people want, he added.

Yeah, great leadership like that brain trust they've got in Boehner, Pence and Cantor. It would be nice if this guy finally gets convicted for money laundering so he's sitting in jail where he belongs instead of appearing on television.

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Oh lookie... Dick Armey has a book to sell. So needless to say he's been all over the airways pushing it. He appeared on C-SPAN's Washington Journal and right after telling everyone that part of the Tea Party's agenda would be to "ask the government to... relieve yourselves of the unnecessary burdens" he pretends that they really don't want to privatize or phase out Social Security and calls Tim Kaine "funny" for calling them on it. He can't defend his views so he has to attack Kaine personally instead.

Orgel: Dick Armey a viewer here wants some detail on what will be cut. Via Twitter they ask “What specifically is the Tea Party plan once their candidates take over. What are they going to cut?” Can you tell us?

Armey: Yeah. One of the things we would ask the government to do is relieve yourselves of the unnecessary burdens. For example, just make… make so many of your now mandated benefits voluntary. If Social Security is such a blessing, make it voluntary. Anybody who wants Social Security as you know it today, guarantee it to them and keep your word and then let anybody who wants to be free to choose to do something else, let them be free to do that.

Healthcare… let me be free to choose and take care of my own healthcare needs if I can do that and I don’t need government assistance, leave me alone. Let me be free to choose. And in doing that the government relieves itself of financial obligations they didn’t need to have taken on in the first place.

Why in the world would it be good public policy to compel people like myself who can easily afford their own health insurance to participate in a government provided health insurance and put the burden of that taxation on my grandchildren? Just leave me alone and leave me be free to take care of my own health.

So if you let these programs be voluntary the costs can be enormously reduced. Then be careful with how you spend money. Establish priorities. Make trade-off decisions. Lower and simplify taxes to make it a civilized tax system. There are so many things this government can do to be a blessing and a service to the lives of the American citizenry at large rather than a burden, but for Lord’s sake don’t take on unnecessary, costly burdens, imposing the cost on our grandchildren for something you didn’t need to do, but wanted instead to only do to enhance your power for that moment.

It’s not about you Mr. Senator, Mr. Congressman. You’ve got a privilege from your neighbors. Don’t make it about yourself and your power. Make it about a service in the lives of the citizens who trust in you and gave you this great privilege.

Host Paul Orgel then plays a video of Tim Kaine explaining what the Tea Party’s agenda is. The Republican Tea Party Contract on America:

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From Washington Journal April 29, 2009. Rep. Paul Broun while responding to a caller about the Mexican child that has died from swine flu. He says that it's not true that all Americans don't have access to healthcare. Apparently the Representative thinks that not being turned away from the emergency room is somehow an equivalent to healthcare.

This is the same person who compared President Obama to Hitler-- Editorial: 'Hitler' remark makes Broun irrelevant in D.C.:

Well, it's the fact that Obama has proposed an expansion of this country's national service effort, a call to community service aimed at boosting this country's security by working to improve its infrastructure, do a better job educating its citizens, and help those citizens stay healthy. An Obama campaign document readily available on the Web, "The Blueprint for Change: Barack Obama's Plan for America," offers up additional details on the president-elect's community service proposal.

For Broun, that plan somehow translates into, as he noted in a Tuesday story from the Associated Press, "exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany, and ... exactly what the Soviet Union did. When he's (Obama) proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that's as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist."

Our congressman went on to say, "We can't be lulled into complacency. You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him (Obama) to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential of going down that road."

Congressman Broun was of course comparing Obama to Hitler, a comparison that his denial only served to reinforce. And then, Broun compounded his non-denial denial by subsequently offering a non-apology apology on an Augusta radio station, using the smarmy and ultimately meaningless line, "I apologize to anyone who has taken offense at that."