In a stump speech to supporters during its September 12 Unity Luncheon, Democratic candidate for the Tenth Congressional District (CD-10), Lt Governor John Garamendi, declared that a Public Option must be a part of any health care bill. Predicting that the CD-10 race could become a national referendum on the health care issue, Garamendi went on to challenge his Republican opponent David Harmer when said (see 2:23 mark on clip below), “If Republicans want to make it a national forum on health care reform, we’re ready!”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyBTEke68aQ
On his web site, David Harmer, the Republican candidate for the CD-10 seat writes briefly on his site,
Any health care reform must first do no harm. In seeking to address perceived problems, Congress must ensure that it does not reduce the current quality or availability of health care. In Congress, I will strive to give patients more consumer power and greater choice in health care. I will work to remove tax and legal policies that push people into third-party payer systems, and I will fight to eliminate unnecessary mandates that inflate health care costs.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
BGR,
Glad to leave you foaming at the mouth. But your statement that Afghanistan is now officially Obama’s, Pelosi’s, and Reid’s war. is as rediculess as stating that Vietnam War was Nixon’s war. Vietnam was LBJ’s war and just like Nixon, Obama inherited this disaster the previous administration. Those are the facts.
Oh one more rhetorical fart for you …Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are in power today because of Republican stupidity and arrogance while they were in power.
This is a conservative birthright and i am proud of it!!
Once again Freak plays the blame game then sneaks out the back after leaving a rhetorical fart like “deal with it” as if that is some sort of productive analysis or valid operational strategy.
How one “deals with it” is the issue, irregardless, apparently, of whichever dumbest president is sitting in the world’s highest office” at any given time.
BTW, Freak. Despite your bouts with gastric inspired revisionism, the most recent supplemental made it official. Afghanistan is now officially Obama’s, Pelosi’s, and Reid’s war.
Oh yeah Harmer is a poor clone of Dean Andal. Garamendi will crush him like a dried leaf in the fall election.
Lets see. We went to war in Afganistan to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and eliminate al-Qaeda. Then with the job unfinished President George W. Bush decided that the worlds worst dictators did not need access to the worlds worst weapons. Hmmmmmm what a mistake. Then we changed the operation from enduring Freedom to Iraqi Freedom and then Mission Acomplished on an aircraft carrier. As the war in Iraq raged on and the war effort in Afganistan withered on the vine. Al Qaeda and the Talaban came back in Afganistan. Iraq was a huge strategic error. It wasted untold amounts of tax payer money not to mention all the GI’s and iraqi civilians who have been mamed and killed.. I guess when we elect the Worlds dumbest President to the worlds highest office he makes the worlds biggest mistakes.
So what all this means is we Republicans have turned over a huge mess to the Democrats. There is no way at this time to pull the troops out of Afganistan. The poor management of these wars are a Republican creation and it will take years to straighten this disaster out!
Deal with it!!
Hey Richard, John Garamendi the self proclaimed “Proven Democrat” has taken an interesting position on the (undeclared) war efforts in the Middle East.
Back in May, at a stop during Garamendi’s Listening Tour at Las Positas College, I asked him if he would sponsor a bill to cut all funding within 6-months to allow for a safe and secure withdrawal of our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Garamendi responded that he was always against the War in Iraq, but Afghanistan was a whole different story. He said that Afghanistan is different because it borders Pakistan, who has nuclear weapons. He even suggested that we would see an increased presence in Pakistan in the near future. He closed by saying that he wouldn’t draft a bill to cut off funding and bring the troops home.
-Garamendi is against the War in Iraq, but won’t draft a bill to bring the troops home and would vote to continue to fund the War.
-Garamendi is for the War in Afghanistan because they share a border with another country that has nuclear weapons.
-Garamendi is for an expanded presence and effort in Pakistan.
Next time you see “the Proven Democrat” on the campaign trail ask him to explain that “CHANGE” we can all believe in, because I’d say he seems to be some of the same ‘ol same.
There was a time when democrats who did not vote for the bills for funding the troops in the field were called unpatriotic and every other name under the sun by the GOP, now the same troops in the same places are suddenly no longer of political value and the call is that you are a warmonger. This is politics at its worst.
The funding of the troops should be part of the regular budget and not done by supplements, but that is a separate issue.
The policy of the troops being some place could be effectively dealt with by a separate measure other than messing around with the budget issues. But again that is a separate matter.
Factually, at the various forums leading up to the Sept 1 election, Garamendi had taken a position against the funding bill. So maybe you want to rephrase the post?
Edi
((waiting for a post that says he does not support the troops– politics is funny))
War Monger: Is that what John Garamendi would be if he won a seat in Congress?
On June 16, 2009, the House of Representatives, by a vote of 226-202, passed legislation to spend $106 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Only five Republicans voted for the bill.
How would Garamendi have voted if he had been in the House in June 2009?
Richard S. Colman
Orinda, CA
Sept. 21, 2009