(1) Sen. Obama’s health care plan would leave 15 million uninsured.
This is opinion, not fact. In an editorial today, former Clinton Labor Secretary and professor of public policy at Berkely wrote:
I’m equally concerned about her attack on his health care plan. She says his would insure fewer people than hers. I’ve compared the two plans in detail. Both of them are big advances over what we have now. But in my view Obama’s would insure more people, not fewer, than HRC’s. That’s because Obama’s puts more money up front and contains sufficient subsidies to insure everyone who’s likely to need help – including all children and young adults up to 25 years old. Hers requires that everyone insure themselves. Yet we know from experience with mandated auto insurance – and we’re learning from what’s happening in Massachusetts where health insurance is now being mandated – that mandates still leave out a lot of people at the lower end who can’t afford to insure themselves even when they’re required to do so. HRC doesn’t indicate how she’d enforce her mandate, and I can’t find enough money in HRC’s plan to help all those who won’t be able to afford to buy it. I’m also impressed by the up-front investments in information technology in O’s plan, and the reinsurance mechanism for coping with the costs of catastrophic illness. HRC is far less specific on both counts. In short: They’re both advances, but O’s is the better of the two. HRC has no grounds for alleging that O’s would leave out 15 million people.
(2 ) Sen. Obama refused to rule out raising the retirement age and cutting benefits for social security.
Obama has made it abudantly clear his plan is to raise the cap, not to raise retirement age or cut benefits for social security. In point of fact, HRC has not ruled out any of those three: she's just going to kick the can down the road by "appointing a commission." Let's see what Reich had to say about that:
HRC attacked O's plan for keep Social Security solvent. Social Security doesn’t need a whole lot to keep it going – it’s in far better shape than Medicare – but everyone who’s looked at it agrees it will need bolstering (I was a trustee of the Social Security Trust Fund ten years ago, and I can vouch for this). Obama wants to do it by lifting the cap on the percent of income subject to Social Security payroll taxes, which strikes me as sensible. That cap is now close to $98,000 (it’s indexed), and the result is highly regressive. (Bill Gates satisfies his yearly Social Security obligations a few minutes past midnight on January 1 every year.) The cap doesn’t have to be lifted all that much to keep Social Security solvent – maybe to $115,00. That’s a progressive solution to the problem. HRC wants to refer Social Security to a commission. That's avoiding the issue, and it's irresponsible: A commission will likely call either for raising the retirement age (that’s what Greenspan’s Social Security commission came up with in the 1980s) or increasing the payroll tax on all Americans. So when HRC charges that Obama’s plan would “raise taxes” and her plan wouldn’t, she’s simply not telling the truth.
(3) Sen. Obama conceded that his plan on raising the cap for social security could impact middle income people.
The quote you use to "support" this contention does the opposite: he says any raise would be structured to obviate any "middle class" tax. But it's a non issue anyway: a couple could earn up to $98L + $98K ($196K) before any raise would kick in. That is in no way middle class.
(4) Hillary: “When it comes to Iran, I took a stand for aggressive diplomacy." That is batshit crazy. She did exactly what Obama claimed: "..the Bush administration could use the language in Lieberman-Kyl to justify an attack on Iran as a part of the ongoing war in Iraq…I strongly differ with Sen. Hillary Clinton, who was the only Democratic presidential candidate to support this reckless amendment."
(5)As a state senator, Sen. Obama voted 'present' on seven abortion bills, including a ban on 'partial birth abortion,' two parental notification laws and three 'born alive' bills.
Obama was one of the strongest defenders of abortion rights in the Illinois Senate: that's why the nutcasers are against him
It is hardly unusual that a Democratic candidate would receive unfavorable attention from anti-abortion groups. But Stanek and other anti-abortion crusaders in Illinois are targeting Obama because he voted on a package of legislation collectively known as the Illinois Born Alive Infants Protection Act.
The legislation came about after Stanek, then a nurse at Christ Hospital in the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn, witnessed late-term abortions “where babies were being aborted alive and shelved to die in the soiled utility room” of the hospital, in her words.
Stanek, who said she held one of those infants until it died after about 45 minutes, began reaching out to public officials, testifying before both
state and national lawmakers.
From 2001 to 2002, Obama voted either “present” or “no” on the legislation. In his floor speeches at the time, he cited in particular his concerns about the constitutionality of the definition of a “born alive infant” and the inclusion of potential civil and criminal penalties for doctors in these situations. He also warned that the bill might compromise the relationship between a woman and her doctor.
The measure failed in the Illinois statehouse in both 2001 and 2002.
In one speech in the spring of 2001, Obama said he agreed in principle with the need to protect infants, but argued that the measure went too far in its definitions of fetal viability.
“This is an area where potentially we might have compromised and … arrived at a bill that dealt with the narrow concerns about how … a pre-viable fetus or child was treated by a hospital,” Obama said at the time.
At the same time, similar legislation made its way through the federal process and was eventually signed into law by President Bush in August 2002 in Pittsburgh. Stanek, now a columnist for WorldNetDaily.com, attended the signing and was mentioned by Bush.
(6) Obama also had one of the best records on gun control (if you're for gun control) ever, and has spoken out on this issue many many times. You do the research ... I have to go make dinner.