Now I remember why I was an independent all those years.

[IRememberDBoon]

Can people admit they were duped by Obama yet? This was no govt. takeover of healthcare. It was a big Christmas present for the insurance companies. Let the obscene profits on middle class America's ill health begin! My prediction: in a nail biter the Senate passes the Bill since it was already written by the insurance companies and they WANT the bill to pass. This was all political theater. Anything to distract from the pillaging of the country and a real unemployment rate of 17.5%. Now it is on to cutting Social Security, you won't need it at that nifty McDonalds or Wal Mart job waiting for you once they have outsourced all the white collar jobs too. Maybe you could get real lucky and land a job with the insurance companies denying your fellow citizens healthcare and boosting profits. When this passes you can bet they will be hiring! Again, congratulations to all the misinformed public showing up to health care debates armed. You really made a difference! Enjoy your hiked premiums and rationed care through cost!

 

 

 

talk about being duped!

[Atticus]

thanks for that article, Louie. very interesting.

 

The news media was a particular culprit in this drama. This was not just Fox News; seemingly all the national news organizations monitored any meetings they could find between lawmakers and constituents, looking for flare-ups, for YouTube moments. The meetings that involved thoughtful exchanges or even support for the proposals would never find their way on air; coverage was given only to the most outrageous behavior, furthering distorting the true picture.

 

...

 

It didn’t matter. The “death panel” episode shows how the news media, after aiding and abetting falsehood, were unable to perform their traditional role of reporting the facts. By lavishing uncritical attention on the most exaggerated claims and extreme behavior, they unleashed something that the truth could not dispel.

 

sadly I don't see how this trend is going to end anytime soon

[Oil Can Boyd]

Speaking of being duped (it's a little hard to hear but worth waiting until the end):

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O66qDqfZm7k&feature=player_embedded

[Good Old Neon]

Ladies and gentlemen, Andrew Sullivan has left the building, exit stage right:

 

Leaving the Right

 

It's an odd formulation in some ways as "the right" is not really a single entity. But in so far as it means the dominant mode of discourse among the institutions and blogs and magazines and newspapers and journals that support the GOP, Charles Johnson is absolutely right in my view to get off that wagon for the reasons has has stated. Read his testament. It is full of emotion, but also of honesty.

 

The relationship of a writer to a party or movement is, of course, open to discussion. I understand the point that Jonah Goldberg makes that politics is not about pure intellectual individualism; it requires understanding power, its organization and the actual choices that real politics demands. You can hold certain principles inviolate and yet also be prepared to back politicians or administrations that violate them because it's better than the actual alternatives at hand. I also understand the emotional need to have a default party position, other things being equal. But there has to come a point at which a movement or party so abandons core principles or degenerates into such a rhetorical septic system that you have to take a stand. It seems to me that now is a critical time for more people whose principles lie broadly on the center-right to do so - against the conservative degeneracy in front of us. Those who have taken such a stand - to one degree or other - demand respect. And this blog, while maintaining its resistance to cliquishness, has been glad to link to writers as varied as Bruce Bartlett or David Frum or David Brooks or Steve Chapman or Kathleen Parker or Conor Friedersdorf or Jim Manzi or Jeffrey Hart or Daniel Larison who have broken ranks in some way or other.

 

I can't claim the same courage as these folks because I've always been fickle in partisan terms. To have supported Reagan and Bush and Clinton and Dole and Bush and Kerry and Obama suggests I never had a party to quit. I think that may be because I wasn't born here. I have no deep loyalty to either American party in my bones or family or background, and admire presidents from both parties. My partisanship remains solely British - I'm a loyal Tory. But my attachment to the Anglo-American conservative political tradition, as I understand it, is real and deep and the result of sincere reflection on the world as I see it. And I want that tradition to survive because I believe it is a vital complement to liberalism in sustaining the genius and wonder of the modern West.

 

For these reasons, I found it intolerable after 2003 to support the movement that goes by the name "conservative" in America. I still do, even though I am much more of a limited government type than almost any Democrat and cannot bring myself to call myself a liberal (because I'm not). My reasons were not dissimilar to Charles Johnson, who, like me, was horrified by 9/11, loathes Jihadism, and wants to defeat it as effectively as possible. And his little manifesto prompts me to write my own (the full version is in "The Conservative Soul"). Here goes:

 

I cannot support a movement that claims to believe in limited government but backed an unlimited domestic and foreign policy presidency that assumed illegal, extra-constitutional dictatorial powers until forced by the system to return to the rule of law.

 

I cannot support a movement that exploded spending and borrowing and blames its successor for the debt.

 

I cannot support a movement that so abandoned government's minimal and vital role to police markets and address natural disasters that it gave us Katrina and the financial meltdown of 2008.

 

I cannot support a movement that holds torture as a core value.

 

I cannot support a movement that holds that purely religious doctrine should govern civil political decisions and that uses the sacredness of religious faith for the pursuit of worldly power.

 

I cannot support a movement that is deeply homophobic, cynically deploys fear of homosexuals to win votes, and gives off such a racist vibe that its share of the minority vote remains pitiful.

 

I cannot support a movement which has no real respect for the institutions of government and is prepared to use any tactic and any means to fight political warfare rather than conduct a political conversation.

 

I cannot support a movement that sees permanent war as compatible with liberal democratic norms and limited government.

 

I cannot support a movement that criminalizes private behavior in the war on drugs.

 

I cannot support a movement that would back a vice-presidential candidate manifestly unqualified and duplicitous because of identity politics and electoral cynicism.

 

I cannot support a movement that regards gay people as threats to their own families.

 

I cannot support a movement that does not accept evolution as a fact.

 

I cannot support a movement that sees climate change as a hoax and offers domestic oil exploration as the core plank of an energy policy.

 

I cannot support a movement that refuses ever to raise taxes, while proposing no meaningful reductions in government spending.

 

I cannot support a movement that refuses to distance itself from a demagogue like Rush Limbaugh or a nutjob like Glenn Beck.

 

I cannot support a movement that believes that the United States should be the sole global power, should sustain a permanent war machine to police the entire planet, and sees violence as the core tool for international relations.

 

Does this make me a "radical leftist" as Michelle Malkin would say? Emphatically not. But it sure disqualifies me from the current American right.

 

To paraphrase Reagan, I didn't leave the conservative movement. It left me.

 

And increasingly, I'm not alone.

[LouieB]

Sounds like a press release from the Department of Redundancy Department....

 

LouieB

[mountain bed]

As someone who lives in NYC, and someone who loves dearly countless family and friends that live in NYC, I am well aware of the risks and the issues that a trial downtown will present.

 

With that being said, bring those fuckers to the Federal Courthouse and try them here, in public, for everyone to see. These hawks are such cowards. Although I guess I shouldn't be surprised since they generally send someone else's son to fight their wars, too.

So true. Not to mention not fighting in any wars themselves. Cheney had 5 deferments, you know.

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

So true. Not to mention not fighting in any wars themselves. Cheney had 5 deferments, you know.

 

Well...his last deferment came when he was 25 and married with a child.

 

I don't hold him at falut for that. The system was set up to let college students and married men with children avoid service. That war was not the best moment for this country, the military or the political parties.

 

Cheney's problem is that he has a Cold War mentality and his reactions and responses are keyed around that. He's not a VP anymore and will never hold public office again, so I think he can be relegated to the scrapheap of history.

[bjorn_skurj]

Jesus. Only in America (well, maybe also in Germany prior to 1945) can the solution to people not having health insurance be a law making you have health insurance.

[bobbob1313]

Jesus. Only in America (well, maybe also in Germany prior to 1945) can the solution to people not having health insurance be a law making you have health insurance.

 

Yeah, this bill is absolutely ridiculous. I just don't get how it makes sense.

 

I mean, I guess by forcing more consumers into the marketplace they hope to drive down prices? But if everyone has to have insurance, what is the incentive for the companies to lower prices?

 

This is doing something for the sake of being able to say you've done something...

[Edie]

Yeah, this bill is absolutely ridiculous. I just don't get how it makes sense.

 

I mean, I guess by forcing more consumers into the marketplace they hope to drive down prices? But if everyone has to have insurance, what is the incentive for the companies to lower prices?

 

This is doing something for the sake of being able to say you've done something...

 

Our health system is one of the most complicated things. This is my understanding: States will be required to open up competition by enabling more companies to be certified. Since there are more customers (also mandated), more companies will want to enter the market in these states. More companies and more customers means more competition, which leads to lower prices. Think of your two gas station town getting 4 more stations.

 

Or another analogy works too for those customers that are sick already -- gas stations by the highway are not able to charge more.

[bjorn_skurj]

If I end up saving enough money to buy a nice bottle of Belgian beer a week ($15?) I will be delighted, and rather stunned. Living in the Empire State, though, I doubt that will happen. We had a guy come in and talk to the editorial board once about how N.Y. laws are designed to allow insurance companies to bugger consumers with particular brio. So I will settle with the OK insurance I have now, at a cost to me of approx. $50 a week. Like I said, a bit disappointing. Maybe not a full-blown FAIL on Obama's part (it's not his fault that we are as a nation ox-dumb and welded to failed paradigms that the rest of the world has torn away from) but I am not going to lie - I am not even whelmed, much less over.

[Guest Jules]

Jesus. Only in America (well, maybe also in Germany prior to 1945) can the solution to people not having health insurance be a law making you have health insurance.

And forcing companies to pay for a certain percentage of the company-sponsored plan.

[brianjeremy]

I dunno about anything that's been posted in this thread and plead ignorance to most of the health care debate. That is until recently I was diagnosed with diabetes. The medicine to treat my diabetes alone costs a small fortune and I am insured! And still I am paying out the wazoo to get the meds I need at that. I can only imagine what someone who is uninsured and in my same health has to pay.

 

I am now convinced that the whole health care system is a brutal scam. I, very naively and ignorantly, thought insurance and the health care system could help defer much of the costs. Yet, to my dismay, I am learning the cold hard reality of the health care system. I be damned if something hasn't got to give when it comes to health care. Seriously.

 

I feel like I live the right way and do good works. My wife is a social worker and I am a teacher. We got into our respective fields because we wanted to help others. Maybe we should have been some sort of venture capitalists or something, screwing people out their hard-earned money and maybe this wouldn't even be an issue.

 

I don't know who has the right answers and couldn't even tell you where to begin hunting for them. Fuck all the political parties. All this bullshit debate is pointless and confusing.

 

Right now I'm fucking pissed. My doctor has now changed my meds 3 times in the last week alone! 3 times! Each time a bigger hit to my wallet! I 'm gonna have to start cooking up meth in my bathtub just to pay for the prescriptions, not to mention the doctor appointments and related lab work! God bless those individuals who are less fortunate than I and are uninsured.

 

I guess to me it's real simple: something's gotta change. We gotta help those in need. I know I'm ranting. I don't even know if any of this makes any sense.

[kidsmoke]

Don't apologize for ranting! That was a pretty good rant. Sorry for your wallet woes and yes, even sorrier for those without health coverage.

[OOO]

I haven't had health insurance for about a year and a half, and I won't have health insurance until at least june. I'm just coasting by on the hopes that I wont get sick or injured. I wouldn't have many options if I did

[brianjeremy]

For me, the tough decision is that I am more than likely going to have to hold off on getting anymore medication and doctor visits for a while. Sucks. But I mean it's down to me getting proper health care or being able to pay the bills. Tough call. I honestly believe that's where my wife and I are at. My doctor's asked me not to do that but dude...the heat just broke, my wife is being furloughed twice a month for the indefinite future and has not gotten overtime pay in a year, and on and on and on...I told my doc that unless he's gonna help me pay for the medicine or help me as I try to knock over a bank, then that may be my only option.

 

I was in the same boat you were in Oblivious several years ago. I was without insurance for 8 months and I was very thankful nothing happened! I feel your pain.

[futureage1]

Time to realize what is happening in your country. 33 pages and I said months back this would be the result. We just got the Mitt Romney MA. bill on a national level. So there goes the argument of it's only one party. The two parties are one party and the sooner people grow up to that fact the sooner we can start to put the pieces of this country back together. Continue to let MSM divide people and you will all witness the demise of the USA. Obama is not a Democrat or a Progressive anymore than Clinton was. Your country has been systematically dismantled by these corporatist shills.

 

But this country is now so undereducated and lacks critical thinking skills that I sometimes think it is a lost cause. When a nation is more interested in American Idol than their own Govt. this is the result. And if you are naive enough to think this wasn't the planned result: a population so out of it that they can't defend their country from a hostile takeover,then maybe you would be interested in buying a bridge I have for sale. And this monstrosity of a Bill IS Obama's fault. He has already said that this Bill is what he wants, so there it is. If he wanted a single payer system or a public option there would be one.

 

The Democrats' Authoritarian Health "Reform" Bill and the Ascendency of Corporatism in the Democratic Party

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/the-democrats-authoritari_b_402146.html

If Barack Obama and today's Congressional Democrats were passing Social Security for the first time, instead of a creating a public program, they would likely be mandating that every American buy an annuity from a private, profit-driven Wall Street firm like Goldman Sachs (who could keep 15%-20% of their payments for overhead, profits and executive salaries) with the IRS serving as Wall Street's collection agency. If they were passing Medicare today, they would be mandating that every American buy a health insurance policy from profit-driven companies like Aetna, Humana and Wellpoint that would start paying benefits with 40% co-pays and $10,000 a year deductibles when they turn 65.

 

Therefore, when Senate "liberals" argue that their health "reform" bill, while compromised, is like the first iterations of Social Security and Medicare and provides a "starter home" that can be added to later, many progressives respond that its foundation is built on quicksand and that it's not incremental reform but a step in the fundamentally wrong direction.

 

Democrats and liberals once stood for providing a social safety net through government programs like Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance, which were administered by government employees for the benefit of the American people and not by private companies for the benefit of their shareholders and executives who receive multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses. For over 60 years, they stood for the principal that health care should be a right and not a privilege and that Medicare should be extended to all Americans.

 

Democrats in Congress, under the leadership of Barack Obama, have now turned that principal on its head and made health care neither a right, nor a privilege, but an obligation for individual citizens and a government-mandated profit center for private corporations. For the first time in American history, Democrats are about to pass a bill that uses the coercive power of the federal government to force every American -- simply by virtue of being an American -- to purchase the products of a private company. At heart, the Democrats' solution to 48 million uninsured is to force the them to buy inadequate private insurance -- with potentially high deductibles and co-pays and no price controls -- or be fined by the federal government.

 

In effect, this represents an historic defeat for the type of liberalism represented by the New Deal and the Great Society and the ascendancy of a new type of corporatist liberalism. As Ed Kilgore recently wrote in an important and provocative article in The New Republic,

 

"To put it simply, and perhaps over-simply, on a variety of fronts (most notably financial restructuring and health care reform, but arguably on climate change as well), the Obama administration has chosen the strategy of deploying regulated and subsidized private sector entities to achieve progressive policy results. This approach was a hallmark of the so-called Clintonian, 'New Democrat' movement, and the broader international movement sometimes referred to as 'the Third Way,' which often defended the use of private means for public ends... To put it more bluntly, on a widening range of issues, Obama's critics to the right say he's engineering a government takeover of the private sector, while his critics to the left accuse him of promoting a corporate takeover of the public sector."

 

Or as David Brooks wrote in The New York Times earlier this summer,

 

"[Obama and Clinton] Democrats learned never to go to war against the combined forces of corporate America. Today, whether it is on the stimulus, on health care, or any other issue, the Obama administration and the Congressional leadership go out of their way to court corporate interests, to win corporate support and to at least divide corporate opposition."

 

The differences between progressive New Deal liberals -- what Howard Dean termed the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" -- and corporatist liberals or "New Democrats" were largely papered over for the past 8 years by common opposition to the free market absolutism and neoconservative foreign policy of the Bush administration. In terms of health care reform, they were papered over by the hopes of many progressive liberals -- who were willing to give up fighting for Medicare-For-All as politically "impractical" -- of achieving a robust public option as an acceptable compromise in the context of a larger health insurance mandate.

 

For many of these progressive liberals, the idea of the public option, at least at the beginning, was that it would be so large and successful that it would prove the superiority of government-run health insurance over private profit-driven health insurance and would eventually evolve into a single payer system. They watched, with increasing concern, as a large and robust public option was first turned by House Democrats into a small and puny public option that would insure only a handful of Americans and provide little competition to private insurers, and then as the public option was dumped entirely by Senate Democrats, with no help by President Obama to defend it.

 

And as they have seen the end result of the Democratic Senate's health care bill, progressives have started to get angry. Stripped of the public option, progressives could now look through the Democratic health care bill to its essence: the permanent entrenchment of the corrupt private health insurance corporation as the nexus of the American health care system; the authoritarian liberal solution of solving the problem of the uninsured by using the coercive power of the federal government to force citizens to buy inadequate private insurance sold by oligopolies with their profits subsidized by taxpayer dollars; and the increased political power of the of the private health care industry into the indefinite future, fueled by government money that can then be used to lobby the government for more private benefits.

 

As a result, the past two weeks have seen a revolt from much of the progressive base of the Democratic Party, articulated by people like Howard Dean, Marcos Moulitsas, Keith Olbermann, Ed Schultz, and by organizations like MoveOn, The AFL-CIO, SEIU, and Progressive Democrats of America. The ideological fault line between progressive Democrats and corporatist "New Democrats" has split wide open.

 

Obama campaigned, at least on the level of political imagery, as a progressive liberal. His campaign slogan was "Yes We Can", taken directly from the '60's era slogan of Cesar Chavez and The United Farm Workers Union, "Si Se Puede". He evoked the imagery of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. He talked about overthrowing the influence of special interests and lobbyists and transforming the way Washington does business. He promised transformative "Change" (although, as some critics pointed out at the time, he left the direction of "Change" so vague that voters of various stripes could read what they wanted into it). That's why a majority of progressive Democrats supported Obama over Hillary Clinton in the primaries, particularly after the more populist John Edwards withdrew. They didn't want to see a return to the centrism, corporatism, and triangulation of Clintonism.

 

But from the moment he was elected, Obama has governed not as a progressive liberal but as a corporatist liberal. Progressive liberals hoped Obama would be like FDR. Instead, he's been like Bill Clinton on steroids.

 

Obama's economic advisors, such as Larry Summers and Tim Geithner, were all drawn from the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party. His foreign policy advisors were all liberal hawks like Hillary Clinton or even Bush administration veterans like Robert Gates. From day one, Obama continued Wall Street Republican Hank Paulson's financial policies of throwing money at the banks while demanding next to nothing in return in terms of making credit available to average Americans and small businesses or creating new jobs.

 

When it came to health care "reform", Obama's strategy was to cut deals with for-profit health care corporations. He cut a deal with big Pharma to continue banning Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices and to continue banning consumers from buying cheaper drugs from Canada. He cut a deal with the for-profit hospital industry that there would be no effective national public option that might pay them lower rates that the for-profit insurance oligopoly. While he gave mild rhetorical support to the public option, he did nothing to actually fight for it , and, as Russ Feingold has pointed out, Joe Lieberman was really doing Obama's work in killing it.

 

Because of Obama's rhetorical and imaging skills, it has taken until the past week or two, with the death of the public option, for progressives to begin to wonder whether Obama was really their friend. And what's most remarkable, by teasing them with the hopes of a public option, he's so far held onto the vote of virtually every Congressional liberal for an essentially authoritarian corporatist health care bill.

 

So total has been Obama's success to date in defeating the progressive Democrats and enshrining the corporatist New Democrats, that even progressive talk radio veteran Al Franken and the closest thing to a European-style social democrat to hold national political office, Bernie Sanders, are not only voting for -- but are talking up the virtues of -- the Senate health "reform" bill. Although nearly 60 members of the House Progressive Caucus signed a letter promising to vote against a health care bill doesn't have a robust public option, unless, to everyone's surprise, there's a big enough revolt over the Christmas holidays among large progressive groups like the AFL-CIO (who's money and volunteers many Democratic Congresspeople need to get reelected), virtually all of those House Progressives will end up breaking their pledge and voting for a final Congressional Conference bill with no public option, a coercive mandate, and a tax on the "Chevy" health care benefits of union workers.

 

Only an African American President cloaked in the rhetoric and imagery of progressive change could have pulled off such a rout of progressives and such a virtually unanimous victory for the corporatists in the Democratic Party. The Clintons could never have pulled it off.

 

That helps explain why many progressive Democrats -- myself included -- are increasingly in a state of anger and despair. If after millions of progressives worked so hard to elect Barack Obama and a Democratic majority in Congress, the result is an almost total defeat of progressives in the Democratic Party -- or at least in the Congressional Democratic Party -- where do progressives turn? A progressive primary challenge to Democratic incumbents in 2010, or even to Obama's reelection in 2012, is probably futile and counterproductive. At the same time, as the 2000 Nader campaign so aptly demonstrated, the winner-take-all American electoral system makes the formation of a third party equally futile.

 

Historically, strong popular movements, like the labor movement and the civil rights movement, have pressured elected corporate Democrats to enact a measure of progressive change. And, as progressives come to understand the corporatist nature of Obamism, perhaps the best hope is that progressive organizations will be less anxious to be extensions of the White House and return to grassroots organizing. The question is whether Obama -- the one-time community organizer -- is susceptible to pressure from mass grassroots organizations. If not, the country, as well as Democrats and progressives, may be in for a hard time.

 

As it increasingly appears that Obama is the President of Wall Street, and not the President of Main Street, he is losing not only the left but the center. It's a myth that the path to winning the popular center in American politics is moving to the corporate center. If the only political choice given to American voters is using their taxes to help big government subsidize wealthy corporations, or the Republican message of shrinking the size of government and cutting their taxes, many who voted for Obama will return to the fold of the seemingly brain-dead Republican Party. Obama will likely face an even more conservative Congress after the 2010 election and even, like Jimmy Carter, could end up as a one-term President.

 

The hopes of millions of Obama campaign workers and voters that the Age of Obama would sweep in a new era of progressive change could be dashed. A generation of young voters could be turned off to politics instead of becoming permanent Democrats.

 

Let's hope, that with the defeat of the public option at Obama's hands, the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party wakes up and begins to realize that it has a fight on its hand against the corporatist Democrats, and that Obama might not be its natural ally.

 

As Kevin Baker wrote in Harpers Magazine last spring, warning of the dangers of a failed Obama Presidency,

 

"Obama internalized what might be called Clinton's 'business liberalism' as an alternative to useless battles from another time...Clinton's business liberalism, however, is a chimera...a capitulation to powerful and selfish interest. ..a 'pragmatism that is not really pragmatism at all, just surrender to the usual corporate interests...

 

 

Franklin Roosevelt also took office imagining that he could bring all classes of Americans together in some big, mushy, cooperative scheme. Quickly disabused of this notion, he threw himself into the bumptious give-and-take of practical politics; lying, deceiving, manipulating, arraying one group after another on his side--a transit encapsulated by how, at the end of his first term, his outraged opponents were calling him a "traitor to his class" and he was gleefully inveighing against "economic royalists" and announcing, 'They are unanimous in their hatred for me--and I welcome their hatred.'

 

Obama should not deceive himself into thinking that such interest-group politics can be banished any more than can the cycles of Walls Street. It is not too late for him to change direction and seize the radical moment at hand. But for the moment... Barack Obama is moving prudently, carefully, reasonably toward disaster."

 

That was spring. Now it's the winter of our discontent. The moment for Obama to "change direction and seize the radical moment at hand" is fast receding. Will he continue to move "prudently, carefully, reasonably towards disaster?" If not, I worry for the future not only of progressives and Democrats, but of the country. President Palin in 2012?

[LouieB]

I am shocked that people are shocked by any of this. Okay fine, Obama isn't who we think he should be. (Were we all really THAT naive???)

 

Next up.....President Palin.....just keeping thinking about that for a few minutes....after thinking about that for a few minutes somehow President Obama just doesn't seem so bad now does he??

 

LouieB

[mountain bed]

I am shocked that people are shocked by any of this. Okay fine, Obama isn't who we think he should be. (Were we all really THAT naive???)

 

Next up.....President Palin.....just keeping thinking about that for a few minutes....after thinking about that for a few minutes somehow President Obama just doesn't seem so bad now does he??

 

LouieB

I wouldn't say I'm shocked, but I certainly would say I'm a bit disappointed. Love him or hate him Bernie hit the nail square on the head the other day when he said that big money controls the US Congress. In order to get ANY kind of a health care bill we had to give the insurance and drug companies everything they wanted. Next up - climate control! So of course that means the coal and oil industries will get whatever they want. DAMN.

 

And - there is no way in Hell that we'll ever have to say "President Palin".

[MattZ]

Next up.....President Palin.....just keeping thinking about that for a few minutes....after thinking about that for a few minutes somehow President Obama just doesn't seem so bad now does he??

 

LouieB

 

I never believed that Obama could change much of anything, but I wanted to believe. And the fact that we now praise Obama by comparing him to what is worse is quite simply devastating.

[IRememberDBoon]

I couldnt be prouder of the President and Congress for getting this legislation through. The pissing and moaning is from folks who obviously have zero idea of how things work in Washington DC

 

The idea that the two parties are the same or even anywhere near the same is absolutely fucking laughable but i hope it makes you feel better and smarter than everyone to say it. what a crock.

[Edie]

I am sick about the fact that I agree with IRDB.

 

 

[futureage1]

I couldnt be prouder of the President and Congress for getting this legislation through. The pissing and moaning is from folks who obviously have zero idea of how things work in Washington DC

 

The idea that the two parties are the same or even anywhere near the same is absolutely fucking laughable but i hope it makes you feel better and smarter than everyone to say it. what a crock.

 

What is laughable is your support of a Bill that will continue to DENY working folks healthcare and assess them a fine for something that they could not afford to begin with. I wonder how many people will simply pay the fine because it's cheaper than insurance? I bet that never even crossed your mind buddy. If the Republicans were in power their healthcare bill would be the absolute same. In fact, McCain and H Clinton both ran on an individual mandate. Wake up already. But I can always count on this board to be late to the ballgame and defend the status quo. Remember that when you are paying 1/4 of your salary a year for healthcare.

 

And your personal attacks are as pathetic as your understanding of politics. Present some facts that dispute anything I wrote in this thread. The information I post is widely available. Try looking at facts and not spewing DNC talking points sometime. The "pissing and moaning" is for and from people that will not be able to afford this mandate and will still not have healthcare. Grow up. Maybe your parents pay for your healthcare but not everyone is in the same boat. It's disgraceful to defend this and utterly clueless. Christ read over this thread, people can't even afford to treat illnesses WITH insurance now. This Bill changes nothing for them since the Senate and Congress forgot to include price controls. Don't attack people for standing up for those that are continually victimized in this country.

[Good Old Neon]

What is laughable is your support of a Bill that will continue to DENY working folks healthcare and assess them a fine for something that they could not afford to begin with. I wonder how many people will simply pay the fine because it's cheaper than insurance? I bet that never even crossed your mind buddy. If the Republicans were in power their healthcare bill would be the absolute same. In fact, McCain and H Clinton both ran on an individual mandate. Wake up already. But I can always count on this board to be late to the ballgame and defend the status quo. Remember that when you are paying 1/4 of your salary a year for healthcare.

 

And your personal attacks are as pathetic as your understanding of politics. Present some facts that dispute anything I wrote in this thread. The information I post is widely available. Try looking at facts and not spewing DNC talking points sometime. The "pissing and moaning" is for and from people that will not be able to afford this mandate and will still not have healthcare. Grow up. Maybe your parents pay for your healthcare but not everyone is in the same boat. It's disgraceful to defend this and utterly clueless. Christ read over this thread, people can't even afford to treat illnesses WITH insurance now. This Bill changes nothing for them since the Senate and Congress forgot to include price controls. Stupid asshole. Don't attack people for standing up for those that are continually victimized in this country.

 

Wait but aren't you still the dude who predicted we'd all be using Ameros by right about now, and that the swine flu would result in quarantines, internment camps and Marshall Law?

[MattZ]

I couldnt be prouder of the President and Congress for getting this legislation through. The pissing and moaning is from folks who obviously have zero idea of how things work in Washington DC

 

The idea that the two parties are the same or even anywhere near the same is absolutely fucking laughable but i hope it makes you feel better and smarter than everyone to say it. what a crock.

 

There's more going on IRDB than just the health care bill (and lets ignore for the moment where it comes up short -- it is certainly a step in the right direction). The idea that you aren't disappointed in issues of torture and detention centers and Dont Ask Dont Tell and Afghanistan (etc) means you are ignoring the issues. I dont think the two parties are the same. I just thought that, at this point, we'd be talking more about the good things that Obama had done. On his own. Without reference to how much worse off we'd be with a President Palin.