[QUOTE=Wild Walleye]This is more egregious and tone deaf than the car execs taking private jets to DC to plead for money from the Govt.[/QUOTE]Believe it or not Mr. WW, totally agree with you. Please do not go into cardiac arrest.
Printable View
[QUOTE=Wild Walleye]This is more egregious and tone deaf than the car execs taking private jets to DC to plead for money from the Govt.[/QUOTE]Believe it or not Mr. WW, totally agree with you. Please do not go into cardiac arrest.
When your attempt at recreating the Congress of Vienna with a third-rate cast of extras turns into a shambles, when the data with which you have tried to terrify the world is daily exposed as ever more phoney, when the blatant greed and self-interest of the participants has become obvious to all beholders, when those pesky polar bears just keep increasing and multiplying – what do you do?
According to Al 'I invented the internet' Gore those pesky polar bears should be starving or drowning.
Obviously the polar bears have another script.
This manmade climate charge nonsense would be hilarious if it weren't for the fact that some people still believe this bullshit.
Health care reform is moving along quite well. Market has been flat for the past few months. However, the health care index seems to be bucking the trend. From all indications, there is a lot of money to be made in health care after it is reformed by our lawmakers in Washington. Glad to see they have my best interest at heart. Must remember, "be careful what you ask for damman."
Cigna's (CI) up by 19 %
Aetna (AET) up 13 %
WellPoint (WLP) up 12 %
UnitedHealth (UNH) up 11 %
I was away for a while and didn't check up on the AP gang. Good to see you are all still as whacked as ever. The asylums must be empty!
Have some fun for Santa!
There's a delicious irony in the Copenhagen snowstorm, just as "The Anointed One" and his Congressional Disciples showed up for the finale to the Convocation of the Defenders of the MMGW Faith.
Probably they flew home to Washington on Friday - and what showed up Saturday? The biggest blizzard Washington has seen in December! I, for one, shoveled 18 inches (45 cm) of "MMGWflakes" off my sidewalks and my parking place.
Now, I don't "take this as proof" of the flawed science of the "Warmists". The proof is elsewhere - for example, one climatologist's experiment that found that the switch from whitewash to latex paint on National Weather Service weather stations can account all by itself for the 1.2°C "rise in temperatures" over the past century! Or the high percentage of stations that were set up too close to artificial heat sources (such as, in the middle of asphalt parking lots) The East Anglia e-mail controversy just underlines the "Warmist agenda" as a kind of scientific jihad, doesn't it?
But I do love the irony! It almost makes up for my aching muscles.
(Sarcasm ON - Too bad that the delegation didn't have to shovel their own sidewalks. But "America's Ruling Class" have lackeys to deal with such menial tasks. Sarcasm OFF.)
[QUOTE=Wild Walleye]Let's hope he comes away with a outcome similar to those garnered by his 'valiant' efforts to prop up the Chicago mob visa vi the Olympics.
It is one thing to support American organized crime but quite another to fund it around the world (but it's only $100B per year under this deal.)
Why does Pelosi need to be there? Why did she need between 2 and 5 jets to get there?
If you redeployed the millions of dollars wasted sending Obama, Pelosi, Bloomberg and Swartzeneger to this farce, you could put lots of people to work.
This is more egregious and tone deaf than the car execs taking private jets to DC to plead for money from the Govt.[/QUOTE]
Wondering what the "carbon-cap" is for a volcanic eruption?
[url]http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/philippines-on-high-alert-for-major-volcano-eruption/article1406803/[/url]
I'm sure that we are going to hear that global warming is behind the eruption to begin with! After all, that 1.2 c temperature climb over the last century has been steadily softening the Earth's crust, making volcanoes much more likely to erupt as the hot magma from the mantle, once held back by a stiffer upper crust (couldn't help it! Let the hot molten rock pass to the surface. Feedback mechanism! Another thing to produce more CO2 that's our fault and cause a runaway heat engine like Venus!
Everyone's seen 2012, right? Although the movie didn't claim global warming as the reason behind the catastrophe itself, we can all see what happens when the Earth gets hot! After all, if it's in a movie, it has to have some basis in fact, no?
I wonder how long it will take until we start hearing that the Earth's crust is going to slip 23 degrees and the Earth's magnetic poles will reverse themselves, all in a matter of a few days, all as a result of global warming!
And I have to comment here - how many Hollywood flakes are campaigning to save the planet from global warming? They have no idea how reality functions to begin with and how science works as well.
I remember something from 2012 that made me laugh out loud in the theater (I'm paraphrasing):
"The Earth's core is warming up because the Sun is emitting mutated neutrinos that can now interact with normal matter!"
For those who don't know, neutrinos are particles that have almost no mass, are very difficult to detect, and a neutrino could pass through thousands of miles of lead (the most dense, stable element) without hitting a single lead atom!
If neutrinos were to "mutate" (as far as I know, mutations only happen in things that are alive and replicate using something like DNA as instructions, and therefore are prone to replication errors) the entire physics of the universe would have had to change! Hell, "normal matter" probably wouldn't even exist anymore.
This is the sort of thing that kills me about "science fiction" movies. They have to choose such stupid things to cause the disasters in a "disaster" movie, when there are plenty of real-life things that could cause the same catastrophes.
So why do they always go with the stupid things? Because they have absolutely zero clue about reality - and don't care. If "Hollywood" supports something, I think chances are it's the opposite of what I would support.
Global Warming or Solar Warming?
The polar ice caps on Mars are melting too. There are no humans on Mars to cause global warming. Because both Mars and Earth are warming, that would indicate the source of the warming is most likely the sun.
I say we send Pelosi, Reid, Obama and any other fucking idiot who still believes man made global warming to Mars. Perhaps their alpha beta kappa intellects can stop the ice caps melting on Mars.
Of course we should send a scout mission before we blast Pelosi, Reid and Obama into space. That scout mission could be a one man rocket without food or water. The one man would be Al Gore who should be thrilled at the prospect of blaming the Martians for melting their ice caps.
Gore, to his credit, has an explanation for the ice caps melting on Mars. It is caused by excess CO2 from planet Earth. Somebody please put this idiot out of his misery.
[QUOTE=El Alamo]The one man would be Al Gore who should be thrilled at the prospect of blaming the Martians for the melting of their ice caps.[/QUOTE]Don't you know? It's Bush's fault!
[quote=]Gore, to his credit, has an explanation for the melting of the ice caps on Mars. It is caused by excess CO2 from planet Earth. Somebody please put this idiot out of his misery.[/QUOTE]Please tell me your joking. Did he really say that? If so he is much dumber than I thought he was (previously, I thought he was dumber than a bag of nails)
Exclusive: Rep. Parker Griffith switches to GOP.
Government is a cancer with one goal. Kill the patient.
Out of control government will turn us into a North Korea, a Cuba or a cold war Eastern Europe.
Pelosi, Reid and Obama have no qualms about putting us in 18 inch by 18 inch laying cages as long as they are in power. I am surprised they haven't spouted 'War is Peace', 'Freedom is slavery' or 'Ígnorance is Strength'
I am waiting for them to create the Ministry of Peace which concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation.
When the whole world is a North Korea the opportunity to live in freedom will be long ago and far away. Out of control government, at all levels, is bound, determined and programmed to evolve into a North Korea.
Perhaps next year's elections will turn back the tide of out of control government. However, it appears it is only a matter of time before the cancer which is government kills the patient and the entire world will be living in a North Korea.
The problem, El Alamo, as Bush helped prove during his tenure, is that the Republicans only give lip service to smaller government any more, but really only give a different flavor of the same ice cream. I don't know that there's much hope except delaying the inevitable even if the Democrats were to lose significant ground in the elections.
All politicians (or a large enough percentage to not make any difference) are only interested in what's going to get them elected and the American people in larger numbers every year think that the government is going to give them things that will take care of them, make them happy and keep them perfectly safe.
It's all just going to get worse.
Far out stuff El Alamo.
To a large extent, government was the doctor who stepped in to control the cancer of private sector greed and stabilize the patient.
We have seen an increased role of government in the administration's first year in response to the economic situation and to deliver on key reform for which they were elected. We will see a focus on debt reduction and an increasing role of a strong private sector over the remainder of the first term. Let's check in later to see if this prediction or a North Korea scenario proves more accurate.
We always have to do the time for someone else's crime: new regulations.
The big guys (JPM, C, BAC) are getting free money from the Fed, investing it in sovereign debt (Australia, New Zealand) and making money hand over fist on a carry trade. They all are crying foul because of pending regulation. Give me a break. They want all the protection and resources that the U. S can provide; however, they choose to contribute zero to the country's survival: small business loans. There is something morally wrong with their practices. Regulate the bastards out of existence as far as I am concerned: required reserves. They are a liability.
[QUOTE=Esten]We will see a focus on debt reduction and an increasing role of a strong private sector over the remainder of the first term.[/QUOTE]ROTFLMAO!
Jackson
We are still in the first inning but taking everything into consideration, Obama doesn't look too bad to me.
1) If Obama's economic recovery plan works that will be impressive. However, the economy is a mess and Obama's cure I. E. Unsustainable debt which will be impossible to service once interest rates rise, may be worse than the disease.
2) Our health care system is, as Obama says, going to bankrupt us. Health care costs are always rising faster than the economy is growing. Without doing something health care costs would rapidly consume 20% of GNP, then 25% etc. This with a system that incurs over 50% of total health care costs in the last 30 days of a persons life.
However, a big part of reducing health care costs is tort reform and I don't think Obama is going to touch that.
3) Global warming. Obama has bought that bullshit hook, line, sinker and rowboat. Amazing when you consider that all evidence points to us entering a period of global cooling. Anyway, this is a non starter. Only imbeciles and Al Gore still believe in this nonsense and even Al Gore would drop the idea of global warming like a hot potato if he were not making a fortune off it.
Who knows, Obama may morph into a Jimmy Carter (aka village idiot) or into a Bill Clinton who, I for one, wish had been our President (without that brain dead vice president he had) during the Bush / Cheney tenure.
El Alamo, I must respectfully disagree with your assessment of Obama. I don't believe we can borrow our way out of a recession. A recession caused by reckless spending by both Democrat and Republican parties while in power. As you so accurately point out, once interest rates rise (and they will rise) we will never dig out of this mess.
First the housing debacle which started this whole mess was primarily engineered by Democrats during the 90's under the guise to "provide affordable housing" via Fannie and Freddie to folks who would have never qualified for a loan prior to the lending practices forced by the Democrats. Next come the Republicians who permitted the "packaging" of home loans as financial securities which were then traded with abandon with little to no oversight. When the house of cards came down it brought everything else which was teetering on the financial brink with it as well as our national hunger for debt on the personal, business and governmental levels only exacerbating the problem.
Healthcare, OMG you really think "Government" run healthcare is the answer? Look at Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, AmTrak, the USPS, Freddie & Fannie as sterling examples of what our self serving politicians have given us. By the way those same self serving politicians in Washington have their own PRIVATE HEALTHCARE AND RETIREMENT SYSTEM which we pay for but in which we are not allowed to participate! They pass healthcare "reform" for us "little people" not for themselves! I agree with you tort reform would go a long way to help hold down costs but there is plenty of profiteering going on that could be addressed more readily than the government taking over the entire healthcare system. Look at the polling data, the majority understand this will raise insurance costs, save nothing and negatively impact healthcare delivery.
And what is the crap about one state no longer pays for Medicare / Medicaid while the rest of the states are required to and the real pip is the language placed in the Senate version that prohibits changing the "law" by future lawmakers after it is enacted?
I have said from the beginning Obama will make Jimmy Carter look good in retrospect! The village idiots are the people who believed a Chicago politician when he preached CHANGE. How do you like your CHANGE now guy?
Using the word "takeover" to describe the reform is pure hyperbole.
There will be no federal funding of abortion, this has been very clear.
Destroy our quality of care? Take our economy to the very brink of destruction?
How can you believe this bullshit you are posting !
[QUOTE=Esten]Using the word "takeover" to describe the reform is pure hyperbole.
There will be no federal funding of abortion, this has been very clear.
Destroy our quality of care? Take our economy to the very brink of destruction?
How can you believe this bullshit you are posting![/QUOTE]It's not necessary to delve into the details. In fact, you don't even need to see the legislation until an hour before we vote on it. Don't read the bill. Just vote "YES" and vote quickly! Chop chop!
As Sidney would say: "CHANGE"
This does bring up a point that everyone on the Democrat side should really, really ask themselves, no matter what they believe, no matter if they think the Democrats are above reproach, even if they think Obama is da bomb.
Why are they in such a hurry to present such far-reaching changes with such potentially huge results in such a short time? Even if what they are doing is a good thing to them, with a significant portion of the country at best uncertain about what's happening, and a significant portion outright opposing it - why rush this through so fast that no one has a chance to really discuss and propose alternate possibilities (with a hope of being listened to) and make sure that the huge amount of money and theh huge growth of the government that is being proposed will actually do what is hoped?
Why? Because the people who are behind this are at least as bad, and I think many times WORSE, than anything that came out of 9-11, Afghanistan and Iraq put together as far as trying to control the government and the American people and put an effective dictatorship over us all. They have close to effective control of two branches of the US government, the parts responsible for actually making and enacting the laws, and have significant power in the third which is responsible for reviewing those laws made.
Even if these guys have no "dark designs" on the US, the speed of such a huge change is at best irresponsible. I think it's downright criminal, personally.
[QUOTE=Sidney]You cannot be convinced. You are ''brainwashed''! [/QUOTE]Translation: I can't formulate an intelligent argument to support my views (or can't be bothered to).
They were trying to get most of the work done by the summer, which to me would have been rushed. But the summer "deadline" was more an effort to prod focus and progress. From September through December was a period of fine tuning. There has been plenty of time for review and discussion. There were efforts to make the reform bipartisan, to engage affected industries in the discussion, and CBO review. By the time the House and Senate bills are merged it will be close to 1 year they have spent on this. If 1 year is rushed, how many years would you have them working on it?
This "rush don't read" criticism is simply another disingenious attempt by the right to discredit the administration for political purposes.
The "Government" is about to require everyone to purchase health insurance or be fined or worse. The purpose of this grand plan is to reduce the number of "uninsured" persons in America. The Democrat's made a very valid comparison when they likened this new national requirement for healthcare insurance to that of states requirements for liability auto insurance.
Point 1
Here in Texas a report was just released regarding the number of still uninsured motorists in the state since the requirement that all vehicle owners purchase liability coverage (you have to have proof of coverage to register your vehicle each year and to have it inspected. Guess what? We went from 28% uninsured drivers before the law went into effect several years ago to 22% today, and yes you get fined and can go to jail if you are found to be without coverage – just like the federal plan. From what I have seen published in other states this is pretty much the norm regarding the reduction in uninsured drivers.
DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU WILL HAVE BETTER RESUTLS WITH NATIONALLY MANDATED HEALTHCARE INSURANCE? This translates to yes you will get some of the uninsured coverage but the total number of uninsured will not decrease dramatically any more than it did with auto liability. So why create a new huge government bureaucracy that in the end fails to accomplish its intended purpose?
Point 2
Why would you want to create a new government bureaucracy when the creation of government jobs does nothing for the economy? Government jobs do not produce a product or contribute to the GDP and grow the economy; they just drain more money from productive activities which do contribute to the GDP and do grow the economy in the form of more taxes to pay their salaries and benefits.
Point 3
How are you going to "catch" those uninsured scoundrels and fine them? I am sure you are familiar with a little governmental outfit called the Internal Revenue Service. How many tax cheats do they catch out of the number out there? Not many and they have multiple reporting requirements. You really think the government is going to do any better "catching" the uninsured?
Point 4
Now since we can be relatively certain the majority of uninsured will not be "caught" and under this program no insurance company can deny coverage due to preexisting conditions or charge more for same, the uninsured will simply wait until they are ill, sign up, get treated, then drop the insurance which means more tax increases on the rest of us to cover the short fall. In the meantime the government gets to control 20% more of the economy.
Now since most of the folks in Congress can't tie their shoes without help or a kickback from someone or pork barrel spending for their districts – do you really want to trust them with this? Much less that they did not even read the damn thing in the first place.
The point of this entire exercise is to grow government, increase its control over our daily lives and place another 20% of the economy under the greedy paws of the political hacks in Washington.
[QUOTE=Esten]They were trying to get most of the work done by the summer, which to me would have been rushed. But the summer "deadline" was more an effort to prod focus and progress. From September through December was a period of fine tuning. There has been plenty of time for review and discussion. There were efforts to make the reform bipartisan, to engage affected industries in the discussion, and CBO review. By the time the House and Senate bills are merged it will be close to 1 year they have spent on this. If 1 year is rushed, how many years would you have them working on it?
This "rush don't read" criticism is simply another disingenious attempt by the right to discredit the administration for political purposes.[/QUOTE]"Only" a year to grow the federal government significantly without really knowing what we're getting into, with basically a single plan that has been pushed from the beginning with an illusion of all of our senators and congressmen working together to come up with a plan that everyone worked on? What ever happened to tort reform, one of the big issues of healthcare, that wasn't even TOUCHED! Why a time limit on something so important anyway? And I would much rather two years than a year to make sure we got it right.
There were NO efforts to make the reform bipartisan. As soon as anyone had anything critical to say, they were being "partisan." The Democrats took a lesson from the Republicans as far as being patriotic and telling people who criticized the war that they were siding with terrorists! Can't you see the Democrats are doing the same thing while blithely saying that the Republicans are doing nothing but try to stop them and that that's the WRONG thing to do? They SHOULD be trying to stop them, to rein them in on this lunacy.
Every proposal that the Republicans made was shot down in committee without hearing and the media didn't even report what was proposed by many legislators. Intead everyone talks about how the Republicans had no ideas and were just cutting down what the Democrats want to do.
Give me a break - this is a prime example of the left taking advantage of a temporary strong majority to push something that the United States as a whole would never have gone for. It was rushed to ensure that very thing because the longer this goes on and the more scrutiny it is given, the fewer people in the country like it - and rightly so.
Watch what happens in the midterm elections and think about what would have happened if the Congress would have opened up the issue for discussion, would have examined it in open congressional sessions and really tried to come up with what was best for THE MOST PEOPLE. It would never have had a chance.
And BTW - I am NOT for the "right." The Republicans lied to us (in my opinion - I know many don't agree with me) to get us into a war, but at least they bothered to line up support before they did it. But the Republicans have been leading us into bigger government almost as fast (if not AS fast) as the Democrats.
I'm a Libertarian who is fucking sick and tired of the new ruling class taking money from mostly ignorant people who completely naively think that government is a good thing and will cure all ills. Esten, I'm not calling you ignorant, please don't take it that way - I'm talking about the masses who really have NO CLUE.
Elected officials are THE NEW RULING CLASS, the replacement of royalty and nobility, a bunch of crooks with no sense of noblese oblige (with a very small percentage of exceptions) and ANYTHING they do as a whole will NOT make the US a better country. It will only bring it down the road of ruin.
[QUOTE=El Queso]"Only" a year to grow the federal government significantly without really knowing what we're getting into, with basically a single plan that has been pushed from the beginning with an illusion of all of our senators and congressmen working together to come up with a plan that everyone worked on? What ever happened to tort reform, one of the big issues of healthcare, that wasn't even TOUCHED! Why a time limit on something so important anyway? And I would much rather two years than a year to make sure we got it right.
There were NO efforts to make the reform bipartisan. As soon as anyone had anything critical to say, they were being "partisan." The Democrats took a lesson from the Republicans as far as being patriotic and telling people who criticized the war that they were siding with terrorists! Can't you see the Democrats are doing the same thing while blithely saying that the Republicans are doing nothing but try to stop them and that that's the WRONG thing to do? They SHOULD be trying to stop them, to rein them in on this lunacy.
Every proposal that the Republicans made was shot down in committee without hearing and the media didn't even report what was proposed by many legislators. Intead everyone talks about how the Republicans had no ideas and were just cutting down what the Democrats want to do.
Give me a break - this is a prime example of the left taking advantage of a temporary strong majority to push something that the United States as a whole would never have gone for. It was rushed to ensure that very thing because the longer this goes on and the more scrutiny it is given, the fewer people in the country like it - and rightly so.
Watch what happens in the midterm elections and think about what would have happened if the Congress would have opened up the issue for discussion, would have examined it in open congressional sessions and really tried to come up with what was best for THE MOST PEOPLE. It would never have had a chance.
And BTW - I am NOT for the "right." The Republicans lied to us (in my opinion - I know many don't agree with me) to get us into a war, but at least they bothered to line up support before they did it. But the Republicans have been leading us into bigger government almost as fast (if not AS fast) as the Democrats.
I'm a Libertarian who is fucking sick and tired of the new ruling class taking money from mostly ignorant people who completely naively think that government is a good thing and will cure all ills. Esten, I'm not calling you ignorant, please don't take it that way - I'm talking about the masses who really have NO CLUE.
Elected officials are THE NEW RULING CLASS, the replacement of royalty and nobility, a bunch of crooks with no sense of noblese oblige (with a very small percentage of exceptions) and ANYTHING they do as a whole will NOT make the US a better country. It will only bring it down the road of ruin.[/ QUOTE]What do we do and where do we go?
BlackShirt - I don't have all the answers. I do have common sense and I also live in a country where people feel the need for the government to make all solutions for them and it doesn't work well at all (I live here in Argentina in case you didn't know)
The GOP offered a solution in May that has been sitting in committee and was never discussed.
It has elements that the Democrats refuse to discuss, including reform on frivolous and overly-large award lawsuits, which are a significant component of the horrible cost in health care. As I saw one conservative commentator write in a column, he sees liberals as a group of people armed with lawyers waiting for someone to slip on a rich person's sidewalk so they can redistribute his or her money.
It also deals with one of the great problems in health insurance, allowing for state based health care exchanges and federal incentives for multiple states to band together, crossing state lines, to offer more choices. And the state based exchanges would be responsible for providing group rates to people across a multitude of circumstances to reduce rates. Competition and a relaxing of restrictions.
It also includes providing help for those who cannot afford health insurance. But the Democrats don't want this because 1) it's not providing a government-run function which grows the government and helps to control lives even further, a clear goal of most liberals and 2) it provides many fiscally proper functions to ensure that people who apply for the assistance really need it.
Does anyone care about small businesses on the liberal side? Do they not see that the requirements that they are going to put on ALL businesses, big and small, are going to really harm the small businesses - like mine, for example.
What possible incentive do I have to hire someone if I HAVE to pay for their insurance on top of all the other freaking taxes and insurances and such that I have to pay when employing someone? Not just the direct money but the time and effort involved in keeping up with this crap is horrendous ALREADY! Jesus Christ on a Crutch why can no one on that side see that saddling businesses with making sure that everyone is happy who works for them is going so far past what unions, for example, were originally intended to serve.
I keep saying this: Argentina is such a prime example of where the Democratic party is leading the US. You have to live here for a period of time and try to do business here to really get it, but it's scary to think about.
Do you realize that almost all small businesses here are completely family run and operated? They can't stay open all the time, they can't work on weekends and holidays. Why? Because they can't hire employees outside their family so they are restricted in what they can do. If they do, they are forced to pay for their insurance, they are forced to pay severance (a full month per year worked, starting the first year after three months of employment) no matter how poorly an employee performs (even thought here are laws, the court system almost ALWAYS sides with the "worker") they are forced to pay them a full month of salary as a bonus every year no matter what. They are forced to pay HUGE taxes on salaries to pay for the all of the "social programs" this wonderful government provides for its people. They can't hire temporary or part time help because of the huge RISK. They have no ability to leverage credit and have any kind of large inventory and therefore are usually woefully understocked on certain items in large part because the government tries to control so many things that it fucks them all up.
The US is starting on this path. Argentina is like this because the powers that be have convinced the public, who they keep as ignorant as possible and buy their votes with outrageous promises that cannot be fullfilled by the government, that the government is their friend and is trying hard to provide for everyone.
The same thing is happening in the States because Bush fallback is so strong that a predominantly powerful Democratic party is able to push for powers for the government that dwarf what Bush did, and is doing it in the name of helping the people who can't help themselves.
Bullshit. The only people that can't help themselves are those who don't try, with a very few small set of exceptions. I worked three fucking jobs (AT ONCE! To put myself through college and continued to work my ass off all my life so that I could succeed. Opportunity used to exist, but the politicians are ruining that, election by election, as an ignorant American public think that government is there to make things all better. Instead, they are allowing it to slowly enslave them.
I have never said I have all the answers. I have never said Republicans have all the answers. I have never even said Libertarians have all the answers (though I think they're closer than most) What I have said is that the Democrats alone are going to ruin us, just like the Republicans alone would ruin us. They have too much power and this crap that they are trying to pass that supposedly will help is a HUGE step in fucking things up good.
So why are we in such a hurry? Really? Tell me why two years is too long, but 9-12 months is not too short for one fo the most important decisions the American people have ever made? Are we so pathetic that we can't take our time to really work together to figure out the best way?
Or is the Democratic Party interested in pulling more money out of the money-engine (the rich) of the country in order to pursue power, pure and simple, no matter whether the money-pump starts to cough and spit because it no longer has enough to pump.
Like Argentina.
[QUOTE=El Queso]There were NO efforts to make the reform bipartisan.[/QUOTE]Untrue. If you had said they did not try hard enough it might be more credible. But to flat out say there were no bipartisan efforts at all is untrue.
Obama would have loved to have broad bipartisan support, for obvious reasons. This effort continued up until late summer when it became clear the divisions were too strong and it just wasn't going to happen. Gallup has some interesting charts on public polling on this topic. The last chart shows how perception of sincere bipartisan effort fell for both parties, but moreso for Republicans.
[url]www.gallup.com/poll/123032/americans-credit-obama-bipartisan-efforts.aspx[/url]
After the effort for broad bipartisan support was abandoned, Democrats still continued to work with individual Republicans to obtain their support. Republicans are just as much responsible for the lack of broad bipartisan agreement as Democrats. Have a look at some of the quotes here:
majorityleader.gov/docUploads/HCGOPBipartisan091509.pdf
I like the one from Republican Senator Jim DeMint:
"If we're able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."
[QUOTE=Esten] But to flat out say there were no bipartisan efforts at all is untrue.
Obama would have loved to have broad bipartisan support[/QUOTE]You have been drinking purple kool-aid, Esten. Obama would have had no problem passing a health care reform bill through Congress if he had gone to the other party and invited them to write one-third of the bill. Probably would have had to accept malpractice lawsuit limits and inter-state portability of insurance plans and not much more.
Instead, The One's idea of bipartisanship is "You do what I say and you'll like it."
I contrast his approach with that of Bill Clinton in the 90s, who was able to achieve true bipartisan legislative achievements such as the crime bill, the welfare reform bill, and an immigration bill.
Obama is a one-term President, his hard-left Chicago "fuck them if they don't want what I want" politics have already alienated a majority of the population. He will be dealing with a Republican Congress come November, which is an astonishing result - squandering his presidency within 10 months of taking office.
The good news is, most of the "health reform bill" which might pass Congress consists only of taxes that will be relatively easy to repeal. The "benefit" program is not scheduled to take place until 2014, long after President Petraeus takes office along with a GOP Congress.
The only thing "bipartisan" about this health bill is the opposition, which consists of members of both the Republican and Democratic parties. Obama is on his own with the left wing of his party on this, and they will suffer the consequences alone.
Couldn't agree more Hunt. I believe that time will show that you're prediction of this year and the upcoming years is spot on! Couldn't have said it better myself. The repealing of this health care socialist scam will be easily accomplished once we get this idiot out of the oval office. Once again, america has to elect a crazy liberal for all the wrong reasons to return to an appreciation of Republican leadership. This cycle has been going on for decades, however, the sad legacy of this idoit Obama is that he is truely creating damage to America that will take a couple of decades to repair. Without question, he will go down as the worst president in history. Novemeber just can't come soon enough. You really have to question his agenda regarding America. From my chair he seems hell-bent on creating as much damage to America and American values as possible. Maybe all the muslim agenda propaganda about Obama has some validity? He certainly is ensuring that his stay in power will be a short one indeed. Kinda confusing really. I used to think that the first priority of a first term president was GETTING A SECOND TERM in office. Go figure. Ten months and counting.
Happy Mongering All. Toymann
El Queso,
You make some valid points from the entrepreuner's viewpoint, I sympathize with you. But the bickering on this board is akin to what is going on in DC. The Republicans are not going to let the bill go by without watering it down and making Obama look bad, and the Democrats are anxious enough the pass whatever bill, just to claim some success. End result, stalemate and a bill that sucks! I am not a liberal, but Obama did promised changes but even the Messiah could not undo DC Politically, nothing has change, so this is very disappointing.
[QUOTE=Toymann]Couldn't agree more Hunt. I believe that time will show that you're prediction of this year and the upcoming years is spot on! Couldn't have said it better myself. The repealing of this health care socialist scam will be easily accomplished once we get this idiot out of the oval office. Once again, america has to elect a crazy liberal for all the wrong reasons to return to an appreciation of republican leadership. This cycle has been going on for decades, however, the sad legacy of this idoit Obama is that he is truely creating damage to America that will take a couple of decades to repair. Without question, he will go down as the worst president in history. Novemeber just can't come soon enough. You really have to question his agenda regarding America. From my chair he seems hell-bent on creating as much damage to america and american values as possible. Maybe all the muslim agenda propaganda about Obama has some validity? He certainly is ensuring that his stay in power will be a short one indeed. Kinda confusing really. I used to think that the first priority of a first term president was GETTING A SECOND TERM in office. Go figure. Ten months and counting. Happy Mongering All. Toymann[/QUOTE]I quote from the Internal Herald Tribune, Dec. 31, 2009. "The world's superpower (US) is focused on security. It's fastest-rising competitor (China) concentrates on commerce".
Nothing wrong being patriotic, but how did we get to where we are now. If not for the fact that we can keep printing the dollar, I would probably be sleeping under some bushes right now.