Yes, and i’m sure you can name me the 60 Senators and 235 congressmen that will vote for that.

It’s opposite day in FDL land:

CNN poll, majority now support the individual mandate.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/11/poll-majority-now-support-the-individual-mandate.php

Plus, unlike most of you who just read the headlines, i actually LOOKED at the Kaiser poll. It meant mostly bad news for the likes of Jon Walker and other members of the media. Basically the poll says that the majority of people just are misinformed about the law. Unfortunately, Jon Walker is one of the chief misinformers.

And ONCE AGAIN the President has proven that the Firebaggers are the “dumbest mother fuckers” on the planet.

Of course, David Dayen is going to print a retraction to this story and say he was completely wrong about his prediction?

Of course not, sorry i asked.

Finally, despite your reasoning about paid shills, we do indeed get them here, as all the regulars are well aware.

How do you know they’re “paid shills”? You also decided that me and ericj115 are the same person and we’re not.

Plus, you’ve expressed admiration for Greenwald and Hamsher two people that are both paid to shill. So what’s your problem?

Why would we bother doing that since neither one of us are banned?

There’s absolutely nothing in that video that bothers me a bit. I think today and i thought back then that spending time on an unlikely conviction of Bush and Co. would be an ultimate waste of time and resource and momentum during the worst economic downturn in our history. Instead he passed the stimulus which saved us from a great depression.

If you want to make me feel bad, you’ll have to do a lot better than that. That video is neither “infamous” nor even unreasonable.

Quisling was a guy who DIDN’T stay loyal. So you have your history mixed up.

Secondly you judge racists by what they say and do, not by how vehemently they deny racism. I’m sure the teabaggers would react in a similar way to the way you did if someone accuses the bone through the nose “joke” of being racist. They’ll just say it’s satire and probably end their defense with a “fuck you very much” as well.

I believe Glenn Greenwald is a racist because of articles like this one:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ky2xE5oiZ68/TuJsaR3uWjI/AAAAAAAAIVg/3iotdt_jzPg/s640/lovell.jpg

And because of his defense of Racist homophobe Ron Paul. And because he is treating this President with a level of disrespect unheard of. In fact that’s why i believe much of the fuss on this board is basically racism. As i’ve pointed out many times, this president is being judged by a standard no other president has been judged by. There is not a single President in our history that could possibly withstand the FDL criteria of 1. never compromising ever and 2. getting things done. When you name a President that can withstand that criteria then i’ll take it back. Good luck with that.

In the mean time as long as Jane Hamsher, Glenn Greenwald, and the other tantrumists continue to treat this president in a way no other President in history has been treated, i’ll continue to call it as i see it.

My “boy?” Nothing racist to see here folks!

What actual good would prosecuting Bush have done? The Roberts court is notorious when it comes to executive rights, and you know THAT would of ended up in the SC. And he would of failed to get ANY stimulus (remember it needed 3 Republicans at the time because of Franken and because Specter hadn’t changed)and his entire domestic agenda would of been overshadowed by pointless prosecution. Also while you and Greenwald might of loved a prosecution of Bush, the rest of the country would wonder why he was pursuing this during the worst crisis since the Great Depression. Obama just recently humiliated the Republicans in the payroll tax debate and he’s got them on the ropes in regards to just about everything else.

I’m not trying to “fool” anyone. But too much FDL is making a fool of you.

Don’t forget, President Obama is the one who has placed them on the table in the first place with his original appointees to the Catfood Commission and offering them to Boehner as part of his “grand bargain” on the deficit. To quote Mr. Pierce “Fck the deficit. People got no jobs. People got no money.”

I’m REALLY sick to death of the “He placed them on the table” rhetoric. Basically it’s a bunch of brats telling President Obama what he is and is not allowed to talk about. No one ever did this shit to Tip O’Neil who “placed them on the table” with Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton who “placed them on the table” with Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich. No only Barack Obama is a bad man if he even discusses ways to save on SS and Medicare. There are ways of changing those systems without cutting benefits. Here’s Senator Schumer discussing ways to save on Medicare right here:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/david-gregory-tries-push-chuck-schumer-say

But we’ll NEVER be able to fix problems if we’re not even allowed to discuss the problems.

A 2% cut in the FICA does fuck all for people who don’t have jobs (the un and underemployed rate is sitting over 20% and even the official un and underemployed rate is 16%). And even as he has “increased Medicaid” it is being cut back because Medicaid funds come mostly from state level rather than Federal and the states have been cutting Medicaid eligibility as part of their budget cuts.

No, it actually helps reduce the unemployment rate by putting an extra $40.00 in peoples pocket. That’s stimulative and it helps reduce unemployment.

Again, if the deficit is so important, let ALL the Bush/Obama tax cuts (yes, he is part owner now by not letting them expire). As it is, one of the main results we will most likely see of the FICA cut is someone complaining that the SS trust fund (those pesky pieces of paper in a filing cabinet somewhere) are going down too fast so we need “entitlement reform”

First off there are legitimate reason why even the staunchest liberal will want to cut the debt. The interest on the debt amounts to 100s of billions of dollars each year. In fact, i think it’s the third largest expenditure after SS and the military. That amount of money makes it extremely difficult to fund programs that we want to fund.

Furthermore, he used the debt talk to bring further attention to income inequality. His response was that we should cut the deficit by taxing millionaires. Right now not only are Democrats polling ahead of Republicans on the Deficit but they’re also polling ahead of Republicans on TAXES! I mean when Republicans lose on the tax issue, what have they got left?

And FWIW, I actually hope you are correct and I am wrong but nothing I see from President Obama’s actions (not his words, his actual steps leading to concrete results) lead me to believe that he is any great staunch defender of the social safety net. Too many times his actions from saying he was against the Patriot Act and warrantless wiretapping then voting for them to his public support for the Public option while he was negotiating it away behind the doors have negated his words.

There is no truth whatsoever to the behind closed doors public option lie. His actions DID add to the Social safety net, there are kids right now who are on S chip thanks to him. Military vets enjoying the GI bill thanks to him. Medicaid was expanded thanks to him.

I voted for change in ’08 and got more of the worst aspects of Bush policy. And it is compounded because of the people who would have screamed to the heavens at Bush doing things but quietly accept Obama doing the same thing whether it is because he is a Dem or they just figure like you do that he is powerless except where he isn’t.

Obama is a vast improvement over Bush. In fact he’s as good as any President has been in the past 40 years. I never said he’s powerless i said there are reasonable explanations for everything that he’s done. That’s NOT apologizing. If i say “I pushed that old lady to get her out of the way of a truck” i’m not apologizing for pushing an old lady. I’m just explaining why he did things. If i say “Obama agreed to the Bush tax cuts to get X,Y, and Z” i’m not apologizing for him i’m explaining how it happened.

Also, a good deal of the problems happened because Democrats decided to stay home in 2010. If we GAINED or maintained seats would there have been a tax cut deal, an debt deal or the deal on the government shut down? No.

It seems like we always have to go through this cycle. 1. We decide that there is no difference between the Dems and the Republicans and we don’t show up for the polls 2. DISASTER! HUGE FUCKING DISASTER! 3. We go to the polls, get the dems in and things start to get better. 4. We either forget how bad things were and don’t show up to the polls or we decide they’re not getting better fast enough and don’t show up for the polls and 5. DISASTER! HUGE FUCKING DISASTER!

Let’s not do that anymore. Let’s do the thing that worked for us in the 40′s and the 60s. Let’s get HUGE majorities by going after Republicans and not Democrats.

What ARE you smoking?

I have enough health issues already without inhaling noxious chemicals.

What “huge military cuts?”

Six hundred billion in defense spending was called for in the budget deal. That’s pretty huge to me.

What “immunity against cuts to SS and Medicare/Medicaid?”

The reality debt limit deal has immunity to cuts in Medicare/medicaide SS. I’m not sure about the bill in FDL conspiracy land.

What “second stimulus…?”

Cutting payroll tax by 2% is stimulative. Allowing unemployment for an additional year is stimulative. Increasing access to education for the poor is stimulative. Even Paul Krugman admitted that the bill was stimulative. He didn’t like the politics of it at the time. Of course he has been pretty much been proven wrong since then but I don’t think you’ll find too many economists that will say there was nothing stimulative about the first debt deal they did.

If they had done NOTHING, ALL the Bush tax cuts would have expired.

Absolutely. But then so would the tax cuts for the middle class and poor which was also part of the Bush tax cuts so would unemployment insurance. And that would of added to the difficulty of passing the end to DADT and the START treaty and the other legislation passed in the lame duck session. I don’t like the fact that he extended them, but given the same choices he had i would of done the exact same thing.

The US, even after the supposed military tax cuts (since those are set to happen for FY2013, call me when they c=actually occur but don’t hold your breath on it), we will still be spending more in military than most of the rest of the world combined.

And do you REALLY think SS and Medicare/Medicaid have some sort of “immunity?” Seriously? What alternative universe are you living in?

Oh we get to make our own rules now? Ok, even though there are cuts to discretionary spending (also not supposed to start in 2013) called for in the bill, i’m just going to insist they’ll never happen… because!

I know that it’s the FDL mantra that Obama is just DYING to cut entitlements, but the reality is that he’s done more to increase entitlements then any president in 40 years. He’s increased Medicaid, he’s increased S-chip he’s added a whole new GI bill. And he’s pushed back hard against numerous attacks against entitlements from the likes of Paul Ryan. If he is really trying to cut entitlements he’s doing it through a kind of weird reverse psychology or something.

Believe it or not this stuff matters a lot to me. I have Chron’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis so the ACA act is very important to me. Right not i’m getting the very affordable high risk pool because of it. I was a student, so the education credits and the reformation of the student loans is important to me. I’ve even been helped by overdraft protection reform. This President and the last Congress has done a lot to help me. I know it’s out of fashion, but i’m grateful.

But the whole purpose of “Healthcare reform” is to control costs. As long as the health insurance companies are driving things (which they still are), the costs will continue to go up. There is no mechanism to contain the costs.

The big point is the “mandate” which requires people to purchase health insurance that still contains high deductibles and is structured such that most low income folks won’t be able to actual use it. And we have already seen Congress and President Obama start cutting out the subsidies that were supposed to help poor families

Actually there’s quite a lot that does control costs. Not just the loss ratio, but ending the fee for service controls costs. Also their are subsidies based on income. If your at the poverty level you won’t pay a thing and then there are various subsidies for up to 400% of poverty. After that point there is still maximum out of pocket expenses. So yeah, it does do something to limit bankruptcies and to control spiraling costs.

So far nothing has happened to the subsidies part of the bill. Hopefully nothing will. But one thing i know for sure. Blaming PBO for things that the REPUBLICANS are trying to do or have done is counter productive. The Republicans are going to win something as long as they have power. I’m sorry that’s just the way it works. I believe President Obama has outclassed Boehner in every deal they did together. But it’s fantasy to expect the Republican controlled house to not get there way on ANYTHING.

So far we got huge military cuts, an immunity against cuts to SS and Medicare and Medicaid and a second stimulus for the poor and middle class. They got a cut in discretionary spending for everything but (which isn’t much) and they got an extension of the Bush Tax cuts for two years. I think we did pretty well. If you don’t want to give them anything, get them out of power.

Now why is it that the Rs take the most extreme position possible on an issue and wind up getting 85% to 90% of what they want while Obama, as a Dem, pre-capitulates by starting the negotiations with the “reasonable” (i.e., pre-compromise) position of the Public option rather than starting with Single Payer, which would be far and away the most cost effective option and would be true reform.

Well, that’s not true. The major bills that Bush passed was the tax cuts, a bill that required him to use reconciliation and it had a 10 year time limit. They wouldn’t exist anymore had we retained the house. And if we can hold our shit together to 1. reelect Barack Obama and 2. Take back the house and keep the senate, they’ll be gone in a little over a year from now.

The major things that Bush did accomplish were more foreign policy which historically Congress has been pretty powerless to stop presidents on. The Republicans would not have been able to stop PBO’s Libya policy either or his Afghanistan policy. Most of them are pretty unhappy about the Iraq pull out too it seems, but they couldn’t stop that either. Constitutionally the President has HUGE powers in the area of foreign policy that are just difficult to stop. But that has nothing to do with Dems being weak or Republicans being strong.

But people here conveniently forget that Bush failed HUGELY with SS reform. He also failed, somewhat regrettably, with immigration reform. Even stupid stuff like allowing Dubai to open a port or getting his personal lawyer on the SC he failed at.

PBO FAR exceeds Bush in terms of ability to get legislation through. In fact, considering his comparatively shallow majorities i feel he exceeds LBJ and FDR.

So President Obama is and was purely powerless in disciplining the members of his own party in the Senate? Is that what you are saying?

Yeah, basically. Senators aren’t peons that can be pushed around. Generally they’ll do what the fuck they want and there’s little that a President can really do to stop them. Remember Obama lost Nebraska by like 20 points in 2008 how the fuck is he going to threaten Nelson? Promising to use his popularity to campaign against him? He was popular nationally in 2008, not with Nebraskans. The same is true with Lincoln and the other blue dogs. Obama has little power over them because he has little power in their state.

Insurance companies are already raising their rates. Their accountants have already been looking for loopholes on the MLR (and you really think 80% is that good a deal? Seriously?). They have also been appealing in the courts those ratio requirements

There’s been several companies that have tried to raise their rates and have failed as well. There’s also instances where insurance companies have had to give back premiums in VT and California. They’ve looked for loopholes in the law and have been shot down. On the second of December they tried to include the selling of insurance as part of their health care costs and were shot down.

No matter what we do someone is going to take it to court and argue it. Even if we somehow passed the dream bill, universal single payer it would certainly be fought somehow in court. And there would be people trying to commit fraud with it. There’s certainly been fraud with Medicare and Medicaid. Public does not necessarily mean perfect, private does not necessarily mean bad.

Obama claimed Lieberman as his Senate mentor. If he were truly wanting to punish Lieberman, then force him from the Dem party completely. Instead, Lieberman gets rewarded for backing McCain by being named chair of the Homeland Security committee in the Senate.

Without Lieberman caucusing with us no health care gets passed at all. Lieberman did come through on DADT. I’m sorry but i’d rather have a blue dog there than a Republican. Even an admittedly lousy Dem like Nelson will STILL vote for a Dem Committee chair. Wouldn’t you rather have Barbra Boxer in charge of the environmental committee than James Inhofe?

Give me a minute to type a reply. No, i’m not ericj115.

No, believe it or not there are more than 2 people out there that support Obama. In fact by every poll out there the VAST majority of Democrats support Obama.

It’s just that a lot of very wealthy, mostly former Republicans, liberals have a LOUD megaphone.

That whole line would fit very comfortably at Redstate.

I’m sorry but the PPACA does provide health care.

Preventive care, most doctors will say, is the most important form of health care and the PPACA provides that free.

An extreme expansion of local and community clinics is health care.

Free wellness visits for seniors is health care.

A best practice committee to study what works is health care.

No yearly and lifetime limits on care is health care.

I would even argue that closing the doughnut hole, 50% off medication for senior and the expansion of medicaid is health care.

I’m sorry, but you can’t deny that these things are providing care for people that need it.

I’m not here to “sell” anything except the truth. If that doesn’t “sell” that’s not my fault but the fault of closed minds.

Well, first i deny that the ACA is a nationalization of “Romveycare” there are important improvements on the ACA. The medical loss ratio and the prohibition on lifetime and annual limits are two important aspects of the PPACA that Mass care does not have.

That’s a justification for voting for everything that a Republican or a Democrat proposes…saying that it will be improved upon later. Why in the world would you oppose legislation that was proposed by Bush or is proposed by some future Republican President…afterall, at least it will be on the books and can be improved upon later.

That’s just how progressive legislation has always worked. With the exception of perhaps medicare ALL great liberal legislation, from SS to the civil rights act to important environmental acts have started somewhere and got better. Bills that start off right are the exception. I’m not too crazy about the fact that SS pretty much excluded black people at first and if i were alive during the time i’d scream against it. But i wouldn’t try and kill the entire bill because of it!

The 1957 civil rights act was obviously inadequate (most people don’t even know about it) but it laid the groundwork for better legislation.

I think the ACA act is a great start and it’s a very good first step towards universal single payer. It seems like a lot of you guys want to build the roof before we build the walls.

Now all of a sudden it’s necessary for a Democrat to insult his own Party Leader in order to be a good Democrat? There weren’t that many Democrats tearing into FDR about his civil rights abuses either. Nor were there that many democrats taking LBJ to task for Vietnam. There were some then, there are some now (Brown, Franken, even Boxer has criticized Obama) but to make THAT an important prerequisite to supporting Democrats in general is absurd.

Barack Obama himself has expressed support for Occupy Wall Street along with a number of Democrat lawmakers:

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-spokane/democratic-lawmakers-express-support-for-occupy-wall-street-lawlessness

Jane Hamsher knows little about history and less about politics. She knows how to make wretched movies. She should stick to that.