Sarah Palin's death panel a reality

TheodoricI was thinking you would reply but i am black too

You are shooting your face off with this wild speculation about what someone would or would not do. Please do yourself a kind favor and drop this pathetic line. You do have a lot of good things to say, but when you harp on this canard, your whole case sinks into a swamp.Sorry, man - just trying to help out.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

It would be kind f silly to criticize other Presidents now wouldn't it.
I didn't realize you knew me when Clinton was President. Clinton was a piece of crap centrist. Nothing liberal or progressive about the man. A consummate opportunist.At this point in their presidencies I would put Obama slightly ahead of Bubba.I think it is cute how you don't let anything as trivial as evidence stand in the way of your paranoia.Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Nop but my background give me a deep respect for what Barack Obama has achieved and gone through in his life.My father is Puerto Rican and my mother east coast anglo. I know what it is like to have to straddle two cultures. Like Obama I was raised in the dominant culture and was not immersed in my minority culture. I understand how he is torn culturally.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

I don't think so. I'm just trying to draw into cartoon relief the absurdity of claiming that the President who's getting us out of Iraq, passed a landmark health care reform bill, passed the Lily Ledbetter Act protecting women from employment discrimination, reformed the student loan system to free up millions for poor students to attend college, established a new website for transparency in government lobbying and funding, appointed Sonya Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, reversed the global gag rule, empowered the FDA to regulate tobacco, pumped up minimum fuel economy standards, added a billion dollars to the VA budget for the care of veterans, expanded health care access to 11 million kids, repealed restrictions on stem cell research, restored Army Field Manual guidelines against torture in interrogations, regulated credit card practices, expanded funding of national park and wilderness areas, expanded Federal hate crimes coverage to include sexual orientation, reformed the finance industry, expanded Medicare coverage of prescription drugs, and extended Federal benefits to same-sex partners somehow isn't a liberal.It's utter bullshit. If this were any other President, Theodoric would be celebrating one of the most successful liberal Presidencies in the modern era. Instead, there's just something different about this guy that leads Theodoric to blame the President when the Senate can't muster 60 votes for something as insignificant as drug reimportation from Canada.Or, I guess, Theodoric could genuinely just be someone who has no idea what he's talking about. I guess I consider myself to be doing Theodoric the courtesy of assuming that he actually looked up Obama's progressive accomplishments before proclaiming he doesn't have any. So, which is it, Theodoric? Racist, or idiot? You choose.

Lincoln Mitchell racist or idot?

quote:

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Frustration with the Obama administration from the left due to the failure of the administration to embrace and implement a progressive program seems to be increasing. It is now clear that while Obama is a far better president than his immediate predecessor, an extraordinarily low bar to be sure, he will not be the progressive leader for which many had hoped during the campaign. His governing style has been largely centrist with a preference for compromise over bolder, riskier decisions...
The existence of these constraints is part of political reality, but for many progressives there is a sense that the administration has used these constraints to rationalize away their relative inaction and timid policy making. It is clear that rapid progressive reform cannot be brought about simply through electing a president, but it is equally clear that even given these constraints more could have been done. Presidential decrees could have ended don't ask don't tell, and more aggressive bargaining would have led to a better health care. It is the failure to do this, not the failure to overcome the harsh political constraints, that should be the cause for the most concern from progressive supporters of the President.

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I doubt you will, since it will intrude on your hero worship, but here is the whole article. Peter Daou racist or idiot?

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Today, the predominant rift appears to be between those who believe he is selling out progressive principles out of a misguided desire for bipartisanship and those who say that he is actually getting the policies he wants, i.e. that he is perfectly comfortable ditching progressive principles because he doesn’t believe in them.

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SourcePaul Krugman racist or idiot?

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According to news reports, the Obama administration which seemed, over the weekend, to be backing away from the public option for health insurance is shocked and surprised at the furious reaction from progressives.

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Well, I’m shocked and surprised at their shock and surprise.

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A backlash in the progressive base which pushed President Obama over the top in the Democratic primary and played a major role in his general election victory has been building for months. The fight over the public option involves real policy substance, but it’s also a proxy for broader questions about the president’s priorities and overall approach.

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The idea of letting individuals buy insurance from a government-run plan was introduced in 2007 by Jacob Hacker of Yale, was picked up by John Edwards during the Democratic primary, and became part of the original Obama health care plan.

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One purpose of the public option is to save money. Experience with Medicare suggests that a government-run plan would have lower costs than private insurers; in addition, it would introduce more competition and keep premiums down.

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And let’s be clear: the supposed alternative, nonprofit co-ops, is a sham. That’s not just my opinion; it’s what the market says: stocks of health insurance companies soared on news that the Gang of Six senators trying to negotiate a bipartisan approach to health reform were dropping the public plan. Clearly, investors believe that co-ops would offer little real competition to private insurers.

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Also, and importantly, the public option offered a way to reconcile differing views among Democrats. Until the idea of the public option came along, a significant faction within the party rejected anything short of true single-payer, Medicare-for-all reform, viewing anything less as perpetuating the flaws of our current system. The public option, which would force insurance companies to prove their usefulness or fade away, settled some of those qualms.

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That said, it’s possible to have universal coverage without a public option several European nations do it and some who want a public option might be willing to forgo it if they had confidence in the overall health care strategy. Unfortunately, the president’s behavior in office has undermined that confidence.

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On the issue of health care itself, the inspiring figure progressives thought they had elected comes across, far too often, as a dry technocrat who talks of bending the curve but has only recently begun to make the moral case for reform. Mr. Obama’s explanations of his plan have gotten clearer, but he still seems unable to settle on a simple, pithy formula; his speeches and op-eds still read as if they were written by a committee.

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Meanwhile, on such fraught questions as torture and indefinite detention, the president has dismayed progressives with his reluctance to challenge or change Bush administration policy.

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And then there’s the matter of the banks.

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I don’t know if administration officials realize just how much damage they’ve done themselves with their kid-gloves treatment of the financial industry, just how badly the spectacle of government supported institutions paying giant bonuses is playing. But I’ve had many conversations with people who voted for Mr. Obama, yet dismiss the stimulus as a total waste of money. When I press them, it turns out that they’re really angry about the bailouts rather than the stimulus but that’s a distinction lost on most voters.

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So there’s a growing sense among progressives that they have, as my colleague Frank Rich suggests, been punked. And that’s why the mixed signals on the public option created such an uproar.

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Now, politics is the art of the possible. Mr. Obama was never going to get everything his supporters wanted.

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But there’s a point at which realism shades over into weakness, and progressives increasingly feel that the administration is on the wrong side of that line. It seems as if there is nothing Republicans can do that will draw an administration rebuke: Senator Charles E. Grassley feeds the death panel smear, warning that reform will pull the plug on grandma, and two days later the White House declares that it’s still committed to working with him.

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It’s hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Obama has wasted months trying to appease people who can’t be appeased, and who take every concession as a sign that he can be rolled.

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Indeed, no sooner were there reports that the administration might accept co-ops as an alternative to the public option than G.O.P. leaders announced that co-ops, too, were unacceptable.

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So progressives are now in revolt. Mr. Obama took their trust for granted, and in the process lost it. And now he needs to win it back.

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Source

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

What 60 senators were prepared to to vote for public option health care?Be specific - name the senators.

It seems that the republicans want to raise the retirement age to 70 so there will be more people working longer to pay for tax cuts for the rich.

What tax cut are you referring to?The current issue is whether to let taxes go back up on some folks or on everyone.

You do not address the substance of the post. I am done with your inability to address or present evidence.You will notice we are now discussing your claiming I am a racist because I am critical of Obama. I would tell you to keep up, but your unwillingness to bring nothing but assertions to the table leaves me no choice but to abandon this back and forth with you.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

From my own experience, I've noticed that racists will almost always never admit they are racists. I once attended a lecture by a kkk member who denied up and down he was racist.Theo, the fact of the matter is during this presidency we've seen a lot of firsts.For 8 years president Bush turned the biggest surplus we ever had left from the Clinton era to possibly the worst deficit we ever had. What did we hear from the so-called fiscal conservatives? Nothing. Nada. Zip. And as soon as the first black president was elected, an entire political party was formed in the name of fiscal conservatism to oppose this presidency. Now, remember that the tea party was starting to brew up as soon as it became apparent we might have a woman or black president, but this was long before Obama ever said anything about the stimulus package.But that was just all a coincidence, you claim.What about all those times that they tried to blame the deficit on Obama? When you have the president having to correct members of the press many times on an outright inaccurate fact, there's something wrong. What about all those "I want my country back" claims and the "keep your government hands off my medicare" shouts with passion? Last time I checked, the birthers are still around.And then there was the McCain campaign that harbored all those obviously racist campaigners portraying everything from a monkey portraying Obama to shouts of killing candidate Obama. And let's not forget that McCain never once said anything about it. In my world, silence is another way of condoning the action.And then there are all the confederate flags, an outright symbol of oppression and racial segregation, being waved right into the faces of black people.Tea party leaders have even admitted that they have racists in their own party but that they will not tell them to go away. And what a coincidence that tea party candidates have been found to be ex members of a lot of things related to racism.All a coincidence? Please, we're not that stupid. Of course the racists will not admit that they are racists. That's not politically correct anymore. Instead, they will proclaim something like fiscal conservatism *wink wink* all white members please join now to save god's chosen race, amen.Edited by Taz, : removed d out of and to make an

When the bush tax cuts were first passed they were intended to sunset. The tax cuts are untenable in the form they are now.It is still a tax cut.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

And if tax cuts for the rich would really make the economy better, we would have seen that happen in the last 10 years already.Have you ever written a computer program that has a bug somewhere so it won't compile? If you keep trying to compile it without fixing the bug, it will never compile, unless of course you're a republican who expects a miracle to happen one of these days.

No, you don't address the substance of the post. I've asked you perhaps ten times, now - what are the names of the 60 senators who were prepared to vote for public option health care?It's a simple question. Why can't you answer it? And as part of that, we're discussing whether you're applying a reasonable or unreasonable standard when you criticize the President for not passing a health care bill with a public option. If your criticism is reasonable, then it can only be because there were 60 senators willing to vote for public option health care, in which case it is Obama's fault that it didn't pass.So what were the names of the 60 senators willing to vote for public option health care? Be specific - name the senators.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

More on structural government obstacles to progressivism: today the Senate voted 53-36 to pass the Democrat's bill to extend tax cuts only up to the $250,000 income level. Obama convinced a majority of senators to vote for his tax cut bill, which had already passed the House.Hey, sounds good, right?Except the Senate doesn't operate by majority rule. So the measure failed. In other words - it doesn't matter how many elections progressives win, because the government doesn't operate by majority rule. Winners of electoral majorities don't get to enact their policies, and then they get blamed for those policies not being enacted.The progressive agenda will never succeed so long as antimajoritarianism in the senate renders the country ungovernable. It has absolutely nothing to do with Obama being a liberal or conservative. He's as liberal as they come, for the most part; but the government fundamentally can't do liberal things.