Again, it would be nice to defend a really awesome bill.

if only obama didn’t ruin it, the republicans wouldn’t even be in this position to vote on it, alas he put in a corporate bill and even democrats who understand what he did don’t want it

next cycle, when they have the senate, and then of course the presidency

combine that with the scotus taking away more rights (see attaturk below), I am almost happy I have no kids that would have had to live in the country this has become…and it will get worse

I particularly like how the CBO, under Martin Feldstein-trained Doug Elmendorf,
the former head of Pete Peterson’s Hamilton Project, has been cast by the Republicans
as left wingers, merely permitted to voice an opinion. So shifteth the Overton Window.

Good morning. Happy National Cheese Lover’s Day!

Democrats turned the American people off when they passed the pos health care bill, and Republicans haven’t scored points in their lame effort to go through the motions of pretending to want to repeal it.

Hurray for the failed leadership of the United States of America.

I find a lot more to dislike in the health care bill than to like. Other than the pre-existing condition denial, there’s almost nothing in there that I really like.

The GOPers are saying that bill will actually make care more expensive and less accessable. They may be right. Someone should point out that the provisions that could cause that were mostly put in there to get republican votes.

Boxturtle (If we had a better congress, a do-over on this would be the way to go)

The GOPers are saying that bill will actually make care more expensive and less accessable. They may be right. Someone should point out that the provisions that could cause that were mostly put in there to get republican votes.

And they got those provisions in there after hard negotiating with Ø (hah!) but they did get them in there to weaken the bill so much as to make most of it unpopular, obviously with an eye to ditching it altogether when the chance came.

It’s hilarious in a very sad sort of way, how lib/prog blogs have to defend this POS bill. You can’t even hear yourself type on some blogs (DKos) for the Clap Louder (TM) crowd. Unbelievable.

The GOPers are saying that bill will actually make care more expensive and less accessable. They may be right.

they are right

this would not be a bad bill if we can remove that mandate, the dems can score some points going after removing that and have the republicans dance to keep it in

lib/progressive blogs don’t have to defend that pos, we here don’t, we here never have, the blogs that did were operating like republicans;

“if our side does it, we’ll support it even though it suxor”

that’s not a liberal blog that’s a marionette blog

Someone should point out that the provisions that could cause that were mostly put in there to get republican votes.

I don’t believe even one Republican voted for it.

they played obama for a fool, but he actually fooled them, he was in the health insurance’s pocket all along, the republicans played defense for him so he could make believe he had to bargain to get the provisions his puppet masters had him force down our throats

Ditch the mandate, the drug reimportation ban, and add an affordable public option.

But facing facts, the only way we’re going to get a good bill, as opposed to a tolerable bill, is if we add the provision that all elected and appointed officals are to be covered by this bill, with no additions just for them. If Senator Issa wants dental, we get dental.

Boxturtle (We get the GOPers to sign on to the bill by paying for it with tax cuts)

just like the republicans ran against tarp, got obama to give them money the way they wanted instead of forcing public jobs, the republicans got everything they could have possibly wanted and got to complaign about it and obama at the very same time

I love the idea of forcing them to have our bill or forcing us to have theirs

the one problem with that strategy would be that the health care industry would give them enough contributions to make up for paying their own additional health care

That is most of the blogs online that claim to be left perris. I try to serf as many as possible to get different points of view. It’s disgusting how many have revealed themselves to be just that—Dem Party faithful. I didn’t mean FDL. This is one of the few remaining communities where actual truth and free speech are allowed. The rest? Anything resembling progressiveness disappeared with the election of Obomba. Hell, they even call Pelosi a liberal now!! Pelosi?? WTF??

I didn’t say it WORKED! Obama is arguably the worst negociator since Neville Chamberlain.

Boxturtle (I’d love to play poker with Obama. I bet I could bluff him when he’s holding a royal flush)

Good Morning, Cheese Lovers
I don’t know if it’s really Cheese Lovers day, or whether twolf was offering the cheese to go with all the whine. But, anyway, I do love cheese. So, does RevBev, I’m pretty sure.

50th Anniversity of JKF Inaugural speech….My, how we’ve changed. Can still tap into that idealism. Perhaps, my biggest regret is not having joined the Peace Corps. Let myself be dissuaded.

Morning, All.

You are so right…dear. May have alittle left over pizza. What a smart gal you are.

…obviously with an eye to ditching it altogether when the chance came

This is working from the false assumption that the GOP wants to repeal the law. No bill becomes law in Washington without bipartisan consensus. The consensus is always what their corporate masters want. Both sides of the aisle answer to the same masters, in this case the healthcare industrial complex.

This bill has the tacit endorsement of the industry. The insurance side realizes that the status quo is unsustainable. They have played their game of pushing the costs up as far as they could go without mass defection. Now they need the government to force us to pay them.

This is why the mandate survived and the vast majority of the cost saving measures especially the public option or Medicare buy-in got scrapped and why single payer was off the table from the start.

Anyone, including Nancy Pelosi’s #1 cheerleader Rachel Maddow, who thinks that this vote was anything more than smoke and mirrors is either blinded by partisanism or doesn’t understand our current state of government in Washington.

This law will never be repealed because the healthcare industrial complex needs it to survive.

Today is also Tu B’Shevat as well as National Buttercrunch Day & Penguin Awareness Day.

When the dust has settled, the Repubs simply did what they promised to do. I can see why this would really flummox Democrats.

None of the polls seem to ask what my position on it is: Repeal the mandate and replace it with single payer or a very strong public option at minimum. Until then it isn’t “Health Care Reform” no matter how many times it’s called that6 and by whom.

Why, thank you. I’m thinking a grilled cheese and tomato sammie for breakfast.

Yes they did. Rather than focusing on jobs or something that might help, they wasted time holding a vote they knew had no chance of advancing in the Senate.

If twolf is offering cheese, I can come up with a LOT more whine!

Favorite cheese: Vermont Longhorn cheddar.

Least favorite: Roquefort.

Boxturtle (And I can’t be the only person here who likes Limburger)

And thank you…I had forgotten I have that fine pizza…Yum.

I heard the W l’by is about to open next week in Dallas. I had no idea it would open so soon. Had not heard. Breaks my heart for SMU….

Penguin Awareness Day

Sweet, I live in Pittsburgh and love hockey. There is a game tonight and everything.

A new year for trees is a nice reason to celebrate. I like Tom Tomorrow’s penguin better than the evil one in Wallace and Gromit.

Many are just partisans and all said they would never support this p.o.s. without a “strong public option” until the day it passed the Senate. Then it was suddenly how many “good things there are” in the bill and how it was about “the art of the possible” and how it was going to be “fixed” at some unspecified (and alternate reality) future date.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas):

Repealing healthcare reform would result in “killing Americans.”

G’Morning, Perry. I’m sorry I questioned and then ran the other day. I queried you about engaging and then got a phone call. I hope it didn’t seem like an attack. I’m glad you engage. You’re one of the smart folks. :)

It’s a damn shame. Freaking albatross.

And don’t forget, “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it”.

A “win” for Obama became more important than health care.

Boxturtle (and that’s still true)

It always was IMO. Dipshit Rahm was chief of staff then and that’s how he thinks. I remember him saying something to that effect when the debate was just beginning.

that’s being a bit kind, he “bargained away” all progressive portions of the bill, getting absolutely nothing back in that bargain

obama is not a retard, he did that on purpose, he is in their pocket and he had the cover of “bargaining” so he thought he could get away with it

in the end it looked like rahm did obama’s bidding, not the other way around

jane had that pegged from the start, obama was allowing rahm to run defense, it was all the big 0

I’m not sure that HCR will result in ANY additional lives saved over the old system.

People still can’t afford it. They’ll still end up in the emergency rooms. And they’ll still receive the same minimal treatment they did before.

If only people in that position voted in greater numbers.

Boxturtle (And voted with their brains rather than with their fears)

Yep,,,but don’t use the big words, he won’t get it. ;)

were there any other blogs that agreed with jane here at the lake?

were we the only ones that didn’t like the health insurance subsidy bill?

it might, just might result in states taking health care into their own hands

that would be a good thing if it does happen, i believe it already has

He won’t get the metaphor either.

I’m not blaming Rham for the shape of the bill. I’m just saying that they always considered a “win” much more important than substance. Rham was a tool of Obama just as Obama is a tool of big corp. Sorry for being unclear.

I could care less what Rachel Maddow has to say about Health Care Reform, but it’s predictable, that’s for sure. Any true “Leftist” wouldn’t be influenced by the likes of a capitulating poseur like Rachel Maddow. She poses no threat, whatsoever, to the thoroughly entrenched, and vested position of the Plutocratic Oligarchy. In fact, she works for them, they pay her, and so she’s as vested as they are to keep them propped up with misdirecting, cleverly selected and always out of context, lies intended to cow and contain those who would otherwise go too far with their dissent.

Morning, Margaret. What are you up to today?

Those with dual citizenship should consider themselves very lucky.

No problem. I definitely flit around more than I engage, though I do read people’s responses. Gotta enjoy the web before they take it away.

Now if you’ll excuse me, reading this thread has somehow made me very hungry…

I’m probably going to be about evenly split between looking for a job and looking for a place to live. How about you?

Enjoy.

obama is not a retard

OBJECTION! Assumes material not in evidence.

Boxturtle (Suspects some flunky dials the phone for him)

Neo-liberals.

New post up top…

I have to start looking again. I paniced for a minute yesterday, afeared that I’d lost my resume to the old computer, before I realized I had it as attachments in my email. It’s recovered and on my desktop now. Phew. So, I have no excuses for today. A hunting we will go…hi ho, the merry oh.

Just read a local story about a jobs program that “gets sex offenders back into society”. I think it’s important to rehabilitate criminals, even sex offenders but what about a program to help people who have never been in prison “get back into society”? WTF?

Really. Oddly, last night I dreamed I was in prison. Don’t know what’s going on in my subconscious.

Irony? Using a a federal or state tax code to coerce the citizen into contracts with tax exempt and anti trust exempt, state based health insurance corporations? Like the slave owner the cornerstone of health insurance is legalized discrimination. There is no equal protection under law when corporate profit is protected, to the detriment of the general welfare, as was the institution of slavery? Scott was considered property by law. Now all Americans are treated as property. Life, now subject to dictates of corporate profit, because like the slave owner’s, corporate claims it will “cost to much to change?” So ask yourself this question? How much economic value, “money” will America waste today, right out our “collective tailpipe?”

You are. Prison America.

Yes. And, it was like a mental ward, too. And, as usual, I was in trouble for trying to defend another inmate who was being abused.

And victim Services, along with several community colleges, supposed to be cut in TX budget…Who needs those things?

Not to mention thousands of state employees. The local news last night led off the story with “good news” about “not raising taxes”. Fucking morons.

This law will never be repealed because the healthcare industrial complex needs it to survive.

That’s my bet – not that I like this putrid law. To me, this is all just Kabuki Show, and these days RM has moved from bit player to one of the more “meaty” roles in the Kabuki Show.

Smoke ‘n mirrors, folks. Doesn’t mean that much. ReTHUGS are “playing” their base and pretending to do something. Whatever….

Great point, Margaret. It sure isn’t health care reform, it’s legislation to guarantee profits for the mostly-unregulated insurance companies with guaranteed no-competition from a public option.

Kennedy – what a great guy – got us embroiled in Vietnam, tried to overthrow castro, ramped up the arms race…wish Obama was just like HIM…

such overkill! Slaves could be killed at their owners whim. Those who refuse to buy insurance? pay a fine! pay a fine! Don’t tread on me, MFer! I want a public option, believe me – but this overheated rhetoric helps no one. And could we ban the word kabuki around here – it’s like every other utterance…

Sure margaret – you live in prison! Ever visited a prison? I have… you don’t live in prison…

Yeah -states rights! Where have we heard THAT before… Oh yeah, the Tea partiers and the segregationists…

Good Job to the House, Cut, Cut, Cut

http://www.usnews.com/news/washington-whispers/articles/2011/01/20/house-gop-lists-25-trillion-in-spending-cuts

EverNewEcoN’s take on

The GOP’s last gasp on healthcare reform
Andrew Leonard, Salon.com, Jan. 20, 2011
http://www.salon.com/technology/how_the_world_works/2011/01/19/the_gop_last_gasp_on_healthcare_reform

Americans are actually understanding now-you-
see-it-now-you-don’t monopolistic health insurance,
and its variously 39%, 59% (…whatever jazzes the
health execs, apparently the increases rounded
down 1% the same way retailers mark items as
$8.99, $9.99, etc.) premium increases leaves them and
their families thoroughly insecure suckers.

The health insurers are wondering if mandatory
purchases by healthy persons, the risky ones
getting sent to state-assisted pools, is actually
preferable to a dwindling pool of employ’ds
who’re ready and able to buy coverage.

http://sites.google.com/site/evernewecon

http://sites.google.com/site/evernewecon/home/realestate/gotdemagoguery-/transportation/compassioncompetition/whistleblowercentral/whatelseisnew-