Obama, HealthCare, and why Pelosi is a moron

[Azure]

Aug. 12, 2009 | Buyer's remorse? Not me. At the North American summit in Guadalajara this week, President Obama resumed the role he is best at -- representing the U.S. with dignity and authority abroad. This is why I, for one, voted for Obama and continue to support him. The damage done to U.S. prestige by the feckless, buffoonish George W. Bush will take years to repair. Obama has barely begun the crucial mission that he was elected to do.


Having said that, I must confess my dismay bordering on horror at the amateurism of the White House apparatus for domestic policy. When will heads start to roll? I was glad to see the White House counsel booted, as well as Michelle Obama's chief of staff, and hope it's a harbinger of things to come. Except for that wily fox, David Axelrod, who could charm gold threads out of moonbeams, Obama seems to be surrounded by juvenile tinhorns, bumbling mediocrities and crass bully boys.


Case in point: the administration's grotesque mishandling of healthcare reform, one of the most vital issues facing the nation. Ever since Hillary Clinton's megalomaniacal annihilation of our last best chance at reform in 1993 (all of which was suppressed by the mainstream media when she was running for president), Democrats have been longing for that happy day when this issue would once again be front and center.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/...12/town_halls/

No idea who the author is.

Don't really care either.

[Azure]

I really liked this part too.

As with the massive boondoggle of the stimulus package, which Obama foolishly let Congress turn into a pork rut, too much has been attempted all at once; focused, targeted initiatives would, instead, have won wide public support. How is it possible that Democrats, through their own clumsiness and arrogance, have sabotaged healthcare reform yet again? Blaming obstructionist Republicans is nonsensical because Democrats control all three branches of government. It isn't conservative rumors or lies that are stopping healthcare legislation; it's the justifiable alarm of an electorate that has been cut out of the loop and is watching its representatives construct a tangled labyrinth for others but not for themselves. No, the airheads of Congress will keep their own plush healthcare plan -- it's the rest of us guinea pigs who will be thrown to the wolves.

[Weiser Wonder]

I'm losing my patience with Pelosi. When will she do anything properly? She fumbles everything and when she doesn't she makes a power grab. Reid isn't much better.

But I can't really agree with the author's view of bumbling healthcare. First off, there was myth promoted by the Democrats themselves that they were a united party with very similar goals in mind. When the fact is, their strategy for the past couple of elections was to put moderates on the ticket and take seats away from the increasingly radical Republican party. It worked extremely well. The problem comes when trying to actually write legislation and realizing Congress isn't heavily liberal at all, it's the typical liberals, the typical conservatives, and the typical moderates. So basically they are back to where they were when they were the dominant Congressional party for so long: tons of seats, no consensus. So the reason the Democrats bumbled healthcare again is because so many of the Democrats are not on board with it. This was never going to be a slam dunk or even an open shot.

If Pelosi and Reid were actually good leaders, this wouldn't be so much of a problem but they always seem to push when they should pull and vice versa. It's so frustrating as a liberal living in America to have these two be ineffective in everything they do.

The other problem here, though, is the system. After studying the American political system for 4 years, the one thing that is most clear is that passing legislation with any kind of teeth is damn near impossible. The founding fathers wanted to make it near impossible to make changes and they succeeded but now that the system has obviously broken it seems impossible to fix. But that's a whole other issue.

[Weiser Wonder]

But somehow liberals have drifted into a strange servility toward big government, which they revere as a godlike foster father-mother who can dispense all bounty and magically heal all ills. The ethical collapse of the left was nowhere more evident than in the near total silence of liberal media and Web sites at the Obama administration's outrageous solicitation to private citizens to report unacceptable "casual conversations" to the White House. If Republicans had done this, there would have been an angry explosion by Democrats from coast to coast. I was stunned at the failure of liberals to see the blatant totalitarianism in this incident, which the president should have immediately denounced. His failure to do so implicates him in it.

This author has no idea how to contextualize remarks as report casual conversations. What that request was about was reporting to the White House what people were saying about Universal Health care, not monitoring people's thoughts or opinions on the matter. This simply wish to be able to combat against the negative spin being put on their healthcare reform. Nothing really totalitarian about it.

[Dion]

Big insurance companies and their lobbyists are trying hard to scare the masses and in some cases, their tactics appear to be working. Change is never easy as the unknown factor comes into play.

At the end of the day Obama's health reform will pass and people will settle into something that is far better than what many have now.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Weiser Wonder

This author has no idea how to contextualize remarks as report casual conversations. What that request was about was reporting to the White House what people were saying about Universal Health care, not monitoring people's thoughts or opinions on the matter. This simply wish to be able to combat against the negative spin being put on their healthcare reform. Nothing really totalitarian about it.

I realize its Fox News....but...

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009...l-critics-say/

The White House strategy of turning supporters into snitches when they see "fishy" information about the health care debate may run afoul of the law, legal experts say.
"The White House is in bit of a conundrum because of this privacy statute that prohibits the White House from collecting data and storing it on people who disagree with it," Judge Andrew Napolitano, a FOX News analyst, said Friday.
"There's also a statute that requires the White House to retain all communications that it receives. It can't try to rewrite history by pretending it didn't receive anything," he said.
"If the White House deletes anything, it violates one statute. If the White House collects data on the free speech, it violates another statute."

[Clever_Iggy]

Pelosi is the problem. I think this country would be far far better off if Obama was President and the Republicans controlled Congress.

Obama has and will continue to improve the US' foreign relations (which I'm very supportive of). Domestically, I think him and Pelosi are two runaway trains. Both have huge illusions of what the government should accomplish and neither one is willing to pull back on the reigns. Pelosi has been dreaming about this type of power for years and now she's making hay.

I believe that health care reform (along with immigration reform and social security reform) must happen. But this is an absolute train wreck. Obama would have been smarter, IMO, to take immigration. He has a better chance to "reach across the aisle" with that debate than health care, but I'm sure Pelosi wanted to put her stamp on the country asap.

[HOZ]

Hillary Clinton's megalomaniacal annihilation...of a foreign student's question
aka..hey bitch I ain't Bill

Still, imagine what the students thought when her response was translated back and they heard Clinton call President Obama her husband…

and the explanation....

Nothing like lost in translation!!

It was a kid Hillary!!! Are you THAT jealous of your husband's international cojones?

[starseed]

Originally Posted by Weiser Wonder

This author has no idea how to contextualize remarks as report casual conversations. What that request was about was reporting to the White House what people were saying about Universal Health care, not monitoring people's thoughts or opinions on the matter. This simply wish to be able to combat against the negative spin being put on their healthcare reform. Nothing really totalitarian about it.

Ya, I followed that link she gave and was confused about why she thought this would have 'outraged Democrats coast to coast' if it were Bush saying that. They obviously did not mean that the whitehouse wanted people to report it so the FBI could put them under investigation...


She seems like an interesting person, and like most bisexuals I have met, she seems to be going one way while thinking another. She made some interesting points, but I think she is wrong about healthcare. Her assertion that profit in healthcare leads to good things is not accurate. Most of the problems the US has in their healthcare system is because of the profit factor. On top of that, the US has some of the same problems we are facing. We have about the same doctor to patient ratio, which is 0.6-.8 doctors per 1000 patients below the average amongst OECD nations. The problems we both face in that area is in education and training GPs and specialists. The Brain Drain issue has been very overstated in Canada over the past 10 years. We have even had some years where more doctors come back from the US than leave. I think the number of foreign-born doctors we have working in Canada is around 22%.

The US system just plain sucks. They need a major overhaul, the only knock on Obama is that he has watered down his plan recently, but that was because he was forced to. His hands are tied as far as bringing about the change he promised to bring.

I wonder though, if she is right about Obama screwing up the stimulus bill... but I think it has been mentioned here and amongst experts that the recession could have deepened further and gotten worse for longer if the government had not stepped in. As for Pelosi, I do not follow American politics that closely, but she seems like a typical politician that lets their self-righteous attitude get in the way of progress.

[HotHotHeat]

The crap going on at these town hall meetings is frightening. There is a perfect storm brewing between misinformation provided by right wing talk shows and a pure lack of
intellectual ability to see through scare tactics. The lawmakers at the townhalls are spending their time listening to people yell andscream about what they don't want on the reform bill, when those things aren't on the table anyways.

[starseed]

If anyone gets a chance, check out Jon Stewarts impression of those town hall meetings. I have not laughed that loud in a while.

[Weiser Wonder]

That sounds funny. What's the date on that Daily Show?

[HotHotHeat]

Originally Posted by HOZ

Hillary Clinton's megalomaniacal annihilation...of a foreign student's question
aka..hey bitch I ain't Bill



and the explanation....

Nothing like lost in translation!!
It was a kid Hillary!!! Are you THAT jealous of your husband's international cojones?

as hilarious as this was (and it was hilarious), I don't think it really has a place in this thread. Couldn't resist posting another link from the NY daily news eh HOZ?

[HOZ]

Old educated people out of control. News at 6

[mykalberta]

Health care of the 3 you mention should be the easiest.

Immigration directly or indirectly affects peoples jobs. You are likely never going to push that through.

Social Security - more money for a group of people who didnt pay enough into it and now you expect younger people to try to make up the downfall.

I agree, of the 3, Immigration should be at the top of the list but its not. If the US works like its supposed to, the Feds shouldnt be doing anything with Healthcare other than providing directed funding toward the States of the Union. It is then the States responisbility to handle that.

Unfortunately too often people in Government try to add things to their agenda to make their job seem more important or difficult than it actually is.

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by HOZ

Hillary Clinton's megalomaniacal annihilation...of a foreign student's question
aka..hey bitch I ain't Bill






and the explanation....

Nothing like lost in translation!!

It was a kid Hillary!!! Are you THAT jealous of your husband's international cojones?

Not to derail but that video is priceless. If I was in her position I would likely have given the same response. What kind of community college translator do they have working for them. Geesh - with Liberal money you think they could afford someone who could actually translate.

[Weiser Wonder]

Originally Posted by Fox News Article

"This is a very troubling attempt to stifle the free speech of Americans who have the constitutional right to express their opinion and concerns about health care," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice. He called on Obama to repudiate his blog...

Chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice. Sounds nice until you realize the founder was Pat Robertson. His statement is a complete exaggeration and seeks to demonize a harmless if misguided idea of the Obama administration. ACLU gives a much better statement in saying that the remark was somewhat misguided and disconcerting but the Obama administration is obviously not collecting names of dissenters.

[HOZ]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

as hilarious as this was (and it was hilarious), I don't think it really has a place in this thread. Couldn't resist posting another link from the NY daily news eh HOZ?

Embarrassing from where ever it comes from.

Youtube

I mean really the #2 diplomat for the US of A can't handle a student's question.

This administration can't handle a foreigner's question and can't handle real Americans quesrtions so they are now they are trying to turn Grandma and Grandpa into radicals

F'n.................PA THE TIC

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

The crap going on at these town hall meetings is frightening. There is a perfect storm brewing between misinformation provided by right wing talk shows and a pure lack of
intellectual ability to see through scare tactics. The lawmakers at the townhalls are spending their time listening to people yell andscream about what they don't want on the reform bill, when those things aren't on the table anyways.

Is there a link to a video someone might have taken of one of these townhall meetings?

Not that I dont trust Jon Stewart or MSNBC (I dont) but I would just like to be able to form my own opinion on them instead of taking someones slanted view.

[Weiser Wonder]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

Health care of the 3 you mention should be the easiest.

Immigration directly or indirectly affects peoples jobs. You are likely never going to push that through.

Social Security - more money for a group of people who didnt pay enough into it and now you expect younger people to try to make up the downfall.

I agree, of the 3, Immigration should be at the top of the list but its not. If the US works like its supposed to, the Feds shouldnt be doing anything with Healthcare other than providing directed funding toward the States of the Union. It is then the States responisbility to handle that.

Unfortunately too often people in Government try to add things to their agenda to make their job seem more important or difficult than it actually is.

No they really don't. Politicians want to be re-elected first and foremost, adding things that make their job harder is not a way to do that.