General Politics Thread

[btbam]

The healthcare bill is going to be huge. There is no severability clause meaning if one partof the bill is struck down thewhole bill iss toast. Dismantling itfrom the current system would be a nightmare and will bog down the administration. Itwould whip thebaseintoa fury, butthey will vote forObama anyway. What youneed to worryaboutare the moderates who are gonna see his mostsignificant achievementcrumble and the ineptness of the executive branch while they do damage control

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[Sub-stance1]

I think its folly to think the supreme court striking down the healthcare law will weaken Obama's base... I would think it would galvanize them

I guess we will find out soon enough. Either way I don't think it will harm the base. Republicans don't and never had a plan to tackle health care. One thing for sure is that Obama is ahead in the polls for the votes from women. This is good for him considering women vote more than men.


IRONRANGER6 Tapatalk

[weskurtz81]

I guess we will find out soon enough. Either way I don't think it will harm the base. Republicans don't and never had a plan to tackle health care. One thing for sure is that Obama is ahead in the polls for the votes from women. This is good for him considering women vote more than men.

Really? They have proposed all sorts of free market alternatives to social medicine, and actually FIXING the problems that are part of our current system should qualify as "[tackling] health care".

Obama's utlimate plan is to socialize the system anyway and create a single payer system that runs through the Federal government. I just don't think that's a good idea and would simply grow the bueracracy even more and continue the process of strengthening the federal government and weakening the states (what he would prefer). The federal government is simply too large and cumbersome, it needs a good downsizing.

[keefy]

Is it fre healthcare for all or something else?

[weskurtz81]

Is it fre healthcare for all or something else?

What the Republicans have proposed?

[Vulgotha]

Really? They have proposed all sorts of free market alternatives to social medicine, and actually FIXING the problems that are part of our current system should qualify as "[tackling] health care".

Obama's utlimate plan is to socialize the system anyway and create a single payer system that runs through the Federal government. I just don't think that's a good idea and would simply grow the bueracracy even more and continue the process of strengthening the federal government and weakening the states (what he would prefer). The federal government is simply too large and cumbersome, it needs a good downsizing.

To put it mildly.

[DayWalker]

I guess we will find out soon enough. Either way I don't think it will harm the base. Republicans don't and never had a plan to tackle health care. One thing for sure is that Obama is ahead in the polls for the votes from women. This is good for him considering women vote more than men.


IRONRANGER6 Tapatalk

the only idea i hear from them is tort(?) reform... but thats about it...

And yeah- this whole war on planned parenthood, rush limbaugh tag team is workin wonders...
...there's been like a 20 point swing among women...

still... november is a long ways off.

[weskurtz81]

the only idea i hear from them is tort(?) reform... but thats about it...

And yeah- this whole war on planned parenthood, rush limbaugh tag team is workin wonders...
...there's been like a 20 point swing among women...

still... november is a long ways off.

It's been considerably more than tort reform, but no doubt that would help cut some of the built in cost.

On the rest, it's so funny when people say "war on women" or "war on minorities" or "war on planned parenthood", like anyone that disagrees with ILLEGAL immigration are racist Mexican haters, anyone that doesn't think birth control should be government subsidized hates women.... etc.

You are right about one thing, November IS a LOOONG way off... no telling what happens between now and then.

[DayWalker]

It's been considerably more than tort reform, but no doubt that would help cut some of the built in cost.

On the rest, it's so funny when people say "war on women" or "war on minorities" or "war on planned parenthood", like anyone that disagrees with ILLEGAL immigration are racist Mexican haters, anyone that doesn't think birth control should be government subsidized hates women.... etc.

You are right about one thing, November IS a LOOONG way off... no telling what happens between now and then.

except there is actually a war on planned parenthood. They've literally been the #1 priority of the GOP since 2010

Seriously... there was like a 2 month period where we talked about the debt ceiling... and then we went right back to planned parenthood

[weskurtz81]

except there is actually a war on planned parenthood. They've literally been the #1 priority of the GOP since 2010

Seriously... there was like a 2 month period where we talked about the debt ceiling... and then we went right back to planned parenthood

Meh, you are making more out of it than what it is. They've discussed quite a bit more than just panned parent hood.

[Firefox]

What happened in Canada is one Province(state) got it and everyone else wanted it.. so the whole nation embraced it.

If you ever want a system like ours.. one state should be able to implement it.

We even had a competition and the whole nation voted him as the greatest Canadian ever!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgbjEbIYeX4

[Firefox]

So basically you cannot Federally do it .. it must be done State by state.. and when everyone is one board the federal government helps out your states bit by bit more and more.

[weskurtz81]

So basically you cannot Federally do it .. it must be done State by state.. and when everyone is one board the federal government helps out your states bit by bit more and more.

Exactly, the states have the power to do it, the federal government should not. If one state can implement a system like that SUCCESSFULLY, other states would be very likely to follow suit, and the federal government can helps the states out a little if they need it. However, it would be best if the states can do it without DC's help.

I wouldn't have a problem if a state wanted to try it out (like Massachusetts), but the federal government is supposed to have as much power as they do, and it really needs to be put back in its place.

[Firefox]

The only thing is for you guys it's hard to do it by state due to lobbyists compared to the mid 1900's when we did it.

[$Greatness$]

None of this will matter when the Secret Society takes over end of the year.

[btbam]

None of this will matter when the Secret Society takes over end of the year.

I hope youre being sarcastic. The paranoia of some people is unreal sometimes. New world order makes no sense when you look at it indepth.

[Funeralfog]

the secret society eh? is that like that queer eye for the straight guy thing?

[The Black Wolf]

Unemployment fell to 8.2%! However, only 120,000 jobs were added.

Here's a link:
http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/06/news...ment/index.htm

[weskurtz81]

Unemployment fell to 8.2%! However, only 120,000 jobs were added.

Wonder how many of that 8.2% were from people falling off the rolls.

Everything I've been hearing is the economy will continue to soften forth rest of the year. we still have yet to begin am actual economic recovery, we've just been bouncing off the bottom.

[btbam]

David brooks does it again! he is pretty much the only columnist i trust now. Time and time again, he demonstrates his profund understanding of issues and sophisticated arguments.

That Other Obama
By DAVID BROOKS

President Obama is an intelligent, judicious man who can see all sides of an issue. But every once in a while he tries to get politically cute, and he puts on his Keith Olbermann mask.

I suppose it’s to his credit that he’s most inept when he tries to take the low road. He resorts to hoary, brain-dead clichés. He wanders so far from his true nature that he makes Mitt Romney look like Mr. Authenticity.

That’s pretty much what happened this week in Obama’s speech before a group of newspaper editors. Obama’s target in this speech was Representative Paul Ryan’s budget.

It should be said at the outset that the Ryan budget has some disturbing weaknesses, which Democrats are right to identify. The Ryan budget would cut too deeply into discretionary spending. This could lead to self-destructive cuts in scientific research, health care for poor kids and programs that boost social mobility. Moreover, the Ryan tax ideas are too regressive. They make tax cuts for the rich explicit while they hide any painful loophole closings that might hurt Republican donors.

But these legitimate criticisms and Obama’s modest but real deficit-reducing accomplishments got buried under an avalanche of distortion. The Republicans have been embarrassing themselves all primary season. It’s as if Obama wanted to sink to their level in a single hour.

First, there was his tone. Obama cast himself as the fiscal moderate who embraced the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles approach. (Perhaps we were all asleep during the Simpson-Bowles-Obama consciousness tour.) Then he unleashed every 1980s liberal cliché in the book, calling the Republicans a bunch of trickle-down, Trojan horse-bearing social Darwinists.

Social Darwinism, by the way, was a 19th-century philosophy that held, in part, that Aryans and Northern Europeans are racially superior to brown and Mediterranean peoples.

Then Obama exaggerated the differences between his budget and the Ryan budget.

There are, indeed, real differences, but in the short term they are not a chasm. In 2013, according to Veronique de Rugy of George Mason University, the Ryan budget would be about 5 percent smaller than the Obama budget, and it would grow a percent or two more slowly each year. After 10 years, government would be smaller under Ryan, but, as Daniel Mitchell of the Cato Institute complains, it would still take up a larger share of national output than when Bill Clinton left office.

Obama exaggerated these normal-sized differences into a Manichaean chasm. Under Ryan, Obama charged, 10 million college students would get their financial aid cut by $1,000, Alzheimer’s research would be slashed, 200,000 children would lose their chance to enter Head Start.

Where did Obama get these specifics? He imagined them. He imposed some assumptions that are nowhere to be found in the Ryan budget. He compared Ryan’s reduced spending increases with proposed growth, not current levels.

Then the president turned to Ryan’s Medicare proposal. The Ryan plan, he charged, “will ultimately end Medicare as we know it.”

In 2011, when Ryan first proposed a version of this budget, Politifact, the truth-checking outfit, honored this claim with its “Lie of the Year” award. Since then, the Ryan Medicare proposal has become more moderate and much better. Obama’s charge is even more groundless.

The Ryan plan would slowly phase in a premium support option, in which the government would give people money to buy insurance. This general idea was embraced by Bill Clinton’s bipartisan Medicare reform commission. It follows a similar design to the prescription drug benefit. Its effectiveness is unproved, but it’s a time-tested and respectable proposal, with expert support.

Obama treated it as some sort of alien monster from the lunatic fringe. He made a series of specific accusations that have been easily swatted away by the Ryan defenders: That the Ryan plan would allow the insurance companies to cherry-pick the healthiest seniors (in fact, there are specific passages in the plan forbidding that); the Ryan plan would mean lower benefits for seniors (in fact, the plan would guarantee seniors the equivalent of current benefits while giving them other options).

As I say, I have my own problems with Ryan’s plan, which Obama identified. But Ryan has at least taken a big step toward an eventual fiscal solution. He’s proposed necessary structural entitlement reforms, which the Democrats are unwilling to do. He’s proposed real tax reform, which the Democrats are also unwilling to do.

The first truth is that we will have to do these big things to avoid a fiscal calamity. The second truth is there is no one party solution; there has to be a merger of respectable ideas. The third truth is that gimmicky speeches obscure the president’s best character and make it seem as if he doesn’t understand the scope of the calamity looming in front of us.

Obama shouldn’t be sniping at Ryan. He should be topping him with something bigger and better.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/op...amnTk4Qsccglvg

[$Greatness$]

I hope youre being sarcastic. The paranoia of some people is unreal sometimes. New world order makes no sense when you look at it indepth.

I just don't like coincidences and walk-around answers when I ask questions. Or the fact that my 'rights' are subtly being taken away from me everyday. Or that we have controversial Presidential Elections and Airports named New World Order. I don't get deep into this political shit because again, I think its all a sham. Your vote doesn't count and neither does your opinion. I think anyway...

the secret society eh? is that like that queer eye for the straight guy thing?

Don't know nothin' about that my dude. Just ask JFK. He started talkin' about such things and met the burner. But hey, you never know!

[Morganator]

Unemployment fell to 8.2%! However, only 120,000 jobs were added.

Here's a link:
http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/06/news...ment/index.htm

Except, 8.2% isn't even the real unemployment number. That article - like the whole of the Obama administration - is nothing but an exercise in fuzzy math.

[btbam]

I just don't like coincidences and walk-around answers when I ask questions. Or the fact that my 'rights' are subtly being taken away from me everyday. Or that we have controversial Presidential Elections and Airports named New World Order. I don't get deep into this political shit because again, I think its all a sham. Your vote doesn't count and neither does your opinion. I think anyway...



Don't know nothin' about that my dude. Just ask JFK. He started talkin' about such things and met the burner. But hey, you never know!

If you want to get technical, Eisenhower first warned against the military industrial comple.

[weskurtz81]

After his next election he will have more flexibility to do what?

[DayWalker]

After his next election he will have more flexibility to do what?

obviously to turn American into a socialist utopia ruled my muslims enforcing sharia law and enslaving all Caucasians.

duh.

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anyways,