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PoliGAF 2011: Of Weiners, Boehners, Santorum, and Teabags

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E

Evlar

Banned
PhoenixDark said:
Cuburn is a complete idiotic, but smart enough to realize Obama is willing to give the entire farm for next to nothing; Coburn is old school enough to take a good deal when it's offered, unlike the fools in the house of representatives.

Republicans are trying to add a health care mandate repeal to the Grand Bargain
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...getting-worse/2011/07/22/gIQAJcDbTI_blog.html

If that goes through I'm not voting next year
Click to expand...
I think Obama's been in office long enough he's starting to develop some of the usual Presidential attitudes; the healthcare bill is his legacy and he's not going to bargain it away.

Just my gut.
 
B

Byakuya769

Member
mckmas8808 said:
It's not absurd. It's reality! It's piecing different parts of time into a bigger historical picture. We can use Social Security as an example too. Liberals love to talk about the great FDR and his grand social programs like Social Security, but rarely talk about how limited and compromised some of them were.

If you don't take things into context and look at the bigger picture, then how are you going to understand how to take course on something in the future?
Click to expand...

You sit back and praise whatever was accomplished as the best possible case and continue the march towards mediocrity, apparently.

I'll give a more detailed response to you and PL sometime today, because this is a great discussion.
 
mckmas8808

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
PantherLotus said:
This post pleases my historical sense of the world, though I'll posit that good leaders have a tendency to be extremely lucky (see: George Washington).
Click to expand...


Luck comes from alot of skill and ability too. Non-skilled people that are lucky still end up shitty for the most part (see most people that hit the lottery for over $50 million).
 
mckmas8808

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Byakuya769 said:
You sit back and praise whatever was accomplished as the best possible case and continue the march towards mediocrity, apparently.

I'll give a more detailed response to you and PL sometime today, because this is a great discussion.
Click to expand...


Nope completely not true. I honestly think we could have gotten a better deal on the health care bill. Obama wasted a little too much time trying to court a few republicans. And he should have pushed the public option a little bit harder. I understand he gave that away in the beginning in order to get past the corporate money that would have been spent in order to get the convo started but damn I didn't like it either.

I think we still could have gotten a slightly better deal. I agree with some here that I wish he would have started off with the Medicare option for all idea (knowing full well that it would have failed in the Senate and pass in the House). At least the idea could have been floated in some people's minds and a push to the right could landed us on a weak public option (a public option that could have become stronger over time).

And I think we could have gotten a better deal on prescription drug prices. I'm not completely sold on the fact that the money the drug industry gave ($80B over 10 years?) was enough. But at the end of the day I ask myself would it have been better if we didn't take the $80 Billion and just getting better negotiated prices like Canada and Britain?


But all of that aside I realize that we don't live in China where the leader gets done, basically his way. If something doesn't pass because it's too "liberal" many times I also point the finger at us Americans too. Where's the out rage that we didn't get Medicare for All as an option? Where's the outrage that rich people's taxes are still super low? Where's the outrage that the GOP in the House haven't pass one jobs bill?
 
W

Wall

Member
mckmas8808 said:
It's not absurd. It's reality! It's piecing different parts of time into a bigger historical picture. We can use Social Security as an example too. Liberals love to talk about the great FDR and his grand social programs like Social Security, but rarely talk about how limited and compromised some of them were.

If you don't take things into context and look at the bigger picture, then how are you going to understand how to take course on something in the future?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure where exactly I stand in this debate, but I'm gonna take the side of the Obama critics here because, right now, it is closer to where I am emotionally if not logically. I guess I have 5 points to make

1) In order to compromise your principals, you need to actually have principals in the first place. I'm not saying that President Obama does not have principals, I'm sure he does, and I'm sure they line up with mine much better than any Republican's possibly would, but, and this is one of the problems of his Presidency that even he has admitted to - he does a horrible job of communicating them. He tends to react to the political narrative more than he drives it, and he usually speaks in such general terms that you either think that he agrees with you on everything, or that he disagrees with you on everything. That, I think, more than anything, drives progressive distrust of him.

2) There are principals, and then there is policy. You can argue principals, you can't argue facts. When he came into office he was facing basically a repeat of the economic conditions that faced the country during the Great Depression. That is what the economic advisers, that he brought into his administration, were telling him. We know that now because they've gone on record talking about it. What the public really wanted, aside from accountability from Wall Street, was a return to prosperity. In response to that, he passed a stimulus bill that his advisers told him was too small, and then proceeded to defend it as if it was adequate. That tells me either he believes that lying about his policy choices is a good political idea, which I disagree with (again, how can you compromise if you don't first have a position), or that, against the advice of his advisers, he was already worried about deficit reduction.

3) I agree that this is not all Obama's fault. In 2010 the right organized into the tea party, and proceeded to mount a massive campaign to not only re-take both houses of congress, but to re-make the Republican party in their own image. The left, meanwhile, responded by either bitching about a lack of a public option in the health care reform bill and doing nothing, or, the weekend before the election, when they could have been participating in get our the vote efforts on behalf of candidates that support their positions, attending a "rally" hosted by two comedy show hosts to protest T.V. shows on a rival network.

I'm sorry, but that rally represents everything shitty not only about the politics of this generation, but the art and culture as well. It was smug, arrogant, self-satisfied, and too ironic and self aware for its own good. It was for people who wanted to take a political position without really risking anything; without risking being wrong, looking stupid, or getting into a debate or two. It was people who didn't want to take any risks, or put any effort, towards the issues they supposedly cared about. (If they cared about anything - I couldn't tell). Is a message praising compromise and criticizing the part of your base actually expressing views, a message that gives people the same outs from putting forth any real effort or taking real risks, really the message that people on the left - supposedly his base - need to hear?

They should be kicking themselves for being lazy, not being unreasonable.

4) Compromise is obviously something that legislatures in a democracy, in order to accomplish their jobs, need to do. I'm not sure why that message should be directed at me as a citizen, or especially as someone who actually cares about policy. I'm not crafting legislation, I'm advocating a position I believe in. What does he want the Huffington Post to do? Praise every decision he makes if they don't agree with him? Repeat his speeches verbatim if they disagree with the words he is saying? That's not democracy, that's totalitarianism.

5) My memory history during the Civil War is slightly fuzzy, but I think the analogy he is using is inaccurate and more than a little self serving. I could be wrong, my memory really is fuzzy, but I believe that Lincoln came into office as the head of a political party with the abolition of slavery written into its platform. True, he didn't advocate abolition at first, but when the South seceded over the issue and started firing at federal property on their "territory", he didn't offer to sit down with them and craft an assurance that he wouldn't end slavery into to bring them back into the union. Instead, he raised an army and fought the bloodiest war this continent has ever seen in order to bring them back into the union, and proceeded to free the slaves held in Confederate territories during that war. True, as the President points out, that proclamation included provisions protecting slave owners in states allied with the Union, but, by that point, the writing must have been on the wall. Was there really anyone alive who didn't believe those slaves would not eventually be freed?

Wow thats a lot of words. Got to go. No more posting from me today.
 
L

Loudninja

Member
Ban on gays in U.S. military to end in September: Obama
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The ban on gays serving openly in the U.S. military will end in 60 days, President Barack Obama said on Friday after notifying Congress that all the requirements to repeal it have been met.

The armed forces are ready to set aside the 18-year-old "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that forced gay recruits to keep their sexual orientation secret, Obama said in a statement.

"As of September 20th, service members will no longer be forced to hide who they are in order to serve our country. Our military will no longer be deprived of the talents and skills of patriotic Americans just because they happen to be gay or lesbian," he said.
Click to expand...
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2..._military_to_end_in_september_oba.php?ref=fpb
 
Vestal

Vestal

Junior Member
According to CNN Bohner walked out of talking with White House, gona deal directly with Senate now..


MOTHER FUCKERS.. I swear instead of retiring the Space Shuttle lets use it 1 last time, just no landing this time and put every single one of these fuckers on it..
 
Vestal

Vestal

Junior Member
Obama... FOOT DOWN..

GO MOTHER FUCKER GO!

11am.. HERE.. !

He sounded pretty damn pissed but composed. Good speech.
 
mckmas8808

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
I'll try to respond to your points in broken up quotes so sorry for the confusion in advance.

Wall said:
I'm not sure where exactly I stand in this debate, but I'm gonna take the side of the Obama critics here because, right now, it is closer to where I am emotionally if not logically. I guess I have 5 points to make
Click to expand...

1) In order to compromise your principals, you need to actually have principals in the first place. I'm not saying that President Obama does not have principals, I'm sure he does, and I'm sure they line up with mine much better than any Republican's possibly would, but, and this is one of the problems of his Presidency that even he has admitted to - he does a horrible job of communicating them. He tends to react to the political narrative more than he drives it, and he usually speaks in such general terms that you either think that he agrees with you on everything, or that he disagrees with you on everything. That, I think, more than anything, drives progressive distrust of him.
Click to expand...

I my opinion I don't think the bolded is true. I think the issue is that most people don't understand nuanced positions. I've read that people acting think Obama ran as a war hating Presidential nominee. Now if you have been following and listen to his campaign those people would have known that that was completely not true. I honestly think Barack doesn't like to close/pin himself into a position that he later can't move on. Like look at the GOP that signed that stupid Grover pledge to never raise taxes. Now when you reach a time when you have to push off of that, you can't do it because you swore to never do that.

I think it's not smart to make these bubbles of ideology that are so small and unworkable that it would be hard to work on big policy issues with the other party.

2) There are principals, and then there is policy. You can argue principals, you can't argue facts. When he came into office he was facing basically a repeat of the economic conditions that faced the country during the Great Depression. That is what the economic advisers, that he brought into his administration, were telling him. We know that now because they've gone on record talking about it. What the public really wanted, aside from accountability from Wall Street, was a return to prosperity. In response to that, he passed a stimulus bill that his advisers told him was too small, and then proceeded to defend it as if it was adequate. That tells me either he believes that lying about his policy choices is a good political idea, which I disagree with (again, how can you compromise if you don't first have a position), or that, against the advice of his advisers, he was already worried about deficit reduction.
Click to expand...

Please understand that he didn't pass any stimulus bill. The Congress did. He signed a stimulus bill. I only say that because you are kinda giving Congress a pass here. Especially some of the conservadems in the Senate. I think I remember reading something about his people wanting a 1.2 Trillion bill, but from memory I remember reading many Senators stating that nothing over a Trillion could get passed.

Then I also remember Sen. Nelson, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Arlen Specter and some other conservaDems pulling a BS move at the very end to lower the number under $800 Billion. Again imo it would be wrong to place the majority of the blame for a too small stimulus bill on the President for lack of principles.

3) I agree that this is not all Obama's fault. In 2010 the right organized into the tea party, and proceeded to mount a massive campaign to not only re-take both houses of congress, but to re-make the Republican party in their own image. The left, meanwhile, responded by either bitching about a lack of a public option in the health care reform bill and doing nothing, or, the weekend before the election, when they could have been participating in get our the vote efforts on behalf of candidates that support their positions, attending a "rally" hosted by two comedy show hosts to protest T.V. shows on a rival network.

I'm sorry, but that rally represents everything shitty not only about the politics of this generation, but the art and culture as well. It was smug, arrogant, self-satisfied, and too ironic and self aware for its own good. It was for people who wanted to take a political position without really risking anything; without risking being wrong, looking stupid, or getting into a debate or two. It was people who didn't want to take any risks, or put any effort, towards the issues they supposedly cared about. (If they cared about anything - I couldn't tell). Is a message praising compromise and criticizing the part of your base actually expressing views, a message that gives people the same outs from putting forth any real effort or taking real risks, really the message that people on the left - supposedly his base - need to hear?

They should be kicking themselves for being lazy, not being unreasonable.
Click to expand...

I didn't see it with the sound on, so I can't comment on this.

4) Compromise is obviously something that legislatures in a democracy, in order to accomplish their jobs, need to do. I'm not sure why that message should be directed at me as a citizen, or especially as someone who actually cares about policy. I'm not crafting legislation, I'm advocating a position I believe in. What does he want the Huffington Post to do? Praise every decision he makes if they don't agree with him? Repeat his speeches verbatim if they disagree with the words he is saying? That's not democracy, that's totalitarianism.
Click to expand...

You should care because it's how things get done. Instead of always being pissed off and ignorant about how/why something got passed and signed, it's good to know and understand the ins and outs. You don't have to agree, just understand. It's better for you in the long run to understand why it works this way. I'm not saying you are ignorant on the subject, but many people are and don't understand why compromise is even an option.

And why in the world would you think he wants the Huffington Post to agree and repeat everything that he says? Have you ever listen to Obama's speeches before? He consistently says he invites people to critize him. He's personally asked liberals to keep doing it.


5) My memory history during the Civil War is slightly fuzzy, but I think the analogy he is using is inaccurate and more than a little self serving. I could be wrong, my memory really is fuzzy, but I believe that Lincoln came into office as the head of a political party with the abolition of slavery written into its platform. True, he didn't advocate abolition at first, but when the South seceded over the issue and started firing at federal property on their "territory", he didn't offer to sit down with them and craft an assurance that he wouldn't end slavery into to bring them back into the union. Instead, he raised an army and fought the bloodiest war this continent has ever seen in order to bring them back into the union, and proceeded to free the slaves held in Confederate territories during that war. True, as the President points out, that proclamation included provisions protecting slave owners in states allied with the Union, but, by that point, the writing must have been on the wall. Was there really anyone alive who didn't believe those slaves would not eventually be freed?

Wow thats a lot of words. Got to go. No more posting from me today.
Click to expand...

Dude you are so wrong that I don't even know what to say. You maybe remembering the American marketed version of Abe Lincoln, but things didn't quite happen the way you think they did.

Lincoln did offer compromises with slavery. The big one in my mind being that he told the current (at the time) slave owning states that they could keep their slaves. He didn't even offer to free all the slaves. That's one hell of a compromise.
 
Escape Goat

Escape Goat

Member
This is one of those situations where the American public should play the role of parent and threaten their kids (Congress) to solve their problem themselves or else...

Its pathetic things have come to this.
 
Vestal

Vestal

Junior Member
Teh Hamburglar said:
time to snap the football in that hail mary play.
Click to expand...

If he pulls it, it would destroy all he has gained during this mess.

IMO... The Republicans are trying to push him towards that, because if they have to sign the balanced deal that Obama is proposing it means he is probably guaranteed a 2012 victory. Because he owns the balanced deal, it is his approach to this mess and he has been pushing it over and over, and the message has gotten out to the public.
 
Escape Goat

Escape Goat

Member
sometimes i wonder if the GOP is herding Obama to implement that provision and let him hang himself with it come election. "Obama doesn't believe in Democracy! Big gubment is taking control!"

If he pulls it, it would destroy all he has gained during this mess.

IMO... The Republicans are trying to push him towards that, because if they have to sign the balanced deal that Obama is proposing it means he is probably guaranteed a 2012 victory. Because he owns the balanced deal, it is his approach to this mess and he has been pushing it over and over, and the message has gotten out to the public.
Click to expand...

I'm talking about nuclear bombs. What are you talking about?
 
J

JABEE

Member
Vestal said:
Nuclear Option im sure is still possible. But it is very very bad politically for the POTUS.
Click to expand...
Who cares. It's Congress and the President job to do what I best for the people. Someone has to get this done. If that means looking bad politically so be it. They have a job and they need to do it. Playing political games with this is an insult to the entire country. This is why I hate politics.
 
P

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
Last point before we move on, @wall -- his remarks about compromise actually WERE NOT directed at you as a citizen, they were directed toward a class of future politicians, a class on the art of governing.

New point: holy fucking shit. Time to panic, I think.
 
A

Anno

Member
I'm not entirely sure that Obama would suffer from invoking his constitutional hail-Mary. Properly messaged I think it continues to make him look like the only adult in a city filled with blathering children.
 
P

Patrick Klepek

furiously molesting tim burton
Anno said:
I'm not entirely sure that Obama would suffer from invoking his constitutional hail-Mary. Properly messaged I think it continues to make him look like the only adult in a city filled with blathering children.
Click to expand...

^^
 
Vestal

Vestal

Junior Member
JABEE said:
Who cares. It's Congress and the President job to do what I best for the people. Someone has to get this done. If that means looking bad politically so be it. They have a job and they need to do it. Playing political games with this is an insult to the entire country. This is why I hate politics.
Click to expand...

Yes he might have to do it.. He will probably do it if the Teafuckers get their way, but like he said even if the Ceiling is raised it would still cause difficulty with US credit.
 
Escape Goat

Escape Goat

Member
A boom in corporate profits, a bust in jobs, wages

WASHINGTON — Strong second-quarter earnings from McDonald's, General Electric and Caterpillar on Friday are just the latest proof that booming profits have allowed Corporate America to leave the Great Recession far behind.

But millions of ordinary Americans are stranded in a labor market that looks like it's still in recession. Unemployment is stuck at 9.2 percent, two years into what economists call a recovery. Job growth has been slow and wages stagnant.
Click to expand...
 
R

Rubenov

Member
I think we should do away with the entire HOuse of Representatives. They are usually a tool of obstruction rather than progress.
 
Escape Goat

Escape Goat

Member
Vestal said:
BUT BUT those Bush Tax Cuts CREATE JOBS!
Click to expand...

I thought this part was interesting if not obvious.

Back in the U.S., companies are squeezing more productivity out of staffs thinned out by layoffs during Great Recession. They don't need to hire. And they don't need to be generous with pay raises; they know their employees have nowhere else to go.
Click to expand...
 
I

Invisible_Insane

Member
Rubenov said:
I think we should do away with the entire HOuse of Representatives. They are usually a tool of obstruction rather than progress.
Click to expand...
Wrong house. Republican intransigence is specifically the problem here--the House is not the seriously anti-democratic legislative body.
 
P

polyh3dron

Banned
Rubenov said:
I think we should do away with the entire HOuse of Representatives. They are usually a tool of obstruction rather than progress.
Click to expand...
as opposed to the senate, where great ideas go to be realized, amirite?
 
Vestal

Vestal

Junior Member
Seriously how can anyone stand to have a Debate with this man. He is too damn good particularly when he is FUCKING RIGHT..
 
S

scorcho

testicles on a cold fall morning
very persuasive argument right now by Obama. it's a shame that few news outlets will use it in their nightly recaps.
 
C

Crisis

Banned
I would be embarrassed to call myself a Republican at this point. Every single House Republican obstructing this needs to be thrown out of office.
 
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