Woah crude jokes about his daughters. Classy.

1/19/2010 10:40:33 PM

Quote :

"And I'll take that if the alternative is the proposed Democratic policies that are destined to bankrupt the nation and run off all of our businesses"

Shit, I'll take that over anything that's really likely to happen...hence my previous "in the real world" caveat.

1/19/2010 10:47:28 PM

One final thought, the only thing the Democrats still have going for them is that the Republican Party is still in disarray. If that ragtag bunch ever reemerge from the woods with a real agenda, it could be a repeat of 1994.

Then again, maybe that's not such a bad thing. A divided government between a Democratic White House and a Republican Congress (pre-Lewinski) actually got a lot of good things done without either side going over the deep end.

1/19/2010 10:48:49 PM

don't act like the Lewinski scandal wasn't some good shit done, dude. We all got to learn what to say after sticking a cigar in a chick's pachoochoo, for cryin out loud. That was VERY edumacational

1/19/2010 10:51:40 PM

This is another example of the need for a real third party. The two party system now in place distills every issue down to unrealistic polar extremes. The checks and balances we cling to were not created with this type of legislative clusterfuck in mind.

1/19/2010 10:52:17 PM

LOL

1/19/2010 10:52:41 PM

Quote :

""so now we will just have the NO GOP party.....that should be a great 3 more years! Nothing will get done at all.....""

Maybe at first. But maybe now we will see Obama reach across the aisle more like he promised when he ran for President. I am sick of Democrats saying Republicans didn't offer anything on Healthcare reform. They did it just didn't fall in line with what Democrats wanted. I still think this Healthcare bill will be passed (unfortunately).

1/19/2010 10:55:15 PM

Quote :

"3) NO ONE IS SAFE - Hopefully, this will encourage them to ... stay in the center, and focus on the economy. .. they're the ones that had the supermajority and control of the White House, and they don't have a lot to show for it..."

Very astute. I agree to a point.
The Health-care bill did have an effect on this election. Rassmussen tells us that 50% of Mass. voters said it was better to pass no health care legislation at all rather than passing the bill before Congress.

I also think it's not a question of democrats "staying" in the middle. They need to move back to the middle where a lot of everyday democrats and independents exist. Brown won Mass. independents tonight 73% to 25%.

This past year showed us the real benefits of gridlock.

[Edited on January 19, 2010 at 11:08 PM. Reason : .]

1/19/2010 11:05:20 PM

Quote :

"you do realize that pre-existing conditions alone could destroy the insurance industry, right?"

Absolute bullshit.

1/19/2010 11:10:50 PM

^
My house just burned down...I'd like to buy a homeowner's policy now.

My wife just died, I'd like to buy a life insurance policy on her please.

My car just got in a wreck, I'd like to buy some insurance from that pasty progressive chick.

I just found out I got cancer, I'd like some health insurance now.

How much do you think it will cost?

[Edited on January 19, 2010 at 11:16 PM. Reason : .]

1/19/2010 11:15:33 PM

^ that’s where mandatory coverage comes in to play

1/19/2010 11:16:32 PM

Well, on the bright side we can now dispense with the myth that the dems had a true supermajority. There wasn't one before thanks to Lieberman, and now there is no way to fool oneself into thinking one exists.

Now, hopefully the dems in the senate will quit wasting time fighting with the conservadems and start actually fighting with the repblicans. Laying bare all of the obstructionism no matter what the issue is. But then, that's probably overl optimistic and i don't have any real confidence in Reid to manage this properly.

Quote :

"Then again, maybe that's not such a bad thing. A divided government between a Democratic White House and a Republican Congress (pre-Lewinski) actually got a lot of good things done without either side going over the deep end."

I like the opposite better. Liberals controlling congress and a conservative (preferably a moderate) with veto power to keep them from diving off of the deep end.


[Edited on January 19, 2010 at 11:20 PM. Reason : .]

1/19/2010 11:17:03 PM

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/19/obama-calls-brown-congratulate-senate-election-victory/
Obama Calls Brown to Congratulate Him on Senate Election Victory

1/19/2010 11:17:37 PM

If you think that is the only reason pre-existing conditions should be covered, then you don't understand the issue.

You lose your job, you lose your healthcare, that you have PAID for years, and you try and get insurance to cover your cancer. You can't. Thats fucking bullshit. I dont even have health issues (yet) and see how fucked up that is. That happens all the time. I know people that have suffered, of no fault of their own.

[Edited on January 19, 2010 at 11:19 PM. Reason : /]

1/19/2010 11:18:45 PM

^ i would wager it’s the most common cause of not having existing coverage when someone gets sick.

How does having existing coverage help someone out anyway? You spend, let’s say, $5000/year on health insurance.

If you get cancer, that’s a good $200-300k down the drain for the insurance company. You would have had to have insurance for 50 years to break even. Health insurance is DESIGNED to take a loss when people get sick, the whole denial is pre-existing coverage is to block scammers (supposedly), but it serves to block people who just had something unexpected happen. If mandatory coverage gets passed, there’s no way that limiting insurance companies to deny coverage for preexisting conditions can break them. It can’t mathematically happen.

[Edited on January 19, 2010 at 11:23 PM. Reason : ]

1/19/2010 11:20:06 PM

I am in tears right now and dancing in the streets because I can't believe this happened... I never thought I would see this in my lifetime: a white man, much less a republican would win a senate seat in Mass.

oh wait.. Wrong election


Yes We Can
Yes We Can

[Edited on January 19, 2010 at 11:22 PM. Reason : ]

1/19/2010 11:22:11 PM

I guess its because I am in middle class america, but I have witnessed several people get screwed for conditions like I mention above.

I dont believe someone should be able to be careless, go without coverage, then expect to get healthcare when things get expensive. But there are a lot of honest people that get screwed by pre-existing condition clauses.

1/19/2010 11:24:53 PM

^^oh, you're mocking black people.

good one.

[Edited on January 19, 2010 at 11:26 PM. Reason : /]

1/19/2010 11:26:14 PM

^^yea i agree about pre-existing conditions... theres no question that health care needs to be reformed, but ran by gov't, no thanks

[Edited on January 19, 2010 at 11:27 PM. Reason : ^ I try.. need humor on this way too serious board]

1/19/2010 11:26:43 PM

i'm loling at moron

1/19/2010 11:27:19 PM

that was insightful

1/19/2010 11:27:52 PM

^I could get into a long drawn out explanation as to why, a plan for improvement, etc.. but i gotta go to bed so that I can get up and work. That way I can pay for my health care like a good us citizen

1/19/2010 11:30:08 PM

lol @ jwb9984. must be the best night of ur life. lol

1/19/2010 11:32:29 PM

Quote :

"but I have witnessed several people get screwed for conditions like I mention above."

I agree with you that the way we pay for health-care needs fixing. Gov't has an important role. It must set up the environment for a market-driven solution.

Instead of taking over with a single-payer system. Let's get costs lower. Tort reform, cross-state insurance, letting people deduct their private health policies, taking the employer out of the picture.
We can fix it without forcing people at he point of a gun to buy a over-bloated gov't mandated policy.

1/19/2010 11:40:27 PM

I don't recall any serious suggestion that involved a "single-payer system," EarthDogg.

But anyway...

What worries me is that the Republicans are playing chess while the Democrats play checkers, but the Republicans are only playing a move ahead. We're clearly not looking past the short- to medium-term.

The reality is, we've been squandering opportunities to appeal to African American voters for years. I don't like the religious right, but if we're gonna have it, why the fuck aren't we using it to get religious black people to vote with their beliefs (which often happen to line up with the religious right?)

We've done jack-all shit to appeal to Hispanics. Apparently our brilliant plan is to try to keep some of them out of the country so they can't vote against us. Never mind the fact that plenty get in anyway, and the ones that are already here have more babies than rich white people. It's like we don't even give a shit that it's a matter of (fairly little) time before they're the bloc to court.

Then there's the matter of semi-intelligent white people who see Republican tactics and think, "Wow, that's a dick move, no way I'm voting for you." Think the Bush strategy against McCain in 2000, or Dole's atheist move against Hagan in 2008, or any of another really terrible ideas we've had.

I guess there's something to be said for standing on principle. But I don't see it, especially not when the end result of digging your heels in over everything is that before long we won't have enough heels to dig in over anything.

Yeah, we won this election. Good for us. But sooner or later we'll have to pay the piper, and the only way we'll pull it off as a party is by radically changing our platform at the last minute, or by getting broken up into other groups that won't win for several cycles. Good on us.

1/20/2010 12:33:10 AM

I personally would love to see the health insurance industry wiped out. I am one who feels health care is a right and nobody should be able to stand between you and your doctor as the insurance industry does now. You shouldn't have to die because of your financial situation. With all of that said I feel the senate bill is a joke and a gift to the insurance industry and I wouldn't mind seeing it die. I do want to ask Republicans what their idea of real reform is and if they are willing to give up their medicare since that is a government program?

1/20/2010 12:34:58 AM

That makes me think of the letter that the President got from a woman saying:

Quote :

"I don't want government-run health care. I don't want socialized medicine. And don't touch my Medicare."

1/20/2010 12:38:45 AM

I'm a Republican, but I'm not one who can't read the writing on the wall when it's right in front of my face.

The countries in the world that have the best healthcare have national programs of some sort or another. We're the only industrialized nation that doesn't have such a program, and our health sucks in comparison. Meanwhile there's a large well of support for public healthcare in this country.

It's gonna happen. We'll probably be better off with it. If I could dictate the Republican party, I'd say embrace it as much as possible (within reason), so that if it works we can claim credit for supporting it in spite of our usual stance, and if it doesn't work we can say that yeah, we went along with it, but it was the Democrats' idea.

1/20/2010 12:42:06 AM

I did want to add that the real people in power are Goldman Sachs and other special interests. That is the unfortunate truth regardless of which party is in power.

1/20/2010 12:44:55 AM

Quote :

""My message to my clients? Jump ship now," said one Democratic operative who advises a number of targeted Members of Congress. "Obama can't help you.""

Well that is a bit harsh.

Quote :

"goalie, maybe you didnt know, but if the senate bill gets passed as it, it is still just as much a defeat for the democrats, because it resembles next to nothing that they wanted..."

Perhaps, but a lot feel like something is politically better than nothing, even if it is an abomination to all parties involved.

Quote :

"Nothing will get done at all....."

Well that would be a pleasant change.

Quote :

"Yeah, we won this election. Good for us. But sooner or later we'll have to pay the piper, and the only way we'll pull it off as a party is by radically changing our platform at the last minute, or by getting broken up into other groups that won't win for several cycles. Good on us."

Scott Brown isn't the conservative many are expecting him to be. A Massachusetts Republican is about on par with a North Carolina Democrat. See: http://www.esquire.com/the-side/richardson-report/scott-brown-mass-senate-race-011910

1/20/2010 1:54:11 AM

He's anti-health-care, and that seems to be all that matters anymore.

1/20/2010 2:08:47 AM

Also this:

Quote :

"As Tuesday wore on, and it became clear that Coakley was likely to come up short, the finger pointing within the Democratic party began in earnest with the candidate's advisers insisting that they had not received nearly enough support in the past month from national Democrats and DC-based strategists alleging that the blame for the loss lie entirely on Coakley."

Horse shit. The DSCC massively out-spent the RNSC in Massachusetts, their candidate was quite simply crap.


And this:

Quote :

"The countries in the world that have the best healthcare have national programs of some sort or another. We're the only industrialized nation that doesn't have such a program, and our health sucks in comparison. Meanwhile there's a large well of support for public healthcare in this country."

People want the health care system fixed, agreed, but this bill has nothing to do with fixing anything. There are so many other cultural factors at play in other nations that a strict comparison is hard to do.

1/20/2010 2:11:14 AM

Quote :

"You lose your job, you lose your healthcare, that you have PAID for years, and you try and get insurance to cover your cancer. You can't. Thats fucking bullshit. I dont even have health issues (yet) and see how fucked up that is. That happens all the time. I know people that have suffered, of no fault of their own."

This is the problem with having healthcare connected to employment. It's connected to employment because of government subsidies. I know you're just going to ignore this, and convince yourself that it isn't the problem, but it really is. If the government just let people purchase their own health insurance, with their own wages, on a tax free basis, we'd be a lot better off because losing your job wouldn't mean losing your insurance. This is a crucial issue that is being ignored by most people.

[Edited on January 20, 2010 at 8:39 AM. Reason : ]

1/20/2010 8:38:48 AM

Quote :

"For me, the only thing I was hoping to see done is pre-existing conditions covered. "

except for thats not how insurance works.

you have to have coverage on your car before you wreck it.
you have to have life insurance before you die.

now, can the rules be modified somehow? sure. but a blank check to cover pre-existing wont work.

[Edited on January 20, 2010 at 8:47 AM. Reason : sorry...didnt read the rest of the thread before I posted.]

1/20/2010 8:44:57 AM

Quote :

"I am in tears right now and dancing in the streets because I can't believe this happened... I never thought I would see this in my lifetime: a white man, much less a republican would win a senate seat in Mass."

well played

1/20/2010 8:46:10 AM

Quote :

"If I could dictate the Republican party, I'd say embrace it as much as possible (within reason), so that if it works we can claim credit for supporting it in spite of our usual stance, and if it doesn't work we can say that yeah, we went along with it, but it was the Democrats' idea."

I would go along with this, if we could take it back. No matter how huge of a clusterfuck it turns out to be, it would be here to stay, IMO.

1/20/2010 9:15:12 AM

Quote :

"except for thats not how insurance works. you have to have coverage on your car before you wreck it. you have to have life insurance before you die. now, can the rules be modified somehow? sure. but a blank check to cover pre-existing wont work."

If you bothered to read my other posts, you would see in the conditions I am talking about, you DID have health insurance previously.

d357r0y3r:

I dont necessarily disagree with that. However, not allowing people to switch insurance companies and not covering pre-existing conditions also means people are slaved to whatever company they initially chose, essentially allowing that company to charge whatever they like. You might get cancer, have your rates go through the roof, and have no recourse to change companies because the new company wouldnt cover pre-existing. If they are all forced to allow pre-existing, then there will be more competition and keep those rate increases in check.

1/20/2010 9:21:55 AM

El Oh El
moveon

1/20/2010 9:27:56 AM

Quote :

"I am one who feels health care is a right and nobody should be able to stand between you and your doctor as the insurance industry does now."

You left out that the govt can also stand in the way of you and your doctor currently.

So if health care is a right, then doctors should be forced to work for free...or whatever they can pay? Bc a doctor refusing to treat someone is denying you of your right. Even if its for braces, contacts, viagra, etc. All of that should be free, or pay what you will. THere is a jar on the way out to leave whatever you wish. LOL

1/20/2010 9:29:22 AM

Insurance companies are completely fine with removing allowing all pre-existing conditions as long as health-insurance becomes compulsory.

[Edited on January 20, 2010 at 9:48 AM. Reason : grummers]

1/20/2010 9:48:00 AM

So here comes the voter fraud (you knew it was coming):

the Coakley campaign held an afternoon news conference Tuesday to complain that voters in three places received ballots already marked for Brown.

Kevin Conroy, the Coakley campaign manager, said the "disturbing incidents" raised questions about the integrity of the election.

"Reports that the Coakley campaign is making reckless accusations regarding the integrity of today's election is a reminder that they are a desperate campaign," Daniel B. Winslow, the counsel for the Brown campaign, said in the statement.

1/20/2010 10:24:19 AM

Quote :

"The reality is, we've been squandering opportunities to appeal to African American voters for years."

I agree. The GOP's conservative religious tones should be a easy fit with traditional Black family values. (before the Great Society kicked in)

Quote :

"We've done jack-all shit to appeal to Hispanics. Apparently our brilliant plan is to try to keep some of them out of the country so they can't vote against us."

I'm afraid the GOP is going to have to get off the hard-core stance on this, yes. It's going to be a tough pill to swallow, but the Hispanic bloc is too big and important now to piss off. Perhaps some type of amnesty and then tougher border control? (even though that's what Reagan promised the last time around).

Quote :

"Then there's the matter of semi-intelligent white people who see Republican tactics and think, "Wow, that's a dick move, no way I'm voting for you." "

Doubt that's gonna change. Fortunately the Dems will keep doing the same thing.

Quote :

"... or by getting broken up into other groups that won't win for several cycles. "

A very real possibility. The GOP leadership has some important strategy decisions to make..quickly.

1/20/2010 10:32:08 AM

The Voter Fraud claims started before the election was over. Google Isabel Melendez

1/20/2010 10:42:11 AM

Hahahaha I'm sure the republicans stole an election in Massachusetts of all places!

Get real people... More likely these were either planted or completely manufactured by dem operatives who wanted an excuse to claim fraud

p.s. U can't fake 100,000+ votes. Brown won fair and square.

1/20/2010 11:44:00 AM

Pretty sure no one here has said anything to the contrary.

1/20/2010 12:04:08 PM

Three Reasons Why The Dems Are in Big, Big Trouble. And One Reason Why They're Not.

Quote :

"1. Health care reform is not popular. An ABC News/Washington Post poll published on January 19 has 51 percent against current congressional plans and just 44 percent in favor, numbers that haven't moved in a month. Other polls show even greater percentages oppose the plan, with all the trend lines over the past year working heavily against the Democrats. People fear the obvious: "Reform" that increases the government's role in anything virtually guarantees steadily increasing costs, lower levels of services, and ballooning federal deficits. All the special-interest carve-outs to buy votes from wavering senators and pay down objections from Big Labor didn't help either, especially on an issue that was not boiling over on the front-burner of voter concerns at a time of prolonged economic crisis. 2. The stimulus and TARP bailouts are not popular. They never were, even back when Republicans were pushing them, and are getting less and less so as it becomes clear that such policies are at best ineffective and at worst horribly counterproductive. During his first year in office, reports Congressional Quarterly, Obama got what he wanted from Congress a record-setting 97 percent of time, so it's not like he's simply muddling through with a bad hand. Yet the president (and by extension, the Dems) are tanking when it comes to handling the economy, both in terms of results and job approval. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll from January 10 shows just 43 percent approving of Obama's economic policies, down from 56 percent a year ago. Simply put, nobody believes that weatherizing vacant homes in Detroit or keeping an already bloated public sector on permanent life support is going to restart the economy. 3. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are not popular. Neither is Obama's foreign policy more generally. According to Gallup, Obama's reaction (or non-reaction) to the Christmas Day bomber had a marginally positive effect on the president's marks for handling terrorism, but it remains a fact that his positions on Iraq and especially Afghanistan are at odds with most Americans. Whatever latent peacenik tendencies his supporters and detractors assumed he harbored, Obama has doubled, or even tripled, down in Afghanistan while following the Bush-Petraeus withdrawal plan in Iraq. This may qualify as hope, but it doesn't count much as change. Especially since we've still got no real clear mission in Afghanistan, despite having been there for so long. Obama's failure to define a coherent foreign policy is not his alone. At the end of the Cold War, the political class shrugged and almost immediately began to spend "the peace dividend" that came with a winding down of military spending as a percentage of GDP and the federal budget. Both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton cut relative military spending, as they should have. Where they, and Bush II and Obama so far, manifestly failed was in working to build a consensus of what U.S. foreign policy should be. We continue to pay for that failure in wasted dollars and, more damningly, wasted lives."

http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/20/three-reasons-why-the-dems-are

Rest of the article is good, too.

1/20/2010 1:27:49 PM

Quote :

"Health care reform is not popular."

Impossible. I was informed by far-left loons that any protests were simply astroturf tea-baggers.

1/20/2010 1:31:39 PM

I think people may confuse "supported by the majority, some of the time" with "popular." If 49% is staunchly against it, I don't think reform is popular, nor should those 49% be dragged along simply because the 51% have determined that they know what is best for everyone.

1/20/2010 1:33:17 PM

1. A totally misleading assertion. According to the studies, the current health-care reform bill is unpopular, not health-care reform in general. Destroyer you are really eroding your credibility by allowing this.
2. Obvious to everyone, refuted by no one.
3. See 2. Also note that the vast majority of Americans have no idea what's best for the country in terms of foreign policy.

1/20/2010 1:46:37 PM

I think we can all agree that doing nothing about the Healthcare crisis is unacceptable. Since doing nothing is the GOP's favorite tactic, what will be their solution to this insurmountable problem? Who will go toe-to-toe on this policy issue and convince the American people? I have not seen a single compelling candidate to lead this effort against the dems, yet.

1/20/2010 1:49:40 PM