UPDATE ON DC SHOOTING BELOW:
UPDATE 2 ON GOP OBSTRUCTION ON OBAMACARE BELOW:
UPDATE:
Will The Navy Yard Shooting Reignite The Gun Law Conversation?
ANSWER:
NO!
NOT IN THE N.R.A. STATES OF AMERICA.
UPDATE 2 -- OBAMACARE:
Obama Slams Republicans For Promising Economic Chaos If They Don't Get What They Want
"You have some Republicans in the House of Representatives who are promising to shut down the government at the end of this month if they can’t shut down the Affordable Care Act. And if that scheme doesn’t work, some have suggested they won’t pay the very bills that Congress has already run up, which would cause America to default on its debt for the first time in our history and would create massive economic turmoil. Interest rates on ordinary people would shoot up. Those kinds of actions are the kinds of actions that we don’t need.
The last time the same crew threatened this course of action back in 2011 even the mere suggestion of default slowed our economic growth. Everybody here remembers that. It wasn’t that long ago.
Now, keep in mind, initially, the whole argument was we’re going to do this because we want to reduce our debt. That doesn’t seem to be the focus now. Now the focus is on Obamacare. So let’s put this in perspective. The Affordable Care Act has been the law for three and a half years now. It passed both houses of Congress. The Supreme Court ruled it constitutional. It was an issue in last year’s election and the candidate who called for repeal lost. (Applause.) Republicans in the House have tried to repeal or sabotage it about 40 times. They’ve failed every time.
Meanwhile, the law has already helped millions of Americans — young people who were able to stay on their parents’ plan up until the age of 26; seniors who are getting additional discounts on their prescription drugs; ordinary families and small businesses that are getting rebates from insurance companies because now insurance companies have to actually spend money on people’s care instead of on administrative costs and CEO bonuses."
41 comments:
Actually, many do.
re Obamacare:
"It passed both houses of Congress. The Supreme Court ruled it constitutional. It was an issue in last year's election and the candidate who called for repeal lost," he said to applause. "Republicans in the House have tried to repeal or sabotage it about 40 times. They've failed every time."
He preached upon "Breadth"
Till it argued him narrow ––
The broad are too broad to define.
And of Truth -- until it proclaimed him a Liar ––
The Truth never flaunted a Sign.
Simplicity fled from his counterfeit presence
As Gold the Pyrites would shun.
What confusion would cover the innocent Jesus
To meet so enabled a man!
~ Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
The young man in the video may -- or may not -- be correct, but hise loudmouthed, smart-Alec, manic, breathless, hard driving, overbearing, know-it-all manner will never persuade anyone to consider his assertions but those already firmly ensconced in the socialist camp.
A familiar proverb comes to mind:
Figures may not lie, but liars always figure.
If I wanted to live as the British, the Irish and the continental Europeans do, I would EMIGRATE and not waste time trying to change the ways of this odious society into which I had the great misfortune to be born.
After all, isn't that JUST what our immigrant ancestors did when they sought to escape the horrors of the very lands the lifestyles of which our intelligentsia now recommend we emulate?
Who does WHAT, Les?
Couldn't you please elaborate just a little, so we dimwits out here might better understand you?
Mr. Free Thinke, providing health care, INTO WHICH EVERYONE IS A PAYER and which payments would lower all health care costs, is hardly worthy of the word "horrors."
I'm afraid you have a knee-jerk reaction to the subject of universal health care. The Scandanavian countries that deliveer U.H.C. are also among THE HAPPIEST COUNTRIES in the world. There's something to be considered in that. When you have no fear of being financially devastated by an illness or accident, or when you know your infant or child will not be turned away because of a pre-existing condition, that tends to add to one's feeling of well-being
You've already paid into Medicare all your life, and perhaps have benefited from that program. Why would anyone wish to deprive his fellow citizens of a similar opportunity to be free from the anxiety and worry of out-of-control health care costs that would impoverish and destroy a family's financial security?
Your implying that perhaps the young man in the video is lying is not worthy of this discussion. If you're interested in a sane discussion, I should think you'd research his claims before you criticize them.
Attacking his delivery of the information has nothing to do with the facts.
IMHO, I thought he was quite effective.
Latest on Senator Cruz's idiotic plan to shut down the government unless Congress defunds Obamacare:
"Pulitzer Prize-winning conservative columnist and regular Fox News panelist Charles Krauthammer warned over the weekend that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was leading Republicans on a “suicide” mission to defund President Barack Obama’s health reform law with an attempted government shutdown."
Ooops! Forgot the LINK HERE.
It is a direct reply to the posts headline as I believe many do know.
Yes, there is substantial truth in what motor mouth on steroids had to say in his breakneck speed delivery.
As a sales pitch perhaps the video can be considered effective as Shaw stated. Those who support the flawed ACA and those who desire full single payer healthcare it's a slam dunk.
What I find interesting is that thoughtful conservatives like yourself and thoughtful republicans have failed to recognize and grasp the opportunity to work to make the ACA better and more responsive to what Americans seem to want, at least in majority.
As a great nation grappling with the need to fix our healthcare system so it works for all it amazes me that it has been only able to piece together a jigsaw puzzle of measures that will only marginally improve the system for some.
No one person or group has the ideal answers. Right now one group has left the table of ideas and therefore ceeded the high ground to the group they disagree with. Not politically very astute.
I close with this... ACA may be bad, what exists is not good, and the party if opposition lost it's chance to make it better.
Going back to what we had is not desirable nor is
As I have indicated many times, the Republican Party is a House Divided. We have a despicable, spineless, self-serving RINO Establishment, who makes not even a credible pretense of serious opposition to the Democrats, and we now have younger, more serious-minded, more idealistic individuals who actually BELIEVE that spirited opposition based on honest convictions is not only healthy but absolutely NECESSARY, if we are to maintain our identity as a democratic REPUBLIC. ;-)
We differ, Ma'am. That does not make either of us an SOB or an ignoramus.
What Democrats like to call "bipartisanship," I call capitulation, and I will have none of it.
As a people we seem to have lost sight of the understanding that PRINCIPLE should trump all other considerations -- no matter how urgent. Pursuing merely EXPEDIENT policies has driven us into quicksand, and as a result we are sinking fast.
I for one would still like to keep on breathing, if only just a little longer, before we get sucked under and consigned to Oblivion.
[Please remember I make frequent attempts to speak in parables, and ought not to be taken literally.]
RN,
What did you think of Mrs. Clinton's health care proposal, back in the day when you were still supporting Republicans?
By the way, style, manner and tone are to PRESENTATION as platform manner, highly developed technique, imagination in interpretation, and attractive physical appearance are to a performance of OPERA or a RECITAL of GREAT MUSIC.
The outline of "facts," and the printed "musical score" bear roughly the same relationship to a performance as a blueprint does to an actual building.
There's a BIG difference when you hear Shakespeare read by Derek Jacobi or an MacKellen and then Joe Doakes and Sadie Lupowitz from the Lower East Side.
If you've ever heard the Balcony Scene read aloud in a thick Brooklyn accent, you'd know exactly what I'm driving at in a heartbeat.
It may be regrettable, Ma'am, but in Reality STYLE tends to overshadow CONTENT. Ergo, if you want to sell a product, try very hard not to be obnoxious when making your sales pitch.
Free... and you stated perfectly the problem we face together as a nation.
Some see people that are somehow socialist, or essentially, not American, simply because we have a different view on how to solve a problem.
Tell me why I, or any Democrat for that matter, should even hold a discussion with people like you and the GOP when you start out by saying incorrectly that we are socialists directly and by definition, Un-American?
You talk a good game elsewhere admonishing others to moderate their language, for which you were promptly dismissed, and then you come here and define Dems, and many of us, as such. Why is that?
Wicked,
Healthcare has always been available to everyone and your statement of "EVERYONE IS A PAYER" is a total fallacy. One of the issues facing obamacare is the healthiest won't pay.
Granted the Scandanavian countries have a good UHC but they are a lot smaller, fitter, younger and live in a clean non industrial environment. All of those issues affect healthcare. When a congressman tried to get food stamps to mimic the WIC program he was chided because you can't tell people what they can eat. The fact that it is healthier doesn't matter.
http://www.governing.com/blogs/view/gov-should-states-limit-what-foods-are-purchased-with-food-stamps.html.
skud: "Healthcare has always been available to everyone..."
Really? Explain that. And when you do, tell us how the poorest of the poor afford it, or young people just starting out in life, or families with catastrophic illnesses and injuries--those families that had their insurance companies throw them off their rolls because they reached their caps, or a family member had a pre-existing condition. Tell us about how insurance was available to those unfortunate Americans.
Going to emergency rooms to get care is THE MOST COSTLY way of providing care, and the least efficient, since there's no aftercare, no follow-up, and no preventative medicine. It's stupid.
skud: "...and your statement of "EVERYONE IS A PAYER" is a total fallacy."
Please, skud, if you're going to come here and discuss things intelligently, please make the effort to accurately read what I write. Go back and read my statement, which was a hypothetical, since I know very well that this isn't the case.
skud: "One of the issues facing obamacare is the healthiest won't pay."
That's because the cons are urging them not to opt in so that Obamacare can fail or because the cons are doing all in their power to spread misinformation about the ACA in order to kill it before people can benefit from it.
And they want to kill it, obviously, because they KNOW it will be popular and cost-efficient.
Great video, shaw. The cons are trying their best to blackmail the president and the country into defunding Obamacare. Remember how closing down the government worked for the Rethugs the last time around? They're not very quick learners are they.
Someone must be using you name on you blog because "providing health care, INTO WHICH EVERYONE IS A PAYER"
Was posted under you name or you should have qualified your statement maybe with If.
No one has been refused medical treatment. It is a fact that if you can pay or have insurance your treatment is better but NO ONE is denied medical care. Is it fair that not everyone is treated equally, just about as fair as everyone doesn't live in an elite Boston neighborhood.
The urging of the "cons" for the young not to enroll, do you really believe that? The young are mostly Democrats and Obamacare is so bad that the majority of Americans are against it. Even the Democrat Senators don't want to go on it.
This is what I was responding to:
FT: "After all, isn't that JUST what our immigrant ancestors did when they sought to escape the horrors of the very lands the lifestyles of which our intelligentsia now recommend we emulate?"
My answer was a hypothetical, meaning that IF we were providing a SINGLE PAYER health care system, THAT should not be construed as a HORROR.
The rest of your comment is not worthy of a reply.
A majority of Americans ARE NOT AGAINST IT.
Do your homework.
Skud, would it have been more accurate to say "quality" health care?
How many people wait until they are too sick to recover because they know they cannot afford the cost of going to the doctor?
How is someone supposed to pay premiums of upwards of $1000.00 a month for insurance because they had a certain procedure years ago and now are branded with the pre-existing condition title?
My homework, Madam?
I presented data to you from all the latest polls listed at Real Clear Politics yesterday. Every one of them showed a clearly defined opposition to Obamacare.
OCTO, of course, immediately tried to pooh pooh it, but "facts are facts" -- or AREN'T they?
I guess it depends on WHERE you get your information.
"The partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions."
~ Socrates (470-399 B. C. )
It's still the same old game. Very tiresome. I withdraw slightly bloodied, perhaps, but still unbowed. ;-)
I do not come to fight, but only in the hopes of sharing a different viewpoint.
Why not consider me your Token Conservative, and let it go at that?
That comment was not directed at you, Mr. Free Thinke. It was directed at skudrunner.
"It is hard to imagine that the news about Obamacare over the next few months will be good. The rollout of Medicare, and the addition of prescription-drug coverage under George W. Bush, both provoked mass confusion and complaint, and those laws were not fighting off an angry rearguard insurgency.
The question is whether the glitches and failures amount, in either reality or perception, to the sort of catastrophic failure that leads panicked insurance companies, potential customers, governors, and state legislatures to pull out.
Conservatives have portrayed their war against the exchanges as a desperate last stand against Obamacare and for freedom as we know it. History is replete with previous examples of last stands. Ronald Reagan warned conservatives in 1961 that if Medicare passed into law, “one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.” The conservative movement sustains itself by constantly disregarding its warnings of the last mortal threat to liberty and redirecting itself onto the next one. Yet it has made opposition to Obamacare completely central to its identity. If the Obamacare train does not wreck—or, to put it more accurately, if conservatives fail to wreck the train—it will be fascinating to see: What will they do next?"
My short answer to Dave:
"What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." l-)
The cost of the exchanges
A good article on the fat of those "losing" their insurance working part time.
Just a tidbit of wat we don't know about the health insurance issue in America.
The ACA is really stinging. My insurance bill is going down next year. Not a lot but despite what you here bills can be lower.
Ronald Reagan was RIGHT about Medicare, Ma'am. Of course I at age 72 benefit do from it, but the cost of my care will eventually have to be born by our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren EXPONENTIALLY ad infinit.
Is that fair?
Is it sustainable?
I don't think so!
Since Medicare was instituted in the early Sick-sties, inflation in the realm of medical costs has been far greater than in other sectors of the economy -- and it's been bad everywhere. I am morally certain that this would not have been the case if the government had not become directly involved in administering medical care.
The deep, deep pockets of the American Taxpayer are just too tempting not to take advantage of in every area of the field.
I know I'll never persuade you, so I'll stop there.
"What's done is done, and cannot be undone" anyway, but for Heaven's SAKE -- look what is happening in Europe. Bankruptcy, increasing limitation or dilution of services, and diminished quality of living standards imminent everywhere.
Do we REALLY want to go THERE?
Companies will start dropping health insurance. Why not. Now employees can buy through the exchange. What's the motivation for health care insurance companies to drop rates? These new customers are forced to buy.
FT, you are funny.
Private corporations would never price gouge, raise rates, deny coverage, lie to their customers..........
We pay twice what other countries pay for health insurance, and that's been going on for years under the leadership of private corporations. The abuses of health insurance companies is exactly why we have to do something.
FreeThinke,
This statement by Dave Miller gives me an opportunity to speak my mind:
Dave: “ You talk a good game elsewhere admonishing others to moderate their language, for which you were promptly dismissed, and then you come here and define Dems, and many of us, as such. Why is that?”
Ditto. Does your vocabulary have the same definitions as our vocabulary? Are you disingenuous? Engaging in sophistry? Playing games? Or masking a more sinister motive?
These are your words used to describe the Lady of this Manor and her readers: Dictators, socialists, communists, Marxists, Fabian, power-hungry, “threadbare, smelly and ready to be cast onto the scrap heap.”
You mean everyone here is garbage? More than offensive, your rhetoric is Eliminationist. By connotation, you regard us in contemptible terms - undeserving of citizenship, unworthy of a right to vote, demeaned and devalued as human beings, and … by extension … unfit for “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” just because we do not share your views!
Throughout history, Eliminationist Rhetoric has called for the infliction of harm against: Blacks, Jews, Latinos, Gays and Lesbians, feminists, liberals, the enemies de jour of right-wing hate speech. Throughout history, eliminationist rhetoric has been the signature trait of fascism.
You insist upon having us believe you are a good and decent person. Your rhetoric tells a different story. I intend to be more candid and less diplomatic than Dave. Either you are a hypocrite or a knave or both.
OT,shaw but your free thinke pal wrote this:
"It doesn't matter so much that 12 innocent people were murdered and several more wounded mind you. [We don't know what color or what sex THEY were yet, do we?] What REALLY matters is that no one can find a credible way to deny the murders were committed by a NEGRO.
That's what REALLY upsets the Marxianic Derivadweebs, isn't it?
The perverse asininity of their habitual thought processes should leave sane men dumbfounded."
You wrote a post about the fact that the conservative bloggers put up a photo of the Navy facility shooter but they didn't put up a photo of lanza and other mass shooters and they brought attention to the race of the shooter in their comments didn't you? well your pal free thinke has no fekken idea that is racist, since their description of other massacres say nothing about the fact that the killers were all WHITE. you pal free thinke labels you a "Marxianic Derivadweeb" and possibly insane for pointing out their toxic racism. why do you have anything to do with these sort of people?
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
Dave,
Thank you for the opening.
BTW, a footnote is in order:
David Neiwert, The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right. Paradigm Publishers; 1st Edition (May 2009)
Free... no one expects agreement by those from the other side of the aisle.
But is it too much to expect that you refrain from essentially calling us UnAmerican?
I personally am sick and tired of being referred to by conservatives as a libturd, a socialist, a commie and whatever assorted names people can dream up to annoy.
I've never attacked anyone with that type of language and have never intimated that someone would be UnAmerican because they have a different viewpoint from me.
I am not naive enough to think that libs don't use the same type of language when addressing conservatives, but it is my experience that labeling people, and indeed political candidates as UnAmerican [exclusion as Octo defined it] is almost always the work of conservatives, you included.
"...look what is happening in Europe. Bankruptcy, increasing limitation or dilution of services, and diminished quality of living standards imminent everywhere."
Why have you ignored the Scandinavian countries where their universal health care works quite well and is very popular with their citizens? And Japan? And Australia? And New Zealand? And Canada? And Israel? And Austria? And Great Britain?
And, of course, the country all conservatives love to hate, France.
Healthcare in France:
France has a system of universal health care largely financed by government through a system of national health insurance. It is consistently ranked as one of the best in the world.
And one of the best-run countries in Europe and the best economy as well, Germany.
Here's a list of the countries that have universal health care. You'll notice we're not among them, but we are among third world backward countries that do not provide this basic human right.
the United States is the only country with a major economy without universal health care.
According to a study at the University of Maine, citing WHO rankings, the US was 37th among all nations in overall quality of health care, but it was (and is) by far the country that spends the most PER PERSON on health care. This cost drags down the rest of our economy and it costs us 45,000 lives a year lost because of lack of access to health care.
What an honor. America is a backward country where it concerns offering its universal health care.
We will get there, though, no thanks to backward thinking reactionaries.
Mr. Obama will get the credit for his vision and courage in working to get America in step with the rest of the civilized world.
The ACA is not perfect by far, but think of how much better it would have been had we not had a rogue political party interested only in its petty political schemes.
The GOP and its supporters are on the wrong side of history.
AGAIN.
The debased and degenerate Art of DISTORTIONIST rhetoric is undoubtedly why the need for what has just been acrimoniously dubbed ELIMINATIONIST rhetoric has come into being, although I have no idea what the latter might be never having been confronted with that peculiar neologism before.
The term "ELIMINATIONIST" appears-to-be yet-another in a long series of fabrications contrived by leftists to cast aspersions and hopefully generate shame -- or better yet FEAR -- in those who who have the colossal effrontery to oppose the decidedly TYRANNISTIC Philosophy that guides and feeds the Left.
Practices such as these -- i.e. indulging in belligerent assertions against the character and motivation of those who dissent from the adored ideology -- is yet another facet of Critical Theory.
Another is to make a point of taking umbrage at the use of perfectly true, perfectly polite, perfectly legitimate terms, and then BULLY society into rendering these terms TABOO thus strengthening an ever more crushing grip on would-be DICTATORIAL power.
If that sounds unpleasant, that is because the TACTIC is not only unpleasant, it is also based on lies, distortions and fabrications which make it downright reprehensible.
Someone asked whether the vocabulary we both share might not have entirely different meaning to each of us -- or something of the sort, isn't that right?
That, of course, is quite true. I would maintain, however, that it is the Left who has worked ceaselessly and sedulously to change the language and twist public perception of the meaning of long established terminology, frames of reference and cultural norms to suit the needs and goals of Hegelian-Marxian-Socialist-Fabian-Liberal-Progressive-Statist philosophy -- the mode of thinking that clearly dominates the Democratic Party -- and entirely too much of the Republican Party as well -- in the United States of America today.
The Left has, indeed, created a Parallel Universe for itself -- an artificial intellectual construct into which it has breathed life -- a diabolically clever contrivance designed to chastise, castigate, counsel, and condemn incessantly, and thus ultimately destroy not only the hated, envied Establishment but any and all lingering fondness for it or accurate memory of it.
This is being achieved through a persistent, relentless campaign of shameless DEFAMATION and DISTORTION accompanied by endless ACCUSATION and a granitic determination never - ever -- to give anyone with the temerity - the unmitigated gall -- to stand up to this treatment, call it what it is, and speak against it the slightest hint of CREDIT for anything right, true, decent, or worthy in any other way.
Several here are huffing, puffing, panting, salivating and pawing the ground with avid determination to vilify me.
Guess what? I DON'T CARE. I am not afraid of you.
One must RESPECT one's opponents and what they represent if one is to fear incurring their wrath and grave displeasure.
I can say unequivocally that while I do, indeed, respect everyone as an individual and fellow human being, I most emphatically do NOT respect methodologies based on the cynical exploitation of legitimate problems to gain ascendancy through a shameless campaign of Exaggeration, Distortion, Fabrication, Defamation and Intimidation all of which stoutly purport to parade under the banner of Righteous Indignation.
I'm sorry for anyone who would insist on defining honesty as hateful, but I have no help to offer such a person. Only God, the Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth, has the power to make the crooked straight and the rough places plane.
"DEFAMATION and DISTORTION accompanied by endless ACCUSATION and a granitic determination never - ever -- to give anyone with the temerity - the unmitigated gall -- to stand up to this treatment, call it what it is, and speak against it the slightest hint of CREDIT for anything right, true, decent, or worthy in any other way."
The nonsense in your accusations, FT, is that you believe what you blather about is "right, true, decent, or worthy in any way," when that is merely a subjective assessment of your own rightwing "granitic" opinions, nothing more.
There is no more truth in what you write than in what is scrawled on gas station toilet walls.
FreeThinke,
I have little patience for a verbose temper tantrum and intend to keep this comment as brief as I can.
From your last comment: “the TACTIC is not only unpleasant, it is also based on lies, distortions and fabrications which make it downright reprehensible.”
Then how do you explain this: “threadbare, smelly and ready to be cast onto the scrap heap.”
How did I lie, distort, and fabricate your above comment? These are your words, not mine. You characterize us as garbage and then take umbrage when you are called to account for your own words. No, I am not making this up, nor am I acting as some foot-soldier in your imagined and delusional war against “The Right,” “The True,” “The Decent,” and “Worthy” - as you characterize yourself while you characterize others in sub-human terms.
Even in your reply, you still regard us in “Hegelian-Marxian-Socialist-Fabian-Liberal-Progressive-Statist terms as we remain undeserving of even minimal civility and courtesy in your lexicon. You drape yourself in learning and think learning alone makes you an ethical and moral person. It does not. You wrap the Golden Rule around yourself but do not practice it.
Most telling of all, two readers herein have objected to your conduct, Dave Miller and myself. Yet, your continued polemics heaped upon us confirms your disrespect and contempt. On balance, you are not ethical, moral, empathic or respectful towards others. Quite the contrary, you are angry, self-righteous and frankly unhinged.
Shaw,
I can understand the allure of learning, but this is not learning nor intellect as understood and practiced by the rest of humanity. This is more akin to allowing yourself to be chained to a chair while having a dagger held to your throat.
Today, I am removing the Swash Zone from Cyberspace. I no longer have the time for distractions such as this. I may stop by from time to time to comment casually but can no longer afford to engage in crap like this.
Obama once again profed that he is blah, blah, blah. This has been true long before Seyria. He provved blah, blah, blah.
He sure didńt sound like a Commander in Cheif who had blah, blah, blah. A Jimmy Crater redix, only more socialist blah, blah, blah, real American blah, blah, blah!
I blame the Progressive blah, blah, blah!"
Issa and his ilk continue to press, harass and investigate the
deaths of 4 Americans in a consulate in a dangerous part of the world...while since Newtown
8,291 Americans have been killed by gunfire in this country. How incredibly hypocritical, nay moronic, politics has become.
BB-Idaho, sadly true.
But even more insane is that Issa and Rubio are now saying that President Obama should stop threatening to shut down the government! It's when I read stuff like that I understand that the GOP is truly being run by lunatics!
The TeaPublicans threaten that they will shut down the government UNLESS OBAMACARE IS DEFUNDED, then they turn around and say the president should not threaten to shut down the government!
These are the exact tactics used by totalitarian regimes!
TPD,
What, if anything, is that all about?
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