Can Democrats Govern?

F*** you, Joe.

“Deaniacs,” eh? What an a**hole you are. Guess who were the hardest workers in the general election trying to help Kerry defeat Bush? Yeah, “Deaniacs.”

Guess who were the activists who helped elect Obama? Yeah, “Deaniacs.”

Now, I know weaselly corporate snivelers like you and Alf From and Bruce Reed and the rest of the DLC sell-outs who screwed the Party with Bill Clinton and sent the Dems into a decade-long decline from which we only just recovered think you know better, But the last time you clowns had your hands on the tiller, we sunk like a rock.

And we’re about to do it again.

You’re such a pathetic sell-out, Joe.

In the words of the immortal Dick Cheney, “Go f*** yourself.”

The Republicans have no interest in governing the country, just running it.

You have a typo in the second-last word. You should have written “ruining” not “running”.

Exactly, you said it better than I could. What does Dean think will happen if the bill were to fail. The public is already tired of the debate and ready to move on to something else. Do you think they can stomach another 6 months of this..and what will that portend for 2010 elections for Dems. I think Dean is still hung up on Rahm blacklisting him from anything having to do with the national party. Yet, again Dean shows us WHY we chose John Kerry as the 04 Dem nominee. What an absolute buffoon. Someone offers you a million dollars, but you turn it down because you got your eye on a gazillion dollars. Foolishness, indeed.

Seriously guys the internet may have been behind Dean, but the internet is not the whole country. No point in going after Joe, just look at the facts…if Obama cannot do with clear majorities in the Senate and House NO president will ever try with anything less.

Democracy for America’s opposition to an individual mandate–are proving a point that conservatives have long made: that Democrats are too feckless to govern.
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No, Joe, what it’s proving is that the current composition and rules of the Senate make it virtually impossible to enact real, comprehensive reform.

“Universal health care is predicated on two mandates: The insurers have to provide it to everyone regardless of a pre-existing conditions. (Check: No problem here).
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The public–especially healthy members of the public–have to buy into the system; those who can’t afford to pay for it will be subsidized by the government. (Oops: Where in the Constitution does it say I ‘have to buy into the system’, Joe?)

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It all comes back to individual freedom and liberty Joe. Once you mandate insurance, what is next?
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Mandate that everyone with blonde hair dye it brown?
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Mandate that everyone must pay into the Government at least 90% of everything they make?
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Mandate you can only eat vegetables, not meat of any kind?
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Mandate you can no longer own property?
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Mandate that all water in the US is owned by the Government?
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Mandate that carbon emissions from your pre-2009 vehicle are too high, and you must buy a new car from Government Motors, formerly GM?
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Mandate that no guns of any kind are allowed?
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Mandate that all religions must disbanded and churches shut down?
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Mandate that you can no longer make more than $40,000 dollars, everything else is subject to a 100% tax?
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Mandate that … Joe Klein. Mandate that!

As long as they cower before the “F” word, the answer is no.

I wouldn’t wish the coverage that I have to buy on the individual market on my worst enemy. So let’s mandate it.

How about we mandate that your tax base pay for it’s own infrastructure and services, Rusty?
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That way, I don’t have to dig into my pockets to make sure you have the privilege of being able to post here!

And where in the Constitution does it say I have to pay for your water, sewer, highways, electrical, farm aid, health care subsidies, data infrastructure…

(The Republicans have no interest in governing the country, just running it.)
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Uh, Joe, what’s the R’s heath care solution again? And don’t hide, answer the question already, please. This is NOT a rhetorical question, so answer it. And what grollican said (#2); fix your typo …after you answer.

IQ53:
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I am all for shutting it all down, stopping all subsidies and turning the Federal Government into a small, insignificant entity.
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Put all of the power and tax dollars back into the State Treasuries.
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When can we start it?

Only proportional to your tax base, Rusty. And then, we stop collecting and redistributing income.
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And the state government can’t redistribute income, either. Neither can any other government. After all, income redistribution is bad, bad, bad.
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Which leaves you with having to pay for infrastructure you can’t afford.
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Which will mean that either you do without, or you tax yourselves!

Watch how quickly “real” America goes poof!
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Or splat! If you prefer…

When the point you’re arguing is correct, it’s significantly more persuasive when you’re gracious.

I happen to agree with you that mandate’s are an important part of reform, that reducing Insurance profits to zero won’t actually bring down Medical costs and that the expectaions from PO advocates are far higher than they can hope to acheive.

But, if the object of the game is to get the current Senate bill passed, then you’re current strategy of talking down to people is going to do everything to reinforce the notion that you’re a significant part of the problem.

jes sayin…..

Whatever Palin. My wife has a terminal illness and we can’t get insurance outside a pool from my employer, which is not the greatest. People like you are about to ruin the chance to improve health care for the foreseeable future. You are making the perfect the enemy of the good.

Ideological liberals like you who can’t compromise will never be in charge in this country. Get over it.

Of course, no one in the Swamp will deal with the obvious constitutional problems with the mandate. Forcing people to buy medical insurance seems to stretch the “regulate interstate commerce” well beyond what people think of what “regulate” means. The government can regulate cable TV–can they force me to buy it?

“People like me,” jake?
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How does someone like me affect what senators do? You have to be joking.
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Now, if I had as much money to give a few senators as the insurance industry does, maybe then I’d be able to affect a policy such as health care.
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Your claim is pathetically ignorant to the realities of life inside the Beltway.

No IQ53, watch as “real” Americans provide for themselves again for a change. How they put out a garden to grow their own vegetables, like I currently do.
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How we preserve what we grow, have root cellars in our basements. How we have our own electric power plants, and generate our own electricity. How we heat our homes with wood from the surrounding forests.
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How most Americans lived in my rural area for hundreds of years, and never once called upon the Government for anything at all.
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How the Government has taxed, and spent it’s way into oblivion while my family has budgeted for good as well as bad times.
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America will soon find out exactly what it is like to do without, IQ53. I hope you and your family are prepared for what is yet to come once Obama destroys it all.

The foremost reason why I believe we should walk away from this bill is one that has been suggested by a number of commentators, both here and elsewhere. Namely, the Senate bill contains what is essentially a “poison pill” which may cause the Democrats to lose their majorities in Congress and be locked out of the White House after Obama leaves office 2017. As Jon Walker said in his post at Firedoglake, the Senate bill is essentially a tax that most people will be forced to pay to private insurers for largely worthless insurances policies. When people are forced to pay upwards of 15 or 20% of their income for the worthless insurance mandated by the Democrats, they’re going to be really, really unhappy. And they’re going to blame the Democratic Party.

From this point forward, every time Aetna or Blue Cross raises premiums people will, rightly, blame President Obama and the Democrats. Every time there is a story in the press about an insurance company refusing coverage or denying a claim resulting in the death of some sympathetic person, guess who gets the blame? Guess who now will be taking the heat for the real “death panels,” the ones run by the private insurance companies? Right again! The Democrats. The Republicans will be running against “death panels” and run-away health costs for generations.

And, yes, some people who can’t afford right now will be given some money with which to buy health insurance—until the insurance companies raise premiums, again and again and again. And when that happens—and it will—what will the Democrats do? Return to the status que ante in where these millions lacked any coverage? Raise taxes to pay the increases? I really don’t see how this gets better over time.

Which is why the oft-repeated analogy to Social Security and Medicare is false. These are fundamentally good plans, which helped create a social safety net. Yes, they started “small” and then were built upon but they were fundamentally sound from the start. This is fundamentally a bad, wasteful and soon to be unpopular program. It isn’t going to be “reformed” anytime soon, at least not by the Democrats. We were all told that it was a good idea to support Medicare Part D because it helped some people and it was the “camel’s nose under the tent,” which would allow Democrats to reform it and make it a good program—all we needed was the majority in Congress and Obama in the White House. But the Obama plan does not reform the Part D giveaway. In fact, Obama gave BigPharma billions more to ensure their support for “insurance reform”.

Newt Gingrich, Orin Hatch and Bill Kristol have always understood that passing real health care reform could cement a Democratic majority for the next fifty years, much as Social Security and Medicare did. That’s why they’ve done everything in their power to kill it. But I suspect that they are secretly very please with this bill and believe that once the mandates, premium increases and stories about insurance companies making big profits while screwing their involuntary customers, ObamaCare could do for the Republicans what Social Security and Medicare once did for the Democrats.

Joe is right to question whether or not the Dems can govern. And not because, as he says, opposing private insurance is an “ideological conceit” and loyalty to it is “feckless”.
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The problem, as I see it, is that Dems are trying to serve two masters. One: the people that elected them. In general, they want healthcare reformed so that all Americans are covered, care is delivered at a lower cost and the quality of care is improved. They also want to end the wars overseas, for the govt to stop borrowing so much money, to hold business accountable and create jobs. On the other hand is Big Corporate: they want what’s good for them, but offer many perks including money for re-election bids and sponsorship of Big Media.
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Well you can’t serve both. You get watered-down piecemeal legistlation that, in the end, accomplishes nothing.
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At least the Repubs have chosen a side, it makes them more efficient.

Joe Klein:

…the individual mandate, an absolutely central and crucial part of health care reform…

“Absolutely central and crucial?”
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Really?
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Here’s Barack Obama on individual mandates ( link to Dec 2008 ABC piece entitled “Obama and Daschle at Odds on Individual Mandate” ) :

During the Democratic primary season, Obama clashed with Clinton over her support for an individual mandate. Obama’s plan would only have mandated that children be covered. He would not have extended such a mandate to adults as proposed by Clinton.
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Clinton charged that Obama’s lack of an individual mandate would result in 15 million Americans going without health insurance.
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Obama regularly shot back by saying the solution to health care is making it affordable, not making it “illegal” to be uninsured.

Barack Obama “regularly” says that the solution to health care isn’t to make it illegal to be uninsured, Joe Klein.
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The question shouldn’t be “Can Democrats Govern?“, it should really be “Can Centrist Democrats Stop Lying about What They’ll Do When They Govern?”
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You cannot possibly be making the argument that the individual mandate is “an absolutely central and crucial part of health care reform” when Barack Obama ran a year-long campaign against the individual mandate, Joe Klein.
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If you do, you look like an amnesiac…or worse.

Ah, you mean the indigenous Indians, as opposed to the shiftless rascals who currently populate the region?

i completely agree with Joe.

adding to the word games:

the democratic party is incompetent at running this
country.

the republican party is prolific at ruining it.

I believe Joe feels so strongly about health-care reform because all other attempts to remove the malignant ghost of Hoekstra from behind his liver have failed. This may be Joe’s only chance to live as a human being with some dignity.

there’s a big difference between getting someone elected, and moving the country in the right direction.

Exactly, Mitch, but Joe would rather fling around “Deaniacs” and the like because he’s more concerned with bashing the left than he is with the actual particulars of the bill (in classic Third Way/DLC style).
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As I noted to Joe in my post at the top of this dung heap, the last time the centrist Dems were in control, we lost the House and the Senate, and, ultimately, the presidency. The Dem centrists, led by Joe’s buddies like Al From and the DLC, drove the party off an ideological cliff where the Beltway insiders were eager to curry favor from the the same corporate interests that had rewarded the GOP for decades.

Finally, after being on the “outs” for a decade, we won back control of all three branches. And now we’re prepared to piss it all away — again — with more pathetic corporate-friendly “centrism.” This at a time when populist outrage from all quarters is at a fever pitch.
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Talk about “tone deaf.”
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The sad truth is that things like real health care reform or serious attempts to battle climate change or even getting out of costly, needless wars will not happen until campaign financing gets reformed. And that will never happen because both parties rely on the favor of big business to get re-elected.
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Joe Klein is Exhibit A for all that is wrong inside Washington.

adam, unfortunately, issues in this country will continue to be dominated by the money of corporate interests until such time as there is serious campaign reform.
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There will never be serious campaign reform while issues like serious campaign reform are dominated by the money of corporate interests.
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The sick, sad truth of American politics.

i see your medications have worn off. If you’d fought for the government to negotiate with drug companies to lower the price, as they do in “socialist” Canada, you might not be in your current sad state.

State militias? -coast guards too? Private fire departments, no FBI, CIA… No Armed Forces, only private security (the GE Army perhaps, Boeing Air Force). F the police? … its a slippery slope you know. I can hardly wait to start my garden, first let me rip up the asphalt in front of my place. I didn’t realize you were an anarchist, Rusty.

jake2008:
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I’m so sorry for your situation, truly I am, but the hard truth is that your desperation is being exploited by a political clique for their own ends, not yours.
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It’s not that the perfect is getting in the way of the good, it’s that this particular legislation that the Senate and the White House are pushing is bad.
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When insurers raise premiums again, and Republicans run and win on attacking the health insurance subsidies that they will say are driving up the premium prices for everybody, you will see whatever gains proffered to the few by this legislation evaporate.
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By pitting us against each other, by putting the minority of people who might have something to gain from passage against the vast majority who either won’t see any improvement or will be and feel worse off than before, centrists are setting the country up for a hard time in hard times. They themselves will be the first to put health care subsidies on the chopping block when they begin to suspect that the right is ascendant again. Remember Bill Clinton’s “welfare reform”? The centrists won’t hesitate to take what they’ve handed down to you away when they feel threatened, and that will leave…the industry welfare they’ve designed into law.
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The centrists are the ones telling you that the perfect is the enemy of the good, but they’re the ones that have been dangling this desperately needed help in front of your face for the past year, and dithering and dithering while people’s lives were at stake. They’re the ones saying “our way or the highway”, not liberals.
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The centrist Dem health care reform legislation is bad, jake2008, and the extent that it helps any ordinary families at all is a hammer that this clique’s supporters use to hang over the heads of the people who actually care about policy helping anyone.
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Please try to see that you’re being manipulated by this “liberals can’t get all they want, so they’re screwing everyone” line coming out of this bad legislation’s apologists, jake2008. I’m very, very sorry, but these despicable people are simply using your hope as a political weapon.
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Thanks so much for reading and considering this, jake2008.

“The moral responsibility of the insurers is obvious.”
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Yes, well, THEY’RE F*CKING CORPORATIONS, you idiot. Financial entities, not being, you know, human beings, are amoral just like rocks and trees and the car you drove to work in this morning.
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Only wingers and Beltway “centrists” brainwashed in Randian idiocy promulgated by corporate owners believe that corprations can be expected to behave in a moral fashion. The rest of us know that those behaviors must be mandated and enforced by government, which doesn’t happen when corporations control the government. And this finally accomplished takeover of the Congress by corporate lobbyists is exactly why the country is currently so f*cked-up and why all of the silly bloviating of you and your peers (see: Can Democrats Govern?), who dare not mention the elephant in the room, is usually wrong and always irrelevant.

palin, is that an excuse? what i’m saying is that party interests (as well as corporate ones) can be just as much to blame. …especially when they feel (as you seem to) that their positions are more deserved.

spob,

You are absolutely right concerning the question regarding a constituional violation of rights. As a civil libertarian, I don’t think I could support a mandate to purchase insurance.

However, almost all of us will get medical treatment whether we want it or not. If we go to the emergerncy room and we don’t have insurance and no money, who should pay?

The hospital? the insurance industry? those how have insurance? Someone has to pay.

A solution? Collect a tax from everyone which goes to pay for the uninsured. If you have insurance, and show proof, then you don’t have to pay the tax. That way, if you don’t want to buy insurance, you pay into a pool for the uninsured.

How we heat our homes with wood from the surrounding forests.

lol
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Exactly how long do you suppose the forests will last with 300+ million people living in America today? Do you think there will actually be enough arable land for everyone to support themselves? What happens when your little home garden gets destroyed by hail storms, flooding, pests, or even looting? Is your garden big enough to actually supply yourself with food year-round by itself?
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I never took you for the irrational Libertarian type, but it certainly puts your paranoia in context. I bet your answer would be to have people die in the streets until the population shrinks to a self-sustaining level (which would include you and your family, of course).

My point, adam, is that the interests of average citizens will only be served when they align with the interests of the deep-pocket funders of campaigns.
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That’s how it is. There is no mystery to it.

My point, of course, is that the news coverage has completely blown off this issue.

I am going away for a while and I am going to be happy to read the local papers in Europe. There is enough blame to go around on both sides and for all the brainpower that resides in our country we seem to be led by the nose by those who exercise power while being manipulated by special interests, wonks and those who opine with such assurance.

The WH never took the lead on the HCD. True, Obama spoke about the PO outside Washington, and he dealt out bromides designed to reassure us. And while we were watching Peek-a-Boo Span he made his deal with Pharma (Bill Tauzin: great job). Everything else just gobbled up time on tv, in print and in the blogs. But Rahm has done his usual ramming.

Now, like the last and unlamented WH, the current occupants have been too clever by half. And many of those who held forth eloquently about getting what we can had their own health care provided for. The New Orleans zoo was not for them. They did not line up for two days to get care.

So while one understands the realities of politics: the give little and take a lot style by those in power let us wait and see what rosy pictures will be presented to us come August 2010, what promises will be made and what grand feel good events will be concoted for the sheep.

Palin–

I’ve noticed that the asterisks are beginning to proliferate in a number of comments. I find them boring and not conducive to intelligent discourse. (The same can be said about self-serving blog links and long, long posts.) It may be time for us to review our policy on commenting, which more than a few of our readers find appallingly injudicious.

We’ve allowed a fair amount of freedom here in Swampland for several years, but freedom can be abused and destroyed. Don’t mess with it…and take your puerile anger down to the gym or the local park, go for a run, exhale.

Oh, Joe, you’re so civilized.
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You don’t use asterisks when you name call.

Let me get this straight Joe. Its okay for you to call people dumb simply because you don’t agree with them. But Palin is being mean to you so you are going to sick the high sheriffs on all of us. Guess what? You ain’t doing us any favors by allowing us to comment here. We are doing you the F**king favor by reading you what you post. 15,000 journalists have lost their jobs this year Joe and no one is reading your rag’s hard copy unless they are waiting to get a tooth pulled, so keep that in mind.

As opposed to your “world” redraven, my world is very bright and comfortable.
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But, there is a happy medium that can be achieved. What I do not want to see is a full blown Federal Government takeover of everything in our lives. That is what the progressive movement represents, and what “health care reform” starts.
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Before I will see this happen, yes, watching it all fall apart and die would be a better option than what Obama and the rest of the liberal progressives propose.
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One day there will not be enough resources for the world to sustain itself. Green this or that is simply a temporary fix. As you fight among the other city dwellers for food, killing each other to survive, the rest of us will keep on living as we have for the past 230+ years. We will simply turn off our TVs, and disconnect our internet. The carnage that is your world, will be yours. You ask for it, I hope you get it.

The moral responsibility of the insurers is obvious.

Yeah. Maximize shareholder value. And senior executive comp.

Medicare: 96 cents on the dollar to health care.

Private insurance: 69 cents on the dollar.

Making people buy crappy health insurance (that they can buy today!) is not reform. And pretending that is is not doing your job, Joe Klein.

Stuartzechman, Thanks for the comforting words. I’m sure they now see that their plight means nothing in the bigger picture. Maybe you can send a casserole to the funeral.

Uh, grason00 … isn’t the effective date of the legislation under debate 2013? Pass it today and it’s not going to save anyone’s bacon right away.

Joe Klein:

It may be time for us to review our policy on commenting, which more than a few of our readers find appallingly injudicious.

At your online publication’s peril, Joe Klein.
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I suggest you walk that threat back a bit, unless you truly believe that a traffic-less, value-less, literate comment-less blog is somehow a benefit to Time.com’s bottom line.
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If you’d like to begin the process of shouting your thoughts into an increasingly advertiser-poor void, go ahead and “review our policy on commenting.“

Wow, Joe clearly doesn’t like the rabble’s hostility. It’s almost like some of ‘em (dirty hippy Deaniacs the worst of the bunch) see reality for what it is. How ironic that his personally-affronted response should come right on the heels of SZ’s: “these despicable people are simply using your hope as a political weapon”
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Cuz don’t you get it Joe, in the opinion of nearly all of us here you’re one of those despicable individuals? Is it that hard to come to terms with, that your readership is, yes–I know it defies everything your work stands for–intelligent enough to come to their own conclusions about the issues of the day. And we think you’re a fatuous member of the predatory class.
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The anger present here isn’t reserved for you–don’t feel that special. You’re merely a convenient and alluring pt. to ridicule. But please, for the love of god, spare us the ‘progressives are obstructionist and irresponsible’ meme. I mean, hasn’t it ever occurred to you that it’s your DLC/centrist pals who are wrecking the country?
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Anyway, as palin-in-a-T says at 2:30, we’ve all seen this film before, we all know where it’s headed. The Obama presidency is like a bad remake of an earlier tragedy

grason00:

I’m sure they now see that their plight means nothing in the bigger picture. Maybe you can send a casserole to the funeral.

I’m guessing you mightn’t have read that part where I wrote:

The centrist Dem health care reform legislation is bad, jake2008, and the extent that it helps any ordinary families at all is a hammer that this clique’s supporters use to hang over the heads of the people who actually care about policy helping anyone.

Maybe you can put that hammer down now.

The performance of the HIC stocks surely indicates that this bill is good for Americans! LOL

http://www.google.ca/finance?q=NYSE:CI,NYSE:WLP,NYSE:AET,NYSE:UNH,NYSE:HUM,NYSE:CVH

The ironic thing about all of this is that if I started a blog called “Joe Klein Sucks,” it would garner a bigger audience than this blog where Joe Klein actually posts.

(The same can be said about self-serving blog links and long, long posts.)

Are you seriously resorting to TLDR? Really, Joe? I trust you’ll be compressing all of your future articles to tweet length then?

[...] at 4:42 pm Submit a Comment • Trackback (0) My reaction to today's sudden silliness is below. But both Jonathan Cohen of the New Republic and Ezra Klein of the Washington Post have weighed in [...]

“Can Democrats Govern?’
Bwaahaha, good one. What’s next? Republicans: Really the party of small gov’t!!
We all know the answer to this question already. It’s a big fat zero. .

Just stopped by to see what I was missing.
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Oh, never mind. Happy New Year; see you in 2010.

The mandate is actually entirely unnecessary. It’s something the insurance companies made up.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/15/health-care-heist-insurance-opinions-columnists-michael-maiello.html

How did I ever miss this thread filled with sunshine and group hugs? As for reviewing the policy on saying what we want…that’s a hoot. Most people just wouldn’t say anything if the comments are restricted. Or read for that matter.

Doesn’t Dean know that he is diminishing Obama by doing all of this? I understand his disappointment, but he’s making everything look chaotic. It appears Obama is not leading his own party. Enough.

Love ya rainbow but there is a reason that it appears that BHO isn’t leading his own party. He has punted this issue from day one.

Actually, Mr Klein, I think you are stunning example of how feckless leaders can be. Energized Democrats no longer wish to “compromise” away the very ideals that underlie party values for the sake of possibly maybe helping a few people out in 5 years (2014). The fact of the matter is that while I ardently support health care reform, the Senate version of the bill will clearly increase costs for those who presently pay entirely too much as it is and create a crisis for many more than the 30 million that are now uninsured! Furthermore, it creates an instant pool of 30 million more insureds for insurance companies without doing very much to contain these companies at all. Moral reform means limiting profit, capping it or preventing it. (Try 4% or so and no public trading!)

I will agree that the comment feed is in need of some basic rules. It would elevate the tone of the discussion.

Hey Jokeline, all premium caps have been stripped out of the LIEberman approved bill, so the insurance companies might have to insure you if you have preexisting conditions, but they can charge you whatever they want to do it. And the government will then spend hundreds of billions of dollars, taxpayer’s dollars, “subsidizing” the insurance industries outrageous premiums. Worse yet, the “subsidies” aren’t going to help the middle class one bit, they just get screwed yet again with higher premiums. The answer isn’t to increase the subsidies, it’s to cap what insurance companies can charge. This bill is a giveaway of an enormous scale of wealth from the people to the insurance industry.

So the shorthand of the proposed bill is:

1. Health insurers have to take everyone.
2. Everyone has to be insurance from the health insurance companies.

How, exactly, is this in the best interests of the American People? Oh, I forgot, we now define “people” as “giant corporations”.

If the bill still contained a public option, I would be completely in favor of the mandate. But to mandate that we buy in an open market with no stabilizing competitive force is ludicrous, unless the government will regulate health insurance rates and profitability.

Otherwise, why doesn’t the government just write a giant check to United Healthcare and be done with it?

It may be time for us to review our policy on commenting, which more than a few of our readers find appallingly injudicious
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(1) Who are these readers? Show us some of their complaints.
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(2) Where was Joe Klein the Civility Crusader when rusty called me gay, or when freeinpa threatened me with violence, or when rusty called for the genocide of the Japanese, or when 2thirdsrocks threatened a commenter with violence, or when Question Hillary was lesbian bashing?
Why, all of a sudden does Klein hit the fainting couch now. when palininatowel displays some passion for a subject?
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(3) Just how much money is TIME going to pay a monkey to sit and watch over the comments? Or will you just have Word Press crack down on the letter ‘F’?

Calls into question the ability of the Democrats to governor this country. Is that what we call what the Democrat are doing ignoring the wishes of the people. President Obama and the Democrats are far from governing. How about dictating, that sounds more like what the Democrats are doing. Let’s use words which truly identifies what the Democrats are doing. Does tone deaf ring a bell. How about it’s only a handful who objects to the government health care. It’s more then just a handful. The majority of the people reject what the Democrats are doing. Dean isn’t attacking the government health care because it doesn’t have the public option, that’s just an excuse because Dean even knows the theories and guarantees of President Obama aren’t achievable under any illusions of the mind.

The diluted bill that remains provides an increased “safety net” for medical coverage for the poor, and some increased bennies for the seniors on medicare. Otherwise, not much for any of the rest of us. Any requirements for the insurance companies will be offset by the increased costs to us for premiums and out-of-pocket charges. And in addition, people will be forced to purchase insurance, rather than pay for their medical services directly from their providers as they see fit. This is an obscene outcome for the American people. Big Pharma and the insurance companies have totally won. This Administration and legislature is a total sham.

“We will simply turn off our internet.” So why have you not done it already?

Every Rusty post I read reminds me of the hapless cop to whom Joe Pesci refers in “goodfellas”. “What are you still doing here? Didn’t I tell you to go and f@@@ your mother?”

Dear Joe,

All we ask is that you do your very best to avert your tender, oh-so-offendable eyes from comment-policy-rendering (and boring) asterisks and try just a bit harder to cull the dramatically informative (and glaringly obvious) substance of these carefully thought out and painstakingly rendered comments (you’re a writer I hear!). Here’s the unfailingly civil and non-asteriskly-impaired stuartzechman to try to explain to you why people are so f*cking mad:

By pitting us against each other, by putting the minority of people who might have something to gain from passage against the vast majority who either won’t see any improvement or will be and feel worse off than before, centrists are setting the country up for a hard time in hard times. They themselves will be the first to put health care subsidies on the chopping block when they begin to suspect that the right is ascendant again. Remember Bill Clinton’s “welfare reform”? The centrists won’t hesitate to take what they’ve handed down to you away when they feel threatened, and that will leave…the industry welfare they’ve designed into law.

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This may not be the typical anti-progressive, consequence-free, purely political hippie-punching exercise you’re used to (and Rahm thought it would be). It may never be again. Wake up and smell the revulsion.

Did I read correctly….? For 40 years you have “created” conclusions. You make conclusions….you are a concluder.
“Republicans aren’t interested in “governing” just “running” the Country.
Does “governing” mean “giving away”? Does “governing” mean running up debt now, and passing the costs forward to several next generations? Do you charge your purchases on your kids’ credit cards and let them be responsible for paying the debts that you created. I’ll bet that you don’t do that, and I’ll bet you don’t do that because you know it would irresponsible to do so. I’ll even bet that you’ve talked to your children about fiscal responsibility, about not living above their means. I bet you have. Have you charged purchases to your kids credit cards and given “gifts” to those people that will keep you in your job so you can continue to KEEP your job? Democrats love to give money and rewards to those voters that will continue to vote for them…their benefactors. If Democrats used their “own personal money” to buy votes, it would be none of my business how people spend their own money….but Democrats don’t give away their own money, they give away the taxpayer’s money. If I could give away YOUR money, I could quickly gather many new supportive friends, and if should then choose to run for an elected office, I KNOW I’d get the votes of all of my new supportive friends’ votes that I bought with your money.

SOME QUESTIONS:
1. Why can’t we have a public option?
2. Why should people be forced to buy insurance when they don’t even have jobs?
3. When private health insurance companies have spend billions lobbying against this health bill , where have they gotten that money from? whose money have they spend?
4. republicans have done nothing but put up hurdles against everything democrats are trying to do?
WHY? WHY?
5. Are Republicans in pocket of private health insurance companies?
6. Is Joe Leiberman really a democrat? he gave speeches at bush election convention then at John McCain republican election convention? What does he get when he is the sole man who talks against providing medicare to 55 and above group?
When he was for extending medicare to age 55 and above?
He is a liar then by his own account.
7. Joe Lieberamn voted for iraq war that has cost billions and he never talks about that? why?
8 Current economic crisis was caused by Republicans. And all republicans hav edone is put up hurdles and cricize what democrats have done to put an end to economic crisis?
_____________________
Democrats have dissensions but Repulicans vote in unison as if they have an agenda. No not as if but they do have an agenda.

Can democrats govern- yes they are doing it but they are not as sleazy as Republicans are.

History of Ukraine contains all roads which pass through its state is the state of the Black and Caspian Sea states of Europe and the Russian Federation and Belarus and the Baltic States. In this environment, Ukraine was and will be, but you should know about the many communities of national minorities in Ukraine, which should assist the indigenous population to win the victory over Russian chauvinism and cynicism.
Many professors from the science of physics know what the torsion fields, which affect the human brain, and at different frequencies program commands to perform the person will be in it in the brain. This experiment was prepared and holding extensive amount in Ukraine during the Orange Revolution, the square of the capital and major cities of Ukraine. During the Orange Revolution, where I took part in rallies, I was surprised by the behavior of a video camera operator, who runs a video camera on the faces of people actively speakers for Yushchenko and Ukraine’s future. Why people who participated in the election of President Yushchenko and the future of Ukraine, located in a large garden and joy (remember the first speech by President of Czechia) after the election. I am a former journalist was surprised not competent operator, because the video camera does not include dae signal on a video shoot. To me, at my invitation arriving Jaroslav Ksonzhek, Consul of Poland, where our conversation and confirmed abuse of the Moscow government. It turns out that Moscow is continuing research to control and possess the human brain. It turns out that Putin is in this regard will have the state not only Europe and America but to solve their business programs. Carrying gas pipe through the Baltic States. I want to thank the many Jew for their help when I conducted an investigation, rabbi warned their communities do not come to the square, then be bad for health and psychological disorder. In order to save not only the state president, people, foreign embassies are located in Ukraine, I send the mail letters and telegrams to the President, but in the presidential administration or the children sit or bureaucrats. I understand that Ukraine is very far from your country and therefore should be realistic and simple plan for withdrawal from such situations. You may be surprised by my feeling high torsion fields “But I believe in God and constantly attend Protestant church Evangelicals, Bible study, psychology, folklore, cultural studies, analytics, folk music and songs. Second great experience to travel by military enterprises of when I worked in a factory where assembly consisted of turbines in Krivoy Rog. So I like the saying: The wisdom of man checks only way direction and goals. To convey to the President of Ukraine is a question I have for the first time in its life wrote a letter to the USА Embassy Vil’yamu Taylor, knowing that letters to foreign embassies can check (I wrote the text of the letter to enter a deadlock that people check messages on Post Office in Kiev ) counting on professional psychologists embassy. Maybe my innocence and romanticism great kindness not give me a quiet life, so I thought that everything will be like in the movies. For example, Come from Kiev or the USА embassy good man, and on home phone inviting meeting in Dnipropetrovsk administration and great pity it is all fairy tale, which shows in the film. How can I feel a major role analysis on various issues when I sent a fax wife Ekaterina Yushchenko president and then president’s wife appealed to the USА Ambassador (because her aides have not read Catherine fax). So no one sees me as an expert, thinking that I am working with the USА Embassy, President of Ukraine in 2006, invited himself to the USА Ambassador and the Ambassador of Poland. Unfortunately there is not securing for copyrights. Very please note the danger, that Russia may give your country, and protect my copyright on intellectual property, to realize their potential to the benefit of our good relations. Now, please imagine if Russia can use the torsion field during military operations as well as in public (panic, revolution, rebellion and what you want) to be a civil war and chaos in the elections and other companies. If Russia will send a torsion field in the brain of miners from the city of Donetsk, what then will be in Kiev?. Why do I appeal to you Your Majesty, for help! Because you are a patriot of the United States Americas and the state can imagine that a person before the rally (The action darling) can drink tea or coffee active liquid, the influence of torsion fields resulting in a mutation of the body!. This is a question that I have studied, we save lives and you and the President of the United States Americas and many people! And the main thing that Ms. Catherine Chumachenko was born in the United States and was the square with the children. With great respect to you and hope for your tolerance and kindness, Your Majesty. And for me there will be enormous gladness when any man will arrive to me in guests that could make sure in veracity of my moral principles.

Valeriy Kharchenko, son of Mary Chumachenko father Vladimir Kharchenko. Kirovograd region, Dolinsky district, village Vasylivka.

city DNIPROPETROVSK 49029
Street. Заміська 39-1
phone mobile 380985052947
home 38056 7166470

UKRAINE

Only the huge sponsor for dictators and a victory to a bad mode of authority, is our indifference, a negligence, егоизм and a sluggishness in правельных decisions of questions!
Valery Harchenko, the culturologist of Ukraine.
xarchenko2009@meta.ua

I send mail (my paper) *appeal to your people*, for you, so you know.
History of Ukraine contains all roads which pass through its state is the state of the Black and Caspian Sea states of Europe and the Russian Federation and Belarus and the Baltic States. In this environment, Ukraine was and will be, but you should know about the many communities of national minorities in Ukraine, which should assist the indigenous population to win the victory over Russian chauvinism and cynicism.
Many professors from the science of physics know what the torsion fields, which affect the human brain, and at different frequencies program commands to perform the person will be in it in the brain. This experiment was prepared and holding extensive amount in Ukraine during the Orange Revolution, the square of the capital and major cities of Ukraine. During the Orange Revolution, where I took part in rallies, I was surprised by the behavior of a video camera operator, who runs a video camera on the faces of people actively speakers for Yushchenko and Ukraine’s future. Why people who participated in the election of President Yushchenko and the future of Ukraine, located in a large garden and joy (remember the first speech by President of Czechia) after the election. I am a former journalist was surprised not competent operator, because the video camera does not include dae signal on a video shoot. To me, at my invitation arriving Jaroslav Ksonzhek, Consul of Poland, where our conversation and confirmed abuse of the Moscow government. It turns out that Moscow is continuing research to control and possess the human brain. It turns out that Putin is in this regard will have the state not only Europe and America but to solve their business programs. Carrying gas pipe through the Baltic States. I want to thank the many Jew for their help when I conducted an investigation, rabbi warned their communities do not come to the square, then be bad for health and psychological disorder. In order to save not only the state president, people, foreign embassies are located in Ukraine, I send the mail letters and telegrams to the President, but in the presidential administration or the children sit or bureaucrats. I understand that Ukraine is very far from your country and therefore should be realistic and simple plan for withdrawal from such situations. You may be surprised by my feeling high torsion fields “But I believe in God and constantly attend Protestant church Evangelicals, Bible study, psychology, folklore, cultural studies, analytics, folk music and songs. Second great experience to travel by military enterprises of when I worked in a factory where assembly consisted of turbines in Krivoy Rog. So I like the saying: The wisdom of man checks only way direction and goals. To convey to the President of Ukraine is a question I have for the first time in its life wrote a letter to the USА Embassy Vil’yamu Taylor, knowing that letters to foreign embassies can check (I wrote the text of the letter to enter a deadlock that people check messages on Post Office in Kiev ) counting on professional psychologists embassy. Maybe my innocence and romanticism great kindness not give me a quiet life, so I thought that everything will be like in the movies. For example, Come from Kiev or the USА embassy good man, and on home phone inviting meeting in Dnipropetrovsk administration and great pity it is all fairy tale, which shows in the film. How can I feel a major role analysis on various issues when I sent a fax wife Ekaterina Yushchenko president and then president’s wife appealed to the USА Ambassador (because her aides have not read Catherine fax). So no one sees me as an expert, thinking that I am working with the USА Embassy, President of Ukraine in 2006, invited himself to the USА Ambassador and the Ambassador of Poland. Unfortunately there is not securing for copyrights. Very please note the danger, that Russia may give your country, and protect my copyright on intellectual property, to realize their potential to the benefit of our good relations. Now, please imagine if Russia can use the torsion field during military operations as well as in public (panic, revolution, rebellion and what you want) to be a civil war and chaos in the elections and other companies. If Russia will send a torsion field in the brain of miners from the city of Donetsk, what then will be in Kiev?. Why do I appeal to you Your Majesty, for help! Because you are a patriot of the United States Americas and the state can imagine that a person before the rally (The action darling) can drink tea or coffee active liquid, the influence of torsion fields resulting in a mutation of the body!. This is a question that I have studied, we save lives and you and the President of the United States Americas and many people! And the main thing that Ms. Catherine Chumachenko was born in the United States and was the square with the children. With great respect to you and hope for your tolerance and kindness, Your Majesty. And for me there will be enormous gladness when any man will arrive to me in guests that could make sure in veracity of my moral principles.

Valeriy Kharchenko, son of Mary Chumachenko father Vladimir Kharchenko. Kirovograd region, Dolinsky district, village Vasylivka.

city DNIPROPETROVSK 49029
Street. Заміська 39-1
phone mobile 380985052947
home 38056 7166470

UKRAINE xarchenko2009@meta.ua

abdullah69
I’ve never seen a positive comment from you on this website. Why don’t you drop your anger and make a positive contribution to the discussions.
rusty is one of only a couple conservatives who post here. Without him and the 1 or 2 others you only have liberals and extreme liberals debating each other.
Solutions are best when we look at both sides of an issue.
People are not evil because they have different beliefs than you. It is Un-American to demonize someone simply because they disagree with you.

Joe
Are you shocked to learn how bitter and far left many of your commenters are? From my view you fall into the Liberal camp. Most of these posts are from people who fall into the ultra liberal-progressive camp. They are a small fringe element in our body politics much like the ultra conservatives.
They will always be off the charts but will never be a real player in our political system.

Keep up the good work but try to be a little less biased in your coverage of the President. Sometimes it appears you too often are feeling that warmth running up and down your leg when your writing about President Obama.

I’m not particularly afraid of what Obama might do, Rusty.
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And as far as “real” America being self-sufficient, I think one only has to look back to the days before rural subsidies were first introduced.
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I’d do a dbl check on that American History you’re reading, because it’s not the right version.
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You also might look outside. You see those fire horses? Everyone has one nowadays. They are called cars. I have a fire horse too. That black rocky trail like thing they ride their fire horses on? Those are roads. And they are expensive.
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The point of all this?
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This is 2009, not 1809…

[...] a comment » TIME’s Joe Klein sums it up pretty well here: Universal health care is predicated on two mandates: The insurers have to provide it to everyone [...]

not only are the asterisks getting boring, but so is this self-sacred set of commenters we see on every post day after day.

“I suggest you walk that threat back a bit, unless you truly believe that a traffic-less, value-less, literate comment-less blog is somehow a benefit to Time.com’s bottom line.”

…ridiculous!

I’m disappointed how many people immediately came to palinina’s defense and went after Joe when he suggested maybe that kind of language was inappropriate.

There is a reason there are asterisks in there, it is foul language and as such it doesn’t add any value to your argument. Lashing out with curse words only suggests you can’t effectively counter their position. I’m not saying that is the case here, only that it undermines your position by being off-putting to those who aren’t similarly passionate.

In short, starting your post with “F**k you Joe” makes you sound like an angry irrational crazy person, and I stop wanting to listen to anything you have to say.

I have a solution to the Health Insurance Problem. Make every insurance company that sells health insurance Non-profit. No more stockholders to worry about. I have a medicare Advantage Plan that is non-profit, for seniors, run by seniors. It’s called SCAN.

Can Republocrats govern? Ha ha ha…. Sure they can…. Give everyone everything, it’s so easy. Free health insurance for all! Unlimited healthcare! Give them bread, circuses, and never ending entitlements! Lets fire up the printing presses next and print up a million dollars for every citizen! The lunacy of the current crop of Republocrats is astounding… You Republocrats are F*ing INSANE. Seriously, you do know that we have to pay for all this, right? We are literally INSOLVENT as a nation. Next step is BANKRUPTCY.

Oh, and these batsh*t crazy Republocrats actually want the same gov’t that bankrupted social security and medicare to run their healthcare! Everything the gov’t touches turns to sh*t! What we should have learned after 9/11 and Katrina was that those who expect government at any level to do anything more complex than garbage collection are inattentive.

Oh, and the $10,000 question for you Republocrats: Why do you want to turn your healthcare into a giant ponzi scheme?

[...] People Is Good Here’s Joe Klein’s reaction last week to the news that Democracy for America, the group that grew out of Howard Dean’s [...]