Bart Stupak Has Hope

Bart Stupak can rot in hell.

Let him vote aye first.

If Stupak succeeds and this bill passes, we know that Republicans will have less to attack the bill with.

Stupak is an a-hole. The Hyde amendment is still law. Perhaps the 1 in 3 to 4 pregnancies that result in miscarriage would lessen if people had better pre-natal care, but he doesn’t seem to care.
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I wonder btw if Amy Sullivan has a poster of him up on her wall.

Please. Stupak doesn’t crap about health care reform. Abortion is just a pseudo-principled excuse for blocking it until the insurance industry gives him the green light. Stupak pulls his Hamlet routine, wherein his conscience just won’t let him cut industry profits use tax dollars pay for a legal procedure performed by a licensed physician.

I realize trying to discuss facts with an ideologue like Stupak is a waste of time, but does anyone know how he gets from providing health insurance to “expanding abortion rights”? In his mind, people with money have rights that people without money don’t? Interest point of view for a professed Christian who also took an oath to uphold the Constitution.

Maybe Amy “Abortion Girl” Sullivan (since she no longer answers to “Bible Girl” can explain it to us.

Stupak: ” I think we can get there.”

No. As the expression goes, “You can’t get there from here.” Nobody can get anywhere from where you are. Certainly not HCR. You threw your bible into the gears, and the serious bible thumpers even hate you.

Thanks. You are a putz.

People never think that way on the left or on the right since miscarriages are preventable but not intentional.
By Democratic numbers, 45,000 people or about 123 Americans per day are dying prematurely due to not having health care and some of the more liberal Democrats, including many commenting here still want to kill the bill.

Only 29.3 out of every 1,000 young women actually have abortions and I would not be surprised if a huge percentage of those are due to rape, incest and risk to the woman’s life as pro-life groups and Republicans have no problem with.

From the AP article:
Stupak’s hard-line position has made him a lightning rod for abortion-rights supporters. Some accuse the 18-year lawmaker, a Roman Catholic, of allowing religious beliefs and personal opposition to abortion to jeopardize health reform. He denies it, saying the pro-choice side raised the issue by making the health bill a vehicle to expand abortion rights.
Anti-abortion lawmakers last summer urged House leaders to keep abortion out of the health debate “because it’s too divisive,” Stupak said. “So what did they do? They injected it into the debate. Everyone thinks I did; I did not.”
Of course, since the reporter works for Ron Fournier, Stupak’s nonsensical assertions go unchallenged.

I don’t recall where, when, or why, but I recently watched Stupak in some committee in the inner sanctum of the idiot palace question one of the health care CEO pigs about their salary. After the pig, with a straight face, proclaimed a gazillion unwarranted dollars as their compensation, Stupak sarcastically said something to the effect that he could understand the need for big premium increases. It was a bizarre moment, knowing that he was a principal in blocking progress. He was part of the pig’s team, and yet was critical of the pig. Get it? The joke’s on us.

More quotes from known liars please.

This is a joke, right?

“So is there some language that we can agree on that hits both points – we don’t restrict, we don’t expand abortion rights? I think we can get there.”
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As luck would have it, Bart, that language actually exists.
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It’s called The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. You might have heard it referred to as “the Senate bill” and it repeatedly bends over backwards to make it clear that there will be no restriction and no expansion of abortion rights. Seriously, it’s as plain as day.
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http://dpc.senate.gov/dpcdoc-sen_health_care_bill.cfm
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I’m starting to get the sense that Bart hasn’t actually read the bill but is complaining about it anyway. No wonder the tea party crowd loves him.

By Democratic numbers, 45,000 people or about 123 Americans per day are dying prematurely due to not having health care and some of the more liberal Democrats, including many commenting here still want to kill the bill.

Let’s say the number isn’t 45,000, let’s say it’s 10,000 people.
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Is that enough people to hold the rest of us hostage to a bad bill that makes the system bilking all of us harder to fundamentally change?
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How many deaths can you buy votes with?
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5,000 innocent deaths?
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1,000?
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100?
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10?
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1?
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How can any of us vote against a bill that saves the lives of an individual person per day?
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Unless…the purpose of health care reform isn’t to save the lives of the unfortunate people to whom Medicaid will be extended through the states.
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Health Care Reform is meant to save everyone in this nation from living at the mercy of a system that doesn’t operate in their interests, and that is slowly squeezing all of us to death.
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You might also want to consider that not everyone in this country is as receptive to arguments like “we must act now to save these other people over there, while you get nothing in hard times” as a certain kind of liberal is. Not everyone likes being told that they’re essentially genocidal murderers if they want something better out of health care reform for their own families.

Hey Bart, the language you want is already law. You child.

“….is that enough people to hold the rest of us hostage to a bad bill that makes the system bilking all of us harder to fundamentally change?”

Even assuming that the Senate version goes through without adding in the public option, how would showing SOME improvement convince Americans to stop reforming health care?

When Americans did not believe in government involvement for job creation, did the creation of the WPA make future job creations HARDER or EASIER to do?

First, we get through a mediocre bill.
Second, if it is not already in the version we pass, we put in the public option.
Third, without bloated CEO salaries and the need to pay off share holders, the public option will be the best and force private businesses to either have very modest CEO pay and very modest profits, or shut them down completely using market forces.

Since this makes more sense to me that believing that we can prove to the American people that the government can reform health care by killing our own bill (and this is the SIXTH president to promise universal health coverage) I would not say that an imperfect bill holding US hostage but, we are holding the UNINSURED hostage while so many people want to hold out for perfection.

Will you do me a great favor, patricksartor?
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Will you please try to structure your commentary with a “.” character in between lines, so that it’s more readable?

By Jingo! You’re right. There it is in black and white, with its own prominent link and everything. Maybe some entreprising non-Fournier reporter could ask Stupak where in that language he sees the expansion of abortion rights.

But if Stupak admitted (or grasped) that his theme is crapola, he would deny himself his Lieberman Moment.

I know it’s conventional wisdom that UPers are a little odd, but this one’s just slimy.

1) It’s not an imperfect bill, it’s a bad bill
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2) the bill won’t show the vast majority of Americans any improvement
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3) the minuscule public option has no bearing on anything if it isn’t tied to Medicare reimbursement rates, and nationally regulated
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4) there is much less likelihood of future “fixes,” the opposite is true: there is much more likelihood of Medicaid and subsidy rollbacks
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5) the uninsureds’ needs aren’t more important than the rest of us, they’re just more urgent.
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Where was the Administration, where were Congressional Democrats speaking for the daily genocide when Landrieu, Nelson, and Lieberman were holding up the bill? Where was Max Baucus when every day he spent diddling with Chuck Grassley was another day in the genocide of 45,000 innocent deaths?
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How can you possibly hold the President blameless for the hundreds of thousands of people dying every day, at least according to you?
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This is a talking point, one that’s meant to be effective against liberal opposition, that’s all. It’s being trotted out against liberals now, because there’s nothing else for them to stand on. It’s a threat: “support legislation you know is bad for the country, or more hostages will die“.
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We’re the only idiots that take that seriously, nobody else does.

Ignoring the ellipsis
“is that enough people to hold the rest of us hostage to a bad bill that makes the system bilking all of us harder to fundamentally change?”

First, when has ANY new government agency or new policy been started which was much better than mediocre at it’s beginning? If there are any, they are very few. Nearly all of them start out weak and get better with new amendments and changes after they become law.

Second, since most bills are just restructuring of existing laws or institutions, why is every liberal opponent of health care reform going on the assumption that things will not be tweaked.

Third, as far as the religious right goes, most of them view Republicans as the pro-life party and Democrats as the abortion party. So, if this bill does take on some additional things which would lean towards the pro-life side, then Republican anger would be only from CEOs of Health insurance companies, not religious groups.

Imagine you are a typical independent voter. You have a stressful job. You have a spouse and children. You have two thousand channels of entertainment on cable. You see five minutes about your congressional campaign and you have a Democrat seeking reelection if Health Care Reform fails to pass. The Democratic congressman is ineptly telling you that sinking our own health care reform is good. Before the Republican ad comes before the voter, the voter is sold on voting Republican no matter who it is since Democrats would be the party of confusion to them.

Pass the bill. It is imperfect. The voter sees the same Democrat cheering about who health care reform helps. The Republican can’t even bring out Jesus Christ to fight the Democrat if there is no funding for abortion at all. The voter goes Democratic.

Next, the Democrat comes back in 2011 and proposes new changes.

“1) It’s not an imperfect bill, it’s a bad bill
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2) the bill won’t show the vast majority of Americans any improvement”

Just by getting the uninsured to doctor’s offices rather than emergency rooms will reduce costs of hospitalization very dramatically and, since most uninsured go to emergency rooms when they are in a much later stage than they would with health care, the costs of doctors is dramatically less than going to hospital.

“3) the minuscule public option has no bearing on anything if it isn’t tied to Medicare reimbursement rates, and nationally regulated”

If Medicare reimbursement does not go down, a huge Republican talking point is decimated.

“4) there is much less likelihood of future “fixes,” the opposite is true: there is much more likelihood of Medicaid and subsidy rollbacks”

More so if the Republicans win. Far less so if Democrats can keep congress due to succeeding at something for a change.

Are you arguing for single payer or nothing at all?

So, no, you’re not going to do me that favor, and make your commentary readable, instead of a long vomit WITH occasional ALL CAPS inserted for emphasis?

Now it’s about capital letters.
And my comments are a “vomit”?
Do you have vision problems?
Should I double space my sentences?
Extra large type?

Let me “vomit” this more clearly:
We do have universal coverage right now.
If you are ill and can not afford a doctor, you are in an emergency room.

Hence, just giving the uninsured access to insurance right away creates savings by having them go to the doctor instead of an emergency room. Also, annual checkups are wonderful at catching illnesses early on. Uninsured people can not do this. Hence, we do take care of these forty five million after they are more ill.

Pass this bill or, better yet, include the public option and savings will be small to start with.
After that, there will be less ammunition for Republicans to attack health care with.

Lean it somewhat further towards the conservative pro-life side and there will be no religious opposition, either.

Then we will find out from experience what needs to be done to fix it.

Well, It didnt take a lot of arm-twisting for Bart to be “enlightened” .. But I guess some more would help move things along.

So you’re here just to rant, and not have a productive discussion?
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I’ll ask you one more time:
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Would you please format your commentary so that it is more readable?
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The single paragraph format you’re dashing out is a big, block of illegible text.
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This has nothing to do with the fact that I disagree with you, and that you’re mis-characterizing my arguments, it has to do with the weird problem you have understanding that it’s helpful to others to put line breaks in your commentary.

*Let me “vomit” this more clearly:

*We do have universal coverage right now.
If you are ill and can not afford a doctor, you are in an emergency room.

*Hence, just giving the uninsured access to insurance right away creates savings by having them go to the doctor instead of an emergency room.

* Also, annual checkups are wonderful at catching illnesses early on. Uninsured people can not do this. Hence, we do take care of these forty five million after they are more ill.

*Pass this bill or, better yet, include the public option and savings will be small to start with.
After that, there will be less ammunition for Republicans to attack health care with.

*Lean it somewhat further towards the conservative pro-life side and there will be no religious opposition, either.

*Then we will find out from experience what needs to be done to fix it.

*This is not a “rant” or a “vomit”.

*For what it is worth a vast majority of this comes from what I read about when I was a night school student at Harvard.

*Chat rooms tied to Harvard classes do not require as much formatting as you are requesting.

* I always did well on my papers, so, I had not expected you to find this so unreadable.

*”you’re mis-characterizing my arguments”

*Please explain.

LOL
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Dude, you’re incredible!

* At what?

*Not at getting enough money to finish college.

* That is why I am self employed and uninsured (but healthy).

I just saw a great takedown of Stupak from Rachel Maddow (H/T to John Cole):
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http://www.balloon-juice.com/2010/03/05/rachel-maddow-is-shrill/
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The gist is that Stupak is a giant lying douche who lies about his involvement with the Family and C Street.

After that, there will be less ammunition for Republicans to attack health care with.
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patricksartor: Hey, I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention or not, but that’s not actually going to happen.
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If you were paying attention, then you would have noticed that the Republicans aren’t attacking health care reform with actual criticisms.
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Instead, and this is important, they make sh*t up and then attack health reform with that sh*t that they just made up.
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Examples include:
*Death panels
*Government takeover of industry
*The US having the best health care system in the world
*Reconciliation being unconstitutional and never used for anything besides deficit reduction
*The notion that targeted cuts to Medicare will negatively impact old people
*Health care rationing
*Comparative effectiveness research will actually hurt patients
*Tort reform will save significant amounts of money
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The only argument to take place about the shape of health care reform has been between the left and the center-left.
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We’ve already seen what happens when Democrats bend over backwards to include Republican ideas in HCR:
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Nothing.
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Absolutely nothing, because Republicans don’t want health care reform.
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The only thing more compromise will do is hurt more people and drive more people into bankruptcy.

What a lengthy exchange, just had to correct this one thing:
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“Only 29.3 out of every 1,000 young women actually have abortions and I would not be surprised if a huge percentage of those are due to rape, incest and risk to the woman’s life”
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I’m not sure about the “risk to the woman’s life” category but as far as rape and incest go it’s less than 2%. Believing that rape/incest abortions happen often is a common misconception.

Geez Stuart. What’s up with you. I usually admire your use of logic and reason when detailing your point of view. When did you become so impatient with other’s postings? Vomit?

That seems to be the mo of C Street roomies. Denial.

Is that enough people to hold the rest of us hostage to a bad bill that makes the system bilking all of us harder to fundamentally change?

I normally respect your posts Stuart, but what exactly are you attempting to claim here and with what evidence? Do you have proof that passing this bill will make the system “harder to fundamentally change?” Or are you just assuming it will?
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Unless you’re able to bust out some prophetic links, I think anyone could reasonably pose a counter-claim that the passage of this bill is just as likely to make future reform easier on top of saving someone every 12 minutes. As for this:

How many deaths can you buy votes with?

I would assume you could reasonably get one vote per life saved.

Yeah, but it’d be great if we could get some more journalists to point this out.
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Let’s say, for instance, Scherer might start thinking, “Here is a quote from Bart Stupak. But he is a known liar, so I should make note of that in my writing, so that my readers are well-informed.”
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That would be great. I would love that.

I second the ‘geez’, SZ. For someone complaining about other people mischaracterizing your points, you don’t do yourself any favors by turning Patrick’s

“45,000 people or about 123 Americans per day”

into

“the hundreds of thousands of people dying every day, at least according to you”

I expect better from you.
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Out of curiosity, since I haven’t seen you address these before (not to say you haven’t just that I haven’t seen it):
1) How exactly do you see the death of current HCR and likely subsequent dem losses as a clearer path towards your preferred plan than actually getting the legislation through? Specifically, how would the current legislation make it harder to fundamentally change HC compared with the difficulties that would arise due to failure with this attempt?
2) Have you ever supported legislation that didn’t help every American, but instead some fraction thereof? Should civil rights legislation be shunned if it holds the majority of the country hostage to improve the lot of some minority?
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Thanks in advance for replying SZ, I always find your posts thought provoking.

Huh…..
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I’m guessing Pelosi is struggling to replace Stupak’s suspected dozen.

Who are you and what have you done with Stuart???!!!

“As luck would have it, Bart, that language actually exists.”

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As “luck” would have it, this is the part that most object with in the Senate version of the bill.
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“Enrollees are Guaranteed Access to Varied Coverage in the Exchanges. The Secretary must ensure that in each Exchange, there is at least one plan available that covers abortions beyond those allowed by Hyde and at least one plan that does not cover abortions beyond those permitted by Hyde.”

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In other words, with Government funds, there will be at least one plan in the Exchange in which women who choose to abort their unborn child will be covered. Paid for by tax dollars, at least it is not clear if tax dollars cannot be used.
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Perhaps this is the Stupak rationale for saying “we’re close, but not there yet” statement. Perhaps if the language is cleaned up a bit to say “No Federal Dollars will be allowed for abortions” is put into the bill specifically, Stupak and the other Demos will vote for this insane bill.
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But, that would be a change to the bill. A change which would not be considered passable under reconciliation.
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A change which would require the Senate bill to go back to the Senate for a re-vote, not under reconciliation but the 60 vote rule.
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A change which would not allow the passage of the bill because Democrats do not have the necessary votes in the Senate.
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The untold story of why Obama is failing miserably. The untold story by TIME.com which shall never see the light of day. The real reason for the failure of healthcare reform, which is not the lack of Stupak Abortion language.
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“The root of the problem seems to be the management of expectations. The magnificent campaign created the notion that Mr Obama could walk on water. Oddly enough, he can’t. That was more Mr Axelrod’s fault than Mr Emanuel’s. And, to be fair to Mr Emanuel, any advice he has been giving the President to impose his will on Congress is probably well founded. The $783 billion stimulus package of a year ago was used to further the re-election prospects of many congressmen, not to do good for the country. America’s politics remain corrupt, populated by nonentities whose main concern once elected is to stay elected; it seems to be the same the whole world over. Even this self-interested use of the stimulus package appears to have failed, however. Every day, it seems, another Democrat congressman announces that he will not be fighting the mid-term elections scheduled for November 2. The health care Bill, apparently so humane in intent, is being “scrubbed” (to use the terminology of one Republican) by its opponents, to the joy of millions of middle Americans who see it as a means to waste more public money and entrench socialism. For the moment, this is a country vibrant with anger.”

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/7396358/The-end-of-the-road-for-Barack-Obama.html
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“Mr Obama benefited in his campaign from an idiotic level of idolatry, in which most of the media participated with an astonishing suspension of cynicism. The sound of the squealing of brakes is now audible all over the American press; but the attack is being directed not at the leader himself, but at those around him.”

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So is TIME.com still on the Obambi band-wagon or not? We ask, you decide.
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Perhaps it is more that Americans have awakened from the Obama stupor they were in from the time of the 2008 campaign, and are really listening to what Obama and his advisors are saying. Maybe the people are hearing what Obama is saying and rejecting it outright.
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Our “friends” from across the pond are in a unique position. They see and hear what is happening, and they tell the truth. The truth that our media neglects to report day in and day out.
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They neglect to report that healthcare reform is not the overpowering issue at this time. They neglect to report that it is all about JOBS.
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It’s the ECONOMY STUPID!!

In other words, with Government funds, there will be at least one plan in the Exchange in which women who choose to abort their unborn child will be covered. Paid for by tax dollars, at least it is not clear if tax dollars cannot be used.
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No, actually, it’s incredibly clear.
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There has to be a plan available for those women who would like access to abortion services, in keeping with the law of the land.
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But if they select that service, the abortion coverage has to be paid for with non-governmental funds. This article in Slate and this report on ABC lay it out pretty easily.
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http://www.slate.com/id/2246905/
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http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201003040058

First of all, rusty, it looks like you forgot which sockpuppet you were using. You usually try to sound respectable and measured with the “newfreedomblog” handle, but this has all the full-blown nuttiness of rustyreturns.
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Second, congratulations on being the only person alive to be persuaded by Simon Heffer’s insight into American politics. He’s a diehard Conservative Party member in the UK who has no experience in American politics — at all — but who spends most of his time waxing nostalgic about King Edward and bemoaning why Englishmen never wear a proper necktie anymore.
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Predictably, the piece is clueless. I’m not sure what bombshell you detect in the bold-face part. The stimulus worked; even the conservative AEI economists agree on that. Democrats are retiring, but there are still more Republicans retiring than Democrats, so that must mean they’re even worse off?
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Good luck with the split personality disorder, rusty. Maybe the mental health provisions in HCR can be of some service to you.

I am so tired of these anti-abortion people and their niceties regarding funding for what is a perfectly legal practice. Why are they given such power? I don’t want my tax dollars used to support capital punishment, but no one seems to care. My daughter hates very much that her tax dollars have funded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but there’s no lobby for that perspective. We live in a complex society and do not get to pick and choose how tax revenues are spent; if anti-abortionists want to remain pure in their tax commitments, they should refuse to pay taxes and go to jail, as Thoreau suggested.

What do you mean, Dirks?

“Good luck with the split personality disorder, rusty. Maybe the mental health provisions in HCR can be of some service to you.”
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Not likely given his stratospheric level of delusion.
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Thanks for the post btw. I was about to make a similar post when I refreshed the page and saw yours. Right-wing hack from a winger paper = RustyBlogWhore bait.

apr2563:
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Thanks for the compliment.
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“Vomit” has to do with the fact that this person won’t make the effort to write just a little more readable posts, even though I asked nicely…twice. It’s nothing to do with the substance of their arguments.
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What’s not-to-productive to get into is a discussion where one participant starts to argue by putting out big blocks of stream-of-consciousness text in response. It’s hard to get through, and it makes quoting from to dispute points hard, as well.
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It’s just as simple (yet helpful) for the other person to respect who they’re talking to enough to put a “.” character in between paragraphs in their commentary.
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I make a decent amount of effort to compensate for the length of my posts by using every means at my disposal to render what I expect other people to use to argue against my position as readable as possible –italics, bolded, blockquotes, reasonable paragraph length and line breaks. Sometimes none of those makes up for the fact that what I write is just way, way too long. The point is that I try. That’s all I was asking for here, just to use the “.” character to make some line breaks.
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Apparently the person with whom I was arguing didn’t want to do that.
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I thought I was pretty patient, actually.

Cliff,
These absurd arguments about communism and death panels will disappear within weeks of anything passing.

I think all of us know (or should know) that there was a reference to hospices for the terminally ill which already exist and many of which are run by religious organizations. They are prettier nursing homes with more visitation time and some grief counselors for the dying themselves. In any of the religious ones, the grief counselor will be the clergy themselves.

We can thank Sara Palin among others for changing the meaning of “end of life counseling” to euthanasia and if not coining (I believe she got it from somebody else) using the term “death panels”.

Once the religious discover expansion of coverage for their own congregation’s/Diocese/Temple’s hospices is what “end of life counseling” is about, it will cost some of these Republicans dearly in their arguments.

As for the Government takeover of everything goes, that should fade away, too.

The longer Democrats seek perfection, the longer it will be that conservatives will have time to indoctrinate people with totally untrue propaganda.

Of the vaguely legitimate concerns, making abortion access easier for healthy women who have not been raped, the victim of incest nor have their lives at risk (I have not known of any – any – pro-life group which would deny a woman an abortion if not doing so would cost her her own life) giving them a little more leeway would help.

Maybe if there were a complete separation such that women and couples who are pro-choice could buy abortion coverage on a totally separate policy would work.

Newfreedombra,

We all know that it is not Barack Obama who can walk on water. That was Ronald Reagan’s job!

We all know that, besides turning water into wine Ronald Reagan parted the Atlantic Ocean drove to Germany and all by himself he huffed and he puffed and he blew the Berlin Wall down.

Both presidents inspired faith in their own party.

Both presidents inspired fear in the opposition party.

Both presidents spent the first year of their presidency in a recession holding the previous administration responsible.

Hopefully, unlike Reagan, Obama will not be spending his second year in office blaming the Bush Administration.

However, in both cases, previous administrations do impact the economy for several years to come. So, both are legitimate to a degree.

Life is indeed a comedy when the 3 stooges appear on cue. diecash, kevin and the side-car commrade, patricksartor.
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Again gentlemen, I appreciate your tries to engage, but frankly I do not respond to trolls.

Sz

*I am not exaggerating when I tell you that the one and only other person I have dealt with who complained about the lack of spaces was a man I know much older than I am who has Glaucoma. (He is covered by medicare – not a part of this discussion).

*With that, I feel like I am dealing with a sixth grade teacher who has no interest in the issues as long as it is typed nicely.

*Do I get 100% spelling and grammar?

*Will I get a on my paper?

*Are you going to tell my Mom what a good boy I am?

If you really do have vision problems that is another story.

Whatever you want, Rusty.

If you don’t feel like breaking up large blocks of text, if it’s too much effort for you to put a “.” character in your line breaks like everyone else, then that’s ok.
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*Are you going to tell my Mom what a good boy I am?
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LOL
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No bad feelings, no harm done. I’ve been called worse by people who disagreed with me.
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We don’t have to have this conversation.

I really shouldn’t butt in here, but sz was just asking patrick to format his comments to be more readable. Patrick does not know what he means. Simple misunderstanding.
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Patrick, to create a new paragraph, you have to return (enter key), enter a period (.), return again.
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Both of you have interesting arguments.

“”Mr Obama benefited in his campaign from an idiotic level of idolatry, in which most of the media participated with an astonishing suspension of cynicism.”

I am so glad that Newfreedombra is not trolling when placing that in the middle of a mostly Democratic group of people who like most of Obama’s policies but, as critical thinkers, are not blindly worshiping him.

Like many other things, in a political science class I took twenty years ago at one college there was a great study done about media articles. They had shown that the media was consistently (let me apologize to Stuart for my typing) biased towards the INCUMBENT.

The idea that the media is left leaning is a delusion of the right wing.

Yes, Obama does have a great stage presence as Reagan, JFK, FDR did.

John Kerry, Al Gore and Michael Dukakis all had terrible stage presence.

This does not vaguely imply that informed voters as we are here follow orders from Obama.

Newfreedombra, you are the king of trolling.

Accusing me of trolling is like the Edsel calling the Minivan rusty.

anon76:
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I’d like to address this point of yours first, if you don’t mind.

2) Have you ever supported legislation that didn’t help every American, but instead some fraction thereof? Should civil rights legislation be shunned if it holds the majority of the country hostage to improve the lot of some minority?

My problem with this argument is your example. I know I’m not exactly answering the question of support of “legislation that didn’t help every American,” but I think that the example you’ve given, civil rights isn’t actually representative of such a thing.
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It’s my contention that civil rights legislation does help every American, just as I would support a bill requiring gender equality with respect to pay, just as I would support marriage equality laws –because these things benefit all Americans.
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I think that casting the struggle for civil rights, or the privacy rights fought for on the battleground of women’s bodies, or the equal protection under the law represented by access to marriage as “improving the lot of some minority” is wrong, both as a matter of substance and of rhetoric.
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We all are much, much better off for the destruction of Apartheid in our country. When one part of us is denied equal application of the bill of rights, all of us are threatened. When the pool of talent available to our national product is maximized, we all benefit.
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I truly believe that these aren’t “minority issues,” they really are American issues, and I think that we need to learn to talk and think about them that way in order for liberalism to succeed.

Accusing me of trolling is like the Edsel calling the Minivan rusty.”

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Excellent unintentional irony.

Let me clarify.
I do not have a link to that study about incumbent bias.
I wish I did.

I bet there are newer studies to bring that up.

But the fact that reports of “death Panels” get reported by the media without a clear explanation by the news organization at all times that this is a complete lie tells me that the media is not only not biased towards liberals, but, ignore the absolute insanity of many conservative arguments.

Responsible journalists should say after every single reference to death panels is that it is completely false and that not one word of Health Care reform has anything to do with euthanasia. They don’t. The rely on Democrats, often more like Dukakis than Obama to explain this.

newfreedom: Please read this article on the liberal media. You will enjoy its story of how isolated and degraded the Cheneys are.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/03/coddled-by-the-msm.html#more

The other day I saw the clip from Rachel Maddow that Cliff notes above. What a sanctimonious jerk. I posted it on one of the Rangel threads. Stupak for quite a few years paid $600 per month for a room in a luxurious town house on Capitol Hill with maid service and meals. What a bargain.
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I think he’s another one using this for his fifteen minutes of fame. What hath Joe Lieberman wrought.

Laying aside the theocrat’s opposition to the HCR bill, there remains a serious split amongst HCR supporters, reflected in this thread, about whether the bill should pass.
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Nobody seems to be happy with the bill, but most seem to say that it is a start, baby steps, to achieve real HCR eventually. I don’t agree with that argument. The bill is a flop, a cop out, a cave to the insurance industry. It subsidizes the industry which is a big part of the problem to begin with. They have a problem with government regulation, but don’t have a problem with the government controlled individual mandate. Like those who say that this is a start, the insurance industry sees the same. They will deal with the regulation as it comes and tear it down bit by bit.
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The costs in the meantime will soar. I honestly believe that passage will serve the interests of the right wing and the insurance industry than real HCR. That is a minority opinion in the HCR support crowd, but I happen to believe it.

Ivy, the extreme christian right is engaged in a war to take control of our government. It is not a passing 15 minutes. They are as committed and dedicated to their religious cause as are the muslim extremists, although most aren’t resorting to physical violence, but waging the war on the airwaves, both in the mainstream, Fox, et al, as well as their own massive media resources.

Just last night I saw American Experience on Richard Nixon.

He is the one who created the concept of the “silent majority” argument.

Unfortunately, a majority of the public did support the war in Vietnam when he said that.

However, for many years now conservatives have been claiming this status as a persecuted minority when they have had big business funding them and churches across the country (conservative churches – Catholics, among others, are split between the two parties) bringing their congregation straight from the church to the voting booths.

We are in a very conservative country. Our media often goes out of it’s way due to corporate sponsors or fear of too many complaints to paint the conservative point of view in equal or a better light even if the journalist themselves are progressive.

Democrats used to consistently have union members. However, union members are fewer and fewer.

Progressives are the muffled majority of this country.

Sure, we get heard. However, we get heard as the counter-argument to a conservative point.

We are somewhat muffled by the media and have leaders who are nowhere near as good at working a crowd or the media as most of the conservatives are. One exception is Obama who both believes in most things I believe in and can work a crowd and the media the way Reagan did.

For this particular issue, I strongly believe that if some version of health care reform gets passed, there will be a deafening silence about the issue. We will see improvements (even if not as much as we would like), not see the conservative nightmares and leave the Republicans not a single bit of ammunition to roll back additional reform with.

If we pass something now, under the radar progressives can create even better reforms.

Conservatives will be like they were at the strike of midnight on January 1st 2000. If you remember (and this part was apolitical) people got scared of the Y2K bug. Some of the most extreme Christian groups believed Jesus Christ was going to show up.

If we get some reasonably good health care reform out now, a year from now frightened Republicans hiding in their basement with their shotguns, bibles and food supplies fearing a communist takeover will come out of their basements red faced and quiet.

If not, Republicans will run back to their constituents and tell them that they saved them from the worst catastrophe since the invention of nuclear weapons (Obamacare, as they called it).

The more I read around the left blogosphere, the more I’m coming to think that it isn’t such small minority of opinion at all.
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The more people understand or come to grips with the fact staring them in the face –that this is it, this is “health care reform”– the less persuasive the “this is the best we could ever expect to achieve” and “we’ll fix it later” arguments seem to be getting.
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The arguments are becoming more and more acrimonious, too, unfortunately.

I have read Jeff Sharlet’s book and I very much agree with you.
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I was using the 15 minutes of fame in relation to his clamping onto the abortion item.

My biggest concern is that, if this does not pass, we will be thought of as the party that cried health care reform.

Remember that we all (even the conservative trolls like Newfreedombra) are far, far more engaged and interested than the average person who chooses entertainment above this for their free time and (let me say this for myself, not the rest of you) more responsibilities with work and children than I do.

The overly abbreviated version of this story could become “Democrats get both houses and the presidency and do nothing except argue.”

If it does enter the history books that way, it may be years and years before we have any hope of any kind of health care reform.

This is my biggest nightmare.

redraven937:

I normally respect your posts Stuart

Thanks, that’s very nice of you to say.

what exactly are you attempting to claim here

That it is likely that any further changes to the new health care regime will not be in the direction we think would be the most beneficial to Americans, i.e. toward a national health care system of utility regulation like Germany’s or Japan’s or France’s, but in the same direction for which it’s been designed.

and with what evidence

The evidence in front of us that the Progressive Caucus and liberal activist organizations were the weakest influence on the public debate, and had the least impact on the legislation, while the Democrats who did the most damage in terms of good policy held the most power –and still do.

Do you have proof that passing this bill will make the system “harder to fundamentally change?”

No, of course not. I’m speaking in terms of likelihoods. That doesn’t matter though, because nobody can offer “proof” on the other side. Nobody has “proof” that –even though everyone on the liberal policy side of this debate walked away with their positions decreased, and everyone on the centrist policy side of this debate walked away with their positions enhanced– the problems we’re left with after this legislation passes will be addressed in an effective manner.

Or are you just assuming it will?

No, I’m reasoning that a publicly weak, legislatively ineffective and politically disorganized set of advocates for liberal health care policy will not assume magical super-powers rendering them capable of prevailing upon established interests in the near-to-mid term future, especially not when this legislation further benefits interests opposed to systemic changes.

Unless you’re able to bust out some prophetic links, I think anyone could reasonably pose a counter-claim that the passage of this bill is just as likely to make future reform easier on top of saving someone every 12 minutes.

Since this isn’t a matter of fact that can be empirically proven, e.g. the claim “The cost of health care in the United States is twice that of every other developed country,” I can’t bust out those prophetic links.
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Anybody who is reasonable could pose a reasonable counter-claim to the contrary of my line of reasoning. I’m not saying that any person who can make a good case is unreasonable, I’m saying that I’m not persuaded at all so far.
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I simply disagree that this bill is likely to make “future reform easier,” unless we redefine “future reform” to mean the policy that Max Baucus thinks is good for the country, and Rahm Emanuel thinks is worth trying to accomplish politically.
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As far as the “saving someone every 12 minutes” line goes, if it’s true, then the fact of that genocide should have been in the President’s 2010 State of the Union speech in January, or should have been in his remarks to the members of the Finance Committee in June, or July or August, or September, or should have been in any number of venues in which Americans and their representatives should be given the choice between passing something, or letting the genocide continue.
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As it is, I think that this is a talking point specifically targeted at liberals, because none of those concerns were evident throughout this entire process from the people with the most influence when it counted.
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Thanks for reading and considering this, redraven937, sorry for the late reply.

Stuart,

If nothing passes, wouldn’t we be facing exactly the same situation at some undefined future point?

I mean, conservative resistance to the concept of the government being helpful in reducing health care would continue to exist.

Health insurance companies and their lobbyists would continue to exist.

A Democratic majority in both houses and the presidency has not existed since 1994 and, prior to that, since 1980.

If this does not get passed with it’s imperfections, how will future conditions change?

The next time around, if it is 2011 or 2110, it will be the same deal all over again, won’t it?

Let me know what your argument is that 2011 or some other future date being better than now is?

Please note, my remarks about about 123 people per day dying due to lack of health care was referring to somebody saying that Stupack would be happy due to fewer miscarriages.

I’d find anything calling this situation a “genocide” very melodramatic since genocides are acts of commission not acts of omission just as the death of one third of the Ireland in the 1840s and 1850s was not considered an English “genocide”. The English just didn’t bother to change the corn laws or supply aid to Ireland in a significant way.