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I say run the damn thing into the ground and let it die. Call this bluff. The Repugs don't have the stomach for it and the Dems know that. Too many Repug campaign contributors will suffer.
Any other course of action is pure Kabuki Theatre and more BS from the White House.
Most have missed the main point. Those who wrote this great plan have exempted themselves! That is WRONG on several levels.
After reading some of the transcript of Cruz's speech--mostly looking for the words Medicare and single-payer--I grew weary and quit. Someone mentioned that it was a "Sam, I am" speech. I didn't know what that meant till looking at the transcript. It appears to be a feedback loop of the same old tired cliche strung together incoherently at nauseum. Here are some highlights:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2013/09/25/transcript-sen-ted-cruzs-filibuster-against-obamacare/
Wow! I hope you feel better having heard that. Personally, now I really need Obama-care.
They say it is all about The Affordable Care Act, When really it might be about voting....
Have you seen this articlehttp://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/09/26/gop-furious-that-1993-voter-registration-act-guarantees-right-to-register-when-applying-for-health-insurance/
Palindromedary ~ Thanks for that link. Most disturbing how our Commander and Chief is so loose with the truth. By the way, my favorite most blatant lie was quote number 17.
http://my.firedoglake.com/davidswanson/2013/09/25/top-45-lies-in-obamas-speech-at-un/
Amazing! The man didn't even pretend to have evidence. So soon after the Powell fiasco too. He actually had the nerve to tell the UN that if they don't take his word for it they are not a legitimate institution. So shameless and arrogant! G. W. Bush must be turning green with envy.
@W Willie
"How did it morph into national health care reform, and then to national health care insurance reform?"
The Corporations captured what was left of US democracy. Bush and Obama represent the two faces of this new experiment in political order. Tbh rent-seeking classes have been destroying empires and nations via debt slavery for 1000s of years.
What ever happened to "National Health Care?" How did it morph into national health care reform, and then to national health care insurance reform? Where do people living from pay check to pay check come up with another 200+ dollars a month for health care? How do other countries manage? Can't help but think that insurance companies are going to make out really good. Looks like business as usual for the USA.
unregulated and unrepresentative!
The tea party won in 2010 due in part to dis illusions with Obama that he didn't repeal DADT quick enough, he didn't close Gitmo, he did move fast enough to fix the economy. When there is a low voter turnout it favours republicans with large turnouts it favours democrats. The GOP found out in 2012 that money can't buy the presindency so that is why 33 states have come up with the voter ID law. Is a solution to a different problem as long as the poor are allowed to vote the tea party can't win so by using these laws it is easier for the tea party to win.
Rand Paul asked him would he rather shutdown the government or compromise on obamacare. Now Paul has him on tape supporting a government shutdown and Paul can then say I wanted to avert a shutdown...But it is a civil war in the GOP right now. All of them are posturing trying to look like moderates to attract independants.
A new edition of "The Cancer Stage of Capitalism: Crisis and Cure," by Professor John McMurtry has just been published by Pluto Press: http://www.amazon.com/Cancer-Stage-Capitalism-Crisis-Cure/dp/0745333133/...
DAnneMarc: Thanks! Here is an interesting read:
45 Lies in Obama's Speech at the UN by David Swanson at firedoglake.com Sept 25, 2013
http://my.firedoglake.com/davidswanson/2013/09/25/top-45-lies-in-obamas-...
By the way, being given a podium for 21 hours to rant on national health care in this country, does any brave soul out there who may have actually listened to the entire ordeal know if the idea of Medicare for all was even mentioned? If so, what was said? I find it hard to believe that anyone could criticize health care in this country for that long without suggesting Medicare for all or even mention single-payer.
Of course if there is anyone fit for such a pointless task it is the hot air bag Republicans who are bred for the job.
Thom: re "smartest people in the world on your chat page".... please congratulate Marion Delgado for solving the insolvable NPR Sunday Puzzle this week! http://thin.npr.org/s.php?sId=224547625&rId=10&x the answer Mario came up with is "question mark" !!
I cry almost every time one of these right wing, tea-brain, nut job, sociopaths open their mouth. And it usually only takes a few short self indulgent and sophomoric statements to do it. 21 hours? Seriously? Almost cried? I'd have been all cried out long before then and have moved on to pulling my hair out of my head and trying to slit my own wrists before his witless diatribe was through it's first quarter. Thank God the television has an off button. My heart goes out to anyone who sat through the whole thing. I wouldn't be surprised if the CIA recorded the whole fiasco and is planning on forcing prisoners in Gitmo to watch it. Inhuman monsters! Where is Amnesty International when you need them?
The problem with this anti-Obama-care speech is that is it the height of hypocrisy. This health care plan of extortion originated in the womb of the right wing Cabal and their Insurance Mafia backers. This gesture/display is one of pure spite and hatred. It is more of an anti-Obama (anti-Minority) Kabuki theater diatribe than anything else. Certainly it wasn't anything meant to serve the common good. (You notice that Republicans only sound like human beings when they don't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning?) Everything stated was in vain and meant to look like someone in Washington cares about the people when in reality everybody in Washington despises the people. Everyone is reaping their reward for selling out the real wish of the masses--Single-Payer for all.
Obama-care, a step in the right direction? Maybe. Obama-care, a step in the right wing direction? Yes! Obama-care, a solution to our health care problems? No!
The only true sincere rebuttal to the implementation of Obama-care that would truly take into account the needs of the nation would be to say that Obama-care fails to provide what the nation truly needs--Medicare for all. That doesn't take 21 hours to say!
IIlistened to some of Ted's speech. He wandered around so much that if you were careful in extracting sections of his speech you could make up an argument that he was for the Affordable Healthcare Act but for the most part, he was against it. Apparently he has some constituents that are for it and he could extract portions to satisfy them!
2 years ago, i read somewhere that HATRED was the Most POTENT Political FORCE in American Politics !
So, when i read in Time magagazine Aug 19, 2013 Page 35 the following line I immediately connected the dot.
" There is no More POTENT FORCE than the GRASSROOTS, mobilized and Standing Up "
Can you guess who said that ? TED CRUZ of course.............
now i will clarify it by adding ONE WORD ................HATRED
TEAbaggers has been mobilizing The " base " BASE with HATRED of Obamacare since 2009 ..............they won 2010 with that HATRED
Now they want to win again by HATRED of Obamacare and the man who signed the Bill
VOTE TO THROW THEM ALL OUT in MID TERM elcection 2014.............PLEASE
Palindromedary ~ Well said. I agree with it all.
dxisdsn ~ I voted twice for Barack. I am offended and repulsed by your use of the word 'haters'. That is nothing more than race baiting on the lowest common denominator and does not deserve a response.
However, I will offer this. If you really think the people on this forum attack President Obama because of the color of his skin than it is you who have racial issues. You also haven't been reading anything that has been said. Here the resentment of this Administrations is based solely on policy not race, religion, class, sex, party, or any other trivial nonsense. If this President wants to quack like a Despot, we will call him a Despot. The color of his skin does not make him immune to the consequences of his actions.
If you can refute anything Palindromedary has just said I look forward to reading it.
Who's Ted Cruz? Another ex-Mickey Mouse Club junior celebrity? I thought his rendition of Sam I Am was absolutely brilliant. I hope this rising star gains the Republican nomination in 2016! He obviously can go the distance and his oratory is absolutely riveting. I almost cried.
A slave nation?
What do you call a nation whose system takes half of its wealth, being defined as labor, income, and natural resources, and gives it to 400 persons?
This shows that Obama Care was originally a Republican plot to do what they are doing today. It shows 25 major Republicans that were supporting the idea.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/08/republicans-supported-obamacare-...
The Republicans aren't against Obama Care...it was their plan to begin with...they are against Obama. And pretending to be against the very policy they first proposed makes liberals support Obama Care even more. Exactly what the Republicans want to happen. All their noise now, after Obama Care passed and blessed by a right-wing Supreme court... is merely hatred expressed against Obama himself. The Republicans desperately want to regain the reigns of government but the ruling elite, like Greek Gods in the clouds watching the earthling mortal's battles from above, don't really care who their puppets are. It's just a game...an amusement ...that they can manipulate their puny subjects so easily with their rigged two party system.
21 freaking hours of Texas teabag crazy Cruz control. Pretty damn disturbing dude! Cruz and his Teabaggers are fighting like hell to keep health insurance unaffordable for the many and highly profitable for the very few. In addition they've blocked economic stimulus bills in order to keep unemployment high. The combination of these two things keeps working class citizens at the mercy of the so called job creators, both in being underpaid and a prisoner to the company health insurance plan. Thanks Teabaggers!
I heard a guy on Thom's show today talking about his definition of what a welfare state is. He thinks an economic system based on Democratic Socialism is a welfare state. Well here's my definition. A welfare state is where the wealthiest 400 go from a net worth of one trillion to two trillion while at the same time the average family income goes down $5000. In other words it's a state where the rich depend entirely on screwing the working class.
dglsdxn: I voted for Obama the first time but he trashed all hope for change when he went along so easily, and sometimes it seemed avidly, with the Republicans.
Obama proved to be far from the semi-liberal he tried, and succeeded, to make himself appear to be. He was actually far right of center and sometimes even more right wing than the right wingers. It really doesn't matter much anymore what he says...he always says a lot of nice things but then that's how slick tongue devils beguile the dummies over and over again.
You know, in the beginning of his first term, or maybe it was when he was Senator...he pretty much said that we needed more whistle blowers to blow the whistle on corruption within the government and corporations. But now he only wants to prosecute them all.
He preached that we needed a more open government. But it has only become way more secretive.
He railed against deregulation...against the wars in the Middle East...against the Gitmo and other torture gulags the US set up. What did he do? He sure hasn't dismantled the torture gulags even still. And instead of bringing all our troops home during his first term he just let it ride...eventually bringing some home and others sent elsewhere to fight. Drones took the place of troops in slaughtering innocent civilians.
Israel gets away with using White Phosphorus chemical weapons against civilians in Gaza and the Obama regime shrugs their shoulders. Oh well! So what if women and children have their flesh burned off their bodies to the bone, huh!
Obama kept appointing all those criminals (who caused deregulation in the first place)..to advisors...and a continuation of deregulation..what a sell out!
And now, Obama Care is acting like a mafia leg breaker if you don't pay protection money to the health care insurers. Universal healthcare...single payer system is what most people wanted but Obama threw that off the table right off the bat. Instead, he gave in to accepting the Republican scheme to force everyone to pay the insurance company mafiosos and the government as the enforcer. Why else did you think that a right wing Supreme Court would approve of Obama Care?
And it goes on to list 25 of them all in the article.http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/08/republicans-supported-obamacare-...
And, under the Obama administration, US spy agencies are reading, listening, watching everything we say or do. The so-called Homeland Security that was supposed to protect us from terrorists has suffered a lot of mission creep using their authority to violate what were once laws to protect us from abuse by any one governmental entity...against abusive law enforcement tactics. Their mission creep was used for things that had nothing at all to do with terrorists. Hell, they get away with everything now...mass murder, stealing, framing people for crimes they didn't commit. In Bakersfield, CA recently, 10 policemen beat a guy to death with batons while he laid on the sidewalk. It was caught on video by bystanders who had her video confiscated and it has now been erased by the police.
I think Obama has made fools out of all those who didn't see the writing on the wall during his first term and who voted for him once again for the second term. I sure did not vote for him the second time. I voted third party which, if everyone did, we'd have a very much improved country right now. That is, unless those third party candidates do what Obama did ...sell out to the right wingers...the ruling elite. But voting in a third party candidate would shake up the good old boy two party plutocracy we have and might drive some sense in them for a change. It's either that, our last hope for change, or there will be blood in the streets...just like in Egypt, Libya, Greece, Spain, and Syria. The ruling elite have been way too greedy and have waged an economic war against the masses for a long time now and it is getting pretty unbearable for some. And it will get much worse!
Great to see the insurance company shills are out in force today. After all, anything that reforms the health industry in a user beneficial manner has got to be detrimental to the industry's massive profits.
Back on topic of Sen. Cruz; his fake filibuster is a glaring example of how broken our system of government is and how dysfunctional and desperate the Republican and Tea Parties are. This extended tantrum from the right wing extremists just has to stop. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure these spoilt brats won't stop until they're either voted out of office or get control of the government. I hope the former prevails over the latter.
I never was a particularly political person until the Evil Empire of Bush Jr, Cheney and Rummy. Since then, the Republicans and their mal-adjusted offspring the Tea Party have just gotten worse, far, far worse. To me, a lot of these politicians look like complete sociopaths, engaged in a class war for the benefit of the Neo-Robber Barons.
I'm beginning to wonder if we will ever see any resemblence of Democracy return to our government and our nation. I think our founding fathers would turn in their graves at the antics of the contemporary Republicans. I'm sure the members of the original Tea Party would be horrified beyond belief to see how their legacy has been perverted by corporates and the uber-wealthy.