US POLITICS: AMERICANS, PLEASE WELCOME YOUR NEW PRESIDENT... SCOTT BROWN!

megyn kelly has been irritating the fucc out of me l8ly

somehow the democrats have produced a bipartisan bill with only one party working on it

it is deeply sad to me that i now essentially support a moderate republican health-care reform plan

ok is the level of angry reaction you have to this, directly proportionate to the amount of time in your professional life that you've had to sit through pointless, lengthy meetings in which everyone just HAS to say their piece no matter how boring/irrelevant/waste of time

this is going to go through reconciliation for sure, which was mostly a foregone conclusion as early as tuesday of this week (when Bayh and Landrieu voiced support)

somehow the democrats have produced a bipartisan bill with only one party working on it

this is true tho, and REALLY irritating. like, there are all these things in the bill that were inserted deliberately to get some votes from wavering "moderate" Dems and Republicans, and now that their votes are no longer required and they won't be voting for it anyway, that crap is STILL IN THERE

it is deeply sad to me that i now essentially support a moderate republican health-care reform plan

X1000

rooting for rangel to close his columbo impression with now there's just one last thing i don't understand

amount of time in your professional life that you've had to sit through pointless, lengthy meetings in which everyone just HAS to say their piece

Those weren't goddamn dog & pony shows on national TV, though.

Doesn't sound like there was any fucking point to this charade unless millions of GOP faithful miraculously had the scales fall from their eyes. (I doubt it, as it hasn't happened to the hardcore Dem faithful in 13 months.)

it's not for them.

i could never work for congress, i would develop meeting tourette's within about 5 days

it is a dog and pony show obvs, my question is - what for - because the dem leadership/obama admin had to know in advance what would happen. nobody from the gop is coming to this thing with the goal of holding a good faith discussion.

as J0hn D points out, Dems were playing to their base and attempting to shore up support in their caucus by letting the GOP publicly display their assholishness. GOP was similarly playing to their base, who tend to be energized by public displays of assholishness.

Maybe the Dems thought sheer boredom would get Boehner, McConnell, et al to cave.

dingell now talking about a 51-vote simple majority being the solution here

was this the goal of this whole thing, or what? i have def noticed that conservative think tanks and "journalists" have been digging up video tapes of obama/biden arguing against use of reconciliation. (or so they say, i don't trust their use of clips taken out of context, also it wasn't my impression that dems' goal in the 04-05 congress was to just block absolutely everything)

reconciliation is a last resort and was always discussed this way - as not being preferable. the idea that there is something inherently wrong with reconciliation is totally incorrect and hypocritical, coming from republicans

i mean it is true that the rightwingers' heads will explode if this is passed via reconciliation but.. i mean what new level of vitriolic outrage can they reach, really? they're already there

i tuned in kinda late but dingell & rangel were actually kinda moving to me, beyond appeals on behalf of specific uninsured folks but in terms of why government's around

"we ought to talk more often, guys, this was fun"
"yeah whatever, fuck you."
"DO YOU SEE WHAT I'M DEALING WITH HERE??"

(who has which part depends on your viewpt, do you see??)

xp re "outrage" yeah a guy flew a plane into a goddam building and the studio militiamen want to erect a goddam monument to the man. the dems are going to eat lead in november anyway, just get some fucking work done for once ugh god

reconciliation = as close as tea partiers are getting to long awaited martial law

yeah you're right. they would get a bit amped-up over that. the mistrust has been built up to the point where.. prob dems passing any kind of reform at all, to tea partiers will = SOCIALIST TAKEOVER THAT DESTROYS AMERICA, that sort of thing, cue freakouts..

i mean lots of folks in politics/media have been good at mostly ignoring and/or mocking leftwing freakouts over bush (which were mostly justified), why can't we just smile and nod at the far right who are screaming about socialism..

I prefer pointing and laughing

eh i'd love to see some whitey freakouts, just so we can roll tape 6 mo later when the GOP is demonizing any and all cuts to the nu-medicare system as dangerous to america

because Dems enjoy self-satisfied ridicule as much as anyone?

xxp

who doesn't enjoy self-satisfied ridicule, i ask u

gotta say Obama doing a nice job of tidying up here.

i have def noticed that conservative think tanks and "journalists" have been digging up video tapes of obama/biden arguing against use of reconciliation. (or so they say, i don't trust their use of clips taken out of context, also it wasn't my impression that dems' goal in the 04-05 congress was to just block absolutely everything)

reconciliation =/ "nuclear option."

morbs i take it u haven't seen any of this summit

dar1a, read this: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/us/politics/25memo.html?ref=politics

I am praying that reconciliation will happen and this fucking thing passes with a simple majority vote.

MAKE IT HAPPEN, JESUS!

the thing is, once anything passes, it will cease to be the great bogeyman. it doesn't matter how it passes. once it's over and signed, people get bored and obsess about the next thing (cap and trade, the midterm elections, whatever). republicans know it, which is why they're still hoping they can somehow stop it, and democrats know it, which is why they'll do reconciliation if they have to. and all the talking heads will get tired of it really quick as soon as the football game is over. what actually happens with health care once a bill is signed, you'll have to read the stories on page A9 to find out.

yep

lol FOX News put the republican in a bigger box when there was a split screen between a GOP member and Pres. Obama.

meanwhile, guess what caused the financial meltdown? if you said poor people or fannie mae or the community reinvestment act, you're falling behind on your right-wing memes. the new culprit is WOODSTOCK:

“Generation Zero,” a film set to premiere in March, examines what producer David Bossie says is a “historic perspective on a generational change” that led to the September 2008 bank collapse. Mr. Bossie says generational narcissism, as represented by the 1969 Woodstock Festival, is responsible for the excessive spending, mortgage crisis, and recklessness on Wall Street.

“The people who were at Woodstock turned into the yuppies of the '80s and the junk bond traders of the '90s and the Wall Street executives of the 2000s,” he says. “They went from Woodstock to driving a Jaguar.”

sandy weill and bob rubin, ca. 1969:

http://www.filminfocus.com/uploads/image/mediafile/1249058422-07adaecd5161032e74ea5d9b202d3e7a/535x.jpg

remember when david crosby totally failed to regulate derivatives? that fuckin' guy.

i just... i mean... what?

saw hannity stoking these guys' cocks the other night.

stroking

Bannon & Bossie, that is

hannity cock smoker

(^ google juice)

It's true, there was no greed before the brown acid.

famous hippies through history:

croesus
the medicis
louis xiv
j.p. morgan
scrooge mcduck

David Bossie is president of Citizens United, corporate 'free speech' advocate. Fuck this guy no matter what he has to say.

Like narcissism isn't at the very core of the Ayn Rand, "Rah-Rah Capitalism Rah" mindset that makes us so much better to conservatives than those evil sharing Communists? STFU and start over.

yeah this is reeallly reaching imo

common concept among a lot of neo-con types though: that the sixties are the moment at which things unravel for the worse -- that's asked-and-answered for them. so when things go badly, it serves a broader historical narrative (in which they're extremely invested) to connect it to that era. I'm not sure what they think they can accomplish with this narrative, and it's hard for me to imagine that they actually believe it -- maybe they think if they can demonize the peace-and-love mindset, the concepts associated loosely with it (which tend to be Democratic party concepts) can be bundled in? it is weird though how attractive the idea of Blame It On The Sixties is to them

How does this fucking retard get re-elected? Wow. Just, wow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jORdN7v0ej0&feature=player_embedded#

Lots of neo-cons are "reformed" hippies.

i like maxine waters fine but one thing that has become exceedingly clear is that almost no one in the house of representatives (besides maybe barney frank?) understands what the fed is or what it does and its deeply, deeply embarrassing