diamond
ONE love, blood, life
I just don't see it. Not even the Cosmo picture.
Oh stop.
It could have been Newt or Teddy in Cosmo, then we'd have something to complain about.
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Go Scott Brown!
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Oh stop.
It could have been Newt or Teddy in Cosmo, then we'd have something to complain about.
<>
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
i have a very smart relative who lives just north of Boston who had this to say:
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
back to the bitter clingers thing? Just can't accept the fact that most Americans just aren't that into the European-style social welfare state.
Anyway, it's your team that makes everything about race. Democrats are the party of quotas, dialogues on race, teachable moments and Negro dialects. It isn't Republicans saying, "You can't call yourself a blackman and vote against the healthcare bill."
Just thought I'd point that out.
deep
Blue Crack Addict
The article is right with 41, the GOP has a majority.
If they pick up only 4 or 5 Senate seats in November they will have an unstoppable Super- Majority.
deep
Blue Crack Addict
This article
Massachusett's Brown speaks out on health care, bipartisanship - washingtonpost.com
makes Scott seem like a reasonable person.
Sounds like he already has his 2012 re-election foremost in his mind.
Massachusett's Brown speaks out on health care, bipartisanship - washingtonpost.com
makes Scott seem like a reasonable person.
Sounds like he already has his 2012 re-election foremost in his mind.
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Somehow we had policies in place that let Major Hasan go about identiyng himself as a Soldier Of Allah and utter all kinds of nuttiness without raising the red flags that could have prevented the terrorists attack at Ft Hood. Somehow we had policies in place that let the Underwear Bomber stroll through airport security without the red flags he should have brought up.
I'd call it sensitivity guised as political correctness, what would you call it?
We spend money either way true. But the last estimate I heard was the trial of KSM in NYC was going to cost $200 million per year. Switching from Gitmo Classic to New Gitmo in Illinois was going to cost hundreds of millions as well. That enough is reason not to change at this time.
As for Brown's "money for weapons not lawyers" being stupid and simple. Well, yea. It's a sound bite. Bumpersticker material. I look forward to hearing him expand on it and explain why we have nothing, nothing, to apologize for in the way our country has defended ourself since 9/11.
Now please don't tell me it's just a few lunatics out there apologizing to the world for Gitmo, interrogation, etc.
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
And I'm sure we could exhaust ourselves pointing out things about the Republicans but you would deny it till you're blue in the face... oh wait, we've already done that.
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
PhilsFan
Blue Crack Addict
Hey, look, it's:
BUZZWORDS!
MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
Obvious, but clever...
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
European-style social welfare state -- sorry about my Political Science textbook vernacular. What you'd call Hope and Change.
MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
Scott Brown even won in Hyannis Port, longtime home of the Kennedys. And in the rest of Cape Cod.
coolian2
Blue Crack Supplier
hey look, more buzzwords. and hey, what have you got against europe? the place is less fucked up than america.
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Till I'm blue in the face? BVS, you have the avatar that's blue in the face.
Just thought I'd point that out.
MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
politicsdaily.com
Martha Coakley's devastating loss in Tuesday's senatorial race should be a lesson to members of her party on several important points. She was trying to fill the vacancy left by the death of perhaps the most powerful and certainly most well-known Democrat in the U.S. Senate and she should have coasted to victory. But several key warning signs to Democrats nationwide were ignored.
An Arkansas friend of mine sent around a blast e-mail posing the question, "Can you imagine a Republican winning in that bluest of states?" I answered, "Of course, Mitt Romney won statewide election there not too long ago." Massachusetts is no longer the reliably blue state it was during the height of Camelot.
Yes, there are plenty of liberals in the state, but they are outnumbered by blue-collar voters and conservative Catholics. According to the Massachusetts secretary of state, voter registration breaks down as follows: There are 1.6 million registered Democrats, 490,000 registered Republicans and 2.1 million Independents or registered voters who don't affiliate with either party.
The fact that independents now outnumber Democrats and Republicans combined should serve as a starburst of information to partisan operatives that Massachusetts is no longer reliably Democratic in any way, shape or form. It is most reliably independent. And while President Obama won the state in '08, his support among independents is the voting bloc that is deserting him more quickly than any other. That's for two reasons: independents tell pollsters they don't like his massive spending and they don't support the Democratic approach to health care reform.
Massachusetts has had its own version of health care reform in place for four years. Residents have a much greater sense of what is to come if the Democratic-controlled Congress enacts a similar plan for the nation. While the reaction among Massachusetts residents to health care reform is mixed, there are enough citizens unhappy with Massachusetts' version to influence a sizable proportion of independents to shy away from voting for a Democrat who supports nationwide reform.
Even though Massachusetts law requires everyone to buy health insurance and makes sure there are so-called affordable plans for all, some small percentage of state residents remain uninsured. Many more are unhappy with the requirement to buy insurance. Another starburst to Democrats: If they push through national health care reform similar to the plan in Massachusetts, they stand to lose the independent support that is key to national victory.
Also, there are several predictable problems with Massachusetts health care reform that are sure to be repeated on a national scale if the Democratic Congress and President Obama succeed in pushing through their version. The Massachusetts plan has become unaffordable for the state and is just about bankrupt. The state has had to trim hospital reimbursements to remain in business. It has also eliminated coverage for the 30,000 legal immigrants in the state (that's LEGAL, not illegal.)
One cannot expand coverage for so many more people, most of them indigent, without raising taxes on everybody else. It's impossible, though congressional Democrats and the president tell us it is not. Their claim is simply untrue.
Hospitals are fighting Massachusetts' cuts in reimbursement rates. Boston Medical sued the state back in July, as recounted by The New York Times:
"According to the suit, Massachusetts is now reimbursing Boston Medical only 64 cents for every dollar it spends treating the poor. About 10 percent of the hospital's patients are uninsured -- down from about 20 percent before the law's passage in 2006. But many more are on Medicaid or Commonwealth Care, the state-subsidized insurance program for low-income residents."
There are other, more commonly noted reasons why Martha Coakley lost: She is not as charismatic as her GOP rival. She or her advisers made the inept strategic decision not to campaign heavily over the holidays. Her opponent did and gained a lot of ground as a result. Once she started campaigning heavily, she had to go on the attack, which made her look angry and nasty instead of helpful and compassionate.
But if Democrats ignore the message Massachusetts voters have sent them on health care reform and push it through anyway, they do so at their own peril. That the Kennedy Senate seat is in Republican hands should signal a new era to Democrats in Washington. The message of Tuesday's election is this: Camelot is over, and Sen. Kennedy was behind the times in making universal health care his signature issue.
Martha Coakley's devastating loss in Tuesday's senatorial race should be a lesson to members of her party on several important points. She was trying to fill the vacancy left by the death of perhaps the most powerful and certainly most well-known Democrat in the U.S. Senate and she should have coasted to victory. But several key warning signs to Democrats nationwide were ignored.
An Arkansas friend of mine sent around a blast e-mail posing the question, "Can you imagine a Republican winning in that bluest of states?" I answered, "Of course, Mitt Romney won statewide election there not too long ago." Massachusetts is no longer the reliably blue state it was during the height of Camelot.
Yes, there are plenty of liberals in the state, but they are outnumbered by blue-collar voters and conservative Catholics. According to the Massachusetts secretary of state, voter registration breaks down as follows: There are 1.6 million registered Democrats, 490,000 registered Republicans and 2.1 million Independents or registered voters who don't affiliate with either party.
The fact that independents now outnumber Democrats and Republicans combined should serve as a starburst of information to partisan operatives that Massachusetts is no longer reliably Democratic in any way, shape or form. It is most reliably independent. And while President Obama won the state in '08, his support among independents is the voting bloc that is deserting him more quickly than any other. That's for two reasons: independents tell pollsters they don't like his massive spending and they don't support the Democratic approach to health care reform.
Massachusetts has had its own version of health care reform in place for four years. Residents have a much greater sense of what is to come if the Democratic-controlled Congress enacts a similar plan for the nation. While the reaction among Massachusetts residents to health care reform is mixed, there are enough citizens unhappy with Massachusetts' version to influence a sizable proportion of independents to shy away from voting for a Democrat who supports nationwide reform.
Even though Massachusetts law requires everyone to buy health insurance and makes sure there are so-called affordable plans for all, some small percentage of state residents remain uninsured. Many more are unhappy with the requirement to buy insurance. Another starburst to Democrats: If they push through national health care reform similar to the plan in Massachusetts, they stand to lose the independent support that is key to national victory.
Also, there are several predictable problems with Massachusetts health care reform that are sure to be repeated on a national scale if the Democratic Congress and President Obama succeed in pushing through their version. The Massachusetts plan has become unaffordable for the state and is just about bankrupt. The state has had to trim hospital reimbursements to remain in business. It has also eliminated coverage for the 30,000 legal immigrants in the state (that's LEGAL, not illegal.)
One cannot expand coverage for so many more people, most of them indigent, without raising taxes on everybody else. It's impossible, though congressional Democrats and the president tell us it is not. Their claim is simply untrue.
Hospitals are fighting Massachusetts' cuts in reimbursement rates. Boston Medical sued the state back in July, as recounted by The New York Times:
"According to the suit, Massachusetts is now reimbursing Boston Medical only 64 cents for every dollar it spends treating the poor. About 10 percent of the hospital's patients are uninsured -- down from about 20 percent before the law's passage in 2006. But many more are on Medicaid or Commonwealth Care, the state-subsidized insurance program for low-income residents."
There are other, more commonly noted reasons why Martha Coakley lost: She is not as charismatic as her GOP rival. She or her advisers made the inept strategic decision not to campaign heavily over the holidays. Her opponent did and gained a lot of ground as a result. Once she started campaigning heavily, she had to go on the attack, which made her look angry and nasty instead of helpful and compassionate.
But if Democrats ignore the message Massachusetts voters have sent them on health care reform and push it through anyway, they do so at their own peril. That the Kennedy Senate seat is in Republican hands should signal a new era to Democrats in Washington. The message of Tuesday's election is this: Camelot is over, and Sen. Kennedy was behind the times in making universal health care his signature issue.
PhilsFan
Blue Crack Addict
More buzzwords by you! Conservatives make their buzzwords look more sensible by claiming liberals are about buzzwords, but I never actually gave two shits about Change, Obama's slogan (the Hope thing was something some artist made up). I just didn't want John McCain and Sarah Palin anywhere near the White House because they were irrational people.
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Yet anyone would know what I mean by a European-style social welfare state.
Cradle-to-grave-one-size-fits-all-we'll-put-you-on-the-waiting-list health care, permanent double-digit unemployment, crippling pension liabilities, a bloated public sector, lower worker productivity, higher taxes and a national defense dependent upon the United States military.
Would you really have only called them "irrational people" if you weren't taking me to task for using buzz words? I imagine you would have used a more colorful buzzword.
coolian2
Blue Crack Supplier
countries, statistics and sources, mister.
PhilsFan
Blue Crack Addict
I really, really don't think anyone would know, because I think the people who would agree with you, and would list that second paragraph there as some reasons, and they're just flat out exaggerated/wrong on pretty much every point.
Care to clarify? I'm not sure where you're going with this. I think John McCain proved himself to be irrational by trying to play to the base with a stupid pick of a vice president, and I find Sarah Palin irrational in her everyday attempts to use logic, reasoning, and common sense. I can cite specific instances for both people that are irrational, and explain in depth why I believe that. Is that what you want me to do?
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Feel free to disprove me in any of it. And don't get me wrong. There is much to envy in the European lifestyle. They are still great countries and great peoples. It's just that Europe couldn't be Europe if America wasn't America. So for everyone's sake, we shouldn't be trying to emulate them.
coolian2
Blue Crack Supplier
this post doesn't look like statistics, sources and countries. but hey, if we want to carry on with the conjecture instead, i'd much prefer that too.
Tell me where it is not accurate, then.
Tell me where it does not make sense.
You like to respond to things with 2 line simplistic answers. Fine, but don't tell other people who think these things through that they don't make sense and stop at that.
Very true, good ability to read numbers, Scott Brown won many, many cities/towns that Obama carried easily. Independent voters make up the majority of MA voters, of course they went for Brown, never disputed that.
Just because people voted for Brown does not mean they are tea party people. They are malcontent independents, just as you point out. Many of these people don't pay too much attention and think that Obama was promising them an easy time handling the challenges he confronted. People have not given him enough time, but I digress.
I said 2 things that you called nonsense, so come back and tell me where I am wrong or inaccurate on these:
1.)The Republicans will absolutely not win in 2012 with the far right extremists they have running the party now. Not after 4 years of obstruction, and not once the economy has recovered and the anger has disappeared like it always does.
Sarah Palin is not taken seriously by anyone
What I was saying is if Brown goes the way of the far right , like he is indicating, he will be marginalized from mainstream America in a heartbeat. He won in MA with tea bag help, but that was not really until the end. The widespread perception of Scott Brown was that he is a moderate. Do you even live in/follow Massachusetts news?
The Republicans have gone too far to the right to be able to claim to represent mainstream America. Even with the economy still struggling and a massive botch of the healthcare debate by Obama, his approval ratings are still much higher than the Republicans in Congress as a whole.
2.)Most importantly, the Republicans will need a moderate to win. Look at all the people that voted for Democrats in 2006 and Obama in 2008. Alot of moderate/conservative voters and alot of moderate/conservative Democrats. Obama, contrary to what the right would have you believe, has governed from the center and made good faith efforts at bipartisanship. The Democrats were already trending centrist with Clinton, and did even more so in the last couple of years. That is why they won.
The Republicans, in order to get these voters back once the already begun recovery gets in gear, will have to moderate. The people in the middle are the ones who are uncomfortable with religious nuts like Sarah Palin and know nothing tea partiers running the Republican Party. Look at Arlen Specter, Jim Leach, Ray LaHood, Lincoln Chaffee. The Republicans have had alot more defections in recent years than Democrats, all moderates who say the party has driven them and their constituents out.
Hard core insistence on social conservatism, obstructionism and outrageous claims of socialism and death panels are what turns middle of the road voters off. The guy raising his family who is Independent and has voted for both parties in the past, worried about his job, etc has no use for the Republicans throwing tea parties and invoking Ronald Reagan at every turn.
If a Republican wins in 2012, it will be someone in the mold of Tim Pawlenty, Charlie Crist or Colin Powell.
2010 is not looking good for the Dems now, who knows once the recovery gets up and running. There are still 10 months. This is a testament to the fact that most people do not pay attention. Obama never promised, nor would he be capable of delivering, a full employment economy full of jobs and a balanced budget by 2010. Now, the voters seem ready to get him out and go back to what we already tried and failed at after only a year. Real smart. Most people have no idea of the issues anymore, we have become a soft, sit at home and watch reality TV society with no concept of anything.
2012 is way too far away to predict. Who knows? We could have a surging economy, a deficit cut in half, a stable Iraq and Afghanistan and a reduction in health care costs. We could have the exact opposite on all counts. Way too far out to start drawing conclusions about 2012 from elections that took place in recent days or months.
This and what Dreadsox summed up are both excellent!!
Kudos to you both.You point out something no one else has yet: Our half wit Democratic Governor, Deval Patrick, being a factor. This says nothing good about our voters level of awareness, but nonetheless, alot of people said they voted for Brown to "get rid of the wasteful spending and taxes of Deval Patrick." Ignoring for a second that anyone who can't distinguish the state government from the US Senate is a bona fide idiot, it shows Patrick's unpopularity was a factor.
For those not in the know, this is the guy who tries to fill an appointed position, vacant for 12 years, with the first State Senator who endorsed him. The salary:$230,000(or very close to it). He then did not understand why people would be pissed about that! Its also the guy who raised the sales tax, the most regressive tax, 1.25 percentage points in the middle of a recession. We needed the tax, because revenues were down, he told us, but come to find out, he is going on a hiring binge, including giving his neighbors $100K jobs. A loser, and the biggest black mark on the Democratic Party in Massachusetts since one Michael Dukakis. I had 100 Democrats I would have put on a ballot ahead of him, but the party does not call up me, a registered, committed "D" who votes, when making those decisions.
The other piece, Mrs Springsteen, the health care bill. Well said! Obama should have told the Unions to go stick it(they did not get him elected like they have some Dem officials), that and the buying of Nebraska made opposition to this bill more mainstream as opposed to right wing. Big mistake.
Big mistake#2: The public option, and the insistence on it by left wing Democrats- This was never in Obama's original plans, and all it did was open the Dems up to false charges of socialized medicine, which Obama brilliantly let go for 2 months before he responded! Public option was not and is not material to getting a good health care reform bill through.
I think Obama calculated that, if the left was insisting on it to begin with, appease them, and then drop the public option as a compromise in hopes of getting Republicans on board. He should have known that this would not happen, and not wasted the 3 months of negotiating over it.
Like you said, the Republicans have no intentions of addressing the issue, so I don't trust them at all, but that does not mean Obama and the Democrats have not royally screwed up the implementation!
Also, for all those saying that people fed up with lobbyists voted for Brown, a question: How much money to you think Scott Brown will get from the Health industry when he kills this bill for them?
I agree, Coakley should not have been jetting to DC to meet with them while voters wanted to hear from her, but lets not pretend Brown is going down there completely free of any lobbyist influence. Quite the opposite.
The only one in the Senate campaign not taking any lobbyist money was Democrat Steve Pagliuca, the owner of the Celtics.
Yes, and the military tribunal structure cost $12 million just to put in place. Litigation is litigation, the costs will be comparable in both places. Where Gitmo would cost more is in transporting lawyers, judges, keeping military there, holding and defending a base, etc. The Illinois prison is already built and it cost about $140 million to build. Estimates are about $60 million to upgrade.Hold Scott Brown's planned tax cut for any 2 millionaires and you have paid that! Plus, this will create jobs, many jobs, in an economically depressed region of Illinois. Gitmo costs money creates no jobs and yes, is a terrorist recruiting tool, if you don't believe me, ask Adm Michael Mullen or John McCain or James Jones.
Tell me where Obama or anyone else of any consequence has "apologized for how we have defended ourselves." Another crazy talking point that Obama is out running around apologizing for the US going after terrorists. Do you ever have an independent thought, ever?? Just wondering.
Obama has said he would close Gitmo, the morally, fiscally and practically smart thing to do. George W Bush said so, the military says so, Colin Powell said so.
He has also stopped using torture, which has been a major recruiting tool, which no one in the military wants, which we have never practiced up until Bush and not to mention, it has proven completely ineffective. Anyone who advocates torture has never been anywhere near a war, nor have they talked to anyone who was in combat.
So Obama and Democrats have simply signaled a departure from the Bush/Cheney policies of torture and legal black holes, and acknowledged the need to work with our allies, which we have always done, to confront our national security challenges.
The fact that Rush Limbaugh and those like him have lied and said this amounts to an apology to the world on behalf of America and you believe them does not change the FACTS I JUST POINTED OUT.
It remains:
You have yet to find an example of someone out of the far left, crazy academia or public square who has been making excuses for terrorists, been sensitive to their needs or apologized for America.
The scorecard still looks like this: Pat Robertson, Ron Paul.
Not to worry everyone, I just showed him how we are not emulating them in any way shape or form!
If he wants to start a discussion on the value of French cheese, wine and gorgeous girls in Paris being weighed against a socialized welfare state with high taxes and unemployment, we would love to hear it!
But that's all he can do, as this kind of comparison is irrelevant when we look at what is happening in our country!
Massachusetts is NO LONGER a Democratic state? Independents NOW OUTNUMBER Democrats and Republicans?
Where has the writer of this article been for the last 50 years? The last National attention grabbing US Senate race we had was in 1996 between John Kerry and Governor Bill Weld and the Independents' advantage in voter registration was repeated like a broken record!
Massachusetts went for Reagan in 80 and 84, kicked out Dukakis in a Democratic Primary, etc.
Back in the Kennedy camelot days, Republican governors and legislators in MA were much, much more common than they are now!
MA is about where it has always been!
Democratic as a general rule, but not immune from the same tendencies of voters in the 49 other states.
This liberal/conservative state crap is not useful to anyone except a few pundits for whom their paycheck depends on it.
The_Pac_Mule
Refugee
And here I am to lighten the mood.
YouTube - Hitler Finds Out the Massachusetts Senate Seat Was Won by a Republican
YouTube - Hitler Finds Out the Massachusetts Senate Seat Was Won by a Republican
PhilsFan
Blue Crack Addict
You're the one making the outlandish claims. The burden of proof is most certainly on you.
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