Since it is unlikely Obama is going to achieve any new major accomplishments with a Republican House

You’re forgetting about deficit reduction & SS reform.

acts of political suicide don’t count

Okay, I’ll ask again. I’ve yet to get a coherent explanation why most provisions of the so-called reform bill won’t go into effect until after 2014. If this is such a sweet deal for the public, then I would think they’d want to implement it ASAP.

unless Democrats primary him, he will effectively be reelected in 2012 completely unopposed, because Republicans neither can nor wish to oppose him.

He’ll do it & get elected anyway bc the R candidates are all crazy. He might need to start bombing another country to divert the electorate with more war porn, but whatever it takes.

Me thinks Obama and his fellow trojan horses have helped the GOP over achieve the last couple of years.

1. Bob Dole/Mitt Romney/ Obama GOP health care bill (Obama did not pass a Ted Kennedy health care plan)

2. More Wars, Iraq, Afghan, Pakistan, Libya, ( a lot of real dems voted for less war, and Trojan Horse Obama gave us more war)

3. Bush/Obama Tax cuts for the super rich

All progressives need to make Dems wear the Obama/Bob Dole Health care bill like a necklace.

Real Dems hate this Bill
GOP members hate this Bill

Who likes the Obama/Bob Dole health care bill

and yes Everyone hates $4.00 to $5.00 gallon gas? Obama says nothing
10% to 12% un-employment in the USA Obama says nothing

The subsidy for the insurance industries is simply toxic. The health environment is poisoned, we cannot live in it. The political climate is not so hot. What a mess.

It’s not a sweet deal bc people will hate the mandate, which adds 30 million new suckers to med ins roles, who will contribute to med ins profits, while getting crappy ins in return.

The kabuki for postponing the mandate & a few other provisions was deficit reduction, iirc.

It’s because Obama made the statement, reference health care reform, that “I won’t sign any bill that adds one dime to the deficit.”

The CBO does deficit projections 10 years at a time. So, they had to wait until 2014 (meaning 2 or 3 years with no real big expenses, like the subsidies) to make the 10 year budget projection make it appear it decreased the deficit. I’m pretty sure (though someone PLEASE correct me if I’m wrong), that in a 10 year period where the law took effect on day 1, it would’ve had a large negative impact on the deficit. Meaning, unless I’m missing something, that going foreward after 2014 when it’s in it’s full swing, that it will be adding to the deficit.

Your version sounds what I remember.

Like with the Kaiser Family Foundation poll, overall support for the law has changed little, but there is a real trend of people becoming modestly less supportive.

That’s just gobbledygook.

Since it is unlikely Obama is going to achieve any new major accomplishments with a Republican House

Well, that’s not hard to predict – he didn’t achieve any with a Democratic House.

Primary President Bipartisan. Given the amnesia the U.S. public suffers from and is imposed upon them by a corrupt media lets see the public have a real choice between a far right wing corporatist and a right wing corporatist.

He’s the Tap Dancer in Chief.

Note the different spin over at DK, which is generally more pro-Obama….

New health reform poll: Americans don’t like the mandate, but don’t support repeal

We warned the Dems about this for months in the comments practically screaming but Rahm thought we were retards.
Now Healthcare Obama’s biggest *cough* achievement is turning into a negative.
Its sad when your biggest argument for reelection is I have accomplished nothing I said I would…but the other guys are worse.

basically right but actually it was just to keep the overall CBO score under 900 billion because that is a fancy round number. Starting it in 2012 would still have resulted in a deficit reduction score but with a total spending of 1.2 trillion

Between the Rethuglicans lying about it and everybody else learning the truth about it, I don’t expect it to ever be popular. I can’t wait to see how Obama defends this piece of shit when he runs for re-election.

Time for a third party

The same way W ran for reelection after no WMDs were found in Iraq. He’ll look under his desk at the correspondents’ dinner, grin his big grin & make a joke.

Don’t forget that Obama is a politician, and like all politicians he is only concerned with self preservation. If Obamacare was put in place before the 2012 election people would get a taste of how bad it really is and he would not get re-elected.

Its sad when your biggest argument for reelection is I have accomplished nothing I said I would…but the other guys are worse.

That’s the basic message of Obama and the Dems.

“We suck less”.

Wasn’t it Mark Twain who said that we should never elect a President who actually wanted to be one? Too right, whoever said it.

Why doesn’t Obama just veto the HCR law and draw up a new one that has more popular support.

Pass it while Congress is out of town, just like starting the war.

Obama does no that with high unemployment and him not doing anything about it well how many millions of Americans have lost their crappy healthcare? We can push for national healthcare, drug price controls etc and given the protests in Wisconsin and other states and the Tea Parties lack of counter protest we have the anger and the majority to get real change.

It’s funny how Obama and the Dems passed a Bob Dole/GOP/Romneycare bill, and now they’re stuck defending it.

Meanwhile, not one Republican voted for it, despite being a Republican health care bill.

Obama isn’t nearly as bright as he thinks he is.

CALLING RUSS FEINGOLD!!

The GOP says they want to repeal it. Obama should be bipartisan and repeal his own health care bill.

Because you can’t retroactively veto an already signed law.

“Funny” isn’t the word that comes to my mind.

I don’t need to click on that link to know that Orange Satan is kissing Obama’s ass…

With the unpopularity of the health care “fix” and the current outcry over deficits and the cost of government, why doesn’t someone put these two together and suggest single-payer health care as a way to reduce deficits.

You could increase the Medicare tax from 1.45% to 5% (on both employees and employers) with no upper limit. Everybody, including government employees, would be covered by the same plan. Even if the federal and state governments, schools districts, cities, counties, and other special districts picked up the employee’s extra 3.55% and paid for a supplemental policy to give government employees the same coverage most of them now have, the savings would be in the trillions. (In our state, with about 40,000 state employees, it would save the state about $300 million a year. And that’s only the state workers, not teachers or people working for other taxing jurisdictions.)

Deeply ironic, sad, tragic, and infuriating.

Or just abominable.

Uh just who is running the Dems Public Relations and crafting their message? I need a job and I can come up with a much better message Dump Obama unless he gives us Real Change!
Yes We Can!

Maybe you mean Groucho Marks

“I would not join any club that would have someone like me for a member.”

“Somebody” has, just none of the corporate lackeys in government.

I think she means funny like the banks books are funny after the financial crisis. Obama never really wanted to give us healthcare he wanted to protect health industry profits by killing real healthcare.

That works, too. :)

I know what she meant TCU. :)

Great Idea then add in that health care emergencies are the biggest cause of people going into foreclosure and sell healthcare as a way to save people’s homes and save banks who can’t sell those homes they foreclose on for anything near the price the loan was.

Yeh, sure, we all thought that about bombing brown people too.

Obama: ‘President Does Not Have Power Under Constitution to Unilaterally Authorize a Military Attack’

Gotcha I was worried you might have been to outraged over the issue to see what she was saying but hey I should have known better its you your a regular.

But he was delighted to find that it wasn’t true. Pure arrogance.

The only good thing in HCR is that it is a pot of money that can be re-purposed for Medicare for all for basic services – and if that fails we have a Medicaid expansion that the states cannot afford so they will either push for no health care for the middle-class and poor, or they will want Medicaid replaced by a Medicare for all basic services bill.

If this survives as written the current situation continues with cost out of control and public health decreasing and health benefit hiring expense preventing pricing that allows exports, resulting in, as eCHAN says so well, economic suicide.

You would think by now the Dems would read the Lake to figure out what is popular and what is not popular outside of Washington.
This is just how Bush did things lie to the people because he the President knew what was best for us.
The wisdom of crowds the wisdom of a diverse group of mostly non experts beats experts at finding solutions (read the book the “Difference” )
We the Lefty Blogs were right about the wars, the economy, no child left behind, etc the only thing we were wrong about was Obama.

They don’t care what the f’g retards think.

It would be nice to hear Dem political advisers try and spin Healthcare as a win for Obama now. It would be nice to hear what they consider Obama’s accomplishments as President then we can look at how those issues poll.
Heck we can look at how many Americans have even heard of them.

Boy was I disappointed when I clicked there. First time I had been there in months, just wanted to see if change was occurring.

It may be, but boy they mostly are buying everything Obama and the Dems are selling, even though it’s the same bullshit they refused to buy when the Republicans were selling it.

Sad to see real life examples of IOKIYAD. If something is not right when a Republican does it, it’s not right when a Democrat does it, including the belief in IOKIYAD.

I am a progressive that hated the ACA from the beginning. It was built on a house of cards that could not stand.

Initial estimates were that 12-15 million would be covered by Medicaid. Most of these would have fallen into the “insurance that can’t be used” category simply because there are too few doctors willing to accept Medicaid.

Then as the recession deepened and unemployment increased, the number of uninsured likely to be eligible under the Medicaid provision has increased substantially, possibly by as much as a third.

And last, we now have states trying to cut back on Medicaid eligibility and reduce benefits for those remaining eligible.

By the time ACA becomes fully functional in 2014, the number of additionally insured is likely to be half of what was originally predicted and most of those will have insurance they cannot afford to use.

On the positive side, Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical companies will likely be continuing to post record profits.

If Obamacare was put in place before the 2012 election people would get a taste of how bad it really is and he would not get re-elected.

That’s exactly what I thought when this POS was passed into law.

Not all of us were wrong. Some of us saw through the “inspiring” rhetoric and supported Hillary. Unfortunately, too many with influence within the party (and, especially, people like Chris, Keith, and Rachel who spent months demonizing her) were so drunk on the Obama Kool-Aid that they couldn’t see his deficiencies.

Too bad. We wasted a great opportunity for REAL change. That opportunity’s not coming again for a long time.

Rahm won in Chicago because of a divided field in African American and Hispanic candidates Rahm is not as popular as he thinks he is many African Americans and Hispanics did not turn out to vote because they thought they would lose.
As things are going now Rahm might be the first Chicago Mayor to lose the City of Chicago for a Democratic President in how many decades?
At the YMCA in Forest Park an African American said we need a new President 5 African Americans were in the room one agreed with him nobody argued with him.
Obama’s support among his African American base within sight of Chicago seems weak.

Hilary lost us when she wouldn’t commit to ending the wars. Obama got us when he said he would. Hilary was on the Lake once and we told her this stuff. She didn’t answer many if any questions as I recall rather she gave us a speech.
All Political Candidates in the future need to answer questions to win a blog and not give talking points.

Rahm loses Chicago for Obama and the words who is the the R word will come back to haunt him.

I’m white, but I’d think the A-A community would be the first to catch on to how much they’ve been betrayed.

Maybe projecting my sensibilities, but as a woman, I’ve been pretty quick to recognize when women in prominent positions fall short, and not loathe to criticize them. I know they represent the gender, & if they’re PoS, they ruin it for all the others.

Chicago’s Whites may vote for any dem who is White over a Dark Person but they won’t vote for Obama in this economy. The low African American and Hispanic turnouts suggest that Obama can’t count on us to turnout either so where is Rahm suppose to get votes for Obama? How is Rahm going to get votes for Obama? with his charming personality? With budget cuts that will please Wallstreet? By privatizing Chicago’s assets and making prices rise?
Mayor Daley had a saying for every person on the city payroll I get the votes of their wife, kids inlaws, brothers and sisters.
Gov Walker has found out this truth by trying to cut those jobs benefits witness the size of the protests in his state.

You’re forgetting about deficit reduction & SS reform.

Worth noting, almost all the long term deficit comes from Medicaid and Medicare blowing up. If HCR would have done what it was supposed to, control costs, none of this slash and burn austerity would be happening.
The failure of HCR is going to cause a lot of suffering.

Politics in Chicago is based on race to understand it look at the Irish Daley and Polish Alderman Mel he gave us Blaggo political machines.
The dark people outnumber the Whites but they are divided as long as they stay divided even among their own people Daley’s guys can win.
But yes you as a woman that African American at the YMCA people can tell when a member of their own group is lying or disappointing them better.
I think we need to look at the strength of Obama’s support among Dark People. A pollster asks me Obama, Sarah Palin, Jeb Bush, Newt for President well Obama is my choice hands down he is the lesser evil.
But am I motivated to vote for Obama? Nope
Will I vote third party? Yes but they don’t ask that question. Most people are not political junkies like us if there is no strong third party candidate they will stay home unless Obama demonizes the GOP so much that Dark People get scared about GOPers taking over.
Thats the only card Obama has to play now since he has no record of accomplishment to run on. Its not a very good card.

Got that right. (Warz need noting too, the cost of which lasts forever, esp now that lives are saved by med care of vets is much higher as a consequence.)

Medical costs blowing up more generally is large part of what’s ruining the U.S. economy & there was no meaningful cost redn in HCR.

We the Lefty Blogs were right about the wars, the economy, no child left behind, etc the only thing we were wrong about was Obama.

Sadly also the only thing that mattered, him being the next in line to get ‘er done.

I was not wrong about Obama, rather skeptical & ready to study for another 2 years to see if real change was possible. With a mandate like that the only conclusion is – not yet.

Anyone who studied 8 years of Bush knew the “D” who followed would have to put up or lie/shut up.

Real change?

- Nixon, etc/ Bush I

- Raygun-Bush II
- Raygun-Bush II
- Bush II
- Clinton I
- Clinton I
- Bush III
- Bush III
- Clinton II

I’ll pass on that REAL change.

As TCU said: “Mayor Daley had a saying for every person on the city payroll I get the votes of their wife, kids inlaws, brothers and sisters.”

That says it all for me.

Hillary was being honest. Obama was being political.

So much of the anti-Hillary sentiment came from her vote to support going into Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama was given credit for making a meaningless anti-war vote in the Illinois Senate (they really have a lot of impact on national policy, don’t they?). Had Obama been in the U. S. Senate, he would have voted the same way she did on the piece of legislation being considered.

People need to get the stars out of their eyes in these kinds of situations, and be more discerning.

I’m not saying I agree(d) with her on every stand she took, but she would have been more aggressive about taking advantage of that near 60 votes we had in the Senate for a year and a half.

“Hillary was being honest.”

…

“People need to get the stars out of their eyes in these kinds of situations, and be more discerning.”

Let’s not forget about more war. :(

Yes Politicians get us good jobs and then we will vote for them its a simple way to win elections.:)

Agreed Obama gave a meaningless vote but more than that he campaigned on ending the wars then he double crossed us. Hilary would have won easy if she had been willing to run as an anti war candidate.
I was wrong about Obama my bad. Hilary was wrong to think she could win the election and continue the wars.
Obama is not going to get reelected because he wants to keep the wars going and cut SS to pay for the wars.

Hilary can be honest and so can I ending the wars was a must do for me.

So you would you vote for now? It doesn’t appear that any Dem candidate either than Kucinich would do that.

Right, the rattlesnake juice was the President diving headfirst into the deficit hawk trap. What’s suffocating the economy isn’t federal health care spending per se (MMT plug– deficits don’t matter) but rather National Health Expenditures in the economy as a whole. Ironically, to spend less on NHE will require greater federal healthcare spending.

As most everyone reading this is familiar, when the Commonwealth Fund studied the various HCR bills in the hopper in 2009, the only bill that provided 100% coverage its first year of operation was the only one that actually cut NHE its very first year, Pete Stark’s “public option on steroids” Americare bill (there’d be even greater savings with a pure “Medicare for All” bill, but Stark’s clever use of a Nixon-style employer mandate avoided the issue of raising taxes).

Of course, there was no reason for an employer mandate or higher taxes, the govt could just spend whats required. To his credit, President Bush didn’t lose any sleep wondering how he’d pay for expanding Medicare benefits (as ineptly as it was executed) to include a drug benefit.

The President of the United States can run over anything thats in his way, including the Congressional Budget Office. He could have framed it thusly:
“We know that the EPA values the economic value of a human life saved at $9 million and we know there are (per a Harvard School of Public Health study) 45,000 premature deaths annually due to lack of health insurance. Every year we do nothing then, we’re paying $405 billion in death taxes (sorry Luntz) that drains money out of the economy with each child, parent, sibling, each fellow American buried before their time.

“And if we do nothing for 10 years, it will cost our nation over $4 trillion in lost production and the pointless waste of our most valuable resource, as we continue to pay in human lives a tax that benefits no one except the undertaker. We can avoid this waste from this day forward for far less than $4 trillion, and every dollar we save by providing 100% universal coverage is a tax cut that will make our country wealthier and our families stronger, so let us begin today… or maybe wait till 2104, I can teach it round or flat”.

Yeah, I’ll work on the ending. :o)

In the 50 years I’ve been politically aware I don’t think that I’ve seen a guy who got elected president more obviously lie than Obama. Well, I’m not sure about Nixon, but then everybody thought he was a liar.

I supported Obama because I was sure that Hilary would continue to pursue the policies of Bill, not because Bill would force it, but because they believed the same things. So I figured that might as well try Obama, boy was I wrong.

Welcome to the lake, lawguy. Lots of us here in the same ocean liner.

For the very reason you say, I don’t think Hillary would have been better or even, different in the end. We got that part right.

Can you, or any of the other “Hillary would have been worse.” people here explain to me why, if Hillary was going to be another Bill, Goldman Sachs, AIG and so many other corporate donors invested heavily in Obama to beat Hillary?

A Democrat was going to win in 2008. The only way to stop Hillary from being that Democrat was to take blacks, the most dependable segment of Bill’s coalition, out. Goldman paid and Obama delivered.

Simple explanation: the Wall Street guys knew that the R’s lusted to run against Hillary because they thought they’d have an easier time beating her. The Wall Streeters simply backed the best (co-opted/sold-out) horse in the field.

So the Wall Streeters, who like Republicans, bought a Democrat to beat Hillary because he was more likely to beat the Republican candidate. Got it.

If Obama had actually tried for a public option or single payer instead of bowing to his corporate buddies, I guarantee you things would be much different, much better for him.

Because they want it fixed, it can be fixed. It take will, not sure there is any and the Republicans want to repeal not fix it, they have no interest. All they will do is repeal (won’t happen) and do what they want which is give credits to buy health care and tort reform so the next time they fuck up your back surgery you can’t sue.

Is there any way to fix this? I am not sure, too much of the population is tuned out. The DNC and DLC put weak knee wanna-bes in place to run.

I said it before the only solution is to relocated to a solidly BLUE STATE and while the Republicans wanna play “Culture War” be sure your Blue State does what it needs to do to survive and make Republicans afraid to run in urban areas which keeps Republican seats to a min.

If we can get through this rough patch with Brown at the helm, I think California will be just fine, we’ll take a big wack at our state’s employment problem with 30 in 10 in Los Angeles and finalized High Speed Rail project. They also broke ground on Desalination plants and more projects to come (huge solar farms).

Buy Silver bury JP Morgan/Chase

Sigh – well, voting against Hillary – voting against honesty and a women who would push the left’s social agenda – in favor of pretender who was “first black male” got us what?

Oh – right – those evil “peace and prosperity” Clintons are not in the Oval Office. Guess it was a good choice \s

I too have never seen a politician lie more obviously than Obama. And if Obama looked like Nixon, no one would be fooled by the lies for a millisecond.