Political malpractice is the new courage.

If the @RepPaulRyan plan for Medicare is so fantastic, why not implement it TODAY? Why keep today’s Seniors out of a better deal, Hmmmm?

It’s not “political malpractice” to fail to slam repubs over medicare.

It’s the course that Obama consciously chooses. No mistake, or “poor negotating skills” involved.

I’ve paid in all of my working life in order to have health care provided to me when I reach age 65, and I simply will not accept a voucher to spend at what is, in effect, the “company store” where the company sets the prices (ie: the US health insurance system which is 3+ times more expensive than anywhere else in the world).

The skill is in making it look like a position he reached through reluctant (but totally pragmatic!) compromise.

The Tea-GOP has so completely misread their November victories and have foolishly concluded the public wants to radically change M&M and actually believes the free market gibberish.

Ryan was always an idiot; now he’s shown he is a fool to make their willingness to dismantle M&M public, and the whole party has been stampeded by the Tea-Zombies to embrace it.

Even Attila the Hun could position himself to the left, because the Tea-GOPs are racing to the extreme right. That leaves O all kinds of room to “improve” but “protect” M&M, and run against the inhumane and irresponsible Tea-GOPs.

today’s speech shows even O and his WH understand the gift the’ve been given. O’s vulnerability is his incompetence, a negligence that could still give away a sure victory.

What a great comment, Scarecrow.

Do you mean they are all on the same side? Them against us?

I would like to know if anyone has done the definitive piece about Paul Ryan, and that he couldn’t ever become Senator Ryan under the budget priorities he’s proposing.

One day as a 16 year old, Ryan came upon the lifeless body of his father. Paul Ryan, Sr. had died of a heart attack at age 55, leaving the Janesville Craig High School 10th grader, his three older brothers and sisters and his mother alone. It was Paul who told the family of his father’s death.

That linked article only has a smidgen of how Ryan benefited.

With his father’s passing, young Paul collected Social Security benefits until age 18, which he put away for college. To make ends meet, Paul’s mother returned to school to study interior design. His siblings were off at college. Ryan remembers this difficult time bringing him and his mother closer.

today’s speech shows even O and his WH understand the gift the’ve been given.

We see the gift as an opportunity to do what is right. They see it as an opportunity to tell us that they are going to do what us right. And then do what the Rs want.

A question about the speech. Does changing the payment basis for providers qualify as a major change or a minor change? The politics of cutting Medicare costs (the stated purpose) instead of Medicare-covered services is that either the claims processing folks (contractors likely to be insurance companies) get hit through simplification of claims, the providers get hit through incentives to control costs (like simplified billing forms and more sure claims processing and bundled costs instead of micromanaged cost accounting) in exchange for lower overall revenues, or the elders get hit through increases in deductibles and co-pays and complex pre-authorization procedures.

Are the contractors and providers going to be the ones who sacrifice this time? Watch the Republican specialty docs (Barrasso, Coburn, Broun, etc.) start looking for “Doc Fix II” if the providers are supposed to take some pain. In other words, watch them fight spending cuts.

I do believe that the rhetoric is about to get very interesting. Too bad that the corporate media are so compromised and so dumb that they will not notice it or enjoy it.

BTW, the 1:30 PM ET (actually closer to 2 PM when he started) speaks that the target audience was elders and others who watch daytime TV. Curious to know how widely it aired.

Makes John McCain look like a piker at entitlements. McCain after all was born with a brass baby cap.

I wonder how Republicans would define “minor changes” to medicare. I can see a majority saying if the spending is the same or close in the beginning, that vouchers would constitute a “minor change”.

With his father’s passing, young Paul collected Social Security benefits until age 18

Had SS been privatized, the survivor benefits would have been higher — and he would be a Senator by now. /s

Will there be a tipping point where a dopey electorate recognizes the villainy of Republicans, and the criminal complicity of Democrats?

The rich should share in the sacrifice and pay their fair share. Corporations should actually pay taxes, like I do. (I paid more than GE, and I did not earn $13 billion last year.) End the stupid wars. This will close the deficit gap.

Spend money at home on education, health care, transportation and job creation. Government stimulus should not be spending on more weapons systems (or Red state pork).

Why is this so hard in America? I’ve looked at our electoral system, and I am amazed, as I am dismayed and confused, by it all.

Will there be a tipping point where a dopey electorate recognizes the villainy of Republicans, and the criminal complicity of Democrats?

The jury is weighing Wisconsin, and the jury is still out.

But remember at election time anyone who is anywhere near a television set gets assaulted with endless confusion and outright lies. Even when they rationally sort it out, standing in the voting booth they make emotional decisions that play into the current madness. Not as much a dopey electorate overall (the dopey ones get media coverage), but a punch-drunk electorate.

Last comment: I think, at last, we have a country not worth defending.

The U.S. is a country still worth raiding, though becoming increasingly less so.

what polls ” show” citizens/voters “want” is no longer especially relevant.

both political and military elites have experienced the consequences of sustained public pressure often enough in the past to have studied this matter and developed “shuck-and-jive”, aka, redirection, misdirection, media routines that lead ordinary folk to forget what it is that they wanted.

look for medicare or social security to be changed at will by a republican/democrat coalition, led by the prez, with lots of shuck-and-jive media presentations validated by a suborned corporate media.

There will be a day in the not too distant future when the poor, the working and middle class will cheer foreign troops as if they were liberators. Let us hope they are EU troops and not Chinese.

If Democrats don’t totally exploit the Republican Party’s decision to embrace Paul Ryan’s plan to privatize Medicare, it would be an almost unimaginable act of political malpractice.

Jon, I love most of your posts and I think you know better here also and have good intent. The truth is though that the dems are serving their corporate masters. Doing what you say would violate that. Political malpractice is progressives continuing to support Democrats.

I’m hoping a day will come when FDL abandons hope for well behaved Democrats and starts focusing on what to do with the reality we face in America today. Our country will not move in a positive direction until we completely write off Democrats as the corporate stooges that they are. Even Kucinich has a habit of caving in when his vote is needed to pass the corporate handout of the day.

I envy your ability to remain optimistic.

This was the best day liberals have had in a long time.

I reject your idea of what “liberal” is and frankly, I can’t wait for the day where the country becomes sensible and wrests the nomination process away from so-called Iowan Liberals like you and we have national run-offs.

The notion that 3:1 cuts to revenue raising is “Liberal” for a non-existent deficit problem is proof of that.

x2

Political malpractice or treachery?

it would be an almost unimaginable act of political malpractice

Ist’n that were they have been moving since billy c. and even before. It’s fuck the worker, Right on ws.

I am not opposed to diminishing Iowa’s role in selecting the presidential nominees. But, your idea of having a national run-off is not the way to go.

Most liberals, like me, found today’s speech to be very good.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/13/966695/-Reaction-roundup:-Part-II

I expect Obama to adopt the most vile parts of Ryans plan, deny they are from Ryans plan, and brand it “reform of Medicare and Medicaid”. The Republicans will vote for the scheme, feigning reluctance.

They’ll be praised by the media and Obama himself for their bipartisanship.

And his apologists will applaud and thank him for “saving” those programs.

Repeat for Social Security.

Just speak for yourself.

Most liberals, like me, found today’s speech to be very good.

I would give you some links to speeches in which he promised to do exactly the opposite of what he wound up doing, but I think you’re probably already familiar with all those.

I might suggest Peanuts as a better reference.

For gawd’s sake. E V E R Y poll I have seen on this subject for several weeks now has shown that the vast majority of the public wants to cut defense and raise taxes. Why is this so difficult for the politicians to understand?

The questions on this poll are a bit misleading. I do want major changes —- I support Medicare for All. That’s about as major a change as you can imagine—- support of HR 676, also known as Improved and Expanded Medicare.

My dream is to see the Republicans run on trying to gut Medicare and on the other side lots of candidates (not Democrats obviously) running in the opposite direction, massive expansion of Medicare.

The choices in this poll have no depth, are much too simplistic.

If the Democrats wouldn’t get in the way, we could answer the Republican proposal with NO, AND AS A MATTER OF FACT . . . and move to Medicare for All.

You’re obviously missing the point, what’s in it for them to do that?

And who’s gonna make them?

I’ve not read/heard the full speech yet, but I’ve been intrigued by the fierce commitment to protect MM from the bad Repubs plans.

Earlier today I signed the following pledge prepared by the Progressive Political Campaign Committee (hope Ive got that group name right). I’d earlier sent written and given verbal replies to mailed and phone called solicitations for campaign money because I had once been such a great supporter. (I may have given $25 out of my poverty,but did vote for him.)

I told the campaign folks that I had concluded that Obama had become the most despicable person I’d ever known of; I would never support him again, would indeed work against him, and demanded that I be totally removed from their contact lists. The earnest young man agreed to remove me. He was quite taken aback by my response. I’m sure he had not been prepared for my rant. I was just ecstatic that I finally had a quasi-direct way to express my anger and disgust!

Anyway, I commend the following to you and urge your signing the petition
(goal had been 50k and now they have 100k responses so far)

But the important thing is that it demands that these entitlements be left alone. I personally don’t agree with that position. I know there are all kinds of changes needed but I doubt the changes I would like to see would be included in Obama’s or Ryan’s agenda. Anyway…..

President Obama, if you cut Medicare and Medicaid, don’t ask for my help in 2012…..

Sign the petition:

President Obama: If you cut Medicare and Medicaid benefits for me, my parents, my grandparents, or families like mine, don’t ask for a penny of my money or an hour of my time in 2012. I’m going to focus on electing bold progressive candidates — not Democrats who help Republicans make harmful cuts to key programs.

Sign the petition

First Name
Last Name
Email
Phone
ZIP

Not ? Click here.

In 2008, I was an Obama:

Volunteer
How many hours? hours
Please enter a number only

Donor
How much? $
Please enter a number only

Paid Staffer
What was your title and where you worked?
(ie. “Team Leader, Raleigh, NC”)

Voter

Optional: Public statement about how Medicare/Medicaid cuts would impact your level of support in 2012 – and why:

201%

100,962 people have taken action—201% of our goal of 50,000!

Blessings to all at the Lake,

There will be hearing here in Sacramento next week on another attempt to pass a single payer bill again. I plan to go ans sit on my walker, probably outside the hearing room…… to make my preference declared. Saturday I plan to attend a rally at the Capitol put on by USUNCUT.org to say its time for the 98% to pay their fair share, and particularly the corporations paying next to nothing or nothing at all……

Blessings,

Doesn’t the poll show the Dems leading the call for “minor change?”

a new Gallup poll reminds us that Americans really want their Medicare left alone.
Hey, they didn’t call me