http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6853126Oh my.
First, that Allentown dude primitive:
AllentownJake (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 12:12 PM
Original message
The Audacity of Bullshit
It was a cool rainy spring day back in March of 2008. Senator Barack Obama was coming to Allentown to speak at Muhlenberg college and everyone was excited. I had my special "red ticket" which entitled me to a special seat at the event. I had taken the day off of work and invited my friend from Philadelphia to come up. My mother got red tickets too and she got to sit on the risers behind the President and shake his hand. A great day for the AllentownJake family and friends.
I remember the speech. Particularly the part on Healthcare. The Senator trashed the Clinton plan for including mandates and sold what would become to be known as the public option. I knew the plan well. I went door to door and organized a team of volunteers for the Senator. I remember explaining to people why Single Payer now would be too soon. I remember ruthlessly trashing the Clinton plan for the mandates. I remember selling the public option but it wasn't called the public option back than that I can remember. I even recall calling mandates a gift to the insurance industry, it was a talking point of the campaign.
Flash forward to October of 2009. What is in the bill being debated, why mandates? What is the most controversial aspect of the bill that the democratic party and White House communications team can't seem to wrap up their support for or details of, the public option. Mandates the most controversial issue of the primary is the least controversial part of the current bill and the public option the least controversial aspect of the primary (both plans had one) is the most controversial part of the bill.
Oh if Hillary Clinton was still in the Senate, she'd be having a great time with this. She was beat over the head by the President and his army of volunteers myself included over mandates. Good thing she has a nice position at State where she is doing a supurb job. I always respected her, even if I preferred the Senator from Illinois.
Now, I'm getting emails from President Obama asking me to phone in support for a bill, that includes a provision he relentlessly campaigned against as a handout for the insurance industry.
Politics...ain't it fun!
It's a very large bonfire, hundreds of primitive comments. There's a lot of PoP at this bonfire, including the operating one and Doug's stupid ex-wife. The Allentown dude primitive is obviously trying to get inside Clare Boothe Luce's clothes, but never mind. Sample primitive comments, selected at random:
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 12:18 PM
Response to Reply #1
5. Or maybe a thread titled "Why did Obama lie to us voters about health care?"
WE VOTED FOR HIM
WE LIKED HIM
WE TRUSTED HIM
And Jake is right: he's selling us out.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 07:44 PM
Response to Reply #180
185. Why the profanity?
Sheeple are sheeple.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 01:26 PM
Response to Reply #21
43. Exactly.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 09:47 PM
Response to Reply #200
212. We try to shed the light.
But we don't work in concert.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 01:30 PM
Response to Reply #34
45. No kidding.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 04:31 PM
Response to Reply #30
124. Once they took single payer off the table, a mandate was crucial
The insurance companies needed to offset the more ill (with pre-existing conditions) with the 18-30 year-olds who don't get sick much. That's the only way a private scheme can work.
It wasn't Congress: remember, Baucus originally was talking about single payer a while back. I think this decision came from the top down; and by the top, I mean Wall Street and the Fed.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 08:50 PM
Response to Reply #47
195. Well, that's constructive
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 09:12 PM
Response to Reply #196
206. THAT explains it!
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 12:19 PM
Response to Reply #4
9. SIlly clifford. Did you have bad parents?
Because this has nothing to do with parents. We hired a guy for a job based on what he said he would do. Obama has done the equivalent here of lying on his resume.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 12:25 PM
Response to Reply #13
17. Past experience and campaign promises are the candidate's resume
Obama's past experience was very thin--many DUers who are no longer here said this at the time. All we had to really go on were his campaign promises. And when he breaks those, there's nothing left.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 12:30 PM
Response to Reply #24
25. Now go eat your vegetables, clifford.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 03:03 PM
Response to Reply #35
73. That's why some of us are upset
And it's not "hate", it's "betrayal."
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 04:17 PM
Response to Reply #109
110. If you're talking to me, I'm not pining for Hillary either. I wanted a REAL progressive.
Obama came across that way which is why I supported him. But his stands are not progressive at all. And no, I don't think Hillary would have been any better. She was more honest about what she was going to do. I didn't agree with mandates when Hillary suggested them and I don't agree with them now.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 04:57 PM
Response to Reply #134
137. This gives me an idea for a horrid Broadway musical.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 05:03 PM
Response to Reply #138
139. And at the snack bar...
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 05:27 PM
Response to Reply #146
154. And Geithner needs a tutu and toe shoes.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 08:47 PM
Response to Reply #161
193. Oh Lordy...
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 05:57 PM
Response to Reply #156
163. I'll bet Geithner's a horrible singer.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 06:43 PM
Response to Reply #164
172. Of course the financial institutions are off kilter, sooo
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 12:26 PM
Response to Reply #14
19. It's all in the framing, Jake. Don't you get it????!!!111
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 01:33 PM
Response to Reply #36
48. Hillary was just being more honest.
I don't know what that says about the Obama campaign.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 01:36 PM
Response to Reply #50
51. Well, you can always blame Rahm.
Accuse him of being a Rasputin.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 01:45 PM
Response to Reply #53
54. Did he really?
I didn't realize Obama had gone after him so hard.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 01:49 PM
Response to Reply #55
56. So what was Obama really looking for if he wouldn't take no from Rahm?
My guess is that he was the corporatist DLCer that a lot of us thought he was initially.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 02:24 PM
Response to Reply #62
63. The candidate from Wall Street
sigh.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 04:25 PM
Response to Reply #116
117. Hey, saracat. You know Rahm is there pulling the strings
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 04:47 PM
Response to Reply #130
135. Yes it is.
It's getting hard to excuse what is going on.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 12:21 PM
Response to Reply #7
12. Congress was ready to vote down NAFTA until Bill Clinton came in and twisted their arms
Sadly, Clinton got NAFTA passed.
Now, Obama has the opportunity to do some arm twisting on the side of the angels. Where is he?
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 09:25 PM
Response to Reply #49
208. Oh, you're right! +10,000
It's a PR bonanza.
Crap!
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 04:19 PM
Response to Reply #28
111. But we didn't.
And he's not even listening to us, to the polls.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 03:05 PM
Response to Reply #72
76. I think the mandates will actually make it worse--for people and for Medicare, which I think will eventually be transferred to the same kind of "privatized" system. In the end, it's about taking healthcare out of the Federal budget.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 03:08 PM
Response to Reply #77
78. Absolutely.
They are counting on liberals not wanting to attack their own.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 03:12 PM
Response to Reply #80
82. The problem is that no one is looking at the actual legislation.
Or that China really wants us to get our health crisis solved. Yeah, China. They hold our debt and think the 70 trillion spent on Medicare makes us too unstable for investment.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 07:41 PM
Response to Reply #122
183. ProSense can't read very well.
Between your OP and articles she quoted from 2009 (lol!!) she really seems to have literacy issues.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 07:40 PM
Response to Reply #90
182. Prosense Lesson #2: Read the OP. Jake WORKED the campaign.
Silly, silly.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 07:55 PM
Response to Reply #184
186. Spamming is much more important than actually being a real activist.
Silly, Jake, don't get you get that.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 04:23 PM
Response to Reply #103
114. And your game is to take quotes from 2009 and make it seem like they negate what Obama said in 2008.
Very slick.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 04:22 PM
Response to Reply #84
112. Pro Sense, your link from 2008 (the only one that matters here) is from the American Medical Ass'n JOURNAL. It's not from a mainstream paper that most of us would read. Nor does it seem to be from a speech he gave to people. It is insider knowledge that the rank and file didn't necessarily have.
I call foul.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 05:20 PM
Response to Reply #141
149. This article says that Obama only wants mandates for CHILDREN
after which considerable blahblahblah.....
I rest my case. And you should go back and check your rhetoric from the primaries.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 05:30 PM
Response to Reply #151
157. Well, you're my one fan.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 07:37 PM
Response to Reply #168
181. Political literacy: "would consider" buried in the article: the WaPo stayed on message
So did you.
You've been nabbed, sweets. Go back and check some of your old posts for that distinction.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 04:26 PM
Response to Reply #107
118. And that is the point.
Just a lot of deception.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 08:53 PM
Response to Reply #178
197. Because Obama was supposed to be different.
Everyone on DU said it. They clobbered the hell out of dissenters who said Obama might be a politician like any other, saying anything to get elected. I actually thought there might be some real relief for the poor and the jobless, but this healthcare bill is showing that real relief is not really in sight. Read Naomi Klein's book, Shock Doctrine, and you will see that this is the same pattern being followed all over the world. It creates poverty and corporate control.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 09:01 PM
Response to Reply #191
199. So have you looked at your old posts from the primary yet?
And realized the difference between then and now?
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 09:11 PM
Response to Reply #201
204. Well, she's not being consistent on the really important stuff.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 08:41 PM
Response to Reply #190
192. Actually, it's not. Mandates are not just a "part" of the healthcare bill
They are what makes it work mathematically. Without individual mandates, there could be no bill. In order to cover everyone and still make a profit, the insurance companies need the healthy 18-30 crowd to buy in. Without that, Congress can't demand that the industry stop rejecting folks based on pre-existing conditions.
To reject "individual mandates" means to have an entirely DIFFERENT kind of health care bill--a public one. That is what mandates mean.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 10:24 PM
Response to Reply #205
215. Jake is not hateful--he's disappointed and feels like this wasn't what he voted for.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Sun Oct-25-09 11:36 PM
Response to Reply #231
233. Me neither.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-26-09 12:48 PM
Response to Reply #255
276. Maybe if you posted more accurate evidence and backed yourself up better.
you might have a leg to stand on. As it is, you just throw shit out there. And all your quoting fools some people into thinking you know actual facts. Of course they don't check to see if your quotes have anything to do with your argument.
Nikki Stone1 (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-26-09 03:51 PM
Response to Reply #284
285. You don't give arguments, dude. No proof, nuthin.
You just shoot your wad and move on.
Anybody can do that.
