Mad_Machine76
Mad_Machine76's JournalMy feelings exactly
I REALLY hope that SCOTUS doesn't ruin this chance at progress. The way I see it there are 3 different outcomes:
1. Ideal: SCOTUS votes to preserve PPACA with mandate.
2. Less Ideal: SCOTUS strikes down mandate but preserves integrity of PPACA. This will require some adjustments likely but with President Obama re-elected and a Democratic Congress, I'm sure that some palatable solution will be found.
3. Awful: SCOTUS strikes down mandate and the rest of PPACA along with it.
Based on the outcomes of various court cases to date, my guess is that #1 and #2 are the most likely potential outcomes with #3 being very unlikely as only one(?) court has struck down PPACA in its entirety and I don't see how striking down the mandate would necessitate sinking the entire law with it.
I was listening to a radio show this afternoon (Michael Smerconish) regarding Michigan primaries
and he was discussing polls showing Santorum doing well in Michigan (which we already know) but he was discussing the internals of the poll that show that Santorum is benefiting from the open primary process and because he is drawing some support from Independents, which is surprising, but also from.......DEMOCRATS? Please somebody, tell me that this has to be because some Democrats are staging their own version of Limbaugh's 2008 "Operation Chaos".
Is Santorum a potentially stronger candidate than Romney or he just enjoying some good poll numbers because of Newt's collapse and it's his "turn to surge"? He would be too far out of the mainstream to win in a GE, wouldn't he? 
I'm especially interested in hearing from any Michigan DUers about this.
Well OTOH
Republicans generally don't believe that government can do anything good----but, strangely, still want to run (control) it and a lot of people don't seem to have noticed the discrepancy.........yet.
It seems that public office- keeping our local, state, and federal government operating like it's supposed to- is the only job I know of where it's considered o.k. to NOT do your job for your employers (i.e. voters). We all know what would happen if the rest of us showed up to our jobs and refused to work..................
I like Tony's singing
but he's wrong here IMHO. There is no connection between drugs being illegal and what happened to any of the people he mentioned here (as some have already pointed out).
There are some good arguments to be made that some drugs (i.e. pot) that pose less risk to people and have less potential of severe negative consequences should be legalized but there are a lot of other, more harmful drugs (i.e. Meth, Coke) that should NEVER be legalized. That being said, I definitely think that we need to change our focus on drugs from punishment to prevention/treatment and focus more time, energy, and resources on community programs than on incarceration.
Not only that
but they sign "pledges" to them (Norquist, at least). They may as well have with Limbaugh. 
This just proves my earlier point
that whoever the Republicans nominate, whether it's Romney or somebody else, is ultimately irrelevant b/c they are likely going to do what ALEC, the Koch Brothers, Grover Norquist, teabaggers, et. al want. They don't want somebody with a brain who has ideas and a real "vision" for the country. They just need a warm body for the seat in the Oval Office who they control and manipulate into signing their junk. This is why we can't just shrug and say, "meh, Romney's not so bad" or "both parties are the same", and then simply refuse to vote in November. The aforementioned parties will have their way with a Republican POTUS, House and Senate and we need to make sure that this does NOT happen IMHO!
Context is important
Clinton failed to get his more liberal version of HCR passed, largely because of some of the same congressional dynamics that Obama encountered (though he didn't have to deal with a permanent filibuster though he got abandoned by most of his won party). Obama has never supported the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy per se but agreed to extend them in order to preserve unemployment benefits. He never pledged to immediately end Afghanistan or Iraq immediately but has followed through on Iraq and has a timetable for Afghanistan. Aside from the clusterf**k in Somalia, Clinton didn't inherit any ongoing wars but did militarily intervene in Bosnia not unlike Obama did in Libya (for which he was/is roundly criticised). As for civil liberties, yes, Obama has largely continued the Bush anti-terror policies, most of which has ultimately been codified into law by Congress, which also prevented Obama from closing Gitmo like he wanted to do. Such things were never even on the drawing board as far as anybody-Democrat or Repuublican- was concerned back when Clinton was POTUS.
Will all the right-wing hatred of Obama actually "innoculate" him in November?
Fox News and the right-wing "Tea Party" has piled so much hatred on President Obama since he was elected POTUS in 2008 and have thrown the proverbial kitchen sink at him many times over and yet he has maintained consistently high personal favorability ratings and decent approval numbers (or at least certainly not abysmal ones). Now comes word that the Koch Brothers and other monied interests (i.e. Super Pacs) are planning to unleash even more of their nuclear arsenal on President Obama during the upcoming election season. My question is, what more can they say about President Obama than what they haven't already? What else are they going to invent to attack him? What's left?
They have no "dirt" on him and/or his Administration despite their attempts to blow Solyndra and/or "Fast & Furious" into major scandals, the whole "birther" argument- aside from a few real loons- has been thoroughly discredited and no credible candidate wants to touch it with a ten foot pole, he's not the "unknown quantity" that he (arguably) was back in 2008 and has a real record of accomplishments and governance to run on, the economy is recovering, albeit slowly, so they can't say that he's wrecked the economy with his policies, he hasn't had any foreign policy blunders and has actually had several successes. What happens now with Iran is anybody's guess but I have little doubt that he will handle whatever happens in a responsible manner (I don't think he wants more and the public seems to be worn out with war too).
Are they basically planning on running against "Barack X" (as Bill Maher aptly put it) and hope that enough people don't notice that "Barack X" doesn't even exist? Of course, running against "Barack X" is essentially what they've been doing since day one IMHO and it's clear that enough people haven't been fooled into believing that this fictional person even exists. How is the right-wing going to put their candidate up against Barack Obama in a debate and make him look like "Barack X"? Have the right-wingers, the Rush Limbaughs, Sean Hannitys, et. al spewed so much venom at and about Barack Obama that most people will largely tune it out and/or stop being affected by it- like it's become "background noise"? Last I heard, ratings for right-wing "hate radio" are largely on the decline and, heck, Glenn Beck even ended up being too crazy for FOX NEWS!!
Despite the pervasive nature and influence of the right-wing and even the mainstream media apparatus, I think that most people, when they hear President Obama adress, really can't believe what the right-wing is saying about him is true and any additional attempts to smear him are ultimately going to be futile.
Thoughts? Opinions? What do you think the GOP and their business allies have waiting in the wings for Obama during the GE? The same smears, lies, innuendos (just more of them), or something new that we haven't seen before?
Right
All one has to do is look at what kind of legislation (and where it's tilted) comes out of a Democratic-controlled Congress vs. a Republican one or even a Democratic Presidency. Should be plenty self-evident which party stands for the 99%, reason, sanity, etc.
If (when) the Republicans lose this year
who/what will they blame? What lessons are they likely to take away from ANOTHER loss to Barack "X" Obama?
The GOP clearly decided that John McCain, even though he chose Sarah Palin to be his socially regressive pit bull and Obama/Democrat character assassin, didn't "keep the faith" enough with the socially regressive "base" of the party and that's ultimately why he didn't win. So, with the help and encouragement of the Koch Brothers and Sarah Palin they went about creating the so-called (Republican) "Tea Party" in the wake of their 2008 debacle to continue to attack Barack "X" Obama and influence the GOP in their direction of the regressive "base" culminating in the 2010 Republican mid-term sweeps and are, as we speak, busy at work making Congress, the Federal Government, and states all over the country dysfunctional with their "policies" and their own unique "style" of governance.
They have also been busy jockeying for power and influence of the 2012 GOP Presidential primary process by supporting a rotating list of candidates -other than Mitt Romney- and are being presented with the possibility that the GOP "establishment" is going to give the gold crown to Mitt Romney this round and are freaking out- though it seems likely that they will wind up supporting Romney simply because they hate Barack "X" Obama with the heat of a thousand suns and realize (correctly IMHO) that Romney (or whoever the GOP nominates) will ultimately bend to their will once in office.
But what happens to the Republican Tea Party if (when) Barack "X" Obama wins again? Will they engage in some inner reflection and try to do what they can to broaden their appeal to more voters and look to more "moderate" candidate like Huntsman for 2016 or will they simply double down again and move so far to the right that they end up falling off the map completely?
Frankly, I have no confidence that they will engage in any meaningful reflection of themselves, their tactics, policies, etc. but a lot of them moved so far to the right and become so obnoxious that I don't know how much more they can handle before really *snapping* and become actually dangerous. My biggest concerns, aside from an increase in outright violence from them (like what we've seen in small spurts since 2009), are that their obstruction and sabotage of the proper functioning of Congress and the Federal Government will continue unabated, if not worsen, or they may decide, if they control one or both Houses of Congress, to simply go for broke and try to remove Barack Obama from office using whatever pretense they can think of, no matter how flimsy.
Anybody else have some thoughts on this?
Profile Information
Name: Mara Alis ButlerGender: Female
Hometown: Indianapolis, Indiana
Home country: USA
Current location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Member since: Sat Feb 28, 2004, 01:13 AM
Number of posts: 24,437
