As mc mark said already, the health care bill was designed by Republicans and implemented in Massachusetts at the state level by a Republican governor. Further, Republicans made a number of amendments to the bill, far more than Dems. I'm not sure what made it into the final bill, but here is an article from Slate indicating that of the 197 amendments that were passed for the version of the bill they're discussing, 161 were from Republicans. How exactly is that having "no say" in the package? Oh, that's right... Republicans claim they have no say whenever they don't everything exactly as they want it.
Oh, ha ha ha. Now the millions of alcoholics destroying their health, their careers, their families can sigh in relief that this "threat" to society has been stopped, at least for a while. You must be so happy. Good for you.
Please tell me you're kidding, FB. You think this is the worst news? Not even close. The worst news is that besides the huge gains by the Radical Right in Congress, there were also huge gains by the same lunatics in state elections across the country, including Texas, where Democrats were poised to retake the House, and this happened just before redistricting. THAT'S the worst news. Thank you, Mr. Obama. Great job leading the Party.
One note to Repubs slapping themselves on the back for their new found diversity... Only one party has made a consistent effort to carpetbomb minority neighborhoods with dishonesty... flyers suggesting different voting times and polling places, repeated annoying robocalls pretending to be from the Dem candidate to try and get voters upset, suggesting you need all kinds of papers to vote, suggesting a straight Dem ticket actually counts as a Repub one, etc. These practices reek of the kind of racism and elitism you might find at an Ole Miss frat-sponsored blackface kegger. Until you purge your party of these kinds of antics and encourage every American to vote regardless of demographic, (I'm not even talking about the poll watchers or asking you to vote in a way that is representative of minorities) you're still very much open to the criticism you seem so prickly about.
of course, but Feingold was an independent thinker who broke ranks and sided with Republicans when he felt it was right. He was courageous and often stood alone either in his own party or across the entire chamber. He's being replaced by someone who doesn't know anything and bought himself the election by spending millions of his own money. To me it shows everything wrong with our political system.
We keep hearing about the money in the Congressional elections, but I have never seen the amount of cash in the state leg races that I saw. We had a Repub running for state Senator (and probably winning... still hasn't been called) that had huge amounts of outside money... enough to blast radio ads and send every voter mailings 2-3 times a week over the last month. This bears watching next cycle, particularly in states where there is a dominant industry, like mining in Montana for instance.
Feingold was a career politician and a lawyer. We have around 50 of those already in the senate. What we don'e have in the senate is manufacturers, such as Johnson.
It's not really a secret that the majority of money spent on Republican races this cycle came from 3rd parties. Misleading article is misleading.
The fact is that Democrats did a poor job of explaining what they accomplished in a simple enough way that people could understand. When you explain TARP, what it accomplished, and how much was actually lost it's a huge success. When you actually explain health care and what it does, people want it. Republicans used simple talking points and slogans like government takeover of health care to torpedo perception on what was actually done. How many people actually know that health care is deficit neutral? All you hear is that we can't "afford" it. The fact is unless you can simplify things for the American people, dumb things down, then it's easy for someone to derail your agenda with nonsense and slogans. The positive side of this is that Republicans still have nothing to offer the American public other than tax cuts, prayer, and slogans. You might be able to run for office on the platform that government is the devil but you can't govern on that platform and the last 30 years has born that out. We'll go another two years of a Republican Congress selling out the American people once more and then the adults will get voted back in after 2 years so we can start strengthening our country once more.
Yes, experience, knowledge, intelligence, and character is bad. I understand you want someone who has none of that.
I think having senators with diverse backgrounds is good. A lawyer turned career politician is the most generic life-story for a senator I can think of.
<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xMtcTM9zZN4?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/xMtcTM9zZN4?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>
In 2012 21 Dem Senators are up for re-election while only 10 Reps will be. Two years is an eternity in politics - the Tea Party did not exist two years ago - but right now it is very likely that the Reps will take the Senate in 2012.
i mean this sincerely- stop trying to paint your opponents as racists- sure, some on the right don't like people that are different, but that's equally true of those on the left- walk down any street in Berkeley with a Palin tee-shirt on, see the kind of misogynist remarks you get. Obama himself is guilty of this. and yet, you tolerate it- why? you can pretend that racism, or it's proxy money, cost dems this cycle, and you can ignore the fact that huge swaths of the country just refudiated that tired message, or you can get smart, and get a new one (message.) i'm hopeful you'll choose the latter path- civil discourse requires it.
Thank you TeaParty crazies for Angle and O'Donnell. Without those two this would have been even uglier. I guess the two year lead up for 2012 starts today?
Good luck in 2012 where voter turnout will be much greater than it was this year. Higher voter turnout = bad things for the right.
