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pkang0202
Joined: 09 Mar 2007
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 Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2009 12:55 am Post subject: |
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Republicans are doing the same thing the Democrats did from 200-2008.
Its like the Republicans stole the Democrat's playbook. Its a different team, but the plays are exactly the same.
Remember Bush's plan to privatize Social Security? Instead of Social Security it is Healthcare, and the roles of the Dems/Repubs are reversed. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2009 1:04 am Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
Neither of these are quite the case.
Congressmen don't have a lot of time. I know they work three day weeks in Washington, but they're always campaigning and grubbing up money in their own districts. They spend half their lives in transit and rarely get a healthy 8 hours of sleep.
We can't expect good outcomes when Congressmen are put under this kind of regimen. |
I agree, which is why -- as I've said -- I lay the blame for these problems ultimately on the electorates shoulders. When your constituents reward you for spending your time campaigning and raising money, and don't punish you for not reading the legislation you're voting on, it's only a matter of time before you cave to the incentives.
I'd still say it's humanly possible, though, especially since a truly dutiful senator could simply forget about re-election and devote all that time to his actual job. In fact, that might not be a bad point to make in an overall argument for term limits. |
Oh, sure, its humanly possible to read a 1100 page bill from front-to-back, but not exactly the best use of your time. These Congressmen have aides, and its necessary to delegate some of the responsibility, and have them pick through the bills and summarize important parts. Plus, if the Congressmen are doing their jobs, the bill is changing and fluid during different parts of its construction.
That said, I totally agree, that a Congressman remarking that he won't read the bill, because he doesn't have to, is a bald admission of irresponsibility. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2009 2:57 am Post subject: |
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Here's more. Republicans are distributing a questionaire that very clearly attempts to encourage fear of health care reform in Conservatives.
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The national Republican Party has mailed a fundraising appeal suggesting Democrats might use an overhaul of the health care system to deny medical treatment to Republicans.
A questionnaire accompanying the appeal says the government could check voting registration records, "prompting fears that GOP voters might be discriminated against for medical treatment in a Democrat-imposed health care rationing system."
It asks, "Does this possibility concern you?" |
So at this point the RNC fear-factory is essentially saying, "Health Care Reform is going to lead to doctors checking your voting habits before treating you."
This quote from slightly later in the article is especially funny:
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| "The RNC doesn't try to scare people," said Wright. "We're just trying to get the facts out on health care. And that's what we do every day." |
How can anyone possibly say -- without irony -- that the RNC doesn't try to scare people? Stirring up fear is without a doubt the Republican Party's modus operandi. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2009 9:21 pm Post subject: |
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Here's a funny piece written on the web site www.politicalirony.com:
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I have this theory that those people who protest loudly about some (usually social) issue are the people most guilty of it. Like staunch family-values politicians who turn out to be closeted homosexuals or are having wild affairs in Argentina.
Likewise, Jacob Weisberg has a fascinating editorial in Newsweek magazine that points that that it is the Republicans � the same people who are screaming about Obama�s mythical �death panels� � who have been enacting legislation right and left that effectively pulls the plug on old people.
For example, it was Chuck Grassley, who started the whole �pull the plug on Grandma� talking point, who created the �Throw Mama From the Train� provision of the GOP�s 2001 tax cut. Anyone who dies in 2009 will not have to pay any estate tax, but in 2010, the tax jumps to 55%. Talk about a huge incentive for old people to shuffle off this moral coil (not to mention their children to turn off their respirators).
Indeed, a study done in 2001 by two prominent universities found that older benefactors die in greater numbers just before estate tax hikes and just after estate tax cuts in statistically significant numbers.
This is not the only example of Republicans trying to throw seniors from the train. Social Security, which has contributed to a reduction in the senior suicide rate of 56% since 1930, is a favorite target of the GOP. If Bush had succeeded in privatizing Social Security, allowing seniors to gamble their retirement on the stock market, we can only guess what would have happened when the stock market crashed. Not only would suicide rates go up, but millions of seniors would not have been able to afford the necessities of life, such as food, medicine, and heating.
And then there is the GOP opposition to stem-cell research, which is one of most promising ways to fight diseases that kill and disable seniors, including Parkinson�s disease and Alzheimer�s disease. And seniors disproportionately die from air pollution � the EPA estimates that 23,000 lives a year could have been saved by the clean air legislation that the Republicans defeated in 2002.
So the next time you hear a Republican screaming about �death panels�, even though there is no such thing in any of the health reform legislation being proposed � you can smile knowingly, or � if you are feeling brave � point out to that person that they are the ones who are killing grandma. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 5:23 am Post subject: |
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And here's Michael Steele, straw manning in that hard core fashion that only the completely disingenous can muster up.
This "Senior Bill of Rights" very handily sets Republicans up to continue making things up about Health Care Reform while preventing them from having to actually prove anyone's suggested such things. Sure, perhaps the Democrats haven't suggested things like death pannels or rationing care based on age, but why wait for them to suggest it when you can instead suggest it for them, then talk about how senior citizens need to be protected from such things.
Back when Michael Steele became RNC chair, I remember people talking about how they were impressed with him. Honestly, he seems like an inarticulate piece of trash. |
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Fork
Joined: 22 Jul 2009
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| Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 2:38 pm Post subject: |
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�If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn�t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes,� Hoyer told CNSNews.com at his regular weekly news conference.
Hoyer was responding to a question from CNSNews.com on whether he supported a pledge that asks members of the Congress to read the entire bill before voting on it and also make the full text of the bill available to the public for 72 hours before a vote.
In fact, Hoyer found the idea of the pledge humorous, laughing as he responded to the question. �I�m laughing because a) I don�t know how long this bill is going to be, but it�s going to be a very long bill,� he said. |
- House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.)
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�I love these members, they get up and say, �Read the bill,�� said Conyers.
�What good is reading the bill if it�s a thousand pages and you don�t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?� |
- John Conyers (D-Mich)
Let's be fair now, and realize that both parties are completely corrupt... |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 3:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Fork wrote: |
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�If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn�t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes,� Hoyer told CNSNews.com at his regular weekly news conference.
Hoyer was responding to a question from CNSNews.com on whether he supported a pledge that asks members of the Congress to read the entire bill before voting on it and also make the full text of the bill available to the public for 72 hours before a vote.
In fact, Hoyer found the idea of the pledge humorous, laughing as he responded to the question. �I�m laughing because a) I don�t know how long this bill is going to be, but it�s going to be a very long bill,� he said. |
- House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.)
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�I love these members, they get up and say, �Read the bill,�� said Conyers.
�What good is reading the bill if it�s a thousand pages and you don�t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?� |
- John Conyers (D-Mich)
Let's be fair now, and realize that both parties are completely corrupt... |
Definitely, and even worse, when Democrats behave corruptly and sell-out on issues like health care, they're not just selling out their constitutents, they're selling out their principles.
The difference lies primarily in the comparative percentage of each party that wants to sink health care reform and how far they're willing to go to do it. With the Democrats, it's the minority, and they for the most part limit themselves to vague talking points rather than outright lies. With the Republicans, it's the majority, and they're willing to say and do anything to stop it, even say demonstratably false things and try to scare the Hell out of old people. |
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