BoJaker's Comments (47)

“I know you think you sound really smart. Kind of like that kid who's parents are having a party, and the kid really wants to sound like he's a grown up. So he goes downstairs and talks to his parents friends, and saying things he heard grown-ups say on TV, calling his dad's friends "sparky" and thinking he sounds so whitty and cool.

To the grown-ups, he's annoying. They can tell he doesn't understand what he's talking about, because once the coversation gets complicated, he changes the subject, and talks to someone else. And not only can he not say anything intellegent, he tries to be condescending at the same time by calling people "sparky".

Most of your posts are about how the Public Option will be paid for. The fact that you don't know it's paid for through the premiums shows such incredible ignorance. Seriously, why didn't you know that? Not only is it self-explanatory, but it's been detailed by the people that proposed it. Did you not read any of those proposals, or even listen to any speech Obama has given on it? Are you one of the people that has been convinced by the millionaires on Fox News and by the Millionaire Politicians that are counting on a lobbying job after they leave office that our scary dark president has voodoo mind-control powers he learned as an infant in Africa (have you noticed that place has a lot of scary dark people?)”

“Could you show me the something that supports that claim besides Glenn Beck's clueless lying? It has to be something besides a poll, because for every poll you give me that shows a lack of support for the public option, I'll give you 2 that shows a majority support. And the ones I show will have clearer questions. I guarantee it.”

“I'm sorry, but you are dumb as a sunken post.

Will you go back a read a little about how it's paid for? It's an insurance program. If you want to have it, you may join, but there is a monthly premium. The monthly premium is less than the for profit insurance companies because it has a 5% overhead versus a 40% overhead. The monthly premiums that people pay are what funds it. If only one person joins, then it's funding is what that one person pays in premiums every month.

There are no taxes involved in the public otpion, it's deficit nuetral.”

“No, people who want the public option get to pay a monthly premium. That's how it's funded. Everyone has been pretty clear about that so you may need to start paying attention if you want to join the conversation.”

“Are you serious. Really, is this a joke??

You see, a doctor sees a thing called a "patient" who may have an "illness". An "illness" costs money to treat, large amounts of money. I won't go into that since anything larger than $1 may confuse you. Since the amount is so high to treat some of these "illnesses", people have a thing called "insurance" which spreads the risk. Now the treatment for the "illness" must be paid for through this insurance, and Doctors have to request that payment. They may have different experiences with how quickly the insurance is paid and they are able to perform their jobs. Sometime the insurance company will refuse to pay. Doctors don't like this, since it means their "patient" might "die". Now, they may have a different experience depending on whether the insurance is through a company that take 40% of the money customers pay them to pay for lobbying, advertising, and huge bonuses more their millionaire executives or if the insurance is from an entity like Medicare which has no profit motive and only has a 5% overhead cost. Based on their experience with this, they may form a knowledgeable opinion regarding how HealthCare care payments may be improved in this country. Make sense. If not, feel free going to your doctor and asking where he gets the nerve butting into the debate about Healthcare reform.”

“No, the next part will be

"Should progressives block HealthCare reform just because it doesn't have subsidies? Should progressives block legislation that will heavily regulate insurance so they won't deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions, JUST because it's not perfect and doesn't contain subidies? Think of the people being denied coverage! Do you want them to die for your ideals?"

And then...
"Progressives need to be flexible on the regulation of insurance providing coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. What about the people that have their insurance cancelled when they need it..."

And on and on until
"Progressives should not sacrifice good for the perfect. This Bill allows insurance companies to compete across state lines which the insurance companies say might increase some competition. Do you really want to stop this progress just because it contains no Federal regulations, allows insurance companies to circumvent state regulations, continues to allow them to operate outside of anti-trust rules, and contains a provision that allows CEOs to legally murder people they find ugly? Do Progressives want to be held responsible for blocking reform?"”

“Haha. Umm, go pull up a news archive from the Stimulus fight. The Republicans have a nasty habit of delaying a bill, then ridiculing it by misrepresentation. Remember when they said that the stimulus package included a bit on protecting mice, when in fact it only had funding for a department who happened to have, as one of their many projects, a mouse study. That's the kind of things that republicans do. They have their lying political hacks take a fine-toothed comb through the bill to find some inconsequential 12th degree of separation, and the spout some disingenuous claim.

"The Democrats are trying to force everyone to get viscectomies!"
"Where's it say that?"
"Section 6, page 52, paragraph 9"
"I don't see it"
"It there! Look!"
"That's funding for Prostate Cancer Research"
"Yes, but the company that the funding is provided to had a program in the 1960's to study the affects of viscectomies on pigeons and found that their life-spans were increased by .06%. Clearly that company's agenda is to give vascectomies to the entire population without anesthetic so out population would decline and the Muslims could take over the country."”

“I think people are missing the brilliance of this post. He's saying "Let's dump the public option and let everyone buy into Medicare" (it's at the bottom of the post). Yes! That's exactly what we need to do. It's just semantics, but the whole idea is to hit the reset button with better framing. See, the Democrats made a mistake with the term "Public Option". It has no definition, so opponents are able to label it as whatever scares people and frame the debate around their misleading view. Medicare, however, is defined. Opponents can't attack Medicare, the seniors who are quite happy with their own Medicare won't buy the scare tactics.

I think this is a great strategy. Democrats can say that they've compromised, but they've really pushed Republicans into a corner AND inserted a public option that CAN'T be watered down or redifined.”

“Economic freedom is a contradiction in terms. Extreme Example: Plantation owners in America before the civil war had economic freedom, but that freedom could only come at the expense of others.

It's like claiming that having to give up some of your wages to pay for a social safety net for seniors and disabled people is a limitation on freedom. But where does that put people with developmental disabilities, born to parents without the means or desire to raise them, and who are unable to work as adults? Under our current system, those of them who are "lucky" enough to be able to live outside of a institution still live Ask a libertarian or neocon, and they either respond with a total lack of understanding for the situation (they don't understand that there is an enormous number of developementally disables adults that have limited ability to work, but ARE able to maintain some independence), or they spout some right-wing idealism where people aren't born with these disabilities (in the same world where industry has no regulations on pollutants...ha!) and where private organizations take care of them (somehow private-industries will step forward to help people with no money). My guess is actually an extreme version of what is happening now: companies take advantage by paying disabled people "piece-wages", which means they pay them a percentage of what a non-disabled person would make based on their limitations(this is actually legal).”

“Good point. Those people that were murdered by right wing nut jobs were obviously Obama mercenaries, hell bent on the destroying the country by returning it to the pre-Bush policies under which the country was prosperous.

Seriously, if it's Obama's fault for waging class warfare, why is it right-wingers killing innocent people and not lefties killing stock-brokers. Try to justify the hysteria that your heros are driving, but you won't be able to do it with a solid argument.”

“Ummm...are you really that ignorant of how the budget works?? Each of those dollar amounts is a total annual budget, not an accrued speding amount for a President's entire term. And remember, Bush's don't include the War in Iraq. So over 8 years, Bush's budgets totalled $17.27 Trillion PLUS the massive cost of the war. On average, Bush's annual budgets were $2.16 trillion. Obama's budget is only $0.94 trillion higher and INCLUDES the war costs.

As a percentage, Obama's budget isn't as significant of an increase as many budgets under Bush:

Increase over previous budget
6.5% 2009
4.5% 2008
2.5% 2007
11.1% 2006
4.2% 2005
4.3% 2004
9.1% 2003
5.0% 2002
5.3% 2001
5.6% 2000
0.0% 1999
5.9% 1998
0.0% 1997
0.0% 1996”

“We Dems can't get into a circle without busting out the rifles and forming a firing squad.

Obama has almost 2 months before he starts his term, so give him a freaking chance before you start attacking him. It's as if you all assumed he was a liar like the rest of them, or even hoped he was. Also, if you're at all aware of his biography you should have had some idea of what his appointments would look like. When he was elected president of the Harvard Law Review, his liberal buddies were dissapointed because he didn't shut out the conservatives.

The another aspect of his biography that should give progressives comfort is that those conservatives that he didn't shut out have talked about how during discussions with him he would listen intently and respond with great understanding of their arguments, to the point where they assumed he agreed with them (since he completely understood their argument, why wouldn't he?). Later, they would realize that although Obama understood their argument and would give them his full attention, it didn't necessarily meant that he agreed with them. He would just take their points and use them to bolster his own reasoning and make his argument that much stronger. Those opposing views in this administration are what will make his policies more affective, because the decisions won't be made without using the the opposing reasoning as a way to persuade those that may be on the fence.”

“It's my opinion that Obama is not only already prepared, but has set a trap that McCain will inevitably walk right into.

McCain and his advisors will expect that the Obama that they'll be debating will be the one who debated Hillary Clinton 20 times, and the one who gives such eloquent speeches. That Obama is one that can be beat by McCain the same way Bush beat Kerry, by looking wordy and indecisive in comparison. I don't think, though, that that is the Obama that will show up on Friday.

First, the Democratic debates call for something althogether different than the General Election Debates. Democrats are, by their nature, more wonkish and want too hear about policy specifics and the nuanced differences between Candidates proposals. By contrast, Republican debates are all about immediate, simple answers to complex problems (go back and watch how they fell over themselves trying to top each other, one pinnacle being when Romney said Guantanamo should be BIGGER). General Election Debates are all about connecting with the rest of voters. Kerry couldn't do that because he is, to the core, a policy wonk. Not that that's a bad thing, but he couldn't switch gears. Watch his performance on the Daily Show back in '04, even off-the-cuff he sounded like a well-bred lecturer. "Would that it were so" was one of his answers to a joke about his wife's money.”

“Not one person I know who voted for Hillary is a dead-ender, so drop the 18mil junk.

Pros
1. DC ties, which would be a benefit in the role of VP selling the Exec agenda in congress
2. Healthcare would be a major item and we might actually have something that resembles universal HC pushed heavily
3. It would dominate the headlines for longer than any other pick would prolonging and inflating the bounce
4. Her fundraising would be a lot more affective if she were directly involved as a candidate
5. Sometimes the best admins have a constructive rivalry

Cons
1. She overplayed her cards at the end of the primary. She could have been a great choice, but she took a stance there that makes it impossible for Obama to pick her without it looking like she wedged her way in, thereby making him look weak.
2. She undermines his message of change.
3. She might still be positioning for a 2012 run, which makes her a liability when put in Obama's inner-circle.
4. Obama's ability to control his campaign and be the clear leader of his whole staff is why he has such a loyal staff and also why he was able to win the primary. Hillary would definitely change that dynamic.

Bill would be even worse. It would be like having your dad join your band. Sure, he might be a great guitar player, but he keeps wanting to do George Thorogood covers.”

“Stop this desperate bullshit and realize that the arguments you made BEFORE Super Tuesday shoot down the arguments you're making now. First it was that the delegate count is the only thing that matters, then Hillary fell behind on that front and that argument was tossed. Then it was the popular vote. Whoops, never mind! Ok, really it's the Super-Delegates. No wait, what I meant was it's the number of Electoral votes that the states which were narrowly won have. Scratch that, the nominee has to be the candidate who can win states that were uncontested. Didn't you know that??”

“Sure, there's no way for either of them to achieve the "presumptive nominee" number. That's not the point though! The point is that she CANNOT mathematically win a majority of delegates at this point. IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. The Electoral College argument is beyond stupid. First of all, this is a primary, so the Electoral College doesn't matter. Do you seriously think that because a candidate carries a state in a primary, then it means they are the only candidate that can win it in the general election? I live in Washington State which went handily for Obama. If it were possible for Hillary to win the nomination, she'd win Washington in the general. THAT'S BECAUSE DEMOCRATS WILL VOTE FOR THEIR NOMINEE! And almost all the states with the most Electoral votes ARE BLUE STATES. Are you dumb enough to think that NY, CA, NJ, etc are going to go red? And now, if California had another primary, Hillary would lose big time!
Going by the Clinton campaign's argument that if she were to drop out, then the remaining states would be disenfranchised, then that means that half the country has been disenfranchised every election year since 1968. Usually the nominee is pretty much decided on Super Tuesday, so the rest of us are stuck with inconsequential primaries or caucuses.”

“HAD a record of getting things done. All he's been doing for the last 8 years is running futile presidential campaigns, at least as far as I've seen. It's such a waste of time and resources! I like Nader and I agree with his goals, but wanting to fix our broken system does not equate to running for president! Not only does it take time and money away from causes that could actually fix the system, but people stop seeing the issues he's championing as mainsteam causes because he bacomes another crackpot running for president without having a chance of winning. No one understands the point of doing that!”

“While this kind of candidacy gets on my nerves (not because I disagree with on issues, but because futile runs for office begin to look like an ego trip), I think "the more the merrier" should be the American attitude towards Elections. However, I think his time would be better spent trying to make 3rd party runs more viable. He has a huge base of support, why not use it to push for public financing, campaign finance reform, instant runoff, etc. All of those things together would help get us away from the stagnant 2-party system we're in. It also is more in tune with his roots where he was the most successful and held the greatest respect.

Now he's in danger of becoming LaRouche-lite”

“Your math is WAAAAAY off. If Hillary wins only 51% of Ohio and Texas delegates, and then wins 60% of all the remaining state delegates, it will still be 1608-1583 with Obama leading.”

“A big fat "So what?"

She turned 18 in 1982, and since that time there have not been many moments that have inspired great pride in our country's policies.

Let's see... there's the Iran Contra affair, US sponsored overthrow of Democracy in Central & South America, the S&L scandal, economics rewarding greed and apathy, NAFTA, Welfare "Reform", Constitutional deterioration, an illegal war (well, more than one), Monica Lewinski, Hurricane Katrina, Valerie Plame, corruption of the justice dept., and on and on and on.....And that's just the government, so I won't mention Reality TV or Tabloids, etc

The big pride moment for this generation was 9/11, I guess. But does that really count? We all got patriotic because someone attacked us when we had our gaurd down. It was more of a defensive reaction, so it's faded.

In any case, this whole talking point is just a Right Wingish non-issue. They can make it SOUND worse, so they will...”

“100 pledged delegates equals roughly 1,000,000 actual voters. 101 superdelegates equals 101 people. That's 0.0101% cancelling out the remaining 99.9899%.

Democracy at work...”

“The effect of NAFTA was gradual, not immediate. It's extremely niave to think otherwise. Bill Clinton was at the right place at the right time to be able to preside over the internet bubble, but NAFTA and his support of the WTO, combined with the bursting of that bubble are partially responsible for the trade mess we're in right now.

Think of it this way:
The internet exploded and made it so that any stupid idea could create jobs. Remember all the ridiculous sites that were sprouting up? And we were all dumb enough to think that as long as something was on the internet, then it would make money. The government reflected that stupidity by predicting the future middle class job market in the US would stop being so reliant around manufacturing, and more around tech jobs. So the trade policies in the 90's shifted more and more manufacturing away from the US. Then the bubble burst. Manufacturing was being leeched away, Bush's even MORE extreme trade policies were shifting the remaining tech jobs away, and now were left as a retail/service nation.”

“Including MI and FL, Obama still has the popular vote lead:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html”

“Welfare reform was a piss in the ocean when you compare it to NAFTA and all the other Globalization policies that have U.S. workers competing competing for jobs with sweatshop workers around the world.

Could someone please name one policy that Clinton enacted that has made life better for the average American?

I'm sorry, but I LIKED Clinton before this whole thing started. But over and over again I come on here to try and have an intelligent discussion about the candidates, and Clinton's supporters have disappointed me every time. You've got DudeE spamming the place labelling everyone that's not in Clinton's camp with the dreaded "Nader" label, alocowboy referring to Obama as Osama, which is blatantly ignorant and racist, Nazirmo repeating planted lies and then copy/pasting a line from a Clinton fundraising letter.

I'm not saying there isn't anyone on the Obama side that's being an idiot. But so far I've only seen Clinton supporters sinking to personal destruction politics on a Rovian level.”

“Where's your evidence to support McCain beating Obama? It can't be the polls...

McCain is seen as a threat by some because of his current appeal to independents based on his "maverick" label. Most informed Dems don't actually see McCain as any kind of a threat. He doesn't have the support of the vocal members of the Republican base, he doesn't inspire the energy that draws people to the polls, and in a head-to-head match-up with an energetic candidate, his age will become a factor.

The magnitute of his pro-war position hasn't gotten much play yet since during the Republican primaries there wasn't much difference between the candidates' positions, except Ron Paul whose anti-war position did get play because it seperated him from the other candidates. The contrasts are what get reported and amplified during the primaries, not similarities. Once the general election contest starts, you can be sure his statements regarding a hundred year Iraq occupation will begin to be a disability to his campaign as they begin to contrast the Democratic nominee and further tie him to Bush's policies which are extremely unpopular. Knowing McCain (and to his credit, to a certain extent), he will not back down from his Iraq position even if it means he will lose.

BUT...all that could be thrown out the window if Hillary is nominated and uses the strategy that Mark Penn is pushing. In which case almost half of the Dem base will be demoralized due to her nomination most likely depending on Superdelegates overturning the votes of the pledged delegates, the strategy of ignoring the war issue will fail, the Republicans that aren't so enchanted by McCain will show up in droves to defeat her, the experience factor will be on McCain's side, The independent vote will overwhelmingly go to McCain, and on and on and on...”