BoJaker's Comments (37)

“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.”

“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."”

“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.”

“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...”

“If you go to Obama's site, there is a PDF file that specifically outlines his policy agenda.

Kucinich is out of the race, not that it matters since he has the same chance of winning whether he's running or not.

His ability to draw people to the polls will have an great affect on both houses of congress. I'm confident that if he's the nominee, both the house and senate will gain a huge majority and the overall agenda will shift sharply progressive.

There are my answers...”

“Talk about losing gracefully...

You remind me of the kid storming off the field, screaming sarcastically after the ref made one call against him.”

“Why can't this "vetted", "tough", "experienced" candidate who's "ready to take on the republican noise machine" trounce a relatively unknown junior senator?

To be fair, I think for many Democrats the era has passed her by. If Obama had not run, Hillary would be the nominee already. But for many of us, a clean slate would be the ideal after the last 16 years. What Hillary and her followers don't get is that her "experience" is unattractive, and the more she relies on it, the less attractive it is.

An extended time as a Washington insider (especially in the Senate) comes with baggage that weighs down the message. Take, for example, the question of lobbyists. Once
someone has spent enough time listening to them they become desensitized to their horribly negative and unbalanced effect on the political process. Just look at Hillary's answer about lobbyists! Sure, they're people, but why should someone have more sway with my representative, my public servant and employee, because they've got more money! To believe that this is an acceptable part of our political system is completely disconnected from those of us, which is most of us, who can't have the ear of our representatives because our money can't speak as loud as the money of those who are shipping our jobs over seas and getting rich off our backs.

That's why I support Obama. He hass not become part of that system yet. I hear people say that in another 8 years, THEN he'll be ready. That scares the shit out of me. He'll be ruined by then.”

“What a nasty ignorant comment. Let me know how many people that wins over, bodi...

Either desperation and resentment are taking over the Hillary camp, or this is a paid poster.

Maybe both...”

“She's hated by Righty's, Independents, and the more progressive 1/3 of the Democratic party. The hard-core dem partisans are her supporters. Based on those numbers, the tie is about right. The people who have voted for her in the primaries are the only people that will vote for her in the general.

What I think is more significant is that a high-profile Democratic figure, one that was the first lady of a popular president, and a senator from one of the most populated states, is tied with a new-comer.”

“Independent Voter was refering to the vote on the use of cluster bombs which have notoriously high civilian casualty rate. Hillary DID vote for the use of these and Obama voted against it.

I'm sorry, your FALSE comment was wrong.”

“The entire discussion here is bad for the party and bad for the country.

Accusations are being made with no evidence. People are making irrational, dishonest arguments. Both candidates are being slimed. I am absolutely not a Hillary supporter, but I'd like people to be intellegent and rational about who they support and why. There are obvious surrogates from both campaigns all over these message boards spouting total crap, and I'm sure that I'm not alone in saying that it makes me sick.

The more this escalates, the worse this is going to be come November. Step back, take a breath, vote for you candidate, and honor the rules. Don't take the bait that the surragate hacks are planting to demonize either candidate.”

“HRC robo-poster...”

“Can YOU say hypocrite???

You've got one post saying it's stupid not to follow the party rules when it comes to the superdelegates (since doing that would favor Obama). RIGHT ABOVE THAT you're saying the DNC rules which everyone (including Hillary) agreed to regarding early primaries should be thrown out even though it penalizes the candidate that followed them (but those rules favor Hillary, donchaknow!)

You used the word hypocrite to attack someone, while at the same time making a blatantly hypocritical argument!?

This genuinely makes me sad for our party, it really does.”