That is a perfectly sensible and reasonable suggestion! What could possibly go right?
There is probably no racial component on the part of the GOP legislators. However, I think Andy is referring to the general (but false) notion by many on the right that it’s mainly minorities who are the “moochers” getting government handouts like Obamacare. The GOP leadership is willing to exploit this latent racism to score political points.
It’s still impolite to say, but a lot of the Tea Party’s anger is based on the idea that the minorities are getting the goodies, and that Obama is the minority-in-chief giving it to them. They don’t like that, but they’re not so stupid as to say it out loud.
I think Minnesota being against the medical devices tax is because Medtronic, one of the largest medical device manufacturers, is headquartered there.
I wondered if they had a large medical instrument manufacturer there half way through the post. 
Something is getting reported and reported but kind of infuriates me: congress is NOT exempt from Obamacare. I don’t understand (well maybe I do) why the GOP congressmen keep saying that they should be subject to the same exchanges everyone else is. Well, they already are.
Part of the bill forces the congressmen and their staff to use their home-state exchanges instead of the the Federal Employees Heath Benefits (FEHB) exchange that they use now. But they also get to keep their 75% subsidy for their premiums that every other federal employee gets. Now they are trying to end the subsidy, which is ok, but it’s really not a big deal.
For as often as someone on the left says this, especially on this board, I only see liberals scoring political points with it. You, for instance.
Not with a bang, but with a whimper.
Not in fire, but in ice.
You’ve all missed THE answer: it ends with John Boehner’s tears.
Sure, why not? It *started *with them, too.
Not with a bang, but a whimper.
What, you would expect the Republicans to score political points by calling themselves racist, too?
The problem is, nobody on the right will actually say why it is that they hate Obama. If they don’t tell us the real reason they hate him, we’re kind of left guessing, and all we know is that whatever the real reason is, it’s not something they want to admit to. So what ought we to guess it is?
Surely some hate him for his race, but many for his success. Of course racism may be involved in that, too, but I believe his going from a short term in Congress to win such large support and be elected President gives some cause for dislike.
It’s change. Just that, change. He’s different, he doesn’t fit the pattern. I suspect, but of course cannot prove, that their reaction would be much the same if he were Latino, or gay, or female.
Not a member of the Old Boy’s Club.
Bill Clinton was as Governor at any rate, a consummate politician. Is Obama more hated than Clinton by the Republicans?
They routinely characterized him and his family as hillbillies, accused him of murdering Vince Foster, and impeached him over a blow-job. There’s a reason Mrs. Clinton assumed (true or not) their was a “vast right-wing conspiracy” against her family: The organized GOP ginned up a new level of pathological hatred in its base, though I doubt it’s comparable to the vitriol they’ve unleashed against Obama.
GWB certainly evoked hatred in the Democratic base, but nowhere near the level of Obama or Clinton and not as the result of a calculated effort by party leadership. And let’s not forget: Bush’s approval rating stayed in the mid-20’s for most of his presidency, while Clinton and Obama at their worst never went below 40. If Bush really was as hated as Clinton, it was because pretty much the whole country hated him, not just a ranting voter minority.
I also think the typical “who me?” reaction of Tea Partiers to this accusation is utterly hilarious. Here’s one example:
Not just racism.
There’s a huuuge super-industry that recognizes and feeds on the ‘Us and Them’ mentality. Sports. Movies. Video Games. All incredibly driven by the natural human drive of “fuck the other guy.” (I’m sure porn runs on something similarly named). Unfortunately for a functioning democracy, talk radio, Fox et al. discovered that there are giant dollars to be made in combining the infotainment model with politics.
Had Hillary won, you’d see as much–if not more–invective against anything and everything she did. There would certainly be misogynists among the no-for-the-sake-of-no crowd, but tracing all or most of it back to an abstract hatred of women would be off.
There CAN’T be any concessions, there is no way the dems can cave on absolutely anything. Not even on something they want. There has to be a clean CR.
Ideally yes. But I suspect–given the Dems track record–that they will offer something in return for both a CR and a debt-ceiling increase. It certainly won’t be Obamacare, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Obama offered tying SS and Medicare to chained CPI to resolve the crisis. That’s something Obama has put on the table before.
To be clear I don’t want that to happen–mainly because I think chained CPI is a bad idea. I think Obama should continue to dismiss the GOP position as the hostage-taking it so clearly is, and perhaps his elevated rhetoric will force him to stick with that line. But I’m not 100% confident he will if the heat gets turned up.
That’s always the quick liberal followup, isn’t it? It’s like you can’t possibly imagine a reason why someone wouldn’t like Obama. Republicans give reason after reason, but you can’t seem to acknowledge them, as evidenced by your “nobody will say” stance.
Tell me, am I allowed to legitimately hate Obamacare, or will you say it’s just because the President is black? Can I dislike him for his handling of Syria and Libya, or am I just a racist?
What’s an OK reason that you won’t think is some sort of fake veneer for racism?