Don’t mind him, he’s just upset that Romney isn’t looking strong right now, this thread is a him lashing out.
And as a flaming liberal, yes, I’ve heard the word. It doesn’t have a lot of swagger behind it, so I wouldn’t use it.
They love that kind of thing. Repubecan (emphasis on ‘pube’, I don’t even know how to type it) is the new baby of one radio guy, and their names for Obama are amazing in a terrible movie sort of way.
OMG, do come back after the election and tell us all the reasons that Obama stole the election. Promise me you will? 
One of the DNC attendees used it in a Daily Show clip, so there’s that.
An Al Jazeera writer of all places, points out that all the civil liberties promises made in the 2008 DNC platform expired the second Obama took office:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/09/2012911121256258902.html/
Change!
?
The perception of Americans of Al Jazeera is odd.
February 5, 2008
Barack Obama’s Feb. 5 Speech
The following is a transcript of Senator Barack Obama’s speech to supporters after the Feb. 5 nominating contests, as provided by Federal News Service.
" The polls are just closing in California. (Cheers, applause.) And the votes are still being counted in cities and towns across America. But there is one thing –
AUDIENCE MEMBER: We love you, Barack.
MR. OBAMA: You know I love you back. (Laughter, cheers, applause.) But there is one thing on this February night that we do not need the final results to know. Our time has come. (Cheers, applause.) Our time has come. Our movement is real. (Cheers, applause.) And change is coming to America. (Cheers, applause.) …
What began as a whisper in Springfield soon carried across the cornfields of Iowa, where farmers and factory workers, students and seniors stood up in numbers we have never seen before. They stood up to say that maybe this year we don’t have to settle for politics where scoring points is more important than solving problems. (Cheers, applause.) Maybe this year we can finally start doing something about health care we can’t afford. (Cheers.) Maybe this year we can start doing something about mortgages we can’t pay. Maybe this year, this time can be different. (Cheers, applause.)
Their voices echoed from the hills of New Hampshire to the deserts of Nevada, where teachers and cooks and kitchen workers stood up to say that maybe Washington doesn’t have to be run by lobbyists anymore. (Cheers, applause.) Maybe the voices of the American people can finally be heard again. (Cheers, applause.) …
It’s different not because of me. It’s different because of you – (cheers, applause) – because you are tired of being disappointed and you’re tired of being let down. (Cheers, applause.) You’re tired of hearing promises made and plans proposed in the heat of a campaign, only to have nothing change when everyone goes back to Washington. (Cheers, applause.)
Nothing changes because lobbyists just write another check or politicians start worrying about how to win the next election instead of why they should – (cheers, applause) – or because they focus on who’s up and who’s down instead of who matters. …
The Republicans running for president have already tied themselves to the past. They speak of a 100-year war in Iraq. They talk about billions more in tax breaks for the wealthiest few, who don’t need them and didn’t even ask for them, tax breaks that mortgage our children’s future on a mountain of debt at a time when there are families who can’t pay their medical bills and students who can’t pay their tuition. (Cheers, applause.)
Those Republicans are running on the politics of yesterday. And that is why our party must be the party of tomorrow. (Cheers, applause.) And that is the party that I intend to lead as president of the United States of America. (Cheers, applause.)
I’ll be the president who ends the tax breaks to companies that ship our jobs overseas – (cheers) – and start putting them in the pockets of hard-working Americans who deserve them, and struggling homeowners who deserve them and seniors who should retire with dignity and respect, and deserve them. (Cheers, applause.)
I’ll be the president who finally brings Democrats and Republicans together to make health care affordable and available for every single American. (Cheers, applause.)
We will put a college education within the reach of anyone who wants to go. (Cheers, applause.) And instead of just talking about how great our teachers are, we will reward them for their greatness with more pay and better support. (Cheers, applause.)
And we will harness the ingenuity of farmers and scientists and entrepreneurs to free this nation from the tyranny of oil once and for all. (Cheers, applause.) And we will invest in solar and wind and biodiesel, clean energy, green energy that can fuel economic development for generations to come. That’s what we’re going to do when I’m president of the United States. (Cheers, applause.)
When I’m president, we will put an end to the politics of fear – (cheers, applause) – a politics that uses 9/11 as a way to scare up votes. We’re going to start seeing 9/11 as a challenge that should unite America and the world against the common threats of the 21st century, terrorism and nuclear weapons, climate change and poverty, genocide and disease. (Cheers, applause.)
We can do this. (Cheers, applause.) **We **can do this.
(Crowd says in unison, “Yes, we can.”)
But it will not be easy. It will require struggle and it will require sacrifice. There will be setbacks, and we will make mistakes. And that is why we need all the help we can get. (Cheers, applause.)
So tonight I want to speak directly to all those Americans who have yet to join this movement but still hunger for change. They know it in their gut. They know we can do better than we’re doing. They know that we can take our politics to a higher level. But they’re afraid. They’ve been taught to be cynical. They’re doubtful that it can be done.
But I’m here to say tonight to all of you who still harbor those doubts, we need you. (Cheers, applause.) We need you to stand with us. (Cheers, applause.) We need you to work with us. (Cheers, applause.) We need you to help us prove that **together, ordinary people can still do extraordinary things in the United States of America. **(Cheers, applause.)
And I still remember one of the very first meetings I put together. We had worked on it for days. We had made phone calls. We had knocked on doors. We had put out fliers. But on that night, nobody showed up. (Laughter.) Our volunteers who had worked so hard felt so defeated, they wanted to quit. And to be honest, so did I. But at that moment, I happened to look outside and I saw some young boys tossing stones at a boarded-up apartment building across the street. They were like the boys in so many cities across the country, little boys, but without prospects, without guidance, without hope for the future. And I turned to the volunteers and I asked them, “Before you quit, before you give up, I want you to answer one question: What will happen to those boys if we don’t stand up for them?” (Cheers, applause.)
And those volunteers, they looked out that window and they saw those boys and they decided that night to keep going, to keep organizing, keep fighting for better schools, fighting for better jobs, fighting for better health care. And I did too. And slowly but surely, in the weeks and months to come, the community began to change.
You see, the challenges we face will not be solved with one meeting in one night. It will not be resolved on even a Super Duper Tuesday. Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. (Cheers, applause.) We are the change that we seek. We are the hope of those boys who have so little, who’ve been told that they cannot have what they dream, that they cannot be what they imagine. Yes, they can. (Cheers, applause.)
We are the hope of the father who goes to work before dawn and lies awake with doubt that tells him he cannot give his children the same opportunities that someone gave him. Yes, he can.
(Crowd says in unison, “Yes, he can.”)
We are the hope of the woman who hears that her city will not be rebuilt, that she cannot somehow claim the life that was swept away in a terrible storm. Yes, she can.
(Crowd says in unison, “Yes, she can.”)
We are the hope of the future, the answer to the cynics who tell us our house must stand divided, that we cannot come together, that we cannot remake this world as it should be.
We know that we have seen something happen over the last several weeks, over the past several months. We know that what began as a whisper has now swelled to a chorus that cannot be ignored – (cheers, applause) – that will not be deterred, that will ring out across this land as a hymn that will heal this nation – (cheers, applause) – repair this world, make this time different than all the rest. Yes, we can.
Let’s go to work. **Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Yes, we can. **
You see, some of us actually, you know, paid attention during the campaign. We listened to the actual words that were spoken. We understood that this was never a campaign about one person, but a campaign about changing the ideology that Washington is run by lobbyists and big money and that we can’t have a say in our own governance. YES WE CAN!
But we always knew that change doesn’t happen overnight. Change takes time and effort and will. And we—we—have to keep fighting for it. We have to drown out the voices of the monied interests that seek to define the debate for their own ends and not the good of the country, and that’s why when President Obama appealed to us to tell the representatives we elected to do a job for us, to actually do that job, we crashed their websites and jammed up their switchboards and forced them to do what we sent them there to do.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
And we will prove that to you once again on November 6. Count on it.
As pointed out here:
The logic is unassailable: Obama can’t change anything and Romney is unqualified for the job. This is just the break that the Gary Johnson campaign has been waiting for!
Funny, but as I remember it, people were against the bill (either it was too much or not enough), but most people were in favor of all the stuff the bill would set in place.
I don’t know if OMG is planning on returning to this thread, but if he does I’m very interested in hearing his response to this question. I’m just quoting it here since it’s been buried a bit since it was first posted.
What you mean is the people liked the good stuff and didn’t like the bad stuff. Of course, Democrats sold the bill as if it was a used car, citing only the great stuff, and still sell it that way despite the public being aware of the costs, the mandates, and the Medicare cuts.
It saves us money and lowers the defiict, the mandates are necessary if you want to get rid of pre-existing conditions, and the Medicare cuts were to Medicare Advantage, a private program that was more expensive than normal Medicare and worked no better, and cuts to future doctor payments, not to benefits.
So, your objections are either wrong or misguided.
Necessary, but not popular. And not necessarily worth the costs. The public wasn’t sold on “Hey, we’re going to give everyone affordable health care, but we’re going to have to cut Medicare to do it.”
Just to clarify something off-topic here: This statement of yours (the one in quotes) is misleading, at best. The cuts from Medicare aren’t reducing *anyone’s *benefits; they’re cutting waste and redundancies. Let me repeat that; THESE CUTS DON’T REDUCE ANYONE’S BENEFITS. So if anyone is against them, it’s because they’re repeating a partisan message to make Obama look bad, or they’ve been snookered into believing a partisan message that they’ve heard from someone trying to make Obama look bad.
Not only that, but your guy Paul Ryan actually had the exact same cuts in *his *budget. So most Republicans, in fact, supported these cuts…before they were against them.
From here:
So, if you support Medicare waste and fraud, by all means let’s “un-cut” this $716 billion that Obamacare saved us, as Romney has vowed to do. Insider or outsider, love him or hate him, this is actually one part of Obama’s healthcare reform bill that both parties should be in support of…if everyone were to be really honest with themselves here.
And for a President that was engaging in such typical Democratic machinations, Obama seems to have been met with a singularly determined and unified opposition from the Republicans.
This is in light of the fact that the Republicans were coming off of a horrible election following one of the the worst presidencies in our country’s history. THere was no humility, no reassessment or contemplation. The reaction was almost instinctive.
This attempt to try to equate the faults of the Democr5ats with the faults of the Republicans is one of the worst lies perpetuated by the media.
For every well respected mainstream economist that goes on TV and says that:
the stimulus worked,
TARP was necessary,
supply side economics has no effect in the current tax environment,
trying to balance the budget right now is stupid, its a longer term problem that will only get worse with austerity…
They TV shows were able to find some yahoo with a suit that would say the exact opposite,
And then declare the issue a toos up.
I think a lot of people’s biggest problem with him was that he acted like this was the center plank of his campaign. I would have been a lot happier with tax reform and meanuingful wall street regulation. I would have been happier still if there had been a reckoning on wall street
The mandate was necessary (and frankly so are the public option and repealing the prohibition on negotiating for drug prices.
The cut to medicare part C (medicare advantage) was cutting waste. Since when have Republican been against cutting waste. Oh right, they’re not, they even propose it in their own budgets but conveniently forget that its waste when they need to scare senior citizens into thinking the black guy is out to get them.
Maybe you don’t realize but Medicare Part C used to cost about 15% more per enrolled medicare recipient than regular medicare recipients due to a law passed under Bush. The reason is that there simply wasn’t very much participation on the insurer side or the recipient side because private insurers simply couldn’t deliver the same service for the same cost as medicare and we weren’t getting enough free market type stuff into medicare so they had to shake things up a little. So the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act - Wikipedia came along. This paid 15% more to insurers than it would have cost Medicare to carry those same medicare recipients on regular medicare. It ALSO provided private insurers an advantage that medicare did not have… the private insurers could negotiate drug prices under their medicare part D coverage. So a private insurer not only had an extra 15% cash to do the same job as medicare, they were able to get their drugs a LOT cheaper than medicare. This created enough of a procit margin that companies started marketing their plans and actively looking for participants.
The 15% premium was supposed to be a temporary measure to “prime the pump” and was becoming an expensive subsidy to the health insurance companies. So Obama got rid of it, I don’t see how that should be a problem for anyone but the health insurance companies.
That is truncating information for the sake of scaring old people.
False. In a fee for service system, it is impossible to cut fees and not also cut services. According to the Medicare actuary, 15% of hospitals will not be able to accept such low reimbursement rates. Which should be obvious. Anytime a market faces cost savings pressure, some market players fail in the process. So yes, there will be a reduction in benefits because seniors will have trouble accessing care as more providers drop out of the system.
Republicans are for the cuts now they were for the cuts then. To ensure the solvency and sustainability of Medicare. Not to divert the savings into a new health care program.
I think the cuts are a good idea, personally. I just think the savings should be put back into Medicare or reduce the deficit, not fund a new program. Funny how all this waste, fraud, and abuse supposedly existed but Democrats never wanted to cut it until they needed to use Medicare as an ATM to pay for other priorities.
Ah, but it’s just peachy to truncate information to sell old people a bill of goods. Tell them about all the wonderful stuff ACA does for them but oh, don’t mind that Medicare Advantage thingie, you didn’t need that anyway.
“A sustained reduction in payment updates…would cause Medicare payment rates to grow more slowly than…providers costs of furnishing services to beneficiaries. Thus, providers for whom Medicare constitutes a substantive portion of their business could find it difficult to remain profitable.”
This, Foster argues, could end up “jeopardizing access to care” for seniors.
http://www.ourtab.org/content/medicare-actuary-highlights-obamacare’s-flaws
When should the Democrats have done that, exactly. Obama started working the Affordable Care Act pretty much as soon as he came into office. Before that, Republicans controlled either the executive or legislative branch going back to 1995. What window of opportunity did the Democrats miss to cut this waste, fraud, and abuse before they did?
Like from the time Medicare costs started to vastly exceed expectations. they controlled at least one chamber of Congress from Medicare’s creation up until 1994 and then again from 2006 to 2010.
But in reality, this does a lot more than cut waste. It forces providers to become more efficient(good) or get out of the Medicare program(bad).
Except of course when said system delivers unnecessary services.