The cost of "Obamacare" has no public option to keep it in check.

There is no magic spell that would make that happen.

LIEberman wasn't a "Blue Dog". He was a "New" Democrat, who was eventually primaried. But, his progressive opponent was sabotaged by "establishment" Democrats who still supported LIEberman as an independent.

I don't believe you're correct but then I don't think it matters.

"....by putting their ideological zealotry over progress, have not just let President Obama down, but they let progress down. They let America down. When they could have helped, they chose to pout and cry. When we needed their help, they chose to throw a tantrum. When the president needed them to have his back as he took the hits from the Right, they stabbed him in the back."

You can disagree until you're blue in the face.

"They, like the Tea Party, let America down. And like the Tea Party, it's time for America to leave them behind."

growing up to be progressives. I'd say that your strategy of marginalizing progressives is a very short sighted one.

The internet makes it *a lot* harder to hide neoliberal/neoconservative bullshit.

Where do you come off accusing me of that?

I have no such power. If radical leftists are marginalized, as I observe them through my filter to be, then it's all their own doing. How silly of you to suggest otherwise.

I would have told you that you should refrain from over generalizing.

It takes all kinds, and I believe in our system. It's not perfect, for sure, but perfection isn't a functional goal in politics.

I have always defined a radical as a person who advocates thorough or complete political or social reform. And I lifted that definition from my Google search so I'm not out of line.

As such I don't use the term as a pejorative. I frequently refer to radical capitalists (anarcho-capitalists, Ayn Rand cultists, von Mises, and modern mainstream neoclassical synthesis fresh water types). And then there is the radical right, as opposed to moderates. Unfortunately the moderates are few and far between on the right.

I myself am clearly a left leaning moderate. You can argue that point if you wish, there's just not really much power in doing so. I do believe in things like careful change based on logic and reason and tradition. I do find radicals of all stripes to be unreasonable and reckless.

If you wish to call that a smear then so be it. I think you're a wee bit over sensitive. If you don't want to be regarded as being radical then just take it down a few notches. In other words, moderate.

A negotiation between left leaning moderates and intransigent radical Republicans leaves us with a country wildly out of balance. It has been wildly out of balance for so long that people have lost their perspective.

Invariably the subject is changed from whatever it is to something about me personally, just as occurred in this thread. This is exactly the same as trying to hold a discussion with an anarcho-capitalist, a member of the Atlas Society, or a LaRouchie.

Oh, and of course this same thing always happens with teabaggers.

I recall a LaRouchie flagging me down and saying something ridiculous to me about 10 years or so ago. I figured it was useless to respond so I walked away. I probably made a face like "you're out of your f***ing mind" because that's basically what it boiled down to. The loon followed me for a whole block, yelling to me something about me being a drug dealer.

That's pretty much the level of discourse I get from the radical left.

Sober, careful, prudent thinking is boring. There's no drama.

The radical left is all about drama.

As for Hillary
Soberly shifting jobs overseas, prudent alignment with neo-cons, carefully avoiding taking stances on issues.

It's your own problem, either way. Not mine.

I am speaking in general terms. At the end of the day it's not going to matter. I keep saying that and people here, the ones who stay, don't care to listen. That's fine too but I happen to be correct whether you like it or not.

What I do regret is that I can't come here to DU, which I at one time regarded as home, and state my views without getting a lot of crap thrown at me. That isn't right.

Nice Goldwater pin.

and Baucus and Nelson and Landreau and Conrad ... Just enough (in the close Senate) to make the Public Option a non-starter.

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, who was formerly a Democrat but who is now an independent, announced today that "if the bill remains what it is now, I will not be able to support a cloture motion before final passage." In other words, Lieberman will support a filibuster. "I can't see a way in which I could vote for cloture on any bill that contained a creation of a government-operated-run insurance company," Lieberman said.

One largely unspoken assumption behind Reid's quest to get an "opt out" version of the public option through the Senate is that he doesn't really need 60 votes for the health reform bill itself. He just needs 60 votes for the cloture motion prior to final passage. Once a filibuster is cut off, health reform can pass with 50 votes (the 51st being Vice President Joe Biden, president of the Senate). One reason Reid's gambit looked so promising as recently as yesterday was that Lieberman, despite his previously stated opposition to the health reform bill even without a public option (i.e., as passed by the Senate finance committee), had agreednot to support a filibuster against it. It now appears that Lieberman either changed his mind or was misunderstood.

Reid seems to think he can keep Lieberman onboard by allowing him to "be involved in the amendment process." In his 2008 book The Good Fight, Reid writes that he and Lieberman differed on the Iraq war but "on other issues, he's always with me." But can Reid really count on Lieberman this time? In recent years Lieberman has not shown himself to be an especially trustworthy character. (TheNew Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg has the details here and here.)
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/prescriptions/2009/10/did_lieberman_just_kill_the_public_option.html

AND the others are on record saying they oppose the Public option.

the rest would have been on board with the P/O?

Beyond the obvious, the latter is less binding?

So we could spare 10 votes to vote against the bill.

538 counted 43 Supporters, with 5 maybe and 7 who knows.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-many-votes-does-public-option-have/

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, who was formerly a Democrat but who is now an independent, announced today that "if the bill remains what it is now, I will not be able to support a cloture motion before final passage." In other words, Lieberman will support a filibuster. "I can't see a way in which I could vote for cloture on any bill that contained a creation of a government-operated-run insurance company," Lieberman said.

One largely unspoken assumption behind Reid's quest to get an "opt out" version of the public option through the Senate is that he doesn't really need 60 votes for the health reform bill itself. He just needs 60 votes for the cloture motion prior to final passage. Once a filibuster is cut off, health reform can pass with 50 votes (the 51st being Vice President Joe Biden, president of the Senate). One reason Reid's gambit looked so promising as recently as yesterday was that Lieberman, despite his previously stated opposition to the health reform bill even without a public option (i.e., as passed by the Senate finance committee), had agreednot to support a filibuster against it. It now appears that Lieberman either changed his mind or was misunderstood.

Reid seems to think he can keep Lieberman onboard by allowing him to "be involved in the amendment process." In his 2008 book The Good Fight, Reid writes that he and Lieberman differed on the Iraq war but "on other issues, he's always with me." But can Reid really count on Lieberman this time? In recent years Lieberman has not shown himself to be an especially trustworthy character. (TheNew Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg has the details here and here.)
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/prescriptions/2009/10/did_lieberman_just_kill_the_public_option.html

No where in that does it say Reid had the 50 votes ... it says IF he got the 50 votes, then ...

Leiberman and Baucus and Nelson and Landreau and Conrad had already said no.

Seriously ... do you really think that Reid and Pelosi and President Obama didn't talk to Democrats BEFORE they struck their position?

But that said, we are NOT saying the same thing ... my statement is based in what the Blue dogs, actually, are on record saying, i.e., they did not support the P/O ...

Whereas, you are basing your statement on ... frankly, nothing more than what you hope people would have done.

Barbara Mikulski said NO.

Me and many activists called senators' office many times. We were told not to give up but to keep calling. I will never forget this as long as I live. We called and called and kept calling--and each time the answer was NO.

We were never going to get a public option. Single payer was out of the question because it was DEMOCRATS who rejected the notion outright!

We had the 50+ votes.

enough voters to stop him because there were other Democrats, like Bill Nelson, for instance, who was never going to allow a public option on the floor. It didn't matter what LIEberman did because there STILL wouldn't be enough votes to overcome his filibuster.

None of that mattered when we had milquetoast, cowardly Democrats who were never going to support it, no matter what we did.

I was there! I'm telling you what happened.

The article says that Reid made deals with everyone else to not filibuster, but LIEberman wouldn't accept.

for a public option bill--at that time there were two such bills (Harkin's and Kennedy's)--to be considered. I'm telling you that Baucus wasn't going to allow it. And Ben Nelson was one of the biggest opponents, along with Blanche Lincoln, who at the time was one of the most electorally vulnerable. She and Pryor.

what THEY said--there was opposition to a public option. Period! Nothing we could have done would've saved it.

You don't believe me? Fine.

I have nothing else to add to this conversation.

option was there. I can't help you if you don't know how a filibuster works. And I certainly can't help you if you don't know what happens in the absence of a filibuster. You can do a simple Google search to find out on your own. I'm too old and too tired to be giving out simple Civics lessons.

Bottom line, they had not enough votes to support a public option. This is historically factual.

Your insults won't change the facts, nor will they change history.

Off to IGNORE you go.

anything. It takes 60 votes for cloture.

But that argument doesn't matter.

What matters here is that there were a large number of Democratic senators who were never going to vote for a public option. THAT is the point and has been my point throughout this thread.

Deny history all you want. That's on YOU. It's something you have to deal with.

Continue with the insults. I won't be responding anymore here.

Have a nice day.

You and other are talking about filibusters and shit. That is of no consequence if the votes aren't there for a public option. Even if there was indeed filibuster, what does that have to do with the number of Democrats were not for a public option?

The bottom line is that people are blaming the president for a lack of public option. But I am telling you the truth and facts: There was never enough support, in either chamber of Congress, for a public option. And we lobbied incessantly for it. No matter what we did, the answer was still NO!

I think it may have gotten through subcommittee, but I don't remember whether it got to the floor for a vote.

The Senate versions were important because whatever got through the committee process and succeeded a vote on the Floor would have had to be compromised with the House version.

What I am telling you is that there were not enough votes from Democrats on the Senate side. That's my whole point. We spent weeks lobbying for this and no matter what we did, we could not get the votes.

Again, this is history. I'm not sure why you continue to argue with me.

It's a long story, but there were competing bills in the House and Senate. The House was battling over 3 different bills in their chamber. The Senate was considering at least 4 different bills in 4 different committees. The House passed and sent a bill to the Senate (spending bills being required to originate in the House.) The Senate replaced the entire House bill with the "Baucus Bill" as one, giant amendment. After some conference committee wrangling and with the clock almost ready to expire, the bill went back to the Senate, Robert Byrd was wheeled onto the floor to help pass the cloture motion around midnight.

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, who was formerly a Democrat but who is now an independent, announced today that "if the bill remains what it is now, I will not be able to support a cloture motion before final passage." In other words, Lieberman will support a filibuster. "I can't see a way in which I could vote for cloture on any bill that contained a creation of a government-operated-run insurance company," Lieberman said.

One largely unspoken assumption behind Reid's quest to get an "opt out" version of the public option through the Senate is that he doesn't really need 60 votes for the health reform bill itself. He just needs 60 votes for the cloture motion prior to final passage. Once a filibuster is cut off, health reform can pass with 50 votes (the 51st being Vice President Joe Biden, president of the Senate). One reason Reid's gambit looked so promising as recently as yesterday was that Lieberman, despite his previously stated opposition to the health reform bill even without a public option (i.e., as passed by the Senate finance committee), had agreednot to support a filibuster against it. It now appears that Lieberman either changed his mind or was misunderstood.

Reid seems to think he can keep Lieberman onboard by allowing him to "be involved in the amendment process." In his 2008 book The Good Fight, Reid writes that he and Lieberman differed on the Iraq war but "on other issues, he's always with me." But can Reid really count on Lieberman this time? In recent years Lieberman has not shown himself to be an especially trustworthy character. (TheNew Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg has the details here and here.)
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/prescriptions/2009/10/did_lieberman_just_kill_the_public_option.html

just as the broad outline I gave was part of the story. Liberman's filibuster threat was part of the wrangling over amendments in the Senate after the Baucus bill was voted out of committee.

payer couldn't get through the subcommittee process. And the three public option alternatives in the House, along with the two in the Senate were blocked by DEMOCRATS.

Why are people so obtuse that they don't get this? The president never had the votes for a single payer system. And I remember calling Senators, practically begging their offices to at least consider the public option proposal. No matter what I said to them, the answer was NO! They were afraid for their electoral chances...they ended up losing, anyway. But is and never was the president's fault. He DID fight for the public option, going around the country talking to ordinary people about the public option; mentioning the public option in every speech, press conference and so on. It is absolutely NOT true that he didn't fight for it when it was clear that single payer was never getting anywhere.

And regardless of how many times I've had to explain this here on DU, the haters gon' hate.

Good luck with that.

It's NOT 100% purity ... it's 100% purity for the non-Sanders' camp ... I can think of at least 4 issues where he has not been approaching "progressive" in his votes.

Clinton might as well be a Republican on all economic issues.

because Clinton = Republican (even on economic issues) is crazy.

holding the president to the same purity standards.

Sanders still hasn't told anyone how he planned to get single payer out of subcommittee when he failed WITH DEMOCRATS the first time. All they want to do is bash the president.

They think they can do this and win over much-needed black voters? Really? They are very sadly mistaken!

They feel they are somehow resurgent and that they can become relevant through Bernie Sanders. Note the word "feel." It's all emotion.

I hear you on the winning over of black voters but I think that may not be the best way to look at it. Black voters are an integral part of the Democratic coalition. I am not black and cannot speak for black voters, but I can have humility and I can respect my fellow Democrats. I can listen. I can support policies like affirmative action because I believe in the underlying principles. That's what coalitions are all about.

Extremists and ideologues cannot do that.

...and Bernie and his fanatics are finding out, we also know that we need to build coalitions around policy as well. It seems that Sanders's supporters don't want to happen. It's all about falling in line and supporting him. And those who aren't on board are wrong, stupid, or don't know what's in their best interests.

There's never a thought that there are many blacks like myself who agree with Bernie Sanders. We simply do not think he can win. And we don't think he can get his agenda through Congress. It's also disturbing to me that there is this purity test; unless the legislation is 100% ideologically pure, it's worthless.

I'm not sure I understand. The article reads like one big strawman argument. When it came down to it, the bill got 100% progressive support, did it not?

Because both Obama and Reid promised the PO, this of course after Max Baucus (D-INS) had single payer advocates arrested at a hearing.

If he insists on shoving this fucking TPP up our ass as a going away present.

When he was running for President, Obama campaigned against (and ran ads against) Bush for cutting deals with Billy Tauzin the pharmaceutical lobbyist in exchange for support of Medicare Part D, notably by forsaking Medicare drug price bargaining. It was his Exhibit A of what's wrong with how Washington operates. Once in the White House, Obama cut deals with Billy Tauzin the pharmaceutical lobbyist in exchange for industry support of the ACA, notably by forsaking Medicare drug price bargaining.

[link:https://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2010/02/12/the-legacy-of-billy-tauzin-the-white-house-phrma-deal/|

Others, however, are free to view loyalty to one's principles, and loyalty to a President as compatible.

I am now in the habit of looking at the source before reading the snippet/clicking on the link.

Good times, good times!

0-7 leave on one of the most frivolous, ridiculous alerts I've ever seen.

Especially since both the OP and the owner of that blog were tombstoned on DU2.

The ridiculous alerts are becoming legend (and I am quicker to hide than most).

"Especially since both the OP and the owner of that blog were tombstoned on DU2."

It's a pity that you don't know the story behind that.

Hahahahahahah!

I don't believe this kind of partisan hack-manship is appropriate and here you are gloating because 7 people think otherwise.

Worst of all you have no idea why you're turning a lot of good Democrats off.

You didn't like that someone questioned you, made you think outside your comfort zone.

I am the "goodest" Democrat you'll ever want to meet. Seriously. You might want to get to know me.

Your alert was pure bullshit. I don't have a problem with alerts, but I do have a problem with people trying to silence the opinions of others simply because they disagree.

I don't think you ought to attack people personally. I think you ought to attack issues. I had a reasonably objective argument for making my alert whether you understand it or not.

I work for Democrats. I promote Democrats. I am a Democrat, a Liberal, a Progressive, unapologetically. I do more for "our side" than you'll ever know.

Your alert was neither objective or reasonable. It was personal.

I was not trying to appeal to popularity. Maybe that's what threw you off.

One troll was constantly linking it (presumably they were associated with it somehow); when they returned everyone could tell:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024538224

I have no idea what you're talking about. I posted something for discussion. If people don't want to discuss it, then don't discuss it.

I don't see why that's so difficult.

Probably posts he wrote himself:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=michigandem58+thepeoplesview&sitesearch=democraticunderground.com

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023505867

EarlG banned him: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=292212&sub=trans

Slow

A party that blames its members for its own leadership faults probably won't be in power for very long. Just sayin'.

By their own admission the people whom you refer to as "its members" tell me they aren't and never have been Democrats.

And the winner of the primary was the progressive. So, that crap about being an "independent" that has caucused with the Democratic Party for 25 years is a disingenuous attack.

He would destroy any of the candidates running now, if he were able to and would want to run again.

So who exactly are the "its members" you refer to? I see a few people making a lot of noise and complaining about being marginal, but really I don't know who these people really are. Do you?

I'd be singing Obama's praises, at this point in the campaign. Obama ran a clean campaign against Clinton. I'm sure he'd run a clean one against Sanders, too.

Or do you really think the whole Sanders phenomenon just sprang out of nowhere? It came about because many rank and file Democrats are very unsatisfied with the party leadership.

The mere fact that you are trying to minimize it as a few disgruntled crybabies pretty much sums up the problem right there.

insane assertions that Obama is no better than Bush; that he's evil and a "used car salesman," all kinds of bullshit we heard.

Now, the president isn't perfect, but I continue to be baffled by the left not holding the jerks on the Right responsible for the obstruction and even those in the Democratic Party who wouldn't cooperate with the president.

Liberals were blaming the president and not those who were responsible for deliberately sabotaging him.

This article is spot on!

goes along with Geithner and allows all the rich executives to draw their bonuses along with their outrageous pay, and then pass the bil to the taxpayers. Then we had the public option, which was dropped so fast, we knew the insurance companies vetoed that long before. The final shaft is this TPP deal, which must be some payoff to the banks, something like Clinton's NAFTA.

What with their principles and all.

YAWN.

Well, we know what happened. But in case anyone wants to read up on it here you go:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703808904575025030384695158#printMode

I like and respect Obama, but I really wish it was mutual.

What happened to all that "Relax, I got this."? Was that just pillow talk?

As always, triangulation can never fail, it can only be failed by big, bad, liberals.

Last edited Mon Feb 22, 2016, 06:01 PM - Edit history (1)

Strangely, progressives are getting blamed for it, and in the House, they all voted for it, which is more than you can say for some of the Blue Dogs that helped write the darn thing.

Look up the definition of the logical fallacy of "begging the question" and you'll find a reference to this article.

It presumes the conclusion and uses it as a basis for the analysis.

I suppose that's a small improvement.

very low and so richly deserved.