For Dems only.

[BigSqwert]

This has to be my favorite political commercial of all time.

 

I thought it was quite funny when I first saw it air.

Edited February 5, 2008 by BigSqwert

[NorthSideSox72]

This has to be my favorite political commercial of all time.

 

I voted for him, but had never seen that add. Awesome.

 

 

[Balta1701]

Joe Lieberman has been stripped of his superdelegate status for endorsing the opposing party's candidate.

[Rex Kickass]

As it should be.

[Balta1701]

The Senate Republicans successfully filibustered the Senate version of the Economic stimulus package last night, supposedly because it had the gall to add in about $44 billion or so over 2 years in changes like additional unemployment benefits and help with heating for the poor. There were also a few goodies stuck in to placate a few Republicans at the changes.

 

The interesting thing about it? The final vote was 59-40 (Harry Reid changed his vote so that he could bring it back to the floor later if necessary so it tallied 58-41). Every one of the Presidential Candidates in the Senate returned to Washington for the vote.

 

But, you may be asking...59+40 is 99. Who didn't vote? Was it the guy who had a stroke about a year and a half ago? Was Larry Craig in the bathroom? What happened?

 

Turns out, it was that steely eyed missile man and straight talker, John McCain, who missed the vote. He flew back to Washington for the vote, and didn't vote. Seems he didn't want to risk being able to be tarred by a vote that was remotely controversial in the general election campaign. A true story of courage. One worthy of remembrance.

[HuskyCaucasian]

The Senate Republicans successfully filibustered the Senate version of the Economic stimulus package last night, supposedly because it had the gall to add in about $44 billion or so over 2 years in changes like additional unemployment benefits and help with heating for the poor. There were also a few goodies stuck in to placate a few Republicans at the changes.

 

The interesting thing about it? The final vote was 59-40 (Harry Reid changed his vote so that he could bring it back to the floor later if necessary so it tallied 58-41). Every one of the Presidential Candidates in the Senate returned to Washington for the vote.

 

But, you may be asking...59+40 is 99. Who didn't vote? Was it the guy who had a stroke about a year and a half ago? Was Larry Craig in the bathroom? What happened?

 

Turns out, it was that steely eyed missile man and straight talker, John McCain, who missed the vote. He flew back to Washington for the vote, and didn't vote. Seems he didn't want to risk being able to be tarred by a vote that was remotely controversial in the general election campaign. A true story of courage. One worthy of remembrance.

McCain better DARE not bring up Obama's "present" votes.

[FlaSoxxJim]

The Senate Republicans successfully filibustered the Senate version of the Economic stimulus package last night, supposedly because it had the gall to add in about $44 billion or so over 2 years in changes like additional unemployment benefits and help with heating for the poor. There were also a few goodies stuck in to placate a few Republicans at the changes.

 

The interesting thing about it? The final vote was 59-40 (Harry Reid changed his vote so that he could bring it back to the floor later if necessary so it tallied 58-41). Every one of the Presidential Candidates in the Senate returned to Washington for the vote.

 

But, you may be asking...59+40 is 99. Who didn't vote? Was it the guy who had a stroke about a year and a half ago? Was Larry Craig in the bathroom? What happened?

 

Turns out, it was that steely eyed missile man and straight talker, John McCain, who missed the vote. He flew back to Washington for the vote, and didn't vote. Seems he didn't want to risk being able to be tarred by a vote that was remotely controversial in the general election campaign. A true story of courage. One worthy of remembrance.

 

Straight-Talk Express my pasty white as$$.

[kapkomet]

Straight-Talk Express my pasty white as$$.

Thank you all for pointing out exactly why I don't like him.

[mr_genius]

The Senate Republicans successfully filibustered the Senate version of the Economic stimulus package last night, supposedly because it had the gall to add in about $44 billion or so over 2 years in changes like additional unemployment benefits and help with heating for the poor. There were also a few goodies stuck in to placate a few Republicans at the changes.

 

The interesting thing about it? The final vote was 59-40 (Harry Reid changed his vote so that he could bring it back to the floor later if necessary so it tallied 58-41). Every one of the Presidential Candidates in the Senate returned to Washington for the vote.

 

But, you may be asking...59+40 is 99. Who didn't vote? Was it the guy who had a stroke about a year and a half ago? Was Larry Craig in the bathroom? What happened?

 

Turns out, it was that steely eyed missile man and straight talker, John McCain, who missed the vote. He flew back to Washington for the vote, and didn't vote. Seems he didn't want to risk being able to be tarred by a vote that was remotely controversial in the general election campaign. A true story of courage. One worthy of remembrance.

 

As compared to Obama's 'no votes' during his political career?

 

ps. and by 'no vote' I mean he didn't vote, abstained. not that he voted 'no'.

Edited February 7, 2008 by mr_genius

[BigSqwert]

As compared to Obama's 'no votes' during his political career?

 

ps. and by 'no vote' I mean he didn't vote, abstained. not that he voted 'no'.

 

Voting Present in the State Legislature is Used as A Signal to the Other Party, Not As a Way to Duck the Issue. "An aspect of Obama's State Senate voting record that is drawing attention is his "present" votes. A present vote is a third option to an up or down "yes" or "no" that is used with great frequency in the Illinois General Assembly. It has many varied and nuanced meanings that, in the context of the actual bills, border on boring. It's most important use is as a signal – to the other party, to the governor, to the sponsor -- to show a willingness to compromise on the issue if not the exact bill, to show disapproval for one aspect of the bill, to question the constitutionality of the bill, to strengthen the bill. [Chicago Daily Herald, 3/10/04]

 

Obama Would Vote 'Present' On Unconstitutional Bills, Saying He Tried To Resist Bad Votes That Make Good Politics. The AP reported, "Obama says his 'present' votes often come on bills that he believes are unconstitutional. 'I have tried to not succumb to the temptation of voting on bad laws just because it makes for good politics,' Obama said." [AP, 9/9/04]

 

Senators Would Vote Present If They Had 'Unresolved Worries.' The State Journal-Register reported, "Sen. George Shadid, the Edwards Democrat who is pushing the legislation, promised Senate Education Committee members that he wouldn't move ahead with Senate Bill 368 'unless I can get a good consensus.'…Four committee members cited unresolved worries when they voted 'present' on the measure, which passed 7-0." [state Journal-Register, 2/27/03]

[mr_genius]

Obama Would Vote 'Present' On Unconstitutional Bills, Saying He Tried To Resist Bad Votes That Make Good Politics. The AP reported, "Obama says his 'present' votes often come on bills that he believes are unconstitutional. 'I have tried to not succumb to the temptation of voting on bad laws just because it makes for good politics,' Obama said." [AP, 9/9/04]

 

Uh, if he thought they were unconstitutional he should have voted against them.

Edited February 8, 2008 by mr_genius

[FlaSoxxJim]

 

[mr_genius]

 

 

 

Edited February 8, 2008 by mr_genius

[Balta1701]

A hearty congratulations to the Bush Administration and to the major telecom companies in this country, as they're now completely immune from breaking the law.

[BigSqwert]

A hearty congratulations to the Bush Administration and to the major telecom companies in this country, as they're now completely immune from breaking the law.

Obama voted against immunity while Clinton was a no show.

[Balta1701]

The Senate today voted 51-45 in favor of a bill that would make the army field manual the standard for which all interrogations by any agency will follow. In other words, it makes the CIA follow the law everyone else has to follow and bans torture.

 

John McCain, the steely eyed missile man, the lone anti-torture Republican...voted against the bill.

[Balta1701]

Here's a fun little story about how a specialist at Johns Hopkins University developed a system that could save tens of thousands of lives and billions of health care dollars each year in this country with a cost of a couple million dollars by instituting better procedures at hospitals, but because there's no profit in it for anyone except the consumer, there's no rush at all to add it to the program anywhere.

The still limited response to Pronovost’s work may be easy to explain, but it is hard to justify. If someone found a new drug that could wipe out infections with anything remotely like the effectiveness of Pronovost’s lists, there would be television ads with Robert Jarvik extolling its virtues, detail men offering free lunches to get doctors to make it part of their practice, government programs to research it, and competitors jumping in to make a newer, better version. That’s what happened when manufacturers marketed central-line catheters coated with silver or other antimicrobials; they cost a third more, and reduced infections only slightly—and hospitals have spent tens of millions of dollars on them. But, with the checklist, what we have is Peter Pronovost trying to see if maybe, in the next year or two, hospitals in Rhode Island and New Jersey will give his idea a try.

 

Pronovost remains, in a way, an odd bird in medical research. He does not have the multimillion-dollar grants that his colleagues in bench science have. He has no swarm of doctoral students and lab animals. He’s focussed on work that is not normally considered a significant contribution in academic medicine. As a result, few other researchers are venturing to extend his achievements. Yet his work has already saved more lives than that of any laboratory scientist in the past decade.

 

I called Pronovost recently at Johns Hopkins, where he was on duty in an I.C.U. I asked him how long it would be before the average doctor or nurse is as apt to have a checklist in hand as a stethoscope (which, unlike checklists, has never been proved to make a difference to patient care).

 

“At the current rate, it will never happen,” he said, as monitors beeped in the background. “The fundamental problem with the quality of American medicine is that we’ve failed to view delivery of health care as a science. The tasks of medical science fall into three buckets. One is understanding disease biology. One is finding effective therapies. And one is insuring those therapies are delivered effectively. That third bucket has been almost totally ignored by research funders, government, and academia. It’s viewed as the art of medicine. That’s a mistake, a huge mistake. And from a taxpayer’s perspective it’s outrageous.” We have a thirty-billion-dollar-a-year National Institutes of Health, he pointed out, which has been a remarkable powerhouse of discovery. But we have no billion-dollar National Institute of Health Care Delivery studying how best to incorporate those discoveries into daily practice.

 

I asked him how much it would cost for him to do for the whole country what he did for Michigan. About two million dollars, he said, maybe three, mostly for the technical work of signing up hospitals to participate state by state and coördinating a database to track the results. He’s already devised a plan to do it in all of Spain for less.

 

“We could get I.C.U. checklists in use throughout the United States within two years, if the country wanted it,” he said.

 

So far, it seems, we don’t. The United States could have been the first to adopt medical checklists nationwide, but, instead, Spain will beat us. “I at least hope we’re not the last,” Pronovost said.

[Balta1701]

10 myths about Canadian health care.

[Balta1701]

Sweet, a lynching party. We haven't had one of those in forever!

You know, I have a lot of sympathy for Michelle Obama, for Bill Clinton, for all of these people. Bill Clinton, I have sympathy for him, because they're thrown into a hopper where everybody is waiting for them to make a mistake, so that they can just go and bludgeon them. And, you know, Bill Clinton and I don't agree on a lot of things, and I think I've made that clear over the years, but he's trying to stick up for his wife, and every time the guy turns around, there's another demagogue or another ideologue in his face trying to humiliate him because they're rooting for Obama.

 

That's wrong. And I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels. If that's how she really feels -- that America is a bad country or a flawed nation, whatever -- then that's legit. We'll track it down.

(You can probably guess who said that).

[Balta1701]

The fun of statistics...if you hang out at 25% approval for long enough, eventually there's going to be a poll that puts you in the teens.

19%.

[Balta1701]

Sweet. Our missile defense system still can't work in the rain.

[StrangeSox]

Sweet. Our missile defense system still can't work in the rain.

 

Hey, as long as they shoot missles at us when the sky's clear, humidity is low, the seas are calm, there's not too much wind .....

 

Ah, hell, it'll just take a few trillion to get it working right!

[bmags]

balta, do you just scan different news sites...or what do you read to get linked all over the place? Any favorites?

[mr_genius]

Hey, as long as they shoot missles at us when the sky's clear, humidity is low, the seas are calm, there's not too much wind .....

 

Ah, hell, it'll just take a few trillion to get it working right!

 

 

I'll bet you they can shoot those things in any weather if need be.

 

Hmm, I seem to remember liberals screaming "It's completely IMPOSSIBLE to shoot a missle with a missle !" years ago. so now it's "THEY'LL NEVER GET ONE OFF IN THE RAIN!!!"

 

 

[mr_genius]

(You can probably guess who said that).

 

I guessed Sean Hannity. Close enough.