The Democrat Thread

[jasonxctf]

im interested to get some takes on this. are any of the following items, socialistic (if that's even a word)

 

- public education

- police departments

- fire departments

- public hospitals

- military defense

- homeland security

- libraries

- park districts

- water/sewage departments

 

and if not, how is "socialized medicine" any different then say, "socialized police protection"

[lostfan]

Most of those things you listed aren't paid for by federal dollars, or at least shouldn't be. Except military and homeland security.

[bmags]

Most of those things you listed aren't paid for by federal dollars, or at least shouldn't be. Except military and homeland security.

 

federal money goes to quite a bit of that stuff.

[lostfan]

federal money goes to quite a bit of that stuff.

Yeah, but I mean like a majority of funding. That's stuff the states run.

[bmags]

Yeah, but I mean like a majority of funding. That's stuff the states run.

 

Nonetheless, the states are still governments so these are government provided goods.

[Balta1701]

im interested to get some takes on this. are any of the following items, socialistic (if that's even a word)

I believe you can just use "Socialist" as an adjective on its own, you do not need to add the IC suffix to make it an adjective.

[KipWellsFan]

im interested to get some takes on this. are any of the following items, socialistic (if that's even a word)

 

- public education

- police departments

- fire departments

- public hospitals

- military defense

- homeland security

- libraries

- park districts

- water/sewage departments

 

and if not, how is "socialized medicine" any different then say, "socialized police protection"

 

None of those things in and of themselves are socialist I wouldn't think. I don't know what the hell all this "socialism" nonsense is. Part of the ideology of socialism is the equality of condition... I don't see that with Obama. Maybe equality of opportunity.

[StrangeSox]

im interested to get some takes on this. are any of the following items, socialistic (if that's even a word)

 

- public education

- police departments

- fire departments

- public hospitals

- military defense

- homeland security

- libraries

- park districts

- water/sewage departments

 

and if not, how is "socialized medicine" any different then say, "socialized police protection"

 

I can tell you that a more extreme libertarian would say all of those are socialized, though they might be okay with some of them. An anarcho-libertarian would want them all abolished and replaced by private companies (that would also include the legal system and roads & infrastructure).

[HuskyCaucasian]

Hannity Gets Ownd on FOX's Health Care Plan

Sean Hannity doesn't understand much about health care, and why should he? Disease has always existed, yet AMERICA has endured! Doesn't that mean that universal health care is just unnecessary? Hannity calls to mind a simpler time, where men were men, and women were respectful, and people with scarlet fever and tuberculosis had the decency to say, "No, no! Let me just quietly die in this alley! I don't want to be a part of some depressing set of statistics!"

 

Fox News Senior Political Analyst Bob Beckel, on the other hand, thinks that health care is "a right," and so he gamely argued for it on Sean Hannity's radio show, which our Media Monitor Cathy Talbot listened to, so you don't have to. During the discussion, she heard something ironic!

HANNITY: I'm on the Fox Plan and the AFTRA Plan. I have no clue what in

s

urance I have. I don't have a

s

pecial health care plan! I have the

s

ame plan that you do.

 

BEC

K

EL: No you don't. I don't have a health in

s

urance plan.

 

HANNITY: You wor

k

for FOX, you're on the FOX plan.

 

BEC

K

EL: I don't qualify for the Fox plan, becau

s

e I have a pre-exi

s

ting condition

.

And then, Hannity made light of people with pre-existing conditions, curing them all with ridicule, the best medicine.

 

By the way, the AFTRA Plan? That refers to the health benefits extended by being a member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, a union. It's a pretty special health care plan, for millionaire infotainers.

 

[Balta1701]

Let's see, while we were gone, RNC Chairman Michael Steele had an interview with GQ released...this one is just fun...

Who do you listen to?

I actually listen to a cross section, because I like to hear what the medium is saying, what the voice is.

 

But do you have a favorite?

P. Diddy I enjoy quite a bit.

 

Do you want to rethink that?

[laughs] I guess I'm sorta old-school that way. Remember, I came of age with the DJ and all this other stuff, so I'm also loving Grandmaster Flash, and that's not hip-hop, but... Um, you know, I like Chuck D. And I always thought Snoop Dogg was--he just reminded me of the fellas back home. So I've always thoroughly enjoyed him.

 

Who else?

I like Sinatra. I like old-school. You know, Bing Crosby, Sinatra, Dean Martin. Love Dean Martin. He was one of these guys who just didn't give an F. He just didn't. Life was a party, and you either want to party or you don't. But yeah, I like those. I'm a big Pack Rat. I love the Pack Rats from the 1950s--Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, those guys.

 

You mean the Rat Pack.

The Rat Pack, yeah.

Part 2:

Do you think homosexuality is a choice?

Oh, no. I don't think I've ever really subscribed to that view, that you can turn it on and off like a water tap. Um, you know, I think that there's a whole lot that goes into the makeup of an individual that, uh, you just can't simply say, oh, like, "Tomorrow morning I'm gonna stop being gay." It's like saying, "Tomorrow morning I'm gonna stop being black."

 

So your feeling would be that people are born one way or another.

I mean, I think that's the prevailing view at this point, and I know that there's some out there who think that you can absolutely make that choice. And maybe some people have. I don't know, I can't say. Until we can give a definitive answer one way or the other, I think we should respect that.

Lack of adequate hatred of the gay menace? Uh-oh. He better not slip up anything else.

How much of your pro-life stance, for you, is informed not just by your Catholic faith but by the fact that you were adopted?

Oh, a lot. Absolutely. I see the power of life in that--I mean, and the power of choice! The thing to keep in mind about it... Uh, you know, I think as a country we get off on these misguided conversations that throw around terms that really misrepresent truth.

 

Explain that.

The choice issue cuts two ways. You can choose life, or you can choose abortion. You know, my mother chose life. So, you know, I think the power of the argument of choice boils down to stating a case for one or the other.

 

Are you saying you think women have the right to choose abortion?

Yeah. I mean, again, I think that's an individual choice.

To put this in terms Sox fans might understand...this translates roughly to "I don't think that taste is there."

[kapkomet]

Steele is an idiot. Not even Howard Dean idiot. He's an idiot all unto himself at this point.

 

[Balta1701]

Usual story route:

 

Someone spins something as unkind to Democrats (Pelosi in particular). Story goes up on Drudge. Story goes to Fox News. Story migrates from Fox News to other cable outlets.

 

Someone other than Fox News takes 10 minutes to fact-check the claims in the first story. They fall apart easily upon investigation. No one on Fox News, Drudge, or the other nets ever bothers correcting their error, because it would make them look bad instead of making the Dems look bad. Thus, everyone believes the idiotic false story Fox and Drudge run.

 

Case. In. Point.

In fact, it appears that Pelosi uses military aircraft less often than her predecessor, former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

 

The documents cover the period from January 2007 to November 2008 and show that Pelosi made the equivalent of 20 round-trips between Washington (Andrews Air Force Base) and San Francisco. That's an average of less than one round-trip per month. In contrast, former Speaker Hastert traveled home to his Illinois district virtually every weekend and, his former aides tell ABC News, he would almost always travel on military aircraft. Like Hastert, Pelosi also occasionally leads Congressional delegations on foreign trips (the documents show six foreign trips: one to Asia, three to the Middle East and two to Europe).

 

The documents obtained by Judicial Watch also disprove another frequently repeated rumor about Pelosi's travel: that she regularly flies home to San Francisco in an Air Force C-40, the military equivalent of a Boeing 737. According to the documents, Pelosi did not make any domestic trips on a C-40 during the 23-month period from January 2007 to November 2008. Her trips to San Francisco have all been on smaller executive aircraft, usually an Air Force C-20 (the equivalent of a Gulfstream G-3) or a more plush C-37 (a Gulfstream G-5).

 

The Judicial Watch release cites e-mails from the military complaining that Pelosi was frequently reserving military aircraft and then canceling, causing the Air Force to incur costs as crews prepped planes than never went anywhere. These e-mails, however, are from early in her tenure as speaker.

 

The only other time the issue of cancelled flights comes up is when Pelosi was forced to cancel flights to California in October 2008, when the House was in the midst of intense debate over the $700 billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. The Defense Department official seems to fully understand the situation, writing, "I do not see malice or a lack of urgency on their parts given the weekend Hill proceedings. Obviously we all need to keep leaning forward. It's the right thing to do."

 

The Judicial Watch release also cites an e-mail from a Pelosi staffer complaining about the lack of available C-5 aircraft for Congress's 2007 Memorial Day recess, but this has nothing to do with Pelosi's travel. Instead, the staffer was trying to arrange travel for eight Congressional delegations (all such travel is arranged through Pelosi's office).

[kapkomet]

The way I heard the story was she WANTED to use it... but basically got told to shut up.

 

[Balta1701]

The way I heard the story was she WANTED to use it... but basically got told to shut up.

Exactly...the way you heard the story...before someone bothered to look in to it.

[BigSqwert]

Steele is an idiot. Not even Howard Dean idiot. He's an idiot all unto himself at this point.

How is Dean an idiot?

[Chet Lemon]

How is Dean an idiot?

 

He yelled during a campaign rally. Most people don't remember this because the liberal media hardly aired the huge incident.

[bmags]

How is Dean an idiot?

 

He became DNC Chairman, stayed out of the spotlight and quietly built a political ground game that netted them a huge majority in the house, nearly filibuster-proof majority in the senate and the executive branch, a party looking at huge favorable ratings, and meanwhile the minority party has just hired Michael Steele.

[kapkomet]

He became DNC Chairman, stayed out of the spotlight and quietly built a political ground game that netted them a huge majority in the house, nearly filibuster-proof majority in the senate and the executive branch, a party looking at huge favorable ratings, and meanwhile the minority party has just hired Michael Steele.

[HuskyCaucasian]

Michael Steele: Abortion is an individual choice... so I choose to ban it for all

Steele called abortion an “individual choice” and opposed a constitutional ban on abortion in the Feb. 24 interview, which appeared online Wednesday night.

.........

he issued a statement Thursday affirming his opposition to abortion and his support for a constitutional amendment banning it.

 

Talk about the most confusign spin I've read since... well, McCain talked during the election.

[kapkomet]

Michael Steele: Abortion is an individual choice... so I choose to ban it for all

 

 

Talk about the most confusign spin I've read since... well, McCain talked during the election.

Hey stupid ass Michael Steele... go f*** yourself on the constutional ban on abortion, and gay marriage, and all the other bats*** crazy ultra right wing crap.

 

Now, if you want to ban that stuff at the federal level and make it a states rights issue, then more power to you... but that is not his intent, and I know it.

 

I am against the federalization of these laws. They are state issues. Period.

 

 

[Rex Kickass]

Hey stupid ass Michael Steele... go f*** yourself on the constutional ban on abortion, and gay marriage, and all the other bats*** crazy ultra right wing crap.

 

Now, if you want to ban that stuff at the federal level and make it a states rights issue, then more power to you... but that is not his intent, and I know it.

 

I am against the federalization of these laws. They are state issues. Period.

 

This is the problem when the person in charge of building the party and bringing people together and raising money starts to talk about actual policy.

[kapkomet]

This is the problem when the person in charge of building the party and bringing people together and raising money starts to talk about actual policy.

Thanks for helping me answer BigSqwert... Dean was an idiot about policy, but he certainly wasn't about putting the grassroots back together on the Democrat side. He deserves a lot of credit for that, that he never really got publically.

 

[Rex Kickass]

Thanks for helping me answer BigSqwert... Dean was an idiot about policy, but he certainly wasn't about putting the grassroots back together on the Democrat side. He deserves a lot of credit for that, that he never really got publically.

 

Howard Dean as head of DNC? Yes please!

Howard Dean as President? Umm, no thanks.

[kapkomet]

Howard Dean as head of DNC? Yes please!

Howard Dean as President? Umm, no thanks.

Dean did his job well as head of the DNC, once he shut his mouth. Steele is too much of an arrogant prick to keep his piehole shut, I think.

 

[Rex Kickass]

Dean did his job well as head of the DNC, once he shut his mouth. Steele is too much of an arrogant prick to keep his piehole shut, I think.

 

He never really dealt with policy. He dealt with party building and he defended the ideology of the party in public. It's sort of a shame to see Tim Kaine sort of dismantling the 50 state strategy that helped the Democrats get to 59 seats in the Senate in four years.