“Party Of No!” Senators; Begin To Lean Toward Forcing ALL Poor Americans To Have Access To Preventative Medicine Versus Clogging Up Our Emergency Rooms (a.,k.,a., “The Public Option”)…
Not sure how reliable a “source” Red State is but they ARE reporting the following (H/T goes to MemeOrandum for The Pull…):
BREAKING: Senate GOP Folding Over Health Care Reform
Posted by Erick Erickson
I am told quite reliably that in a meeting today on Capitol Hill, Republican Senators began to rapidly move toward concessions on health care because they are afraid they cannot hold their members. Some Republicans are now thinking of supporting a government program. …
Followed, of COURSE, by a call to to action for ALL “concerned Citizens” who don’t wish to see poor American children have access to a doctor who knows their health profiles, with facees the doctors can remember and the poor children can relate to when there are TONS of emergency rooms throughout the country who are ready and able to treat these poor American Citizens once they’ve acquired the Swine Flu (“H1N1″ for the “politically correct”) and have spread it amongst their neighbors. Good call, Red State! That’s so damned “American” of you. And while we’re at it, I tip my hat to the G.O.P. Senators who are actively breaking the ranks with their heartless and mindless zombie-ish brethren.
Perhaps there is hope for the Republican Party after all. The further they distance themselves from the rest of their zany “Party Of NO!” brethren, the better their chances are for reelection.
***
Other bloggers weigh in: Michelle Malkin (Right) tells her G.O.P. Senators to “man up!“; The Raw Story has more information and coverage; Drudge Retort with a spirited discussion as always…
Loading ...
12:09 am on October 8th, 2009 1
What do you think health care insurance is suppose to accomplish? I guarentee you it isn’t going to do a thing for H1N1. Kind of funny how they have it planned, if it ever does pass, to take effect after the next presidential elections. Where will those in need of H1N1 help be then? Seems like not too long ago some would say poo hoo on drilling for oil because we wouldn’t get any for 5 years or 10 or whatever, why not scuttle this plan because it won’t help anybody for years (assuming it actually helps and doesn’t make things worse.) How many lives is this health care insurance going to save? I’ve heard some say 40 to 50 thousand, I’d like to see how they arrive at those figures. Seems to me they are saying if you die, and you didn’t have health care insurance, it is because you didn’t have insurance. A whole lot more people die each year that have insurance than die and don’t. You want to save more lives each year, make wearing a helmet in all vehicles mandatory like wearing seatbelts is mandatory. What? Don’t want more encroachment on your freedom, no, lets just have another PONZI scheme, the Social Security Ponzi scheme, and the medicare Ponzi scheme aren’t enough. What this country REALLY NEEDS is ANOTHER PONZI SCHEME!
Bad Dog Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 12:22 am
@Mike 300 Spartans, Mike, not only does lack of medical insurance result in some 40,000-50,000 unnecessary deaths each year, medical bills are also the #1 cause of foreclosures and bankruptcies in this country. So there is an incredible economic incentive to do this. What’s more, it’s simple decency, Mike.
Let me ask you a question.
A young woman has cancer and her health insurance provider’s “death panel” decides that it was a pre-existing condition and refuses her treatment.
She can’t afford the very expensive chemo and other treatments she will need.
She sells everything she owns and still ends up in debt.
Then she dies because she can’t borrow anymore to get good care that might save her life.
Tell me, as a Christian, if you’re okay with this.
I’d really like to know. Yes a simple yes or no, please.
Mike 300 Spartans Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 1:36 am
@Bad Dog, If I could answer your question with a simple yes or no, I would. But you skewer the question to such an extreme that it is impossible to answer. In the “fight fire with fire” mindset I believe you are fond of, I’ll do what I consider a skewered answer.
According to your scenario, she didn’t die of cancer, she dies..”because she can’t borrow anymore to get good care..” Sounds like she died for lack of money. I can’t bring her back to life after she is dead, but to keep thousands of others from the same fate, I would cut their taxes so they would have the money to pay for their medical needs that she didn’t have because the government took it from her to pay for some jets for congress to fly around on.
Bad Dog Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 2:32 am
@Mike 300 Spartans, Simple yes or no, Mike.
This is not an extreme. You got to be kidding me. This is the crux of the issue, not some outlandish imaginary scenario. (I guess Democrats really are from Mars and Republicans from Venus. It really is like talking to an alien sometimes. They don’t even speak the same language.)
Here’s the scenario. (If you find it so freakishly outlandish, stretch your imagination to its breaking point and try to picture the following insanely unlikely, one in a trillion, once every hundred years scenario using your full willing suspension of disbelief.)
A woman gets a disease that is terminal unless she gets expensive life-saving treatment.
Her health insurance company screws her over with its “death panel,” saying it’s a pre-existing condition.
The woman can’t afford life-saving treatment.
First, she loses her home and has to declare bankruptcy.
Then she dies.
Tell me if you’re okay with this. Yes or no.
Then I’ll answer your question.
Mike 300 Spartans Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 2:59 am
@Bad Dog, Answer: No
Oddly I’m having a bad case of Deja Vue. Didn’t I already answer that question like two or three weeks ago? I think I explained at the time that I see all death as bad, so no, I’m not ok with any death no matter what the cause. I know I can’t stop all death on this planet. I might sacrifice my life for something I value higher than life itself. I might even sacrifice the life of someone attacking my family by putting a bullet between their eyes. But I’m not “OK” with anyone’s death. Well I’m not going to ask you a counter question as I’m preparing to go to my high school 25th year class reunion. 84 rules! I hope to continue our discussion some time next week. Peace all! (Yes, even you B.D. you invidious nemesis. )
Bad Dog Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 3:48 am
@Mike 300 Spartans, Have fun, Mike!
GawdDayumAmerica Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 11:36 am
@Bad Dog, Did I not see in another thread where even Mike 300 spartans admits to being Bad Dog?
Bad Dog Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
@GawdDayumAmerica, Yup, everybody here is the same person and all of us are different personalities of this mentally ill guy in New York named Chris Doster.
(Aren’t you the expert on multiple personalities, having trolled this website not only under different names, but even different personalities? You’re a weird dude.)
GawdDayumAmerica Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
@Bad Dog, So its true that Mike 300 spartans and you are the same person. No wonder you two got along so well and I was actually waiting for the two of you to elope.
As for weird dude I cant even begin to compete with you Bad Dog, or GTL or Kay Harris or Mike 300 spartans or whomever else you are here.
I simply come and post my thoughts and move along. This site is growing more and more bizarre by the day.
Fandb Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 11:43 am
@Bad Dog, That’s not the way it works “Bad Dog”. The “pre-existing condition” exclusion is something that is addressed when a new health plan or insurance policy is issued. Once the policy is issued, if there are no exclusions of pre-existing conditions, the subject never comes up again. So as usual, your premise is flawed, the scenario you envision does not occur under the present system.
Bad Dog Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
@Fandb, I love when your arguments are so laughably simple I can refute them without doing any research. The problem with what you are saying is a minor condition may bloom into a major condition after the insurance is obtained. Since the person did not report the minor condition, coverage is denied. Insurance companies have real death panels to figure this out. I’m surprised you would even argue the point. If they deny you expensive coverage, their profits go up. In many states, there’s little or no real competition among providers, so you’re screwed. Period. End of story.
Here you go, you ignorant ass, two additional studies, based on surveys of Americans. The first estimates that 12.6 million non-elderly adults (36% of people trying to buy health insurance) were discriminated against based on pre-existing conditions. (Commonwealth Fund Biennial Health Insurance Survey, 2007
As for my scenario being rare, it happens to about 10% of people who have cancer.
The Republican Plan: “Don’t get cancer!”
If you’re actually interested in this subject—and you must be, since you butted in on the conversation pretending to be an authority, when it’s obvious you’re not—check out this page and the statistics cited:
http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/denied_coverage/index.html
Or don’t. Either way, you’re still wrong.
Fandb Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
@Bad Dog, It’s a political web site. What do you think the dem’s are going to say about it. You are such a gullible idiot.
Bad Dog Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
@Fandb, Ignore this paragraph, which was a copy and paste from a conversation with Vego:
“Here you go, you ignorant ass, two additional studies, based on surveys of Americans. The first estimates that 12.6 million non-elderly adults (36% of people trying to buy health insurance) were discriminated against based on pre-existing conditions. (Commonwealth Fund Biennial Health Insurance Survey, 2007″
I may think you’re an ignorant ass, but I did not call you one in this conversation. There is an important distinction.
vegofish Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 1:55 am
@Bad Dog, lack of medical insurance result in some 40,000-50,000 unnecessary deaths each year,
Quit lying, these number have NO basis fact, there is no way to accurately quantifies your contention. no one knows how many of the people that die without health insurance would have lived with health insurance. People die of any number of things. Your numbers on this are simple propoganda.
If your example of the young women were based in any kind of reality it would be a sad story, but the truth is it is not based in any kind of reality. Mostly these stories are just more scare tactics. Rarely are people denied coverage by private insurers based on preexisting conditions. In fact being denied treatment for cancer because of the pre existing condition argument, is so rare that no actual instances of this could be confirmed in the last three years. Again this is just another left wing scare tactic. Here is a bit of information on denial of claims that should really be scary to anyone concerned with a government health care system. The highest number of denied claims for any reason, and the highest percentage of denied claims per customer isn’t Aetna, it isn’t HealthNet, it is not even the evil Humana.
the winner for denying claims is Medicare. The government run death panels at medicare deny claims at nearly twice the rate as the Government vilified Humana, the company ordered to stop corresponding with their clients for fear that the truth my further weaken left wing propaganda.(2008 National Health Insurer Report Card).
Bad Dog Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 2:38 am
@vegofish, Well this is where things get fun. You say I’m lying.
I am citing a Harvard study:
http://www.openleft.com/diary/15168/wheres-the-morality-45000-deaths-per-yearthe-real-cost-of-the-current-health-care-system
If you don’t like the study, then dispute it. Or don’t. But saying all studies like this are lies is just stupid. I guess we can tell every statistician and economist in the country they’re out of a job because you don’t like what some of them say in one study.
The only person who is lying here is you, Vego. Because you’re a little dickhead wingnut liar.
The example of the woman is all too real. You don’t want to believe it ever happens because you hate Democrats and therefore any part of reality that contradicts your twisted little wingnut ideology must be a lie. You’re pathetic.
vegofish Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 6:19 am
@Bad Dog, ooooohhhh Harvard, well then it must be true. Only the folks at Harvard could come up with a way to account for something impossible to quantify. I love the reference you want me to accept your citation from.
It’s BS simple as that. I disputed it as impossible to quantify in my first post, slow one.
As far as your end of times example of the poor woman with cancer, BS. You know it. Just doesn’t happen. Literally a one in hundreds of millions occurance. What your example actually demonstrates is the depraved nature of the argument on the left.
They use lies that appeal to peoples most basic instincts. Playing on the compassion of the people to sell their snake oil. It is really sick and disturbing.
So now that we have that covered, I noticed that you failed to debate the only truthful example presented, the statistic showing the claim denial rates of the government bureaucrat death panels at medicare at rate up to tthree times higher than private insurers, while still being full of waste, fraud, and abuse.
Bad Dog Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
@vegofish, Are you really this ignorant or is your rigid ideological blinders once again impairing your judgment and making you look like an ass?
It’s like you right wingers have this incredible sunblock that protects you from the damaging rays of public humiliation. Get “Franks and Beans” to patent that for you.
To answer your assertion, no, Vego, just because Harvard produced a study doesn’t mean it must be true. It means that bright minds studied the question and produced an estimate.
If what you say is true, then we should never do another study on any complex system ever again. All economists and statisticians will be out of a job. Policy makers will make decisions from the same place your political views were born—in their asses.
Now I’d like to quote you in the tiny hope that somebody is still following this conversation, somewhere:
“As far as your end of times example of the poor woman with cancer, BS. You know it. Just doesn’t happen. Literally a one in hundreds of millions occurance.”
This is such a startling example of wingnut ignorance I’m going to let it speak for itself. It must be incredible to live in an ideological bubble that so efficiently filters out any contradicting information as “lies.” You’re the kind of guy who sees dinosaur bones and believes they were planted by the devil to test you.
You’re a nutcase.
Then you say this: “What your example actually demonstrates is the depraved nature of the argument on the left. They use lies that appeal to peoples most basic instincts. Playing on the compassion of the people to sell their snake oil. It is really sick and disturbing.”
I had to read this twice to be sure it wasn’t a confession. This is exactly what the wingnuts disrupting the town halls have been doing. Making up lies—many, documented, debunked, still-repeated lies—and choosing to get enraged at them, and attacking everybody else, simply because you
want
that
woman
to
die
because
she
can’t
afford
healthcare.
Fandb Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
@Bad Dog, “Get “Franks and Beans” to patent that for you” — Hah! Jealous!
GawdDayumAmerica Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
@Bad Dog, Bad Dog the democratic plan still leaves 24 million people uninsured so it must be the case that the Democrats:
want
that
woman
to
die
because
she
can’t
afford
healthcare.
Fandb Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
@Bad Dog, You LIED about your source “Bad Dog”. That is not a “Harvard Study” ( “At the time of this research, all authors were with the Department of Medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance, affiliated with Harvard Medical School ) – cited from your article. It is a study by several doctors at the Cambridge Health Alliance. An affiliation with Harvard does not make this a Harvard Study. Nice try though.
Also, BTW, this was just an analysis of a 1993 study. It doesn’t even use current data. Generally, when researchers reach back over 15 years for their data, it is because newer data doesn’t support their claim.
Also, you whined about a citation I made which included further citations to leading (albeit left leaning) publications such as the New York Times, the L.A. Times, etc., because it came from a conservative web site. Then you cite one of the most far-left-wacko websites in existence.
As usual, all you care about is trying to prove your point, regardless of how asinine it is, and let the truth be damned.
Further, the study you cite states that: “The increased risk of death attributable to uninsurance suggests that alternative measures of access to medical care for the uninsured, such as community health centers, do not provide the protection of private health insurance.” — If this debacle of a health care bill passes, we’ll all be going to what amounts to community health centers.
Thanks for the link. You proved Vego’s point.
vegofish Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 6:27 am
@vegofish, I need to add, in addition to your fantasy scenario with the poor young woman with cancer being less likely than me winning the canadian lottery, when that rarest of occurrences would happen, it is wrong. I agree in premise
that shouldn’t happen. So lets make some simple reforms in insurance practices to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Bad Dog Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
@vegofish, How can we make any reforms? We’d have to study the issue to make good decisions, and all studies, data and facts are lies in your world.
Here you go, you ignorant ass, two additional studies, based on surveys of Americans. The first estimates that 12.6 million non-elderly adults (36% of people trying to buy health insurance) were discriminated against based on pre-existing conditions. (Commonwealth Fund Biennial Health Insurance Survey, 2007
In another survey, one in 10 people with cancer said they could not obtain health coverage, and six percent said they lost their coverage, because of being diagnosed with the disease.
http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/upload/7591.pdf
Got it, you ignorant ass? It’s not a rare thing. It’s a common thing. And you’re okay with it.
Say to the mirror, “I’m Vego and I believe people with cancer denied health insurance by their insurance company’s death panel should shut up and die.”
(But that would require an actual sense of personal responsibility. I’m sure you’ll just claim the devil planted that data to test you.)
vegofish Reply:
October 9th, 2009 at 12:18 am
@Bad Dog, Your “statistics” do not reference your initial statement. You will not find an example that fits your original statement, because it so rare. And I agreed that care should not be denied to an existing customer.
I am willing to listen to ideas that will help people with cancer or other conditions find and afford insurance, most conservatives do, which is why they have offered several different ideas to reform the health insurance industry to make it more affordable and usable for everybody, all ignored by people like you with nothing but government takeover on the brain. No feasible, realistic plan, no idea how to pay for it other than stick it to the mythical rich, (ie people that work) And if you are so worried about that woman with cancer having her claim denied, why would you want her to have Government insurance where she would have the highest likelihood of having her claim denied by up to 60 percent?
1:23 am on October 8th, 2009 2
The “party of no” is the party that is pushing the massive health care bill. For 8 years, even with a majority in both houses of Congress for two of them they played freaking boat anchors. And now, with damn near a stranglehold on the government, they are STILL dragging their heela. And now are the No, we won’t listen. No , we wont consider any opposition.
8:38 am on October 8th, 2009 3
Once again a conflated argument rages over REFORM.
Democrats demand public option and a government take over of health care as THEIR IDEA OF REFORM.
The GOP on the other hand favors most of what the Democrats are espousing as real reform but do NOT want a government option.
The poor in this country should be angry as hell at their drug addict pimp party……the DEMOCRATS. They continually work and contrive to keep them beaten down and full of the drug of choice. Poverty. They then pimp them out every so often when they start becoming restless just to show them whose boss. Public option is just another pimp process.
After we give them all free health care……they are Still POOR.
The marvelous beauty of it all is that the GOP who actually should be standing at the forefront on the war on poverty let them do it and are then painted as the party of souless monsters.
Well Im starting to believe one thing. When my son gets his lunch money taken away from him for 13 years every day……thats not the schools fault, thats not the teachers fault, thats not the systems fault….thats his fault and MINE.
12:49 pm on October 8th, 2009 4
We keep hearing about the tens of thousands of people who die because they can’t afford health insurance and therefor hospitalization for whatever they have.
We rarely hear of the hundreds of thousands who die preciesly BECAUSE they have insurance and can go into a hospital. Somewhere between 100k and 300k die from medical mistakes each year (difference is that some count those who die of hospital caused infections as “medical mistakes” and some do not. Also some count those who get discharged and end up dead at home because of a mistake made in the hospital). Now, we are not talking about people who are so ill or so broken up that there is no chance of having them come out alive, or so little chance as to be effectivly zero. We are talking about people who shold have been able to walk out after treatment. But because of a doctor or nurse screwing up, or the dirty conditions in hospitals (and not just the little podunk hospitals either) we have upwards of 300k people who die because of medical screw ups.
So, on top of THAT mess, you want to add a huge and expensive new federal burro-cracy (sic). That same federal government that according to most people, left, right, or center, can’t even figure out how to pour pee out of a boot. And to lay it all out there is over a thousand pages of duplicitous borrocratese, in which there are cross references to at least another thousand pages.
So, how, pray tell, is the charlie foxtrot that we call the federal government suddenly supposed to change course and run something smoothly, effenciently, and fairly?
1:40 pm on October 8th, 2009 5
It’s like they say, we may not get the government we want, but we will get the government we deserve. We The People voted all these Socialists into office, and now we’re going to get Socialism.
Obama-Care isn’t what all the ill-informed masses who elected these idiots think it is. But in the end, that’s what they will deserve, and that’s what they will get.
When the major new advances in the treatment of heart disease, cancer, etc. have ceased, or slowed to a snail’s pace, the people who want Obama-Care now will find someone besides themselves to blame for it. Obama-Care will remove the incentives to innovate, to create new and better treatments for heart disease, cancer, and countless other diseases. It will remove the incentive many of the best and brightest now have to enter the medical field. It will remove the incentive many have to invest in medical related businesses. It will take a system that works better than any other system in the world, and replace it with a system that is sub-par, a system that stifles innovation for the sake of mediocrity for everyone.
Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush all had one thing in common. They tried to improve the world by doing what they could to bring other nations up to our standard of living.
Obama seems to be doing the opposite, he is trying to level the playing field by lowering our standard of living.
Bad Dog Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
@Fandb, Wow, he did all that in 10 months. Think about what he will do in 4 years! He will destroy the world and every puppy in it! There will be a tin foil hat shortage! We will have to create new dictionaries to find bad words we can blame on Obama! He will become retroactively born in every Muslim country! And wingnuts everywhere will be so uptight they won’t be able to take a decent dump the entire time!
GawdDayumAmerica Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
@Fandb, Yep Yep…FandB….At least I think your FandB and not another Bad Dog impersonator.
Even drug companies over seas in Germany for example spend billions devoloping new drugs and then keep a market here in the USA to market the drugs as soon as possible. The drugs sell here for 300 dollars a pill. They sell in germany for a few dollars.
Of course they just spend 3 billion and 15 years bringing the drug to market and the USA pays them for it with their generous health care system. Once the USA will not pay them for it then the government will have to give these drug companies subsidies to develop drugs.
Scary times. I remember people saying and I believe they were sincere and honest….They were scared to death with GWB and the GOP in office.
I know exactly how they feel. Not for me. By the time most of this is a real issue Ill most likely be dead and gone. I fight for my kids and grandkids.
AGAIN…I AM all for many health care reforms….just opposed to the government and their trojan horse public option.
Fandb Reply:
October 9th, 2009 at 9:21 am
@GawdDayumAmerica, “At least I think your FandB and not another Bad Dog impersonator” — OK, GDA, now you’ve crossed over the line!
I agree, the fight is for our children and grandchildren. The changes probably won’t affect me much.
6:59 pm on October 8th, 2009 6
Just commenting on that picture of Sessions…
Sessions is killing me lately– particularly after trying to vote against Franken’s amendment to ban federal funding to companies that force their employees to sign arbitration agreements in cases of rape. The amendment even had bipartisan support, for crying out loud! Honestly, I can understand the whole political game, but there are some situations where you put the whole party line of being against anything that has a (D) attached to it aside.
SJ Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
@Alabama Moderate,
Alabama,
Text from amendment: “the use of funds for any Federal contract with Halliburton Company, KBR, Inc., any of their subsidiaries or affiliates, or any other contracting party if such contractor or a subcontractor at any tier under such contract requires that employees or independent contractors sign mandatory arbitration clauses regarding certain claims.”
Its kind of strange. Why single out Haliburton? It seems to me, if Franken was concerned about protecting women in the workplace, that a much broader bill would be written? Or do you think there was another motive here besides the genuine concern for women…..naaaaa.
Steve
SJ Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
@SJ,
Ok, did some more reading and this amendment was attached to a Defense Appropriation bill, so it is related to the bidness at hand.
Sorry! I have a pet peave about legislators attaching unrelated amendments (regardless of how well meaning they are) to bills to force “wedge” issues through. Both parties do it, and it annoys me.
GawdDayumAmerica Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
@SJ, Speaking of the evil Haliburton. Remember Blackwater?>
AGHDAD (Reuters) – U.S. security firm Blackwater remains in Iraq under a State Department contract while a joint commission investigates a shooting incident in Baghdad on Sunday that left 11 Iraqis dead, the U.S. embassy said on Thursday. Dateline August, 2009.
Come on liberals….wheres your outrage now?
Even the Huffington Post has reported on the seemingly hypocritical silence of the anti-war movement. After all, Obama’s actions in Afghanistan have pretty much guaranteed that the war there will continue for years on end. Not even the most optimistic observers see that war ending under Obama’s first term.
My contention was always that the democrats latched on to the antiwar movement to gain back power using Alinsky tactics…..
The Obama campaign leveraged wide-spread opposition to the Bush Administration’s war in Iraq en route to the Presidency. ….. with an all-time high of 57% of Americans opposed. Voters in the President’s own party are said to oppose the war by 75%.
Wheres the outrage now Democrats? Why are you not passing resolutions on Iraq and Afghanistan? Why are you not protesting in the streets?
Why is the press not reporting every car bomb and death in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Your Hypocrisy knows no bounds democrats…no bounds.
Alabama Moderate Reply:
October 9th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
@GawdDayumAmerica, I don’t know that the word “hypocrisy” can really apply if it has nothing to do with the situation in question. That was pretty randomly thrown in and rather off-topic. I’m discussing women who work for KBR that were gang raped by their coworkers and then thrown into shipping crates and then not allowed to take it to court because of their employment contract. You’re talking about car bombs.
We might not see the war ending under Obama’s first term because he already announced when we’d be pulling out of Iraq and it wasn’t in his first term. If I remember correctly, he stated 2011. And yes, I noted at the time that it was the exact same date given by President Bush– because we HAD to leave by that time.
If you think that the deaths aren’t being reported, you aren’t looking hard enough. The news media isn’t giving it the front page, but it’s there. There is a nice difference in that we can now see dead soldiers coming home (with the family’s permission) rather than hiding that from the public.
Of course, it was never really given the media time it deserved, but Obama doesn’t control the media– though if you think Obama isn’t taking hits from the left-wing media, you haven’t watched it. They’re rather ticked that he’s not liberal ENOUGH.
As for Afghanistan… Well, there was actually a good reason why we attacked them in the first place.
So you can see that my personal stance on the war hasn’t really changed. But while we’re throwing the “h” word around, I wonder if you were so staunchly anti-war during the Bush administration.
Alabama Moderate Reply:
October 9th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
@SJ, Yes, the amendment in question is in regards to defense contractors, which is why it’s attached to the defense appropriations bill.
The reason why Halliburton/KBR would have been singled out in the bill (though it does include ALL contractors in the language) is because the incident that inspired the amendment in the first place is one that happened regarding an employee of KBR (then a subsidiary of Halliburton).
The woman was gang raped and then locked in a shipping crate when she tried to report it. After a REPUBLICAN senator was able to get her returned home, she was told that she couldn’t press charges because her employment contract said that she couldn’t.
As for a broader bill, there actually is one floating around right now. It addresses arbitration agreements in employment (and other) contracts. It’s nice to think that if you don’t like the idea of arbitration being forced on you that you shouldn’t sign the contract, but considering how standard these agreements are today, that would mean that you would likely not be able to own a house, have a retirement account, or go to the doctor.
vegofish Reply:
October 9th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
@Alabama Moderate, That advise needs to fly both directions AM. The history of congressional politics demonstrates much more willingness by conservatives to try and accommodate liberal policy than the other way around, and never has their ignorance to the importance of conservatism in our society been more pronounced.