[Phil1]

Re; Electoral College.

Just interesting history:

It cuts both ways. There was quite a disparity in the popular vote vs the electoral vote in this one. The margin of popular votes was contestable. Those were the days of Daley and dead men get to vote twice.

Nominee John F. Kennedy vs Richard Nixon
Party Democratic vs Republican
Home state Massachusetts vs California
Running mate Lyndon B. Johnson vs Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
Electoral vote 303 vs 219
States carried 22 vs 26
Popular vote 34,220,984 vs 34,108,157
Percentage 49.7% vs 49.6%

This was the era of the first TV debates. Nixon refused make-up for the camera and he came across with 5 o'clock shadow and looked bad. Kennedy was a very good speaker and came across very well. The rest is history. My point is that election was also very close in spite of Nixon's camera appeal.

[jeffkrol]

Jeffkrol, neat post on the Mass health care system. Perhaps now the feds can work up a better, real transparent health care plan for the peeons. No back room crap, no real slam dunk rush.
Maybe the social reengineering can be done after we get the employment figure in the 5% range again.
Food and rent etc have a higher priority than health care at least from my perspective. More real jobs (non-gov't) will help pay for the huge cost in this already broke country. Just my take on it.

[/url]

Now here is some common ground. Only catch is the US is already 'late" on the healthcare issue.
food, rent, and my house are already tied in with health care....
to put it bluntly if I get the wrong kind of sick it ALL goes away and I basically will become a "burden" to the state... THIS is what most fear and what most opponents miss, mostly due to their own well seated position. I don't want that to happen, but it could.
HEALTHY, happy and secure americans will rebuild this. Not sickly, whiney ones, which in all honesty we have been building in the last few decades...
It is very hard for some to understand that even those w/ insurance do NOT use it as they should for fear of 1)Getting blacklisted due to 'pre-existing" conditions or 2)having rate jacked so high that it does come down to 'living' bills and health insurance bills...
Having BASIC health care as a for profit enterprise is just wrong.
If I can't afford car insurance, I walk. If I can't afford homeowners insurance I rent. I also can take a risk and not be insured...
THIS option does not exist w/ health care unless I just choose to be unhealthy and or die.. it really is simple...
Our gov. has always been back room c%&p.. did you vote for 2 wars? send aid to X,y,z country? Vote on tariffs and embargoes? vote to have a bridge built or subsides paid out?
In any country that's civilized you will always have to "carry" some.. you know "He ain't heavy he's my brother"...

[Phil1]

'I'll take you up on that Phil1, And just so you know the facts, instead of speaking ex-cathedra from your nether regions...MA allows registered independents to have the choice of which party primary they can vote in. As an ex MA resident I registered as an Independent so that I could vote in either primary. If you register as a Repub you get to vote only in Repub primaries, same on the Dem side. You will find that many many registered Indies are actually Repubs or Dems.'

Thank you for straightening me out. In Calif I believe if you are a Demo, Repub, Greeny etc, you vote only in your party's primary. We have a real Independant Party here which also runs primarys if they chose. If you are a 'decline to state' you get to vote in all the party primarys.

Calif Independant Party:
Independent American Party of California - Home Page

'California currently uses a closed primary system where voters registered with their party chose their candidates (with an allowance that party’s may allow decline to state voters to participate in their primaries, which both major parties do).'

I know people that register as Indys here that really should have listed decline to state to have full primary voter access. This is supposed to be growing rapidly as people figure it out.


I guess we should all be thanking a very much higher percentage of real democrats with great health insurance for the Mass upset then. We will see about the Frank-Kerry bounce at a later date.

[Rupert]

I heard something a few minutes back and went to check it out......it was the Fat lady singing in Massachesetts, and it was a heck of a racket she was making. You can call it what you want, there is plenty of blame for the Democratic loss of what should have been a cake walk, but to my mind this is a pure Obama loss. He has failed to deliver to the majorityof Americans that elected him and now it is time for payback. If he had stuck to his promises and not tried to play footsies with the Republicans, his base would have elected Coakley...even though she stinks to high heaven. Open your eyes Mr Obama, the worst is yet to come if you can't get your act together.
Regards!

Hey Phil! I see you still haven't taken that reading comprehension course or you might have understood the above. A big congratulations to you, and I am looking forward to your girl Sarah being our new Pres in 2012. America has already gone straight to hell, and the more of your fruitloops and lobotomy candidates that get in office, the deeper it gets. I really don't give a rat's hiney any more, it is like looking at a train wreck and asking what time the train will arrive at the station.....it won't. When we are repossessed by the Chinese, maybe we will get our act together....a little too late. I love Chinese, ......fried rice and Peking Duck are delicious!
Regards!

[Phil1]

"Having BASIC health care as a for profit enterprise is just wrong.'

I will disagree with you here. All services are for profit here. It's not a bad thing. Excess is, as is billing abuses. Even an African witch doctor wants a chicken for his services. I think it would be a big mistake for the inefficient gov't to be owning all the hospitals and emplyee all the health care folks. That's a bigger bite than all our military. I believe a high percentage of hospitals are non-profit or nearly so. I know our local (private) has been financially struggling for years. I would like to see standard billing claim forms through out the country, a moderatly high insurance pay threshold. (Ins. paying for affordable services is a waste. Patient equity in the billing will keep excess claims down). I believe insurance should be directed at catostrophic expenses/services not the mundane and routine stuff.

My personal dealings with my employer's ins is a usual phoking nightmare of claims, rejections, resubmits and viola, the SOBs pay. This is not only aggrevating but is a huge PITA from the Drs as well as wasteful for the Ins cos. Tidy up the process, on line claims, standard universal forms and pre approval processes.

Allow import of approved drugs from approved countrys. Close that damn Big Pharma cartel.

The gov't covering illegals health care is just another incentive to stay and bring in more.

Just an opinion.

[Phil1]

'I am looking forward to your girl Sarah being our new Pres in 2012. '

Just another Rupert wet dream. It aint gonna happen. You gotta change your act a little bit. Maybe you should hope GW will run again. Just a suggestion, it's your time and dime.

[Rupert]

'I am looking forward to your girl Sarah being our new Pres in 2012. '

Just another Rupert wet dream. It aint gonna happen. You gotta change your act a little bit. Maybe you should hope GW will run again. Just a suggestion, it's your time and dime.

Before you wet your panties with joy Phil.....take a look at the Whitehouse......it is still a Big Scary Black Man running the show, and he has three more years to send terror into your little right wing heart. If you look at the House and Senate, there are still enough numbers to bring a little sober thinking into your celebration......sweeten your tea with that.
Regards!

[Parallax]

Obstruct? More than one Dem Senator has said they will block the new senator from being seated until after the OBOCare vote. In other words they will obstruct the implementation of the will of the people of Mass.

No they won't ........

2 or 3 of them said they would on Monday. I don't think they will actually try to do it though. The Dems never do anything they say they'll do.

[Rupert]

From Blues Post earlier.....

Originally Posted by NaClH2O View Post

Geoge, I have a good link for you: I will guarantee that it is a completely clean link, but it describes you perfectly
click here
If you weren't so myopically involved in your own agenda, you'd see that RML values herself highly enough to go thru some incredibly difficult circumstances to follow a life style she believes in. One that her family made enough stink about that she had to hide from them. She didn't de-value her life, I would be willing to bet my out of pocket health care costs against yours that both she and her sweetie both have VERY HIGH value for not only themselves but each other. On the other hand, her family (and society in general) had so little regard for her that she had to hide from them. I would say that her family and society were the ones doing the devaluing here. Sometimes I really wish that you sanctimonious, holier than thou, right wingnuts would actually have to live a life style like the ones you condem, but I realize you wouldn't make it, and I don't wish death or insanity on you, even if it might give you compassion greater than that of a long dead toadfish.

NaCl(sometimes I wonder why I bother)H2O

I remember when Rupert came in with that attitude and now he and RML are the best of friends.
__________________
First-- Blue...whatever you are smoking , stop it at once, the brain distortion is unbearable.

Second--That rant by Nacho2 or whatever his ridiculous name is shows the total insanity that is often found on this Forum. Ratlady rants and moans continually of her sufferings in life but shares little of the actual torture she says she endures. About the most I have been able to decipher is that when a brutal and sadistic rapist and killer mangles a young girl and mutilates her body, dumping her like trash on the side of the road, the Ratlady....given three chances to identify this killer as Evil, instead uses her time to rant on the atrocities committed against her and her lifestyle...without any examples of those atrocities. She often seeks our sympathy for what the real Evil Ones...the Fundies ....have done to her by ripping her daughter out of her arms. Now I am not a judge or lawyer, but I do know that removing a child from her mother is a serious call in any of these 50 States, and if that did indeed occur, it occurred with good cause and was a blessing to the child. If the Ratlady was so wronged, I am sure that she would be happy to post the Court Hearing right here so that we could come to her defense? In any Court that I have seen the legal definition of someone that does not know right from wrong, good from evil is insanity, and no Court I know of that represents the welfare of children will allow a child to be raised by someone with such a lack of parenting values.

As for Nachotaco2 or whatever.....he might be better served by finding one of those long dead toadfish and sucking on it until he turns blue.
Regards

[GeneV]

There never was a 60 vote majority for the Democrats. Lieberman is not a Democrat. He was almost McCain's running mate for crying out loud. This really does not change much.

We dont' have Obamacare pending for approval; we have Liebercare. Republicans don't want any healthcare reform that the Dems would support. The Dems need to propose a serious healthcare plan that the vast majority of Democrats will support. If the independents like it, but Republicans defeat it, they will get their reward at the polls this year. If it isn't something the country wants, then we will know that, too and we can stop wasting time on it.

The moral of Massachusetts is that you can't displease half of your own party and all of the other party and expect to win.

[jeffkrol]

"Having BASIC health care as a for profit enterprise is just wrong.'

I will disagree with you here. All services are for profit here. It's not a bad thing. Excess is, as is billing abuses. Even an African witch doctor wants a chicken for his services. I think it would be a big mistake for the inefficient gov't to be owning all the hospitals and emplyee all the health care folks. That's a bigger bite than all our military. I believe a high percentage of hospitals are non-profit or nearly so. I know our local (private) has been financially struggling for years. I would like to see standard billing claim forms through out the country, a moderatly high insurance pay threshold. (Ins. paying for affordable services is a waste. Patient equity in the billing will keep excess claims down). I believe insurance should be directed at catostrophic expenses/services not the mundane and routine stuff.

My personal dealings with my employer's ins is a usual phoking nightmare of claims, rejections, resubmits and viola, the SOBs pay. This is not only aggrevating but is a huge PITA from the Drs as well as wasteful for the Ins cos. Tidy up the process, on line claims, standard universal forms and pre approval processes.

Allow import of approved drugs from approved countrys. Close that damn Big Pharma cartel.

The gov't covering illegals health care is just another incentive to stay and bring in more.

Just an opinion.

Your employer carries ins???? Not mine, not my wife's Well actually her's does when she's full time. Unfortunately they scaled back the hours.. poof... no ins. We pay on decreased earnings.... Can't use it for everything "pre-ex" riders up the yin yang. Don't want to use it because premiums hit the roof... get the picture yet. By transferring this burden off business you can have increased prosperity for that business. Shift it to gov. and a LARGE pool helps pay for it. Win win unfortunately we have been conned to believe that ain't so. SOMEBODY always pays for ins. BTW a "non profit" never means you can't make a profit. It only controls those a teeny bit. And when you sell you have to sell to a non-profit or roll it up and disperse. Non-profit's CAN make gobs of money.
BTW: Ins companies do not make most of their cash from premiums, they just use it to make investments (check out the portfolio of your ins provider) to make the real money. Ins companies pretty much control the economy. They own, through stock, banks, industry, tobacco companies, you name it..........
AAM - Insurance Investment Management
Wonder why they are shaking w/ "health care reform" Golden goose gone.....
actually they aren't shaking. They know the system is too entangled to actually do them any damage, but they will squeeze everyone a bit more anyways.
Anthem Blue Cross Implores Business To Oppose Health Reform - Heavy Doses - Portfolio.com
Your in with the wolf..........Try to find where your premium payment goes..

[Parallax]

There never was a 60 vote majority for the Democrats. Lieberman is not a Democrat. He was almost McCain's running mate for crying out loud. This really does not change much.

..........

Smokin' Joe Lieberman could be (was) persuaded to vote Democrat. I doubt that Brown ever will. It does change things.

[GeneV]

Smokin' Joe Lieberman could be (was) persuaded to vote Democrat. I doubt that Brown ever will. It does change things.

Lieberman could persuade the Dems to vote his way. I doubt Brown will try, so it may change something in a minor way. I'm curious, what have the Dems passed by a 60 vote margin using Lieberman and no Republicans?

[yucatanPentax]

"Having BASIC health care as a for profit enterprise is just wrong.'

People tend to forget that basic health care coverage was non-profit up until the 1980s. Nearly every populous area had their county or charity hospitals and clinics. There was a stronger public health service operation as well.

The great privatization waves that saw county hospitals sold off, BlueCrosses broken up and sold to for-profit, and even charity hospitals (for example, Catholic-run hospitals) sold to for-profit companies was part of the overall wave of privatization that swept the country for the worse during the Reagan years

This country once had solid infrastructure. But you cannot cut taxes continuously, refund every surplus, close govt doors in deficit times and retain solid infrastructure. The privatization maintenance of highways and bridges has proven equally faulty. Eventually, after lowering taxes for decades, the bridges start to fall.

The greatest period of middle-class growth and prosperity occurred from the late 1930s into the early 1980s. The tax cutting mania (can't get something for nothing) and the privatization follies (owner take the profits; workers get the shaft) has resulted in the mess we have today.

At any rate, this election doesn't mean anything unless spineless Democratic leadership thinks it means something. The mistake was (again) not supporting common working people and maintaining close arrogant ties with lobbyists and corporations.

[Ratmagiclady]

The Mass. win was really an Independant's victory. I understand the Mass. voter registration is about 35% Demo, 11% Repub and the balance Indy. I was suprised at that (if accurate). I always thought Mass was a liberal holy place.
Ted Kennedy, Kerry and Barney Frank had be fooled.

Not sure what the heck you mean by the last bit, but as I started off by saying, elections in Massachusetts don't necessarily break down on the usual liberal/conservative party lines.

A lot of people just don't like Coakley, and there's a lot of frustration with the Democratic party among liberals, too, (for seemingly being back to their old *ineffective* ways,) who weren't inclined to come out just for her.

There's Independents who have some conservative leanings or positions (a big number of these who tend to vote their own pocketbook but are turned off by the social nastiness of, thus hate the GOP, too. This is why they ran Brown on some personality stuff, 'a guy who drives a pickup, and votes with Wall Street.' ...and posed him as a moderate, which he's not.

There's also a pretty big Catholic vote, some of whom are traditional Democrats but tend to vote 'one issue' against gay rights and abortion, whatever else the GOP is doing to them, ...and this old social conservative stuff tends to, just for a double-whammy, always seem to make women candidates a harder sell than you'd think: conservative papers will go after their 'personality' (In this case, Coakley's an easy target on that count.)

Registering Independent is popular for a lot of reasons: it doesn't mean they're fence-sitters between the parties. (Plenty who find the Democratic party too *conservative* or just going about things wrong, for instance.)

I haven't been back there for a long time, so I don't really know how that's going in MA, but I'd generally register Green, for much the same reasons, actually. Major news outlets tend to totally ignore that segment of the voting population, which at least in the past has been pretty considerable, or lump the Greens in with the Independents, too.

Not that we didn't always have our share of dittoheads and lockstep Republicans, but this one's more about the Dems screwing it up than that changing very much.

This one's just about people being pissed. And people staying home, not changing their minds about what they want to see.

As for the 'supermajority,' well, the Dems didn't use that, anyway, it was the GOP voting as a bloc, putting their party above all else, threatening to filibuster *everything* if the Dems didn't all show up, (In the words of Sen Byrd at 2AM or whatever, 'Shame, shame!' ) ...that have subverted the process to mean a simple majority has no longer meant what it's supposed to, then call it 'bipartisanship.' You *bet* they've been obstructing, in hopes of things just like this happening during midterms. Whatever the cost to our nation.

Hopefully, at least, this'll put the Dems on notice, time to play hardball.