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On October 24 2015 07:34 CannonsNCarriers wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2015 05:34 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Mitt Romney is finally ready to take credit for Obamacare.
Speaking to the Boston Globe for their obituary of Staples founder Thomas G. Stemberg, who died Friday, the former Massachusetts praised Stemberg for his involvement in pushing “Romneycare,” which in turn, Romney said, led to Obamacare, giving “a lot of people” health coverage.
“Without Tom pushing it, I don’t think we would have had Romneycare,” Romney said. “Without Romneycare, I don’t think we would have Obamacare. So, without Tom a lot of people wouldn’t have health insurance.”
It’s hard to imagine Romney saying such a thing during the 2012 election cycle. Back then Romney was stumbling and bumbling his way to create some distance between the health care reform he championed as a governor and President Obama’s signature health care law.
The focus by conservatives on Obamacare as the leading example of everything that was wrong with Obama made for some extremely awkward moments for the eventual Republican nominee. The similarities between the Massachusetts and the federal laws even prompted one of Romney’s primary rivals to coin the term “Obamneycare.”
The next day Romney promised to repeal Obamacare if elected and vowed that on his first day in the White House, he would “grant a waiver to all 50 states from Obamacare."
He echoed his Obamacare repeal promises again and again. He called Obamacare a “very bad piece of legislation” and unconstitutional. He argued Romneycare only worked on the state level and that by bringing it nationwide, the Obama administration “fundamentally distrust[s] free enterprise and distrust the idea that states are where the power of government reside."
And if that wasn’t enough to convince Republicans, he turned his criticism against his own law.
"It's not even perfect for Massachusetts," he told the Washington Examiner’s Byron York in 2011. "At the time we created it, I vetoed several measures and said these, I think, are mistakes, and you in Massachusetts will find you have to correct them over time. ... But they have not made those changes, and in some cases they made things worse. So I wouldn't encourage any state to adopt it in total."
Now that Romney is suggesting that Romneycare helped bring about Obamacare, he is in line with what Obama said during one of their 2012 debates. Source Yes, Obamacare, the bill he would repeal on day one. I don't understand how one man can flip flop this many times. I fully expect him to collapse in on himself and terrible lie-demons to spew forth from the gnawing vortex left behind by his splattered innards.
Romney can only really be explained by quantum theory.
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"[Trump] has said that if his poll numbers tanked, he would get out of this race. What would it take to make you get out?"
Jesus. Does she hate him or something??
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Everyone hates Jeb Bush as much or more as they hated Romney (which was a lot).
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Had to stop watching after 1:24. It finally makes sense why things have gone so bad for Bush. He is so mushy, lacks confidence and really just doesn't have good control of himself or his speaking. He can't defend himself, appear confident or even appear comfortable.
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On October 24 2015 10:48 TheTenthDoc wrote:
Everyone hates Jeb Bush as much or more as they hated Romney (which was a lot).
people hated Romney? I don't recall people hating Romney, so much as mildly disliking him. It's like hate is simply too strong an emotion to have toward him
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United States44195 Posts
Remember dogs against Romney? 2012 was weird.
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Norway28869 Posts
from what little I've seen of lincoln chafee, he's #1 american politician on foreign policy. I also thought this sounded like a pretty strong hilary endorsement with the 'go women' so mebbe he's promised a cabinet position? 
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On October 24 2015 11:02 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2015 10:48 TheTenthDoc wrote:
Everyone hates Jeb Bush as much or more as they hated Romney (which was a lot). people hated Romney? I don't recall people hating Romney, so much as mildly disliking him. It's like hate is simply too strong an emotion to have toward him
Everyone in conservative punditry treated Romney like utter trash most of the time, especially in the wake of his loss. They were really mad that nobody they could bait out and intimidate won the primary.
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Is that Jeb Bush's real voice? He sounds like he's trying to make it sound deeper and more mature or something. I do that to a slight extent in interviews or more serious business situations, but he just comes off as a 16 year old trying to a act like an adult.
McCain was a cut above Romney, and Romney was miles better than any of the candidates this year. Who knows what the Republicans will trot out this year.
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Joe Biden stuff, from my perspective:
+ Show Spoiler +The DNC saw Sanders consistently gaining in polls while Clinton's scandals and general "un"-progressiveness were not just "catching up to her", but were developing in the now and affecting both her ability to sweep the DEM primary and handle the general.
Do not mistake the DNC's intent heading into this: they planned on an easy primary for Clinton -- and likely an easy general election, too, given the superbly stupid state of the Republican Party. The Republicans are a joke of a political organization and I hope my true friends on the true right will transcend it in short order and find something better for themselves, because the conservative voice in history is an important one.
Clinton was expected, given the relative popularity of Obama and the open field for the Democratic Party, plus her name recognition and husband's economic reputation (which has nothing to do with his policies), to ride a shining horse into the 2016 election.
Then Bernie Sanders happened. Period. No further study or hypothesizing needed. Sanders walked in -- which the DNC did not anticipate becoming such a big deal -- and Clinton had to handle her base. And Clinton's base is the Democratic base, is the progressive base, is the base of America at this point in time. America is at a point of progressivism and its reaction. That is the current contradiction in our country.
Biden was the DNC's back-up plan in case Clinton didn't work out. They floated him out there, weighed what you and I thought of him, what the media thought of him, and what his chances were. But Biden would take votes from Clinton, so only one of them can run in a race that also involves Sanders -- otherwise they guarantee a Sanders victory.
Biden's name floating around of course happened with the complete foreknowledge of the Clinton campaign. The DNC insiders are well aware of what they are doing and they work closely with Clinton and Biden and do not act for one without consent of the other. They were frightened very quickly of Clinton's potential to lose a primary against the base of the Democratic Party, which, with knowledge, would see, and has seen, through Clinton in favor of Sanders. The DNC underestimated its own base.
Imagine for a second, if you can, the current of the left at this point in America: after 8 years of a successful black President, the left is *NOT* satisfied. The DNC thought they would be. The DNC thought the left would be ready, after 8 years of Obama, for the same-ol-shit. But the left is not ready for that. The left is not satiated. Obama did not satisfy the left.
The left in the United States is fucking hungry. The left is fucking hungry and I love it. Because the best lefts in history are the hungry lefts. We have so much more to destroy and consume. I pray that even Sanders won't be enough to satiate the American left. I hope they are ever-restless for something beyond existing conditions.
What this all means for Biden, is that he, and the DNC, have decided to leave it up to Clinton. The general election is not DEM vs. REP, it is Sanders vs. Clinton. The DNC has pushed aside their back-up plan and thrown all-in with Clinton. Either Clinton will win the Presidency, or Sanders will.
And you and I, as leftists, will decide that. Whoever wins, will win the general. And I think the American left is hungry enough, and organized enough, for a Sanders presidency.
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All this talk of Romney's waffling aside, if Romney had campaigned in the general election promoting actual centrist positions he likely would have absolutely wiped an average presidential candidate field. But Obama was president and his 4 years sent the Repubs into such a right wing tailspin that a moderate campaign was never possible. If Romney campaigned as a centrist he would lose his base and be unable to differentiate himself from Obama, the poles were set so unnaturally far apart.
So you had this incredibly electable guy stuck being forced to run for President in a way completely opposite to his strengths. I genuinely feel bad for the guy. I could see myself voting for him. He might have been a good president outside of the current political environment. Just another example of the right fucking themselves hard.
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The eight Republican members of the Select Investigative Panel who will probe the practices of “big abortion providers” -- which everyone understands to mean Planned Parenthood -- have spent years trying to defund the reproductive health provider and restrict women's access to abortion.
The release, earlier this year, of sting videos made by an anti-abortion group that show Planned Parenthood staff members discussing fetal tissue donations for research has led to Republican claims that Planned Parenthood profited from the donations. Federal law allows the organization to accept reimbursements to cover the processing and transfer of the tissues. Planned Parenthood has insisted that it has done nothing illegal, and numerous state and federal investigations have found no evidence of wrongdoing.
The health provider receives over $500 million in federal funds annually, money that derives from Medicaid reimbursements and the Title X program, which provides services to low-income women such as cancer screenings, contraception and tests for sexually transmitted disease. The Hyde Amendment, a provision that has been routinely inserted into appropriations bills for decades, prevents federal funds from going toward most abortions, except in cases of rape, incest or when the mother's life is in danger.
In his Friday announcement of the eight appointees to the panel, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the group would “focus on the grisly practices of big abortion providers,” without mentioning Planned Parenthood by name.
“Recent videos exposing the abortion-for-baby-parts business have shocked the nation, and demanded action,” Boehner said in a statement. “At my request, three House committees have been investigating the abortion business, but we still don’t have the full truth. Chairman [Marsha] Blackburn and our members will have the resources and the subpoena power to get to the bottom of these horrific practices, and build on our work to protect the sanctity of all human life.”
Planned Parenthood responded to the announcement by saying that it is cooperating with the investigations even though they are the result of “false and discredited claims.”
Source
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FBI director James Comey has said police anxiety in “the era of viral videos” appears to be part of the reason for rising violent crime in several big US cities.
Speaking at a University of Chicago law school forum on Friday night, Comey referred to a spike in violence in cities from Chicago to Dallas. He told several hundred students there could be multiple explanations for an increase in homicides and other violent crimes.
But, he said, officers nationwide had told him they feared the presence of cellphone video everywhere they went.
On Saturday, in response, Amnesty International USA executive director Steven W Hawkins called Comey’s words “outrageous” and called for a national review of the use of lethal force laws by police.
In Chicago, Comey said: “Something deeply disturbing is happening in places across America. Far more people are being killed in many American cities, many of them people of color, and it’s not the cops doing the killing.
“Part of the explanation is a chill wind that has blown through law enforcement over the last year and that wind is surely changing behavior.
“In today’s YouTube world, are officers reluctant to get out of their cars and do the work that controls violent crime?”
In a statement released on Saturday, Hawkins said: “The assertions made by Director Comey are outrageous. By his own admission, these statements are not backed up by data, and there are mixed reports about levels of crime since the heightened scrutiny of police officers began after the protests in Ferguson.”
Hawkins was referring to protests and rioting that occurred in Ferguson, Missouri last year after the decision not to indict a white police officer for shooting dead an unarmed black teen, Michael Brown. A national protest movement, largely under the Black Lives Matter banner, has since grown up around such deaths at the hands of police.
Source
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
the american left is pretty delusional.
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United States44195 Posts
I wish I could refuse to do my job on the basis that someone might film me killing an unarmed black teenager who had no need to die. Unfortunately I expect my boss might not accept that excuse and might ask me why I felt the proper execution of my duties would involve killing unarmed black teenagers. I guess the police don't have to deal with that kind of intense scrutiny though.
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Yeah this line of thought is absurd. Surely the problem is the fact that the police are abusing their power, not that people are catching them doing it on video. Like what the fuck who says that.
'Everything is fine until the public at large knows what is actually going on and gets to see it'.
Just shows how much the people in power love transparency /s
I mean, its been kind of obvious whats been going on people just didn't want to think about it. Now that this shit gets caught on video and we see how disgusting things are people are demanding something be done about it. How dare he say 'police are now scared to do their job'. Their job is no more dangerous than it has always been, violent crime is down from what it was not that long ago, only thing more dangerous for them is that if they act like bullies with a badge they are more likely to get videotaped and have everyone see it.
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Bernie Sanders just Bern'd the house down at the Iowa Jefferson Jackson Dinner Democratic event. Hillary is going to have a tough time following that.
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Still don't buy the idea that Sanders has a better shot than Hillary to actually win. I mean I agree with him more on issues and I despise the Clinton's for being the sociopaths they are (her and her husband) but Hillary just has a better shot at winning the election and it's going to take a lot of work to change that.
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EPT
