Mad_Machine76
Mad_Machine76's JournalUntil REPUBLICANS have a higher approval rating than President Obama
THAT will be really newsworthy. Till then, I'm not much concerned.
What I don't understand is that President Obama is supposed to be so unpopular now, yet he hasn't really done anything that should be severely hampering his popularity, at least nothing that I can think of that's anything worse than what (P)resident George W. Bush did. Yeah, the healthcare rollout isn't really going that great b I know that the outrage du jour of the moment is the whole "you can keep your plans" pledge that some people are upset about (as well as other lies and distortions about the ACA in general) but is that affecting large numbers of people? The media, of course, seems obsessed with sensationalizing just about every negative story about ACA but minimizing just about every positive story about people benefiting from the ACA but I believe that that is a more transitory thing that will eventually get smoothed out over time.
The economy is still adding jobs, though not enough jobs nor enough of the good-paying jobs, so I can kind of understand why people are feeling a little pessimistic about it. There are things that President Obama and the Democrats want to do but the Republicans in the House are blockading anything substantive that might help things get better for more people. Does anybody else have any ideas?
Rumors of President Obama's (political) death
have been greatly exaggerated and prevalent since he was elected. He has been rendered (largely) legislatively ineffectual by Republican Tea Party since 2011 but has still accomplished a lot during his Presidency, some of which, thankfully, he didn't have to rely on Congress to accomplish. No matter the mistakes he has made, he still can't ever match George W. Bush's record of incompetence, mismanagement, and poor decision making.
I always feel that people whom worry about such things
have too much time on their hands and probably have their own personal issues that they are neglecting to attend to. I find that it's hard enough to concentrate on everything going on in my own life that I can't even imagine the time and energy it would take to worry about somebody else's life. I think that it's, frankly, unhealthy to spend what precious little time we all have thinking about what other people are doing. *ugh*
Looking for ideological consistency and intellectual honesty among Republicans
is HARDER than trying to find a needle in a haystack
and you can quote me on that!!!
Running against Obamacare/Obama
seems to be about the ONLY thing they know how to do. They have no policies or ideas or achievements of their own to run ON. I know that that's enough for *some* people but it shouldn't be IMHO.
Lesson:
As for Congress, we need to elect competent people who want government to work and it will. There is currently, unfortunately, a substantial contingent of Congressmen and Senators whom only "job" is sabotaging government and making it unnecessarily dysfunctional but that's what many of them were actually elected to do and their constituents don't really have a problem with what they are doing (or not doing).
As for the ACA, the rollout didn't go so well to be sure but it's nothing that can't be fixed and there were some obstacles and roadblocks that the Republicans and SCOTUS have placed in the way that, to some degree, resulted in things turning out how they have.
The abortion battle has largely shifted to the courts and the states
and Democrats are primarily fighting a tough and often losing battle in most states due to Republican-dominated legislatures cranking out new restrictions by the shovelful and sending them to sympathetic Republican governors for their enthusiastic approval. Lesson: We need to get more Dems elected in the states to promote more abortion rights protections or at least hold the line against more abortion restrictions. I would add too that a lot of people seem easily misled into supporting abortion restrictions by being led to believe that anti-choice politicians have sincere motives about the restrictions that they're pushing and/or that some restrictions seem "common-sense" to some people without really looking at the effects or implications. Talking about making doctors have admitting privileges seems, on its face, to be "reasonable" until you consider the fact that it's often hard for them to get them from religious-owned hospitals hostile to abortion in the first place. Plus, a lot of anti-choicers are able to always make some people just feel all "gooey" about fetuses that they forget about the women carrying the fetus and the effect that carrying through with their pregnancy might have on them and/or that fetus. I don't know that Democrats have given up on it so much as the Republicans being a little more successful legislatively and judicially in getting their anti-choice agenda enacted. Republicans have essentially figured out a way to restrict abortion nearly out of existence in some areas without destroying Roe V. Wade entirely, which would, contrary to logic, actually be a disaster for them. I would like to see some attempts in the future of getting Roe V. Wade codified into federal law or some kind of national "Freedom of Choice Act" enacted.
Healthcare.Gov working just fine for me today (Indiana)
Logged in, worked through most of the application but had to stop to get some more info. Not a single glitch. Think that I can call the media and file a report- you know, since they've been so "concerned" about the website? 
Well, we can have a majority in Congress (by way of a 50-state strategy)
or perfect ideological purity but it will be a LONG time before we can have both IMHO. Getting a Blue Dog Dem or DINO from a red state vote our way 60-70% of the time is better than having a FLAMING Republican bagger vote against us 100% of the time is better IMHO. A lot of people here complain about the abandonment of Dean's 50-State Strategy but they also have complained about some of the Democrats his strategy helped elect- that gave us majorities from 2007-2011. Until we turn some of those red states bluer, if we want to have a majority in Congress, we're probably going to have to settle for some less-than-progressive Dems whom will nonetheless vote with us more often than not.
The Republicans (those left anyway)
will do the same stuff to ANY Democrat that gets elected forthwith. As long as they control some lever of power or occupy enough seats, they will sabotage ANY Democratic POTUS just like they did with President Obama. I never got all of the op-eds that claimed that Hillary could get stuff done that President Obama hasn't been able to (though he has gotten a lot accomplished nonetheless)
Profile Information
Name: Mara Alis ButlerGender: Female
Hometown: Indianapolis, Indiana
Home country: USA
Current location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Member since: Sat Feb 28, 2004, 01:13 AM
Number of posts: 24,412
