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3 hours ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

 

Of course you don't recall. That was my point. 

 

In fact, upon taking office Obama immediately reassured the financial community by appointing Goldman Sach execs and Wall Street bluebloods to run the economy. He bailed out the banks and when it came time to enact fiscal reform in the wake of the disaster, Obama played it right down the middle with measures that sounded good but had no teeth. Obama grumbled about the Bush tax cuts, but did not fight the Republicans when it came time to renew them. Single Payer Healthcare was left. The Affordable Care Act was dead center, a proposal that had been approved by both Republicans and the health care industry for decades. His Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland was hailed as a non-controversial moderate --- Garland was John Roberts highly respected mentor and would have sailed through any other Congress in our history.  Find any environment or civil rights initiative from Obama, and I'll find you something equivalent from the Reagan administration. 

 

Obama never stopped fighting a drone war on terrorists. It was low-profile but highly successful, and sometimes horrific when bombs strayed into unsuspecting wedding parties. Obama violated Pakistan air space and a corrupt Pakistani government to kill Osama bin Laden and dump his body in the ocean, a move that should have had conservatives dancing in the streets. As you mentioned, Obama also kept a lot of the Bush administration's security measures in place, including our controversial international rendition programs. Some of this quietly vexed liberals. Progressives never considered Obama one of them. Hillary Clinton was even more centrist and hawkish, but perhaps that's another story. 

 

So it's no surprise that you have the idea of Obama's "disciples" all wrong. The hard left is Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Green New Deal, Medicaid for All, and Free College Tuition. Attack those ideas all you want. Just know that far more Americans support them then either party wants to admit. Obama always had a chance to go "hard left" and never did. Not even close. Hence no hard left disciples. Even in the safety of private life he has avoided endorsing the progressive wing. His preferred successor, Joe Biden, is moderation with a free shoulder massage. 

 

In case you hadn't noticed, DNC leadership is circling the wagons and trying to protect their turf from their own left wing. Obama remains the standard because of his centrist appeal.

Excellent post  :clap

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1 hour ago, Danny Bateman said:

One of the issues I think is that the GOP allowed the chasm between what they told their voters and what they actually believed to get a bit too wide. Hence, someone calling Obama a moderate fundamentally seems wrong to a GOP voter, despite the fact he actually pushed for several things that should actually appeal to conservatives. He badly wanted to form bipartisan consensus in Washington, especially early on, but the door was slammed in his face every time.

 

Certainly Republican politicians would prefer the policies of Obama to those of someone like Sanders, though they'd never dare admit it. They'd lead you to believe there's no daylight between the two, because that makes it easier to wrangle votes.

 

Another good example is the ACA. You'd be hard-pressed to find a more centrist approach to healthcare reform - a market-oriented boilerplate copy of Romneycare that stemmed from GOP plans in the 90s. But Republicans have been neck deep in anti-ACA propaganda so long they can't admit it. But painting it as some socialist takeover of our healthcare has left them no room to offer a conservative alternative. The only thing more conservative would be what they truly want - eliminating Medicare and Medicaid altogether and totally privatizing healthcare. So they just keep complaining about the ACA with no alternative in mind.

 

The entire thing is a GOP tactic to make their own party and ideas seem a lot less extreme and unpopular than they actually are. Obama and the ACA have to be socialist nightmares so they can save us with their reasonable, moderate ideas - instead of admitting Obama/ACA are middle of the road and they're way far out on the rightward fringe.

Proof of the bold - GOP failure to repeal ACA or have a replacement in place - despite all of the rhetoric to the contrary.     They campaigned on repeal and replace - easy to do when they didn't think Trump would win and therefore would not have to back up their promise with action. But when Trump won, I think the Repub Congressmen knew they had to put up or shut up and they found ways not to get it passed. First they were relying on the SC to do their dirty work pre-Trump - when that didn't happen they never presented a cohesive plan that could be passed.  I think they (GOP leadership - not the more conservative wing) were perfectly content to keep the ACA in place.  Their original screams of being cut out of the process in 2010 was good campaign red meet - but they could have contributed and improved the bill  but they  never wanted to give Obama a victory.   

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11 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

Their original screams of being cut out of the process in 2010 was good campaign red meet - but they could have contributed and improved the bill  but they  never wanted to give Obama a victory.   

Actually, Republicans did contribute to the ACA.

Set the health care record straight: Republicans helped craft Obamacare
 

Quote

 

Not only were Republican senators deeply involved in the process up until its conclusion, but it's a cinch that the ACA might have become law months earlier if the Democrats, hoping for a bipartisan bill, hadn't spent enormous time and effort wooing GOP senators — only to find themselves gulled by false promises of cooperation. And unlike Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's semi-secret proceedings that involved only a handful of trusted colleagues, Obamacare, until the very end of the process, was open to public scrutiny.

 

Let's set the record straight. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (known as the HELP Committee), chaired first by Edward Kennedy and later by Christopher Dodd, held 14 bipartisan round-table meetings and 13 public hearings. Democrats on that committee accepted 160 Republican amendments to the bill. The Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Montana Democrat Max Baucus, was writing its own version of the ACA. It held 17 bipartisan round-table sessions, summit meetings and hearings with Republican senators.

 

On the House side, the Republican leadership made it clear to members that they were not to cooperate in any way with the effort to create the health insurance program proposed by President Obama. McConnell, then the Senate minority leader, was equally disapproving of cooperation. Despite that, a few Republican senators, such as Finance Committee members Charles Grassley of Iowa and Mike Enzi of Wyoming, were in discussions with the Democrats until McConnell warned both men that their future in the party would be in jeopardy if they supported the bill. 

 

 

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11 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

Proof of the bold - GOP failure to repeal ACA or have a replacement in place - despite all of the rhetoric to the contrary.     They campaigned on repeal and replace - easy to do when they didn't think Trump would win and therefore would not have to back up their promise with action. But when Trump won, I think the Repub Congressmen knew they had to put up or shut up and they found ways not to get it passed. First they were relying on the SC to do their dirty work pre-Trump - when that didn't happen they never presented a cohesive plan that could be passed.  I think they (GOP leadership - not the more conservative wing) were perfectly content to keep the ACA in place.  Their original screams of being cut out of the process in 2010 was good campaign red meet - but they could have contributed and improved the bill  but they  never wanted to give Obama a victory.  

TIME

 

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TIME just published “The Party of No,” an article adapted from my new book, The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era. It reveals some of my reporting on the Republican plot to obstruct President Obama before he even took office, including secret meetings led by House GOPwhip Eric Cantor (in December 2008) and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (in early January 2009) in which they laid out their daring (though cynical and political) no-honeymoon strategy of all-out resistance to a popular President-elect during an economic emergency. “If he was for it,” former Ohio Senator George Voinovich explained, “we had to be against it.” The excerpt includes a special bonus nugget of Mitt Romney dissing the Tea Party.

 

I think about this every time a Trumpster complains that people just need to let Trump do his job.

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Obama was only a few months out of office when he publicly told supporters that Obamacare was a step towards socialize medicine.  He was placating a crowd upset because he did not fully socialize medicine.  That's only moderate in the sense that Obama pushed the nose and neck of the socialist camel into the tent.  

 

EVERY modern Democrat has tried to being about socialized medicine.  So I'm not to impressed that to can call each one a "moderate" for advancing a bad idea in baby steps.

 

Otherwise Obama was restrained by a R Congress for 6/8 years. But he still governed from the left.

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11 minutes ago, Notre Dame Joe said:

Obama was only a few months out of office when he publicly told supporters that Obamacare was a step towards socialize medicine.  He was placating a crowd upset because he did not fully socialize medicine.  That's only moderate in the sense that Obama pushed the nose and neck of the socialist camel into the tent.  

 

EVERY modern Democrat has tried to being about socialized medicine.  So I'm not to impressed that to can call each one a "moderate" for advancing a bad idea in baby steps.

 

Otherwise Obama was restrained by a R Congress for 6/8 years. But he still governed from the left.

This is an honest question.  Would you rather see a USA without Medicare?

 

I'm not trying to be argumentative, just trying to see where you're coming from.

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22 minutes ago, Notre Dame Joe said:

Obama was only a few months out of office when he publicly told supporters that Obamacare was a step towards socialize medicine.

 

I googled this and I can't find this quote. Can you show me where he said this?

 

 

 

Also, why is "socialism" such a naughty word? America has tons of socialistic institutions, including the military, health insurance, the bank bailouts, roads... anything that we collectively pool money into, especially via government, and then all benefit from, is a form of socialism.  We're OK, apparently, with some forms of socialistic endeavors, but not via government in healthcare, which is weird because that would at least give us some control over our health instead of trusting it to for-profit corporations.

 

 

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15 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

I googled this and I can't find this quote. Can you show me where he said this?

 

 

 

Also, why is "socialism" such a naughty word? America has tons of socialistic institutions, including the military, health insurance, the bank bailouts, roads... anything that we collectively pool money into, especially via government, and then all benefit from, is a form of socialism.  We're OK, apparently, with some forms of socialistic endeavors, but not via government in healthcare, which is weird because that would at least give us some control over our health instead of trusting it to for-profit corporations.

 

 

There's plenty of socialized medicine countries around the world. Why do they fly their elites here instead of the other way around?

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14 minutes ago, Notre Dame Joe said:

There's plenty of socialized medicine countries around the world. Why do they fly their elites here instead of the other way around?

 

People go where the experts are. That has nothing to do with socialized medicine, it has to do with expert healthcare. 

 

For example, Rand Paul:

 

U.S. Republican Sen. Rand Paul coming to Canada for surgery

 

Sometimes, it has to do with affordable healthcare, expert or not.

 

For example:  the 1.4 million Americans who traveled abroad in 2016 for affordable healthcare

 

And this practice has been going on for decades as American medical costs continue to rise

 

And this practice is expected to continue into the future, because (in part) other countries invest in their healthcare systems better than America...

 

because they can see vast savings over American healthcare:

 

Quote

 

Using US costs across a variety of specialties and procedures as a benchmark, average range of savings for the most-traveled destinations:

  • Brazil: 20-30%
  • Costa Rica: 45-65%
  • India: 65-90%
  • Malaysia: 65-80%
  • Mexico: 40-65%
  • Singapore: 25-40%
  • South Korea: 30-45%
  • Taiwan: 40-55%
  • Thailand: 50-75%
  • Turkey: 50-65%

 

 

 

 

Now, please, show me where Obama said this:

 

Quote

Obama was only a few months out of office when he publicly told supporters that Obamacare was a step towards socialize medicine.

 

 

And the (unfactual) statement that you responded with doesn't address this question, which is fundamentally valid in this conversation:

 

Quote

Also, why is "socialism" such a naughty word? America has tons of socialistic institutions, including the military, health insurance, the bank bailouts, roads... anything that we collectively pool money into, especially via government, and then all benefit from, is a form of socialism.  We're OK, apparently, with some forms of socialistic endeavors, but not via government in healthcare, which is weird because that would at least give us some control over our health instead of trusting it to for-profit corporations.

 

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25 minutes ago, Notre Dame Joe said:

There's plenty of socialized medicine countries around the world. Why do they fly their elites here instead of the other way around?

 

Pssst! Elites will always be able to get the private services of the finest doctors and facilities in the world, and they aren't exclusively American.

 

If you were to compare the problems associated with socialized medicine in our fellow first world countries to the problems associated with our current system, are you certain you'll come out ahead? 

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55 minutes ago, Notre Dame Joe said:

Mmhhmm  Now why do you think the best Docs, best technology, best institutions are all found in the world's most capitalistic society.  Do you think those all sprung out of selfless desire to help the commune?

Care to provide some statistics to back up you're claim?

 

Why do we have the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed nation?

https://www.npr.org/2017/05/12/528098789/u-s-has-the-worst-rate-of-maternal-deaths-in-the-developed-world

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5 hours ago, Notre Dame Joe said:

Obama was only a few months out of office when he publicly told supporters that Obamacare was a step towards socialize medicine.  He was placating a crowd upset because he did not fully socialize medicine.  That's only moderate in the sense that Obama pushed the nose and neck of the socialist camel into the tent.  

 

EVERY modern Democrat has tried to being about socialized medicine.  So I'm not to impressed that to can call each one a "moderate" for advancing a bad idea in baby steps.

 

Otherwise Obama was restrained by a R Congress for 6/8 years. But he still governed from the left.

Are you totally against every form of socialism?

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