There's no need to compromise my ACA. The bill passed, became law, was deemed constitutional, and Boehner failed 40 times to repeal it, not to mention that the President won reelection handily where the most differentiating issue of the campaign was Obamacare.

Boehner holding the government hostage to accomplish what he wasn't able to do since 2010 through legislative means is a slap in the face to the democratic process.

Negotiate nothing. That ship has sailed.

It's not boehner, it's the extreme right wing of his party forcing him to raise the issue time and time again because they can cause trouble if he doesn't. Fuck the tea party man

Slavery was law at one time too, with several Democrat presidents defending it. Justices also came out with decisions like Dred Scott. The ACA was Justice Roberts' Dred Scott decision. He "deemed" it Constitutional although there was clearly nothing Constitutional about it. Justice Kennedy saw through that facade. At any rate, the majority of the House won't vote to support it since they are accountable to their constituents. It doesn't have the votes, so either the White House and Reid compromise or forget it.

BTW, did you complain about Reid/Pelosi holding the government hostage when Bush was president? Didn't think so. Did you criticize Senator Obama when he refused to vote on raising the debt limit?

Political arguments are so much fun! I want to see Boner cry.

You want to see a boner cry? Just cut off his Viagra supply.

I'd like to see Reid tell the truth. Maybe that would give Boehner tears of joy.

Because enslaving/raping/killing an entire race of people for centuries and saying that no black person had any rights a white person needed to respect is just exactly like the PPACA, a corporate friendly reform designed to lower the rate of health care costs, shovel people into the tender arms of insurance companies and expand health care coverage to many who lack it.

Are we going to hear how signing up for the exchanges is akin to getting on the train to Dachau?

This sort of over the top analogy and rhetoric tests well with the extreme right wing but not with normal people. It's precisely because so many right-wing people live in an information bubble that they don't know how and don't care to talk to people who don't share their views. If the right wing doesn't like Obamacare they should have won in 2008 or 2012 or taken back the Senate. But they couldn't do it then and I doubt they will win in 2016. Thus the temper tantrums.

Anybody comparing ACA to slavery is fucking stupid. The genocide, enslavement, and rape of an entire segment of the population has nothing to do with a free market-based healthcare system. Reminds me of kids online who call each other Hitler because they disagree on who's the better pop star or those idiots who wear T-shirts with Che Guevara's mug.

Besides Lilo has a point. The Republicans had their chance to make Obamacare the referendum for the 2012 national election. They tried and they failed. They lost, and not even fucking close like 2000 or '04, it was a healthy defeat. Democrats had a chance to make Iraq the topic in 2004, and they failed. (Fascinating how both defeated parties nominated men who were for healthcare/Iraq before they were against it.)

Anyway this shutdown was about Obamacare originally, but now its no longer the topic. Its a shutdown for its own sake. What exactly is the point of the shutdown now?

I join ronnie and lilo in finding that this analogy is baseless, misplaced and silly. In fact, relying on Scott v. Sandford as justification for Boehner's actions contradicts your premise. First, Scott was a judicial decision overturning an Act of Congress whereas the ACA was a legislative enactment signed into law. Scott was overturned through the constitutional process by the enactment of the XIV Amendment. In the present matter Boehner is evading the statutory process to undermine a valid law by withholding funding for the federal government.

There are benefits and problems with ACA as well as voluminous misinformation about it. It will likely need to be revisted, amended and reconfigured in the coming years as it is put into practice. But by stonewalling to create a government shutdown, Boehner is trying to do through illegitimate means what he wasn't able to do through legitimate means.

David Frum wrote this recently, which sums up the GOP:



http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/10/08/seven-habits-of-highly-ineffective-political-parties-part-one.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Farticles+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles%29

Unlike Lilo and most (complacent) liberals, I think the GOP can absolutely win in '16. The economy is still lukewarm, Hillary aint getting any younger and the idea of President Joe Biden is hilarious.

I think what Frum wrote above is passion overriding logic. The Democratic Congressional leadership back during the Dubya years were pelted endlessly by DailyKos and Huffington Post and those liberal blogs for being "spineless" and "unwilling to fight" President Bush. What those kneejerk partisans didn't understand was that for all their problems, Pelosi and Reid picked and choose which battles to fight. Short term they looked "weak" but longterm they won the 2006 midterms and the White House twice subsequently. They lost the battle but won the war.

The Congressional GOP (whoever runs it, does anybody really know?) are doing the opposite. They're losing the war all for the sake of a battle that maybe they shouldn't have picked in the first place. Frum is right, they are being pointlessly apocalyptic, as if there is no future beyond Obamacare.

Bologna! So damn defeatist and foolish. These people should look up similar apocalyptic warnings that Ronald Reagan made 50 years ago regarding Medicare. Medicare is still around, America didn't implode over it, Reagan became President because of other issues.

Hillary has shown already that she is not a great campaigner. By all rights Obama stole the nomination from her in 2008 by out maneuvering her, and having a better strategy. I have heard that she is approaching 2016 differently than 2008, but we'll see. I think the Republican's best shot would be to run Christie with a Southerner on the ticket. that would be winnable.
Some people in liberal circles are already talking up Sen Elizabeth Warren, but I think she is probably too liberal to sell herself to the suburbs of major cities, Ohio and Northern Virginia where a Dem has to win to get elected.
Don't forget the electoral map now favors the democrats, and if Hillary runs a better campaign than she did in '08 she still has to be the favorite in the race.

There is absolutely no correlation between Obamacare and slavery. That is nonsense, however it raises an interesting point. I wonder of the person who made that post and those who are in agreement subscribe to the "original intent" doctrine of constitutional interpretation. If they do, then they have to concede that the founders allowed for slavery, and that the Dredd Scott decision was consistent with "original intent."

Personally I think what went on in the ACA decision was Roberts changing his mind at the last minute. If you read his opinion he is not buying the "commerce clause" argument proffered in foavor of upholding that law, but insted considers it a tax which Congress has the power to mandate.

My personal opinion on this is that if Christie gets nominated and picks someone like lyndsey graham or Marco Rubio as his runningmate he will have a good shot at the presidency. There are plenty of moderates within the GOP and they need to come forward.

For the democrats Elizabeth warren is the liberal equivalent of Michelle Bachmann. An idiot with no political sense whatsoever. I would sooner move to Honduras than have her as president. But I think it's a safe assumption she's not getting the nomination. Two things hold Hillary back- her health and Benghazi. She won't get enough of the moderates and that whole fiasco will be used against her on both sides. Some are saying Andrew cuomo, but he's too much of a sheep democrat. I'm interested as to who the dems will line up in 16.

Christie became more interested in being popular and well liked by people than in doing a good job. He seemed to try to be more likeable as election went along, and wanted the approval of those whose politics were more leftist. His televised appearances became embarrassing. Anyone here see him on Jon Stewart? Cringeworthy. Christie made an ass of self trying to show what a regular guy he was.

Honestly in today's political climate he was smart to do that. Besides what are you talking about? He has done a good job.

Dred Scott is an example of a bad SCOTUS decision. That was the extent of the point and the analogy wasn't intended to be an exact fit at every angle. The point, once again, is that just because the SCOTUS decided something doesn't make it good or right, either morally or in the best interest of the American people. Justice Roberts' decision of the ACA was a bad decision and in the worst interest of the American people.

Yes, the ACA was a legislative decision signed into law. True. It was also the most partisan legislation in recent, possibly all of American history. Not a single Republican voted for it. The Democrats bulldozed it through and ignored precedence and standard procedures. In the next election the Democrats lost the House and the GOP owes nothing to the bad legislation the Dems manufactured. Congresspersons are elected by their constituents and are responsible to their districts. The owe no allegiance to the Senate or the White House. The Dems acted like bullies when they passed the ACA so now the chickens have come home to roost.

BY the way, the Citizens United case is just as much federal law via SCOTUS as the ACA is, yet you and Obama continue to criticize it, BUT IT'S THE LAW! LOL

Sorry. Your analogy misses the mark again. When you say Citizens United is presently law and Obama and I continue to criticize it, that's fine. Every decision should be subject to thoughtful critique. But neither I or Obama did anything to subvert or prevent the application of the law. Respecting (though not agreeing with) the law, Obama proceeded with his campaign with the full effect of Citizens United, and handily won reelection.

Similarly, Boehner is free to criticize ACA, but it is the law of the land. There are proper means to repeal the law, and they have failed. By subverting the Act through the insidious means of refusing to fund it (which Congeress is obligated to do by its passage) Congress is undermining the rule of law.

And by the way the whining about bulldozing the legislation and ignoring precedent and procedure is baseless and insipid. Even Boehner doesn't resort to that level of ridiculousness.

No, your understanding of analogies misses the mark. I don't know how many times I need to restate the point, but they were provided as examples of bad legal decisions. I said that and made it clear, yet you continuously twist the statement into something it's not. And I never wrote that Obama didn't subvert the law. There is evidence that he and his administration did, but that's another can of worms that brings us far off-topic.



It's called a statement of fact. The historical record of how the ACA was passed is out there for everyone to see, along with Nancy Pelosi's statement of how we'll have to pass it "to see what's in it." The way the ACA was passed was insipid, dirty, underhanded and corrupt. If calling out corruption is baseless and insipid, that says more about you than anything else. The law itself is a bad, horrible law that is causing more harm than good. What is ridiculous is how for the law's defenders will engage in a such a massive level of denial it is almost psychotic. I'd retort that even Reid and Pelosi don't engage in that level of ridiculousness and stupidity, but they do on a daily basis.

This brouhaha is another example of Obama's cluelessness about politics--and about people:

The Affordable Healthcare Act is his touchstone achievement. It's also the fulcrum of the Congressional impasse that led to the shutdown. Obama could have anticipated that the computer systems designed for signing up people to the healthcare program was very complex and would potentially encounter serious flaws.

If he had any political sense at all, he would have realized that signing up as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, was his number-one priority. He should have turned heaven and earth to make sure the system worked right the first time, even spending millions on outside consultants and experts to test-run the software and debug it. Then he could have told his foes in Congress: "You want to defund Obamacare? Why not ask the three million people who signed up for it in the first week--including your own constituents--if they'd like to give up their benefits?" He'd have taken the wind right out of the Obamacare debate--and with it, the government shutdown.

Instead, by not caring enough, he now has millions of people disgruntled and disgusted with another example of "broken government." Lots of them are going to give up and join the ranks of people who want to get rid of Obamacare.

The computer screw up is an enormous blunder by Obama and by his team. Heads should roll and they need to move heaven and earth to get these computers up and running.

I don't care how much you spend on servers, it's next to impossible to get millions of people signed up through computer servers in a short period of time, say a couple of days. They can handle just so much requests and they crash if they get more requests than they can handle. Even giants like Google would make their sign up process for their new tools based on invitation, so that the number of people signing up be limited through time. Worst part of it is, that many would leave this for the last minute. They should have set some sort of sorting process like limiting the certain digits of social security number for a certain period of time.

Afs, the Affordable Healthcare Act passed 3.5 years ago. The date for cutover--October 1, 2013--was set 3.5 years ago. According to today's NYTimes, as far back as last March, Henry Chao, Obama's point man on online registration, was saying that he was "deeply worried" about the website's debut. "Let's just make sure it's not a third-world experience," he said.

I put the blame on Obama for not paying attention to this existential threat to his most important legislative achievement. Congress had tried to kill Obamacare 40 times before Oct. 1. Obama should have realized that a perfect cutover would have signed up millions of Americans, putting Congressional critics on the defensive. Instead, he acted as if the failure had nothing to do with him--he dissembled: "Gee, this shows how popular the program is." BS!

The US manned space program was far more complex than designing a computer system to sign on millions of people for health insurance. But successive Presidents (Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon) knew that it was vital to America's prestige that each manned launch succeed. They cared about their programs. Obama doesn't.

TB, I tend to agree with AFS. Electronic systems are subject to any number of potential variables. What you cite as efforts that should have been made to test the system were probably made. Don't forget that application software companies get to test their suitability through betas. That's not practical for governments. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMM) is responsible for the ACA system and CMM has a great reputation.

Turnbull, the point I was trying to make was not that Obama is to blame or not. As I said, if I was in charge, I would've set some sort of time periods for specific social security numbers, so that the sign up process would have less traffic and glitches. It's just that it's next to impossible to sign millions of people up in that manner in a short period of time.

Obama doesn't really have to try here, after all ACA is the law of the land now. It can launch successfully having only 7 million people signed up. The rest is just talk.