The Trump Presidency

[Julio3000]

Yes, reliable.

Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman (you know, the two guys who ran for Democratic President and Democratic Vice President, respectively) were reliable Democratic votes.

Lieberman, who endorsed the Republican in 2008, was a reliable Democratic vote?

[Hawk]

Lieberman, who endorsed the Republican in 2008, was a reliable Democratic vote?

Oh, please.

McCain could have been running as an anarchist for President of Hell and Lieberman would have endorsed him.

Lieberman voted with Democrats 90% of the time.

The proof is in the pudding, as they say.

[Hawk]

Surprised you of all people end a sentence with "of"

I remember a time when you would scold a poster or spend a page touting your elevated gramatic skills.
Must be hard these past few months.
Maybe you need a break ...

I’ve spent the last couple of months chasing you down for being blatantly wrong about everything from MBS to the EPA.

I don’t even have time to start on your grammar.

Just sayin

[Julio3000]

Oh, please.

McCain could have been running as an anarchist for President of Hell and Lieberman would have endorsed him.

Lieberman voted with Democrats 90% of the time.

The proof is in the pudding, as they say.

But he wouldn't vote to end debate on any bill that contained a public option, which would have been the only way to meaningfully make ACA toothsome and substantial.

[Hawk]

So Lieberman, whose voting record is now undergoing a revisionist typecast as unpredictable, is solely responsible for the failure of the ACA?

[Julio3000]

Do tell

Where to start?

You're suggesting that paying a fine, which is small in relation to the cost of health insurance, equates to not having control of your own body. How does a mandate to purchase health insurance compromise "control of your body"?

Is, like, a car insurance mandate a similar intrusion into your sovereign right to control your own body?

Since you're using the language of the abortion debate, let's continue in those terms. If the anti-choice position is taken to its logical extreme, a woman who terminates a pregnancy is, at least, committing manslaughter. You're equating that criminal penalty against the exercise of bodily control with paying a fine for not purchasing health insurance?

[Julio3000]

So Lieberman, whose voting record is now undergoing a revisionist typecast as unpredictable, is solely responsible for the failure of the ACA?

Er, well, if he was a reliable Democratic vote, you'd think he'd have supported the key policy supported by his party's president and the rest of "his" caucus.

Considering that he or Olympia Snowe were the only potential options for vote # 60, I'd say he was the single individual most responsible for the failure of the public option, in that he was a reliable Democratic vote and all. Does that make him solely responsible? No. Is it a valid consideration? Sure it is.

[Hawk]

So 90% is not indicative of reliable support?

He just didn't agree on elements of the technical score - and likely telegraphed it from the beginning.

So, to me, that speaks more to the legislative immaturity of the Obama administration than it does to Lieberman's 'reliability'.

You don't go down that road unless you are pretty damned sure where it'll lead.

[Julio3000]

So 90% is not indicative of reliable support?

He just didn't agree on elements of the technical score - and likely telegraphed it from the beginning.

So, to me, that speaks more to the legislative immaturity of the Obama administration than it does to Lieberman's 'reliability'.

You don't go down that road unless you are pretty damned sure where it'll lead.

Puh-leeze.

[Hawk]

So he just pivoted at the last minute?

Ok.

[Hawk]

More importantly: 90% of the time is now an unreliable percentage.

[Julio3000]

More importantly: 90% of the time is now an unreliable percentage.

If you're talking about a president's flagship legislation, the import of which was potentially a massive reconfiguring of the nation's health care system, I'd argue that your cleaving to the 90% line is an evasion. If he wasn't willing to make a procedural vote--not a yes or nay for the bill--at nut-cutting time, then he was not, in fact, a reliable Denocratic vote.

Did Lieberman have a price that wasn't paid? Point me to that and we can talk.

[jpx7]

Still struck by the unparalleled post-modernism of Trump’s presidency, by way of its denuded and debased post-structuralism. The greatest trick the devil ever dared was convincing us that behind language nothing lies.

[Hawk]

If you're talking about a president's flagship legislation, the import of which was potentially a massive reconfiguring of the nation's health care system, I'd argue that your cleaving to the 90% line is an evasion. If he wasn't willing to make a procedural vote--not a yes or nay for the bill--at nut-cutting time, then he was not, in fact, a reliable Denocratic vote.

Did Lieberman have a price that wasn't paid? Point me to that and we can talk.

And my point is that if he wasn't going to make a procedural vote, then it would have been for an obvious reason that the strategists should have seen from a mile away.

I really don't get the fixation with Lieberman.

If you can't make it work with him - out of fundamental indifference - then you go to someone else, even if you have to buy them.

Or you do something that you can pull off. Immi reform?

[jpx7]

In my unqualified opinion, Lieberman’s less of a (D) than Sanders by a mile—and if that was less the case near ten years ago, it was still the case. I think it’s also the case that strategic failures on the part of the Obama administration are a mile more culpable for the ACA’s faults in conception/implementation than Lieberman’s obduracy on the vote.

[Julio3000]

I'm not arguing Obama's purported lack of policy maturity in 2009 or the ****tiness of ACA, just what seems to be the floated idea that he had 60 easy votes to pass Commie Health Care from April 2009 to January 2010.

[sturg33]

Where to start?

You're suggesting that paying a fine, which is small in relation to the cost of health insurance, equates to not having control of your own body. How does a mandate to purchase health insurance compromise "control of your body"?

Is, like, a car insurance mandate a similar intrusion into your sovereign right to control your own body?

Since you're using the language of the abortion debate, let's continue in those terms. If the anti-choice position is taken to its logical extreme, a woman who terminates a pregnancy is, at least, committing manslaughter. You're equating that criminal penalty against the exercise of bodily control with paying a fine for not purchasing health insurance?

Obama made it illegal for a woman (or men, for that matter but I know we don't care about men) to have complete control of the choice of her health decisions.

Call it what you want.

That is simply a fact

[goldfly]

just what seems to be the floated idea that he had 60 easy votes to pass Commie Health Care from April 2009 to January 2010.

exactly

[Julio3000]

Obama made it illegal for a woman (or men, for that matter but I know we don't care about men) to have complete control of the choice of her health decisions.

Call it what you want.

That is simply a fact

ACA mandated buying health insurance or paying a fine. What does that have to do with control of womens' bodies? That was the language you chose.

[Hawk]

I'm not arguing Obama's purported lack of policy maturity in 2009 or the ****tiness of ACA, just what seems to be the floated idea that he had 60 easy votes to pass Commie Health Care from April 2009 to January 2010.

Where was that idea floated?

More importantly: do you blame Obama not being able to pass the legislation on Republicans, as goldfly does?