Obama for Small Business
 

well not quite but for those many mom & pop companies that employ union workers he is.

How is it Obama is for 'good' health care insurance again?

If that was indeed the case he'd give those with 'Cadilac' insurance policies a break not a tax. After all those with 'cadilac' health insurance have larger ceilings, more diagnostic testing and more preventive care making the policy holder less of a burden to society, health wise, at least in theory.

You know the same theory he uses to say everyone should have coverage to bring down costs! :zz:



http://www.nypost.com/p/news/nationa...PIJlIxXAm37DOM

union payoff dell

It may take even more backroom deals and bribery to get this ultra-partisan, unpopular, monstrosity of a healthcare "reform" through both houses.

Trying to swing the Mass. Senate race to Coakley as many unions are not supporting her.:)

I think he may be so used to getting on his knees to pass his socialist
agend(i), he's starting to enjoy it...

LOL - yeah, that mythical "socialist agenda" is why liberals are complaining he hasn't been progressive enough, and his poll numbers have fallen among independent liberals :zz:

Naw. McConnell signed off on minority blanket approval of amendments. The Dems [edit: if they lose the 60th vote] will just have the House pass the already passed Senate bill, and work on it later; or just do reconciliation. Healthcare reform is a done deal, the only remaining questions are what the startup bill will specifically contain, and how it's passed.

BTW, the main reason it's unpopular is that it doesn't contain a public option. Aside from the minority right who would vote against any healthcare reform, any "unpopularity" stems from the majority who want healthcare reform considering the current Senate version of the bill being too reconcilatory, too weak, too watered down.

I thought it was unpopular because it is a power grabbing intrusion into peoples lives that this country can't afford and doesn't need at this time. It is full of unfair tax increases on everyone. Not just those earning over $250,000. Didn't the Unions get stroked enough when Obama seized GM and Chrysler and gave them to the UAW? How are those companies doing right now? New leadership doesn't seem to have them turning the corner yet. The economy is a bigger priority than National Healthcare in most peoples minds.

Naw. This President was elected on the promise of massive healthcare reform, and regulation of the insurance industry that controls our healthcare industry. One of his major platforms. Trouble is, the Senate has watered it down terribly.

Not the House version (which is more self-funding). The Senate version taxes more, as they took out some funding the House version has.

The Unions gave up alot - they certainly didn't get stroked! - with GM and Chrysler. What do you think the unions got out of that? :zz: Mostly massive cuts, and giving up stuff. GM and Chrysler needed to go bankrupt.
Ford, meanwhile, did great and emerged leaner and meaner and more profitable.

The economy? We are turning around. You don't turn a major recession around in a few months and make it all gone. It started turning around under Bush with his very late bailouts, and is continuing.

The only arguments I've been reading from economists lately is that the stimulus plans were okay, but not enough to really make an impact on jobs. Hindsight is 20-20 in the financial world, however, now some wish the stimulus' were even more aggressive.

Yea that's it he hasn't been progressive enough LOL

and that's why 56-58% of this country don't want government health care and those progressive liberals (socialists) in Mass are turning out for Brown.

Yeah, Dell, he hasn't been progressive enough for the independents that voted him in. Look at the healthcare polls - but look at poll numbers that ask the right questions, that show people still do want healthcare reform (just like who elected him) - what they don't want the crappy, useless Senate version.

Separate out those folks from that 56-58%, what you are left with is the normal GOP that says no, the normal Dems that say yes, and independents saying "no to crap" .

After the Senate passed their version of healthcare reform, the majority of calls not to pass it (that version) came from the disappointed ultra-progressive left. Surprisingly, not the right.

so those independents have bailed and now are coming out for conservative- independent Brown and other repubs in the case of NJ and Virg, or just so disgusted they are staying home and not voting? And I think you're looking at polls asking the 'right' people not 'right' questions as in Huffington visitors and ACORN office workers aka 'Pimp and Ho Consultants, LLC'.

Like Pelosi said no matter what the people in Mass want, healthcare will get done. Very tough to make decisions on anything other than what the people want and keep the people's support but that is what elections and tonight are all about. The future's finally looking brighter and we're finally seeing the results of all that spending like a drunkin sailor, Obama has done!

From what I've seen the super-left liberals are angry Obama hasn't done more, and they were openly calling for not passing this healthcare reform as it stands (the Senate version), as it's "too weak". I've seen more pointed op-ed criticisms of Obama and economics/healthcare on Kos, Slate, HuffPo type sites than Fox!

But no, those are not who are voting for Brown and GOP candidates from what I've seen. Brown voters, if he gets elected today, I would guess are the "middle go either way" type of folks that classify themselves not as Dem or GOP, but Independent. The GOP is far outnumbered by Dems in Mass, but Dems are outnumbered by Independents. The Ind. control this election in Mass.

Just a coincidence the independent vote has been democratic for the past 50yrs?

??? I think 37% classify themselves as independent now (saw it somewhere today), don't know how they classified themselves 40 years ago.

??? I think 37% classify themselves as independent now
thats half of the dems that voted for this fraud..they are halfway to the right!!!:tro:

over under on ob tv speeches during 4 years 380 my boy loves flooossin' fo the camera!!

Obama has a 75% personal approval rating in Mass. They love him.

What they don't like is what is happening with economics: Wall Street not Main Street attitude, and jobs, according to interviews of voters today. That's what this election means.

Jobs, jobs, jobs.

But now, with the GOP all set to vote and campaign against any taxation of bank bonuses, and recently voting blanketly against financial reform bills - which party will be on the side of the "will of the people" when it comes to "Wall Street vs Main Street"? The GOP better pay attention to this result, too.

Especially when the candidate in Mass who just won, ran on a platform calling himself "41" - promising to vote against something the CBO says will markedly lower our countries deficit.

Politics isn't simple.

You're wrong on the Brown election. The two main voter concerns were the health care reform they're trying to rush through and terrorism. People are very much against having these trials in N.Y. and giving terrorists the same rights as U.S. citizens.

Terrorism? I've seen no overnight polls discuss that at all. Where did you hear that?

And seriously - where the hell were all these people worried about "rights" when Bush successfully prosecuted multiple terrorists in the US Federal Court system? That ring a bell?

Crotchbomber was interrogated for 30 hours, spilled his guts. Perfectly legal. Read that article I posted in the other thread about the interview with the JAG lawyers, saying that the military is in many ways far more restrictive than civilian courts. Basically saying people watch too many TV lawyer shows, and their impressions are largely wrong.

Edit: Here, I looked it up. It's not an editorial or op-ed, it's an interview with military JAG lawyers about the difference between trying crotchbomber between military and civilian courts

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_419203.html

riot, you are unbelievably stubborn! You wont even listen to the reasons stated by a Mass citizen herself! She knows a million times more than you do when it comes to the election in her own state! you never cease to amaze me!

coakley herself said that the christmas terrorist hurt her, that her polls started tanking because of that and the rush vote on health care before the holiday break.

exactly, its been on the news. Mass citizens worried about terrorists getting the same rights as American citizens.

Terrorists should be treated like the scum they are! Guy tries to blow up a PLANE and kill hundreds of us and we want to read him his miranda.. unreal.

....hopes this trickles over to Capitol Hill;)

What in the world are you talking about? Fear of how the terrorist will be tried isn't coming up high in the post-election "why I voted why I did" polls and discussion. Got anything different or more specific on that?

GOP Criticism Of Obama On Underwear Bomber Is Way Off-Base, Says JAG

If Republican critics of President Obama are to be believed, the administration made one of the biggest blunders in national security history when it placed the accused underwear bomber in the criminal justice system as opposed to the military alternative.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was about to spill the beans on all of al Qaeda, the argument goes, before the White House tied both hands behind its back -- unilaterally limiting the type of interrogation procedures it could use on the suspect and then providing him unnecessarily with an attorney.

It's simply not true, say legal experts, including officials who formerly served in the military tribunal system.

James Cullen, a retired brigadier general who served as a JAG officer, tells the Huffington Post that there are narrow differences between the legal and interrogation proceedings Abdulmutallab was subjected to and those which would have happened in a military commission.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the suspect would have been granted access to a lawyer if he had been put in a military system. In fact, he may have had easier access to an attorney.

"The military is not some type of Soviet show-trial kangaroo court," said Cullen. "Absolutely he would have gotten a lawyer."

Indeed, a study completed by The Century Foundation, a non-partisan research foundation, noted that under Defense Department rules, "regardless of a defendant's wishes, he will have a military lawyer appointed to him at government expense. However, he may have a regular criminal defense attorney only if he arranges and pays for it himself."

But, the next question goes: isn't there a difference -- with regard to the civilian and military systems -- in the time that can elapse between when a suspect is captured and when he or she has to be granted legal representation? Not all that much, says Cullen. Abdulmutallab, for starters, was questioned for 30 hours before requesting a lawyer. Military personnel might have had more time. But not all that much.

More broadly, even in a civil system, authorities can question a suspect without reading them their Miranda rights for a limited amount of time as long as there is "no intention to try the person" and it is "purely for intelligence purposes."

This is little different then in a military setting, where -- if the detaining authority wants to prosecute the detainee -- the impetus is on bringing legal counsel into the equation early on. "If you want to prosecute you can't foul up the process," explained Cullen.

Nonetheless, conservative circles are howling about Obama's grievous misstep, insisting that valuable information was basically left secret.

"When you indict him, you immediately read him his Miranda rights, you give him a lawyer and he stops talking," Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said Sunday. "You can pursue a court action against this person later on if you want to, but right now the key thing is intelligence." There was, the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol said on Fox News, a "failure to get information that we might have gotten."

There is a similar mischaracterization over what can be done in terms of interrogating the detainee, claim Cullen and others. Republican critics of the president insist that Obama forfeited effective interrogation measures by declining to go the route of a military commission. But there are limitations to what even military interrogators could do with Abdulmutallab. Under the Military Commissions Act, the army field manual has come to dictate the scope of interrogations. This means that tough measures are now out of bounds even if prolonged isolation and sleep deprivation are still permissible. It has also compelled the military to adopt the techniques used by their civilian counterparts in the FBI (lest they risk lessening the chance of securing a conviction).

"In either case you are going to rub up, at some point, against a constitutional standard," said Cullen. "You have diminished the detainee's ability to participate in a defense... we know that people will have a marked deterioration of mental facilities when you combine isolation with other circumstances."

"There would be significant constraints if someone were placed immediately to the military justice system just as they are when placed into the civilian justice system," said Emily Berman, counsel in the liberty and national security project at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

There is, as Berman notes, a third option that the Obama administration could have used with regards to Abdulmutallab. That would be to designate him an enemy combatant and send him either to Gitmo or a so-called black site. This would allow the administration to hold the detainee indefinitely with limitations on legal contact. But the White House is currently trying to close Gitmo and wind down indefinite detentions. And they would be essentially forfeiting a conviction by going this route.

Moreover, the message itself doesn't necessarily fit within the administration's broader goals in the fight against al Qaeda. As Stacy Sullivan, counterterrorism adviser at Human Rights Watch posits: "al Qaeda views itself as warriors... Our argument is you shouldn't elevate their status to that. They are criminals and you should treat them just like criminals."

she's talking about your crazy belief this was a local thing that had nothing to do with Washington

??? I don't believe that.

For those interested, I'll post some websites you can go to in Ma.. Masslive.com is the internet version of the Springfield Republican newspaper. You may click on the map in the "election news" section to see how towns voted (in the 2008 presidential election, there were only 4 red towns). There are also comments after every story you might be interested in. For the record, the newspaper endorsed Coakley and overall, she won western Ma.. Springfield is the largest city in western Ma..
Wggb.com and Wwlp.com are our 2 local news stations in western Ma.. Wwlp.com has a poll running today about shelving the current healthcare package. Wggb.com has a full state map showing the red and blue votes.
Just thought these would give you a better view of the Ma. election than the Huffington Post or Rush Limbaugh.

I haven't seen anybody here quote HuffPost or Rush on the results. How about Boston Globe? (which basically convened a panel that said she ran a bad campaign) Got any local exit polling results? (no formal exit polls were done by the big orgs, but they have been going back and telephoning people to find out why they voted as they did)

The Boston Globe is well known as a liberal newspaper. For equality, try the Boston Herald.

I don't know why they wasted the time convening the "experts", if that's all they could come up with.

Boston Herald front page above the fold:
- Scott Brown: A man’s man with girlie dogs
- Scott Brown is hotter than hot

Curt Schilling put Brown over the top. I might stop rooting for the Yankees and become a Red Sox fan!:D Naaa!

Just for the record, you left out:
Mass Dems fueled anger helping GOP's Brown

Sorry but I'm not going to play the "post a link" game with you. I think the people on here are intelligent and can do their own homework. They will come to their own decisions. Antitrust and Danzig seemed interested in hearing from the Ma. voters and I primarily posted those websites for them.

Good, because I'm not playing "post a link".

What you say is funny, I posted something about what local Mass political people said, and I got creamed for it.

Seriously - as I've said, I've seen no pundits - or interviews - exit polls - nothing - talk about how a good number of independents were upset with how the terrorist was treated. Lots about the economy first, jobs second, some health.

I hope Obama & Co. are with you and as ignorant as to what is happening

Some are seeing this man has no clothes on and hope may work in Kenya but not here!

so you just make shiat up and get mad for being creamed?

Take a couple yellow ones or at least bright color pills and see how that works.

????? You most obviously don't have a clue what is being talked about, nor have you apparently even bothered to read and follow any of the threads. Come back when you are straight.

Obama still thinks people are just mad at Bush. So they vote for the Republican? These people are clueless. Ignore the Town Hall meetings, ignore the Tea Parties, and please ignore the Senate race in Mass. Just keep doing what you are doing.

so, exactly one year ago President Obama signed and executive order stating Gitmo would be closed in one year. Well... has it?

Nope, but most are gone, and it's well on it's way.