A disgusting vat of filth that no self-respecting intelligent person would wade into.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
So michael J. Fox and others will be saved now? or will their pitches be shown to be so much horseshit? Gee. Can't wait to see the truth.

Yes, I bet the families in the Joe Louis projects in Detroit, who live on foodstamps, lousy government housing, who we have failed with public education and have limited, if any, skilled job opportunities and a general lack of hope, will be thrilled the day MJFox is cured and can rev up a Family Ties reunion show!!

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Spanky
Are you saying both off them have a long track record of lying? You guys are so focused on the source, you don't listen to the logic of their arguments.

Until you guys get out of the "everything my guys say is right, and everything their guys say is wrong" mentality, you will never have much credibility.

Adders record of accomplishent compared to Lieberman's is like holding up a lit match and comparing it to a million acre forest fire. the real beef is, Lieberman is one of the few dems who is not anti-semitic, doesn't support terrorists and is not a plantation style hold the underclass, poor and minorities down type of guy. He has morality and ethics, believes in God, freedom and justice. the rest of the dems hate him for that.

I am proud to say I voted for him. Twice.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The dispute is not about logic or arguments. Lieberman says the troops told him one thing. North says the troops told him another.

Maybe they talked to different troops. Is there more than one soldier over there?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
Maybe they talked to different troops. Is there more than one soldier over there?

From what I linked to:

• . . . Lieberman has justified his call for more troops by saying that he'd reached this conclusion after traveling to Iraq and "speaking with our military commanders on the ground" there. He's even suggested that the commanders themselves "asked" for more troops during those private discussions. Lieberman's account of those conversations, however, has proven to be directly at odds with that provided by GOP Senator Susan Collins, who went to Iraq with Lieberman.
  
  Now North has added still more detail for us, and guess what: It casts still more doubt on Lieberman's assertions. In a column for Human Events in which he (somewhat surprisingly) comes out against escalation, North claims flat out that he spoke to the same officers that Lieberman (and McCain, who was also on the trip) did. . . .

For you, plainly it takes continuing active effort to be so ignorant.

eta: Good night.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop


For you, plainly it takes continuing active effort to be so ignorant.

eta: Good night.

No, as a general rule I don't open your links. I am worried about Demo-bots invading my computer.


eta: good night

[Not Bob]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
Of course this is probably the exception. I will call Abner Louiama to check his thoughts. I tried calling Amadou Diallo, but his number is disconnected.,

You probably could find better examples for your point, since New York had a Republican mayor at the time of the assualt on Louima and the shooting of Diallo, and he was quite adamant about siding with the cops.

Re your general comments on institutional racism and your interaction with it in Chicago, it isn't a partisan issue so much as a machine politics issue (and I should note that those cops probably didn't vote for Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, or Kerry). Many machines are Democratic controlled, but not all. Nassau County on Long Island until quite recently is one example of a GOP controlled large machine (as my uncle from Mineola used to say, Al D'Amato made a lot of people rich before he went to the Senate), and there are many examples of smaller ones all over the country.

[Not Bob]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
Maybe Mehlman's ignorance of history is bourne out of the fact that he was not around when the events occured. While I know its hard to admit your chosen party is led by a KLansman (and a serial rapist), even your left wing NYT has started to recognize the holes in the myth of the "Republican Southern strategy", see below and

Bullshit. Only one who is himself ignorant of history would suggest that -- how conveniently you forget Saint Ronald Reagan's speech at the Neshoba County Fair in 1980 in Philadelphia, Mississippi (where voting rights activits Goodman, Cheney, and Schwartzman were murdered in 1964), in which he said:

• "I believe in states' rights. I believe we have distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended to be given in the Constitution to that federal establishment." He went on to promise to "restore to states and local governments the power that properly belongs to them."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

That, my friend, is pretty clear.

And of course there are economic issues, too, and not everyone who moved to the GOP in the South is a racist. But the people in the audience that day knew exactly what "powers" Reagan suggested he would "restore" to Mississippi.

eta cite for speech

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Spanky
Until you guys get out of the "everything my guys say is right, and everything their guys say is wrong" mentality, you will never have much credibility.

Could be a new Board Motto, but following this to its logical conclusion could lead you to put about 90% of the posters on Ignore, and what fun would that be?

S_A_M

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
Yes, I bet the families in the Joe Louis projects in Detroit, who live on foodstamps, lousy government housing, who we have failed with public education and have limited, if any, skilled job opportunities and a general lack of hope, will be thrilled the day MJFox is cured and can rev up a Family Ties reunion show!!

The Admins and Moderators have failed Penske and Hank --
Friends don't let friends post drunk.
:sniffle:

S_A_M

[Adder]

Did y'all see the way that Senator McCain body-blocked the other "war heros" that participated in the coin toss of the BCS championship game last night, thereby keeping all of the free camera time for himself? Classy.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Spanky
RT - what do you think of this plan?


Gov. seeks sweeping health system reforms
By Jordan Rau, Times Staff Writer
3:09 PM PST, January 8, 2007

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today proposed upending just about every portion of the healthcare industry in one of the country's most elaborate efforts at holding down medical costs and expanding insurance to those who don't have it.

Schwarzenegger's plan, which he publicly unveiled at noon, would require employers with 10 workers or more to buy insurance for their workers or pay a fee of 4% of their payroll into a program to help provide coverage for the uninsured.

Schwarzenegger would tax doctors 2% of their gross revenue and place a 4% tax on hospitals. He campaigned for reelection on an anti-tax platform, but his administration argues that so many more people would have insurance that medical providers would make more money.

The governor also wants to ban insurers from refusing to offer coverage to some individuals because of their prior medical conditions. Insurers would also have to spend at least 85% of their premium revenues on patient care, a move that would limit the amount companies spend on administrative costs and profits.

In an effort to cover all Californian children, including ones in the state illegally, Schwarzenegger's plan would expand the state's Healthy Families program, providing insurance to children whose parents make less than three times the poverty level. That works out to about $60,000 for a family of four.

And Schwarzenegger said his plan would require every Californian to have health insurance.

"If you can't afford it, the state will help you buy it," he said, "but you must be insured."

Schwarzenegger called the delivery and payment of healthcare in California "disastrous," noting that nearly 1 in 5 residents is uninsured.

"The problem with that is, of course, that the rest of the people who have insurance pay for them," said the governor. "Those that are fortunate enough to have coverage — we are paying a hidden tax."

Schwarzenegger spoke by satellite from Los Angeles. Doctors treating his broken leg have ordered him not to fly more than once a week. The governor will fly to Sacramento on Tuesday to deliver his annual State of the State address.

All of these ideas are sure to engender opposition from the healthcare industry and their allies in the Legislature, which must approve any plan before it becomes law.

Anticipating a hostile reaction to his plan from many quarters, Schwarzenegger said that although it appears that some people lose and others win under this proposal, in fact the whole system would benefit.

"Everyone has been left here with a better deal," he said.

But Republican lawmakers and business groups have long argued against additional requirements on employers.

Two hours before Schwarzenegger unveiled his plan, Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines (R-Clovis) joined with a trio of small business owners in a Thai restaurant a few blocks from the Capitol to announce that his caucus will resist any plan that places a mandate on employers. He called such mandates a "job tax," and stood at a podium alongside a large poster with those words circled and crossed through in red.

"If we put any form of mandate on a business, we are seeing a jobs tax," he said. "This isn't a philosophical discussion. This is a jobs discussion. This is the difference between employees having a job and a jobs tax that says no to that."

The governor's plan matches some elements of proposals put forth last month by the Legislature's top two Democrats. All plans build on an existing system, in which 71% of California employers offer workers health insurance.

All plans also include a "pay or play" element by which employers who don't offer health benefits must pay a fee to a state agency that would then negotiate with private insurers for worker coverage.

Last month, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) proposed taxing workers and employers to cover an estimated 4.2 million of 6 million uninsured Californians, with a requirement that all employers — even those with a single employee — offer health insurance or pay the state a percentage of payroll. Perata would also require workers to prove when they pay taxes that they have health insurance.

The plan of Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) would not force workers to show they have health insurance. He would exempt businesses with less than two workers, those with a payroll less than $100,000 and firms less than three years old.

This afternoon, Nunez called Schwarzenegger's plan "pretty much in sync with the proposal I laid out in December." He also called it "a good start."

Schwarzenegger agrees with Assembly Democrats, Nunez said, on many areas, including giving all California children health insurance, requiring insurers to accept all people regardless of their health status and requiring employers to either offer health benefits or help pay the cost of extending it to their workers.

"When it's all said and done, employers in California will pay a portion of their payroll deductions toward the cost of insuring their employees," said Nunez. "That will happen."

The speaker said the governor's plan could pass the Legislature on a simple-majority vote, which would not require any Republican support.

Republican lawmakers, who are a minority in the Assembly and Senate, have a seat at the table, Nunez said. But they are out of touch with mainstream Californians, he said, when they insist that children in the country illegally get no state-assisted health insurance. And they are wrong, Nunez said, in characterizing the governor's plan as a new tax.

"I don't think . . . that the governor and the Democratic Legislature ought to roll over or steamroll the Republicans in this process," said Nunez. "But I think we need to have an honest discussion about what's a real mandate and what's not a real mandate.

"The mandate is a hidden tax of $1,200 that each of us has to pay because there are employers out there who would rather increase that rate of profit and put it in their pocket than to pay a portion of the healthcare costs of their employees," Nunez said. "That's a tax."

Conceptually, I like it. I'd need to see more details on it, though, before making any pronouncements on good or bad. California (at least when I was practicing there five years ago) was an awful place for physicians to practice. I can't imagine that this would improve things much, though the likelihood of uncompensated care would go down.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
Its not substitution, its using oppressive racism to affect the outcome. Much in the same way Chicago's finest used a gun to deny my client his right to counsel.




Your inability to admit that rampant racism perpetuated by governement institutions exists in Demo controlled Urban Amerika is implication enough. My follow up question remains, what affect does decades of such racism and oppression, which is then denied or constructively ignored by the masses of white urban faux intellectial elitist liberals who help put the Dems in power, have on the underclass of the innercity and isn't possible that the Dems use such oppression to manipulate votes?

Just for the record, and I'm not going to engage in debate on the topic, you're acting like a real prick here. If that's your intention, fine. But make no mistake about it, you're acting like a prick.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Adder
I am a tad surprised that no on here is talking about this stem cell research breakthrough.

Then again, the Penske stink has returned with a vengeance, so there are more important things to virtually verbally vomit about.

I had read the article, and I think it's great. But I'm pretty sure any attempt to engage in real discussion here would prove unproductive.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
So michael J. Fox and others will be saved now? or will their pitches be shown to be so much horseshit? Gee. Can't wait to see the truth.

Unfortunately, both you and I will be dead long before the full efficacy of stem cells is fully understood, let alone approved for therapeutic use. But I appreciate your contribution to the cause.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Adder
Why would I believe either of these individuals? Neither has a great track record.

North is saying exactly what I've heard a relative (an army officer) say; if you click on the link to his article, I think he is exactly right.

If you're looking at troop strength, I think the choices are (i) radically increase forces, by 100,000 or more; (ii) increase modestly, as Bush is proposing; (iii) remain stable or slowly decrease; and (iv) radically decrease. There is a second choice that has to be made as well, which is whether to expose troops to riskier maneuvers in order to have more impact.

Choice (ii) is, from a military perspective, shear idiocy. It doesn't get us enough additional fire power or presence to make a difference, has a steep political cost in Iraq and the Middle East generally, and can likely be countered by our opponents (for whom American escalation becomes a recruiting vehicle). With choice (ii), the only way to really have an impact is simultaneously engage in riskier, more aggressive maneuvers, resulting in a surge in American losses.

Choice (i) can be justified, but requires a level of backbone Bush doesn't have, since we either need to increase the size of our military or launch a major diplomatic initiative. This is the choice that allows our troops to both maintain their current, relatively cautious approach there and have a significant impact.

Choice (iv) is what we'll be left with if the situation deteriorates. Choice (iii) is the only real option if Bush doesn't push choice (i).

Any way you look at it, he has to explain his thinking and tell us what his goals are. I'm looking forward to that - it's been a long time coming.