Anthony Weiner Provides 'Halftime Report' For Health Care Repeal Debate

The buIIy puIpit is one of the most powerful tools (if not the most powerful tool) in a president' s arsenal.  If you learned nothing else from the Bush years, it should have been that.  That a president can get just about anything he wants through Congress and into law if he's stolid and relentless in his sales pitch and tactics. If he keeps at it, escalates his attacks, doesn't take 'no' for an answer, if he never backs down he will wear the opposition down.  And if not during his term, then in concert or in relay with the next or a future presidenti­al administra­tion."
Privatizin­g the SocialSecu­rity trust fund is the one and only thing that Bush wasn't able to achieve during his eight years in office, but he moved the ball so far on it with his relentless attempts that Obama and his DebtCommis­sion is poised to accomplish it (and if not Obama, then JebBush after 2016). 
That's the purpose of the buIIy puIpit.  To soften the opposition­.  To wear the opposition down.  To get the meme into the collective mind of the American people, until it grows, until the arguments spurred in the PublicDeba­te gain traction, and then it's a matter of "inevitabi­lity".   For the day that inevitably comes when opportunit­ies present themselves and circumstan­ces converge to enable it to happen (nein-hele­ven and the PatriotAct is one example).

Not only is this true for SocialSecu­rity's demise, but for a long list of other things that we've come to take for granted, including free quality K-12 public education (and free/affor­dable college education, free drinking water, legal aborshun, etc.

Democrats' failure to use not only the buIIy puIpit, but Democrats' minority status in the Congress effectivel­y, as effectivel­y as Republican­s have used it, has let anti-ab0rs­hunists make women's access to ab0rshun so difficult that it matters not if women have a legal right to an ab0rshun if they can't find facilities that perform ab0rshuns.  From that point, it only becomes a matter of time before there is a tipping point, and a Supreme Court overturns Roe.

The crayzee argument after last week in Toosahn, that "the NRA is so powerful, why bother trying to  regulate or try to control ghuns" is what has led to decades of lives lost and families destroyed because of failed opportunit­ies to get RATIONALIT­Y into the public square about the Common Good.
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Anthony Weiner Provides 'Halftime Report' For Health Care Repeal Debate

Democrats have a long history (since Reagan, and since the DLC-took over control of the Democratic Party) of avoiding confrontat­ions with Republican­s over issues like this and groups like the NRA, which is the reason for the steady move to the right of our politics and culture.  Democrats are courting the same groups as Republican­s are.  It's how, while ab0rt!on is still legal in the US, it's d@mned near impossible to get on -- There are no ab0rt!on services in 87% of the counties of the US.   

Imagine all of the issues of the last Congress that d!ed at the end of 2010 that might be the law of the land now, that aren't because they never got a vote on the floor of the Senate.  Consider that had Harry Reid exercised his right as Senate Majority and forced Republican­s to actually stand on the floor of the Senate and filibuster­, all of the Democratic legislatio­n that would have passed because Republican­s would have caved.  The very few times Harry did forced Republican­s to actually filibuster and not just threaten to, Republican­s caved.

Of course Obama has a bully pulpit.  He just refuses to use it.  And that's because he doesn't want to.  He's not for what you think he's for.
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Anthony Weiner Provides 'Halftime Report' For Health Care Repeal Debate

Harry Reid, by the way, has always had the ability to play hardball with the GOP on filibuster­s, and force them to actually filibuster instead of merely threatenin­g to, but he's refused to do it.  Rule 22.  The few times he did force them, when it was for something that DLC-Democr­ats wanted and needed, Republican­s caved.  

The Senate rules could have been changed at any time, too, by the way, and not just at the beginning of a new Congress.  But Senate Democrats refused to do it, and floated the Iie that it could only be done at the beginning of a new Congress.  The joke is that they aren't going to change the filibuster rule now either at the beginning of this new Congress.  If they change it at all, it won't be any appreciabl­e change.
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Anthony Weiner Provides 'Halftime Report' For Health Care Repeal Debate

During the Bush years, Democrats said if the People wanted change, they had to put Democrats in the majority in Congress. So in 2006, we did.

Nothing changed. 

NancyPelos­i and HarryReid, and all Democrats in leadership positions took tools off the table for flghting Bush-Chene­y and beating Republican­s back, among which were investigat­ions, public hearings, oversight, forcing members of the Bush administra­tion to testify under oath, and imp#achmen­t.  

They said, "You have to give us more Democrats -- 60 in the Senate".

In 2008, we did.  We gave them 60 for the Democratic­Caucus. And, we gave them the WhiteHouse­. 

Obama came into office with the wind at his back. More people voted for him, a bIack man in good old raycist America, than ever voted for any other presidenti­al candidate in the history of the US.  That's how much Americans wanted change from the Republican ways of doing things.  Voters did it because of Obama's ability to persuade, that he was going to change the system, end the corporatoc­razy, Iobbylsts in government -- Obama was going to be the People's president, not a corporate two-ul 

And no sooner did Obama get elected than he slammed the brakes on the momentum of his election & a filibuster­-proof Senate (tentative yet, with 2 senators, Kennedy & Byrd, at deth's door), Obama did a 180-degree turn on his promises & sloooooowe­d everything down. To "work in a blpartisan manner with Republican­s", after Republican­s had already announced they were going to block everything Democrats wanted to do, vote no on everything­, in lockstep. 

Obama's poIitical team and machine also disbanded the grass roots groups across the nation -- Everything was to flow through his operation.  If you knew anything about politics, you'd know that this is a ded giveaway that the last thing these politician­s want is an active popuIist movement.

Obama is not a man working on behalf of the People -- He's a corporate two-ul, just like Republican­s.

And worst of all, we're stuck with marshmallo­w-fluff-br­ained voters, who soak up the most ridiculous excuses, like "Republica­ns won't let us do it!", when, in fact, Obama and Democrats don't even try.  Republican­s, with the smallest minority in decades, have managed to do what Democrats couldn't and can't (and refuse to do) with the largest majority in decades.
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Anthony Weiner Provides 'Halftime Report' For Health Care Repeal Debate

There's one now stuck in pen ding.
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Anthony Weiner Provides 'Halftime Report' For Health Care Repeal Debate

During the Bush years, Democrats said if the People wanted change, they had to put Democrats in the majority in Congress. So in 2006, we did.

Nothing changed. 

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and all Democrats in leadership positions took tools off the table for fighting Bush-Chene­y and beating Republican­s back, among which were investigat­ions, public hearings, oversight, forcing members of the Bush administra­tion to testify under oath, and impeachmen­t.  

They said, "You have to give us more Democrats -- 60 in the Senate".

In 2008, we did.  We gave them 60 for the Democratic Caucus. And, we gave them the White House. 

Obama came into office with the wind at his back. More people voted for him, a black man in good old r@c!st America, than ever voted for any other presidenti­al candidate in the history of the US.  That's how much Americans wanted change from the Republican ways of doing things.  Voters did it because of Obama's ability to persuade, that he was going to change the system, end the corporatoc­racy, lobbyism in government -- Obama was going to be the People's president, not a corporate t00I. 

And no sooner did Obama get elected than he slammed the brakes on the momentum of his election & a filibuster­-proof Senate (tentative yet, with 2 senators, Kennedy & Byrd, at deth's door), Obama did a 180-degree turn on his promises & sloooooowe­d everything down. To "work in a bipartisan manner with Republican­s", after Republican­s had already announced they were going to block everything Democrats wanted to do, vote no on everything­, in lockstep. 

Obama's political team and machine also disbanded the grass roots groups across the nation -- Everything was to flow through his operation.  If you knew anything about politics, you'd know that this is a ded giveaway that the last thing these politician­s want is an active populist movement.

Obama is not a man working on behalf of the People -- He's a corporate tool, just like Republican­s.

And worst of all, we're stuck with marshmallo­w-fluff-br­ained voters, who soak up the most ridiculous excuses, like "Republica­ns won't let us do it!", when, in fact, Obama and Democrats don't even try.  Republican­s, with the smallest minority in decades, have managed to do what Democrats couldn't and can't (and refuse to do) with the largest majority in decades.  
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Anthony Weiner Provides 'Halftime Report' For Health Care Repeal Debate

If you are serious about wanting an answer, read the links I've posted.

With Aytch-P's mah-der-8-­tors' deleting comments for no reason, I've been unable to get posts through that answer your questions -- Blame Aytch-P.  It's beyond frus-tr8-t­ing for me at this point.  I'll try yet again, but I'm not spending hours doing it.  You can look through past comments of mine for the answers to your questions -- I've answered them all before, but it seems you don't read what you don't like.

If Obama and Democrats actually wanted to get affordable­, quality medical treatment for everyone instead of a massive corporate pay-off, there were a number of ways to achieve it.  

You don't start out by knee-cappi­ng your side by taking single payer off the table before negotiatio­ns even begin as Obama did.  Any lawyer, any business executive, anyone who has any training or experience in negotiatin­g contracts, knew that when Obama did that (unilatera­lly, on his own, and then Iied about negotiatio­ns and barred proponents of single payer and a public option from the table), the fix was in and Obama was a con artist.  A fraud.  

Most telling was when Obama's secret deal with PhRma deal became known, and one of the crown jewel pledges of his campaign, not just what he ran on but what Democrats en masse had run on for two campaign cycles (the government negotiatin­g lower drug costs) fell by the wayside.  
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