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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (556397)	3/22/2010 1:30:25 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575604

CJ, > Who says they will lose? The poll numbers don't look good for Obama and the Democrats. Hoping for an economic recovery to lift your poll numbers is a poor political strategy. You do understand the economy will recover....sooner rather than later, and that the Dems have several months to unwind the lies that Rs have made up about HCR all while the initial aspects of the bill become implemented. My prediction: Rs will get some seats back this fall but Dems will still control Congress. The GOP brand continues to be badly damaged.

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (556397)	3/22/2010 1:40:40 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575604

Get Ready. Up Next: Financial Reform by Meteor Blades Mon Mar 22, 2010 at 10:20:03 AM PDT Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will be speaking this afternoon about financial reform at the American Enterprise Institute, not exactly a place brimful of folks who give smiles to reforms that involve the government unless it's reducing its oversight role. Over the weekend, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke made some rumblings about the need to do something about firms that are "too big to fail," calling their existence "pernicious" and an "insidious" barrier to competition. And starting at 5 p.m., Senator Dodd will lead the executive committee of the Senate Banking Committee in the first round of marking up the 1336-page Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010. (Summary here.) The session will be web cast live. Thus, with health care (almost) headed for the President's desk, the next legislative elephant in the room is finally making its appearance. And, like those fabled sightless men who each touched a piece of their own elephant and described the whole by the virtues and deficits of its trunk, tail and other parts, the interested factions are each seeing the proposed changes in financial regulation rather differently. Already whittled down considerably by compromise from what it might have been - from what its House counterpart already is - the question now is whether the Senate's version of financial reform will generate as much storm and drama as the health care bill. One thing is fairly certain, the number of Republican Senators who eventually vote for it will be measured in single digits, quite possibly with another GOP goose egg. Before arriving at that all-too-predictable obstructionist vote, however, the Party of No will do everything it can to dilute the legislation. Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama and Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee have already introduced some 200 amendments to the Senate bill. I suspect some Democrats will choose to accept a hunk of those amendments in hopes that this will mollify some Republicans into approving the final package. This is, frankly, delusional. Two things are guaranteed in the pursuit of Republican votes by means of watering down proposed legislation: The legislation gets watered down, but the Republican votes don't materialize anyway. Maybe, just maybe, Democrats should think about not watering down this legislation even more than they already have for absolutely no gain whatsoever. It won't generate the votes and it won't stop Republicans from spewing their epithet-heavy attacks. Another certainty is that financial reform will not go nearly far enough toward reversing the 30-year deregulatory trend that in no small part brought on the economic crisis that has forced analysts over the past two years to reach back to the 1930s for relevant comparisons. And by not going far enough, the final certainty is that a fresh crisis will appear sooner or later and drag Americans outside the Top 10% through yet another round of economic hell.

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (556397)	3/22/2010 2:11:43 PM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575604

"The poll numbers don't look good for Obama and the Democrats." A lot of that is because nothing was getting done. That has changed. Plus, the trend has been in their direction. "Hoping for an economic recovery to lift your poll numbers is a poor political strategy." That is not required, although it would seal the deal. As Frum pointed out, the Republicans were playing for all the marbles. And they lost. I think the Tea Partiers are going to be incensed and that will result in the few moderate Republicans to be replaced by more extreme candidates. Who will have more difficulty beating Democrats. Now if the Republican candidates go into 'stealth mode' and run as something other than a Republican, like Brown did, they might have a chance. Not a great one because they will have to depend on their opponents allowing them to do that. Of course, if we double dip on the recession, or the job market doesn't improve, that would be trouble for the Democrats.

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (556397)	3/22/2010 3:16:59 PM
From: bentway	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575604

This part is just for you, Ten. "I hope that Mr. Obama's party can carry this message clearly into the electoral battles ahead, painting the Republican opposition for what it is: a gang of hypocritical, pietistic sadists, seeking pleasure in the suffering of others while pretending to be Christians, devoid of sympathy, empathy, or any inclination to simple human kindness, constant breakers of the Golden Rule, enemies of the common good. In fact, the current edition of the Republican party has achieved something really memorable in the annals of collective bad intentions: they have managed to create a sense of the public interest whose main goal is the destruction of the public interest. This is exactly what the Republican majority on the Supreme Court did earlier this year by deciding that corporations -- which are sociopathic by definition in being answerable only to their shareholders and nothing else -- should enjoy the same full privileges in election campaign contributions as human persons, who are assumed to have obligations, duties, and responsibilities to the common good (and therefore to the public interest). This shameful act by the court majority only underscores the chief defining characteristic of Republicans in their current incarnation: an inability to think. And so, naturally Republicans gravitate toward superstition and the traditional devices of improvident religious authorities -- persecution of the weak, torture, denial of due process, and dogmas designed to spread hatred." James Howard Kunstler