The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

Here's how I see things going in the near future:

Democrats in Congress have used up all of their political capital.  Passing the health care bill was a necessity for the party.  If they failed to get it through, not only would the same people who are pissed now be pissed that they tried, but the democratic base would be pissed that they were unable to get their shit together to do it.

I think that Congress will accomplish nothing of note through the elections in 2010.  Now is campaign time, and Obama owes the blue-dog Dems big-time.  He will go campaigning in the purple states for these guys really hard, trying to keep them in office, explaining this health care bill, and taming some of the anger that came with it.

And while Obama may stop the bleeding some, the Dems are going to lose a lot of seats in both the House and Senate.

The GOP will maintain their current message that this is Socialism and a grave mistake.  It will be a one note campaign for them -- that they are needed to bring balance back to Congress, to prevent the runaway train from doing any more damage.  It will be largely successful.  They most likely will preach retraction of the health care bill, but realistically, they won't be able to do it, once in office.  Get prepared to see lots of lawsuits and large grandstanding claims that go nowhere, but play well, politically.

Next on the plate for the President, politically will be something that has lots of bi-partisan support.  ...perhaps immigration reform or green energy.  There's no way that he's going to get Pelosi and the Dems in Congress to put their necks out again on a major vote anytime soon, so it'll have to be something that isn't too contested.

The health care thing speaks well of him.  The anger will die down (I question how much of that anger is from legit people who understand the law) and it will be better for Obama to be seen as a "doer".  Also, the economy seems to be improving pretty steadily, and he can rest on that for a bit.

I used this in another thread, it is appropriate here:

This country is filled with people that feel an appropriate use of "911" is their order being screwed up at McDonald's.

I work in health care in two ways:
1 - I work for a major insurance company
2 - I work on the front lines as a per diem nurse in ICU in Maine's largest city.

I see issues from both sides.  I've researched this bill and still don't know real meat of it.  I would guess that the majority of Americans do not know either, especially in a nation that does not understand the difference between a right and a courtesy.

Therefore, it is easy to assume that the loudest "outrage" from the peanut gallery is coming from the GOP / far right.  This is the sector of our population that will bemoan anything that left does just because.  That isn't always a bad thing, the nature of being "on the right" means, by it's defintion, that they will disagree with the stance of those on the left.

That said, in the nature of that discourse, decent and fundamental portions of this bill that are correct, or "good" are going to be drowned in the rhetoric of the "Louisiana purchase" type stance / posture. 

As Americans, we're in a very unique position.  Never before in any generation that has come before us have any group of people been more worried about the bottom line - and by "bottom line" I mean themselves - versus the general good and health of a nation.  The "powers that be" do things that, generally, will better their position.  The general masses accept those changes if those changes better their personal situation, even if it is to the detriment to millions of others.  The flip side of that stands to be true, they will bemoan something that would benefit many while causing something of minor riff to themselves.

In short, we have become a nation of fat, lazy, selfish and entitled people.  We are all stuck in a quagmire of being right for the sake of it and making a stance...just for the sake of it. 

I would recommend everyone to read about the fall of Rome.  I find the connections between the deterioration of that empire and what is happening with the United States fascinating.  After 1,000 years in power Rome never thought they would on the door stop to "the end", either. 

Are we?

I think we could be closer than a lot of people think.

Fascinating times.  Historic.  I wonder what tales will be told about the United States in 1,000 years?

 Rome didn't have an "A" Bomb and control of most of the worlds Satellites and Technology. I truly think there are people that would make everyone go down instead of giving control to say.......China or another country.

No, I don't think we are "on the doorstep to the end" at all...

I also think that if a person really wants to, they can find enough obscure ties between modern-day America and any civilization from mankind's history to make "whatever" point that person wants to make.

Dave, explain to me how the economy is improving because I am not seeing it.

^^ change tends to work from the edges to the middle....We're in the middle.... :D Unemployment numbers went up here..

Do you really believe that immigration reform and green energy are bipartisan issues?   You must be thinking about some other marginally-reasonable Republican party.  I strongly suggest that you google the following two terms:

"shamnesty"
"drill baby drill"

The only immigration reform that Republicans will agree to is forced mass deportation (even McCain has been trashed repeatedly by the right for suggesting otherwise with his immigration reform bills).

Green energy is a complete non-starter when you are dealing with a group of people who not only refuse to believe that climate change is an issue, but see any attempt to reduce our reliance on oil (foreign or domestic) as a smokescreen to funnel pork money to insider green-energy companies.

The only issue that could see any sort of bipartisan support from the GOP is financial reform (which I believe is actually up next), and I strongly suspect that as soon as Obama starts to focus on it, the GOP will immediately pivot to obstructing whatever course of action he recommends on the topic.

This is a party that, for the last 15 months, has singularly focused on opposing whatever it is that Obama is in favor of.  Honest policy differences do not result in 4 major bills (6 separate votes) with a total of 4 GOP "yes" votes out of 793 GOP votes cast.  They're trying to execute a political strategy that simply consists of opposing Obama on virtually every issue no matter what.

The only immigration reform I would like to see is the enforcement of our illegal immigration laws.

I am extremely disapointed with the level of rancor and disrepect that has come about in the chamber. It looks like the British Parliament light.

There is some moderate GOP support for certain green tech and environment stuff, as well as immigration reform.  I don't expect the GOP as a whole to support the Dems, but I think they'll be able to get a few stragglers and call it a bi-partisan bill.

Also, every conservative I know was against this health bill (they are fundamentally against gov't involvement), but of the conservatives I know, they are split on how to deal with immigration and green tech.  And as for me, I don't see a clear black/white solution to immigration, so I imagine that the other side isn't so clear on it either.

Are you kidding? My Investments have doubled! A few have tripled. Realestate is still slow but up from the past year. Unemployment is still an issue , but no one said we are back. Just that its improved.

The DOW is up a lot, and I'm seeing more movement in my business, personally. 

I hear the same things on the news, as well.

For me personally, we're still broke, but I am getting the opportunity to put together proposal and am making some sales.  My clients are noticing the same thing.  As Defense said, we're not back, but we're improving -- at least in my industry.

Any Republican who votes with the Dems on any major legislation (green energy and immigration certainly qualify) will immediately face a primary opponent from his right.  These are the consequences when congressmen spend a good chunk of their media time saying that their opponents are the greatest threat to this Republic since Hitler; you can't then turn around and agree with Hitler on some stuff.

Again, I can't believe that you would think that the GOP would move anywhere at all on immigration; they couldn't even come to terms with McCain on the subject, so why in the world would they compromise with Obama?

McCain is already facing a primary challenge from his right.  Hell, Ron Paul (who's ideology practically founded the tea parties) is being primaried from his right.  This is not an environment where compromise will be tolerated.

Is it Too early to discuss a few Republicans that will challenge Obama in 2 yrs?

No.  I think that the GOP is fairly easy to predict in terms of candidates.  They aren't known for picking people out of nowhere - generally they pick their candidate as the 2nd in line from the previous election.

That said, Romney seems to be in pretty good shape.  I don't take Sarah Palin seriously.  She could win in some areas, but nationally, she's unelectable.  I think that Huckabee is likeable and a good speaker, but that he's not "business" enough to get national cred.  Jindal is too much of a wussy.  So, I put all of my money on Romney.

Palin is getting a reality show. Doesn't that somehow disqualify you from being president? If it doesn't, it should.

No way Palin is gonna get a nomination. She is one of the reasons They blew it in the last election.

Society, as we know it now?  I think the decline started a long time ago.

The single most respected President in the modern era acted with chimps.

This vision reminded me of how everyone was completely freaked by him winning the election, myself included. We had this unintelligent, warmongering, playboy actor in mind.  

Not respected by me. Reagan sucked ass.

I'm curious how much you remember Reagan's time as well as that of Carter for you to say this. Although I lean liberal and feel "Just say no" is a joke, Reagan brought this country out of a big hole that were were in during the 70's.

I recognize that is what you think. And you aren't alone, as lots of folks think that way.

I'm just not buying it...

I was but a child. However, I love to read and learn what happened and how we got to where we are now. His "Just Say No" thing resulted in entire communities - primarily lower class and people of color - being incarcerated and ripped apart. The War on Drugs was a racist initiative to begin with. It's great to start a war on drugs and  then make sure that the drugs are in the appropriate neighborhoods.  Reagan is also responsible for the incredibly racist term "welfare queen" that many black women have to work so hard to disprove. Nevermind his handling of the AIDS epidemic. He even later apologized for his handling of the disease.

I worry more about social things than any financial stuff, so in my opinion he sucked ass.

Why? Were you even born when he was elected?   By the same criteria you judge me, I say you are RACIST and bias. just saying.........

Don't think so.  We are just in a very Politically Correct era with people looking for excuses and to term the way they are becuase they are poor racist victims.

So racist that I'm boning the enemy.

I hate to quibble, but if entire communities that were ripped apart were done so because of their involvement in the drug trade, what exactly is there to complain about other than that vast societal issues pre-dating this particular President put them in his crosshairs?  Are you saying that 1980s era Miami (cocaine cowboys time) was a good thing?  Or 1980s era New York?  Large cities were fighting a large drug problem, and he put the Federal Government's might and resources in the middle of the fight.  Poor people fell into drugs because that's where the opportunity to earn quick money lied, and because they didn't have the life skills to earn high paying jobs (certainly that's not Reagan's fault; his presidency lasted but 8 years, and poverty is a generational issue).

As for AIDS, if you belive the government should fund the fight against all diseases then every President is terrible ifor his "handling" of one disease or another.  In our system of government, we're supposed to take care of ourselves, and the govwernment helps us where we cannot help ourselves.  AIDS research could've been helped along more by government, to be sure, but this country's struggles with the disease don't flie at his feet.

She of copier machine stories.  Buddha...you make me feel funny!

:)

I fully believe the government was helping bring in the drugs that they were warring against. So. There's that.

The AIDS epidemic was greatly ignored at first. Reagan later admitted that and apologized for it. It should have been treated as any other communicable disease that is being spread. (Like the flu, for instance.)

Happy to oblige.

1:  You need not be alive in order to make judgement on the effectiveness of a particular leader.  To suggest that you actually need to live under that leadership in order to have an opinion smacks of ignorance.  I didn't live under Stalin or Hitler, should I not exercise my opinion on either based on what history his written about both?  

2:  AIDS.  It is not fair to place the blame for this at the feet of a President that lead a country when this disease was first coming to light.  NO ONE knew what is was, how you could get it or where it came from.  It wasn't even defined at "AIDS" until 1982.  Before that it was called GRID.  Regan left office in 1989.  That same year scientists were able to figure out how AIDS was transmitted.  Not before.  1988?  For all people knew it was airborne and you could catch it by someone sneezing in your face.  

Understanding that even Regan apologized for his handling of the virus, I feel that apology is coming from information he knew in hindsight and came from guilt of "what could have been."  

If you want to blame any president in this country for under funding it would be George Senior.  By the time he took office the medical community had a better grasp of what they were fighting and a general idea of where to place the financial means for research.  Before that?  It was literally like throwing darts in the dark.

I understand the popular sentiment among special advocacy groups is to blame Regan.  The initial response was slow.  But, again, if you look at the numbers the initial infected was a small sampling as well.  

And I never banged a hot black chick ?  ::) ;)

I know you are a lot closer to this than I, but this doesn't seem right to me. Thinking back to where I was and how old I was in '88/89 it seems like transmission had been figured out by then. There was still misinformation flying around from uneducated sources, but I thought they have pretty much had it down by then.

Agreed. I thought by the late 80's we sort of had it figured out a bit.  Of course I could be wrong. (I'm just remembering the push to get people to use condoms.)

Now that's conjecture.  And just to be clear:  do you believe the government was facilitating the drug trade for profit while also incarcerating poor people it snared in law enforcement stings?  Like there was this massive conspiracy to profit from the drug trade while also jailing entire communities of the impoverished?  Now, the government would get into bed with bad people if those people helped fight the spread of communism, but actively helping drugs reach the country (as policy, not as done by corrupted officials) is the stuff of movies.



The AIDS epidemic was largely misunderstood at first.  Reagan, like virtually everyone else at the time, did not understand the disease.  Allocating federal funds to, say, cancer instead of AIDS is, in my view, fully defensible, given that cancer kills many, many more people than AIDS does.  More could have certainly been done, and that is something Reagan admitted to, but to lay AIDS squarely at his feet is as ridiculous as laying any social problem squarely at any one person's feet.

When Magic johnson reveled in 1990 that he had it , THAT opened peoples eyes. Until then it was treated as a terminal disease that only gay people get . He corrected alot of the mis Information out in the public.

Keep in mind that I am speaking only of the actual method of transmission.  They knew a ton about it before that time.  

It was linked to blood in 1982.  They still didn't have any way to rule out other methods of transmission at that time.

To my knowledge the official edict of how it's transmitted and - more importantly how it is not - was announced in 1989.

If you look at the complexity of the HIV virus, it's amazing that they figured it out that fast.

Keep in mind that people still thought you could get it from a hand shake, toilet seat or someone sneezing in your face until that time.  The mystery of that virus is still perplexing now.

I remember people thinking you could get it from toilet seats and people coughing on you in 1986.  I distinctly remember watching news commentary where they were trying to dispel these rumors, among others (like that it was only a gay disease).  It was 1986, I remember, because I'd just moved to the United States from Costa Rica.

Even as a freshman in college (1993), we had a guy come into one of my classes to talk about living with AIDS (back then the drug "cocktails" had just begun to come out, and he talked about their cost and their effects on his body and the fact that they only worked in a small percentage of people).  Even then, he spent half of his time dispelling myths about AIDS (like "can you get it by shaking hands with someone with a scab on his hand?").  This was at 8 months into Clinton's term...

I believe that the government actively helped crack/cocaine reach the country, and helped spread it through the ghettos and then locked up the poor/people of color. I think blacks in particular were targeted.


I don't lay it squarely at his feet, but I do believe he and his administration could have done more.

I am not referring to the uneducated. I am referring to people who were paying attention. By 1993 if you still needed to have transmission myths explained you were really behind the curve. Science had it fully understood by then. I had transmission understood well before then and I was a hillbilly.

Really? I wasn't in those circles. By 1990 it was clearly not a "homosexual" disease.

I don't like some of the fiscal stuff that Reagan did with voo-doo economics and trickle down, etc.  However, I think that he did an excellent job with foreign relations for the time.  His policy style worked well in the 80s and in a time where the cold war was a serious threat, his steady hand and, more importantly, lack of rash actions helped oversee some pretty major events.

That's not to say that he didn't have his share of debacles, but what two term president doesn't?

FYI, to clarify - I am not letting Regan completely off the hook for this.  However, between '81 and '89 there were less than 10,000 deaths in this country from this virus during that time.  Lesser known illness killed people more rapidly.  In retrospect alone I can see where this wouldn't warrant a lot of attention.  Look at H1N1.  That virus has killed more people in this country in under a year than the documented cases of HIV / AIDS in the first five years (after 1981).

Factor in the "this is a gay disease" and now you have a recipe for disaster.

That said, by '85 or '86 we knew we have a larger problem on our hands and more action should have been taken.

Here is a good reference / time line:

http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/InSite?page=kb-01-03 (http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/InSite?page=kb-01-03)

yeah.......and Bush is responsible for hurricane Katrina right?  ::)

You should certainly exercise your opinion on past leaders...as long as you understand (and appreciate) that every bit of info that is forming that opinion is based on other people's perspectives, opinions, etc..., rather than being based on firsthand knowledge.

Personally, I've read too many "historical accounts" that I felt were biased or otherwise skewed by perspective to be completely comfortable walking down that path.

Just like the thread I started a week or so ago about a group of Texans determining that Thomas Jefferson was not an influential founder (I can't remember the exact terminology they used) so that they could push him out of history books.

How come no one is addressing Buddha's claim the government "helped spread it through the ghettos and then locked up the poor/people of color. I think blacks in particular were targeted"? Is there something I'm missing or is it because its so irrational that no one but Defense will touch it?

^^^I asked for clarification that that was, indeed, her belief.  Once she said yes, well, I can't really argue with her because  she probably believes in the same way people believe the moon landings were staged and 9/11 was carried out by our government.  To me, It's a belief that defies all logic.  I think (I hope Buddhagirl agrees) it best to not even try to argue that point.  To me, it's crazy she thinks that, and to her, it's probably crazy that I don't see it.

Yeah, any time race gets introduced into the conversation, I tend to take my leave and go check out threads elsewhere. Race, Politics and Religion...if I could nuke all three, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Yep. I really thought it was common knowledge. We all have our conspiracy theories. I guess that one's mine.

I don't know how deeply it goes, but the US government has been found to be invovled with drugs as part of the Iran Contra Scandal. It cannot be denied because it has been admitted. Now whether it goes all the way to a conspiracy to jail black people, I don't know that I go that far.

Its a good thing that no white people or Rich people do drugs or that might blow a big ole hole in that theory huh?  ::)

Stop the petty bickering please.  I hate any threads that involve you two.  If you can't get along, just ignore each other.   Shit.

Not personal at all Bro.  Am I supposed to just ignore moronic Racist theory's ? Just once I would like to see her held accountable for a dumb statement and actually have to explain it.

Show me just once where I haven't at least tried to explain and back any statement I've made.

Yes.  For fuck's sake - YES!

For a supposed member of the law enforcement community, this statement makes you look completely ignorant.
Crack is a direct byproduct of cocaine. The reason it was created was the cost of cocaine was too high and only people with money could really afford it so a new cheaper drug was created. When it came to legislate penalties for these drugs, the rich, white members of Congress made the penalties for crack which was primarily consumed by minorites and poor whites harsher than the penalties for cocaine which was the prefered drug of choice for rich white kids and politicians.
That is not a conspiracy, that is fact. In fact many federal jusdges have displayed open distain and hatred of the disparity in sentencing guidlines set down by Congress concerning crack vs cocaine and the mandatory minimums for each.

As to her other claim, it was brought up in the paper in San Jose that has a reputation for going after very difficult stories. They did a whole expose, with evidence and witnesses that showed how that certain government entities with names made up of letters was helping push drugs into the country and California specifically to help fund their activities in Central America. Now on its face value this would sound carzy, except for the fact a certain marine colonel took the blame for higher up in the Reagan administration dring the Iran/Contra hearings about the CIA program to get weapons to Central America.

Speaking of ignorant......Have you ever worked in a prison/ A Courthouse? A Jail/ investigated and actually helped prosecute a crack or cocaine case?

You are such a moron I do not know where to start. Crack cocaine has NOTHING to do with the price. People will do what they need to do to get high. Crack became attractive because of its availability. Crack Moms and Dads take a very small amount of actual cocaine and cook the rest in any dwelling with a stove. Rich people with Millions will become crack heads because they can get it very easily and there is a never ending supply. I know this because I have actually arrested Rich well to do crack heads. Helped sieze a 2006 Porsche as well. WTF does Ronald Reagan have to do with a bunch of hood rats inventing a never ending supply of coke that does not have to be imported? And how is it only black people are addicted to it?

I don't know whats more stupid, the actual theory , or you actually trying to defend it.  ???

BTW you brought my employment into this, not I.

Ok no problem. Its your house, your rules. I just wish people around here gave Tommy the same Leway for being a few bricks short of a wall. And he never insulted people to such a degree.

^^^ OMG I can't stop laughing at how Wrong that statement is.....

Too much name calling B.S.