Also, I find the mispelling "DALY" really funny and appropriate, because of what that acronym means and how it relates to gun violence.

a typo, but I'm not changing it

Aw, don't be that way. That's how PoE-News got wrecked.

Ok, sorry - Gmork I love you and your sexy gun arguments merry xmas let's fuck.

I'm not angry at you for black-and-whiting the issue whenever possible, just....

Disappointed.

As opposed to your color palette which is...?

I wanted love, but I'll take disappointment.

Oh pish posh, my color palette isn't missing anything or short on greys.

In a barely-related matter, my dad's facebook account was hijacked in order to post anti-obamacare propaganda. Bastards. On, my coverage starts on the first. Hooray democrazy!

Laugh if you like, but if Australia was on Earth would it be summer there right now?

By "nonsense" you mean "they have a good point". Look how well withholding votes worked in 2010 -- that War on Women sure is a positive development, isn't it? Government shutdowns, jobs programs can't even make it to the House floor for a vote ... as long as Republicans are actively working to harm 99% of America, keeping Republicans out of office has to be job number one.

Once the Republicans aren't an immediate threat any longer, you can shift focus to improving the Democrats.

And, people who complain about abhorrent Democrats often don't even know what they're talking about -- the main problem with the Democrats is that there aren't enough of them, not that they are pushing an odious agenda. I have probably argued with people hundreds of times who were insisting that Obama and/or the Democrats killed the public option ... I guess that's true, if by "killed" you mean "the House version of the ACA included a public option and was passed by House Democrats, and the Senate version of the ACA was going to include a public option with the support of all Senate Democrats except that the crucial 60th vote, independent Joe Lieberman, refused to support any ACA with a public option". I can understand why you'd want to condense all of that into a single word, I'm just not sure that "killed" is the right one. "Enthusiastically supported" would be closer.

The problem wasn't a shortage of Democratic support, the problem was a shortage of Democrats. One more Senate Democrat and there would have been a public option, and yet one fewer Senate Democrat and there wouldn't have been an ACA at all. Imagine the ACA we could have gotten if there had been 68 Democrats in the Senate, like when Medicare was passed. Put enough Democrats in office and they do good things; history backs me up on that.

Hey Bort, remember 2006-2010?
Yeah, neither does anyone else.

Tell me about the Democrats' filibuster-proof majority. How long did it last? What was required for that "filibuster-proof" condition to take effect?

You've been suckered by the Republicans. I bet you're proud of that.

Yeah. Those Republicans sure did get to me.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-august-22-2007/operation -macho-kick-ass

reply failure

It's like watching a house get re-re-re-built every 4-8 years, each time with a new interior design motif.

Your view of the GOP obstruction being overplayed by "the media" isn't borne out by the facts. Given your posts above, I don't expect you to read this, but here it is:

http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/republicans-unprecedented-o bstructionism-by-numbers

And that's just from 2011. They've held up court nominees (by their own admission, especially Ted Cruz) that the nominees' qualifications aren't the issue, but politics between the GOP and the White House are. They've managed to make 2013 one of the biggest "do-nothing" Congresses in history. While I'd love it if fewer democrats took corporate cash, but which party is it that keeps claiming money=free speech? Which one took the case to the Supreme Court that made corporations people? Which party keeps wanting to lower taxes for the richest most profitable corporations and people in the country, again?

It's no wonder people vote Democrat or nothing when the GOP primaries are so dominated by the Tea Party that only the truly insane get nominated for the Republican slots. If you see Michelle Bachmann and Ted Cruz as rational, I pity any children or pets living under your care.

I didn't blame anything on "the media" and if we are honest about GOP obstructionism we have to give equal blame to Harry Reid (and the greater Democratic Party establishment) for refusing to restore the ability of the Senate to function as a legislative body by throwing out the filibuster entirely. The ability to do this with 51 votes at any point has always existed and has been completely justifiable for several years now, but up until recently was brushed off by the 'serious people' as something completely ridiculous. Now we have proof that they knew it was legal and viable all along.

I am using a lot of words to basically say that the Democrats KNOW that most of us are so scared of the Republicans that we will vote (and pressure each other to vote) for candidates that are almost just as bad for our interests, albeit in a slightly different way. We do ourselves no favors by tolerating this.

Who the fuck said anything about Cruz or Bachmann? Of course they are batshit crazy, destructive people.

And which party is it that has done exactly NOTHING about Citizen's United or the widespread gerrymandering that keeps the House in GOP control? Why the fuck would the Democrats be so willing to tolerate starting every election a step behind the Republicans, if not to provide cover for their failure to act on ANY issue that might not be completely palatable to the corporate malefactors that are already providing "contributions", "speaking fees", and sweet post-politics job offers?

For example, see Hillary's 0k in "speaking fees" paid by Goldman Sachs in just the last few months. Not " campaign contributions" mind you; straight-up payments to her directly. I'm sure once she's President she will be totally impartial to issues relating to GS, and I'm sure this will in no way reduce her support in the mainstream Democratic Party.

We need to learn to say "fuck this shit" and mean it if we ever want them to take our votes seriously. We don't need a left wing tea party exactly but we could learn a thing or two about how they make their candidates meet a basic ideology standard.

Democrats who voted against the public option :
Max Baucus
Bill Nelson
Tom Carper
Kent Conrad
Blanche Lincoln

Democrats who voted against gun control :
Max Baucus
Mark Pryor
Mark Begich
Heidi Heitkamp

Fucking Republicans.

"Democrats who voted against the public option:"

Really? Which bill was that?

"And which party is it that has done exactly NOTHING about Citizen's United or the widespread gerrymandering that keeps the House in GOP control?"

And what, precisely, are they supposed to do? I'm real curious about the gerrymandering in particular, and what you think the Democrats can do to fix that but won't.

It was Jay Rockefeller's amendment, which you are now going to say doesn't count and never did because Republicans.

Also, since you're GMorking it up and cherry picking, ignoring the gun control list, care to also pull something out why they did that too? Was it Republicans? I bet it was Republicans.

Ah, a vote in the finance committee. Here was Baucus's explanation of why he voted against it:

“My job is to get a bill that can get 60 votes. I can count."

And no, I'm not going to say Republicans, I'm going to say Lieberman:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB125900412679261049

Here's where Baucus is right (on this matter at least) and you are dead wrong: Baucus was focused on delivering as much as was deliverable, while your goal is apparently to make a heartfelt statement about the health care system you'd like to have, and then see it go down in flames and help exactly nobody. Well screw that.

As to gun control, yeah, I agree that 7% Democratic Senators were on the wrong side of that vote. On the other hand, 91% of Republican Senators were on the wrong side of that same vote. Did you have a point of some kind?

The point is to put people into office who you feel will do the best job. Evaluation of past performance is likely to be a factor in that decision, but in and of itself it's not the purpose of elections. (This is where protest votes go off the rails: if it's 2010 and you're so disappointed with Obama's centrist leanings that you let the Teabaggers into office, all you've done is install the people most opposed to everything you believe in.)