Obama's Failures

And before anyone makes a fuss: yes yes, I know the city is not the same thing as the auto industry. But then, it was always a fairly transparent rhetorical ploy to say "Detroit" rather than "these specific businesses" in the first place. And this brings that rhetoric into sharp relief with reality. This is the other side of the sword.

The "buck" stops at the ballot box... the next election will be a game changer.

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“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

I think the long-term result of Obama's Presidency will be that Democrats will have to become more skeptical of their leaders and institutions. They got their dream scenario: a young, historical, gifted candidate with control of the House and the Senate, and it wasn't anything close to what they'd hoped.

It's hard to imagine that this won't be in the back of some people's minds the next time someone tries to sell them some magic beans about how government programs are going to fix their problems, or how this time the candidate really will be committed to transparency.

I think a lot of people on the left had it in their head that this stuff hadn't always worked in the past because they hadn't found the right person. But any system that requires the right person to work isn't a viable one. That's an old lesson about monarchy that has to be relearned by about half the electorate.

Unless I'm missing something, I think I agree with that entire post, Yoda.

However, this first paragraph especially, and not just for one party or their supporters in the US or any other country. This should be in the mind of all voters in any democracy.

A politicians first job is to get elected. Their second is the get re-elected. You are, at best, third on their list of priorities and, unless you happen to be extremely rich, famous or have some kind of soft power or are of some other benefit to them, you'll be lucky to be third important with those towards the top of the greasy pole.

Obama couldn't do anything because he's not a dictator. That's not to say he'd have done what he said he would even if he was, but, if you'll allow me to go all Top Gun for a moment, his mouth was writing cheques his administration couldn't cash. He's the President, he's not, regardless of the hype, 'the most powerful man in the world'. He can't do as he pleases and, with the parties seemingly getting further and further apart, no one else is going to be able to, either.

As you might remember, the main reason I wanted him elected was to keep Palin as far away as possible from any and all power. I thought that, at best, he may be able to emulate Kennedy abroad, which he did at first, helping the image of the US abroad and creating a wave of optimism and goodwill. Obviously he's still more popular than Bush, but with Guantanamo still open, as well as the huge increase in drone strikes, he'd already all but destroyed his 'brand' long before PRISM. Despite this, he's still done his the one thing he was assured of doing, he's slayed the 'you can't have a black man in the White House' mantra. Whether all that's done is disillusion a whole new section of voters or not, we can't be sure, but maybe that's not a bad thing, either.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

The problem isn't the Republican party, it's a flaccid, ineffective, supposed "opposing party." The only reason the corporate funded Tea party movement was able to get seniors to carry signs saying: "Keep Your Government hands off my Medicare," and attempt to elect plumbers with no knowledge of the tax code but still have a problem with it, is because there is no representative on the left that can point out the logical fallacies of these fools, or much less make the argument for Leftist policies that they supposedly believe in so much. There is no actual left in America, so it's no surprise that the right has become more and more unstable and reckless. It's our own fault America, supporting the liberals and faux leftists of the Democratic party, when we should have been mounting support for true Leftists.

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...uh the post is up there...

Hi FILMFREAK! I'd respond with some substance, but every time I do that you either disappear or spar only very briefly before disappearing. At no point have you shown any real willingness to engage in a sustained defense of your worldview--which, for those who haven't been following these changes, is at least genuine Socialism at this point, if not full-blown Communism. Which is not hyperbole, by the way. That's what he means by "actual left."

Anyway, you know the deal: there are piles of unanswered questions from the last few sermons-disguised-as-posts you tossed out. I'd be happy to organize and summarize them, provided you have any intention of following through for once.

And since this thread got bumped anyway, the Obamacare marketplace launch has been a complete technical disaster. Glitches, pages failing to load--why, it's almost like MoFo before the new server. They've even had to engage in a massive password reset, which either means a security leak or a problem with decryption on the back end.

And in case you were wondering, no, raw traffic is not the reason. There are some serious scability flaws that you can detect that wouldn't be explained by traffic (like missing security questions). Not to mention that anticipating that traffic is a big part of the job.

A lot of people like to say that health care is too important to be left to the market. I say it's too important to be left to government.

Socialist, as Communism is a as of yet unattainable society. And yes, Obamacare is a joke, a gimme to insurance companies that got Obama elected.

Sure, but at the same time, the Republicans and all who oppose Obamacare are backed by the healthcare industry, who have absolutely no problem in stripping every last penny from every American who has the misfortune of suffering an ailment. Neither way is right, I reckon.

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Here, if you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw. There it is, that's a straw, you see? You watching?. And my straw reaches acroooooooss the room, and starts to drink your milkshake... I... drink... your... milkshake!
-Daniel, There Will Be Blood

Absolutely, in no way am I justifying the Republican party. My reasoning is that both groups are bought and paid for, the difference is that the Republican party doesn't hide that they are solely motivated by the wants and needs of Capitalist class, while the Democrats hide it.

I'd like to know what this claim is based on. As has already been pointed out, the insurance industry supported it, and so did many large pharmaceutical companies.

Insurance companies made millions with the healthcare system before Obamacare, so it's not like these companies have a solid stance.

Besides, it was Republican President Reagan's fear of Socialism that prevented Universal Health Care from coming to the States years ago.

I'm not sure how this is a response to my question.

This also isn't really a response to anything, as far as I can see. And the use of the pejorative "fear" rather than the more accurate "opposition" is pretty transparent.

This is a good video on the subject.

I can't get Healthcare.gov to work for me. After many unsuccessful attempts at trying to create an account, I finally managed to make one and had e-mails from them sent to my e-mail account and everything... but immediately after I made the account, the system wouldn't sign me in. Put in my username and password and nothing was recognized. I've tried to get the site to send me e-mails to help reset my password -- the e-mails have never showed up (and I've made several attempts). I attempted to create another account using the same username I used before -- it wouldn't let me because it said my username was already in the system. Okay. Makes sense. So how about e-mailing me something I asked for? Or letting me on the site? I attempted to create another account with a different username (but same e-mail address) -- it said the system was having a problem and could not create the account at that time.

Is this **** even real? I feel like it's a joke website. I am so disgusted with all of this.

But it's not really on the subject. Like virtually all Communist propaganda, it's just "hey, stop talking about that! Talk about this thing we want to talk about! Anyone who doesn't talk about it is a sheep!"

Communists have every right to question the basic assumptions of capitalism, of course, but most of the world has seen Communism for what it is and marginalized those who do that. So at this point they've been reduced to trying to piggyback on the issues of the day, even though they just use them to redirect the conversation back to the things most people had already largely rejected. This is basically what you're doing right now, too.

Finally I've received an e-mail from Healthcare.gov about recovering my password -- which I knew, but the system won't let me sign in, so I'm trying to reset it --

I click on a link the e-mail gives me and it sends me to the Healthcare.gov site, where I read:

"We weren't able to process your request because we couldn't find a Marketplace profile that matched the information that you provided."

A request for them to confirm my username via e-mail... doesn't arrive in my e-mail inbox.

This website has been a nightmare. ARE PEOPLE ACTUALLY SUCCESSFULLY GETTING THROUGH ON IT?

Anyone here been able to use it?

I have had problems with it since day one, when the drop down menus for security questions didn't work.

Some good reading on how often this administration (and the Democratic party in general) repeatedly reassured people that they would be ready for the launch, including op-eds specifically talking about how overblown the technical challenges were. Whoops.

And, much more damning, a recounting of all the claims used to sell the law, nearly all of which have been proven false and been quietly replaced with new claims. In particular, the President made his claims about lower premiums across the board the centerpiece of his rhetorical strategy, and it's been completely and utterly false.

You might recall that conservatives knew the claims about premium were bogus right away, because they flew in the face of how insurance works in the first place. It's kind of amazing how many people fell for it, just because Obama said it. But then, that's pretty much been the story of the entire Presidency: he says something will happen, it makes little to no sense economically, people believe it, and then it doesn't happen. It's been true of his promises about the stimulus, his promises about the deficit, and now his explicit and repeated promises about his signature piece of legislation.

There's no way to spin this. He either said things that demonstrate a terrible ignorance of economics, or he knew better and misled people. Take your pick.

I agree with you, Yoda, but anyone who thought for a second that a Governmental computer system/internet would work straight away was mental. It doesn't matter what they said or how they tried to prove it, they never work. That doesn't mean that they should've lied about it, but if Governments told the truth, they wouldn't be in power for long and that's the point of them, both individually and as a group.

Oh sure, agree completely. I'm just trying to figure out why so many people convinced themselves that this time would be different. This President obviously has a talent for getting people to believe things they would never have believed coming from anyone else, or directly contrary to reality and experience.