Fox gives McCain an 82% win over Obama in the latest debate

[paazin]

The idea that the Democrats are fiscal CONSERVATIVES is ludicrous..

And yet, people say the same thing about the Republican party right now (vis-a-vis GWB)

[Mulu]

But again, any way you slice it, he didn't *make* time to visit *wounded* veterans of wars we are *currently* fighting, but he *made* time to give *meaningless* speeches before foreign nationals,

First, how is it meaningless to seek audience with our allies? Second, since when are foreign nationals bogeymen?

Well, let's just hear it from the source.

You know, the staff was working this, so I don't know each and every detail. But here's what I understand — we had scheduled to go, we had no problem at all in leaving press — we always leave press and staff out, that's why we left it off the schedule. We were treating it in the same way that we would have treated a visit to Walter Reed which I was able to do quietly three weeks ago without any fanfare whatsoever. I was going to be accompanied by one of my advisers, a former military officer, and we got notice that he would be treated as a campaign person and it would therefore be perceived as political because he had endorsed my candidacy but he wasn't on the Senate staff.

That triggered then a concern that maybe our visit was going to be percieved as political and the last thing that I want to do is have injured soldiers and the staff at these wonderful institutions having to sort through whether this is political or not or get caught in the crossfire between campaigns. So rather than go forward and potentially get caught up in what might have been seen as a political controvery of some sort what we decided was that we would not make a visit and instead I would call some of the troops who were there. So that's essentially the extent of the story.

OMG he's a traitor!!! Visiting wounded vets at Walter Reed does not count!!

Are you ready to drop this idiocy yet?

A fiscal conservative is someone who advocates smaller government, lower taxes, less federal spending, fewer earmarks and entitlement programs...

Actually that's a Libertarian. Go Ron Paul!

The idea that the Democrats are fiscal CONSERVATIVES is ludicrous. Let's look at Obama. He wants to raise taxes. He wants to nationalize healthcare (creates yet another entitlement program). He has set aside almost $1B in earmarks in his brief legislative tenure. He wants to intervene in free trade. This is just off the top of my head. That he is a fiscal conservative is a ludicrous assertion. He is a big government guy. Plain and simple.

McCain now wants to spend an extra $300 billion to buy up all the mortgages, so the government would own and have to renegotiate millions of home sales. That's much bigger government than anything Obama has pitched.

And people are ready for nationalized healthcare. Americans are tired of getting denied treatment and benefits. Besides, McCain's plan actually costs more last I heard, though covering fewer people.

Here's a pop quiz for you Cipher, why did the Reagan's detest John McCain? The answer may just cost him a couple more million women voters.

[Mulu]

As the saying goes "Not to be a liberal at 20 is proof of want of heart; to be one at 30 is proof of want of head"

Well it was a bit different originally.

The original utterance seems to have been by mid-nineteenth century French historian and politician Francois Guizot, who said: "Not to be a republican at 20 is proof of want of heart; to be one at 30 is proof of want of head". He was referring to the controversy over whether France should be a republic or a monarchy.

Go Monarchy!

And in other news:

Several readers sent me articles about a McCain ad that ridiculed $3 million for a study of grizzly DNA. The object is to match DNA against fur samples taken from back-scratch trees to get population trends without following the bears around, which is expensive. Congress requires that the information be collected. It’s not "pork." Pork-barrel refers to lines inserted into bills by Appropriations Committee members in conference without any vote. It is reprehensible and should be stopped - but that’s not what happened here.

Earmark, Congressionally mandated scientific research... one of those two. He's an old man, he gets confused easily.

Palin is found guilty:

Sarah Palin unlawfully abused her power as governor by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper, the chief investigator of an Alaska legislative panel concluded Friday. The politically charged inquiry imperiled her reputation as a reformer on John McCain's Republican ticket.

Investigator Stephen Branchflower, in a report by a bipartisan panel that investigated the matter, found Palin in violation of a state ethics law that prohibits public officials from using their office for personal gain.

The inquiry looked into her dismissal of Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan, who said he lost his job because he resisted pressure to fire a state trooper involved in a bitter divorce with the governor's sister.

And the Secret Service is starting to get involved in these hate rallies being thrown by the McCain campaign, which have elicited calls to kill Obama. Smooth move McHitler.

They are so toast it's not even funny. If Obama doesn't break 300 electoral, somebody rigged the machines.

[Mulu]

Petraeus thinks you do have to talk to enemies

Maybe John McBush should actually listen to his favorite general for a change.

[ç i p h é r]

First, how is it meaningless to seek audience with our allies? Second, since when are foreign nationals bogeymen?

Nobody ever claimed either.

You know, the staff was working this, so I don't know each and every detail. But here's what I understand — we had scheduled to go, we had no problem at all in leaving press — we always leave press and staff out, that's why we left it off the schedule. We were treating it in the same way that we would have treated a visit to Walter Reed which I was able to do quietly three weeks ago without any fanfare whatsoever. I was going to be accompanied by one of my advisers, a former military officer, and we got notice that he would be treated as a campaign person and it would therefore be perceived as political because he had endorsed my candidacy but he wasn't on the Senate staff.

That triggered then a concern that maybe our visit was going to be percieved as political and the last thing that I want to do is have injured soldiers and the staff at these wonderful institutions having to sort through whether this is political or not or get caught in the crossfire between campaigns. So rather than go forward and potentially get caught up in what might have been seen as a political controvery of some sort what we decided was that we would not make a visit and instead I would call some of the troops who were there. So that's essentially the extent of the story.

So...why exactly didn't he go discreetly? Take it off the schedule, get the politics out of the way and visit them. No cameras. No press. No politics. Wouldn't that have made the event entirely non-political? All we'd know is that he visited wounded veterans. What's the problem with that?

Oh yeah. No cameras. No press. No politics.

Meh. I'll just call them [so I can score some serious press coverage somewhere else].

Surely, if you do any sort of legal work, you must recognize how bad this appears. His line of reasoning at best makes little sense and at worst makes him look even more shallow (he figured it was sufficient to just call them while traipsing across Europe?).

McCain now wants to spend an extra $300 billion to buy up all the mortgages, so the government would own and have to renegotiate millions of home sales. That's much bigger government than anything Obama has pitched.

And people are ready for nationalized healthcare. Americans are tired of getting denied treatment and benefits. Besides, McCain's plan actually costs more last I heard, though covering fewer people.

Here's a pop quiz for you Cipher, why did the Reagan's detest John McCain? The answer may just cost him a couple more million women voters.

Conflating, as usual. I was correcting your claim that the Democrats were fiscal conservatives. They are not. And short of exorcising the socialist base of the party at some point in the future, never will be.

I am not ready for nationalized health care. I presented a number of my concerns to whitey in one of these damned threads. Nobody ever responded. Why is more government always the answer with Democrats? Why can't we focus on fixing the inefficiencies (like duplicate billing, complex claims processing) and the unnecessary sources of costs (like excess litigation, superfluous care, nonexistent preventative care, labor shortage, bad diets, subsidized care for illegal residents...shall I continue?)....

[Mulu]

Nobody ever claimed either.

You certainly insinuated both.

So...why exactly didn't he go discreetly?

Sounded to me like he couldn't.

I was correcting your claim that the Democrats were fiscal conservatives. They are not.

You have yet to give any evidence of this.

I am not ready for nationalized health care. I presented a number of my concerns to whitey in one of these damned threads. Nobody ever responded. Why is more government always the answer with Democrats? Why can't we focus on fixing the inefficiencies (like duplicate billing, complex claims processing) and the unnecessary sources of costs (like excess litigation, superfluous care, nonexistent preventative care, labor shortage, bad diets, subsidized care for illegal residents...shall I continue?)....

Your list is all trivial, other than preventative care and bad diets (a bit redundant that), and how do you *force* citizens to be proactive about their own health?

[ç i p h é r]

Petraeus thinks you do have to talk to enemies

Oh how quickly we forget that the left wing of the Democratic party once called this man General Betray Us. Weren't you in that camp at one point in time?

Your headline is an oversimplification of what Patraeus and McCain have said and I think a mischaracterization of the issue. Not that it matters much to me, but as I understand it, the disagreement isn't about whether there should be any dialog with our enemies but rather if there should be a Presidential dialog w/o preconditions - that was how the question was asked in the Democratic debate that started it all. Obama (being the novice that he is) eventually adopted the conventional position ever since Hillary and Biden beat him over the head with it in the primaries. As far as I can tell, that's the same view that McCain holds.

About health care, what's trivial about that list?

You certainly don't encourage a good diet by having you and I pay for the consequences of a bad diet.

[paazin]

I am not ready for nationalized health care. I presented a number of my concerns to whitey in one of these damned threads. Nobody ever responded. Why is more government always the answer with Democrats? Why can't we focus on fixing the inefficiencies (like duplicate billing, complex claims processing) and the unnecessary sources of costs (like excess litigation, superfluous care, nonexistent preventative care, labor shortage, bad diets, subsidized care for illegal residents...shall I continue?)....

Cipher, for better or worse nationalized healthcare is an inevitability; the sooner we recognize it the less pain we will go through later. The whole idea of insurance - pooled risk - will collapse because of advances in genetic screening. Why would I need coverage at age 20 when I've no genetic markers indicating predisposition to any disease/condition? Likewise, if I were quite predisposed to such things at the same age, more than likely I'd want to have pretty decent coverage. Expand that single example out to a larger scale and you have the economics of the system becoming entirely infeasible.

[Swift]

According to Wikipedia, "The United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not have a universal health care system."

The rest of the western world has gone ahead and done it, and for the most part, it works alright for them.

[ç i p h é r]

And what country has the best quality of health care....? (honest question)

[paazin]

And what country has the best quality of health care....?

Not the US, actually. Mostly because of the disproportionately high rate of specialists compared to GPs.

[Swift]

And what country has the best quality of health care....? (honest question)

According to an extensive world health organization study carried out in 2000 the top health care countries in the world were France, Italy, Spain, Oman, Austria and Japan.

The USA ranked 37 out of 191.

Some other nations that ranked ahead of USA:

Columbia, Chile, Costa Rica, Norway, Singapore, Australia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Morocco.

[Veilan]

Cipher, for better or worse nationalized healthcare is an inevitability; the sooner we recognize it the less pain we will go through later. The whole idea of insurance - pooled risk - will collapse because of advances in genetic screening. Why would I need coverage at age 20 when I've no genetic markers indicating predisposition to any disease/condition? Likewise, if I were quite predisposed to such things at the same age, more than likely I'd want to have pretty decent coverage. Expand that single example out to a larger scale and you have the economics of the system becoming entirely infeasible.

Well, are you daring to suggest those people blessed with a good health should help shoulder the burden for those who happen to have a less favourable predisposition?

I'm appalled. That's so disgustingly Christian that it can only be G.O.P. policy.

[Mulu]

Now now, don't be confusing Cipher with facts. Fox News says otherwise, and that's good enough for any red-blooded Republican.

Oh how quickly we forget that the left wing of the Democratic party once called this man General Betray Us. Weren't you in that camp at one point in time?

Nope. Moveon.org ran the add, and got as much flak from Democrats as from Republicans. We actually take our fringe to task when the cross the line, unlike Republicans.

Your headline is an oversimplification of what Patraeus and McCain have said

Well, claiming that Obama would sit with our enemies without preconditions, and then claiming that means without any lower level talks first, is both an oversimplification and a twisting of the meaning of the word. A precondition is something like "you must disarm before we'll speak to you." Well, if they disarm, then you no longer have any *need* to speak with them; they've already done what you would've talked to them about. It's retarded. That's what Obama was getting at, but the right wing spin machine has treated it like he's going to sit down to tea with all our enemies personally (and yes Hillary did too, one of many reasons I preferred Obama). Not only an oversimplification but a gross and purposeful misinterpretation. The right wing talking heads know darn well what "precondition" really means in diplo-speak, they just choose to lie about it to score points, and the average American is too uneducated to know any better, forcing Obama to backpedal even though his position was originally correct. Politics and stupidity are a bad combination, but that's the system we have.

About health care, what's trivial about that list?

The costs. I know for a fact that litigation costs are trivial, as the Republican controlled Congress back in 2004 did an extensive study on the subject, probably hoping to prove that it was a significant cost, and ended up proving the opposite. Litigation costs amount to less than 1% of healthcare costs. If you entirely took away a citizen's right to sue his health care provider, health care bills would not change by one cent (they'd just keep the uptick in profits).

For that matter, any cost cutting measure would likely be absorbed as profits. The only way to reduce private heathcare costs would be to *set* the price by law. It would be easy to do, as the insurance companies have already done most of the work.

The only other way would be to simply nationalize healthcare. Make it no longer a commodity, but rather a government service like public education. Which of those options is cheaper? I have no idea. No one really knows since the actual cost of nationalizing healthcare is simply unknown. We can look at other countries for comparisons, but we'd be starting almost from scratch.

You certainly don't encourage a good diet by having you and I pay for the consequences of a bad diet.

It's like smoking or drinking or driving too fast or without a seatbelt or any other of numerous risky behaviors. You can try to penalize it, you can try to reward the opposite behavior, but there are real enforcement limits. "Hey you, fattie, put the twinkie down! Now!" *shrugs* Americans like their freedoms, including their autonomy and freedom to live a bad life.

You could dump a ton of money into Public Health and education, to try to raise future generations to be more health conscious. But in the end all you can do is try to encourage the behavior you want, you can't enforce what every person is eating for every meal, it's an impossible task.

One way to implement a reduction in obesity would be to ban fatty fast foods, but when some people came up with the idea they got shouted down by conservatives.... It's nice and all to say, "gosh if folks were in better shape we'd have fewer health care costs." Well, no Shinola Sherlock, but how do you get there? Bush's No Child Left Behind Act made the schools by and large drop PE requirements, among other things, as they could no longer afford them. Now we have a childhood obesity epidemic. Hmmmm.

[Swift]

Just so i am a little clearer (having never lived with a system other than universal healthcare since it was introduced in Australia a decade before i was born) how exactly is healthcare delt with in the US?

If you break your leg, what happens when you go to hospital, who picks up the bill?

What about just general visits to a GP, do they have a charge, and who pays it?

I simply have very little idea of how the US system works, especially in regards to who pays and how much you pay, especially if you do not have private health insurance (ie full cost of operations, partial cost etc)