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Atlantic Exposé Reveals Sarah Palin’s Surprisingly Moderate Governing Record

by Frances Martel | 3:00 pm, May 14th, 2011

» 130 comments

As the time for Sarah Palin to make a decision on a potential presidential campaign approaches, many are speculating that a general election run would require the brazen conservative to embrace the center in a way the national audience has yet to see. But those who doubt her talent for bipartisanship must know little about her career in Alaska, where Atlantic senior editor Joshua Green writes Palin made her name on the political corpses of corrupt Republicans and supported both gay rights and reproductive freedoms.

2011 national figure Palin may be an entity made up of “mama grizzlies,” catchphrases and an inability to take any prisoners, and certainly even in Alaska today, Green writes that she is perceived as something of “an ex-spouse from a stormy marriage: she’s a distant bad memory, and questions about her seem vaguely unwelcome.” The piece, entitled “The Tragedy of Sarah Palin,” notes that little of that seems to have to do with her governing record but, instead, with who she became after 2008. In fact, her record in Alaska, while cutthroat, demonstrated a strong bias against corruption, along no certain party line:

As governor, Palin demonstrated many of the qualities we expect in our best leaders. She set aside private concerns for the greater good, forgoing a focus on social issues to confront the great problem plaguing Alaska, its corrupt oil-and-gas politics. She did this in a way that seems wildly out of character today—by cooperating with Democrats and moderate Republicans to raise taxes on Big Business. And she succeeded to a remarkable extent in settling, at least for a time, what had seemed insoluble problems, in the process putting Alaska on a trajectory to financial well-being.

How did Palin do that, exactly? By taking on the Republican Party establishment, led by former governor Frank Murkowski, from her modest position as chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Natural resources, it turns out, take up the majority of the political chatter in Alaska, and from Palin’s position then, she managed to take down the head of the state Republican Party for colluding with energy companies against the interests of the people. This, Green writes, made her extremely popular among Democrats, and a parallel corruption scandal in the Murkowski administration guaranteed Palin the governorship of the state in “one of the worst defeats ever suffered by an incumbent governor anywhere.” As governor, the typical attitude she faced was epitomized by one Republican House member, who told her, “I will stand in your way like the little man in Tiananmen Square to keep you from hurting the economy.”

As governor, she raised taxes on oil companies, “declined to take up two abortion-restriction measures that she favored, and vetoed a bill banning benefits for same-sex partners of state workers.” Her biggest achievement was a gigantic economic overhaul, created by fusing a Democratic legislative proposal with her own moderate Republican one. The result in 2011? “While other states reel under staggering deficits, budget cuts, and protests, Alaska has built up a $12 billion surplus, most of it attributable to Palin’s tax.”

Of course the Palin we know today is all about social issues, lower taxes, and smaller government, with little of the anti-corporatist left. But, then again, the Palin we know has never been scrutinized in her capacity as a public servant– only as a pundit. The discrepancy between her record and her image make it nearly impossible to predict what Palin would do in national office.

The title of Green’s article says more about what he thinks about these developments than the entire piece itself, calling this transformation a “tragedy.” But there is a great, risky potential advantage to what Palin has done to herself here. Should she run, she has put her absolute worst foot forward for the past two years, according to this article– meaning that any opposition research on her will reveal only policies and effective results that could bolster her campaign. This puts opponents in a precarious position– they now have to work to keep her good record under wraps, to lock the closet before those skeletons get out and actually make her look good. It’s a dangerous reverse psychology, and likely not intentional, but it certainly adds to Palin’s mystique as one of the more perplexing political presences in the modern landscape.

2012 elections, Alaska, Atlantic, Democrats, Frank Murkowski, Joshua Green, Republicans, Sarah Palin

http://TheDividedStatesBlog.com Publius219

Who?
timcajun

Sarah, don’t go back to your old ways! We need your hate and your scare grandma lies! Oh Sarah, please let us know who you are!
WCinWI

This story is soooo old.
WCinWI

Publius219 said:

timcajun said:

Rent free!!!!!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Lars-Svensen/100001028197161 Lars Svensen

Pretty, popular Sarah Palin was always non-partisan, prudent, and pragmatic as Gov. of Alaska. The malicious mainstream media attempted to make her seem malevolent during the doomed danse-macabre of the McCain campaign.
WCinWI

There are far too many run-on sentences in the above article. Sheesh.
rapiscrap

SOmething that all of the public can see can’t be “exposed”. Any halfwit can look at her record and come to the same conclusion the Atlantic did.
rm

Willow Palin Busted for Speeding …
http://www.tmz.com/2011/05/14/willow-palin-speeding-ticket-sarah-palin-todd-bristol-alaska-governor-president-campaign-running-tea-party/

Palin gets Atlantic makeover, but did the magazine get her right?
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/palin-gets-atlantic-makeover-did-magazine-get-her-right
Girth Brick

Palin signed a tax increase, was in love with the Bridge to Nowhere pork, and supported the TARP bank bailouts.

Teabaggers are too stupid to see how duplicitous she is.
WCinWI

rm said:
Willow Palin Busted for Speeding …
http://www.tmz.com/2011/05/14/willow-palin-speeding-ticket-sarah-palin-todd-bristol-alaska-governor-president-campaign-running-tea-party/

Palin gets Atlantic makeover, but did the magazine get her right?
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/palin-gets-atlantic-makeover-did-magazine-get-her-right

I’ve gotten a speeding ticket. Where’s my TMZ mention? Obviously you are Palin obsessed.
WCinWI

Girth Brick said:
Palin signed a tax increase, was in love with the Bridge to Nowhere pork, and supported the TARP bank bailouts.

Teabaggers are too stupid to see how duplicitous she is.

Obama has entered into more wars, talks about extending gas leases and gave big corporations a tax break.

Progressives are too stupid to see how duplicitous he is.
jakester

One may ask why she didn’t run on her moderate record and add that to maverick McCains reputation and try to split of the middle of the electorate? Instead, she chose to cater to every right wing crackpot since then. Sort of like Trump picking up bs like the birther garbage instead of seeking middle ground.
jakester

WCinWI said:
Obama has entered into more wars, talks about extending gas leases and gave big corporations a tax break.

Progressives are too stupid to see how duplicitous he is.

It’s called politics, get with it.
Barack Must Go

In other words Sarah Palin is the epiteme of what it truly means to be a ” real ” American surrounded by an ever growing underbelly of liberal / socialist, America hating douchebags ( democrats ).
Girth Brick

Libya is a “war”? Funny, I guess Grenada was too.

And drilling is thriving in the USA? Good. I am a liberal like Warren Buffet – LOVE that 95% rise in the S&P 500!

Thanks, Obama!
WCinWI

jakester said:
It’s called politics, get with it.

I’ve worked in politics. You don’t know politics.

You’re the one expressing a Palin obsession and using rude terms. You might want to examine why you’re such a poor reflection on the human race.
WCinWI

Barack Must Go said:
In other words Sarah Palin is the epiteme of what it truly means to be a ” real ” American surrounded by an ever growing underbelly of liberal / socialist, America hating douchebags ( democrats ).

I welcome the media and the American citizenry to think that Palin’s some stupid stooge. :)
Barack Must Go

Girth Brick said:
Libya is a “war”? Funny, I guess Grenada was too.

And drilling is thriving in the USA? Good. I am a liberal like Warren Buffet – LOVE that 95% rise in the S&P 500!

Thanks, Obama!

Not thanks to…In spite of Obama you stooge.
Newsjunky

WCinWI said:
I’ve worked in politics. You don’t know politics.

Nobody gives a shit.
WCinWI

Newsjunky said:

Apparently you did.

Epic fail.
http://www.karlspensen.blogspot.com Karl Spensen

Yet another HIT PIECE by the SEXIST, Trig-hating members LAMEstream media establishment!!!!!!!111 Sarah was NEVER a pussy-footing “MODERATE” – she was always kicking SOCIALIST ass and taking MUSLIN names!!!!!!111 This article is an OUTRAGE!!!!!!111
Fokker News

WCinWI said:
Apparently you did.

Epic fail.

Nobody gives a damn that you handed out flyers or knocked on a few doors. Now get your head ouf of Palin’s ass, Toilet.

P.S.
I hope that qualifies as “banable”
Harry Flashman

The snarling and hissing on the left has been bubbling since this article came out a few days ago.

What’s this? Reporting on Palin’s record? Can’t have that now, can we? Next thing you know they might be talking about her stance on foreign affairs or domestic energy policy or taxes. and we certainly don’t wanna hear any of that.

Let’s talk about Trig, or Willow getting a ticket, or Bristol’s teen pregancy, or Tina Fey’s impression of her. Anything but substantive issues.

The left is so lame.
Harry Flashman

By the way, the shoulderless, pencil necked Lawrence O’Donnell popped up in that crappy ad again when I clicked on this.

Have the police been notified that someone stole his shoulders?

Just wondering.
jakester

WCinWI said:
I’ve worked in politics. You don’t know politics.

You’re the one expressing a Palin obsession and using rude terms. You might want to examine why you’re such a poor reflection on the human race.

What are you talking about, you pompous, self righteous fool? Where was I denigrating Palin? And how does low brow like you & Barack Must Go get the gall to decide who is a poor reflection on the human race or not a real American like you two fine example of empty dittoheadedness?
jakester

Harry Flashman said:
The snarling and hissing on the left has been bubbling since this article came out a few days ago.

What’s this? Reporting on Palin’s record? Can’t have that now, can we? Next thing you know they might be talking about her stance on foreign affairs or domestic energy policy or taxes. and we certainly don’t wanna hear any of that.

Let’s talk about Trig, or Willow getting a ticket, or Bristol’s teen pregancy, or Tina Fey’s impression of her. Anything but substantive issues.

The left is so lame.

I guess we can talk about Palin’s death panel lies and how all the simple minded scum came out to double down on her lie.
Gasket

Barack Must Go said:
In other words Sarah Palin is the epiteme of what it truly means to be a ” real ” American surrounded by an ever growing underbelly of liberal / socialist, America hating douchebags ( democrats ).

Explain the 60% disapproval of the “real American” from real Americans.

Barack Must Go said:
Not thanks to…In spite of Obama you stooge.

Wait a minute….Obama’s “economy killing” policies have not changed. Maybe they weren’t job-killers after all. It was all in your little heads. You can’t have it both ways.

WCinWI said:
I welcome the media and the American citizenry to think that Palin’s some stupid stooge. :)

They already do, Sally.. She will never be POTUS. Americans don’t like QUITTERS!
Harry Flashman

I said:

“The snarling and hissing on the left has been bubbling since this article came out a few days ago.”

And then jakester said:

“I guess we can talk about Palin’s death panel lies and how all the simple minded scum came out to double down on her lie.”

And then Gasket said:

“They already do, Sally.. She will never be POTUS. Americans don’t like QUITTERS!”

See?
skyfet

Another phony in the making, Queen of the welfare state and distributor of welfare checks in chief. Lecturing the Country about something she has no idea about, since she never practiced it
timzank

jakester said:
I guess we can talk about Palin’s death panel lies and how all the simple minded scum came out to double down on her lie.

Do you find it paradoxical that Paul Krugman and Sarah Palin both acknowledge “death panels” are a necessary function of the government bureaucrats under Obozocare?
timzank

skyfet said:
Another phony in the making, Queen of the welfare state and distributor of welfare checks in chief. Lecturing the Country about something she has no idea about, since she never practiced it

You should read the article before flapping your gums.
BFD: Widow Tormenter

Sure, Palin, Huckabee and Newt used to be pretty moderate.
Problem is the tealiban has forced all of them to the very edges of the crazy right-wing fringe.
They are only guilty of going where they are led to cater to their loony base.

Twas the Right who destroyed Palin’s chance to ever be president, not the Left.
timzank

Gasket said:
Explain the 60% disapproval of the “real American” from real Americans. Wait a minute….Obama’s “economy killing” policies have not changed. Maybe they weren’t job-killers after all. It was all in your little heads. You can’t have it both ways. They already do, Sally.. She will never be POTUS. Americans don’t like QUITTERS!

Who is hiring Einstein? Oh yeah, Boeing was,until Obambi’s NLRB started the wheels in motion to kill a thousand obs in Sout Carolina. This guys whole strategy is to drive up unemployment,drive up prices, kill businesses and have the state be the saviour of it all.

He’s a marxist.
timzank

BFD: Widow Tormenter said:
Sure, Palin, Huckabee and Newt used to be pretty moderate.Problem is the tealiban has forced all of them to the very edges of the crazy right-wing fringe.They are only guilty of going where they are led to cater to their loony base. Twas the Right who destroyed Palin’s chance to ever be president, not the Left.

First Reid and Pelosi then Obambi are responsible for the rightward shift. By the time next November rolls around it won’t matter who the Republican nominee is, they will win. Eventually it boils down to records and results, neither of which is good for the Chicago Jesus.
timzank

BFD: Widow Tormenter said:
Twas the Right who destroyed Palin’s chance to ever be president, not the Left.

And it’s waaaaay too early to predict that. Ask any Dem with a brain (I know, tough to find these days) if they would count her out of anything? They’ll tell you “never underestimate that woman”.
jakester

Harry Flashman said:
I said:

“The snarling and hissing on the left has been bubbling since this article came out a few days ago.”

And then jakester said:

“I guess we can talk about Palin’s death panel lies and how all the simple minded scum came out to double down on her lie.”

And then Gasket said:

“They already do, Sally.. She will never be POTUS. Americans don’t like QUITTERS!”

See?

I see the simple little mind of a typical Palindrone making a fuss over nothing. According to your worm’s eye view, just criticizing or disapproving of Palin is some mark of the beast. Part of the way I judge a person is by the people who are attracted to her. And you are the type of person who makes me think less of her; a cheap, crude little fanatic.
timzank

jakester said:
And you are the type of person who makes me think less of her; a cheap, crude little fanatic.

Well, Harry and I will worry for days about YOU think, I’m sure.
WCinWI

Fokker News said:
Nobody gives a damn that you handed out flyers or knocked on a few doors. Now get your head ouf of Palin’s ass, Toilet.

P.S.
I hope that qualifies as “banable”

Once you learn how to spell, contact me. :)
BFD: Widow Tormenter

timzank said:
And it’s waaaaay too early to predict that.

Ummm…it;s too early to predict that but not too early to make this prediction…

“By the time next November rolls around it won’t matter who the Republican nominee is, they will win.”

You sir, are insane.

We’ll see whose prediction comes true. lol
BFD: Widow Tormenter

timzank said:
Ask any Dem with a brain (I know, tough to find these days) if they would count her out of anything? They’ll tell you “never underestimate that woman”.

You misheard. They were saying “I never understand that woman”.
WCinWI

jakester said:
One may ask why she didn’t run on her moderate record and add that to maverick McCains reputation and try to split of the middle of the electorate? Instead, she chose to cater to every right wing crackpot since then. Sort of like Trump picking up bs like the birther garbage instead of seeking middle ground.

jakester said:
What are you talking about, you pompous, self righteous fool? Where was I denigrating Palin? And how does low brow like you & Barack Must Go get the gall to decide who is a poor reflection on the human race or not a real American like you two fine example of empty dittoheadedness?

Read your own words – waste of space. When you are denigrating the President and his call for us to be better people, you are a disgrace to the human population. This should be common knowledge.
WCinWI

jakester said:
I guess we can talk about Palin’s death panel lies and how all the simple minded scum came out to double down on her lie.

Once again, Palin obsessed! Rent freeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
jakester

timzank said:
Do you find it paradoxical that Paul Krugman and Sarah Palin both acknowledge “death panels” are a necessary function of the government bureaucrats under Obozocare?

Sorry, but offering to pay for AD advice is not a death panel. That is like saying that since my insurance will pay for a root canal, I have to get a root canal. Spare me your worn out slippery slope argument too. Krugman’s op-ed means nothing, that is just his opinion & he said the bill should have had real death panels, not some stupid twit’s delusional death panels.

Let me reiterate myself again to avoid confusion. Palin’s death panels are a lie, so anyone who agrees with that lie is a moron or a scumbag or both! Either way their, your, opinion is rubbish. Look at it from this POV; conservative legislators, staffers, pundits and think tank people were poring over the bill month before Palin came up with her lie, so why did those vastly more intelligent, persistent and numerous people miss the phantom death panels but that stupid twit caught it?

Just from your avatar alone, you are either a clone or an alt account from someone like Barack Must Go, so your pathetic sophistry is totally predictable,
jakester

WCinWI said:
Once again, Palin obsessed! Rent freeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

So are you one of those mindless jerks who agree with her death panels? Just wondering, since you seem like the typical little reactionary mind she attracts like horse manure attracts files, and for the same reason too.
BFD: Widow Tormenter

WCinWI/Juarez said:
Once again, Palin obsessed! Rent freeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Yeah, talking about Sarah Palin in a Sarah Palin thread is such compulsive obsessive behavior!
WCinWI

Gasket said:
Explain the 60% disapproval of the “real American” from real Americans.

Wait a minute….Obama’s “economy killing” policies have not changed. Maybe they weren’t job-killers after all. It was all in your little heads. You can’t have it both ways.

They already do, Sally.. She will never be POTUS. Americans don’t like QUITTERS!

Is that like the Gallup poll that said that the public had a 60% positive ranking with the public, when there was a HUGE disparity in the amount of Democratic vs. Non-Democratic persons polled? Yeah – polls are for the leaderless. As a person in public, you shouldn’t lead yourself with polls. Simple as that.
WCinWI

Harry Flashman said:
I said:

“The snarling and hissing on the left has been bubbling since this article came out a few days ago.”

And then jakester said:

“I guess we can talk about Palin’s death panel lies and how all the simple minded scum came out to double down on her lie.”

And then Gasket said:

“They already do, Sally.. She will never be POTUS. Americans don’t like QUITTERS!”

See?

Haha no worries – they’re trolls. They don’t contribute much to that actual debate side of stuff. You present them with actual facts and then tend to quiet up or just start chanting.
WCinWI

WCinWI said:
Is that like the Gallup poll that said that the public had a 60% positive ranking with the public, when there was a HUGE disparity in the amount of Democratic vs. Non-Democratic persons polled? Yeah – polls are for the leaderless. As a person in public, you shouldn’t lead yourself with polls. Simple as that.

*maybe it wasn’t Gallup – can’t remember the survey outlet. I just know it was rigged. :)
WCinWI

jakester said:
I see the simple little mind of a typical Palindrone making a fuss over nothing. According to your worm’s eye view, just criticizing or disapproving of Palin is some mark of the beast. Part of the way I judge a person is by the people who are attracted to her. And you are the type of person who makes me think less of her; a cheap, crude little fanatic.

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA – unhinged
WCinWI

jakester said:
Sorry, but offering to pay for AD advice is not a death panel. That is like saying that since my insurance will pay for a root canal, I have to get a root canal. Spare me your worn out slippery slope argument too. Krugman’s op-ed means nothing, that is just his opinion & he said the bill should have had real death panels, not some stupid twit’s delusional death panels.

Let me reiterate myself again to avoid confusion. Palin’s death panels are a lie, so anyone who agrees with that lie is a moron or a scumbag or both! Either way their, your, opinion is rubbish. Look at it from this POV; conservative legislators, staffers, pundits and think tank people were poring over the bill month before Palin came up with her lie, so why did those vastly more intelligent, persistent and numerous people miss the phantom death panels but that stupid twit caught it?

Just from your avatar alone, you are either a clone or an alt account from someone like Barack Must Go, so your pathetic sophistry is totally predictable,

MUAHAHAHAHA – You disagree with Krugman then. Awesome!!!!!!!!!!
WCinWI

jakester said:
So are you one of those mindless jerks who agree with her death panels? Just wondering, since you seem like the typical little reactionary mind she attracts like horse manure attracts files, and for the same reason too.

I don’t appreciate racists. Therefore, I don’t appreciate you. :)
jakester

WCinWI said:
Haha no worries – they’re trolls. They don’t contribute much to that actual debate side of stuff. You present them with actual facts and then tend to quiet up or just start chanting.
_____________________________________
*maybe it wasn’t Gallup – can’t remember the survey outlet. I just know it was rigged. :)

Besides calling people names, deciding their ranks in the human race, and spouting your usual smug hypocrisy, what have you contributed to this thread? Nothing positive or intelligent, just like the rest of her braindead fans.

Yup, any facts that you disagree with are a lie! No wonder why you win all the debates since you decide ahead of time that everyone but you is lying.
WCinWI

BFD: Widow Tormenter said:
Yeah, talking about Sarah Palin in a Sarah Palin thread is such compulsive obsessive behavior!

Where are all your buddies? This thread should be bumping!

Oh wait….it’s all the same person – on repeat.
WCinWI

jakester said:
Besides calling people names, deciding their ranks in the human race, and spouting your usual smug hypocrisy, what have you contributed to this thread? Nothing positive or intelligent, just like the rest of her braindead fans.

Yup, any facts that you disagree with are a lie! No wonder why you win all the debates since you decide ahead of time that everyone but you is lying.

Like I said above, quit being a racist. And if you have a problem with the President, take it up with him, not me. My goodness.
jakester

WCinWI said:
I don’t appreciate racists. Therefore, I don’t appreciate you. :)

So now I am a racist? How so? What a complete pig you are. You aren’t even a member of the human race, you are some dead end hybrid species that split off a million years before the rest of us
BFD: Widow Tormenter

WCinWI/Juarez said:
Where are all your buddies?

I don’t know.

It’s not like we hang out together.

We don’t meet up at cross burnings like you baggers do.
timzank

jakester said:
Sorry, but offering to pay for AD advice is not a death panel. That is like saying that since my insurance will pay for a root canal, I have to get a root canal. Spare me your worn out slippery slope argument too. Krugman’s op-ed means nothing, that is just his opinion & he said the bill should have had real death panels, not some stupid twit’s delusional death panels. Let me reiterate myself again to avoid confusion. Palin’s death panels are a lie, so anyone who agrees with that lie is a moron or a scumbag or both! Either way their, your, opinion is rubbish. Look at it from this POV; conservative legislators, staffers, pundits and think tank people were poring over the bill month before Palin came up with her lie, so why did those vastly more intelligent, persistent and numerous people miss the phantom death panels but that stupid twit caught it? Just from your avatar alone, you are either a clone or an alt account from someone like Barack Must Go, so your pathetic sophistry is totally predictable,

You can put your fingers in your ears and pretend stuff doesn’t exist, but it won’t change the fact that some panel of bureaucrats will most certainly have the authority and duty to pull the plug on anyone whose cost benefit analysis isn’t up to par.

You trust government that much?
timzank

BFD: Widow Tormenter said:
I don’t know. It’s not like we hang out together. We don’t meet up at cross burnings like you baggers do.

Cross burnings=klan=democrats. Remember who burned all those crosses? Your Democrat leaders did. You guys are/were the klan, not us. Embrace your heritage, it’s a rich one.
jakester

timzank said:
You can put your fingers in your ears and pretend stuff doesn’t exist, but it won’t change the fact that some panel of bureaucrats will most certainly have the authority and duty to pull the plug on anyone whose cost benefit analysis isn’t up to par.

You trust government that much?

No but there were no death panels in the bill, there are no death panels now, and if they really do try to implement them, don’t you think there would be a huge bipartisan outcry across the USA? We have h bombs too, and I trusted even Bush not to drop them on his political enemies. Just because there is a possibility something may happen, it doesn’t mean it is or will.
WCinWI

jakester said:
So now I am a racist? How so? What a complete pig you are. You aren’t even a member of the human race, you are some dead end hybrid species that split off a million years before the rest of us

You say repetitive racist remarks. Read your posts. Beyond vulgar. Clearly, you want to disrespect the President while doing so.

And you just said a racist remark again. Seriously, just give up.
WCinWI

BFD: Widow Tormenter said:
I don’t know.

It’s not like we hang out together.

We don’t meet up at cross burnings like you baggers do.

Wikipedia disagrees!
jakester

timzank said:
Cross burnings=klan=democrats. Remember who burned all those crosses? Your Democrat leaders did. You guys are/were the klan, not us. Embrace your heritage, it’s a rich one.

Sorry, but those Southerners are all solid teabaggers and cons like you now, too bad you missed the news, it is only 40 years old. As well as it was Republican teabaggers like you in Mississippi who almost passed a law giving the founder of the KKK, General Forrest, his own state holiday, Also, it’s your fellow teabagging Republicans in South Carolina who are the ones who still fly the Confederate flag over the GOP dominated capitol in Charlston. Just ask anyone with a Confederate flag or in the Klan if they support Obama and I bet they would punch your insipid talk radio brainwashed face in.
BFD: Widow Tormenter

timzank said:
Cross burnings=klan=democrats. Remember who burned all those crosses? Your Democrat leaders did. You guys are/were the klan, not us. Embrace your heritage, it’s a rich one.

Stop living in the past.
Go to Storm Front and you will see that all the racists are now Sarah Palin fans.

The Aryan Nation and Bagger-Nation have become one.
WCinWI

jakester said:
No but there were no death panels in the bill, there are no death panels now, and if they really do try to implement them, don’t you think there would be a huge bipartisan outcry across the USA? We have h bombs too, and I trusted even Bush not to drop them on his political enemies. Just because there is a possibility something may happen, it doesn’t mean it is or will.

That would be all well and good if someone that the administration wanted death panels, by proxy!

In an article published in 1994 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Berwick opined, “Most metropolitan areas in the United States should reduce the number of centers engaging in cardiac surgery, high-risk obstetrics, neonatal intensive care, organ transplantation, tertiary cancer care, high-level trauma care, and high-technology imaging.”

In an article published earlier in the week by The New American, Berwick’s fascination with the British system of nationalized healthcare management was documented. In a speech given in England, Berwick praised the National Health Service of the United Kingdom and seemed to long for the day that he could implement the same variety of statist control of medical treatment in the United States.

Further evidence of Berwick’s Anglophilia is found in statements he made lauding Britain’s National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE). NICE is the British agency tasked with deciding which medical treatments and technologies will be pursued and promoted in the United Kingdom and which will be discarded and denied to the British public in the name of efficiency.

Berwick, the new head of CMS (the agency that will mimic much of the discretionary functions of NICE in the United States), once wrote that NICE has “developed very good and very disciplined … models for the evaluation of medical treatment from which we [the United States] ought to learn.”

http://thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/health-care/3988-donald-berwick-qone-man-death-panelq
WCinWI

BFD: Widow Tormenter said:
Stop living in the past.
Go to Storm Front and you will see that all the racists are now Sarah Palin fans.

The Aryan Nation and Bagger-Nation have become one.

Actually Ron Paul hangs out with Storm Front from my understanding.
WCinWI

jakester said:
Sorry, but those Southerners are all solid teabaggers and cons like you now, too bad you missed the news, it is only 40 years old. As well as it was Republican teabaggers like you in Mississippi who almost passed a law giving the founder of the KKK, General Forrest, his own state holiday, Also, it’s your fellow teabagging Republicans in South Carolina who are the ones who still fly the Confederate flag over the GOP dominated capitol in Charlston. Just ask anyone with a Confederate flag or in the Klan if they support Obama and I bet they would punch your insipid talk radio brainwashed face in.

Such rage – you should enjoy the article I posted. :) Rage on!
jakester

WCinWI said:
You say repetitive racist remarks. Read your posts. Beyond vulgar. Clearly, you want to disrespect the President while doing so.

And you just said a racist remark again. Seriously, just give up.

No you low class scumbag, I did not make any racist remarks. Whatever race you belong too, I am sure the majority of them think you are a putz too. So just like your death panels, that is another contemptible lie. But like most people who admire Palin, you think that since you feel something is true, it must be true, damn facts or logic.
jakester

BFD: Widow Tormenter said:
Stop living in the past.
Go to Storm Front and you will see that all the racists are now Sarah Palin fans.

The Aryan Nation and Bagger-Nation have become one.

Stop living in the past? They aren’t even doing that. They live in some old Hollywood movie version of the past. But they want all the modern gadgets too.
WCinWI

jakester said:
Sorry, but those Southerners are all solid teabaggers and cons like you now, too bad you missed the news, it is only 40 years old. As well as it was Republican teabaggers like you in Mississippi who almost passed a law giving the founder of the KKK, General Forrest, his own state holiday, Also, it’s your fellow teabagging Republicans in South Carolina who are the ones who still fly the Confederate flag over the GOP dominated capitol in Charlston. Just ask anyone with a Confederate flag or in the Klan if they support Obama and I bet they would punch your insipid talk radio brainwashed face in.

The Klan issue played a significant role at the bitterly divisive 1924 Democratic National Convention in New York City. The leading candidates were Protestant William Gibbs McAdoo, with a base in areas where the Klan was strong, and Catholic New York Governor Al Smith, with a base in the large cities. After weeks of stalemate, both candidates withdrew in favor of a compromise. Anti-Klan delegates proposed a resolution indirectly attacking the Klan; it was narrowly defeated

Black was elected US senator in 1926; President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Black to the Supreme Court not knowing he had been active in the Klan in the 1920s. In 1926, with Klan support, Bibb Graves won the Alabama governor’s office. He was a former Klan chapter head. He pushed for increased education funding, better public health, new highway construction, and pro-labor legislation. Because the Alabama state legislature refused to redistrict until 1972, however, even the Klan was unable to break the planters’ and rural areas’ hold on legislative power.

In the South, however, the southern Klan remained Democratic, closely allied with Democratic police, sheriffs, and other functionaries of local government. With continuing disfranchisement of most African Americans and many poor whites, the only political activity took place within the Democratic Party.

- Wikipedia
WCinWI

jakester said:
Stop living in the past? They aren’t even doing that. They live in some old Hollywood movie version of the past. But they want all the modern gadgets too.

It’s so easy to disprove everything that you’ve stated so far. Shall we continue?
jakester

WCinWI said:
You say repetitive racist remarks. Read your posts. Beyond vulgar. Clearly, you want to disrespect the President while doing so.

And you just said a racist remark again. Seriously, just give up.

Once again, you right wing Palin admiring scumbag, show me those racist remarks that I made or crawl back into your hole, you contemptible liar.
http://www.sarainitalyblog.blogspot.com/ sarainitaly

well, that’s what happens when you believe the lies, and caricature as created by the media, and don’t actually listen to the person, or pay attention to the facts.
jakester

WCinWI said:
The Klan issue played a significant role at the bitterly divisive 1924 Democratic National Convention in New York City. The leading candidates were Protestant William Gibbs McAdoo, with a base in areas where the Klan was strong, and Catholic New York Governor Al Smith, with a base in the large cities. After weeks of stalemate, both candidates withdrew in favor of a compromise. Anti-Klan delegates proposed a resolution indirectly attacking the Klan; it was narrowly defeated

Black was elected US senator in 1926; President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Black to the Supreme Court not knowing he had been active in the Klan in the 1920s. In 1926, with Klan support, Bibb Graves won the Alabama governor’s office. He was a former Klan chapter head. He pushed for increased education funding, better public health, new highway construction, and pro-labor legislation. Because the Alabama state legislature refused to redistrict until 1972, however, even the Klan was unable to break the planters’ and rural areas’ hold on legislative power.

In the South, however, the southern Klan remained Democratic, closely allied with Democratic police, sheriffs, and other functionaries of local government. With continuing disfranchisement of most African Americans and many poor whites, the only political activity took place within the Democratic Party.

- Wikipedia

You stupid dishonest little twerp, I said ever since the 1960s the racist Dixiecrats have all gone over to the GOP or worse. Are you going to deny that? It is right above, I am talking about the 60s and later, not the 20s you low class pile of dishonest trash.
BFD: Widow Tormenter

I would like to see the racist remark too.
jakester

sarainitaly said:
well, that’s what happens when you believe the lies, and caricature as created by the media, and don’t actually listen to the person, or pay attention to the facts.

That is what happens when Sarah herself took up those and emphasized those extreme right positions.
WCinWI

jakester said:
Once again, you right wing Palin admiring scumbag, show me those racist remarks that I made or crawl back into your hole, you contemptible liar.

I am Caucasian. Is Caucasian a race?
WCinWI

jakester said:
That is what happens when Sarah herself took up those and emphasized those extreme right positions.

What extreme positions would those be? Do tell.
jakester

WCinWI said:
That would be all well and good if someone that the administration wanted death panels, by proxy!

In an article published in 1994 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Berwick opined, “Most metropolitan areas in the United States should reduce the number of centers engaging in cardiac surgery, high-risk obstetrics, neonatal intensive care, organ transplantation, tertiary cancer care, high-level trauma care, and high-technology imaging.”

In an article published earlier in the week by The New American, Berwick’s fascination with the British system of nationalized healthcare management was documented. In a speech given in England, Berwick praised the National Health Service of the United Kingdom and seemed to long for the day that he could implement the same variety of statist control of medical treatment in the United States.

Further evidence of Berwick’s Anglophilia is found in statements he made lauding Britain’s National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE). NICE is the British agency tasked with deciding which medical treatments and technologies will be pursued and promoted in the United Kingdom and which will be discarded and denied to the British public in the name of efficiency.

Berwick, the new head of CMS (the agency that will mimic much of the discretionary functions of NICE in the United States), once wrote that NICE has “developed very good and very disciplined … models for the evaluation of medical treatment from which we [the United States] ought to learn.”

http://thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/health-care/3988-donald-berwick-qone-man-death-panelq

There are no death panels in the UK or here either. as well as all private insurance companies have some sort of mechanism to decide what kind of treatments they will or will not pay for. But keep throwing the mud at us, out of the ton you have thrown against the wall on this thread, some it may stick.
jakester

WCinWI said:
I am Caucasian. Is Caucasian a race?

You hail from the Caucasian Mountains, like Armenia or Georgia? Whatever, I am insulting you personally, not your race, religion or even your family who all may have already disowned a pathological liar like you.
ModerateMan

Sarah Palin was always known as a moderate Governor with high approval ratings. That is why she was chosen as the VP nominee. Of course this is a surprise to the author of this article because she was not even old enough to vote in the last election.
WCinWI

jakester said:
There are no death panels in the UK or here either. as well as all private insurance companies have some sort of mechanism to decide what kind of treatments they will or will not pay for. But keep throwing the mud at us, out of the ton you have thrown against the wall on this thread, some it may stick.

Will do. It’s awesome when the facts are on my side. Continue your rage.
timzank

Klan=Dems. Period. Don’t deny your heritage.
WCinWI

jakester said:
You hail from the Caucasian Mountains, like Armenia or Georgia? Whatever, I am insulting you personally, not your race, religion or even your family who all may have already disowned a pathological liar like you.

Nice try – a racist is a racist, period.
Sam M.

Palin maybe have a history of moderation but her stupidity is obviously extreme. That’s the problem. She makes timzank look like a genius.
chris87654

Palin is a ditz.

She’s not going to run – she said so in Alabama during her fundraising speech on May 3 (twist on the same thing she said when quitting as governor): “As for that familiar subject — whether she will run for president in 2012 — the Republican said, “You don’t have to have your name on a ballot to fight for things like (special needs causes). “We don’t need an office; we don’t need a title to do that.” ”

Obama is gonna “drill, baby, drill” just like Sarah said he should. Obama did what Sarah wanted and did what Trump wanted (birth certificate). Maybe these people do have some influence (though Trump got set up bigtime).
chris87654

Jakester is right – there are no death panels. At some point, medical coverage is limited (mine would cut off at $1M when I had insurance).

Funny how people who talk about “death panels” are the same ones who talk about “shrinking the govt”. So which is it – make some kind of cut off point for health costs, or keep doing whatever people want even if there is little chance it would help. ALL doctors understand this – at some point, you gotta draw the line. I’d like to know how Canada and England deal with it.

But maybe Sarah and WCinWI are willing to pay a LOT of extra tax to make sure everyone gets what they want.
D Right One

Palin was also a Socialist(unbeknownst to her) because Alaska takes the oil revenues and SPLITS them with the people of the state. Pretty much everyone gets around $1500-2500 a year. Say it ain’t so Palin! Dumbazz idiot probably didn’t know what she was doing. Just bumbling around acting more like a Democrat. Then stupid azz just smashes up her actually good liberal record by bashing the left when she’s more to the left than Obama is! GD moron!
timcajun

WCinWI says:
Obama has entered into more wars, talks about extending gas leases and gave big corporations a tax break.

Progressives are too stupid to see how duplicitous he is.
……………………………………….

Entered into more wars!!!??? Big corporations tax breaks! Have we been been sucking down a little “tea” propaganda! Keep the tea bubble alive!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Steve-Flesher/850830455 Steve Flesher

D Right One said:
Palin was also a Socialist(unbeknownst to her) because Alaska takes the oil revenues and SPLITS them with the people of the state. Pretty much everyone gets around $1500-2500 a year. Say it ain’t so Palin! Dumbazz idiot probably didn’t know what she was doing. Just bumbling around acting more like a Democrat. Then stupid azz just smashes up her actually good liberal record by bashing the left when she’s more to the left than Obama is! GD moron!

That doesn’t make her a socialist. It had more to do with the fact that the Alaskan Constitution grants profits of its natural resources to its citizens. The giants in oil who palled with Murkowski were sitting on their land leases and doing nothing due to the tough environmental standards in Alaska, drilled in other countries, and price-gauged Alaskan citizens. That was a moderate decision which served her people. It was not driven by the same ideology which says successful companies should share their wealth outside the realm of hiring employees. It was driven by an effort to stop the blatant exploitation of citizens which relied on energy. You tell me oil giants are not guilty of that and then tell me who you plan on voting for so I can avoid that candidate at all costs, please.
Pablo

ModerateMan said:
Sarah Palin was always known as a moderate Governor with high approval ratings. That is why she was chosen as the VP nominee. Of course this is a surprise to the author of this article because she was not even old enough to vote in the last election.

Yes. This is only a surprise if you have no idea what you’re talking about. Or, if you’ve been listening to the chattering class as opposed to looking at her actual record.

How many people understand that her ethics complaint problems were of her own creation? Not because she did anything unethical, but because she championed and got passed a very well intentioned, but ultimately flawed law, one of the unintended consequences of which was to destroy her governorship.

Yes, the law she passed to clean up government left a Mack Truck sized loophole for partisan attack hounds to swamp her in legal bullshit at absolutely no cost to themselves. This is what happens when you trust that people are basically good. Many, many, many of them are not.
azgrandma

Wow oh wow! What an outstanding portrait of the one and only Queen Moron. I am just so impressed that I can hardly contain myself. THAT is until she opens the pie hole again and starts flapping away then we will once again be reminded of what a total airhead she is. i doubt seriously that she ever reallly knew or understood anything she was doing. I do find it rather interesting that she supported gay rights? Gee wonder if Liberty knows that – oh I forgot that she is just such an extraordinary woman that all is overlooked with her if her viewpoints are different
timcajun

Pablo says:
Yes, the law she passed to clean up government left a Mack Truck sized loophole for partisan attack hounds to swamp her in legal bullshit at absolutely no cost to themselves. This is what happens when you trust that people are basically good. Many, many, many of them are not.

……………………………………………..
This is what happens when you trust people? This is what happens when you are involved in factual ethics violations. Keep the tea spin alive, then deny the real facts and blame the main stream media to cover your tracks!
Pablo

timcajun said:
Entered into more wars!!!???

Does Libya ring a bell? How about Pakistan?

Big corporations tax breaks!

Yes. It’s a Green thing, which is all the rage in government spending. Have you done your part and bought a Chevy Volt yet?
Pablo

timcajun said:
This is what happens when you are involved in factual ethics violations. Keep the tea spin alive

Like what factual ethical violations, my Darjeeling? Do tell.
seek

jakester said:
You hail from the Caucasian Mountains, like Armenia or Georgia? Whatever, I am insulting you personally, not your race, religion or even your family who all may have already disowned a pathological liar like you.

OK – bright you are not. Caucasian Mountains? How about Caucasus Mountains…..
seek

chris87654 said:
Jakester is right – there are no death panels. At some point, medical coverage is limited (mine would cut off at $1M when I had insurance).

Funny how people who talk about “death panels” are the same ones who talk about “shrinking the govt”. So which is it – make some kind of cut off point for health costs, or keep doing whatever people want even if there is little chance it would help. ALL doctors understand this – at some point, you gotta draw the line. I’d like to know how Canada and England deal with it.

But maybe Sarah and WCinWI are willing to pay a LOT of extra tax to make sure everyone gets what they want.

Jakester is not right. There were “death panels” in the original health care – thanks to Palin et al it was removed.
If you are going to lie at least know the truth.
Pablo

seek said:
OK – bright you are not. Caucasian Mountains? How about Caucasus Mountains…..

Maybe he meant the White Mountains. I absolutely love them.
seek

azgrandma said:
Wow oh wow! What an outstanding portrait of the one and only Queen Moron. I am just so impressed that I can hardly contain myself. THAT is until she opens the pie hole again and starts flapping away then we will once again be reminded of what a total airhead she is. i doubt seriously that she ever reallly knew or understood anything she was doing. I do find it rather interesting that she supported gay rights? Gee wonder if Liberty knows that – oh I forgot that she is just such an extraordinary woman that all is overlooked with her if her viewpoints are different

I’d get checked for Valley Fever. There is obviously something dreadfully wrong with you and your mindless attack. Has it perhaps affected your brain?
Ajolily

LOL, what a surprise. At first I tried to point that out but everyone, even her followers wanted to believe she is ultra right wing. I had to make this comment and have not yet read the comments here but the article is accurate. Some conservatives who think they like her would not if they studied her record and many centrist from both parties who don’t like her would love her. LOL this is too funny and Frances I doubt anyone will believe it.
chris87654

seek said:
Jakester is not right. There were “death panels” in the original health care – thanks to Palin et al it was removed.
If you are going to lie at least know the truth.

There was nothing about “death panels” in anything except a Palin statement. It may have been a review board, and something still limits what doctors will do for a terminally ill patient.
chris87654

WCinWI said:
Will do. It’s awesome when the facts are on my side.

So you’re saying a review board, or dollar amount at which care is cut off, for insurance companies (or nationalized medical treatment) amounts to a “death panel”? If so, I see your point, but that’s very Palinish of you – it’s just another buzz term she created to stir up her brood of panty sniffing stooges.
chris87654

Why isn’t Sarah blowing her horn about getting Obama to drill, baby, drill? Donald “got Obama” to release the birth certificate, and after trumping his own horn, set himself up perfectly for the downfall.

Sarah’s been in a tailspin since Bachmann and Trump took her spotlight, and pressure’s building because she can’t cut them down. Now if she says Obama did what she said, she’d have to admit he did something right – and Sarah’s never done that; and she can’t really flip-flop like she did with Libya. I think Sarah’s head is going to explode pretty soon.
chris87654

I’m slow…. I’ve been griping about Alaska still being on the dole after they had a $12B surplus – Sarah never talked about how much AK depends on fed money – nor did she try to make Alaska less dependent on the fed (to do her part to shrink fed spending).

BUT the real issue is her going against Republican policy by taxing the hell out of a corporation. Her revenue policy could help fix the fed deficit if Obama raised ALL corporate taxes 400%. And as long as we’re raising taxes, increase income tax on the $18M salary/bonus that Goldman’s CEO (and others who should have gone to jail for investment schemes) got last year by at least 3%. Jees – that would be the same as letting the upper Bush tax cut expire. Republicans are weird.
seek

chris87654 said:
So you’re saying a review board, or dollar amount at which care is cut off, for insurance companies (or nationalized medical treatment) amounts to a “death panel”? If so, I see your point, but that’s very Palinish of you – it’s just another buzz term she created to stir up her brood of panty sniffing stooges.

No that wasn’t what the “death panel” was – Please, if you have been in a fog for the last year, read up on what it was. Don’t just assume you know, because you obviously don’t.
seek

chris87654 said:
I’m slow…. I’ve been griping about Alaska still being on the dole after they had a $12B surplus – Sarah never talked about how much AK depends on fed money – nor did she try to make Alaska less dependent on the fed (to do her part to shrink fed spending).

BUT the real issue is her going against Republican policy by taxing the hell out of a corporation. Her revenue policy could help fix the fed deficit if Obama raised ALL corporate taxes 400%. And as long as we’re raising taxes, increase income tax on the $18M salary/bonus that Goldman’s CEO (and others who should have gone to jail for investment schemes) got last year by at least 3%. Jees – that would be the same as letting the upper Bush tax cut expire. Republicans are weird.

Over 69% of Alaska land is owned by the Feds. So Alaska isn’t on the “dole” as you claim.
http://www.karlspensen.blogspot.com Karl Spensen

chris87654 said:
Sarah’s been in a tailspin since Bachmann and Trump took her spotlight, and pressure’s building because she can’t cut them down.

Why are you a SEXIST who hates TRIG?!?!?!11111
Pablo

chris87654 said:
It may have been a review board, and something still limits what doctors will do for a terminally ill patient.

That shouldn’t be the government. Do you know which health care insurer has the highest claim denial rate? Medicare.
im_lovin_it

Pablo said:
That shouldn’t be the government. Do you know which health care insurer has the highest claim denial rate? Medicare.

I assume this quote…..

Medicare was the most likely to deny any part of a claim, with a 6.9 percent rate. Aetna was a close second at 6.8 percent while the others ranged from 2.7 percent to 4.6 percent.

….is what you’re arguing your point on? Come on. You should use your Google powers and find us a link showing how many people are on Medicare versus a single private insurer. A city of 10,000 people with 100 violent crimes is much safer than a city of 10,000,000 with 1,000 violent crimes, right?
im_lovin_it

im_lovin_it said:
I assume this quote…..

Medicare was the most likely to deny any part of a claim, with a 6.9 percent rate. Aetna was a close second at 6.8 percent while the others ranged from 2.7 percent to 4.6 percent.

….is what you’re arguing your point on? Come on. You should use your Google powers and find us a link showing how many people are on Medicare versus a single private insurer. A city of 10,000 people with 100 violent crimes is much safer than a city of 10,000,000 with 1,000 violent crimes, right?

Okay, so this little city example is completely stupid. Please disregard. The point remains the same. Given the sheer number of people on Medicare and who is on it, would you not expect a higher rate of denied claims? Percent of claims rejected doesn’t tell us much.
timcajun

Pablo says:
Does Libya ring a bell? How about Pakistan
………………………….
You never tire of being weak or wrong, but I feel it’s because you think you won’t be called on it! So, there is no other country in Libya doing air strikes right now, this was not a joint action! Pakistan, so you didn’t want Obama to finish Bush’s job! Maybe a little unamerican, your pro OBL? Your a little creepie with is Darjeeling stuff! I don’t think you understand the …”tea” song……… keep the spin alive and deny the facts, blame the main stream media to cover your tracks!
Old Duffer

Love her, or hate her, there is one thing undeniable about her. Sarah Palin with very short, pointed, and terse statements, can bring big issues to the fore and force a public debate upon them.

http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/224139_2103237180559_1234374299_2605714_1319766_n.jpg
Rio

timcajun said:
timcajun says:
May 15, 2011 at 12:40 pm

Wow, calm down. For your reading pleasure:

Whose Foreign Policy Is It?
By ROSS DOUTHAT
For those with eyes to see, the daylight between the foreign policies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama has been shrinking ever since the current president took the oath of office. But last week made it official: When the story of America’s post-9/11 wars is written, historians will be obliged to assess the two administrations together, and pass judgment on the Bush-Obama era.

The death of Osama bin Laden, in a raid that operationalized Bush’s famous “dead or alive” dictum, offered the most visible proof of this continuity. But the more important evidence of the Bush-Obama convergence lay elsewhere, in developments from last week that didn’t merit screaming headlines, because they seemed routine rather than remarkable.

One was NATO’s ongoing bombing campaign in Libya, which now barely even pretends to be confined to humanitarian objectives, or to be bound by the letter of the United Nations resolution. Another was Friday’s Predator strike inside Pakistan’s tribal regions, which killed a group of suspected militants while the world’s attention was still fixed on Bin Laden’s final hours. Another was the American missile that just missed killing Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric who has emerged as a key recruiter for Al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate.

Imagine, for a moment, that these were George W. Bush’s policies at work. A quest for regime change in Libya, conducted without even a pro forma request for Congressional approval. A campaign of remote-controlled airstrikes, in which collateral damage is inevitable, carried out inside a country where we are not officially at war. A policy of targeted assassination against an American citizen who has been neither charged nor convicted in any U.S. court.

Imagine the outrage, the protests, the furious op-eds about right-wing tyranny and neoconservative overreach. Imagine all that, and then look at the reality. For most Democrats, what was considered creeping fascism under Bush is just good old-fashioned common sense when the president has a “D” beside his name.

There is good news for the country in this turnabout. Having one of their own in the White House has forced Democrats to walk in the Bush administration’s shoes, and appreciate its dilemmas and decisions. To some extent, the Bush-Obama convergence is a sign that the Democratic Party is growing up, putting away certain fond illusions, and accepting its share of responsibility for the messy realities of the post-9/11 world.

It’s a good thing, for instance, that President Obama has slow-walked the American withdrawal from Iraq, and it’s a sign of political maturity that his base hasn’t punished him for doing so. It’s a good thing that this White House didn’t just send every Guantánamo prisoner to a civilian court (or back home without a trial). It’s a very good thing that many Democrats seem willing to opt for frontier justice over procedural justice when the circumstances call for it — as they did in Abbottabad last week.

But there are dangers in this turnabout as well. Now that Democrats have learned to stop worrying and embrace the imperial presidency, the United States lacks a strong institutional check on the tendency toward executive hubris and wartime overreach. The speed with which many once-dovish liberals rallied behind the Libyan war — at best a gamble, at worst a folly — was revealing and depressing. The absence of any sustained outcry over the White House’s willingness to assassinate American citizens without trial should be equally disquieting.

As Barack Obama has discovered, an open-ended, borderless conflict requires a certain comfort with moral gray areas. But it requires vigilance as well, and a skepticism about giving the executive branch a free hand in a forever war.During the Bush era, such vigilance was supplied (albeit sometimes cynically, and often in excess) by one of the country’s two major political parties. But in the Obama era, it’s mainly confined to the far left and the libertarian right.

This vigilance needs to be mathematical as well as moral. The most dangerous continuity between the Bush and Obama presidencies, perhaps, is their shared unwillingness to level with the country about what our current foreign policy posture costs, and how it fits into our broader fiscal liabilities.

Instead, big government conservatism has given way to big government liberalism, America’s overseas footprint keeps expanding, and nobody has been willing to explain to the public that the global war on terror isn’t a free lunch.

The next president won’t have that luxury. In one form or another, the war on terror is likely to continue long after Osama bin Laden’s bones have turned to coral. But we’ll know that the Bush-Obama era is officially over when somebody presents us with the bill.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/09/opinion/09douthat.html?hp
Rio

chris87654 said:
Obama is gonna “drill, baby, drill” just like Sarah said he should.

What Obama says and what he does are not necessarily the same, he’s got a couple of cabinet heads that just might put him in time out for this one. Now if it was President Palin, it would have already been going gangbusters for over two years creating good paying jobs, jobs, jobs.
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Nationman

sarah palin is a RINO!!!!!!!!
Snidely

Sarah Palin has been a competent administrator in every capacity in which she has served, unlike President Obama, who had never administered anything until becoming president. Ask yourself, are you better off now than you were in January, 2009? Alaska is certainly better off for her having been governor.
jim bronson 990cc

WCinWI said:
Obama has entered into more wars, talks about extending gas leases and gave big corporations a tax break. Progressives are too stupid to see how duplicitous he is.

What “wars”?
jim bronson 990cc

WCinWI said:
Once you learn how to spell, contact me. :)

Sure thing, Coen!
jim bronson 990cc

WCinWI said:
Read your own words – waste of space. When you are denigrating the President and his call for us to be better people, you are a disgrace to the human population. This should be common knowledge.

Talk about denegration…
jim bronson 990cc

WCinWI said:
That would be all well and good if someone that the administration wanted death panels, by proxy! In an article published in 1994 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Berwick opined, “Most metropolitan areas in the United States should reduce the number of centers engaging in cardiac surgery, high-risk obstetrics, neonatal intensive care, organ transplantation, tertiary cancer care, high-level trauma care, and high-technology imaging.” In an article published earlier in the week by The New American, Berwick’s fascination with the British system of nationalized healthcare management was documented. In a speech given in England, Berwick praised the National Health Service of the United Kingdom and seemed to long for the day that he could implement the same variety of statist control of medical treatment in the United States. Further evidence of Berwick’s Anglophilia is found in statements he made lauding Britain’s National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE). NICE is the British agency tasked with deciding which medical treatments and technologies will be pursued and promoted in the United Kingdom and which will be discarded and denied to the British public in the name of efficiency. Berwick, the new head of CMS (the agency that will mimic much of the discretionary functions of NICE in the United States), once wrote that NICE has “developed very good and very disciplined … models for the evaluation of medical treatment from which we [the United States] ought to learn.” http://thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/health-care/3988-donald-berwick-qone-man-death-panelq

The only “death panels” are in Jan Brewer’s AZ:
http://www.scienceprogress.org/2010/11/death-panels-in-arizona/
jim bronson 990cc

Snidely said:
Sarah Palin has been a competent administrator in every capacity in which she has served, unlike President Obama, who had never administered anything until becoming president. Ask yourself, are you better off now than you were in January, 2009? Alaska is certainly better off for her having been governor.

They apparently don’t think so.
timcajun

Rio says:
Wow, calm down. For your reading pleasure:
………………………..
?
dougx

i always knew she had a moderate record but the left has been drooling like a bunch of mad dogs claiming she was a crazed right winger because she opposed Obama and supported the Tea Party idea of reducing the deficit. Now people are surprised she was a moderate in Alaska. Please people, quit being led around by the nose and look into things for yourself.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Parker-Knows/631481164 Parker Knows

About the “Death Panel”…It was “tantemount” to being a death panel. When a panel of legislators go thru a list of what is and what is not approved to be covered that could result in your death…what would you call that but a death panel. I recently turned 62 and went to the ER. The doctors found a problem with the EKG that they wanted to get a CT Scan but because one was done a couple of years before they let me know that if I would be applying for Medicare to retroactively cover my hospital bill that Medicare would not approve of the CT Scan. I gave them the go-ahead and the CT Scan revealed a previous heart attack and an anuerysm and a dissecting aorta. I could have gone home and been a walking time bomb with sudden death immenient. I am now going to have a by-pass and an aortic stint implanted. Thanks to not having Medicare I now have a chance at living to see my 2 and 3 year old grand-daughters get a little older.
mibwilso

Before Palin was nominated, I was actually pretty excited by the prospect of McCain choosing her.

Everything I had read about her showed her to be a true maverick, results-oriented governor who wasn’t afraid to go after the Frank Murkowskis of the world. She was overwhelmingly popular in Alaska and seemed like a brilliant outside the box pick on McCain’s part. When he first picked her, I thought “McCain may have just thrown the game-winning pass”.

Although I’m a Democrat, I could have seen myself voting for the McCain of 2000….and I thought that picking Sarah Palin would take him back in that direction.

But Palin turned out to be such a disaster. She was totally unprepared…and seemed perfectly willing to shed her results-oriented style in favor of being a red-meat throwing conservative. And her rhetoric on the campaign was so overwhelmingly divisive that I completely changed my mind on her. She lost me at “he pals around with terrorists”.

Palin is a sad tale of someone who had so much potential in politics, but squandered it.
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Pablo

mibwilso said:
She lost me at “he pals around with terrorists”.

Truth hurts, huh?
Pablo

im_lovin_it said:
I assume this quote…..

Medicare was the most likely to deny any part of a claim, with a 6.9 percent rate. Aetna was a close second at 6.8 percent while the others ranged from 2.7 percent to 4.6 percent.

….is what you’re arguing your point on? Come on. You should use your Google powers and find us a link showing how many people are on Medicare versus a single private insurer. A city of 10,000 people with 100 violent crimes is much safer than a city of 10,000,000 with 1,000 violent crimes, right?

That’s why you look at the rate and not the whole numbers, which is what I pointed to.

im_lovin_it said:
Given the sheer number of people on Medicare and who is on it, would you not expect a higher rate of denied claims? Percent of claims rejected doesn’t tell us much.

Percentage of claims denied tells us everything there is to know about which system denies more treatment. If you compared the number of denied claims by a huge insurer versus a smaller one, then you’d have a useless comparison. The rate tells you what your odds are with various insurers.
Glackin

Pablo said:
That’s why you look at the rate and not the whole numbers, which is what I pointed to.

Percentage of claims denied tells us everything there is to know about which system denies more treatment. If you compared the number of denied claims by a huge insurer versus a smaller one, then you’d have a useless comparison. The rate tells you what your odds are with various insurers.

The fallacy in your argument is that Aetna can pick and choose its clients. Medicare cannot.
According to YOU, Aetna is 0.1% better, with “cherry-picking”, than Medicare is without it.
Dem4Ever

Frances, as you are but a youngster and still wet behind the ears no one really expects you to understand, but not everything you encounter in life is simply “black and white”. Think about this and take to heart what you’ve learned here today. You’ll do fine just try a little harder and pay more attention to the grown ups.