GOPlease (7/31):
Joe, Your posts/columns are increasingly tiresome and more and more inaccurate.
The GOP has put forward numerous suggestions re: healthcare reform, most recently Bobby Jindal's in the WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203946904574300482236378974.html
It's much easier for you and the other DNC mouthbreathers to blame the GOP, though. How convenient...and inaccurate. Look in the mirror.
You have the White House. You have a 50-seat majority in the House and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. And, yet, you blame Republicans? You're lucky the morons in the media (including, unfortunately, this website) are all willing to play along.
Joe Honick, GMA International Ltd (7/31):
As usual, our friend GOP misses a lot of points while trying to deflect what is true. In another post elsewhere he tried to make Obama the worst president of the wrong century(we are for GOP in the 21st not the 20th)ignoring the realities of some folks in the 20th like Agnew who pleaded guilty to felonies and Nixon who had to ditch the presidency for good(or bad)reasons, and of course a duo like Bush/Cheney who led us into seemingly endless wars in the Middle East. Now, as to his claims that the right offered alternatives, he's wrong again. Bobby whatzisname did not offer a workable alternative and probably knew it at the time. Just because the right wing megaphone WSJ gave it large space did not make it an alternative.
But most important is the reality the right wing of a major party has robbed some fine people in that party of the chance to be partners in a critically needed area. GOP of course, as Honcho does from another direction, dodge the proven realities related to a Supreme Court nominee and the silly speeches of Senator Thune. Mr or Ms GOP, you simply have to address the clear issues that the right is selling fear over everything else.
GOPlease (7/31):
Conveniently, and not all surprisingly, you ignore my main point: with total control over two branches of government, how can you blame the GOP....for anything? Of course, you can go back to Bush....or Nixon (and I'M living in the past???), but the problems - and their exacerbation -- clearly belong to YOUR party.
PR Honcho (7/31):
GOPlease - Only you would put forward an asinine commentary from Bobby "Obama Wannabe" Jindal as an example of GOP "ideas." What a hoot. BTW< I love the pics of Jindal runnig around Louisana handing out stim money on giant checks he signed after threatening to not take stim money.
Fed Up In NYC! (7/31):
Joe - I respectfully disagree with what you say- but equally appreciate you bringing this issue into public debate. Washington has lost any ability to have "loyal opposition". This holds true on BOTH sides of the isle and there is plenty of discord to go around. Rahm is ramming policy change at an alarming rate- trying desperately to get massive and costly legislation through before anyone realized the consequences both to our Union and to our pocketbooks. The same could be said for GW and his administration- both parties crying that we need to act NOW because if we don't catastrophe awaits.
So, all in all- we have a divisive government that depending upon your own core beliefs either suits your needs or doesn't. As Mr. Dylan once said, "We always did feel the same we just sold it from a different point of view."
Thank you as always Joe. I truly enjoy your insights. Respectfully yours...
Joe Honick, GMA International Ltd (7/31):
To Fed Up: Thanks for both your praise and disagreement. I frankly, as noted in my piece, do not share all the aspects of the President has brought forth any more than I like a phony like Jeff Session and his colleague Senator Thune. The last two are going nowhere, but the health issue is real and requires tought and more importantly HONEST discussion and debate. I am always fascinated that none of the right who get a terrific health program paid for by you and me don't think anyone else should have some version of it. I join you in the concerns for lack of unifying government, but I would offer that there are some pretty good people in both parties who could help the President get something done if only those good guys and women would do some quiet behind the scenes butt kicking. As one who has done his share of negotiation for people, I have found that fear is the least productive, and that is what the right is selling and unfortunately selling it well.
Veep (7/31):
It's a fair point, Joe. The GOP needs to start putting forth some alternatives (or at least appear to) instead of just saying "No" to everything the Democrats and White House propose.
PR Honcho (7/31):
The GOP is dying a slow death thanks in large part to a relatively small number of wingnuts out on the far right. When they aren't driving away their once reliable base of Hispanic voters and women with illegal alien rhetoric and their personal attacks on Sonia Sotomayor, they are angering moderates with their birther conspiracy and "Obama is a racist" nonsense.
Meantime, the GOP "leaders" on the Hill, thinking all the whacko stuff is mainstream, have gone into a 4-corner stall on healthcare reform because they want to deal Obama a "Waterloo" thinking it will help them win the 2010 midterms.
A recent NYT poll showed 61% have an unfavorable opinion of Republicans in congress. I wonder why?
Joe Honick, GMA International Ltd (7/31):
For Honcho, I fear you have done little more with your heavily partisan hammer than GOP has done from his/her direction. The polls are irrelevant. What is more relevant is that good people from both parties assert themselves, and there are some fine people on both sides of the aisle.
GOPlease (7/31):
You love polls so much, Honcho. Me too! Here are some of my current faves: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll or:
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.cfm?ID=1726
or:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/113980/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Job-Approval.aspx (I especially like the graphic in this last one)
And, all of this, despite the near hysterical mainstream media deliberately NON reporting all of Obama's failings, missteps and miscues, while championing his agenda in a way that makes them unpaid members of Robert Gibbs' staff.
I can't wait to see what it is after Congress gets an earful during August recess.
Joe Honick, GMA International Ltd (7/31):
GOP: you ARE indeed living in the past. I only gave you Agnew/Nixon to accommodate your need for the 20th century. Otherwise you comprehension of party numbers and how key legislation works is simply minimal at best. It would do you well to understand regionalism, urban versus rural concerns and other things taught in Freshman polisci courses.
The fact, the inarguable fact is that the right wing of the Republican party is sowing fear in so many directions, it is beyond political and verges on the unpatriotic. I listened to what counted as an "interview" with some former Lt Governor of New York on Newsmax.com who pretended she had read more than a 1000 pagesof the current proposals and complete Kennedy proposal of several hundred pages just the night before the interview. She, like the organized cabal recited the usual fears implicit in the proposals and ventured not one single alternative. Once again, GOP, my piece dealt with a broader but conspicuous aspect of what the right, not the brighter and ethical GOP, is doing related to health as well as guns everywhere but close to where Republicans are in the Congress, and an unethical assault on a presidential Supreme Court nomination. So, when you get your act together on facts and stop the simplistic partisanship, your reactions might rise to sound discussion and debate as with FedUpinNYC who does not see eye to eye withe me but understands the need for honest and open discussion.
GOPlease (7/31):
GOPlease responds to Joe Honick and PR Honcho: Only in the Land of the Looney Left where you both live are ideas like tort reform, real consumer choice, portability, etc. "non-starters." This is why your guy is FLOUNDERING and squandering his enormous political capital like a stone. Good stuff.
Bill Huey, Strategic Communications, Atlanta (7/31):
Joe, with respect to healthcare, the GOP doesn't need to put forward recommendations, they have the so-called "Blue Dog" democrats to do it for them. The Republicans can sit back and watch healthcare reform melt like an ice sculpture while these incipient Republicans who style themselves "Blue Dogs" (and are the largest recipients of campaign contributions from the insurance lobby) do their work for them.
"Go fetch, Blue Dog."
Joe Honick, GMA International Ltd (8/03):
Bill Huey: Unfortunately, you are for the most part correct about the health care aspect and the Blue Dogs. Honcho and GOP seem to be beginners in this business. The more urgent point I was hoping to press, given the right's sole goal to demolish a president while the country suffers, was the urgent if not imperative need for leadership of both parties to remember for whom they work and stop what amounts to disloyal opposition to everything and anything the President puts forth. Far beyond matters of health, key as that is, the right wing has done not one thing to help get the country out of morass created over the past 8 years and worsening as we debate these matters.
Thinkman2 (8/03):
I have a simple suggestion the prissy GOP should leap for: All members of Congress, Senate and House, should immediately renounce their taxpayer financed health and medical programs and access to government medical facilities at low or no cost and promptly take out private medical insurance policies as they would propose for us simple folks in the boonies. Having done that, they will establish themselves as reasonably honest brokers to discuss health proposals. How about that GOP?
GOPlease (8/03):
"Prissy?" Hmmm, O'Dwyer's, I think your reluctance to include personal attacks could use a review. Without revealing too much about myself, if we were to meet, Thinkman, I'm pretty sure I could make you eat that word. Regardless, Thinkman, I think your proposal makes eminent sense.
Thinkman2 (8/03):
Stop the presses! GOPlease has indicated someone else makes eminent sense! As to his/her comment about personal attacks, "prissy" would not seem quite as hardnosed as some of GOPlease's own commentary. But not to digress: your support of my suggestion is not to be ignored. Let us hope this can be communicated widely and quickly.
Florida Forever (8/03):
I'm kind of loving the hissy fits related to Joe's piece! Very entertaining for a Monday.
Beyond that, I don't for the life of me understand why ANYONE with a tenth of a brain would view GOPlease's comments as having even an ounce of credibility. I am sure we all remember GOPlease's incessant and consistent apologia for the Bush Administration policies at the height of the Iraq War and related to the economy (which helped bring us to the worst recession since the Great Depression).
GOPlease has been utterly wrong every single solitary time, so why should he be taken seriously now? Even most of his fellow Repubs have disassociated themselves with and repudiated the misguided policies that GOPlease defended with such passion and conviction on this site back in W's time. So, I ask again, why would anyone now accept a word from GOPlease as having an ounce of credibility?
Let him bloviate all he wants. GOPlease was wrong for the past 8 years, and he likely will be wrong for the next 8.
Fed Up In NYC! (8/03):
GOPlease hardly needs my support or "protection" but it seems to me that we did far better in Iraq than we are now doing in Afghanistan http://www.nypost.com/seven/08032009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/vietnam_istan_182693.htm
And the economy and specifically unemployment was far better under GW... of course everyone responding will come up with their "blame Bush" arguments for where we are now- but under Mr. O's watch- things have gotten significantly worse. And we are coming up quickly on 9 months in office, which is exactly the amount of time that GW was in office when 9/11 happened- and nobody had a problem placing the blame squarely on his watch.
Joe Honick, GMA International Ltd (8/04):
FedUp, sorry, GOP's arguments are not supportable, but you're a nice person to try, and I always dislike pointing out where we disagree because you are thoughtful correspondent. However, the economy we face did not collapse on Inaugural Day; it began a few years ago ago with irresponsible non-oversight of financial institutions, some crooked handling of an excellent operation like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, heavy duty promotion of foolhardy loans to consumers by banks, brokers and others and lousy checking by lenders who collected billions in commission for making loans they should not have.And it all went downhill with housing way back then. Then there has been the endless war in Iraq/Afghanistan that many military people argued against that has made profiteers out of hundreds of large companies supplying arms and other things for those conflicts, many of whom have been found to have overcharged. Regulatory agencies were not regulating, and many of us knew what was coming.
As to all that support after 9/11, that was quite natural, and the worst president would have had the nation's support, but this support waned as we began eventually to find out we had been lied to, that secrecy and character assassination was replacing leadership(as with the Liddy Joe Wilson and other cases). Please refer to a piece I wrote a year or two ago: Bush is Finally a Success. He was perhaps the only president ever to preside over a war and an economic collapse at the same time. So, if you will check the statistics, you will find unemployment starting roll terribly under W and the socialization of corporate America begun with him and his treasury secretary(Bailouts).
Added (8/05): To Fedup: I just read the NYPost column and suggest that it does not put the onus on Obama. It wonders as many of us have for ages why we are there still and we got there in the first place.
For openers, Obama did not put the troops there. Second, he is not a military man and must leave such strategy in the hands of those who are and who frankly think we should not be there. But the closer is that he suddenly announced a quick and complete withdrawal, he'd have his head handed to him.
See my piece on Afghanistan Forever and the fact the Congress has put up billions for profiteering contractors to build 74, repeat 74 bases over the next five years. Try stopping that Congressional bulldozer!
Wes Pedersen (8/05):
Joe, your detractors from the thinning ranks of the GOP are remarkably well mannered this time out. Listen to their arguments again. Then again. You will find little in them to justify any rationale for fighting against healthcare reform or economic recovery. There are portions in the Democrats' programs for both that could be improved, but the GOP handliners offer virtually nothing positive. Negativism is not a staple of debate nor a statement of political advancement. If the GOP continues its policies of roadblocks and detours leading nowhere, it is guaranteeing its defeat again next year and certainly in 2012, America cannot afford the suicide of one of its major parties, the party of Lincoln. The country cannot exist as a one-party nation. Yet that is what this GOP ultra-negativism is leading us to.
Joe Honick, GMA International Ltd (8/07):
For Wes Pedersen: The organized rowdyism of the right at town hall meetings intended to discuss health reform is the final capper on this subject of the Disloyal Opposition. Heckling speakers, deployment of nabobs of negativism like Charles Krauthammer and lies about letting oldsters die...all without any organized positive alternatives. These are the expressions of a party bent on destruction and fear. It is an echo of the 1930, and readers should google up George Seldes piece Man on a White Horse when a coup was being attempted against FDR.
GOPlease (8/11):
GOPlease weighs in on the Wes Pederson/Joe Honick exchange: Joe, you can keep pretending that the GOP hasn't offered alternatives to address the health care issue even in the face of evidence to the contrary. In fact, while it will probably do nothing to cool Kevin/O'Dwyer's ardor for running your rants every few weeks, it's certainly diminishing your credibility (which, for many of us, couldn't be much lower).
The heavyhandedness of the Democrats (including from The One) trying to railroad through so-called "healthcare reform" -- even in the face of legitimate and mounting opposition -- is backfiring -- as is the salacious and utterly-false accusation that all of the opposition is a put-up job by the GOP and the insurance lobby. Call us/them "wackos" all you like, but we know better. And that's why Obama's approval rating is sinking like a stone, Congress' could hardly be lower, and the GOP's fortunes for 2010 could hardly be better.
Joe Honick (8/17):
GOPlease, for want of a better term is simply full ot it. Blame the Democrats all you want for what you call trying to ramrod health legislation. Please recite right here what the right wing of the Republicans have proposed over the past two terms of Bush/Cheney besides Middle East lies and economic collapse, regulatory corruption that had SEC reject whistleblowers on Madoff and others. Please put those fact right here, and you will have apologies from me. Fact is the Bully Boys of the right who have been foraging at town hall sessions are right out of the old 1930's nazi boys who now want to call Obama a fascist. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it, and your boys are doing it sad and dangerous fashion. So put up or just stop this partisan nonsense.
An Addto GOP: First you do not know the meaning of salacious. Worse, if you want proof that all this rowdyism has been trumped up by the right wing, you need only read today's interview with GOP right winger Dick Armey who cited the tactics of the '60's as his guide for how to organize the current screaming interruptions at town hall meetings. My credibility rests with one simple set of reality: facts, and you would do well to learn the definitions of words. Dictionaries are free.
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