http://www.democraticunderground.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:04:02 Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:04:02 It will be damn similar to the old fashioned type of filibuster when Senators had to read from cook books and sports magazines to keep legislation from coming up for a vote. Democrats should not fear that, they should welcome it. It will totally expose the Republican Party for using blatantly obstru... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/353 Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:23:15 Forbes Magazine, which has never been called a liberal rag by the Right, recently published a 2009 national survey by the United Health Foundation entitled: "The Healthiest And Unhealthiest States". The funder for this foundation is none other than insurer UnitedHealth Group. In their most recent qu... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/352 Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:55:09 In 1997 Gallup polled that 27% of the American public supported gay marriages. After peaking at 46% in 2007, that percentage dipped to 40% in 2008 and stayed at that level in Gallup's May 2009 poll. Although support for Gay Marriage slipped somewhat from its all time 2007 high, it remains 13% higher... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/351 Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:55:53 The argument over this year's health care reform bill has enough pro and cons to fill 3 DU forums, but Ill keep it simple. For me, no public option equals no deal. Period. If that gives Lieberman the power to kill it, so be it. There are many good things about this legislation, but many bad things a... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/349 Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:14:26 Just look at the fight to save the Public Option that was waged by the grass roots Democratic base this Fall after virtually everyone wrote it off as dead by Summer. There was no massive national media coverage pumping us up 24/7; what coverage there was was meant to demoralize us. There was no "pul... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/348 Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:51:13 That makes a critical difference in an off year election with traditionally lighter turn out. Most of us here agree that the "conservatives" who are all fired up this year are also a bit, say, extreme. But they are passionate and they vote in disproportionate numbers. What gets them all so fired up ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/347 Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:37:46 Even if Reid knew he didn't have 60 votes locked up, Reid made the right choice. Even if the White House worried that he didn't have 60 votes, he made the right call. The corporate centrists in our Party have too long grown accustomed to winning through refusal. Their refusal to even allow serious d... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/346 Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:28:23 There is nothing moderate about opposing the public option, not in a nation where the members of Congress get public insurance and Medicare has been well established for nearing half a century. Centrists support a public option. Progressives support Single Payer. The Right opposes any government rol... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/344 Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:38:09 It would no more bridge the gap between the majority of Americans and anti-government Conservatives on health care reform than a certain discredited structure in Alaska made any useful connection. If you go that route might as well cancell the whole damn thing. Don't waste our time with fantasy. If ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/345 Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:11:54 I mean that, it is my honest sentiment. However it won't help them one bit if people in NO states are given the choice of a public option instead. Understand that I write this as someone who strongly supports establishing a Single Payer, or Medicare for All, public health insurance system in America... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/342 Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:09:07 Yes rumors continue to swirl about President Obama's tactical preferences for pushing health care reform through Congress this year. Some believe that Obama is playing 11 dimensional chess which will ultimately result in getting the strongest Public Option possible under the current political circum... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/341 Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:48:50 The strong upswell of grassroots support for a real public option in health care reform caught some Party leaders a bit off guard. But what really caught them off guard was the tenacity with which so many of us have doggedly campaigned, no matter what the odds were against it, for that provision to ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/340 Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:12:32 This isn't the first time I've seen them try to slam Medicare as a failed program because it's "going bankrupt". From "The Hill", October 20th:

"Republicans mocked the idea of re-branding a plan they still consider a government takeover of healthcare.

It didn’t matter what they called Crystal ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/339 Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:49:35 Relax, Obama does not now need to be vigorously defended from attacks by Democrats who are worried about what exactly health care reform will ultimately include. He has shown himself more than capable of handling attacks from sources far more potent than disgruntled progressives on the blogsphere.
... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/338 Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:04:27 The great Wall Street Bail Out, TARP and the various programs associated with it, continues to breed deep levels of resentment and cynicism in the American public who footed the bill for rescuing the financial sector in America. The resentment is easy to understand. The fact that there really were n... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/337 Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:06:21 Pick your fight, give it your best shot, wait for the moment to be right; all battle related cliches with more or less the same meaning: be strategic in your timing to increase your chance of victory. We hear them often whenever caution is urged, and even when inaction is urged. But common to them a... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/336 Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:21:14 A small story appeared in the New York Times that few nationally are likely to have noted. It was published on page MB1 of the New York edition, not exactly high profile placement for a national newspaper, but what it covers should be central to the national debate going on today about health care i... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/335 Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:50:33 A paranoid lives in an alternate universe where facts hold different meanings. There is nothing intrinsic to paranoia that dictates paranoids can't be intelligent. Some paranoids can be compelling in their alternate universe assertions. Some deftly conjure up whole cloth fabricated reality as cohesi... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/334 Sat, 17 Oct 2009 11:24:10 It is a curious phenomena. The Republican Party, already in the minority, frantically fleeing the center of the political spectrum to huddle at it's outermost fringe. Soundly trounced at the polls, it's ideology discredited by repeated failure, Republicans hope to regroup by building on the passions... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/333 Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:25:09 they will only address concerns from the Right. It remains that simple. Olympia Snowe's vote can only be considered of decisive importance if it can be won without losing two more progressive votes as a consequence. Seeking 60 votes in the Senate with a watered down approach is only relevant if that... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/332 Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:29:23 they will be America's Party for the next two decades, or more. If Democrats find their voice, declare their beliefs, and affirm their values now, they will be ascendant for a generation, or more. If Democrats don't shirk from their heritage, if Democrats don't blur their ideology, if Democrats don'... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/331 Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:53:53 The fact that she is the only Republican willing to support even the watered down bill that emerged from the Finance Committee only proves that there is NOT bi-partisan support for that approach. She is at best the classic exception to the rule. Obama got three Republican votes for his stimulus pack... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/330 Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:27:55 There are five possible scenarios for health care reform in front of us that I see:

A) Congress has the courage and ability to pass sweeping reform with a meaningful robust public option available in all states.

B) Congress is unable to pass legislation as described in Choice A for whatever co... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/329 Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:21:45 I am ready to write off the Democratic Party as a cause that I am willing to invest any time, energy or money into. I am willing to see the Democratic Party lose power if that is what it must come to. I am a progressive who understands the necessity of compromising in order to maintain a winning coa... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/328 Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:58:04 Conservatives fear it would, while Progressives hope it does. And Conservatives use the hopes of Progressives to validate their fears about the Public Option. All of this however misses what, in an alternate universe, should be a Republican talking point: Let the market decide.

Competition is the... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Tom Rinaldo/327 Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:11:55