Rex Kickass

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 3, 2009 -> 11:06 AM) He's the President of the United States - not a candidate, but the sitting President. These kids should feel lucky to have this, from any President. Now if the kids decide they don't like him, hey, that's all fine and dandy. But treat them like adults here - let them watch, take it in, and decide what to think. They don't need their parents turning it into a fight. And Reagan did the same thing in 1988 talking about why gun control was wrong. Bush 41 did it in 1991 too.

QUOTE (LosMediasBlancas @ Sep 3, 2009 -> 01:18 AM) My parents moved to this country from South America in the mid 60's. They were in their very early twenties, didn't speak a word of English, didn't have jobs or know anyone here. Think about how ballsy that was. My parents both immigrated from Europe in the late 50s and early 60s. Two of my aunts from France moved to the US in 1945 or so after marrying GIs. How intimidating is it for a poor French girl to leave her family to be married to a man living in very rural Kansas.

KTLA has a somewhat different story. Seems the pro health care guy was hit first. But my favorite part of the story is that the Ventura County sherriff says that the man who had his finger bit off has Medicare. This is ridiculous, sad and hilarious all rolled into one. http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-fing...0,7135717.story

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Aug 7, 2009 -> 10:00 AM) Mad Men is phenomenal, I've been watching it for years. Anyone who doesn't watch needs to catch up. My name is Peggy Olson and I want to smoke some Marijuana! This weeks episode was amazing. It's the only show I feel stress to not watch when it first premieres.

QUOTE (zenryan @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 01:29 PM) In the bathroom stall at the local park. Sounds hands on.

My dad was on maneuvers with Elvis in the early 60s in Germany. My mom worked for Kanye West's mom.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 08:30 AM) If the reforms are worth supporting. I would favor this approach as well, since there may be a few nuggets of usefullness in the huge-ass bills out there now, but they are hard to find in that massive blob of lawyer-speak and ambiguity. This will also make it harder for Dems to sneak stuff in, unless they try to introduce and vote without reading things in the middle of the night. However, how much of a political hit will Obama take for dropping the all in one bill? His most rabid supporters on this (the crazy left) are also the most vocal, and knowing how the fringes on each side brook no compromise, they will surely see this as defeat. I'm not opposed to incrementalism. I think its working very well for a number of political issues, marriage equality included. I'm only opposed to it if Obama drops health care altogether once something is passed.

Politico is reporting that Obama is planning to bail on the all in one bill and go for an incremental approach. It may not be a bad thing in the end, because it makes opposition for the sake of opposition that much harder. If he puts off the public option for another year, then there's no way that most key GOP leaders can get away with supporting the reforms in its place.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 1, 2009 -> 04:14 PM) Tex, not every illegal immigrant in this country picks crops or busses tables. How many meat packing pants have been raided lately? Those are good paying jobs that people lined for inthe hundreds when they were available. We talked about all this in other threads, I have no problems with a viable guest worker program, but then they wouldn't be here ILLEGALLY then, would they. Anyone not here on a guest worker program should be promptly shown the way out of the country. If we went after the corporations who, time and again, violate the law by providing the employment supply that fuels undocumented immigration - we would go a longer way to solving that problem and the "illegals getting healthcare" problem than any healthcare reform bill could do. But the truth is, generally when it comes to enforcement of the law - government is too often in the service of protecting money over the law.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Sep 1, 2009 -> 09:53 AM) You see what you want to see. Not to get into a big debate here, but the shenanigans that went down with military balloting in Florida more than account for the 537 vote difference. It's part of the reason there was a rush to the Supreme Court to stop the recount. Vote fixing is something that happens on both sides, unfortunately. If it wasn't for Daley getting out the Chicago zombie vote and ensuring all the Lake Michigan precincts turned out in 1960, and some creative balloting on LBJ's behalf in Texas - Nixon would have been President in 1960, not 1968.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Sep 1, 2009 -> 01:39 AM) What the hell are you arguing about? PFffffffffffffffft. At some point, someone said illegal residents shouldn't be allowed to pay into these plans. Which I frankly disagree with. Paying into the pool strengthens the pool. It doesn't mean they should get a handout to get into the pool. That even got to legal non-citizen residents here on visas and greencards. They'll still use the health care system when they get sick, I have no problem with them paying into the pool.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 09:19 PM) I thought I was talking to Rex. I'm SOOO confused. Visa issues are pretty complex, and working for an int'l pharma company, they come in all shapes and sizes, to be sure. The agreements are all over the place on those regarding all benefits. I don't think illegal residents should qualify for federal subsidies for these plans.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 06:16 PM) Because they are not US citizens, their employer needs to cover them. Way too much room for abuse otherwise. They should be getting market pay rates anyways, so them being in the program would be visa fraud as they wouldn't meet a hardship requirement if actually paid market rates. We already have over 20% fraud rates in the visa programs, no need to encourage even more. But they pay the same taxes as citizens.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 03:30 PM) As I understand it, Congress was doing that more or less without Carter's support. Maybe I am misremembering. Carter asked for the largest increases in defense spending in 79 and 80 as there'd been in a generation.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 03:21 PM) My point is not his views, it is about a liberal press running a story that is 20 years old to try to propel a Democrat to victory. This guy has been in office for 18 years, and this has never come up, but now it is a story. Funny how the more important the elected job gets, the more scrutiny you face.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 03:16 PM) There was a hook after 1974 then, and they got themselves off of it. There was still no hook. There was never a requirement to offer a pension. There were only rules to be followed once a pension program was created. I feel like at this point there should be a joke made using the word hooker, but I'm not witty enough to make it.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 03:09 PM) I'd say, sort of. He was providing detente at the higher levels, but doing everything possible to crumble their infrastructure under the hood. Believe it or not, that's somewhat of a legacy of the Carter administration. It was Carter that presided over requests to restart the arms race with the USSR after their invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and 1980.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 03:07 PM) Whatever the case may be, the companies got themselves off the hook, and without increasing pay, put the onus on the employee to save for themselves without being required to assist. As some companies match 401k to a certain %, they are not required to do so. They didn't get themselves off any hook. There never was a hook to begin with. There was a problem in the 1960s and 1970s where companies promised to give pensions that they had no intention of ever delivering on. Pensions weren't even regulated until 1974, and that's when the government started working to introduce things like IRAs and 401k. Until then, the pension could have been fully funded by the company's own stock or never actually funded. It wasn't until 1974 that there were rules governing how pensions had to be run so that the workers who were supposed to be protected by pensions could actually be sure they were protected by pensions.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 01:08 PM) Interesting. I guess he believed a continuation of detente would be more effective than the Reagan strategy. Good thing Kennedy didn't get anything done, since he was way off base. Besides, even if he had good ideas, that's an underhanded thing to do to the President in any case, and incredibly inappropriate. After a couple years cooling off, I think Reagan provided more detente to the Soviets than nearly any other President since Roosevelt.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 03:01 PM) I actually think you are kind of supporting my argument here. Both of those are plans that shift costs away from the companies, just like will happen with "the public option". They also came about because companies had dropped pensions, and not because of a fall of the labor movement. Or maybe it came about because companies were promising pensions and never funding them. Just ask Studebaker.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 02:59 PM) Only "right wingers" have "embarassing" points of view. Other points of view are totally rational and well thought out, and therefore, must be right. So then the idea that working women being detrimental to society isn't embarrassing?

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 02:57 PM) That's all I have been saying all along and you know it - and you want to just keep this going, so it IS a semantics game. You got the point that you know I've been making. That's enough. So again, you are opposed to a population paying into a healthcare insurance pool? Because if illegal residents need medical care, they still go get medical care. The difference is, if they've been paying into the insurance pool - the costs to us won't be so high when they ask for charity care or just don't pay their ER bills. Because, if you're living in the gray economy, why would a FICO score ever matter?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 02:50 PM) How is that trend going? I think you might be able to trace that to the decline of labor organizing movements than you can the advent of social security. Also, weren't there things like 401ks and IRAs that came about in the late 1970s that had more to do with the elimination of a pension than Social Security?

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 02:03 PM) Aye aye aye. Ok. I mean, there weren't MOVIES made about killing GWB, or anything like that. No unruly protests whatsoever. And the whole "stolen election" crap and that "people need to take back this country" language using arms in 2000. No, none of that. Everthing's just so peaceful, until "right wing kooks" say stuff. I see. We're just "clinging to our guns and religion" out here. I get it. Peace, love, and no war. Ummm, the 2000 election was stolen. Just like the 1960 election was stolen.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 02:38 PM) I think the point is that people will be forced to switch to it because Employers will quit offering it as an option, just like they have quit offering pensions after social security came around. But I thought pensions were bad. Isn't that why the auto industry went bankrupt, because the unions wouldn't let them adapt to the new economy and dump their pensions? Plenty of people got pensions well beyond Social Security's introduction - generations beyond it in fact.