Mad_Machine76
Mad_Machine76's JournalDU (in general) loved Obama
until he got inaugurated and had to start governing the entire country with obstructionist Republicans throwing sand in the gears every which they could whenever they could and he had to compromise and/or couldn't deliver on all of his campaign promises (there were some unforced errors/mistakes but all Presidents make them at some point too)- though he still got a lot of things done in the first two years that he has continued to vigorously defend against the Republican wrecking crew. No matter who gets elected, if they don't have a fully Democratic Congress, he/she won't be able to deliver on everything and will have to compromise and will get similarly shredded here.
With all due respect, that doesn't necessarily logically follow
It *may* happen or it may not but just because Barack Obama caught fire and won over Clinton in 2008 (and remember too it wasn't a total rout either- he just eventually won the math), it doesn't necessarily mean that Bernie Sanders will do the same next year. Bernie's advance seems to have stalled somewhat after the first debate and the petering out of Hillary's e-mail server "scandal". Her strong performance against the Republican "Stop Hillary 2016" Committee and Biden opting not to run seems to have given her a boost as well (or at least stabilized her). Bernie is a nice guy with all of the right positions on stuff but he still needs momentum to win and, at least at the moment, Hillary remains strongest in terms of the polls, endorsements, etc. If Bernie does well in the primaries, things could, of course, most definitely start changing in his favor.
Over? Not quite IMHO
However, the extent to which it can be limited has got to be addressed (and will be addressed) by SCOTUS. Once SCOTUS opened the door for restrictions as long as they don't create an "undue burden", lawmakers have taken that and found so many *creative* ways to limit and/or frustrate women from getting abortions to the degree that, unless you are wealthy or otherwise connected, the right to choose as given under Roe V. Wade has been very nearly legislated out of existence as a practical matter in some (mostly deep "red"
areas of the country. The most insidious of these limitations are so-called "TRAP" laws that force a bunch of unnecessary regulations on abortion providers as a means of shutting many of them down. Hopefully, SCOTUS starts by knocking Texas' recent spate of anti-choice laws. Next step is cleaning as many anti-choicers out of state legislatures as possible and replacing them with pro-choicers (or at least people not interested in pushing more restrictions).
I dunno
We should really be saving our "grave dancing" for GWB and Darth Cheney IMHO. I'm not a huge fan of Poppy Bush but he was far from the worst Republican POTUS we've had in recent years IMHO.
The only thing that is going to get us closer to SP
is to keep a Democrat in the WH and get so many progressives that support SP elected to Congress that it can't be filibustered by Republicans. Helping Republicans tear it down will not help. And let's not kid ourselves, when Republicans talk about "replacing" ACA, it sure as hell isn't with SP.
The Republicans seem to be a mess right now
ANY Democrat is going to look a thousand times better once the GE comes around. And, without having a crystal ball, let's be real: Once in office, Hillary won't wind up being some kind of radical right-wing Republican-esque Neocon DINO and Bernie won't wind up being a liberal Messiah who will single-handedly solve all of our social and economic problems. That's just reality.
No offense
But what is the point of this post? Seems unnecessarily divisive- MLK is dead and can't endorse anybody and there's nothing to be gained by engaging in a tug-of-war over a dead person's impossible to divine political affections.
Good news!
SCOTUS is going to have to wrestle with deciding whether having a technical legal right to abortion under the law matters if a right to choose ceases to exist as a practical matter because of laws like this that seek to deny access to women without outright making abortion illegal. Let's hope that they make this crucial distinction.
Nope
I'm still really surprised that they haven't tried to impeach him over SOMETHING, not even once (which goes to show that they know that they don't have the grounds to do it)- esp. once the Tea Party brigade showed up. I guess that the party leadership has mostly kept the particularly bloodthirsty ones at bay by filing lawsuits against him and/or his policies (which have done a little damage but haven't ruined much, thankfully). I remember when some Fox "Democrats" were openly (and ludicrously) advocating for President Obama to step down and refuse to run in 2012, which I'm certain had to do with their (justifiable) fear that they couldn't win against him in 2012 (and didn't). You can bet that if a Democrat wins in 2016 (esp. Clinton), they will be busy as usual trying to find something to impeach them over as well. They really just don't have anything better to do with their time and their base basically demands that they waste copious amounts of time on non-productive activities and/or symbolic gestures- to make them feel like Republicans care about them.
Sorry
I can't agree with you on this. I personally just hope that this bill doesn't even get through the Senate. Maybe Bernie can launch a filibuster? After a few weeks and nothing more happens (what happened didn't even happen here in the US for crissakes), the furor will probably die down and the media and candidates will move on to the next "shiny object". If the 2016 election was more imminent, I'd be a lot more worried but we still have time for things to die down and for everybody to re-focus to other topics. Anybody still talking much about Ebola after being a year out? There was a bunch of fear and paranoia ginned up over that and we were seeing the same kind of paranoia and fear running amok over refugees whom stand almost no likelihood of harming anybody- that ultimately amounted to nothing. Maybe I'm wrong/naive but it seems like a bigger issue now than it probably will be in a little under a year. And it hasn't even been a full week since everything happened in Paris. Interesting what gets the Republicans in Congress to do a little work, eh?
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Name: Mara Alis ButlerGender: Female
Hometown: Indianapolis, Indiana
Home country: USA
Current location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Member since: Sat Feb 28, 2004, 01:13 AM
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