Translating for Fox Nation ("ram through": pass by simple majority vote).

[JohnWxy]

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201003020018


Obama's Plot to Ram Through Health Care Revealed


This is the same kind of crap almost every Corporate Lobbyist Partier spews on M$M, (e.g. Ram through = pass by simple majority vote.)

Of course, none of the echo chamber talking heads ever says: "by 'ram through' do you mean pass by a majority vote?"

[Enthusiast]

1. Fox exists solely to

promote the corporate agenda. They accomplish this through misinformation. Sounds simple but it is a massive coordinated effort involving millions of people. It is THE "vast right wing conspiracy".

[zbdent]

2. and you had all the talking point spouters who would say

"Why don't the Dems do something? They have the majority, why don't they pass something?"

(all the while intentionally neglecting to mention the fact that Republicans put a filibuster on damn near everything, guaranteeing that the Dems had to have the 60 vote SUPERMAJORITY to get to the point of actually voting on something ...)

[JohnWxy]

6. In 2009, Senate Republicans filibustered a stunning 80% of major legislation - Time magazine

I applaud Time magazine for actually printing an informative article which actually talks about the how the Republicans turned a rarely used Parliamentary technique, the filibuster, into SOP in the Senate (putting something like this into print these days is unusual, when media mainly serves as an echo chamber for Corporate Lobbyist Party propaganda):


http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1964778,00.html


In Clinton's first two years in office, the Gingrich Republicans learned that the vicious circle works. While filibusters were occasionally broken, they also brought much of Clinton's agenda to a halt, and they made Washington look pathetic. In one case, GOP Senators successfully filibustered changes to a 122-year-old mining act, thus forcing the government to sell roughly $10 billion worth of gold rights to a Canadian company for less than $10,000. In another, Republicans filibustered legislation that would have applied employment laws to members of Congress — a reform they had loudly demanded.

With these acts of legislative sabotage, Republicans tapped into a deep truth about the American people: they hate political squabbling, and they take out their anger on whoever is in charge. So when the Gingrich Republicans carried out a virtual sit-down strike during Clinton's first two years, the public mood turned nasty. By 1994, trust in government was at an all-time low, which suited the Republicans fine, since their major line of attack against Clinton's health care plan was that it would empower government. Clintoncare collapsed, Democrats lost Congress, and Republicans learned the secrets of vicious-circle politics: When the parties are polarized, it's easy to keep anything from getting done. When nothing gets done, people turn against government. When you're the party out of power and the party that reviles government, you win. (See 10 GOP congressional contenders.)

The Endless Filibuster
All this, it turns out, was a mere warm-up for the Obama years. On the surface, it appeared that Obama took office in a stronger position than Clinton had, since Democrats boasted more seats in the Senate. But in their jubilation, Democrats forgot something crucial: vicious-circle politics thrives on polarization. As the GOP caucus in the Senate shrank, it also hardened. Early on, the White House managed to persuade three Republicans to break a filibuster of its stimulus plan. But one of those Republicans, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter — under assault for his vote and facing a right-wing primary challenge — switched parties. That meant that of the six Senate Republicans with the most moderate voting records in 2007, only two were still in the Senate, and in the party, by '09. The Wednesday lunch club had ceased to exist. And the fewer Republican moderates there were, the more dangerous it was for any of them to cut deals across the aisle.



In 2009, Senate Republicans filibustered a stunning 80% of major legislation, even more than during the Clinton years. GOP leader Mitch McConnell led a filibuster of a deficit-reduction commission that he himself had demanded. The Obama White House spent months trying to lure the Finance Committee's ranking Republican, Chuck Grassley, into supporting a deal on health care reform and gave his staff a major role in crafting the bill. But GOP officials back home began threatening to run a primary challenger against the Iowa Senator. By late summer, Grassley wasn't just inching away from reform; he was implying that Obamacare would euthanize Grandma.

[wolfgangmo]

3. Fox news is exhibit number one

In the case for taking as much money from the next generation of the uber rich as possible.

Rupert Murdoch inherited a whole newspaper and a shitload of money from his Dad. He had never pulled himself up by his bootstraps. They were pulled up for him. And he hasn't stopped being a spoiled sociopathic snot since then.

Let's bring back the estate tax and the higher taxable rate on income as well as capital gains. We'll be doing society, the planet, and our children a favor.

[Canuckistanian]

4. Hannity kept calling it "the nuclear option"

As if the Bush administration hadn't used it a dozen times before.

[mariawr]

5. Typical rethug propaganda talk. nt