Yea, I don't think any party has a hand up on on the other party for shoving undesirable policies down the throat or up the ass of it's "citizens".  Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, Taft or Adams had no idea what we'd be today.

oh and glenda, i would've picked jsmall of course, except sara palin...well...he'd still hit it and that would defeat the purpose.

The funny thing is that nobody complains about government intervention when the cops come and take away some disruptive soul from our neighborhoods or when we walk to the mailbox or into our free libraries and public schools. Nor do we don't complain about government intervention when others children are thousands of miles away fighting a war so that we can have the freedom to sit at our computers and criticize that very government..

the ghost post was me....sometimes faniq logs you out right in the middle of talking.

Speaking of Roosevelt's trust busting policies, I read an article in the Washington Monthly last month that discussed the governments inability or unwillingness to enforce it's anti trust/anti monopoly laws as a major reason for the lack of job creation for the last 20 years. I was hoping the bailouts of the banking in auto industry would cause our government to move to more vigorously enforce these laws but it isn't looking like that is going to happen.

Here's the article : http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/1003.lynn-longman.html

Q: Does the health care bill specifically exempt members of Congress and their staffs from its provisions?

A: No. This twisted claim is based on misrepresentations of the House and Senate bills, neither of which exempts lawmakers.
 

We’ve received many questions about claims that House and Senate members would be exempt from the health care legislation taking shape in Congress. But neither the House nor the Senate bill exempts Congress from its provisions.

Members of Congress are subject to the legislation’s mandate to have insurance, and the plans available to them must meet the same minimum benefit standards that other insurance plans will have to meet. "All plans would have to follow those requirements by 2019," Aaron Albright, press secretary for the House Committee on Education and Labor, told FactCheck.org. "People actually believe we wrote in the bill that Congress exempts itself from these requirements. That falsehood has been going around since the very beginning."

How did the notion of an "exemption" get started? So far as we can find, the first to make the "exempt" claim was columnist John Fund, who used the word in a June Wall Street Journal opinion piece to describe a draft of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee bill. Fund wrote that the proposal "would specifically exempt Members of Congress from many of [the Obama plan's] provisions." But that was a misrepresentation.

Rather than listing "many" exemptions, Fund pointed only to page 114. That section stated that individuals who buy their own insurance and small firms (size to be determined) would be eligible to participate in state-based exchanges, which would offer a range of health insurance plans for purchase. Those who already get insurance through Medicare, Medicaid, the military’s Tricare insurance program, or the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program wouldn’t be eligible. All federal employees, including members of Congress, fall under the FEHBP. Those who have coverage from a large employer wouldn’t be eligible, either, unless their coverage didn’t meet minimum benefits criteria or was deemed to be unaffordable.

The exchanges are designed for those who can’t get adequate or affordable coverage. By Fund’s logic, most Americans would be "exempt" from the privilege of buying insurance through the exchanges — not just members of Congress. Fund further claimed that everyone except Congress "would be shunted into health insurance plans under the straightjacket of whatever the government decides is a ‘basic’ plan." But that was also a misrepresentation. The "basic" plan’s minimum benefit standards would have been just that — a minimum. The draft actually called for three tiers of plans to be offered through the exchanges, two of them with more benefits than the "basic" plan.

Even the speculation that Congress’s FEHBP plans would be better than those offered through the exchanges is outdated. The bill passed by the Senate actually requires members of Congress and their staffs to get coverage through the exchanges.

The Senate bill now says:

H.R. 3590: D) MEMBERS OF CONGRESS IN THE EXCHANGE.— (i) REQUIREMENT.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, after the effective date of this subtitle, the only health plans that the Federal Government may make available to Members of Congress and congressional staff with respect to their service as a Member of Congress or congressional staff shall be health plans that are— (I) created under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act); or (II) offered through an Exchange established under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act).        

http://factcheck.org/2010/01/congress-exempt-from-health-bill/

CHECK YOUR FACTS, before you react next time.....   

(Team Black rocks this MoFo .... I was jus in a bit of a Lib-Jib with J-J in another poll ... LOL)

I agree with everything you wrote.  The "Bill" passed and was "Constitutionally-passed."

However, I do not believe it is a "Constitutionally-sound" document (Of course that wasn't what we were debating here, so I'll leave that alone).

My contention with Obama is the very fact that he is partisan, but tries to act, just like almost every other politician, that he isn't.  If President Obama wants anyone in the middle or on the right to actually believe he's "bipartisan" he would actually fight for a bipartisan Congress.  He would seek to destroy the "Gerrymandering" that continues to this day, in every state!  And, he'd have overhauled this Bill! 

The larger portion of the United States agree that our health care system is/was F'd up.  Very few actually believe that this bill will fix the problems.  Instead, many of the problems we were used to will be gone, but they'll soon be replaced by new problems ... and the people who will suffer, are the same people who suffer the most when things like this take place:

The Middle-Class.

Awesome answer! Well said.

I'm just curious...  who on here thinks race relations have improved and who thinks they have gotten worse?  In my humble opinion, we are all getting angrier every day and racial tensions are higher?  Is only one race responsible for this?  Personally, I think not!  Washington is putrid from the stench of all of those who only want for thier own interest and none for the people they represent!  We can fix that...  Don't vote along party lines...  Vote out ALL INCUMBANTS, no matter the party affilation and start anew!  If that crop does not bring reform, do it again in the next election!  They work for us people...  Make them earn the small pay and tremendious benefits they suck in as law makers!  We need to stop before our country is in the anarchy that extremists from both the left and the right are praying for!

I'm just curious...  who on here thinks race relations have improved and who thinks they have gotten worse?  In my humble opinion, we are all getting angrier every day and racial tensions are higher.  Is only one race responsible for this?  Personally, I think not!  Washington is putrid from the stench of all of those who only want for thier own interest and none for the people they represent!  We can fix that...  Don't vote along party lines...  Vote out ALL INCUMBANTS, no matter the party affilation and start anew!  If that crop does not bring reform, do it again in the next election!  They work for us people...  Make them earn the small pay and tremendious benefits they suck in as law makers!  We need to stop before our country is in the anarchy that extremists from both the left and the right are praying for!