Thanks, dad. I’m gonna borrow the car, if you don’t mind. Also, I took $200 out of your wallet, and a bottle of Macallan 18 from the booze locker. Hope you don’t mind.

From your little corner of the empire to Jane’s ear…

Hear, hear. I’d like to see some people take a deep breath…

…and what will prove to be helpful in the long run, pops?

Caving in to the worst excesses of the most reactionary, corporate-owned politicians of the party, over and over again, as it goes even further to the right? Giving them our money, our volunteer time and our minutes for phone banking so that we can get similar “wins” on immigration, financial reform, and climate change bills?

Please, the leaders of this party already turned it into an abattoir. Some of us just want to make sure the ones responsible go through it with us.

Thanks, Pop!

I’ve never felt so lovely and talented…

I come here for the dogs, tremendous, waggish, sane writing and comments and the dogs.

THANK YOU kind sir!

Bart Stupak however wants to keep any Fetus in a box.

Liberals need to get to get their act together in a hurry – purity trolling is for before the election, finger pointing and blame casting are for after.

Hey, if you’re going to wear a sweater, pants are, once again, mandatory.

Jesus, Tbogg, what did you expect? How do you train your own Party’s leaders without a punishment ritual? They don’t understand anything unless it there is some form of pain associated with it. I’ve been voting straight Democratic Party for 36 years and my vote largely doesn’t count. You know who’s vote does? The guy who voted for Ted Kennedy over and over again and then went out to vote for the right wing Republican. His vote counts. And he’s the guy who’s going to decide the Democrats fate in the mid-terms and Obama’s in 2012. Not me. We have come a full 180 degrees from the worker friendly “social democracy” of the New Dealers and we’re going deep down the rabbit hole of the Texasification for the entire country. I live in Right Wing America and the Democrats are running it now. I got sold out by Rahm Obama and I guess I’m just going to have to get used to it.

I’ve never seen anyone shit where they eat with such class. It must be the sweater.

Thanks, TBogg. All snark aside, I fully agree.

Look, I guess the point I was trying to make is that if largely doesn’t matter what we “on the left” do in the upcoming elections. WE DON’T DECIDE ELECTIONS. We pay attention and are ideological to the greater extent, but there is a significant cohort who don’t really pay attention to the details who “vote their gut” on election day and are perfectly willing to pull the lever for either the Democrat or the Republican depending on who they think is screwing them in their immediate past. This is true for the hard-core Republicans, too. Massachusetts should be the canary-in-the-coal-mine for the Dem Leadership but they are not listening.

I’ve never seen anyone shit where they eat with such class. It must be the sweater.

Well said.

However, T, like all dads in sweaters I’m sure you realize that your message will be heeded by some (put the fucking scotch back, ‘phealy) but ignored by the kids with the double recessive gene who are convinced that feces-on-wall is the ideal medium for self-expression.

hear hear

So what are we to do then? One massive give away to the corporations after another. No help for the vast majority of us. A large number of supposedly liberals willing to drink the cool aide.

I am very tired of people telling me I am some sort of purity troll. If I was I’d be demanding single payer, or Medicare for all but I am not. I would just like a baby step public option and maybe some drug importation, but no that is the enemy of good enough. Good enough is apparently what ever the corporations want.

A plague on both your houses is really not helpful and it does sound a little like the “reasoned” position of a pundant in the Washington Post.

It’ll be a lot easier to chill out once we get Grover Nordquist’s influence down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.

Must be crazy season… or rabies is now jumping to humans without the dog bites. Republicans, of course, were there first..

But on the good side, at least it’s not thugs in smokey back rooms no more.

I’m no fan of modern corporate America, but it amazes me that people on my side would throw away the opportunity between saving the lives of 123 people a day because of their hate against companies. What are we to do? Save people’s lives. How’s that for a starter?

Werd.

Yeah people, chill out spread those cheeks and just let that mandate slide in.

This is one instance where the tired cliches “think of the children” and “what will we tell our children” carries some weight. It’s hard to imagine explaining to them that, when we had all the odds in our favor and a real chance for some hopey-changey health care reform after a particularly long spell of GOP ess-and-emm games, we decided to just chill the fuck out, and so, when we had one shot at doing it right, we instead ended up with a glorified clusterf*ck barely worth the 2600 pages of paper it was printed on.

Of course, given the cyclical nature of these things, my kids will no doubt grow up to be staunch Republicans, have great health care provided by the Chinese hedge funds they’ll be running, and will go to great lengths to ensure that my cell in the home for dirty fucking hippies is well padded so nobody can hear my rants. Maybe they’ll even buy me a nice sweater…

Unless you’re Donald Sutherland in Animal House. That was a good look.

Anal intrusion reference? Clearly you’re a Repub.

How much did Wembley and Fenway destroy while you were out to dinner? Please don’t tell us they were good boys, it would ruin my worship of them.

Yeah… I think I’ll stay out of this one, this time. Just wanted to let you know that there’s something on this page–I think it may be a Sprint ad–that’s making Firefox freeze solid for minutes at a time whenever I scroll past it. Damned aggravating.

I live in Canada so have less reason to chill. BUT, I think Taibbi’s right and it’s a shitty bill for ordinary citizens, thanks to weak and morally compromised Dems, sociopathic Republicans (what else is new?), and the health insurance lobby which cares about one thing only: exorbitant profits.

I wish America all the best, but maybe you should move to Canuckistan and help us keep the health care we’ve got before our scummy politicians sell it to the private sector. For all its flaws (thanks to shitty politicians), it’s still a very good deal and so is Canada, the Kathy Shaidles and blogging Tories notwithstanding. You can read the hilarity we’re dealing with over at http://canadiancynic.blogspot.com.

I will say that I think y’all need a new Democratic Party. One that has more courageous liberals and fewer shitbag pretend liberals. I don’t know how that’s achieved, but the Party should be better than this considering the votes it got.

You’re right and I am sorry for my part in all this. I still hope you won’t be too hard on the Beaver tonight. Thanks Pop.

TBogg, what is a brilliant sane guy like you doing on a batshit blog like this?

Bless you. Thanks.

Thank you, Tbogg. Many of us were with you long before you joined the crowd here, and we’ll follow you wherever you go. Not because of that sweater with no pants look, but because you are one of the best blog minds around. If those who don’t want to chill out don’t like it, I have no doubt that you will go back to being the daily dose of snark that so many of us have loved in another place.

Clearly, you are shrill. And not serious. Also

Let’s just get this thing passed. The last chance we are going to get.

At this point, it doesn’t seem wise for the Dems to run on their record of accomplishments.

Thanks for this post – I was wondering what an obviously sane person was doing blogging on this site. Your sense of humor betrays you amongst the unhinged, so if all you Firedog bloggers have staff meetings I would suggest twitching occasionally and making exclamations utilizing the words “Obama” – “sellout”- and “corporate fascist” to avoid suspicion.

…and a paid troll of the Obamatrons. Muhahaha! We finally got to Great Pantless One too!

However, I did have to look up “abattoir,” so damn you for making me learn something new today. Don’t let it happen again.

I am not as invested in HCR as, well, almost all of you are, but I understand your concerns.

Why are you not “as” invested? If HCR, along with regulating Wall Street (also not happening), isn’t one of the most important fights for Democrats, I don’t know what is.

Thank you. You may now go back to destroying America.

Who may go back to destroying…? Is voicing opposition to a weak Democratic Party that has no good reason for being weak right now tantamount to treason?

Democrats shouldn’t rest on their laurels just cuz Republicans are so scummy they make it easy to do so.

I really like how most assume TBogg is talking to their brother or sister Democrat, not them.

Oh, wait, Ron Paul and Bernanke are butting heads on C-Span. Be back later…

This post disappoints me, because I want to see good people fight to the death with other good people over details and tactics.

Looks like I’m going to have to start another war over the Falklands. Gin and Tonics and empanada gallegas for everyone!

Sincerely, Satan

I thought we couldn’t have nice things because whenever the Wall Street gang sees us with a nice thing, they snatch it away and play keep away with it over our heads while we cry “Give it back! That’s mine! Come on, guys!”

And they laugh. Also

Thanks for this post… now can you give the fatherly talk to the people in the frontpage Kucinich thread theorizing that Obama threatened the wee man’s life? It’s starting to look like FreeRepublic with a soothing color scheme in there.

Gotta start somewhere. Yes, it’s a crappy bill and it doesn’t really address the structural problems of for-profit health insurance. But it does start the process of fundamental change and, hopefully, we’ll start making PO/SP a voting issue in our primaries. More and better Democrats is the solution, because more and worse Republicans sure as hell ain’t.

I just farted on your knee…sorry Dad.

Interesting. You are taking a position here, but don’t feel you should explain a little?

No one’s prying, but since it is your opinion and narrative we come here to read, laying out your position in a cogent, sensible manner will only makes us love your snark more.

Oh, and no cheers or pom-poms or I’ll kill you.

It may make us love his snark more, but it would likely make his landlady’s head explode. Cuz, you know, he might be another corporatist/sellout/insurance company/big pharma/ whore-troll, just like everyone else out there who wants to get coverage to 30 million uninsured people.

Mega Dittoes Tbogg!

How does this bill start anything? If you think that things like this actually pave the way for other things shouldn’t Medicare have done that 50 years ago and therefore don’t we have universal health care now if you are right here.

I’m afraid you have a thin grasp of history.

First, I want to know the FAFBlog perspective on all of this. Preferably in hot pink/chartreuse colour.

Second, I want to know if Wembley destroyed all the sweet alyssum he trod beneath his great whacking foots that you pibbels put on backward?

Third, is Wembley’s brother still looking for a home? See, if any of this health insurance stuff is actually going to work, I can afford another DOG and I think Arthur might like a baby brother.

If the Obstructionist Party is going batshitfuckincrazynuts then I am for whatever this bill may be.

The corporations will get their kafuckinbillions of dollars no matter what, but if Lil Rush, Glenny and the rest of the posse provide us with some quality meltdown time I will be gawdamn grateful for the entertainment.

My only concern is that our Chinese Overlords are not needlessly distracted from their mission….

A callback to this work of wonder by our esteemed host.

Absolutely!

And once the watered down bill is passed, continue fighting for universal health care, because compared to what most other industrialized countries have, you still won’t have it.

RIP Alex Chilton. Damn. http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2010/03/17/big-star-singer-and-cult-icon-alex-chilton-dead-at-59/

I had completely forgotten there is actually a fire dog lake frontpage, not having read there in ages…..

It just struck me that this topic is touchingly antique: now that corporations have been endowed with the ability to buy elections free speech, the concept of political parties is pretty much moot. Will you vote for the pol from Citibank or the one from Goldman Sachs? Big oil or big Ag? Pharma or the HMO’s? We’re on the threshold of a Brave New World.

And to cut out any confusion, the pols need to don their NASCAR-style jackets proudly displaying their corporate sponsors logos…..