Voters in MA Speak... but is the Left Listening?

Agggghhh!!!! Too much happening too fast!!! And on top of it, I've been fighting an awful cold for the last two weeks which has really sapped me. I feel negligent in my blogging and feel like there's so much now to try to wrap my head around.

First of all, let's not overlook the positive; Scott Brown's victory in MA was a huge, huge win for the people of America. It has effectively (for the moment) put the brakes on the Obama march to Socialism, and may have stopped it for good (assuming Obama is not elected to a second term).

I'm loving watching the left try to spin this into something other than an utter catastrophe. Here's the SFGate's editorial, with larding done by me in bold...

Aftermath of the Massachusetts Vote

Now comes the big test for President Obama and the Democrats who control both houses of Congress. They no longer have enough votes to ram through a health care plan without Republican support - unless they are politically stupid enough to attempt it before Sen.-elect Scott Brown, R-Mass., is seated. Obama, for one, is too savvy for that. "The people of Massachusetts spoke ... he's got to be part of the process," Obama said Wednesday.

So, too, must other Republicans.

One of the many appealing themes of Obama's 2008 campaign was his promise to change the tone in Washington and to break the partisan gridlock that kept our elected representatives from finding common ground on big issues. In his first year of office, Obama veered from that pledge, partly because of heavy tugging from his liberal base and partly out of frustration with the utter refusal of many Republicans to allow him an inch of achievement (and partly because he never sought Republican input, and partly because he's an average corrupt Chicago-style politician and not some divine deity).

"If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him," Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., famously declared last summer. On Wednesday, DeMint suggested his call to arms helped rally a rebellion against the bill that reverberated in the election for the seat long held by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

There are many competing interpretations of what caused this stunning turnabout in the bluest of states, but there was no question that an uneasiness with the Democrat-crafted health-care bills was at least a factor (even the SFGate can't spin that one!). Brown made his opposition a centerpiece of his campaign; Obama appealed to his supporters to keep his vision of universal coverage on track by electing Martha Coakley.

The packages before House-Senate conferees are easy to shoot at, and Brown fired away - from the sheer size and complexity of the plans to the inequities between states resulting from (the usual) sweetheart deals to win votes from holdout senators in Nebraska, Louisiana and other states. California is among the states on the short end; the bills' impact on Medicaid costs led Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to pull his support (apparently Obama has not gotten the message yet that we're broke).

While polls show an unmistakable ambivalence, even anxiety, about the health-care reform plans pending in Congress, there remains a widespread agreement that the current system is broken. A rejection of the House and Senate versions, as expressed by Massachusetts voters, should not be taken as an endorsement of DeMint-style obstructionism. This issue is too important to abandon, as long as so many millions of Americans are without health care - and those that have it are paying far too much for it, and finding out they have less coverage than they think when they become sick.

(See... here is where the left loses it. Providing coverage for those without health care on the one hand, and containing costs, streamlining fine print, and insurance anti-trust issues on the other are DIFFERENT THINGS. The people want the latter, while Obama and the left are only concerned with the former. The left showed that it did not care how much it hurt the rest of the country as long as the people on the bottom got the same thing (for free). That is what pisses people off.

There is a word for what the left wants, and there is no two ways around it: it is Socialized Medicine - a Marxist approach to health care. And Americans by and large fucking hate Marxists and for very good reason. Because Marxists suck shit.)

The rising cost of health care is also having a negative effect on what Americans widely agree should be Washington's No. 1 concern: Jobs. (This is a red herring and everyone knows it. You don't create jobs by socializing medicine, capping emissions, or legalizing illegal aliens - you create jobs by letting people keep more of their money).

Obama was on the right track Wednesday when he advised lawmakers to "move quickly to coalesce around these elements in the package that people agree on" (which is what the stupid motherfuckers should have done in the first place!) The one-party approach, which created legislation bloated with (the usual) backroom deals, made it all too easy for Republicans to (very rightfully) attack. Congress should heed Obama's campaign words about the value of open and bipartisan decision making.

If Republicans want to maintain a solid wall of resistance against health care, an issue Americans clearly care about, the electorate's anger just might be directed at them next time.

Pah. You wish.

What the Republicans and Independents are trying to "maintain a solid wall against" is the Marx-ification of America.

Obstructionism is a bad thing only when what you're trying to stop isn't evil and designed to destroy the country.

If Obama and the Democrats want to keep power in November, then they need to stop being such Goddamn fucking Communists... realize that they live in a Capitalist Democratic Republic and not a burgeoning Third World Colony... and realize that they are fools if they think they can trick us into voting for our own deaths.

Okay... breathe, buddy...

All of that said... there are still ways for the Republicans to fuck this up.

Democrats have had some success in painting the GOP as too cozy with Wall Street and Big Business. They succeed in this largely because the GOP IS too cozy with Wall Street and Big Business. In my humble fucking opinion, if the Republicans really want to squander this great opportunity and make the Dems look good again, all they have to do is keep fighting against any form of financial regulation.

There are places to give and places to take, and this is the one issue where Republicans really must make some concessions.

Personally, I don't see what the damn problem is with the GOP. I have NO PROBLEM sticking it to the motherfucking banks and lenders - I think if there is one thing that everyone in America can agree on, it's that the financial sector are a bunch of fucking crooks. If the GOP wanted to show that they truly are on the side of the people, then they will get behind bank reform. Make them stop nickel and diming us to death with fees and loan-shark interest. This, in my opinion, would do far more to boost the economy than health care reform in any incarnation!

I gotta take a nap... I'll be back later...