People who think Obama is both Superman and Satan all at once

[Tama]

They think he can do whatever he pleases and that he is doing so and destroying everything.

I mean, seriously.

The man has speechwriters, attendants, etc. He has an ASSLOAD of layers between him and doing things. I happen to think that he's very unlucky and doesn't know how some things work (he wasn't in politics long before making president, I believe) and has the unfortunate life trait of everything he touches turning to shit. But that's just my opinion. And I'm okay with others having a different one, JUST DON'T SHOUT that I am an "ISIS loving woman who will get herded like a cow if Obama has his way!"

And whats worse is that when I unfollow someone who constantly posts crap like this, two more people start doing it. Can I just join a group where no one gives a flying fuck about Obama?

[Gravekeeper]

I happen to think that he's very unlucky and doesn't know how some things work (he wasn't in politics long before making president, I believe) and has the unfortunate life trait of everything he touches turning to shit.

You're Not Helping(tm).

[KabeRinnaul]

I happen to think that he's very unlucky and doesn't know how some things work (he wasn't in politics long before making president, I believe) and has the unfortunate life trait of everything he touches turning to shit.

He tried to do too much and squandered some of his political capital, has on occasion pushed for things he should have let go and sacrificed things he should have pushed for, and has had to deal with the most absurdly obstructionist legislature. That last one is the biggest problem.

It doesn't help that it's gotten into the mainstream consciousness that he's a weak president, and even those who would normally back any Democrat are distancing themselves a bit.

In short, his PR needs work and conservatives act like he's the Antichrist.

[cewfa]

At least he attempts to get stuff done. Conservatives would rather that some one like me goes in a corner and dies.

One of my good friends posted on facebook a meme that says:
Here is what I want
Obama....Gone
Borders....Closed
Language....English
Culture.....U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights
Drug Free.....Mandatory Drug Screening before Welfare

Etc, etc.

Would you like to know what I want? I want better healthcare for all citizens. I want a decent wage for ALL workers, not a starvation wage, because our society looks down on retail and fast food workers. I want disabled and sick people to be treated with dignity and not cast aside. I want us to quit being the world's police. I want our neighborhoods cleaned up. I want our citizens to have access to quality education. I want our criminal justice system cleaned up. I want our elderly taken care of with dignity and respect.

Fuck the war complex in this country, we need some humanity.

[KabeRinnaul]

I want a decent wage for ALL workers, not a starvation wage, because our society looks down on retail and fast food workers.

Ironically, I think the best explanation of how conservatives view minimum wage came from Glenn Beck. I mean, sure, he was actually making these asinine arguments, but if you step back and look at how he abuses (or utterly fails at, depending on how intentional it was) the statistics, you start to see what these people see.

Once he's painted a picture of the lazy, teenage slacker just working a summer job for spending money, he points out that only 1% of the population works minimum wage in the first place (sure, 1% got $7.25/hr at the time — how many more earned between $7.26 and $7.50?), "over half" are under 25 (thus our shiftless teenagers, nevermind it's only a 5% gap), and only a third work full-time (not recognizing that this is actually part of the problem).

In the end, we've taken our nation's minimum wage problem from "this is the cancer that's killing our economy" to "this is a very small problem that only affects people who don't deserve help in the first place".

And then he blames it on a conspiracy by unions, because of course he does.

I'm pretty sure a similar process applies to many other issues, too. Major problems are trivialized and the victims demonized until they can be dismissed.

[s_stabeler]

not to mention that I can see an obvious solution- a system like in the UK, where a minor gets a lower minimum wage than somebody who has reached 18.

about Obama: there is one big problem that Obama has. He failed to realize until too late that his opponents were taking advantage of his willingness to compromise to gut the things he wanted to get passed ( for example, as originally envisioned, the ACA would have been far simpler: you have to get insurance, but if you cannot get affordable cover elsewhere, the government offer insurance for a reasonable sum. ( the idea is that the government option becomes the minimum value for money that an insurer must offer, otherwise people would juts go for the government option. It's not actually intended for most people to take it. Thus, when republicans got the government option removed, it actually removed one of the big reasons why the ACA would work.) ) Then, come the midterm elections, the republicans blamed the recession on Obama, took over the House, and started systematically obstructing every single thing that Obama wanted done- notably, I know of at least one bill that was designed to kickstart the economy, and would probably have worked, that the republicans flatly refused to pass. Not demanded it be watered down, but outright blocked completely. To say NOTHING of the fact that republicans have insisted on deficit reduction being solely achieved by cutting spending on welfare programs- and insist on no tax rises on the rich. ( when a large part of the problem is that a lot of rich people don't pay enough tax. yeah, I know there needs to be cuts, but can they a) not be concentrated on programs that help the poorest people and b) be accompanied by tax rises?)

[Gravekeeper]

It doesn't help that it's gotten into the mainstream consciousness that he's a weak president, and even those who would normally back any Democrat are distancing themselves a bit.

Right, and where did trying to distance themselves from the President get them last mid term election? Its also not in the mainstream consciousness for anyone save the right wing that he's a weak president.

The GOP is actually starting to freak out atm because their second ACA lawsuit has a slim chance of actually succeeding based on a technicality. But if it does, the PR shit storm that will ensue won't be pretty. They've walked themselves up to the edge of the cliff and now they can't back away.

Ranting about Obamacare was all well and done *before* anyone had it and they could scare people about what it would do. But now that people have it and like it? They face the prospect of taking health care *away* from people who needed it most instead of preventing them from getting in the first place.

That is a total PR disaster waiting to happen. One person dying after their chemo/dialysis/etc getting cut by the GOP lawsuit and they'll be fucked PR wise.

[s_stabeler]

that's one reason why the GOP tried to kill it BEFORE it started. because they knew that once it came in, if they tried to get rid of it, they'd face electoral annihilation by people that would now get a reminder every time they visited the doctor or hospital of exactly why they hated the GOP. ( in the plus side, it might just piss people off enough to solve the voter turnout problem)

[jedimaster91]

Ranting about Obamacare was all well and done *before* anyone had it and they could scare people about what it would do.

Oh I can still rant about Obamacare. Most if not all of the staffing cuts and increased workloads I'm dealing with in my job are in some way being caused by Obamacare. The ACA has cut reimbursement to doctors and hospitals, yet the system is being flooded with people who had preexisting conditions and couldn't get health insurance before. A lot of those people are really sick because their preexisting conditions haven't been treated or managed for years. Patient loads are going up but because of the reimbursement cuts, hospitals are cutting clinical staff to compensate. To be fair, it was already happening before the ACA passed, but the ACA made it worse. Mama Jedi quit after a little over a year as a nurse because of being expected to routinely care for seven patients at once. ICU nurses are being forced to care for 3 patients. Now ICU patients have to have a nurse with them if they leave the floor. Do you think there are enough nurses to cover the other 2 patients while that nurse is gone? Ha!

In my department we are technically supposed to have 2 full time techs per scanner. We have 3 scanners so we should be staffing 6 full time techs. We have 2 full time techs, 3 part time and 2 PRN. Most of the time we're running with 4 techs total or fewer on any given day because our budget algorithm doesn't allow for the department to be adequately staffed. We've lost our EKG tech for stress tests, so that's tying up one of us to do hookups instead of injecting and scanning. And our patients are sicker. We're seeing more patients who are full lifts, more of our unusual scans for infections and such, more patients who have to be on monitored floors, more falls, and a packed ER. And the entire hospital is working on below skeleton crew staffing. We're having to transport our own patients more and more because so often there's only one transporter for the whole hospital. Which again, takes a tech away from our actual work and puts us further and further behind. Not to mention the staff is overworked and tired. And tired people make mistakes that can kill patients.

So from what I'm seeing, the ACA created more problems than it solved. It needs a major overhaul because let's face it, we're not going to get rid of it.

[Andara Bledin]

I'm pretty sure most of those problems are more related to greed in the medical industry than the ACA (I refuse to call it Obamacare because it's a freaking dogwhistle and I'm talking to people, not dumb animals).

[jedimaster91]

^ Some, yes. But not all. It exacerbated an already existing problem. And the ACA still doesn't address the vast amounts of waste and unnecessary procedures. I mean really, this patient is symptomatic and you've (you = doctor) found the problem. You don't need 3 other tests to tell you what you already know. And yet you ordered them anyway.

[Gravekeeper]

I'm pretty sure most of those problems are more related to greed in the medical industry than the ACA (I refuse to call it Obamacare because it's a freaking dogwhistle and I'm talking to people, not dumb animals).

^. You can't tell me this is the ACA's fault and there's nothing going on at the state, municipal or hospital level that's conflating these problems.

You would be treating these people one way or another to begin with. If you were not treating them preventatively before then you were treating them on an emergency basis ( at vastly greater expense ).

[s_stabeler]

to say nothing about the fact that quite a few problems can be explained by the fact thta opponents of the ACA have at every turn, etiher tried to defy provisions of the ACA, or to resist it. ( For instance, the problems with the federal exchange. Originally there wasn't supposed to be a federal exchange, but several states refused to set one up. It's why it was such a shambles: it had to be set up at relatively short notice for such a massive project. ( for such a massive project, it should really have been developed over 2 or 3 years- with one of those years being dedicated to testing it to see if it can cope with the load expected.) To give another example, Medicare was supposed to be expanded to cover people who earned too little to be able to reasonably afford insurance even with the exchanges. Nope, several states refused to do it. ( EVEN THOUGH the bill was being FULLY paid by the federal government. The states literally just had to sign off on the increase.)

not to mention the continued uncertainly caused by the Repblicans constant efforts to repeal it.

Oh, it isn't perfect- but the trouble is, if the ACA was overhauled at the moment, Republicans would seize the opportunity to gut it. Unfortunately, it will have to wait until it can be truly reformed- rather than returned to the previous system.

[Estil]

Take it from someone who has pretty much voted Republican all my life (though I usually only do Pres/Congress/Senate elections; I don't really do local level politics that much) and of course I voted against Obama both times. I honestly don't buy any of this "Obama is evil/Satan/Communist/etc" stuff and consider it just as silly/ridiculous as those far left activists who drew Hitler mustaches on Bush and was calling him a war criminal and so on. Not to mention when they celebrated Margaret Thatcher's death with Ding Dong the Witch is dead and singing Nah Nah Nah Hey Hey Goodbye to Bush at Obama's inauguration (doing that sort of thing at a campaign rally is one thing but for a serious solemn ceremony like an inauguration that and celebrating someone's death just because you don't like his/her political views is going way too far).

I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't want to end up like those radical Bush haters towards Obama. I don't see eye to eye on the political issues for the most part and I found him horribly unqualified to be President (only a fraction of a term each in the Senate and state legislature, and he voted "Present" most of the time). But I honestly don't think he's a bad guy or anything exactly. As it is often said after an election, your political opponent(s) are not your enemies.

[Gravekeeper]

Both Sides Are Bad So Vote Republican(tm)