Creepy Condescending Wonka

Relax, Snowflakes... the adults are back in charge.

I guess after putting up with the right wing ostracizing of the executive branch, the left has decided that's what the right want. As the right is so cooperative, they are giving the right what they want.

LOL, because in the beginning Barrack, Harry and Nancy made every effort they could to reach across when they had the presidency and both house majorities. Selective forget much?

Really? Care to point out the obstructionism you speak of. Or is this another right wing talking point without a basis of fact.

Dude, when did you start following politics? The last 2 or 3 years? Maybe you don't remember the "elections have consequences" introduction. Ramming through Obamacare with not only zero republican votes but not allowing republicans to read it, much less read it themselves. How about Harry blocking EVERY republican proposal for 8 full years, not even letting them come to a vote in the Senate. I'm not saying both sides are innocents, but you sire respectfully must have had your head in the sand most of the last 8 years, and people who pay attention saw this, and this is why we have a president elect Trump.

Shhhhhhhh. Don't you know that if "it's Republicans who won't compromise" is said often enough, eventually it will be true.

I'd say my first introduction to politics was 1963. Barely learned about the presidents when the current one was killed in Dallas. I really cut my teeth on that subject, though, during the '64 election. What were you doing then?

Obamacare. Oh, you mean Nixons compromise, which later became Hillarycare and then Romneycare? Yeah, Ted Kennedy said that turning down Nixon's proposal was the worst mistake he made, but then, he didn't know what the following decade would bring. Funny they didn't read it as there were so many concessions in there they demanded be there. Yup, they chose partisan politics over their own ideology. But I bet it felt good after 8 years of George Bush's rubber stamp approval On Republican bills. Now, as I understand it, it looks like most of the population is pushing for single payer healthcare, even Republicans. I know, my oldest brother is pushing hard for it and he is the epitome of a Trump supporter.

Of course, the Republican party just say there, taking it easy, right? No, they fought it hard: how many attempts to repeal it? Fifty? With a GOP majority in both the House and the Senate, you'd think they could get enough votes.

Oh, and for the record, they successfully blocked it during the first two years of the Obama administration. Even after SCOTUS found the act to be Constitutional.

Its all good, and nice to see someone around here a little older than me :). Since you lived through the timeframe as well, I will share with you my take on it, and you can tell me where I have gone wrong. I may not agree that I am wrong, but we can pick at it. I came along in the Reagan Era. He got my 1st vote as I turned 18 in July before his first run. Although there were very big differences there was in my view a willingness to work with each other from his administration through most of Clinton's. Where it appeared to me that it all went south, was the crescendo that built throughout Clinton's administration. The scandals that emerged during the campaign and the eventual Lewensky issue and impeachment. I don't think the democrats ever forgave the republicans for it. It carried over into the Bush administration and with all you could actually pick at him over, there was so much more just made up out of thin air that is still today regarded as fact. By that time, the hatred of anything "right " was so strong, that when Obama came in with his "elections have consequences attitude" both sides refused to budge. As for Obamacare yes they fought it tooth and nail but in the end it did get pushed through with "zero" partisan support and it took an extremely controversial decision from the scotus to keep it alive, a decision largely viewed as legislation from the bench. To be honest I don't want republicans only re-writing healthcare the way democrats did. The magnitude of what needs to be done calls for transparency not an unread bill passed by a single party. Yes, its hard to get bi-partisan support, life is hard but they get paid well to do things that are hard and have spent the last 12 to 16 years being lazy...ALL OF THEM! I also don't want that legislation to continue as is. I happen to be one that had insurance all my life and now it has become unusable to me. As an independent contractor the policies I can afford have deductibles so high it is unusable anyway. This is true for many others. In short for many in my position users who were paying into the system got run out of the system and replaced by users who don't contribute. That's my take on it.

My first election I voted for Ford. I know, I've been a registered Democrat since I first registered, but Ford came at a time the country needed healing, and he seemed to want to do that. He lost because he pardoned Nixon. A shame, as I believe he would have done better as president than Carter.

When Reagan had a Democratic Congress, the Dems had been going through some changes. It had started earlier in the 70s, but because the Democrats had lost the Dixiecrats to the GOP, they were slowly being taken over by Republican neo-liberals. One of those neoliberals just ran for president. As the Democratic party moved to the right, the GOP moved further right. By the time Clinton was elected, he ran on the premise that the GOP economic decisions of the 80s weren't working. "It's the economy, stupid" adorned every wall in his campaign headquarters. The timing was perfect as we had an economic hiccup right after Desert Storm. People were reminded that we'd been in multiple recessions for 20 years. The first thing he did was to appoint Hillary, already disposed by the right, in charge of socialized health care. She dusted off Nixon's compromise and passed it on as here own. The GOP was still a little sore about him being run out of office. We saw what happened then. Pretty much through the Clinton presidency, he acted mote like a Republican than a Democrat. NAFTA, China's favored nation status, and so on. I felt he sold us down the river on those, and it appears I was right. But he do one thing right by working with the GOP Congress. He worked with Congress to come out of debt by, IIRC, 2010. It was based on sound economic policy based on revenues and expenditures. Simple economics: take in more than you spend. Him and Newt fought likeca married couple, with each other and with their own Party, but they got it done. That's the surplus that you always hear Bush met when he was elected. His rubber stamp administration pretty much did away with that. Well, him and his handlers. His first stroke of luck came on 9-11-2001: the tragedy that united the nation. He used that to get congress to move forward to allow an invasion of Iraq. Using faulty, doctored intelligence, he pushed for the invassion. Who could resist? "If you're not for us, you're against us" was the slogan he used. He followed it with no bid contracts and tax cuts for the rich.

The democratic party started its changing during Clinton. During the JFK era I would probably have been a democrat too, although that is where Nam began as is often forgotten. Bill Clinton got a lot of a free ride off of economic moves put in place during the Reagan administration. In time trickle down did actually work. Desert Storm took a lot of the wind out of the economic sails though. After it was over we had 8 years of attacks on American ships, bases abroad and Hussein was violating UN sanctions at every opportunity. By the time GW took over, everyone forgets that Hussein was working on final warning, what, maybe #50? Iraq was going to happen regardless, it was only a question of time. Once again everyone forgets or maybe wasn't paying attention to the UN inspections and the poker hand Hussein was trying to play. No one knew for sure if he was bluffing or not, after all he had showed the capacity to gas an untold number of kurds. We still don't know for sure that stockpiles didn't end up in Syria. BOTH parties scored on 9/11. GW for the short term with his re-election, but I would argue that without the fallout that came from it, Obama may never have been elected. G W got destroyed for going into Iraq, which again I argue was inevitable and to a much lesser degree Afghanistan. The recession was a horrible blend of 9/11 and bad economic policy allowing banks to write dangerous paper. I do believe the recession was a ripple from 9/11 combined with the 2 wars and financial policies that were well intended but not well thought out. A perfect storm. I do hold both sides responsible for creating an environment that gives us businesses that are too big to fail and have to be bailed out. We still haven't learned the lessons taught by Citigroup and AIG. Obama promised shovel ready jobs, and produced Solyndras. Joking that "I guess some of those jobs weren't so shovel ready". For some of us who had steady good jobs up until his administration, the words will always be locked into memory. Jobs reports became a joke, inflated when they needed talking points and then lowered the following week on a Friday to hide the bad news. These games are played by both sides, which is why I'm willing to see what an "outsider?", even one who was not my choice, can get done. To be honest I've had enough with both sides, but you cannot honestly say Obama, Reid and Pelosi did anything to prevent the discord and in fact they fueled it.

That is an excellent, articulate, and accurate synopsis of the last 25-30 years. I would add that Bill Clinton's presidency benefited from a MASSIVE technological change that had a positive effect on the economy and that he had multiple opportunities to capture Bin Laden but refused. Imagine what GWB's presidency would've been like without 9/11 and it's subsequent wars.

LOL, my mind was somewheres else on my original comment!

No problem :) I would also add the handling of the technology boom was totally botched. In the rush to have everyone sitting behind a computer working, we gave away the rest of industry. I mean who really wants to create, lift stuff, make stuff and talk with people for a living nowdays? The only thing I can think of is that both Carter and Bush thought technology would continue forever at that pace. Remember when all the rage was to "re-tool" us with high paying computer jobs?

It downfall of the Democratic party occurred long before Clinton. When Democrats in Congress Sat back and let Reagan and Bush I do pretty much as they pleased, even when they held the majority. With the right wing extremist Democrats (Dixiecrats) through in with the GOP, the Democrats no longer felt the need to appease the left wing extremists in the party, and started courting the moderate Republicans. One of the factors that has caused them to lose so many elections. That both parties are to blame, I cannot dispute it. I was hoping that Trump's election would wake up the Dems, but their new minority leader has close ties to the too big to fail banks. Its time to bury that ass. You and Mooseman have done the most towards my acceptance of Trump. No, I didn't vote for him, but I didn't vote for the ditzie broad, either. I'm not running around like a chicken with its head cut off or shouting about how Fascism is moving into the White House. Trump won the election fair and square, so now we should do what should have been done all along: let the man do his job and them we can determine if he did well or if he's going to royally f it up.

It truly is a matter of perspective. The sad thing is that it is the extremists on both sides that are the loudest squeaky wheels. Both sides do a lot of the wrong things, maybe for the right reasons. The failure to work together is why Obamacare ended up in the hands of Gruber and the epitome of an asshole Ezekiel Emanual. My hope is that the Romney visit with Trump this weekend was the first step towards healthcare and him getting input from friends and enemies alike to get it fixed. I don't agree with you that courting moderates lost them elections, it was republican crossovers that gave us Obama, and the dems both houses. It was the arrogance with which they handled healthcare that lost both houses and the extremely flawed Hillary that lost them the whitehouse. I was actually just calling an old friend to give him props on picking Trump at the beginning, I was sure it was going to be Rubio and Kasich in the end. I'm still betting on Trump to be a 1 termer even if his popularity soars. BTW, Tip Oneill was no doormat :) In the end him and Reagan worked together and managed to clean up the Carter mess.

????

Technological change, yes, but what benefitted Clinton the most was NAFTA.

Renegade-sith? We are not the same person. I don't dislike him but...

There is plenty of fact, yet if it were presented you would more than likely refute it simply because there are none so blind as those who will not see.

I use facts to refute. Seems facts have a liberal bias.

What color are the skies in your world?

It depends on the weather conditions that make the light refraction appear differently. Time of day also plays an important part.

I'm guessing pastels, lots and lots of pastels.

Mostly on sunny days. Dusk and dawn, tho, they intermix with some great vibrant colors that habe inspired artists, poets, and lovers since time began. Or at least since that one Thursday in 2647 BC.

Yeah, I remember 2647 BC fondly. Og had just returned from hunting and his wife, Oomah, and I were lying under the pre-dawn sky staring at the stars and... Well, long story short, I changed tribes on that day. :)

Yeah, that Og was definitely on the kinky side. But he had some interesting cave paintings

Yea. He like totally deserves it.