Think Progress

“MoveOn-dot-Something”

By Nico Pitney on Jul 27th, 2005 at 10:14 am

“MoveOn-dot-Something”

Somebody’s been surfing the Internets

The president told the assembled guests that “groups like MoveOn-dot-something” have been attending congressional town-hall meetings and “raising cane” about Social Security reform.



83 Responses to ““MoveOn-dot-Something””

  1. Jealous of Jeff says:

    Oh the joy, oh the wonder,
    I am here before Dilemma,
    Now the facts we can debate,
    Before brother Ned’s fascist berate


  2. Tom Matzzie says:

    That’s a real thrill that president knows what our members have been up to. People at the grassroots are really concerned about Social Security and opposed to privatization. That is one of the reasons MoveOn.org Political Action has been an active participant in Americans United to Protect Social Security.


  3. The Northeast Dilemma says:

    #1 – that’s great.

    Bush always amazes me with his public stupidity on issues any fool knows he fully understands. His “moron” image has helped him enormously.

    #2 – there’s another side of that coin. Social security needs reform and choice. AND there is a grassroots movement for that, too.


  4. Karl Rove says:

    Don’t blame me for George’s internet ignorance.

    I helped him get on-line once . . . but he fell off.

    Don’t be like George. Don’t drink and surf. Just say “No”.


  5. steve says:

    Was that the same Internets that Al Gore invented?


  6. David says:

    I don’t mind having a discussion about reforming social security. I just don’t want Bush leading it.


  7. The Northeast Dilemma says:

    #6 – Bush has to lead since liberals are devoid of any reform of ideas. They hate change.


  8. Terrytheturtle says:

    I was surprised that Dubya mentioned that. Since his party brownshirts (sorry, man illegally impersonating a secret service agent) stand accused of throwing three people in Denver out of one of his ‘open town hall’ meetings on his tax-payer funded 2005 Tour. http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/6/22/122756/577

    And Denver was not the only event that US citizens were barred from attending an open event simply because they had an anti-war bumper sticker. You can Google the rest.

    And no, the argument that they were planning to disrupt the talk does not wash. (1) there were only three of them (2) anyone knows that disrupting an event simply plays into the hands of the speaker. If any of these meetings allowed for open questions (which they did not), then Dear Leader might have had some trouble.


  9. The Northeast Dilemma says:

    BROWNSHIRTS! I love it. If only Bush did everything you people accuse him of.


  10. kindness says:

    Ahh steve…. Al Gore and the REST OF our then Congress were instrumental in funding ARPNET which then morphed into the internet. I know you were trying to be funny, but it appears you don’t know the truth of the matter.

    Bush and his “reforming”. Bless they guy, but he is such a feeb. Average americans see he is plainly trying to defund Social Security and they don’t agree with him on the matter. We all have access to being able to participate in Mutual Funds and IRA’s, so his plan is disingenuous at best.

    I do agree that Social Security needs funding to keep it solvent through the baby boom retirement to come. My preferance is to eliminate the cap on Social Security taxes (currently set at $89,000). I’ve seen where SSI Actuaries ran the numbers on Social Security w/ the cap removed. It showed the system would then be completely solvent through 2095. Let’s see, that covers my generation & several more after me, I’m cool with that.


  11. Fred says:

    Bush Was a C student,an ivy-league legacy,a cheerleader, A business failure several times, a cheater, a bad liar,a druggie and alchoholic. Why should anyone assume he is brighter than he portrays? Where has he been hiding his brilliance? Though I guess a sharp crimminal mind is intelligence of a kind.


  12. mudkitty says:

    We don’t need to fix social security, we just need to fully fund it.


  13. The Northeast Dilemma says:

    #10 – so what happens when SS defunds itself because of liberal inaction? I guess you can try to invade my bank account and raise taxes further promoting choice.


  14. The Northeast Dilemma says:

    #11 – if Bush is such a moron, why you can’t beat him?


  15. Terrytheturtle says:

    NorthEast, I beg to differ. Clinton had a go at National Health Care. Yes I know that tickles your funny bone, but in the nation with a fifth of its population uninsured, the rest enduring the highest costs of any industrialised nation and life expectancy dropping like a brick, he might have been on to something. Especially when you see things like this: http://www.cbc.ca/cp/business/050630/b0630102.html

    Although I tend to agree with your general comment that Democrats have been sclerotic in imagination. How about a return to bit of Tom Paine liberalism, fiscal repsonsbility, rights of man, common sense?


  16. The Northeast Dilemma says:

    #15 – I was referring to your ridiculous brownshirt comment, but yes I would be willing to have an intelligent debate over health care. I don’t agree that anyone has a fundamental right to health care, though.


  17. Terrytheturtle says:

    #9 – Do you deny that a Republican Party staffer impersonated a secret service agent and threw out three people from an open forum? There’s plenty more, but stop denying facts, it makes your arguments weak.


  18. kindness says:

    Don’t even bother with ned. His pattern is to throw the thread off topic and blame liberals. Ignore the asshole. he won’t discuss topics. Let him go. He’s not worth the bandwidth.


  19. The Northeast Dilemma says:

    #17 – I do not deny – I do not know to be perfectly honest. AND to be even more candid, I don’t care. After seeing the spectacle made here in NYC last year, it’s no surprise Bush doesn’t want to be around those kind of people. Besides, the President needs to be protected from those who could do harm to him.

    I think Kennedy, Kerry and Dean suit the modern definition of brownshirts. Maybe Gore too.


  20. The Northeast Dilemma says:

    #18 – I think I did discuss topics and ask some thoughtful question. I know I threaten you because I am not a liberal clone, but come on, somebody has to lighten this doomsday blog up!


  21. Terrytheturtle says:

    #18 – no, we almost had him debating there. I buzzed him a bit with the brownshirt thing but let’s talk health care. I agree with him that health care is not a right. But then don’t you think that my argument from an economic point of view carry weight? I think there is a simple economic argument for universal health care at some level.


  22. Fred says:

    Are you 12 years old Ned? Wana play king of the hill? Is your gang tougher than mine? I left that crap behind long ago.
    The true power is with corporate America.w is the corporate president of America so staple a dollar bill to a stick and wave it back and forth dummy. Proud?


  23. The Northeast Dilemma says:

    #21 – universal health care? How do you feel about public schools, VA hospitals and other govt run disasters?

    I support choice.


  24. Don Davis says:

    I am afraid an intelligent debate with Northeast Enema would be somewhat difficult for most of us. I, for one, would never have a battle of wits with an unarmed man.


  25. The Northeast Dilemma says:

    Alright – I am leaving. I actually have a deadline here in corporate America. Kindness, you win today.


  26. doubtful says:

    Health care is a right we, as progressives in the richest nation on the planet, would like to and should extend to everyone. Spare me the free market bullshit because the free market doesn’t work for the poor.

    I, for one, refuse to sit idly by and allow this great country to continue devloping a perverted form of modern fuedalism.

    Take a gander at the first episode of Morgan Spurlock’s “30 Days,” and, if you allow yourself, you will learn that supporting a household on minimum wage with no health care is impossible.


  27. Bearpaw says:

    I wouldn’t mind Bush leading a discussion on SocSec reform, *if* he actually led a *discussion* on it, and not a series of scripted PR events. Of course, he needs to be protected from, you know, “those kind of people” … people who might [shudder] *disagree* with him!


  28. Slim says:

    Ned is the Post Materials Manager at a Diaper Service.


  29. Terrytheturtle says:

    Ah come on, you’ve squashed the debate people. We had a decent point to talk about – universal versus choice, but we had too many Ned-baiters. I’m off to the energy bill thread.


  30. kindness says:

    So, on topic….anyone else have ideas about what to do about social security. (sorry, I don’t find talking to or about our trolls interesting).


  31. steve says:

    #26

    So you want national health care like Canada? Where do liberals get off on trying to socialize everything? What we would create is an entitlement society that will collapse under its own weight. We have been waging the war on poverty for 40+ years. Is that a war that is unwinable too? I would support federal assistance to those who could not afford health insurance to pay for private insurance, but I don’t think we should go down the path of a national plan. The free market society is what has made this nation what it is today. So don’t mess with it.


  32. Jay says:

    kindness,

    I think it’s pretty simple. Less war, more health care, solid Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, pre-shool programs, after-school programs, clean elections,etc. It would take a virtual drop from the Pentagon budget bucket to fund all of this and more.


  33. Jay says:

    steve,

    Nobody wants to eliminate the free market, but the Republicans that currently wield all of the power are working hard toward further consolidating wealth in the hands of the top 1-5%. Shouldn’t big corporations have to pay their share of taxes? Instead they cost all of us billions by using offshore tax shelters. Don’t you see that privatization of everything makes all of us susceptible to the predatory nature of corporate Darwinism. Why do you think laws were implemented to prevent monopolies? Now we’re headed in that exact direction…very bad for the middle class.


  34. Krazny says:

    One way to prevent a SS crisis would be to repay the billions of dollars borrowed from it to fund the war in Iraq.


  35. progressive and proud says:

    I say ending the Social Security “cap” is the only logical, selfless, Democratic way of handling this issue. It would be solvent in short order for the next near-decade. The only people against this are greedy repubs.


  36. Doogey Howzer says:

    Is it me, or has he misplaced the mouse…? I am surprised that a semi-literate person would know how to use a typewriter at all, let alone surf the “internets”.

    …no, no, now hit the return key…arhggg! -karl rove


  37. Terrytheturtle says:

    Steve raises some good points. Most developed nations with universal health care struggle with the weight of the commitment. Its a complex question, especially when you watch Lou Dobbs going off on illegal aliens gaining benefits.

    However, letting the free market decide and not regulating what the market decides is putting the fox in charge of the hen house. Corporations are piles of money with the sole purpose in life of becoming bigger piles of money. This is why and how they have persuaded the government (the Bush administrattion in particular) to abrogate its abilty to bulk negotiate medicines on behalf of the population.


  38. Gary Kleppe says:

    Doesn’t Patrick O’Connor know that the expression is “raising Cain”? You know, Cain, the guy in the Bible who invented what would later become American foriegn policy?


  39. kindness says:

    Damn, I wish I’d learn to type properly. Sorry all, just wing it.


  40. Justin says:

    Hmm about the heath care issue. Personally I think that health care is a fundamental human right as is shelter and food and education. I guess that’s just me being Canadian. Conversely there’s also nothing wrong with choice. The problem lies in the extremes. There’s nothing wrong with providing for pay services for the rich as it moves them out of the public line. Although there must be a public way to get the same treatment.

    As for SS I don’t really know that much. I think it’s a good thing to keep it in the public hands though.


  41. Flamethrower says:

    wow, look at the determination: how do you spell “potato” again?

    Also reminds me of the Cheney Factcheck.org statement in the debates.


  42. Ryan Neat says:

    terry,

    Actually that’s a myth, just like the myth of the liberal media. The US spends twice as much percentage of GDP for healthcare per person as the average industrialized nation does. The ‘burden’ on industrialized nations come from a comprehensive system including virtually unlimited unemployment coupled with WTO rules that allow easy capital flight. When you combine that with an increase in hedge funds that increasingly dismantle companies for profit and undermine economic stability of entire regions – that’s the burden, it isn’t health care… The cost of health care is simply a siren song to get taxes lowered, it’s not based in any reality. If it were, those same companies would be complaining about ‘military costs’, which produce significantly more taxes…


  43. Terrytheturtle says:

    Justin, I think that the term ‘right’ is over used and that ‘responsibility’ is not spoken of at the same time as ‘right’. I think the relationhips between the governed and the government are what causes programs such as social security and universal health care to appear. The governed make a contract with the government to provide those services that they think they need and best represent their values. Canada among others has decided that universal health care is a priority. I don’t think it is a right, just a natural outgrowth of your value system and the contract you have written with your government.


  44. Arliss says:

    Steve: Stop repeating that old Republican lie that Al Gore said he invented the internet. It was proven to be a lie long ago. He NEVER said such a thing.

    http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp


  45. Terrytheturtle says:

    #43 – I knew it was complex. Assessing the various pros and cons of universal health care versus choice (same for social sec) require a ability to define and understand KPIs (key performance indicators) like wait times, life expectancies, the kinds of hidden costs that Ryan talks about all kinds of things. My favour for some kind of universal care (not a ‘right’ but a priority for me) is based on my past experience in a country with such compared to a 1992 experience in Texas where I waited in a hospital with a broken ankle and no pain killers for three hours while they unravelled my insurance elegibility.


  46. Sara says:

    Writing from Oakland, a city with huge economic shortages in healthcare and education, yet with the 4th largest seaport in the world, said port which pays NO business taxes to the city… I see the problem pretty clearly. Corportions have the legal protections of individuals, they should pay as much tax as individuals. Remove the cap!
    Also, I think the main problem with getting universal healthcare (which America can easily afford – hello, even Mexico has it!) is the insurance companies and their lobbyists.
    I have been looking at health care plans lately. I work full time for a small single owner company. They can only afford to pay half my health care costs. My husband is self-employed. We have been trying to find a plan that we can afford to pay 3/4 of to cover both of us, but so far, everything is about HALF my monthly gross.
    What am I paying taxes for? I hope I don’t have to rely on our butchered Social Security program in my old age. Lucily, my husband is a Mexican citizen, so at least we could move there to be covered. But I would hate to have to leave my country that I love because it doesn’t love me.


  47. LwordLover says:

    The social security fix, that no one ever mentions is quite easy – take it away from the Bill Gates, Mel Gibsons, and Warren Buffets. WE KNOW they don’t need it! For a comparison, consider I pay property taxes of which a part goes to my local school distict. I have no kids but pay anyway. Why should the rich collect someting they don’t need? Anyone with over 2mill in liquid assets shouldn’t be eligible to collect!


  48. LwordLover says:

    #23 – Except when it comes to a woman’s right to choose, or a gay’s choice to marry. Then, all bets are off.


  49. Tess says:

    Bush:

    How do I preheat with this thing? I’m trying to set it on low for two min. I need lunch now.


  50. Ryan Neat says:

    23,

    Government run disasters? A generation ago we had the best public education in the world, and it only began to become a disaster when CONservatives tried to stop its funding because ‘liberal’ ideas were seen exposed there in the students and faculties. Right wing willies like yourself would prefer to be ignorant home schooled morons than attend a properly funded public education system.

    As for the VAHospital – once again this is a product of the treasonous CONservatives who talk patriotism while cutting benefits to veterans! The only CHOICE CONservatives continually make is selfish personal greed at the expense of the american system itself.

    As for ‘disasters’, the average government program has 1/3th to 1/10th the administrative overhead (and profit) costs of their private sector counterparts – and they’re often rated equal to, or superior to their corporate counterparts. A russian (now american) friend of mine has an HMO, and after waiting for 6HOURS in the emergency room gave up seeing a doctor so he could go to work (with his injury). He said the service was worse than ANY government run hospital in russia he had ever been to. Just because you have a ‘commercial’ entity doesn’t make it good, and just because it’s government doesn’t make it bad. Frankly there’s usually room for both – but it sounds like you’re a typical fascist that doesn’t believe in ‘government’ systems. Your anti government rhetoric belongs in a 1930s Fascist rally, not in a modern educated setting. It makes you look like a stupid ignorant boob…


  51. Terrytheturtle says:

    Sara, you hit the nail on the head there. Did you see this?
    http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/22/143204

    It’s a feudal system, sports fans: “Look, strange women lying on their backs in ponds handing out swords … that’s no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.”


  52. Terrytheturtle says:

    I have another one to add to Ryan’s: the electrical grid. Funny how the degradation of the electrical grid started getting much worse after privatisation? Worked pretty well didn’t it? All you rural red-staters happy to have that wire coming up your driveway?


  53. Jealous of Jeff says:

    Caption competition: “Now if I can just log into that Warren County, Diebold vote totalizer, I can turn this puppy around and get Swift Loser off my back”


  54. 3rdman says:

    #6 – Bush has to lead since liberals are devoid of any reform of ideas. They hate change.

    Comment by The Northeast Dilemma

    ROFL, does anyone else realize how stupid this comment is? “Liberals” hate change? Do you happen to know what the term conservative even means, Ned? Retard.


  55. kindness says:

    I don’t want to cut Bill Gates or Warren Buffett(?) out of SSI. I want them to PAY into it. if they are going to pay into it, they should sure be able to draw out of it.

    I mean, they would never, ever be able to draw as much out in benefits as they would pay in. Fair is fair.

    See how much we can discuss freely w/o the feeble? Nice…


  56. G.S. says:

    Caption:
    hmmm….How do I delete my temp porn internet files ?..


  57. Slim says:

    Come over here Dick! Found a hidden terrah message on this Giant Juggs site.


  58. Ryan Neat says:

    3rd man,

    The CONservatives actually are trying to reverse american fiscal policies to the 1920s when Hoover nearly bankrupted the nation and caused the great depression. They believe that they didn’t go ‘far enough’, and that was the problem…

    These guys are clinically insane!


  59. LwordLover says:

    #57
    That’s just my point. I pay school taxes and don’t have kids, so I reap no benefit (other than a better educated populace,etc. So, for them to pau in but not get back, well, ok it will just be a fact of life. In other words, too bad. Call it the billionare’s burden.


  60. LwordLover says:

    “We demand the congress increase the payroll tax in order to make social security solvent as well.” – UM, nope, I get taxed enough! Let’s cut the fat cats out of sosec – see #49.

    “We also demand congress and the president enact a prescription drug benefit under Medicare Part B which covers 80 percent of medication cost, with no extra premium, no extra deductibles, no means test and no coverage gaps.”
    Let’s redirect the $ spent for the absurd War on Drugs to this AND have the pharmas justify their prices!


  61. kindness says:

    We don’t need a higher payroll tax, we just need to eliminate the $89,000 cap we currently have & SS is funded through 2095.

    As far as demanding that medicare cover whatever % more drug costs w/o increasing premiums – you are deluded. Do you think anything is free? I’m not against them covering it, but I sure expect to pay SOMETHING for all the added stuff. We aren’t down the rabit hole yet. Hey – if you aren’t going to finish your mushrooms, can I have yours?


  62. LwordLover says:

    Elimianting the cap means more taxes – Oh no I pay enough! Let’s cut out those who don’t need it. Turn so sec into the program it was supposed to be – a saftey net not a source of income.


  63. Ryan Neat says:

    LwordLover, do you make more than 89k? You’re thinking of this wrong.

    If you do make over 89k, then you’re paying less percentage of your income in payroll taxes than someone on miminum wage. Frankly the taxes are inequitable because poorer people who can afford to pay the least pay the most ‘relative’ and required income into the system. People who make over 89k can afford to pay more, yet they pay a relatively less significant portion of their income.


  64. kindness says:

    The percentage of my taxes paid is the full amount. Why should someone who makes MORE than me pay LESS? What part of fair don’t you agree with?


  65. Don Davis says:

    The comments concerning medical care and social security vis-a-vis a free market has a very serious fault. In a free market society everybody, and that consumers as well as sellers, has a choice (Wash Out My Mouth with Haliburton). Buyers and sellers may enter or leave the market at will. A person with a broken toe or terminal cancer has no choice. We all get old whether we choose or not. This gives the medical profession in partiicular a captive market and a license to steal. The HMO’s are only in the business for money not for the treatment of the ill. The only answer is a regulated health care system that regulates the cost of medical care, eliminating completely the HMO’s and the Insurance companies. The same can be said for social security and the stock market. The only winners in the market are those that manipulate the market. It is a crap shoot with loaded dice in which no reasonable person should trust his waning years.


  66. LwordLover says:

    Sorry folks, but yes I do make more than 89K. But the folks around me are making mid to high six figures. Now if you tell me a sliding scale, I’ll start to agree. #67 – why is it fair I pay school taxes when I have no kids? Shouldn’t folks with 6 kids pay more than those with 1?


  67. LwordLover says:

    #68, There is no free mkt with heealth care. The laws of supply and demand get thrown out the window. Someone will pay any amount to live. You’re correct about the HMO’s AND MD care. They ask about your insureance before “what’s wrong with you”.


  68. Scott1960 says:

    Hard to believe anyone from MoveOn would have made the guest, I mean approved attendees, list!


  69. Brian says:

    …the Tetris master…


  70. Ryan Neat says:

    Don,

    That’s nonsense. Most people can’t afford insurance other than what’s shoved down their throat. When an HMO is paid for by yourself (and your employer) as the only affordable choice, then how is that a free market? It’s already an oligarchy of sorts, but one controlled by insurance companies that on average increase the costs of health care by ~30 percent, and by health care ‘corporations’ that increase health care by ~25 percent more. This is why the US spends twice per capita on health care as the other industrialized nations, and yet we have 40 million uninsured!

    The current health care system means that these 40 million people don’t get health care until it’s so expensive that it costs the public more money than if the person were getting preventative care through health insurance. It’s a stupid topsy turvey situation propagated by blind and self willed ignorance and stupidity from people like yourself. Get a clue!


  71. Jealous of Jeff says:

    Caption contest: “Hey, Scotty don’t you know this guy in this here Hanes advert?”


  72. Susan says:

    Bushie is back on the social security campaign because the Rove campaign isn’t working out for him.

    He’s wasting our tax dollars and that is all he is good at.

    votetoimpeach.org


  73. cynical ex-hippie says:

    Caption contest: “Hey look, the computer isn’t even turned on. I’m just like Ronald Reagan!”


  74. Don Davis says:

    Ryan Neat,

    I fail to follow your argument. I stated the medical care industry was not a free market. You claim it is an oligarchy in terms of the Insurance Companies and imply the HMO’s are monolopistic by nature. I could not agree more.
    You claim that by eliminating the Insurance Companies and the HMO’s we could save 55% (your figures, not mine). I claim that doing the same we could establish an affordable system. Where do we differ? I will add another point: if we eliminate the malpractice insurance companies and try any malpractice in a criminal court rather than the trial lawyers pocketbook another 10% or more could be saved. Since we seem to have so much in common please explain why I am blind, self-willed, ignorant and stupid and you are not?


  75. John says:

    Caption:
    I’m assuming the position King Fahd, now what?


  76. Jealous of Jeff says:

    Caption Contest: “Whoah, I don’t think that’s a Hanes advert that friend of yours is in, Scotty”


  77. robert polhemus says:

    BROWN SHIRTS OF BUSHISM. PERFECT! MEANWHILE THEY MAKE THE GRUNTS (MILITARY) WEAR RED STAINED SHIRTS. OH WELL…AS LONG AS IT IS NOT THEIR BLOOD!


  78. cman says:

    ryan,… you are truly a fool.. all of the stats you quote are not only false but a bright shinning lie!!!…. let me ask you ryan, what do you do for a living???? At least Don Davis is heading in the right direction with the trial lawyers… they get more out of the health care system then anyone, this is why insurance is so expensive and therefore healthcare… as someone who has a lot of doctor friends and trial lawyer friends and friends with some leaders in the insurance industry as well as owning my own business who pays crazy insurance rates only to find i’m not covered when i need it… you need to get yourself into the real world


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