_Really_ now.

[solarbird]

The Senate finance committee may not be able to pass its own party's supposedly-preferred public health plan option in any form - which I point out only to highlight their incompetence and ineptitude - but restoring funding for "abstinence-only" sex education funding for programmes proven to be actively counter-productive? Can do, sport! Check out this, from the story:

[Senator Orrin] Hatch said abstinence education had been shown to work

...which we in the "science" business call a "lie..."

"...though Baucus disagreed."

Hey, reality is just a matter of opinion, eh? And that's at Huffington Post! Even Texas is giving up on this shit, seeing high-school pregnancy rates soaring after adopting (get it? I'm so funny) abstinence-only. And. Yet.

Christ, Democrats are pathetic.

Comments

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

The Democratic Party has never yet let go of the dream that if they compromise enough and show themselves to be openminded and inclusive, they will be able to include everyone on the whole country, and everybody will decide they're okay and join them.

Those of us who don't care whether or not we are loved, and just want to get things done, find this frustrating.

[l33tminion]

Yeah, that's basically the long and sort of it. Maybe they believe that people will get fed up with the Republican do-nothing-ism, but a lot of Republicans still love the status quo (or at least fear government anything more than they dislike the status quo).

[galbinus-caeli.livejournal.com]

In republican terms any program that wastes government funds that might otherwise go to poor and needy people is "working".

[l33tminion]

Sadly, it "worked" really well.

Under Clinton, Republican attempts to claim that social programs would bankrupt all of your children and grandchildren forever were mitigated by the fact that the government was in fact running a budget surplus, with talk of finally paying down the national debt. But the last administration ensured that won't be happening any time soon. And now that their pet politicians are no longer in charge, the conservative base is belatedly terrified that anything the government does will leave everyone destitute.

The idea is to shrink the government by growing spending. Give enough money to your friends in big business, and eventually the government will be extremely unpopular and unable to borrow more money (plus, your friends will be rich, and will no doubt have cushy consulting jobs waiting for you when you're no longer in office). At that point, you'll have no problem razing the government to the ground. Bonus points if the moment the government actually goes broke is on the watch of your political opponents.

[pentane.livejournal.com]

I just wish there was a choice besides stupid or pathetic.

[loopback.livejournal.com]

no no you don't understand, this is a tactical retreat so they can save their political capital for more important things to come. JUST BE PATIENT.

Isn't it funny how that doesn't get trotted out anymore when this shit gets brought up? even the Democratic Party "True Believers" aren't spewing that line now.

Before I thought a 3rd party wasn't absolutely necessary. Now I think it is simply so we can have a party in place that might DO something that isn't aggressively toxic.

[solarbird]

As I've been saying for a long time, an opposition that does not oppose is not actually an opposition party. Rewarding an opposition party that does not oppose means they will continue to do what was rewarded, which is to say, not oppose, or rather, not change anything.

C.f. the next post, about which I am still enraged.