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>>Absolutely, the insurance lobbyists had a lot to do with what we ended up with, but it's not as simple as saying that Pelosi caved. Highly recommended read: http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Bitter-Pill-Politics-Healthcare/dp/0812986687?ie=UTF8&keywords=brill&qid=1462973454&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1
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>>Tamar
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>I am not a big fan of comedian Jon Stewart. Over the years he's gotten incredibly silly in his observations - but he made a comment in the last day that was 100% spot-on.
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>He blamed the political left (and the current administration and their failures) for the rise of Donald Trump.
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>Now, one can make the argument on whether "big government" is inherently inefficient. But regardless, Stewart's point is absolutely correct. The Obama administration has been nearly 8 years of incredible incompetence and the most embarrassing politicized behavior I have seen out of any president. And I don't want to hear any "but so was Bush". Barack Obama made a hard campaign promise that he would offer the "level of transparency" and he harshly criticized past Republican presidents. He has failed at living up to his promises.
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>I am not opposed to "smart government". But when you have a president who absolutely blew federal stimulus money on failed green energy companies, and then make the joke, "I guess the shovel-ready jobs weren't so shovel-ready", you can forget about any element of responsibility or "smart government" whatsoever.
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>I've said many times - I don't like Trump. I would vote (reluctantly) for the 2008 version of Hillary, with all her flaws at the time, over the current version of Trump now. I was actually prepared to vote for Hillary over McCain in 2008. But right now both are equally bad.
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>I listen to/read the howling and the fear and the indignation regarding Trump from places like HuffPo, and I say to myself, "Brother, you deserve it. You deserve it for protecting and for not holding the current administration accountable.". Many have blamed the failures of the R party for the rise of Trump - but Stewart's analysis really hits the nail on the head and places the blame where it belongs.

A lot of what you say is true.
Obama ran on a theme of change and really changed nothing for the millions of people who have been clobbered by automation, globalization, immigration enforcement failures and trade.
That's a huge failure and yes, it goes a long way to explain the Trump and Bernie phenomena.
Any reasonable person has to agree with Stewart.
The left likes to blame congress, blah, blah, blah.
Obama ran as the candidate of change and domestically, except for the fat cats who were bailed out by TARP things are pretty much the way he found them.

Foreign affairs are another matter, but unemployed coal workers don't care much about them.

Right now, I'd take Trump over Hillary.
To use John Boehner's phrase - she's Lucifer in the flesh. (He must have been sipping some Cote Du Rhone)
One way or the other, we have to see the last of the Clintons.