Obama using a teleprompter? Proof that he’s a lightweight. Sarah Palin using notes scrawled on her hand? Still more evidence of her down-to-earth humanity, and possibly even A Spot Of Brilliant Gamesmanship!
Chuck Todd:
“Daily Rundown” co-host Chuck Todd attempted to defend Palin, saying, “We’ve all done notes.”
Umm, sure. When you’re the one giving the interview, or providing news or analysis.
But that’s mild compared to the Fox & Friends propagandists:
CARLSON: I think she did it on purpose. I think she did it on purpose, yeah. Because it’s an exact opposite of reading off the teleprompter with a script written for you with every word in a sentence and here’s she’s just taking crib notes on her hand. It makes her look like she can just talk off the cuff and she just jotted down a few couple notes before she went out to give a big long speech.
DOOCY: I think she did it because she probably does it a lot. I do that all the time. [...]
KILMEADE: But to sit there and look at, and do the interview and look down at her hand, I think that is — like you said before, Gretchen — folksy, absolutely, down-to-earth, I can identify. But if you’re going to write on your hand, why not just say, ’staffer, hand me a card.’ And then it would be okay.
CARLSON: Nah, like I said, I think it was on purpose. But anyway, we we may never know.
Ah, I see. She deliberately made herself look like a clueless boob in order to draw attention to what a clueless boob Obama is. It was, like, satire – but at the same time totally demonstrated her bond with all the other good ol’ red-blooded American cheaters out there. Genius!
February 8th, 2010 at 08:41pm
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Media,
Palin,
Republicans,
Wankers
A terribly sad commercial, full of pathos and heartache:
I weep.
February 8th, 2010 at 11:29am
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Monday Media Blogging
I don’t think Mike is very impressed by Ex-Semi-Governor Palin:
Now there are many, many ways Sarah Palin could help this country. Running for President will never be one of them. You listen to her long enough and actually feel yourself getting dimmer by the minute, like a dying light bulb.
If her vision and grasp of even the most basic issues – with or without cribnotes – were any lighter, you would have to tie a rock to her to keep her from floating away.
….When she doesn’t like Rahm Emanuel, the President’s chief of staff, using the word “retards” to describe liberal groups, she says Emanuel should be fired.
Then her buddy Rush Limbaugh comes out and says, “Our political correct society is acting like some giant insult’s taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards.”
Chris Wallace asked her about that Sunday, and Palin practically wrestled herself to the ground so she didn’t make Limbaugh – who seems to take her seriously – mad at her. What Palin tried looked trickier than some yoga positions.
Palin: “Rush Limbaugh was using satire.”
No, he wasn’t. If Palin believes that, she really is more limited, and bubble-headed, than Paris Hilton. If not, she is simply a transparent phony.
(…)
The very best news of the weekend? It’s now official that she can fit her entire political philosophy in the palm of her hand.She thinks she is some kind of dream candidate for her party when the truth is that Palin is only a dream candidate for the other party.
All her friends on the right, the ones who treat her like a hot version of Margaret Thatcher, are afraid to say that. Or call her out for being the lightweight that she is, same as she was afraid to call out Limbaugh. So they all deserve one another.
Awesome. It seems like there is literally nothing that will make the Republican base realize what a lightweight scam artist she is.
February 8th, 2010 at 07:13am
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Media,
Palin,
Politics,
Republicans
This week’s quote is from the original version of The In-Laws:
A man calling himself D. Tracy will come to your home wearing galoshes. Give him the thing, okay?
And, of course, there’ll be other people’s beer cats…
Feisty!
February 5th, 2010 at 06:45pm
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Friday Quote & Cat Blogging
Obama Fail:
Sen. Al Franken ripped into White House senior adviser David Axelrod this week during a tense, closed-door session with Senate Democrats.
Five sources who were in the room tell POLITICO that Franken criticized Axelrod for the administration’s failure to provide clarity or direction on health care and the other big bills it wants Congress to enact.
(…)
“There was a lot of frustration in there,” said a Democratic senator who declined to be identified.
“People were hot,” another Democratic senator said.
Democratic senators are frustrated that the White House hasn’t done more to win over the public on health care reform and other aspects of its ambitious agenda — and angry that, in the wake of Scott Brown’s win in the Massachusetts Senate race, the White House hasn’t done more to chart a course for getting a health care bill to the president’s desk.
In his public session with the senators Wednesday, Obama urged them to “finish the job” on health care but did not lay out a path for doing so. That uncertainty appeared to trigger Franken’s anger, and the sources in the room said he laid out his concerns much more directly than any senator did in the earlier public session.
Maybe I’m just picky and demanding, but Obama’s “leadership” style sounds an awful lot like “make a vague hand gesture and then wander off.”
This doesn’t exactly put my mind at ease either.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:28am
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Democrats,
Healthcare,
Obama,
Politics,
Wankers
This seems… excessive:
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put an extraordinary “blanket hold” on at least 70 nominations President Obama has sent to the Senate, according to multiple reports this evening. The hold means no nominations can move forward unless Senate Democrats can secure a 60-member cloture vote to break it, or until Shelby lifts the hold.
“While holds are frequent,” CongressDaily’s Dan Friedman and Megan Scully report (sub. req.), “Senate aides said a blanket hold represents a far more aggressive use of the power than is normal.”
(…)
According to the report, Shelby is holding Obama’s nominees hostage until a pair of lucrative programs that would send billions in taxpayer dollars to his home state get back on track….
(…)
A San Diego State University professor and Congressional expert told the Mobile paper “he knew of no previous use of a blanket hold” in recent history.
This is really just another example of Republicans shamelessly abusing the rules of the Senate to block everything, just like their transformation of the filibuster from an extraordinary measure to a routine procedure. In the past a sense of courtesy, decorum, and mutual respect prevented Senators of either party from turning the legislative process into a mockery, but those are traits the Republican caucus is completely devoid of now.
Which is what makes Orrin Hatch’s threat that they would get nasty if the Democrats used reconciliation to fix the healthcare reform bill so ridiculous – they’re already in full-blown, do-anything, legislative Lord Of The Flies mode, and that’s why the Democrats are talking about reconciliation.
I don’t see any easy way to fix this, unfortunately. The Democrats no longer have 60 votes to short-circuit Republican shenanigans, and they didn’t show much appetite for (or ability to) use them when they did. A procedural overhaul would be massive and would probably have unforeseen consequences (eliminating the filibuster would probably fix a lot of it, though). And there’s certainly less than zero chance that the Republicans will ever stop being obstructionist assholes.
February 5th, 2010 at 07:25am
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Corruption/Cronyism,
Politics,
Republicans,
Wankers
I can only assume that the GOP is worried that it might regain control of the House…
House Republicans don’t have an official budget yet. But they have what amounts to a first draft. The official budget will be released in March or April and will be authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the ranking member of the House Budget Committee in consultation with the other Republicans on the Committee. But Ryan has released a budget he’d like. And it’s actually fairly detailed. And if you read it, which we have, you start to wonder why Democrats aren’t making a bigger deal out of it.
What’s in it? A few interesting things.
First, it calls for big cuts in Social Security benefits for everyone currently under 55 years of age. On top of the cuts it also calls for privatizing Social Security.
Basically the exact plan President Bush tried in 2005. Next, it calls for the full privatization and phasing out of Medicare. It’ll be replaced by a system of vouchers in which instead of getting Medicare you get a voucher to buy un-reformed private insurance.
Weirdly, with all that, the draft GOP budget doesn’t get the federal budget into surplus until sometime after 2060, which seems like a pretty long time. But isn’t this sort of a big deal? House Republicans are poised to run in 2010 on slashing or abolishing the two most popular federal government programs — Social Security and Medicare.
Yes, right in the middle of a prolonged recession and right after a stock market crash is a great time to sell Americans on privatizing Social Security. And 60+% support for the healthcare public option must mean that everyone hates Medicare and wants it destroyed. And releasing a plan that takes 50 years to eliminate the deficit is especially brilliant when you’ve spent the last year demagoguing about how it’s murdering our grandchildren.
If the Democrats can’t make hay with “Here’s what the Republicans/my opponent wants to do to your retirement if they get elected” messaging in November, they deserve to lose.
P.S. I can’t believe Serious People are still spouting this ridiculous point-missing zombie lie.
February 4th, 2010 at 07:58pm
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Economy,
Elections,
Politics,
Republicans,
Social Security
Remember what happened the last time Americans elected a failed CEO? If a candidate is promising to apply their business and leadership skills to public office, that’s not such a great thing if they don’t have any.
February 4th, 2010 at 11:28am
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Elections,
Politics,
Republicans
He seems to have the right idea:
From there, Obama turned to a more pointed critique of Lincoln’s argument. “If the price of certainty is essentially for us to adopt the exact same proposals that were in place for eight years leading up to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression — we don’t tinker with health care, let the insurance companies do what they want, we don’t put in place any insurance reforms, we don’t mess with the banks, let them keep on doing what they’re doing now because we don’t want to stir up Wall Street — the result is going to be the same,” he said. “I don’t know why we would expect a different outcome pursuing the exact same policy that got us into this fix in the first place.”
Middle class Americans, Obama said, “are more and more vulnerable, and they have been for the last decade, treading water. And if our response ends up being, you know, because we don’t want to — we don’t want to stir things up here, we’re just going to do the same thing that was being done before, then I don’t know what differentiates us from the other guys. And I don’t know why people would say, boy, we really want to make sure that those Democrats are in Washington fighting for us.”
Where has that guy been for the past year?
February 4th, 2010 at 07:27am
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Democrats,
Obama,
Politics
The Weekly World News has the inside story of what really went on in Obama’s State Of The Union address:
Frame by frame analysis of last night’s broadcast reveals subliminal messages in the State of the Union. During key points of the speech text would appear for only a fraction of a second. When the President would mention the need for jobs, subliminal messages read “TRUST ME” and “TOTALLY BUSH’S FAULT.”
Discussing failed attempts at health care reform messages read “MY BAD” and “SORRY, I TRIED.” Outlining his plans for the future the President was framed by phrases like “FOLLOW ME” and “EMBRACE MY DIVINE RULE.” While mentioning Republican opposition to legislation, messages read “DON’T BE A JERK” and “SERIOUSLY GUYS, GROW UP.”
Also interspersed were subliminal images intended to reinforce the President’s message. Single frames can be found in last night’s address of emotionally evocative images. When discussing the “historic call to action” the country is facing, images were seen of Americans on bread lines during the Great Depression, America’s celebration of Victory in Europe, and Rosie the Riveter. While outlining his future economic policies, motivational posters were seen, including the “Just Hang In There” cat.
Analysis shows that these techniques were also used by White House officials in the audio feed. Buried in white noise, just barely loud enough for the brain to register subconsciously, the President’s speech was underscored by the sound of kittens purring. If the President’s speech is played backwards is clearly plays Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.”
Finally, Democrats are closing the subliminal messaging/mind control gap!
February 3rd, 2010 at 11:23am
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Obama,
Weekly World News
He has no idea how the Senate can pass a reconciliation sidecar fix before the House passes their first healthcare bill – no really – so the House will just have to pass it and hope for the best:
As for reconciliation, the Senate won’t go first.
“We can’t go first,” Reid said . “I don’t know how procedurally we can start reconciliation.”
But Reid acknowledged “that there is consideration of the House passing the reconciliation bill first, followed by the Senate.” At that point, the House would pass the Senate health bill.
Sure, it’s not like there’s any kind of uncertainty about whether or not the Senate still has 51 votes for the public option, after all.
Fortunately, Nancy wasn’t born yesterday, and appears to be sick of being told what to vote for:
On the call, Pelosi was asked by a reporter whether the Senate would have to go first. “Yes,” she replied, twice, saying her members had repeatedly said they wouldn’t pass the Senate bill if it weren’t fixed before they were asked to vote on it.
Senate aides have privately expressed concern about this course of action being workable. “This is a whole bill that would amend another bill that hasn’t become law,” a senior Dem Senate aide told me yesterday. “How do we do reconciliation before the House passes the Senate bill?”
Some have dismissed the idea that this is a procedural obstacle, and on the call, Pelosi reiterated that she didn’t think it was a problem, saying it’s “not an obstacle,” though she didn’t elaborate. And she repeatedly stressed that the bill would get done.
I’m really really glad that Nancy is not falling for this, as I don’t think there’s anyone who believes that the reconciliation vote won’t encounter some kind of snag if the Senate bill gets passed without it. I’d be even more glad if she were explicitly demanding that the reconciliation sidecar include the public option and remove the excise tax.
February 3rd, 2010 at 07:12am
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Democrats,
Healthcare,
Politics,
Wankers
How it all began:
(From Married To The Sea)
February 2nd, 2010 at 06:25pm
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Comics
As I predicted, it looks like we are indeed seeing the rise of a third party, but it’s not quite what I expected. It’s a lot more powerful, too:
For the first time in recent history, the lobbying, grassroots and advertising budget of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has surpassed the spending of BOTH the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee.
This is significant. It means that the Great Transition has already begun. In the days following the decision in Citizens United, campaign finance experts predicted that the decision would open the floodgates of money for trade associations like the Chamber of Commerce. The influx of corporate money, according to some, would weaken the power of the political parties and candidates and lead the political parties to become less important. Republican lawyer Ben Ginsberg went so far as to say that the parties would be “threatened by extinction.” And Ginsberg supports the CU decision!
As it turns out, the surge of contributions into the U.S. Chamber has already caused its budget on lobbying, grassroots and advertising to surpass that of both the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee for the first time in recent memory. According to The Center for Responsive Politics, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its national subsidiaries spent $144.5 million in 2009, far more than the RNC and more than double the expenditures by the DNC.
Fantastic. This can only be good for America…
February 2nd, 2010 at 11:37am
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Politics
So what does it look like when government is shrunken down to the size where it can be drowned in a bathtub? It looks like this:
More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.
The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.
Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that. Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.
The article goes on:
Colorado Springs is slashing its budget for public safety, essential services, transportation and parks and recreation. Community centers and public pools will be closed.
Land-use planning? Gone. Zoning? Who cares! Building inspection … They don’t need that!
Amazingly enough, it turns out that governments actually do a lot of useful stuff, and private enterprise doesn’t step in to fill the gap when it shuts down. Who knew?
Enjoy your libertarian utopia, folks, and think about how much more awesome it would be if the federal government shut down too.
February 2nd, 2010 at 07:17am
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Economy,
Republicans
I haven’t had any worthwhile comment spam for a while… until now.
First, from draireneungum:
Thanks with a position all,I was fully disconcert, But conditions i rag is cialis better than viagra from a company. They are providing situation Viagra manufactured nearby Pfizer company. I am happy in the present circumstances to use it. Viagra works in the interest of four hours.
And second, from spencer, my personal favorite:
The rescue is dissatisfied from a power election to 110 locations. Albert vickers remained the fit’s embroidery. Alpine car stero, overhead early payrolls replaced a compressor fuel stroke to repeat flat-top reduction. Classroom world was noted from 14ah to 18ah. An magnesium does film in the car of comparison bank. For near numbers defending encoding, take seeing and semi-automatic popular origins, extra 1980s suggest to have better shuttle appearances. Manufacturers slowly became from the more social, substantial number of years. Trucks significantly annoyed jury looks into the goods of their engineers to boom the manufacturers of requests.
I have no idea what that was… but I like it.
February 1st, 2010 at 08:50pm
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Spamoptikon
How else to explain this approach to killing financial reform?
Luntz continued: “Ordinarily, calling for a new government program ‘to protect consumers’ would be extraordinary popular. But these are not ordinary times. The American people are not just saying ‘no.’ They are saying ‘hell no’ to more government agencies, more bureaucrats, and more legislation crafted by special interests.”
(…)
“The American people are tired of add-ons, earmarks, and backroom deals – but they are mad as hell at ‘lobbyist loopholes,’” Luntz wrote. “You must put proponents of the legislation on the defense, forcing them to attempt to justify the ‘lobbyist loopholes’ and exemptions placed in the bill… Highlight the exemptions. Broadcast them. Remind them, ‘The legislation is filled with lobbyist loopholes that exclude certain wealthy, powerful industries from regulations.’”
This seems like a very risky messaging strategy unless you are supremely, totally confident that the Democrats won’t simply remove all the loopholes you’re pretending to be outraged about and then call your bluff. “Okay, we’ve listened to your critique about this bill, and in true bipartisan fashion we have decided to remove all the lobbyist loopholes you find so objectionable. So you’ll all vote for it now, right?”
Sadly, I think Luntz’s gamble is probably going to be work, since Democrats (Senate Democrats in particular) continue to show every sign that they care more about their corporate donors than even getting re-elected. Which is a shame, because I sure would like to hear the Republicans struggle to explain why they can’t vote for financial reform without loopholes – both now, and again in November.
February 1st, 2010 at 06:55pm
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Corruption/Cronyism,
Democrats,
Economy,
Politics,
Republicans
Yes!!! The all-time greatest Diamond Center commercial is finally on YouTube!
I’m so happy.
February 1st, 2010 at 11:22am
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Monday Media Blogging
Bruce Schulman explains that Social Security was actually deeply compromised from FDR’s original vision, just like healthcare reform today, and that’s why the House should pass the Senate bill and worry about fixing it later. That seems reasonable – after all, the Democrats were able to improve Social Security despite losing big in the next election because everyone hated it. Oh wait.
Oh, and let’s not forget how expanding Social Security to cover farmers, domestic workers and small companies didn’t threaten powerful corporate interests in any way, just like the public option in healthcare reform. Yes, I’m sure fixing it later will be a piece of cake, especially with the strong, competent leadership of Barack Obama and Harry Reid.
February 1st, 2010 at 07:21am
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Healthcare,
Politics
Is it Debbie Wasserman-Schultz when she said the Senate doesn’t have enough votes to pass the public option via budget reconciliation? Or is it the 51 Democratic Senators who claimed to support – or at least not oppose – the public option?
We have 65 progressive Representatives who have signed a letter pledging to vote against any healthcare reform bill that doesn’t include a public option, and we have 51 Democratic Senators who are on record with some level of support for it. Based on those two facts, what do you think looks like the most direct path to achieving Obama’s most cherished goal of passing something-called-healthcare-reform?
Any approach other than simply restoring the public option via reconciliation so that the House progressives can vote Yes without breaking their word just seems needlessly complicated and antagonistic, not to mention electorally suicidal. It would remove all remaining doubt about whose side the Senate Democrats and the Obama White House are on if they try to force the House to either pass the Senate bill as is, or with an inadequate reconciliation sidecar that does not include the public option.
Oh, and I would also recommend that the sidecar also eliminate the unpopular excise tax completely rather than “fix” it by exempting union workers. All that will do is make everyone else hate Democrats and unions.
January 30th, 2010 at 08:20pm
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Democrats,
Healthcare,
Politics,
Wankers
Osama bin Laden, who is so committed to the cause of preventing climate change that he’s willing to try to bring down the United States to save the Earth. Awesome.
Of course, if he really wanted to do something constructive for the planet, perhaps he could have refrained from doing everything humanly possible to guarantee George W. Bush a second term…
(Also, there’s the little detail that taking down the US wouldn’t actually stop global warming.)
January 30th, 2010 at 01:13pm
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Bush,
Environment,
Terrorism,
Wankers
To me, what’s most striking about these poll numbers is not that McCain’s overall approval rating in AZ is at 40%, but that the story offers up his 52% approval rating among AZ Republicans as its “but it’s not all bad news for McCain” graf.
January 29th, 2010 at 09:10pm
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Elections,
McCain,
Politics,
Polls,
Republicans
This week’s quote is from They Came To Cordura, starring Gary Cooper and Rita Hayworth toward the ends of their careers. I’m pretty sure I’ve used it before, but it’s one of my favorites:
If there’s one piece of truth in your insect soul, I want it!
And, of course, there’ll be other people’s Japanese breakdancing robots…
Who among us does not love Japanese breakdancing robots?
January 29th, 2010 at 11:39am
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Friday Quote & Cat Blogging,
Monday Media Blogging
Don’t get me wrong, I mostly like what I’ve seen of the iPad so far, I just have trouble identifying a reason why I would want one.
I have a PS2, but I got a PSP because I wanted a gaming platform (and media player) I could carry around in a pocket. I have a laptop, but I got a Treo because I wanted internet access I could carry around in a pocket. Then I decided that I really wanted a more format-agnostic media player, but I couldn’t rationalize adding yet another device to my portable ecosystem. So I was tempted by the iPhone, but eventually ended up getting a Touch Pro2 because I wanted a physical keyboard and a high-resolution screen.
I also decided that I wanted a laptop that could fit in the side pocket of my semi-ubiquitous camera bag and go all day on a single battery charge, so I got an Eee 1005HA. That would be the most likely candidate to be replaced by the iPad, but I just can’t figure out why I would want to pay $500 or more to replace it with something that’s roughly the same size and battery life but with fewer capabilities and no keyboard. Maybe if the iPad were running Snow Leopard, but it’s not. It’s running a scaled-up version of the non-multitasking iPhone OS, which gives me the same “Whyyyy?” reaction as when I see stories about netbooks running Android. There’s just something kludgy about putting a mobile phone OS on something with a screen that big.
The only device that the iPad really seriously threatens is the Kindle DX and its plus-size brethren, which are the same size and price, but only do eBooks and some MP3s. But I don’t think all that many people own or are looking to pay $500 for a ginormous eBook reader – they want something pocket or purse-sized, which the iPad is not.
This is not a shortcoming of the iPad itself, which I actually think is pretty cool, and probably the best possible implementation of the iPhone OS in a larger form-factor – it’s a shortcoming of the tablet computing genre as a whole, and the reason why it’s never caught on. It’s not as capable as a netbook (especially now that the next generation has better screens, better HD video capabilities, better battery life and bigger hard drives) and not as portable as an iPhone. It might carve out a niche as a prestige device, or as an eBook Reader/Media Player Plus, or as an art/graphic design tablet, but I just can’t see it catching fire, for the same reason that tablets have never caught fire.
I want to want the iPad, but it just doesn’t make a strong enough case for why I would want to pay $500 (or $830) to carry it around.
January 28th, 2010 at 11:41am
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Technology
This is the most promising sign yet on healthcare reform:
House progressives organizing to rescue health care reform are pressuring their Senate counterparts to go back to the provision that has most energized the party and a majority of Americans throughout the debate: The public option.
(…)
They argued that the current bill before the House, which passed the Senate, lacks the votes needed to pass because pro-life Democrats don’t believe the abortion restrictions go far enough and progressive Democrats don’t like the lack of a public option, the weak affordability measures or the tax on private insurance. And nobody likes the Cornhusker Kickback, a provision won by Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson that would cover the state’s Medicaid bills in perpetuity. Not even Nelson likes it anymore.
So, in order to move health care through the House, Democrats either need to pick up progressives or conservatives. And the budget reconciliation process does not lend itself to altering abortion language reform, because that wouldn’t have a direct, substantial impact on the budget.
That leaves progressives as the bloc available to pick up. Their demands — changes related to the tax on insurance, a Medicaid or Medicare expansion, and a public option — would likely be allowable using reconciliation. (The Senate parliamentarian would have the final say.)
Two House freshmen, Reps. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.), circulated a letter, looking for signatures, that will be delivered to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Thursday on behalf of the plan, Polis told HuffPost.
(…)
If Reid and President Obama decide that the House Democrats have a workable plan — perhaps the only viable plan left, after the New York Times declared that the brakes had been slammed — they may be able to accomplish it.
(…)
Health care reform became less popular, Polis argued, when the public option was taken out but the requirement to buy private insurance or pay a fine remained.
“I think the fading of the public option from the Senate bill really hurt the Democrats’ prospects in the Senate [race], because they were seen as following the typical pattern of tax and spend and caving to insurance companies,” he said.
Pingree and Polis both noted that Obama’s focus on fiscal discipline and cutting spending makes the public option — which the Congressional Budget Office estimates could trim more than $100 billion from the deficit in ten years — that much more appealing.
It would also give Democrats something else to run on in 2010.
If House progressives stay strong and insist that the Senate use reconciliation to restore the public option (and hopefully remove the excise tax), then Obama’s desperation to claim victory on healthcare reform could put the Blue Dogs and Senate Democrats between Barack and a hard place. This is really the only strategy that can make the public option happen, and they’re finally using their leverage to implement it.
If by some miracle the public option does return from the dead and gets passed by both houses as part of healthcare reform (and if the Democrats don’t get routed in November), the politician most responsible for that stunning victory would not be Obama, not Reid or Pelosi, and certainly not Rahm. It would be Raul Grijalva, who has managed to stay strong and keep his caucus together on insisting on the public option (well, more or less). Without him the House probably would have passed the Senate bill by now without a reconciliation sidecar to fix it, and their constituents would have absolutely hated them for it.
January 28th, 2010 at 07:20am
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Democrats,
Healthcare,
Politics
Bruce Ackerman and Ian Ayres have a suggestion on how to (mostly) get around the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision:
While Congress can’t issue a broad ban on all companies, it can target the very large class that does business with the federal government and ban those companies from “endorsing or opposing a candidate for public office.”
A 2008 Government Accountability Office study found that almost three-quarters of the largest 100 publicly traded firms are federal contractors. If Congress endorsed our proposal, these companies — and tens of thousands of others — would face a stark choice: They could endorse candidates or do business with the government, but they couldn’t do both. When push came to shove, it’s likely that very few would be willing to pay such a high price for their “free speech.”
The Roberts court is skeptical — to put it mildly — of campaign finance restrictions. But it is still highly unlikely that the justices would strike down a law targeting federal contractors. All nine recognize that Congress may restrict free speech when there is a significant risk of corruption. That risk is obvious when corporate speakers are simultaneously doing business with the government.
(…)
Our proposal requires only a modest extension of existing law. Federal contractors already are not allowed to “directly or indirectly . . . make any contribution of money or other things of value” to “any political party, committee, or candidate.” This provision arguably bars Big Pharma from launching a media campaign in favor of a candidate who supports its special deals, thereby “indirectly providing” the candidate something “of value.” But it doesn’t cover the case in which contractors threaten to spend millions to oppose senators and representatives who refuse their excessive demands. There is a need, then, for a new statutory initiative: The same anti-corruption rationale that may prohibit contractors from spending millions in favor of candidates requires a statutory prohibition on a negative advertising blitz.
IANAL (I am not a lawyer), but this sounds pretty reasonable to me. Of course, constitutional or not, our corporate-owned Congress still has to pass it.
January 27th, 2010 at 11:26am
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Constitution,
Corruption/Cronyism,
Elections,
Media
Yes, that’s right, it’s Labor’s fault that EFCA is dead:
Big Labor’s top legislative priority, a bill creating an easier way to organize workers, is essentially dead – and its own members were instrumental in killing it.
The victory of Republican Scott Brown’s in last week’s Massachusetts Senate special election that deprived Democrats of a filibuster-proof majority is not only bad news for health care. It also means that Republicans will be able to block the Employee Free Choice Act from coming to the Senate floor for a vote.
Asked if EFCA was dead for the year, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the bill’s sponsor, hesitated for several seconds, saying, “Well, it’s, it’s, it’s there. But it doesn’t look too good.” He added: “I’m not going to give up on it. I’ll never give up on it.”
For a year, labor leaders kept their bargain with Congressional Democrats and the White House: health care first, then EFCA. The election of Martha Coakley to fill the seat held for decades by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) was supposed to be the last step on a long, twisting road toward moving the legislation forward.
Whether their rank-and-file lost patience or simply didn’t realize the stakes, the decision of most union members in Massachusetts to back Brown rather than Coakley helped put the last nail in a legislative effort that was already on life support.
According to the AFL-CIO’s election night survey of Massachusetts voters, 49 percent of union members voted for Brown compared to 46 percent who backed Coakley. That’s even worse than the findings of a Republican election night survey, which found union voters split 49-48 for Brown and Coakley, respectively.
Of course, the principal reason why MA union voters turned on Obama and the Democrats was their abject failure to deliver on any of their promises. Union leadership may have believed the White House when it strung them along and used the promise of EFCA to extort extract their support (or at least non-opposition) for the terrible Senate healthcare reform bill, but the rank-and-file was apparently paying closer attention to Obama’s track record on progressive initiatives.
Obama and the Democrats were never going to exert any more effort for EFCA than they did for the public option, and MA union voters knew it.
(Graphic by Married To The Sea)
January 27th, 2010 at 07:18am
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Comics,
Labor,
Media,
Obama,
Politics
I know, I’ve never heard of him either. But he absolutely dismantles the corruption and self-destructive fecklessness of Obama and congressional (especially Senate) Democrats, who look more and more like Republican double agents every day.
It’s awfully shrill, and a little bit repetitive, and you should totally read it.
January 26th, 2010 at 11:34am
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Corruption/Cronyism,
Democrats,
Economy,
Healthcare,
Obama,
Politics,
Wankers
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3444418/
Apparently Senate Democrats are determined to ensure an electoral bloodbath in November. They’re finally talking about a budget reconciliation “sidecar” to fix the godawful bill the House is currently sitting on, but even though they only need 50 votes to pass it, they still don’t want to restore the public option or eliminate the excise tax – except for union workers, which will have the brilliant two-fer effect of making America hate Democrats and unions.
I seem to remember seeing some polling that Americans actually like the public option, and I also seem to remember a bunch of progressive Representatives promising not to vote for any bill that doesn’t have a public option. Was I hallucinating all of that? Was it all just some kind of fever dream?
January 26th, 2010 at 07:33am
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Democrats,
Healthcare,
Politics,
Wankers
For those of you who have been having trouble following the whole Jay Leno-Conan O’Brien fiasco, perhaps some insane Chinese CGI will help:
Yes. That is exactly how it happened.
January 25th, 2010 at 11:37am
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Monday Media Blogging
Harold Ford Jr. lays out a brilliant four-point plan for how Obama and the Democrats to fix the country and make everyone like them again:
1. Tax cuts.
2. Tort reform.
3. Immigration reform for the right kind of immigrants.
4. Budget cuts.
Oh yeah, I’m sure those will be a big hit with the Democratic base. I hope he features them prominently in his primary campaign against Gillibrand.
January 25th, 2010 at 06:57am
Posted by Eli Permalink
Entry Filed under:
Democrats,
Elections,
Politics,
Wankers
Previous Posts
