For all you Obamafans out there who were holding out for the health care “reform” bill to be “fixed” in conference:
There will be no conference committee.
House and Senate Democrats intend to bypass traditional procedures when they negotiate a final compromise on health care legislation, officials said Monday, a move that will exclude Republican lawmakers and reduce their ability to delay or force politically troubling votes in both houses.
The unofficial timetable calls for final passage of the measure to remake the nation’s health care system by the time President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address, probably in early February.
It’s all stagecraft.
Democratic aides said the final compromise talks would essentially be a three-way negotiation involving top Democrats in the House and Senate and the White House, a structure that gives unusual latitude to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.
Not that it matters…the conference committee is only for public consumption anyway.
These officials said there are no plans to appoint a formal House-Senate conference committee, the method Congress most often uses to reconcile differing bills. Under that customary format, a committee chairman is appointed to preside, and other senior lawmakers from both parties and houses participate in typically perfunctory public meetings while the meaningful negotiations occur behind closed doors.
So why not just cut to the chase?
In this case, the plan is to skip the formal meetings, reach an agreement, then have the two houses vote as quickly as possible. A 60-vote Senate majority would be required in advance of final passage.
Exactly how many campaign promises are being broken here? I count at least two, but it’s early and I haven’t had my second cup of coffee.
Health care reform meetings conducted in front of C-SPAN cameras
Allow at least three days for bill to be read
How’s that “transparent” government working out for you. Oh, yeah, I know, he’s opened up some records, but that’s shit that’s already happened and we or Congress wouldn’t have any say about it any way.
Two days ago I got this email from John Kerry who tried to scare me with Sarah Palin and the tea partiers(emphasis mine):
Think GOP obstruction is bad now? Just imagine what Washington would look like if a bunch of new senators – inspired by Sarah Palin and the tea party crowd – took over.
If you think this movement is more circus sideshow than actual threat, you’d be mistaken. Republican candidates are falling all over each other to get Palin’s endorsement, and the tea party movement is responding. Money is pouring in.
Either we match the passion and activism of these new forces in the Republican Party, or they’ll be choosing who’s sitting in the Senate, steering our country’s course. If we don’t match them dollar-for-dollar, we will lose Senate seats in 2010. And the loss of even one or two would flip crucial votes in their favor and doom President Obama’s agenda.
John, just what agenda would that be? Shoveling billions of dollars to Wall Street? Turning a blind eye to the Bush administration’s criminal activity? Embracing Bush’s claims of state secrets? Locking people up indefinitely? Secret deals with Big Pharma? Objecting to reimportation of drugs? Refusing to sign on to the land mine ban? Continuing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell? Defending DOMA by inferring that gays are on par with pedophilia and incest? And don’t even get me started on Health Care Reform.
You all had our passion and activism. You pissed it away.
Click here to make a donation of $5 or more to the DSCC and receive a coupon code worth 20% off items in the DSCC Store. The DSCC must raise $500,000 by Dec. 31 to defend our Democratic majority in 2010. Every dollar you give will be matched, doubling its impact. Progress depends on your donation.
Oh please, progress depends on you all growing a spine and you know, sticking up for US.
In case you doubt the seriousness of this situation, here are a couple of examples:
Republican Senate candidates, including Mark Kirk of Illinois, are actively seeking Sarah Palin’s endorsement and they are disavowing their own past positions, contorting themselves to appeal to the new Sarah Palin Republicans. They know that if they receive her blessing, the money will follow.
The leading GOP Senate candidate in Connecticut, Rob Simmons, has been running around the state with a tea bag hanging from his rearview mirror, and he carries a copy of the United States Constitution with a tea bag attached. Such tactics might seem silly. But they’re working.
These are not fringe candidates – but they are increasingly pandering to the fringe to curry support. If they win, they will be doing the bidding of Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and their legions of fans. The best chance we’ve had in generations to make positive change will have ended.
Donate to the DSCC. Every dollar you give will help build the grassroots organizations we need to support our incumbents, challenge ridiculous attacks and get each and every Democrat to the polls. It’s the kind of effort we need to keep America moving in the right direction.
That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it John? Protecting incumbents. John, it isn’t money that’s going to get us to the polls. It’s action. Real action on your part that makes real people’s lives better, not greases the palms of the already well-to-do.
Click here to make a donation of $5 or more to the DSCC and receive a coupon code worth 20% off items in the DSCC Store. The DSCC must raise $500,000 by Dec. 31 to defend our Democratic majority in 2010. Every dollar you give will be matched, doubling its impact. Progress depends on your donation.
From my cold dead fingers, John.
I know better than most what these Republicans are capable of – and the high cost of not taking immediate action. It’s not too late to stop them from derailing the President’s agenda. But we need your help – and today is not a moment too soon.
Again…what fucking agenda?
Today – a mere two days later, I get another email from the DSCC, this time from J.B. Poersch. Gawd, they are beating this horse aren’t they?
It’s hard to believe that a movement fueled by right-wing extremism, outright lies and tea bags would be amassing power. But it is. And Republicans are making money hand over fist from these ultraconservative tea partiers.
I know, I know. The misinformation they’re spewing is laughable. But let me be frank: If we don’t take them seriously, there will be serious implications in 2010. They are passionate, they are flush with cash, and they are coming after us. It’s that simple.
So here’s what we need to do: Match each and every one of their tea-stained dollars. Meet each and every fundraising goal. Compete for open seats, defend against Republican challengers. And protect President Obama’s agenda from this right-wing assault.
Sound good? Then make a donation to the DSCC right now. Every dollar will fight the fringe.
Click here to donate $5 or more and help the DSCC raise $500,000 by Dec. 31. Your gift will be matched by a group of senators, and you’ll receive a coupon code worth 20% off items in the DSCC Store, great for last-minute holiday shopping.
If you’ve been standing on the sidelines, waiting to get involved, now’s the time to step into the ring. I’ll go so far as to say that if you don’t stand with us now, you’re letting the tea partiers win.
The rise of this movement – and the truckloads of money it’s generating – couldn’t happen at a worse time for Democrats. History’s working against us in 2010. The party in power nearly always sheds seats in midterm elections. Remember 1994? I sure do.
Well, maybe if you all had done something worth supporting we’d be with you. But seriously, what have you done for us lately?
Methinks the Senate Dems are scared shitless. They should be.
Two in five Democratic voters either consider themselves unlikely to vote at this point in time, or have already made the firm decision to remove themselves from the 2010 electorate pool. Indeed, Democrats were three times more likely to say that they will “definitely not vote” in 2010 than are Republicans.
And with independents peeling away in droves, the Dems are in for a whole lotta hurt in November 2010.
What’s the big win here? Oh yeah, Democrats get to say they passed health care “reform.” The progressives have caved. We are screwed. (H/T to Lambert)
After claiming for months they couldn’t vote for a bill without the strongest possible government-run insurance option, liberals are putting aside their disappointment over the weaker version in the legislation for a historic chance to remake America’s medical system.
“The current language is far weaker than what I would have preferred, and I think that is also true of the Progressive Caucus,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Friday. “But because I did not come up here to participate in gridlock and acrimony, I have told leadership that I am willing to compromise.”
So bend over America, heaven forbid your Congress Critters should stand up for you. They’d rather cave than fight. It gets worse. You know that Public Option that was supposed to be “competition” for the insurance companies and keep them honest? BZZZT! Looks like it will be the dumping ground for the sickest amongst us and:
In one bit of sobering news, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that only about 6 million people would sign up and that premiums for the government plan could be higher than for private coverage. The CBO says sicker people with higher costs probably would be attracted to the government plan. By comparison, 162 million people would remain covered through employer plans.
What they fail to mention here is that the reason why these 162 million people will remain in their employer plan is because the legislation doesn’t give them any choice, Obama’s liesassurances notwithstanding. The vast majority of the American public will not be allowed to choose between their private insurer and the public option.
There are still concerns from moderates over the bill’s cost — $1.055 trillion over 10 years — and long-term spending implications, and disputes to be resolved on how to block federal funding of abortions and prevent illegal immigrants from getting taxpayer-funded care. But the once-strident liberal opposition to the version of the public insurance option in the bill Pelosi released Thursday had all but disappeared 24 hours later.
It’s the exact outcome Pelosi predicted in early August, infuriating progressives at the time.
“Are you asking me, ‘Are the progressives going to take down universal, quality, affordable health care for all Americans?’ I don’t think so,” Pelosi said then, laughing at the question.
Sure enough, they’re not.
“I hate to say the speaker was right, but in retrospect I guess the progressives are going to be the good soldiers on this one, one more time,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., a co-chair of the Progressive Caucus.
And exactly when are you going to stop being “good soldiers?” How’s about you join our side in this war? And isn’t it cute, he thinks he can still change the bill.
Grijalva said progressives weren’t giving up and would push to offer their preferred public insurance option as an amendment. But House leaders have indicated they won’t be allowing amendments to the bill.
And even this weak-tea public option may not make it through.
House liberals fear what will happen to their bill’s version of the government-run plan when time comes to merge it with whatever the Senate passes.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said earlier this week that the Senate bill would have a new federal insurance plan with negotiated payment rates. Unlike the House bill, though, states could opt out of the plan. It’s not clear the proposal commands enough votes in the Senate to survive, and it could be replaced by a standby system pushed by moderates that would not go into effect until it was clear individual states were experiencing a lack of competition among private companies.
Grijalva said liberals voiced grave concerns about both the opt-out and “trigger” approaches during Thursday’s White House meeting, but that Obama didn’t engage on those issues.
Okay, so the best case scenario is a public option that only about 6 million people will participate in ( if the state they are living in doesn’t “opt-out”) and will be more expensive that private insurance?
That’s the best the Democratic majority can do? Maybe? Are you fucking kidding me?
I am so disgusted. Honestly, I really didn’t think it would be this bad.
Well I look up to the people who are less bought than I
You can show them what you’re selling
And they’ll only ask you why
And their paychecks don’t have lots of zeros
They’re my friends and they’re my heroes
And the TV sets are angry ’cause they just can’t make ‘em pay
But I like the way these people read the signs and walk away
And we can call ourselves the makers
And the keepers of the times
We can spend our sand dollars
And sand nickels and sand dimes
We can even say prosperity is all our own
It’s bought and sold, it’s bought and sold
We can even say our loneliness is all our own
It’s bought and sold, it’s bought and sold
It’s bought and sold, it’s bought and sold
The Senate health bill is drifting toward ending up with an “opt-in” provision versus an “opt-out,” one Democratic senator said Friday.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) predicted that healthcare reform in the upper chamber would shift from its current construction, which allows states to opt out of a public option, to a version that forces states to opt into such a plan.
“I think it’s falling into an opt-in, versus opt-out,” Whitehouse said during an appearance on MSNBC. “You have a public option, but it’s up to a state to take an affirmative act to take advantage of it.”
I’ll never forgive Matt Taibbi for his CDS, but he’s on the money on this. You must read the whole thing, especially his run down on how our supposedly “progressive’ White House finds out about how the majority of Americans live. (You though George H.W. Bush was out of touch with the grocery scanner? He’s a piker.)
… what we have in the Democratic Party is an organization dedicated to avoiding such conflicts and resolving issues in the manner of a corporate board, in closed meetings with the chief cardholders where things get hashed out to the satisfaction of everyone present.
The problem from the standpoint of the typical voter is that he is not terribly present in those discussions. When Rahm Emmanuel met with Billy Tauzin and Merck and Pfizer in the Roosevelt Room (how ironic!) of the White House earlier this summer to work out the details of exactly how much of a bite the new health bill was going to take out of the pharmaceutical industry — the answer turned out to be none, and all the insane subsidies of big Pharma are going to remain in the final bill — were you there? Was anyone representing you there?
. . . The way I look at it, the problem with the Democratic Party is not the voters, it’s the 19 or 20 people who are paying for the campaigns and sitting in at those meetings with Rahm and Billy Tauzin. We have to get rid of those people, herd them all to the edge of a very tall cliff and push them off and be done with it. I think this can be done by electoral referendum if we actually put it all on the table openly and let people decide for themselves. And maybe it takes an electoral cycle or two to get it done, but it has to get done. This stuff won’t get fixed otherwise.
We need someone in there who is willing to run one this one issue: who owns the Democratic Party? Is it the voters, or is it Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and United Health Care?
But here is the irony – the moralistic and non-political use of racism as a shaming mechanism by party leaders in combination with the passionate rejection of “white trash” (the working class) by those same leaders has made the Republicans’ political strategy just that much more effective. We’re doing their work for them. Instead of policies, like universal health care, that materially improve the lives of peoplein their current socio-economic location, there are half-assed half-measures that tie provision of common social goods to obtaining stable, high-paying, white-collar career employment. Sure, if you are one of the “creative class” types who provides a service the people with the money consider important, you, too, can have the perks that make life comfortable. If you don’t choose to improve yourself (Organic food! More exercise! Fewer children! Higher education! Better dental hygiene!), then you don’t deserve a better life. If you don’t like the policies being proposed, well, you’re probably just a racist who doesn’t want benefits going to “those people.”
That’s a moralistic argument, not a political one. It offers an insult where there should be a promise of material goods. When people voice, however awkwardly, fears and resentment about being treated unfairly by social and political institutions, their discontent is dismissed as individual failings (clinging to guns and God) instead of organizing that discontent into a movement against the real sources of racism – entrenched economic elites who interests are anti-D/democratic.
The Southern Strategy has become the de facto operating principle of the Democratic Party. Divide the working class on racial lines and designate these groups as deserving and undeserving. Focus on individual failings rather than the deep structures of power. Make people pick tribes.
But also why I have lost faith in the Democratic Party. The base is passionate, its leaders are not. And the Republicans? They don’t want to solve any problems. They just want to be the opposition, no matter what.
It appears the Right Wing Noise Machine has really cranked it up this summer, beginning with the birthers, death panels, moving on to the Health Care tea partiers, and now this. It appears they have caught their breath and fully hit their stride.
myiq2xu at The Confluence weighs in, beginning by quoting Gawker:
The story of how the President’s Special Advisor for Green Jobs became the biggest, scariest villain of the right wing (this week, anyway) is also the story of how the right wing information delivery process works now.
Here’s the biography of Van Jones: he was a bookish black kid from Tennessee who went to Yale Law and moved to San Francisco and became a radical. Then he decided to use his law degree and smarts to clean up and make things better from inside the establishment.
He was, he openly acknowledges, a “full-on Marxist” in early ’90s California. He joined a revolutionary Marxist group and protested police brutality. Then he founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which combats over-incarceration, police brutality, and urban poverty and violence.
Running a civil rights group dedicated to producing real and immediate improvements in urban life will make a revolutionary Marxist a bit more pragmatic. Jones began focusing on job creation, and, with a bit of prognostic intuition that ought to put Thomas Friedman to shame, he decided, in the late-’90s, to focus on “Green Jobs.” This is, you know, capitalism—he wants to create wealth, and use market forces to make the world and black communities better places!
And in 2008 he wrote a book called The Green Collar Economy, and it made the Times best-seller list, making him as much of a figure of the mainstream as Sean Hannity or Malcolm Gladwell.
So here we have a radical youth turned respectable liberal. Respectable enough to be on Time magazine listicles and win World Economic Forum prizes and everything. Respectable enough for Tom Friedman to profile him. And The New Yorker. Respectable enough for Meg Whitman, as in former eBay CEO and wealthy Republican California gubernatorial candidate and John McCain advisor Meg Whitman, to proclaim herself “a huge fan of Van Jones.”
And for both his activism and his charm he was rewarded with a White House job with the Council on Environmental Quality. He was tasked with making sure stimulus money for green jobs actually went to green jobs. And he’s a great person to have in this administration—he is a genuine environmentalist and the only special interest he’s beholden to is poor people. He is the sort of person we were all praying Obama would bring with him to DC, instead of Larry Summers.
myiq2xu writes and I heartily concur:
I am no fan of Barack Obama. I rate him as somewhat better than George W. Bush only because he hasn’t launched an unprovoked war on false pretenses. But I have said before and I’ll say again that I would love to be proven wrong about him. If he fails we all suffer.
I am not going to oppose people and/or policies just because of their connection to Obama, nor am I going to think less of anyone (like Hillary Clinton) because they choose to serve our nation by working for him. I want Obama to appoint good liberals and progressives to positions in the federal bureaucracy and judiciary.
Van Jones seems to have been a good pick for the position he held. None of the crap thrown at him by the wingnuts had anything to do with his qualifications or job performance. Obama should have given Jones his full support.
Yes he should have. But here’s another question, where was the RWNM during the 2008 election? Crickets. You’d almost think they decided to let Obama win so they could have a strawman to attack. Because for the power elite of the Republican Party, Obama is no threat and more often than not, an ally. Obama’s betrayal of the Democratic base goes far and deep (here, here, here, here) and the GOP is smelling blood in the water, so it’s time for to start playing rallying the troops. And it’s working. And every time Obama doesn’t stand up to these creeps, every time they get a slice off of him, he looks weak and ineffectual. Or as is being whispered now, looks like a wuss.
No longer are we talking policy, but rather, Obama’s inability to fight for what he believes in has now turned the debate to a discussion of whether our president is a “wuss.” People don’t like having discussions about whether their leader is a wuss. The very fact of having the discussion is trouble in and of itself.
Poor John, he’s still operating under the misapprehension that Obama actually “believes in” something. And when you’ve got Bill Moyers telling you to stand up and fight, hoo boy, you are in deep doo.
Honestly, I can’t lay this at anyone’s feet but President Obama’s and the Democratic leadership. In trying to be all things to all people, Obama has pleased very few and pissed off untold numbers from both sides of the political spectrum, and I’d wager that there are a lot of Democrats counted in that Strongly Disapprove number. This graph shows such a squandering of opportunity that I want to cry. (Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking - Likely Voters)
For a real wake up call, check out Rasmussen’s “By The Numbers” page. Note especially, two tables:
Select above: A = Article, C = Crosstabs, T = Trends
How the hell is it that the GOP is trusted on every single one of these issues more than the DEMS with the exception (barely) of Gov’t Ethics and corruption? Trusted more on Social Security??? WTF?
Health Justice posted a tweet on Facebook allegedly from the Utah Democratic Party opposing Single Payer. One fellow responded:
seriously? did they not read the party platform?
I replied:
They did. It ain’t in there. Tell me if you see the words Single Payer any where. It’s so watered down that it can mean anything and nothing at the same time.
Below the jump is the entire section from the 2008 Democratic Platform (pp 9-13) dealing with Health Care. Do you see the words Single Payer in there anywhere? In fact, it seems to rule it out, doesn’t it? (more…)
Former Democratic Party activist. I'm a liberal with a capital L, but I'm no longer buying what the Democratic Party is selling. I live on 5 acres of sand and sagebrush in northern Nevada with the Love Of My Life, three cats and three dogs.
BlueLyon began its life in 2005 at Blogger and moved to WordPress in June of 2008. In transfering content over from Blogger, many posts didn't make it over in their original format. For a better look, check out the BlueLyon archives at Blogger.
Comments Policy
BlueLyon reserves the right to edit or delete comments that are abusive, off-topic or spam. And that goes double for any comments that tell us to “get over it already.” Either you wish to engage or you don’t. You choose.
