Senate GOP Forces New House Vote

And there you have it. Senate Republicans were able to sneak in two provisions that change the reconciliation bill enough to have to send it back to the house for yet another vote. Luckily, it seems that it won't make much difference.

In the wee hours of Thursday morning, Senate Parliamentarian Alan Frumin ruled that two minor provisions of the health care reconciliation bill violated the so-called Byrd rule, and must be stricken. That has altered the language of the legislation and will the House to vote on the package one more time.

One of the provisions is meant to prevent Pell grant reductions (the reconciliation bill also deals with student loan reform). The other strike came against obsolete language. Both changes are incidental to the overall package, though, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to have no problem passing the bill again with the same coalition of 220 members who passed it for the first time on Sunday.

House members have been told to stay in town for a reconciliation revote, in the event that the Senate adopts the bill with a few changes. The Senate adjourned after 2 this morning, without having taken a final vote. They'll reconvene this morning at 9:45 to resume consideration.

Of course all of this is really moot and for some reason, the GOP thinks delaying the inevitable seems like a smart tactic. Stopping work at 2pm? Forcing committees to reconvene at a later time midstream? Proposing ridiculous amendments like Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn's "No Viagra for Sex Offenders" in order to force Democrats into a tough vote.

If Coburn is so adamant about this, why doesn't he introduce it as a stand alone bill?  Let's see if he does after the GOP plan to derail the reconciliation vote fails.  Then we can all call him and ask why he hasn't followed up with his Viagra bill?

Coburn's Prayer Was About Electronics

What a joke this guy is.

Coburn: "What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can't make the vote tonight."

When asked what he meant when interviewed by Greta Van Susteren, here's what the "distinguished" Republican Senator from Oklahoma said: "I wouldn't back away from that. I'd love for everyone's alarm clock who would vote for this thing not to work."

Oh! He was praying for alarm clocks not to work. How could we possibly think that he would be suggesting something else when there's a 92-year old Democratic Senator in failing health being pushed around on a wheelchair during a blizzard?

Boy, we can be sooooo cynical sometimes, can't we? I wonder why he wouldn't explain himself on the floor of the Senate at Dick Durbin's request to clear the air? After all, we wouldn't want to continue thinking he was praying for something to befall a sitting Senator. Forgive my naiveté for thinking otherwise, since we find wingnut pastors that would pray for Obama's death and now they're making bumper stickers out of it and getting a good chuckle in the process. Silly of me to think that Senator Coburn would be of that ilk.

GOP Obstructionists and Delayers - UPDATED

I've been mulling over the whole disappointing health care issue that has taken place over the last two days and I'm still thinking it over and forming thoughts about it, which I'll then post later.

In the meantime, I just happened to tune in to C-SPAN2 to watch a bill being read on the Senate floor. The chyron at the bottom of the screen read this:

Sanders (I-VT) Single-Payer Amendment

Opens Medicare to all to all US citizens regardless of age, creating a single-payer health care system. The Senate clerk is reading the Sanders single-payer amendment. The reading is usually waived. Sen. Coburn (R-OK) requested that the clerk read the amendment. He has left the Senate floor.

I shit you not.

You can find the entire amendment here.

UPDATE (11:45pm): Sanders withdrew his amendment.

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GOP Douchebaggery Backfire

These oh so smart GOP Senators really stuck their heads in their asses this time, and I don't mean that as a kinky call girl sex act for Vitter. Republican Senators David "Diaper Boy" Vitter and Tom "C Street Negotiator" Coburn concocted an evil little plan in which they'd kill the public option by offering an amendment to the health care bill requiring Congress to enroll in the public option if passed. MWWAHAHAHAHA! There's only one problem: it's a good fucking idea.

So good in fact, that Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) wanted to co-sponsor the bill. But Vitter and Coburn wouldn't let him.

“They’ve not said yes to allow me to be a co-sponsor,” Brown told The Hill on Thursday. “I’ve called their office four times. I’m proud of the public option, I think it would be great and we ought to join it and show the country how good it is. I think my interest may be more genuine than theirs, but I’d like to work with them if they’ll let me. If they just want to score partisan points, I still want to work with them.”

If this was a serious attempt to make the bill better, why not allow co-sponsors? Because we all know this was a serious attempt, not at health care reform, but to shame health care reform proponents into backing away from the evil public option. It's a legislative poison pill. But instead of scaring away Democratic senators, they've been called on their bluff.

Okay, so Vitter and Coburn didn't want to allow Brown to co-sponsor. So what did he do instead?

Sen. Brown asked to be added as a co-sponsor to the Coburn/Vitter amendment by unanimous consent. The motion was approved.

Senators Mikulski, Dodd and Franken quickly followed suit.

Another GOP FAIL.

The Party of No Sympathy

Over these last few weeks while Congress has been in recess, we've seen some pretty offensive town hall meetings. Birthers and deathers, seniors who rail against a government run health care option but freak at the idea of possible changes to steamline their government run Medicare, and gun-toting 2nd Amendment activists who for some reason show up armed at health care forums have shown us the ugly, misinformed and disinformed underbelly of the Republican voter, uneducated in the ways of the current health care reform battle among many other things.

But lately, we are becoming witness to the lowest of the low. We are watching our elected officials at said town halls cater to the basest fears of their far right wingnut base and turn their backs on constituents coming to them for answers, constituents in need, people looking for help.

The first of these examples came from Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the heartless representing the heartland, when a distraught woman pleaded for help because her husband's insurance company would not cover his traumatic brain injury. Coburn's response? Call his office, but "government is not the answer." He suggested she should look to friends and neighbors as the sheeple in the audience applauded. I wonder how many of them offered to help this woman and her husband after the meeting was over?

Then came word of Kansas Republican Rep. Lynn "Great White Hope" Jenkins laughing in the face of a young mother with a 2½ year old child who can't afford health insurance when she asked what was wrong with a government run option that she could afford? Here is someone who doesn't want to be on the dole, would rather pay for her own insurance than get subsidized by the government to buy private insurance, and she is basically ignored... as the sheeple again applaud.

But I must say that the latest act of RNC Chairman Michael Steele is disgustingly reprehensible. Steele has shown over and over that in his mind, he is right and anyone who disagrees with him is a moron. It's the Emporer's New Clothes Redux. He knows not of what he speaks and proves it every time he opens his mouth. Well, this time, he not only shows his ignorance but his pompous ruthlessness as well.

Taking a question about health care reform from a student who lost her mother to cancer because she couldn't afford some of the medications, Steele took it all as a big stunt and said, "It makes for great TV. You'll probably make it tonight, enjoy it." He then turned his back on her... and the white sheeple who were bussed in and sat in the front rows of the prodominently black audience applauded.

I mean, I always thought Steele was a bit of a douchebag, but man, that is some cold-blooded shit. What is the point of having a town hall meeting when you don't care what the participants have to say? How does he justify that kind of behavior, not just as a human being, but as a representative, THE representative of the Republican National Committee? Come on, Mike, at least pretend to care. All you're doing is solidifying the notion that the GOP really doesn't give a rat's ass about the average American barely scraping by. He's just as insensitive as he is stupid.

Dave Zirin writes:

...The roots of Steele's unconscionable behavior lie in his own political bankruptcy. The nation faces a health care crisis and has no answer other than telling students, "Everyone in the country needs health care." Lately he has been running commercials telling seniors, "No cuts for Medicare," just two short years after running for senator of Maryland saying that "everything has to be on the table" - including Medicare cuts. As Ron Brownstein wrote in National Journal on Friday, "Steele's pledge this week to 'protect Medicare' might have been more convincing had it not come five months after nearly four-fifths of House Republicans voted to literally end the program as we know it for all Americans younger than 55."

It's one thing to be a fraud. That's politics as usual. But to turn your back on a young person whose mother just died of cancer is more than politics as usual. It's shocking.

UPDATE (10:30pm): Keith Olbermann gives Steele the once over.

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The Real Death Panels

Yesterday I read an article of a husband and wife who endured a real life death panel, not one invented by Betsy McCaughey or dreamt up in Sarah Palin's feeble brain.

Froma Harrop's ex-Marine husband was denied the treatment they needed by United HealthCare for liver cancer, but always gave them the impression that help was just around the corner. The time they wasted waiting for the bean counters at their insurance company may or may not have made a difference, but we'll never know. They just waited out the clock for him to die.

Today, with the passing of Ted Kennedy, I can't help but compare the waiting game by insurance companies to the waiting game of certain members of the Senate. Ted Kennedy was a huge proponent of health care reform, and the cynical side of me feels that some were just waiting for him to expire from his brain cancer to knock off one more Democratic vote for reform. I had mentioned it to a relative a few weeks back and promptly dismissed it, but the memory flooded back as I heard of Senator Kennedy's death.

Now, I know that it's a pretty callous thing to think about. That such a thing could possibly be considered is pretty cold-hearted. And maybe I thought the same thing after comtemplating it. After all, this "august" body always boasts of friendships and respect. Then I saw Senator Tom Coburn (R-Hell) at his health care town hall meeting.



So Coburn says his office will help, but "the government is not the solution." Uh, does he know he is the government? And he suggests to look to your neighbors. Look to your neighbors to help your husband whose had a TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY. I would suggest that Coburn is not the solution.

So with Ted Kennedy, there goes another humanitarian in the Senate; something that their chamber is solely lacking. Ted Kennedy had his problems, he had his scandals. But he also worked his tail off for decades for the common good of the people. I'd take one Kennedy over 50 Coburns any day.

"The work goes on,
the cause endures,
the hope still lives
and the dreams shall never die."