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.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Coburn's Prayer Was About Electronics
Two Down, One To Go
Another early morning session, another 60 votes. This time, to end debate on the Senate health care bill.
Let's not forget this when Republicans whine and moan about this being passed in the dead of night with no help from the GOP side. One, they're forcing these crazy hours and two, no votes equates not wanting to help.Senate Democrats remained united in their goal of passing historic legislation by Christmas, and Republicans were steadfast in opposition. The motion to shut off debate on a package put together by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid passed 60-39.
The final 60-vote hurdle, which would end debate on the bill itself, is expected Wednesday afternoon, starting a 30-hour countdown to a night-before-Christmas vote on the bill, which needs only a simple majority to pass.
The Senate has been voting at odd hours since Monday around 1 a.m. because Republicans have insisted on using all the time allowed them under Senate rules to delay the bill. Not to be thwarted, Reid, D-Nev., has refused to postpone action until after the holidays. Hence the unusual schedule. On Tuesday, they started voting at sunrise.
Adding... Rachel Maddow explains the useless waste of time.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Monday, December 21, 2009
Happy Solstice
Sunday, December 20, 2009
One For The Ages
Rhode Island Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's comments on the floor of the Senate today.
"The lying time is over."
(H/T GottaLaff)
The Definition of Contradiction
Maine Senator Olympia Snowe cannot vote for the health care bill. The bill she delayed with her ultimatum of withholding her vote because of the public option and her preference for an unattainable trigger. Why? She's been working on it for a year... but feels it's being rushed through.
And yet all we hear from the GOP is how this should be a bipartisan agreement when they've pre-determined that not one Republican will vote for it. So why should the Democrats wait?“Having been fully immersed in this issue for this entire year and as the only Republican to vote for health reform in the Finance Committee, I deeply regret that I cannot support the pending Senate legislation as it currently stands, given my continued concerns with the measure and an artificial and arbitrary deadline of completing the bill before Christmas that is shortchanging the process on this monumental and trans-generational effort..."
Brittany Murphy Dies at 32
Brittany Murphy died early this morning after she went into full cardiac arrest and could not be revived, multiple sources tell TMZ.
She was 32.
A 911 call was made at 8:00 AM from a home in Los Angeles that is listed as belonging to her husband, Simon Monjack, the Los Angeles City Fire Department tells TMZ.
We're told Murphy was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center where she was pronounced dead on arrival.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Must Reads
Paul Krugman: Pass The Bill
driftglass: Senator Liebenezer
Christopher Brauchli: Catholic Charities Meet the D.C. Council
The Rude Pundit: What Would Jesus Lie About? (Health Care Reform Edition)
Bob Cesca: I'm Really Pissed Off About Health Care Reform
Steve Benen: If It's Sunday...
John Cole: Dear Rahm, Please STFU
Victoria Reggie Kennedy: The moment Ted Kennedy would not want to lose
Dick Cavett: Almost Nothing About Tiger Woods
Friday, December 18, 2009
Climate Change Denier Fail
...Heh...
Senator James Inhofe in Copenhagen:
For this, Inhofe made an 18-hour round trip flight....Inhofe’s aides eventually rustled up a group of reporters, and the Oklahoman — wearing black snakeskin cowboy boots — held forth from the top of a flight of stairs in the conference media center.
“We in the United States owe it to the 191 countries to be well-informed and know what the intentions of the United States are. The United States is not going to pass a cap and trade,” he said. “It’s just not going to happen.”
A reporter asked: “If there’s a hoax, then who’s putting on this hoax, and what’s the motive?”
“It started in the United Nations,” Inhofe said, “and the ones in the United States who really grab ahold of this is the Hollywood elite.”
One reporter asked Inhofe if he was referring to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Another reporter — this one from Der Spiegel — told the senator: “You’re ridiculous.”
Every Vote Is Important...
...not just Joe Lieberman's, or Ben Nelson's, or Olympia Snowe's. And while these Senators are wielding their power because of an elusive 60th vote and making health care legislation exponentially weaker in the process, the White House assumes that the liberal votes will be there in the end. They shouldn't be so quick to count on those votes if they keep stepping on the throats of liberals and progressives instead of the extortionists they've been trying to appease for the last three months.
This in combination with Ben Nelson's new movement of the goalposts for his vote is having everyone walking a fine, thread-bare tightrope.Now that the Senate Democratic leadership has stripped the last vestige of the public option — the Medicare buy-in provision — from its bill, progressives are feeling doubly betrayed.
“It’s time for the president to get his hands dirty,” Representative Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York, said in a statement this week. “Some of us have compromised our compromised compromise. We need the president to stand up for the values our party shares.”
...“I don’t sleep well,” [Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie] Sanders said. “I am struggling with this issue very hard, trying to sort out what is positive in this bill, what is negative in the bill, what it means for our country if there is no health insurance legislation, when we will come back to it.”
Although I still think this whole thing may backfire, as I believe not passing anything would be a more devastating blow to the Democratic party and the progressive agenda than passing a weak bill, I really do want to see liberals and progressives push back hard and let it be known that they can't be taken for granted. Their votes count just as much.
Fuck You, Ben Nelson!
DailyKos: Nelson is now demanding that the bill be "scaled back" to cover fewer than the 30 million promised by Pres. Obama, that its revenue provisions be eliminated, and that its Medicaid expansion be made voluntary. Not surprisingly, he says he can't imagine that the legislation will pass the Senate by Christmas.
ENOUGH! Call his bluff.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Progressives Fight Back
I'm expecting (hoping) more progressives push back on the acquiescence of the "get anything passed" mindset just to show that they can't be pushed around.
Rep. Anthony Weiner says the Senate bill is getting worse:Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said late Wednesday that he cannot support the Democrats' healthcare reform legislation in its current form.
Asked by Fox Business Network's Neil Cavuto asked Sanders if he could support the compromise bill. The senator replied "I’m struggling with this. As of this point I am not voting for the bill..."
This is going to come to a breaking point."Every time conservatives or those that are concerned about costs step forward and say they have a problem, they take out something that helps reduce costs. You know, the public option was something that increased competition for private insurance companies and drove down costs; they took it out. Expanding Medicare to allow people not just 65 but 64, 55, the most expensive group to insure get covered under Medicare, now that's been dropped out," adds Weiner. "You know what's puzzling about all this is the very same people who say they're concerned about cost are the ones responsible for stripping out cost savings measures, so it really is a frustrating process to watch going on in the Senate."
My Thoughts On Health Care Reform
Since the evening of "Et tu, Lieberman?" I've been grappling with my thoughts and feelings on the current Senate debacle that is the health care bill debate. Because the two have to be dealt with separately.
Emotionally, I want Holy Joe's head on a plate. I want President Obama to shout from the rooftops that Traitor Joe will not live to see another day as chairman of any Democratic party committee. I want Harry Reid to tell Lieberman that he can forget about seeing any legislation with his name on it come to the floor of the Senate. I want every Democratic Senator to call Lieberman out on the Senate floor and expose his hypocrisy so it can live in perpetuity in the Congressional record.
Emotionally, I'm upset at the party caving to satisfy a handful of Senators with their own agenda. Courting Republicans like Snowe was a ridiculous idea from the start. If it were a matter of one vote, I could understand it to a point. But if it was to feign bipartisanship, it was a useless task. All that should have been thrown out the window when they realized they also had to content with Mary Landrieu(LA), Blanche Lincoln(AK) and Ben Nelson(NE) besides The Lieberdouche. If they couldn't get their own party's ducks in a row, what was the point of Snowe in the first place?
Emotionally, I'm truly disappointed at the lack of arm twisting by the President. I know that's not his style and I'm trying to deal with that considering my constant bitching about another certain leader of the free world in the not too far distant past and his bullying ways when he was using his powers for evil instead of good.
But emotion and ideology are intertwined and ideology is not the friend of politics or pragmatism. This is where we need to take a hard look at the bill that we do have instead of the one we wish we had. The bill that ends the insurance conglomorate's practice of rescission. The bill that doesn't allow exclusion due to a pre-existing condtion. The bill that extends coverage and includes subsidies to those that can't afford health care. The bill that makes the insurance companies spend 90% of premiums accrued on health care, not advertising. The bill that would make possible millions who currently don't have insurance and therefore not got to the doctor a chance at preventative care before it's too late.
That's a lot to simply dismiss as "not good enough." There are progressives who have voiced their harsh opposition for legitimate reasons. And that's their job. None of them however, are elected officials. FDL's Jane Hamsher opposes the bill and agrees with Howard Dean who called it "essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate." But it's easy for progressives to stick to their guns, to throw their principles in your face when there's no downside to their stance. It's easy for Howard Dean's idealogy to dictate what he says when he's not in public office. I wonder what his reaction would be if he were still head of the DNC? Dean can say what he wants now when there is no accountability, even when his record shows otherwise. The Senate bill is similar to Dean's plan when he ran for President in 2004, which didn't have a public option or a Medicare buy-in either.
What do you say to people who currently can't get health insurance because of restrictions that this bill would now make illegal? "Sorry, wait til next time?" Because if history is any indicator, the next time will be somewhere in 2025 if this bill were killed. There is no do over. Not when the process has come this far, farther than at any other time the government has broached the subject of health care reform.
What do you say to the nearly 45,000 people that die every year because they don't have coverage and therefore put off the expensive proposition of a checkup? "Wait it out, maybe this isn't your year"?
I can't do that. It probably would be easy for me to say that, considering I have good health care coverage through my employer, but if the shoe were on the other foot, I don't think I'd like it so much if someone with health insurance was denying my chance at coverage because of their principles.
We need to take a step back, take a breath and look at what this bill provides instead of what it doesn't, and then ask ourselves if it really is "worse than nothing" knowing that nothing is the status quo. Knowing that nothing is unsustainable, and asking ourselves if "worse then nothing" is just hyperbole.
Although I'm incredibly disappointed, at this point I have to let the process play itself out. Yes, they could have done better initially, but this is by no means over as elected progressives are pushing back and once the Senate bill is done with it still has to be merged with the House bill in conference.
Perhaps a public option can be approached through an amendment in a future spending bill. Perhaps over time, Congress can improve loopholes and make health care stronger, just like Medicare was improved and Social Security was improved over time. But I don't know how I could sleep at night advocating the bill be scrapped when it doesn't affect me as severely as those who aren't covered.
Increase In The Disinformed
The ratings are in.
I think I have a good idea at what caused the jump: fear of the "other."Fox News will finish 2009 as the top-rated cable news network, a perch it has enjoyed for eight years running. But 2009--the first year of the Obama administration--also marks FNC's highest rated year in the channel's 13-year-history.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
I Called It
Ben Nelson gets his balls teabagged.
We already have restrictions on federal abortion funding. It's called the Hyde Amendment, Senator Casey. No need to swallow the Burgermeister jizz....The effort to win Nelson's support hinges largely on abortion policy, the same divisive issue that nearly derailed action on the healthcare bill at the last minute in the House, where antiabortion Democrats insisted on tight restrictions on the funding of abortion under the proposed new health programs.
Nelson, seeking similar abortion restrictions, continued to withhold his support for the Senate bill despite major concessions made to him on other issues affecting the powerful insurance industry that is important to his home state.
Efforts to address his abortion concerns advanced today as another antiabortion Democrat -- Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania -- floated a compromise designed to strengthen guarantees that federal funds would not be used for abortion.
Michael Steele's "Tea" Party
Self destruction?
"...Though it lacked the size, enthusiasm and racially-questionable signage of it's real-life counterpart, [Michael] Steele's "RNC Tea Party" was all about embracing the ideals of a growing conservative movement that's often been as focused on slamming the GOP as it has on attacking Democrats. There were even official GOP tea bags given out with "Listen to Me!" signs stapled to them. Interestingly, though, the party lacked most of the big Republican names the tea partiers usually turn to at their rallies. Michele Bachmann and Jim DeMint were nowhere to be found.
[Steele] acknowledged the tea partier's complaints with the Republicans and he promised that the party would work hard to keep it's loudest constituents happy. Steele said he offered a "mea culpa" to tea partiers since the beginning of this term, agreeing with them that the party had abandoned its conservative "principles.
"But that's all over now, Steele said. Tea is the party's drink now. "We are moving back, head first, in that direction," he said. "Because that's where we should be."
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:
I shit you not.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.
You can find the entire amendment here.
UPDATE (11:45pm): Sanders withdrew his amendment.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Lieberman Doesn't Care About Voters
... He just cares about Joe Lieberman. Why did he decide to kill the Medicare buy-in option? Because it was too good.
Like I said before, Lieberman only cares about Lieberman. He doesn't care about his constituents, or anyone who will die without health care due to his shenanigans....he said he was particularly troubled by the overly enthusiastic reaction to the proposal by some liberals, including Representative Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York, who champions a fully government-run health care system.
"Congressman Weiner made a comment that Medicare-buy in is better than a public option, it's the beginning of a road to single-payer," Mr. Lieberman said. "Jacob Hacker, who's a Yale professor who is actually the man who created the public option, said, 'This is a dream. This is better than a public option. This is a giant step.'"
There's a special place in hell for people like Joe Lieberman.
ShareThis