Saturday Roundup
* The Senate vote tonight on whether to bring the health care bill to a debate is a high-stakes one for Harry Reid, his re-election campaign, and his entire political future:
“His entire political future is predicated on a campaign that ‘I get things done and I can get things done for this nation and Nevada,’” said Nevada political analyst and columnist Jon Ralston. “It really undermines that campaign if he can’t get it done.”
* Still no word from the last two holdouts, Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln. Tonight’s Senate vote is the first real moment of truth for “centrist” Senate Dems, and is in a sense a kick-off of the 2010 campaign, since Republicans hope to use Yes votes against moderate Dems facing re-election.
* At least half a dozen Dem Senators are set to appear on the Sunday shows tomorrow. Imagine if they end up having to spend their time explaining why today’s health care vote failed. It’s unlikely. But still.
* Residents of job-strapped Thompson, Illinois, want the Gitmo detainees. Why won’t these folks follow orders and get scared already? What’s wrong with these people?
* Good read: The New York Times goes all in on the stimulus.
* John McCain breaks the rules of the club, launches personally targeted grassroots campaign demanding fellow Senator Ben Nelson vote No on health care.
* More context and analysis of Obama’s drop below 50% from David Paul Kuhn.
* A Dem official emails to clarify that the DNC’s cash on hand figure is actually $12.9 million, not $12.3 million, as originally reported.
* Sarah Palin concocts yet another panel.
* And guess who doesn’t want Palin to run for president? Joe the Plumber!
What else is happening?
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The early debate has started.
“McConnell opens by reading from David Broder’s WaPo column entitled “A Budget-Buster in the Making.”
Reid responds: “To focus on an editorial written by a man who has been retired for many years and writes a column once in a while is not where we should be.”
Broder being read on Senate floor by GOP? Amazing.
Thanks for that NYTimes link Greg. Glad to hear the stimulus is actually doing it’s job according to so many economists. Now if they can get some traction out of the jobs summit maybe we’ll begin to see a little daylight.
BTW, we seem to be having trouble with comments loading slow again FYI.
Greg,
The site is broken again. Now the comments are not showing up.
As I am writing this, the thread shows that there are four comments posted, but when I click on them, no comments show up. Also, when I posted a comment, last night, it did not show up, so I posted a new version of it, which also did not show up. Several minutes later both comments showed up. The site has recycled back to the problems you had in the past. What ever caused the crash yesterday, and what ever tech support did to fix it, appears to have reset the software back to when it was ******** up comments postings.
Damn.
This stupid software.
Edit: When it was screwin*g up….
Greg, I think Wyden is going to be the hero in the Senate on the HCR debate.
I think the teabaggers need more Obama=Hitler pictures to make the Senators vote no.
Maybe if they remind people that expanding health care is the same as putting them in death camps, folks will find a reason to vote against it. Lots of interesting news today, let’s hope Reid counted his votes right. As for Nelson voting against the bill, well go right ahead champ! Just so long as you are voting for cloture to open and close debate then that is fine by me!!
The people of Standish, MI want to use their max prision for detainees, too. Obviously they’re not scared enough either. Pete Hoekstra and Liz Cheney are working hard to bring them to their knees in fear.
Cantwell just finished and did a great job defining what needs to be done and how to do it. I like her. Landrieu is up now and indicated earlier she will vote to move it forward. Only one left to indicate her decision is Lincoln as far as I know.
Sen. Whitehouse-
I’ll drink to your statement! Moderately, of course…
All, I’m very sorry for the problems. Our tech crew is looking at it.
Again, apologies, and thx for your patience. Please keep me posted on how it’s working…
” Residents of job-strapped Thompson, Illinois, want the Gitmo detainees”
Residents of the US don’t want the health care bill, but I won’t be holding my breath waiting for you to tell politicians they shouldn’t be voting for it. Again, the hypocrisy is staggering and frankly rises to the level of parody.
The Obama Record: Record unemployment, record deficits, no legislative accomplishments.
“Maybe if they remind people that expanding health care is the same as putting them in death camps, folks will find a reason to vote against it.”
That would almost be as bad as the Democrats, the actual politicians, not the protesters, who claim voting against this thing is the same as murder (Alan Grayson being the most obvious idiot) and 45,000 people are dying a day because the Republicans are obstructing this bill. Three words: Hypocrisy, staggering, self-parody.
The Obama Record: Record unemployment, record deficits, no legislative accomplishments.
Senator Lincoln will not win over any of those who oppose her, by voting against the reform bill. Those who oppose her now, will still vote against her, even if she votes against the reform bill.
I predict that Senator Lincoln will make it the 60th vote, and she will announce her decision within the next hour.
Blanche has to know that she can not rely on the kindness of strangers, and neither should all those people with pre-existing conditions.
GOP Pre-existing Condition:
http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/S/2/3/gop-preexisting-condition.gif
Al Franken now speaking. Doin’ pretty well.
Interesting to think that, considering Landslide Al’s razor-thin victory, everybody who made a substantial donation to his campaign can claim a share of responsibility for getting him elected. If you hadn’t sent in that $1000, Slimy Norman would have squeaked through, and the Senate Dem Caucus would number 59 instead of 60.
It is pretty rare when any single person can legitimately claim to have made a difference. In Al’s case, a huge number of people can feel that satisfaction. Sincere thanks to all you who contributed to and/or volunteered for Al. This time, you really did make a huge difference.
Looks like they’re all in for now. Wonder how much it will cost to get their vote to end the debate?
I love that Joe Lieberman was the name chosen by a new troll on this site. Love it!
The delusional Joe sock puppet appears to be related to the mindless propagandists that frequent the Politico website that believe if they repeat something enough, it will become true.
Here’s what they’ve gotten so far just for letting it proceed to debate.
Landrieu: 100-300 million in federal help for medicaid to stated having a catastrophic natural disaster in the last 7 years.
Nelson: Killed the language in the bill to repeal the anti-trust exemption for insurance industry. I haven’t seen the language yet so I don’t know how far it goes or if it’s some sort of compromise.
Lincoln: Funding added for abstinence only education.
Mike, he’d have to get us to read it first.
Three Senators, Landrieu, Lincoln and Lieberman(what is it with these idiots with L’s in their name), have explicitly stated they will filibuster if the public option is included and one more, Ben Nelson, has strongly implied he will filibuster. When Reid removes the public option to get this bill past the Senate, he will lose the liberals in the Senate and in the House.
A vote against cloture because of the public option is a vote to kill this bill.
Mike, that is definitely the most comically misdirected post of the weekend, given the cadre of mindlessly repetitious liberals who clog this blog with their cut and paste waste. Really, could any bunch be more unreflective and repetitious than Liam, New Reefer and crew?
Teddy Partridge commenting on the Arkansas Free Clinic today.
“We have, horribly, created an entire class of Americans who feel that they need to apologize for not having the money to meet Big Health and Big Insurance’s incessant demands for premiums and fees that have risen faster than wages or inflation. This is an awful development — no one should be apologetic for being unable to stay healthy.
The fault is with this awful system, as today’s health fair clearly demonstrates. And yet every one of the people interviewed by Eve today has conveyed to me, via body language and tone, that they feel the fault lies with them. This is wrong. This is not what America is about. This must change.”
This is from David Dayen on the interesting war of words between McConnell and Reid this morning over Broder’s column in the Washington Post.
“It’s worth taking a look at Broder’s mess of a column. Here are the sources for his claim that the House and Senate health care bills will bust the budget:
… the executive director of the Concord Coalition, a fiscal-scold group founded by fiscal scold emeritus Pete Peterson, who pops up every time there’s a Democratic President to yammer about the deficit, while going silent during times of millionaire tax cuts and trillion-dollar wars,
… Maya MacGuineas of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which is ALSO a Pete Peterson organization, as the Peter G. Peterson Foundation funds them,
… Douglas Holtz-Eakin, John McCain’s chief economic advisor during the 2008 campaign.
This represents the opinions from across the political spectrum which agree with Broder’s contention. Two foundations funded by the same person, and McCain’s econ guy.
The truth is that Broder would rather see 45,000 Americans die from a lack of health insurance because his right-wing buddies want to keep financing tax cuts for the wealthy and the war machine while crying poor about everything else.
So if Harry Reid wants to call Broder a dilettante, I don’t think there’s a strong argument against it.”
Quarterbrain is the imbecile that lied about being a lawyer, just to try and impress complete strangers, on the Internet.
He is the Uber-Mindless Arse Troll.
@Insimca,
Since the 60 votes are already assured, I will not be joining you tonight.
We have achieved a fresh set of downs, and we are now in the red zone.
GOP Pre-existing condition:
http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/S/2/3/gop-preexisting-condition.gif
If a senator is actually going to leverage these votes for constituents–and that’s the way the Senate seems to operate–Mary Landrieu could have done a lot worse. I mean New Orleans and Louisiana still need lots and lot of help.
Liam, I’m leaving as well since it won’t be a nail biter.
ABC, yes it’s always the way it is, just wonder what’s next.
The deal Ben Nelson (DINO-NE) made is telling, too. He sold his soul in exchange for what? Something for his constituents? Nope, it was to preserve the health-insurance industry’s anti-trust exemption.
I guess we know whose pocket he’s in.
jazp–The Nelson thing looks like a disgrace. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of disgrace to go around. We’ll see what happens as the debate goes forward now that the Dems got to the 60 votes to start. (And maybe Ben Nelson sees the insurance industry as his constituency.)
60-39 along party lines. Don’t know yet who was the absentee repug.
well done, harry.
Sen. Voinovich was a no show.
The Tea Party Documentary, at one DC theatre on Thanksgiving Day then straight to DVD. Trailer is in the link, and no it’s not parody.
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/tea-party-movie-no-really-trailer-no
Greg said: “Broder being read on Senate floor by GOP? Amazing.”
And yet, it feels right somehow.
I’ve never been able to read Reid. He seems the kindly grandfather but here and there, reports suggest something rather more…carnivorous?
We’re making the grade, it seems, and with a level of opposition and avalanches of utterbullshit such as I’ve never seen before.
From the ‘cut and paste’ files:
David Broder is a right wing hack, he always has been, it’s just that these last few years his pretense of being anything else has become more and more absurd to keep up.
Broder’s asinine right wing assertions adds to the heavy handed right wing bias of the Washington Post’s editorial pages and PBS host Gwen Ifill’s Washington Week.
I’ve never tried to read Reid, what I’ve tried to do is probably even harder: Read the “why” of why Democratic Senators put Reid in charge.
Seriously, WHY have the Dems put him in charge?
None of the reasons I’ve heard have ever seemed adequate.
Does anyone know, is it just a simple majority of Dem senators who make the decisions on who leads?
Is it a regularly scheduled vote or is a leadership vote that can be called if enough members ask for it?
And isn’t their another Dem Senator who wants the job?
And is it possible to get enough other Senators to support someone new?
Real cut and paste. There must be something they like about him.
“From 1999 to 2005, Reid served as Senate Democratic Whip. He served as minority whip from 1999 to 2001 and again from 2003 to 2005, and as majority whip from 2001 to 2003 (except for a brief period from January-May 2001). From 2001 to 2003, he served as chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee.
Reid succeeded Tom Daschle as minority leader in 2005. He became majority leader after the 2006 elections.
Reid was re-elected Majority Leader by the Democratic caucus without an opposition on November 18, 2008, winning all 57 votes.”
lmsinca not to ruin what’s left of your night but it looks like Wall St. has found a new way to game the system!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/business/22loans.html?hp
lmsinca I really hope Reid proves me wrong about his leadership skills. He delivered tonight, I will give him that. We all know the next cloture vote will not be easy.
Looks like FHA is taking all the risk. With what we talked about last night I see another bailout in the works and the investment fund managers making another killing in the process. They’re getting in ahead of regulations so they don’t have to keep any of the risk in house. It would be difficult for the homeowner to resist this and why should they. The original lender lost but that won’t bother them. I didn’t see anything about rating agencies and these bundled mortgages did you?
lmsinca I am not sure where to begin. Someone needs to get control over the FHA and make sure they get their act together. You’re right between that silly story last night and now this one they are headed into disaster and what’s worse is they think they are HELPING people.
As far as rating or regulating these bundled mortgages I didn’t see anything mentioned in the story. I did get a sense that the hedge funds were at least trying to sift through the troubled mortgages and buying the better ones. There was also no mention of dividing up or creating tranches with the mortgages like was done in the last crisis. That was a huge problem that fueled the problem.
I fear there is so much going on right now that this kind of stuf is flying below the radar.
Want to “read Reid”? Read his book “The Good Fight”–very fun (yup–well, there’s a talented co-writer) and page-turning autobiog. Then the reasons why Democrats choose him unanimously as their leader will be clear. His childhood is fascinating and explains his tenacity and also why I think he doesn’t give a damn when people underestimate him–in fact that works to his advantage. His childhood also is why he might be very motivated to get poor people health care.
Personally I think they choose him because it’s a thankless dogged role that they don’t want and he relishes and works at tirelessly.
Obama’s embrace of right wing economic policies is going to have a severe impact on the 2010 election.
The stimulus was too small, and while it propped up the financial kings, it wasn’t big enough to help jobs recover.
The financial kings are still unregulated and are already back to their gambling ways and obscene bonuses.
Home foreclosures are only going to get worse these next few years, by one measure “nine million homes [are going] to face foreclosure by 2012.”
http://minnesotaindependent.com/39184/nine-million-foreclosed-homes-by-2012
Obama needs to throw out some of the right wingers on his team (Geithner and Summers were always the wrong choices) and start adding some left wing voices on his economics team.
If he doesn’t he’s going to keep getting the bad right wing advice from the right wing frauds that pushed US into this economic disaster in the first place.
Some of the pessimists that correctly foresaw the 2007 Great Recession are already talking about a ‘double-dip’ recession and are attributing it to Obama’s continuation of Republican Bush’s right wing economic policies.
@jw – thanks for the tip!
Smart column this morning by Rich on Palin…
“The only person who can derail Palin is Palin herself. Should she not self-destruct, she will doom G.O.P. hopes of a 2012 comeback. But the rest of the country cannot rest easy. The rage out there is larger than Palin and defies partisan labeling.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/opinion/22rich.html
It ought to be sobering to consider that in no other western nation is the elected leader at such risk of assassination by his/her own citizens.
In another NY Times piece on Palin, a fan waiting to hear Palin seems quite unaware of the irony in his statement…
“My goal is to make him a half-term president,” said Chris Schwartz, waiting inside with her daughter and friends, who had pitched tents outside the previous evening to get tickets. “We need to get enough people in Congress to stop him in his tracks. One term is too long.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/us/politics/22palin.html?hp
The author notes, as everyone has, the aspect of Palin’s book promo tour which has her going to small town America rather than the normal book promo venues in large metro areas. But there’s a reason this is being done (it isn’t book sales as these same folks would buy it anyway).
The purpose is manipulation of media coverage through smart marketing. Long lines of fans in city after city, enthusiastic quotes from people like the one above, etc. It looks like broad positive consensus about Palin. Negatives are prevented or minimized. It’s an image-management/creation strategy.
Marketing is the only thing the right wing has.
That’s how they sold us Hollywood entertainer Reagan and Yale cheerleader Bush as southern good ol’ boys: Marketing.
Everything about Reagan and Bush 2 was fraudulent, but they were carefully marketed and right wingers fell in line and never asked questions.
“Common sense conservatism”. I’ve noted the increasing frequency of that phrasing out of the Palin camp particularly. Clearly, it’s a new slogan they are pumping. Matalin uses it in the following as well… http://www.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/11/18/matalin.palin.book/
Bernie — thanks for that link…it’s also amazing in that it details the death struggle among publishers for her book.
Sunday roundup posted:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/afghanistan/sunday-roundup-the-final-hurdle-comes-into-view/
“Everything about Reagan and Bush 2 was fraudulent, but they were carefully marketed and right wingers fell in line and never asked questions.”
Absolutely right. It’s true.