If the progressive Democrats are too chickenshit to leverage their power to block this unbalanced bill, then more power to the conservadems to take the hit for sandbagging it.

Yes, Blanche isn’t even sure she’ll let health care be debated on the floor of the Senate, let alone allowing to go to a vote.

So she announces she might hold up debate and a vote because she has not yet read the bill?
The final details of the bill I assume would be determined after the debate?
So if I go back in time and prevent my parents from ever meeting I negate my own existence but if I don’t exist then who will stop my parents from meeting?
Blanche your logic is like a bad Star Trek episode silly paradox’s like this give Philosophers a bad name:(

Legislating is hard.

Blanche does realize that swine flu is getting worse so the longer she delays the more public outcry there will be.
My brother was coughing up blood before he saw the Doctor and he has health insurance! Scared the crap out of his wife what do you want to bet that anyone who coughs up blood this year will be paying attention to the healthcare debate.

Yeah its hard to carry all the cash the insurance and drug companies give you.

Letters to her local newspapers might help, especially as polling shows her constitutents like the public option much more than they like her.

Speaking of bad sci-fi type paradoxes. This bill sucks so bad because of these ConservaDems. Now they’re threatening to block this crappy bill and they’ve made the bill so bad, I’m kind of hoping they do now.

that she has recently been named to Senate Ag Comm Chair, and yet is making these noises speaks to how gentle Reid has dealt with them in the past – are they just clueless as to how that’s changed ?!?!

The vote to proceed with debate doesn’t require knowing what’s in the bill — it simply requires caucus discipline. “Nice Ag gavel you’ve got there, Blanche. Be a shame if something happened to it.”

btw am now thinking she walks away with the Status Quo crown – not a peep out of her about Triggers or co-ops – she’s wants exactly nothing to change. is it because she’s a woman and her corporate minders expect her to hew to their shit more tightly than the preening peacocks ?

Indeed, she fell straight into the Agriculture Chairmanship, and pocketed $1m from a Joe Biden fundraiser in March.

And yet, she won’t commit to even debating the goddamn health care bill?

It is not just Lincoln; we have to get “Lieberman” out. Then Nelson (B), Landrieu, Pryor and finally Bayh.

So is she expecting to lose her seat in 2010? If so, is she simply doing some serious ass-kissing to line up a cushy gig with the HC industry when she gets out? Given the reality on the ground in her state, the whole thing just doesn’t make sense. Well…except for the whore part, of course.

Reid may be creating a bit of drama here. He puts in the opt out- the moderates scream bloody murder- and he settles for the trigger- which gives them credit for killing the original and gives him what he may have actually thought was the best he’d get anyway.

Stylized wars lead to stylized outcomes

She doesn’t want to believe the state supports a public option. It doesn’t click for her. She wants to give out to industry but is faced with a problem now that Arkansas Dems are awake.

Nate Silver summed it up well:

Lincoln may be on the verge of triangulating herself out of office with her waffling positions on health care and other issues.

Agreed we can get a much better bill if flu season keeps being horrible.

It’s hard for me to comprehend that she’s that out of touch with her own constituency, but that appears to be the way it is. Brain dead.

Publicly threaten to Take away her and Holy Joes state military bases nothing like a base closing in a recession to piss off voters.

She’s on the Take.

Take the gavels, the bases and then their seats.

Just how many extra points does the Devil give you if you deny children healthcare?

you could be right, you often are with these things – but there’s just no discounting Reid’s come to jeebus moment on Triggers. and now that he included a Trigger-less PO in his Bill, there’s no going back for a majority of his caucus

btw, does this mean Ben Nelson is next to take his top off ? there’s an image I could live without

Just how many extra points does the Devil give you if you deny children healthcare?

Are you so sure that an individual mandate for an uncompetitive public option or private insurance without meaningful price controls and standards is going to not kill children?

Damn, the one of Short Ride in the white bikini was bad enough.

Stupid moi. I thought that the guy we elected last year amidst slogans of “Hope” and “Change” would have taken a position of something called “Leadership” and brought folk like Lincoln, Nelson, Landrieu and Bayh into line, not to mention HoJo.

My bad. I guess we really elected Rahm Emmanuel and got his proxy in the Oval Office.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure we can. Although it’s starting to make sense why they don’t want any of this crap to go into effect for 7 or 8 years – once this stuff gets implemented and the American public realizes how much they’re getting screwed by these so-called reforms, there’s going to be hell to pay.

Like other ‘Conservadems’ and Repubs, Miss Blanche has more than a political dilemma with her constituents clearly favoring a public option (as poor as that choice is now). Most doctors favor it – or single payer – which is consistent with their Hippocratic Oath (www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/doctors/oath_modern.html). Capitalizing on human suffering as this country has come to do just isn’t moral. Good doctors and most of the American people know that. Politicians? Not so much.

Blanche does not know or care what Arkansas residents want or need…look up who keeps her in office and you will find WalMart,financial services, and big Ag along with the health insurance industry. She cares even less about what the rest of the country wants or needs.

If you care about the food you eat, as in where it comes from or how it was grown and processed; if you think we should be working on alternative energy sources that can be done locally or regionally; if you care about destructive practices by energy or agriculture corporations; you need to help get this woman GONE. She chairs the Senate committee that will block any initiative to return control of our wellbeing to the citizens of this country.

Blanche seems to be fucking up. She needs to be threatened at the price of her chairmanship(s). She needs to know that if she continues for fuck up she’ll get fucked over.

Here is a response I just received from our CT Senator, Joe Lieberman, about his public option plans. Is this new news?

“Some have asked about my remarks regarding votes on health care reform on the Senate floor. When the bill comes to the Senate floor, I am planning to vote to allow debate to begin on the bill, which in this instance will require 60 votes. I very much look forward to debating the various aspects of this critical legislation and voting on proposed amendments. If, however, when the subsequent motion to limit debate time on the bill is voted on, with a 60-vote requirement for that motion to succeed, I will not vote in favor of that motion if the bill at that time includes a public option, for the reasons stated above.”

Ugh.

Harry Reid needs to grow a set and start threatening these senators with their chairmanships if they don’t fall into line. And the president needs to forget about bipartisanship–the Reupblicans are not interested in health reform and they never have been. We busted our asses to get Obama elected and he’s catering to big business and the blue dogs, instead of us. It’s funny how Senator Bayh has done a total 360 after polling showed he would get punished by voters if he went along with the Repubs and filibustered health reform. Lieberman is nothing but a DINO, they should have never welcomed him back. Now he’s out there saying he’s going to stump for some Republicans in 2010. That shows where his loyalty is!
When the Republicans had control of all three branches of government they didn’t care about bipartisanship and they got things done. I wish the Dems would just tell the Repugs to get on board or get the hell out of the way! We have majorities in both houses and are too afraid to do anything with it!