but the “pay-for-play” accusation implies we’re knowingly doing something for money.

golly gee, I wonder where an empty suited oinker like Blumenauer would ever get the idea that someone only acts in a way they are paid to act

this isn’t what we meant we said “transparent” Congressman

I’m Earl’s constituent. This is embarrassing. I’ll give him a call and give him what for.

Meanwhile, and OT, you can become a fan of “Fire Rahm Emanual Now” on Facebook –

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fire-Rahm-Emanuel-NOW/419390925135?ref=ts

I weep for my country with id10ts like Blumenauer and his staff in positions of responsibility.

That is an amusing correlation, isn’t it.

Thanks swag, let us know what you hear.

Just had a conversation with Jennifer (a real, live, person).

I asked about his sticking to his statement that he would vote against any bill that didn’t have a public option in it, because, people had sent money to him in support of that particular position.

Jennifer said that “The congressman supports a public option.” and started to snarf and goorple.

I apologized for interrupting her, but said that that wasn’t what I asked. What I asked was if he was going to vote against any bill that didn’t have a public option.

She said that the congressman would do the best he could for a public option.

I said that she should understand how lame that was to the people who’d sent $430,000 dollars to the 65 congressmen and women who said they’d hold out for a public option…and thanked her for her time, and hung up.

So; there we have the new, improved, progressive position from the recipients of our bucks.

My take is to, right here, thank the Massachusetts democrats who sat out the election, for not sending another faux progressive to congress. At this point, evidently we have enough of them.

“did scott brown give money to Jane Hamsher” WTF ?! Jane Hamsher isnt an elected sworn member of congress. this calls for the obvious response of finding out whos giving money to blumenhaur and publish it.

When you don’t like the message shoot the messenger.

Not that a rational person would believe this for a second but this a black kettle issue. The idea that any non-politician might take money from someone that they might publicly disagree with could certainly lead to copyright violations accusations if not outright patent issues.

“I claim you act like me and I am appalled.”

I have very mixed feelings about this. While I do hope Rep. Blumenauer votes against the current bill as it stands, he’s the head of the Bike Caucus in Congress, and important to getting anything accomplished there to do with cycling and livable streets.

See http://la.streetsblog.org/2009/12/09/livable-streets-all-stars-blumenauer-and-sadik-khan-launch-cities-for-cycling/

Jane, Lawrence, thank you.

Seems to me that Health Care Reform is over. Pelosi isn’t even going to bring the senate bill to a vote- saying that she doesn’t have the votes to pass it. Perhaps the next dem president will give health care a try. Hope she’s better organized about it than this one.

Wow. So if you are against what has been happening, you are a paid shill for the opposition now? Yikes. What has this come to? It is beyond sad, that one has to turn to comedians, to see honesty and truth about Washington, and not the general media, whether they are proclaimed as left or right. Case in point? Keith Olbermann’s rants. Jon Stewart describes it better than I ever could:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/01/21/jon_stewart_mocks_keith_olbermann_over_scott_brown_attacks.html

There seems to be some sort of strange political disease. Is it the water?
(*edit* um…is my link too long??)

Jane – doesn’t this sidecar reconciliation strategy rest on the idea that the House pass the senate bill and then fix it. How does that happen without the house members voting for a bill without a public option? You lost me on this strategy.

Can you imagine how relieved our congress critters are now that they can expect unlimited cover from corporations via television advertising 24/7/365?

Every other ad on TV will feature a reasonable white couple sitting around drinking coffee and disagreeing with progressive positions;

“Darling, can you believe those foolish people trying to get rid of Bernanke, why after he single-handedly saved our country from a depression …”

“Darling, can you believe those foolish people trying to get rid of Tim Geithner, why after he single-handedly stood up to those bankers …”

It’s going to be real hard to pay that cable bill without crying.

Here you go: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=n00007727

Top 5 Industries, 2009-2010, Campaign Cmte
Industry Total Indivs PACs
Health Professionals $56,560 $2,060 $54,500
Railroads $50,799 $12,042 $38,757
Construction Services $46,600 $14,600 $32,000
Misc Manufacturing & Distributing $26,000 $7,000 $19,000
Real Estate $20,600 $13,600 $7,000

I had a call from a DNC fund raiser the other day. When I said I would not contribute and explained why, I got pretty much the same response Blumenauer’s staff provided: that the Republicans are worse and that I was enabling them.

I pointed out the obvious problem with his argument: the Republicans are NOT in fact worse, at least in any concrete way. I challenged him to tell me one way that things were better. He started reading a script on healthcare that I cut off, and he had no other “achievements” he could point to. He then tried to go back to the enabling argument and I hung up on him.

I am always surprised at the readiness of Democratic Congressional staff to get belligerent and argue with loyal constituents. But this is the first time I’ve faced it from someone that expected a donation. The guy was presumably a paid operator, too, with some sort of training on how to get money out of people. No wonder the Party can’t see what is happening.

Do any Democrats really think that Teddy Kennedy’s seat went to a batshit crazy R because MA has become more conservative since O took office?

Seriously?

I’ll do a post about it, but Kagro outlines it here:

http://congressmatters.com/storyonly/2010/1/20/2044/-Can-health-insurance-reform-still-pass

“If House Members are still skittish about voting for the Senate bill straight-up, even after securing a fix through reconciliation, they can use a little procedural trick called a “self-executing rule” (see this CRS report [PDF] for more)– or at least a self-executing provision in a rule — to take care of business. At the conclusion of the reconciliation process, when the House and Senate have both passed their bills and have agreed on a conference report settling any differences, the House may opt to include in the rule it adopts to govern debate on that conference report a provision deeming the Senate amendment to H.R. 3590 agreed to by the House. That way, when the House adopts the rule to allow the reconciliation bill conference report to come to the floor, it also agrees to the Senate bill it’s amending along the way, just moments before beginning debate on the fix, and without ever having a separate, stand-alone vote on the Senate bill they don’t like.”

Couldn’t ‘sidecar reconciliation’ PRECEDE an actual vote on the Senate bill? How about a simple little bill–vote YES or NO–to repeal the no-Medicare-pharma-negotiation. Then, if a simple little bill like this should pass, any reference to it in the comprehensive HCR bill would be moot. Aren’t there a number of issues that could be addressed BEFORE HCR?

Snapdragon@17…I think some of them do.

Or: They could just be toting the hod for our asshole “centrist” administration to keep doing what it’s been doing for the past year. Which of course, has been precious little. Unless you count Obama’s rehabbing the republicans into “the loyal opposition”, instead of using those supermajorities to paint them into the corner for ruining america.

LOL. It’s going to take a while to digest that.

Possibly OT: Jane you speak of “a crisis of trust,” … yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling sure sounded to me like a “STFU you little serfs!” In the wake of that, seems to me like that “trust” is now ionized. By the way the Supremes are impeachable but we need a functioning Senate to do it.

No I don’t. I want to know the name of the Ap reporter that made the call and why. They were announcing the winner after only 25% of the vote was counted. See article written my Bev Harris of Blcak Box Voting book.

In fact, the media “calls” elections based on data from just one media outlet — usually a quiet little division of the Associated Press that occupies a little corner somewhere and answers very few questions. Volunteers call in result reports to the corporation. The reports are often inaccurate (see below for examples). The names of these volunteers are not part of the public record. We will never get the list of names for those who will call in the 351 numbers which will result in “calling the election” for Tuesday’s Massachusetts election.

JOURNALISTIC MALPRACTICE

When the media calls an election based on non-governmental verbal information from unnamed volunteers, it displaces legitimate election procedures. Media volunteers can — and HAVE — issued false numbers in order to get the media to call an election for a candidate. The US Congress can — and HAS — installed new voting members of congress before the votes are counted or the contest is determined.

If a media outlet calls the Massachusetts race based on verbal reports from names that are never disclosed, we need to call this what it is: Journalistic malpractice, and a danger to democracy.

If what you see Tuesday night ain’t right, be prepared to speak up. Or shout loudly. It’s our duty.

“It does not take a majority to prevail… but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” – Samuel Adams (1722-1803)

http://www.gouverneurtimes.com/frontpage-news/10790-watch-for-pre-emptive-maneuver-thru-qcalling-the-raceq-in-ma.html

They vote for something else and within that is contained the acceptance of H.R. 3590. Sneaky.

Man, I still do not understand how people who wanted a better health care bill thought that voting in Scott Brown was a good step forward in that direction. All it’s done is suck the guts out of the rest of the Democrats.

And all this back-and-forth crap between TPM, FDL and everyone else makes me sad. Can’t we disagree regarding the merits of the bill without calling each other “apologists” and “monsters”?

You just knew the Dems wouldn’t learn the right lessons from all of this.

I really think nothing will change by 2010, and when they lose massive huge ungodly amounts of seats in the house and Senate then maybe they’ll learn.

But it doesn’t seem like the message has gotten thru yet.

It’s no suprise, but it’s astounding nonetheless.

The base alone cannot deliver ‘Medicare for All’. Independents, angry with Washington for spending too much, expanding too far and too fast into the private sector at a time when we are hemorrhaging jobs and the private sector and working families are a holding pattern, at best, treading water to see if the tide will ebb or pull them under.

You would think the the left would recognize the discontent among the proletariat but amazingly they condescendingly dismiss protests and election results, brazenly voicing their contempt for those independent voters who are rising up in opposition to Obama’s social democratic agenda.

President Obama thinks here merely has to better explain to us what are core values are or deflect our anger and try to throw it back on Bush, or bankers, or insurance companies, or al of the above. But he has been doing THAT for the past year!

What he really needs to do is listen, and not to his base. He must listen to the independent voters across the country who put him into office. The independents who are part of the 40% of voters who describe themselves as conservative.

Democrats achieved a majority in Congress not by putting more progressives into office, but by putting GOP lite candidates into previously red districts and states. Indies who thought they were voting for moderates were shocked to discover that Obama’s agenda may not be as conciliatory or pragmatic as they we led to believe.

“A good crisis should not go to waste.” “I won.” These comments set the tone and sent the Dems in Congress bursting out of the starting gate, ears puffed, blinders on, at breakneck speed, towards the finish line in hope of capturing a ‘permanent majority’ for the party and personal power for themselves. The jockey (progressive base) had convinced themselves and their leadership that the track conditions were prime for their breed of horse, a ‘lock’ to win the race.

But the jockey and the trainer failed to see that the condition of the track had changed, and changed dramatically. Conditions were now prefect not for the their horse but for a ‘mudder’, a horse who races well in muddy conditions. Not the fastest, but the most able to navigate the slippery conditions.

“Slow but steady wins the race.”

“procedural tricks’ will do little to convince voters that they will ‘learn to love this bill’ after it is passed. ‘Fixed’ to appease the base and the special interests who are favored among the President and his party. Positions about the Senate bill have hardened. Squeaking this through with 51 may seem like a victory but it will be the end of your majority in Congress.

Republicans are just hoping you will try this ‘kamikaze’ maneuver.

Jane, get out of Washington and get to the red districts where Dems have been elected and WON, and see what the voters, the constituents are telling their RERESENTATIVES.
Do you have the guts to try and sell your plan to them?

Here’s the definition of “apologist,” according to Webster’s:

one who speaks or writes in defense of someone or something

What exactly is unfair about using the dictionary word to describe someone who “writes in defense of someone or something” when you’re describing them?

OT As far as that Supreme Court decision on corp free speech, now we need a new law; quickly; that says media, tv, radio, newspapers, postal ads, etc. have to designate an equal amount of time for their campaign ads. For every 1 minute of Rep ad, then 1 minute for Dem ads and 1 minute for Independents ads. Huge finance problem solved easily. Well, till it’s gets imput from better heads than mine.

The AP DID do some exit polling.

Okay, now stop it. Do not pretend that a post telling people to vote AGAINST the bill is somehow telling them to “learn to love this bill.” Re-read the post and make sure you understand what you are saying.

The procedure Kagro is describing is a way to make sure that the Senate bill gets re-written to fix it before it can pass. Because what they’re trying to say is “let’s just pass this and fix it later.” That’s a bullshit promise as everyone knows, so if they try to do something like that WITHOUT a “self-executing rule,” it transparently exposes their intention to do nothing.

I finally managed to kill off their phone calls to me about a month ago (I grew pissed with the Dems long before, me thinks, many other here did). Repeated calls with me telling the caller off (about indefinite detention, illegal spying, torture, abuse, bank bailouts, etc) finally have born fruit: no more funding calls.

First to drop into oblivion was the DSCC, then the DCCC. Now I get NO fundraising calls. I guess they finally got the hint and took my name/number off their rolls. The f*ckers are slow.

Again, rewriting the bill to appease the progressive base will not play in previously red districts that elected Dems.

Average American’s eyes glaze when you start in with your DC politi-speak.

All of this is moot. But you refuse to believe that the voters actually understand what this bill is, and what the changes will mean. Independents get it. And they want it STOPPED.

You all know that all the problems the Dems have in the senate is entirely on Reid’s shoulders right? All Reid has ever had to do all this time as “leader” is require that filibusters be REAL filibusters. He refuses because (paraphrasing) he thinks it is “beneath the dignity of the senate to force senators to actually go through with it”(!!!!!!!).

Beneath the dignity of the senate. As if the modern senate can even wipe the ass of previous senates led by the likes of Tip O’Neill and before. As if ALL the senates from the Founding until the contemporary senate were all undignified and thus “inferior” places! Before the faux filibuster (a mere magic word in Reid’s ear, “Hey Harry, we’re filibustering. See you at the party tonight?”) it was a rare action because it was really painful. Now the rules of the senate prevent Reid from changing the RULES of the filibuster (until the new congress convenes) but he could still go a long ways to making the GOP wish they weren’t filibustering. But Reid just can’t bring himself to make himself and other senators actually have to stay in town and available for quorum calls and such. He doesn’t want to interrupt any senator’s planned f*cking of a page.

That is what Reid could do right now. What the NEXT senate majority leader needs to do (it wont be Reid because he is looking like he may not survive his re-election this November) is reinstate the pre-Senator Byrd filibuster rules. Those would be, in short:

Filibusters are conducted with senators taking to the floor and speaking for as long as they wish/can tolerate. Twice (that’s right, they could only do it twice).

The filibuster could be short-circuited with a cloture vote (the number required has changed over time but let’s say we keep it at 60). If the cloture votes fail, then the filibustering continues until each senator wanting to filibuster has spoken for as long as they can tolerate TWICE. After that, even without a cloture vote, the bill (or nominee) then goes to the floor for a simple majority vote.

ALL other senate business comes to a halt while the filibuster is ongoing.

There you have it. Those rules are why filibusters used to be very rare. They were painful to do (speaking indefinitely without bathroom breaks, eating, sleeping, etc, is really not pleasant AND the people could get irked because your filibustering was preventing passage of other popular bills). We need these rules back but in the meantime, NO MORE FAUX FILIBUSTERS!

I called and asked my Rep. to support passing the Senate Bill and fixing it via reconciliation.
I was into the fight but the dynamics have changed. Sorry, but I have weighed the positives and negatives and I think too many Republicans and special interests are trying to roll the Alamo and Waterloo up into one tidy package here.
If this doesn’t get done the nightly news isn’t going to report that Firedoglake and liberals won by junking the Senate Bill. They are going to interview the Boner and Eric Cantor taking credit.
Likewise, as skittish as everyone is, I think the only alternative bill that could pass is one written by Republicans. That bill is going to really suck and again the nightly news lead on that bill is going to have Republicans both declaring victory and declaring states’ rights (i.e. tort law, insurance regulation) dead.
Sorry that is way I feel. Can we still be friends?

Jane, sometimes it’s just funny what people will do to smear others.

A new poll of Connecticut residents shows a majority strongly opposing the Obama-Reid-Pelosi health-care push. Among its findings:

* Connecticut residents oppose the current bills in Congress by a margin of 51–34 percent.

* By a margin of 62–29 percent, Connecticut residents believe Congress has rushed the process and should take more time to get it right.

* More than three-quarters of voters, 77 percent, say they are very concerned or somewhat concerned that changes in health care will result in more government spending, higher taxes, and a bigger budget deficit. Sixty-one percent described themselves as “very concerned” about these possibilities.

* Half of state residents say the changes to health care being considered will do more harm than good.

* By a nearly 2:1 margin, Connecticut residents say Congress in being too ambitious. They favor smaller, more incremental reforms to a major overhaul.

The distrust of DC, defiance against one-party rule is speading through the original 13 colonies…like a (shhh) revolution.

In this whole thing about trying to get reps to stick by their pledge, I have two thoughts, one of which I know has been bandied about before on related threads:

Escrowing funds until such time as it can be shown that x vote actually happened (tho it would also seem that this is even more explicitly pay-to-play…so kinda buys into the system).

Making the amounts raised a little more winner-take all. Creating a dynamic where there is at least some incentive/reward for congresspeople to try to outdo each other is one rarely seen on the left, though it appears pretty common on the far right (and my Sen Schumer just wants to outdo everyone in time in front of a mic).

We have now polled FOUR of those districts, and ALL of them favor passing this bill WITH a public option over passing one without it.

Again, please familiarize yourself the basic facts.

So Obama could be successful if he stuck to a republican agenda?

Thanks for the advice!

You have a point on the definition. But I do think that in the current climate, “apologist” has become such a loaded word, largely because it’s being confused with “apology”, which implies an explanation for wrongdoing. I think most of the people who are using it are doing so to imply that the people they’re describing are defending something bad.

No. But if Obama had chose to build the trust of the American people by moving slowly and incrementally he would have found the GOP in Congress ready and willing to be Dem-lite! But he ASSUMED that he had ALREADY EARNED the trust and confidence of the American people.

The GOP base would have been furious, the progressive base outraged, but the indie assessment of Obama’s pragmatic, moderate character and his ability to lead effectively would have been affirmed. His poll numbers would have risen and the GOP would be gasping for their last breath.

Hubris gave way to caution and every initial perception of Obama by his opponents is becoming more compelling by the day.

I would like to see what Constitutional scholars have to say about the SCOTUS decision. What I have heard so far is that the decision is strictly along the lines of:

Congress shall pass no law…”

and isn’t telling the little people to stfu, although it certainly feels like it.

What is center is not stfu, but rather, every person has equal rights under the First Amendment. Key is person, and having delivered the gift of person hood (which I think goes back to the railroads in the 1860′s or so) to corporations, puts them on equal footing. That they have perverted the gift beyond all reason (morality isn’t a corporate value as much as it is a human one!)to push their own ends.

The solution? Remove person hood, or pass laws that apply equally to all “persons” limiting the financial influence with which a “person” can legally wield.

Since originally, incorporation was a state issue, perhaps we need to go back to that, with basic principles applied as uniformly as possible to define what incorporating does for an organization.

In all honesty, we seem to be back to the 1800′s again where the villains aren’t being called to justice by a competent lawman. You rob a bank in those years and rob the public today with the same credo “Strike while the money is hot”.

It helps to either not have a lawman or subvert him/her.

Our friends at Freedomworks.com have a toll-free direct connection to the Capitol switchboard:

(866) 928-3035

or

(866) 928-0525

Citizens united to use corporate political money against itself.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/01/21/welch.free.expression.campaign/index.html

Free speech really does mean free speech, and the laws that the “Citizens” ruling overturned directly and heinously restricted the stuff. Forget for the moment the broad characterization of the ruling — such as The New York Times claim that it “sweep[s] aside a century-old understanding” — and drill down to the individual case in question.

Citizens United, a conservative 501(c)(4) nonprofit that has funded a dozen political documentaries over the years, produced a critical documentary about Hillary Clinton in 2008 entitled “Hillary: The Movie.” By a decision of the federal government, which was enforcing the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (known more broadly as McCain-Feingold), this piece of political speech was banned from television.

Let’s boil it down to the essential words: Political documentary, banned, government.

You don’t have to be a First Amendment purist to intuit that political speech was, if anything, the most urgent subcategory covered by the First Amendment’s “Congress shall pass no law” restrictions. And you don’t have to be a Hillary-hater to imagine the shoe on the other foot. What if MoveOn.org’s 501(c)(4), Campaign to Defend America, had been blocked by George W. Bush’s Federal Elections Commission from broadcasting “McCain: The Movie”? Wouldn’t that stink, too?

The only stratgy dems have is to scare us into voting for them because the pubs are so much worse. Thursday night Rachel show, she pretty much said pointed out how the dems failures were of their own making. Then Senator Deb Stabenal(sp) came on and said the reason they could not get anything done was because the republicans obstructing and with them taking responsibility nothing would get done.. It was so scripted. She totally did not get what Rachel had just been saying. Watch that show if you want to see what the democrats have become and the direction they have chosen to go and it is not to take responsibility for their failures.

Besides passing all of Alan Grayson’s bills to curtail corporations in elections, I think that the laws of incorporation should be altered too:

You can use your new-found freedom of speech to spend all you want in election campaigns but doing so will terminate your corporate charter. Make your choice, blow millions on trying to influence an election AND lose your incorporated status OR remain a corporation with all the protections and benefits that go with that and abstain from politics. Your free choice.

Another is a simple one-line constitutional amendment:

A “person” as referred to in the text of the Constitution and Bill of Rights pertains to a naturally born individual human unless specifically stated otherwise.

Finally, campaign finance law that strictly limits what each PERSON can spend on elections. That way, no matter how many people and their millions are part of a “corporate person” they are still only ONE person and subject to the same limit as a natural person. Let’s say the limit on donating or spending per person is $5000. Ta-da! In spite of the millions that Exxon-Mobile might have on hand, they can only spend $5000 total, same as me or you.

Finally, bring back the Fairness Doctrine but on steroids: it applies to tv, radio, cable, and satellite. Broadcasters must limit the advocacy of one side to the amount financially available to the other. Thus, if Goldman-Sachs wants to play adds on cable, then the broadcaster must provide equal time to the alternative view AND limit the time available to Goldman-Sachs to be EQUAL to that of the opposing side, even if that side has only a few thousand dollars available to spend. Equal time means equal time.

Link? Thanks!

Again-anything to support what are to me wild assertions? Thanks.

By whom? How new? Etc. Thanks

“Scott Brown Republicans” will be the rule rather than the exception going forward. What is an ideal “Scott Brown Republican”, here is what I think:

Such a Republican is first, and foremost a representative of his constituents, independent from the rigid ideological underpinnings of the base, beholden SOLELY to the views and opinions of those who elected him to office.

Such a Republican will be a representative, an advocate, a listener. Such a Republican will asked to partner with his constituents to do what is best for the district, the state and the country. What is best for the “Scott Brown Republican” is also best for the “Scott Brown Constituent.”

A “Scott Brown Republican” will be responsive, available, interactive, a listener. Transparent in his dealings and accountable for his actions.

A “scott Brown Republican’ will be experienced and successful in either the private sector or in local or state politics.

And such a Republican will NOT be considered a ‘Bush Republican’ but a ‘Reagan Conservative’ or even a former ‘Reagan Democrat’.

I know I just heard a collective ‘GASP’

These are not wild assertions but facts rooted in reality. There any number of polls and links to support my opinion and you can go to realclearpolitics.com and click on any right-leaning or libertarian blog like reason.com or instapundit.com for great analysis an opinion.

Don’t worry, you can handle it. You might even agree with what you discover.

This supposed “Indie” speaks a message of arrogant assumption of power that’s remarkably reminiscent of the teabaggers who’ve been haunting varied forums since MA-Sen.

They are in for a surprise, I think…

You do not think that independent individuals banded together against ‘the establishement’ in DC is not powerful?

‘Teabaggers’ are not deterred by arrogant dismissals from establishment, entrenched pundits and activists who happen share an opposing viewpoint.

LOL if you think calling me names is in any way going to diminsh the power of my argument. I thought more of you until this moment.

http://www.yankeeinstitute.org/

Brand new!

100,00 vote loss because of a lazy incompetent democratic candidate

Bull-fucking-shit.

Who do you think you’re trying to pull this on?

The 5 activist judges on the Supreme Court deliberately used the case of Citizens United as vehicle to legislate from the bench. Hint: aren’t you supposed to be against that?

The judges deliberately opened up the case to issues unconcerned with the case at hand and the decision was deliberately framed to reach far beyond whatever might have been required for the case at hand.

And they knowingly overturned a century of case law in doing so.

Which makes Alito and Scalia guilty of flat-out perjury as well as their other misdeeds.

Re Blumenauer’s promise not to support a bill w/o a public option, it seems that the election of Brown is a bit of a game-changer in that the plan of cobbling together something that will attract 60 (Dem) votes in the Senate is no longer an option.
Why would it not make sense to pass the Senate bill and then work toward some fixes that will can pass w/ 51 votes–presumably including a PO?
The biggest hurdle I see, BTW, is the Stupak faction in the House. How do they get to 218 on anything without the Stupak crowd?

I am for free speech. Free political speech in particular. Did corporate money or union money ever leave politics? No.

The American people are smart enough to see who is bought and sold to the highest bidder without having their free speech curtailed.

Does not Goldman Sachs occupy a special place of favor in the Obama administration? How about the unions?

Just keep telling yourself that. Ignorance is bliss.

Gallup Poll: Americans Want Congress to Shelve Obamacare

http://www.gallup.com/poll/125327/Majority-Favors-Suspending-Work-Healthcare-Bill.aspx

Yet this blog continues scheming….

It’s not my job to support or research your arguments. You choose not to-so, I will disregard them. Thanks for your reply.

I see nothing to support those wild assertions in this poll (with less than ideal methodology, and from a source unfamiliar to me).

On reading their “about” page, they seem like down right whack jobs.

Not a footnote I can bother taking seriously.

Though their last two polling points-opposition to the excise tax and individual mandate-do agree with other more reputable polling firms’ results using more preferable methodology.

A stopped clock, indeed….

F Blumenauer! No Public Option, No “health reform bill.”

When we should instead defer to the will of 87% of the R’s?

Fascinating proposal.

Ummm…no thanks.

(P.S. Shall we invade Iran and Yemen as well, based on GOP preferences?)

Sorry-this was meant to reply to Indie:

When we should instead defer to the will of 87% of the R’s?

Fascinating proposal.

Ummm…no thanks.

(P.S. Shall we invade Iran and Yemen as well, based on GOP preferences?)

sometimes it’s very funny

“slowly and incrementally”

towards WHAT?

The only movement on health care that the GOOPERS support concerns:

-Allow people to buy insurance across state lines thus eliminating any state regulation of the industry and
n
-Limiting medical malpractice award- which has been done in many states with ZERO reduction in health care premiums (if there are any savings, the insurance companies put em in their pocket.

Any other change requires at a minimum the elimination of exclusion on pre-existing conditions- which requires an individual mandate, which requires federal support for lower income worker bill.s- which is the senate bill.

No, I don’t believe the message will ever get through to this crop of Democrats. More losses will mean that those still left in Congress will shrink in on themselves and refuse to become involved in any legislation they feel might be “risky”, which would be just about anything. I’m afraid it’s a long road ahead that the country may not survive–trying to get some new, honest legislators who truly want to do the right thing for this country and its people. After the SCOTUS ruling yesterday, I’m seriously afraid I won’t live long enough to see the kind of change we need achieved. That ruling depressed me more than anything that’s happened politically in a long time.

By the way, if we don’t respond to the trolls they’ll probably go away.

“Troll” is subjective-I wasn’t sure.

And this one went away regardless. Raitonality can do that sometimes.

Indie, You are dreaming, and your narratuve is entirely false. Just what have the Democrats done that is progressive?

If the message hadn’t gotten through the House Democrats would already have passed the Senate bill. The House Dems know that bill is a poison pill. That’s why the votes aren’t there for it; especially now that the Senate is opposing the “reconciliation sidecar.”

I wouldn’t touch the Senate bill. I’d just use reconciliation to pass Medicare and Medicaid expansions, close the Medicare donut hole, fund it with increased income taxes on the wealthy, and make the reform available by August 2010. I’d forget about the mandate and regulatory changes for now. Somehow I don’t think that Red State Democrats would object much to this. Why should they? It’s paid for and it takes care of much of the insurance problem. And they know very well that Medicare’s not “socialized medicine.”

Praedor, there are two errors. First, Tip O’Neill was never in the Senate. He was the Speaker of the House. And Second, the filibuster rule can be changed by invoking what’s called the “nuclear option.” Once the procedure is initiated through a point of order, it only requires 50 + 1 votes to pass. I’ve discussed the procedure here, and in other diaries.

Sory, Indie, that’s a fairy tale. It’s just not what happened.

The Republicans opposed everything the President originally proposed, when those things were not even particularly progressive in the first place. Two examples:

A couple of Republicans voted for an already highly constrained stimulus proposal, but only after hamstringing it and destroying much of its effectivenss. The final bill only incorporated about 1/3 of the multiplier effect that a proper bill pegged at $1.6 trillion would have delivered. Obama collaborated in this hamstringing for the sake his bi-partisan ideology and refused to steam roller a good bill through Congress by using the nuclear option. As a result we still have an employment depression that would beover by now had he done the right thing.

In the health care area, Obama entirely blew it. His proposed policy stunk, his leadership of the Democrats stunk, and his messaging about it stunk. Had he gone for enhanced Medicare for All, passage of a popular reform would long since have been completed, and we would be well on the way toward full implementation before the 2010 election.

When you say that Obama’s actions are progressive overreach you’re just giving us a right-wing fairy tale. The number of progressive things Obama has done since getting into office don’t even total the number of fingers on one hand. So, far Obama has been Bush-lite, and progrssives are mad as hell about it, which is why Brown beat Coakley in MA. Progressives were fed up with electing machine politicians like Coakley pretending to be progressives with principles.

Indie, the right of free speech given in the First Amendment to the Constitution was justified by the framers as “a Natural Right” of human beings. It has nothing to do with artificial persons, legal fictions created by the States. The Court, in this instance, has simply over-reached. This decision will eventually be over-turned by future Courts. In the meantime, the decision will be hedged by legislation passed by Congress, and this decision will serve as a rallying point for progressives to curb the growing power of corporations as the old progressives did in the opening decades of the 20th Century.

Stabenow also spread false information about needing 2/3 of the Senate to overcome the filibuster. As explained here, it only takes 50 + 1 votes, and the Democrats won’t ened it out of fear. They know the Republicans will be in the majority one day, and they want to have the filibuster to use for themselves on that day. The truth is that the Democrats don’t trust Democratic procedures, and so they retain the filibuster and forgo the opportunity to use their own majority to help to solve the nation’s problems.

Whose Free Speech are you for? For example, would you support the free speech of a corporate employee who disagrees with the CEO about politics to the extent that you’d support a law making it illegal for a corporation to fire such an employee? Would you support equal time for me to provide an answer to an Advertisement by Cigna that I thought was full of lies and provide public funds for me to reply to that Ad in kind?

Also, btw, why should the CEO of a corporation have the freedom to use corporate money to state his political opinions, when there’s no evidence that neither a majority of the other employees, nor a majority of the corporation’s stakeholders share those political opionions?

What does my own freedom of speech really mean, when my speech can be drowned out by a mighty corporation, in some cases operating as a monopoly, because that corporation has the money and power to make a film stating the CEO’s opinion’s and I don’t have that kind of money? It seems to me that rather makes a mockery of Democracy doesn’t it. And it also seems to me that if you support entirely free corporate political speech that you are not, in fact, a supporter of the free speech of human individuals, just because free speech for giant corporations will drown out that speech and render it meaningless.

A very famous book by one of the Gods of the Conservative movement is called The Road to Serfdom. You may also recall that the term “serf” refers to feudalism, a system in which peasants were bound to the land and to the Lords who owned that land. It seems to me that this decision by the Supreme Court, because it opens the way to total corporate control of our political system really places us on the true Road to Serfdom in a way that the New Deal and all the liberal safety net programs never did. But I think that we progressives will reply to this radical Court decision, by underming it in various ways until we can get it changed. We will not go down that Road to Seefdom in good order. We would rather, if need be, abrogate the charter of every corporation in this country than give up our liberty to these inhuman creations of man, and their amoral, and often immoral leaders.