LandV - phpBB2

[Larry_Home]

SSSSHHHHHH!!!! They might hear you!
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The future ain't what it used to be. (Yogi Berra)

[CharlesWT]

When you call Central Casting for a GOP villain, you can't do much better than Sen. Jim Bunning, the long-serving, foul-mouthed, foaming-mouthed, motor-mouthed but—oh Bartleby! oh humanity!—soon-to-retire Kentucky Republican who also happens to be a Hall of Fame baseball player. Which is pretty cool, even if he was part of the greatest collapse in MLB history.

Bunning's latest turn as something out of an Aaron Sorkin cocaine-fueled fantasy of EVIL Republicans is his doomed stand against a spending bill that would have extended, says The Washington Post, "unemployment benefits, Medicare payments to doctors, satellite TV to rural Americans and paychecks to highway workers." Bunning's knuckleball was holding out for offsetting tax credits before approving the $10 billion spending package. Imagine that, insisting on something like pay-go this soon as after the president had crowed about doing the same? Bunning's argument was an irrefutable thing of simplicity (and, quite possibly, spiking blood sugar levels): We're already spending too much on everything, goddammit. Now get off my lawn! And I'm keeping this ball, you unnerstand!
[...]
Jim Bunning Collapses in Late Season of Baseball, Senate Careers

[Larry_Home]

Obama announces he will follow the reconciliation plan to get his health care plan into law, regardless.

Oops, probably shouldn't have given all these previous remarks about how wrong that is.
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The future ain't what it used to be. (Yogi Berra)

[academie]

A partial transcript (or maybe a complete one) of Larry's link, from Best of the Web Today ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703862704575099611330724990.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion )

"My understanding of the Senate is, is that you need 60 votes to get something significant to happen, which means that Democrats and Republicans have to ask the question: Do we have the will to move an American agenda forward, not a Democratic or Republican agenda forward?"--CBS-TV election night interview, Nov. 2, 2004

• "The bottom line is that our health-care plans are similar. The question, once again, is: Who can get it done? Who can build a movement for change? This is an area where we're going to have to have a 60% majority in the Senate and the House in order to actually get a bill to my desk. We're going to have to have a majority, to get the bill to my desk, that is not just a 50-plus-1 majority."--Change to Win convention, Sept. 25, 2007

• "You've got to break out of what I call the sort of 50-plus-1 pattern of presidential politics. Maybe you eke out a victory of 50 plus 1, but you can't govern. You know, you get Air Force One--I mean, there are a lot of nice perks, but you can't deliver on health care. We're not going to pass universal health care with a 50-plus-1 strategy."--interview with the Concord (N.H.) Monitor, Oct. 9, 2007

• "You know, one of the arguments that sometimes I get with my fellow progressives--and some of these have flashed up in the blog communities on occasion--is this notion that we should function sort of like Karl Rove, where we identify our core base, we throw them red meat, we get a 50-plus-1 victory. But see, Karl Rove doesn't need a broad consensus, because he doesn't believe in government. If we want to transform the country, though, that requires a sizable majority."--Center for American Progress, July 12, 2006
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You cannot tell a man that saving him and his family from torture, humiliation and death was a mistake and it should've not been done because it's illegal. -- Omar (Iraq the Model blog)

[Larry_Home]

OK, time to confess. I have been so stupid on the Democrats' health care plan, I fell for the "reconciliation" smokescreen.

Here's how it works:

1. The House must pass the Senate bill. If it doesn't, there's no bill to "reconciliate."

2. As soon as the House passes the Senate bill, you have a bill passed by both houses. All Obama has to do is sign it, and you have a law.

3. The House members are being assured the things they don't like in the Senate bill (Stupak and Co., for example, are refusing to pass the Senate bill because it lacks his language ruling out federal abortion funding) will be "fixed" by the reconciliation process. But see point #2 above.

It never occurred to me until I read some comments on it today: The instant the House passes the Senate bill, Obama can and probably will simply suggest that reconciliation is a bad idea, the nation needs to move on to jobs bills, and so he will sign the Senate- and House-passed bill into law and that's that. True, this would probably cost the Democrats the House and maybe even the Senate, but they'd have their "health care reform" and it would be extremely hard to repeal - requiring 60 votes in the Senate.

Frightening.
_________________
The future ain't what it used to be. (Yogi Berra)

[MetaLark]

Yes, I had gathered that from something I heard on Fox News last night--probably on Special Report. I'm sure the so-called "Blue Dog" Democrats know this, but if they are the political hacks I think they are, they will just vote to pass it, then when the "expected" Reconciliation doesn't take place, shrug their shoulders and say, "We wuz robbed." And they think their constituents will blame Harry Reid instead of them.

Well, perhaps my understanding is wrong. Perhaps there is some House mechanism by which strings can be attached to passage. But I just hope the Blue Dogs' constituents know enough to bombard them with "we won't let you spin this vote" mail.

But I'll tell you--I'm feeling mighty low right now.

[Lorianne_W]

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xchfat_snl-health-care_news
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I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. __ Michelangelo

[academie]

Andrew McCarthy concluded a shrewd analysis of the political realities thus:

"Health care is a loser for the Left only if the Right has the steel to undo it. The Left is banking on an absence of steel. Why is that a bad bet?"

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=525661
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You cannot tell a man that saving him and his family from torture, humiliation and death was a mistake and it should've not been done because it's illegal. -- Omar (Iraq the Model blog)

[MetaLark]

Yes, Mark Steyn has got it exactly right. This health care bill spells the end of our form of government. But unless Stupak and his pro-life colleagues stand firm, I don't know how we can defeat it.

(And folks who hope the leftists will ever vote against it are gullible indeed. Any such noises they make are nothing but strategies to keep conservatives off guard.)

[Larry_Home]

I'm stunned. It appears the Democrats are going to try to pass Obamacare without actually voting on it in the House!

From NRO today:

[Larry_Home]

Meanwhile, Jay Cost explodes my confidence that the abortion issue would eventually kill off the bill. It's a tricky situation, but sadly I think he's right: Stupak & Co. can't do it because they won't have any leverage once the House has voted on reconciliation; the Senate can then do what it wants.

Stupak has a big problem.
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The future ain't what it used to be. (Yogi Berra)

[Lorianne_W]

"We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy." __ Nancy Pelosi, March 9, 2010
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I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. __ Michelangelo

[Brett Bellmore]

And now, the newest approach to getting the bill passed: The House will vote on a bill to amend the Senate bill, and the House leaders will rule that, once they've passed THAT bill, the Senate bill will be "deemed" to have been passed, without actually being voted on.

They're getting closer and closer to using the enrolled bill rule to avoid having to actually hold any votes at all.
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Sic Semper Tyrannis!

[Larry_Home]

Senate parliamentarian reportedly nixes standard reconciliation.

This means the only option left is the pass-the-reconciliation-"fixes" and state that the Senate bill is "deemed to have been passed" in the process. Although, it's not clear what, exactly, Obama would have to sign in this case. The only bill that would actually have passed would be the original Senate bill...so much for opposition to the various odious deals and so much for Stupak & Co.
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The future ain't what it used to be. (Yogi Berra)

[Brett Bellmore]