No More Mister Nice Blog: Erickson and Malkin: The People's Front of Judea

Stinque: Facebiter Bachmann & Fox News calling out to Brownshirts to storm congress and kill the health care reform bill.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition: Grassley on the National Criminal Justice Commission: "The point is, for them to do what we tell them to do. And one of the things that I was anticipating telling them not to do is to -- to recommend or study the legalization of drugs."

Liberal Values: Triple X home movie leads to settlement of Prejean suit

The Reality-Based Community: Absolute prosecutorial immunity?

Gordon notes that November 4 has been an important date in American history

Via Wonkroom, Grassley arguing strongly in favor of individual mandates in JUNE 2009:

On FOX News: "But when it comes to states requiring it for automobile insurance, the principle then ought to lie the same way for health insurance. Because everybody has some health insurance costs, and if you aren’t insured, there’s no free lunch. Somebody else is paying for it... I believe that there is a bipartisan consensus to have individual mandates."

Grassley bashing individual mandates YESTERDAY:

In addition, Grassley blasted an individual mandate to purchase insurance coverage, calling it "an intrusion into private life" that would require extensive new enforcement tools. While recognizing that there is "certainly a principle of personal responsibility that applies here," he contended that "individuals should maintain the freedom to choose whether to purchase health insurance coverage or not."

Watching Kent Conrad proudly read off the list of items that the Senate Finance Committee included or should I say turned over to the conservatives in their bill just to kowtow to the obstructionist minority party is just mind numbing. Why didn't Baucus just let Renzi and Grassley write the bill for the democrats? Didn't John McCain win the election? He's actually proud of what they've done. Republicans should just love this bill. It cuts out all the things that would have an impact on health care reform. Here's Kent Conrad's ode to da republicants.

Mitchell: How did you do? Are you guys going to get any Republicans to join you in this?

Conrad: Well, we certainly hope so. Look, they asked a series of things be excluded.

*They didn't want a public option, it's not in this package. They didn't want an employer mandate, it's not in this package.

*They wanted tax reforms so that the high end Cadillac plans would have a levy on them to discourage over utilization, that's part of the package.

*They didn't want illegals to benefit, many Democrats agreed, that's not in the package. Those here illegally will not benefit.

*They wanted to make certain that federal dollars not be used to support abortion and so they're not.

*There's the beginning of medical malpractice which many wanted to see be included. There's a clear statement on that.

So I hope that they'll see as we go through the process that there's much here that's worthy of their support....

If Mitch McConnell had told the Baucus Dogs that Americans should be required to produce at least three forms of ID to enter hospital emergency rooms, Conrad probably would have included that, too. In that respect I think the Republicans blew it. Luckily for us, Americans, Senators, Republicans and a lot of members of his own committee do not feel the same way.

Republicans don't like it because... it's a health care bill. Democrats don't like it because... it's a bad health care bill designed to kowtow to Republicans who won't even vote for it. Health care advocacy groups don't like it because it "would give a government-subsidized monopoly to the private insurance industry to sell their most profitable plans - high-deductible insurance - without having to face competition from a public health insurer." A good reason not to like it! And unions don't like it because there's no employer mandate and it would "tax health plans."

Even President Obama's response to the bill was terrible:

Despite months of anticipation, the White House on Wednesday stopped well short of endorsing Sen. Max Baucus's (D-Mont.) healthcare bill.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the release of Baucus's Senate Finance Committee healthcare legislation — the last of five committees to unveil a proposal — moved the legislative process along, but President Barack Obama still thinks the bill will change.

Oh, there is one group of people that love the Bacus bill:Insurance companies.

Following Baucus’ announcement, HealthNet shares increased by 3%, United Health Group Inc shares rose by 2.7%, Humana Inc. grew by 2.6%, Wellpoint stock gained 1.7% and Aetna Inc rose 1.6%...

Max Baucus finally unveiled his new/old bill from the Senate Finance committee today and as has been expected the bill is all about bowing down to the minority party that has no intentions of supporting any type of health care reform. He's chucked aside America just to try and land one Republican vote in the Senate... errrr... I mean, the House of Lords.

Sen. Rockefeller has been very outspoken about his opposition to the Baucus Dogs bill and says as much while many other Democrats are not pleased either.

Baucus Bill: Rockefeller Says Dem Senators Are Not Pleased

On Andrea Mitchell, Sen. Kent Conrad came on at the end of the show and read off a list of things that Republicans should be so happy to support in the bill. It was as if Baucus and Conrad wrote a bill that caters to the Republicans and his Gang of Six committee. It was disgusting watching him gush when he said there was no public option in the bill because Republicans didn't want it. He then read off more and more things that Grassley wants in the bill and it's as if he really thinks there's a chance in hell that they will vote for his bill.

Actually, it's a bill nobody but self-eviscerating Dems will vote for.

Senator Grassley waits at table. Mister Blueshield, of course, orders a bucket.

Open thread below...

I thought the president was very good Wednesday night and his speech has seemed to change the media's dynamic on health care as well as start to bring people back to reality on this issue. He was more forceful combating Republican lies than ever been before and that was much appreciated.

It did freak Karl Rove out a little bit on FOX. On The Factor, he was upset that the president debunked the phony "death panel" lies that conservatives and teabaggers have been yelling about every since they discovered Isakson's amendment. (Isakson is a Republican, I might add.) Karl said that conserva-teabaggers were only upset about the living will option and never brought up death panels, so he tried to call Obama a liar, but that's the lie.

Rove conveniently forgot Sen. Charles Grassley talking about "death panels," or Betsy McCaughey doing same. And of course there's the wacky Sarah Palin Facebook post that was promoting the idea that Obama wants to kill grandma. Rove basically lied by pretending that conservatives were only upset about Isakson's language.

Still, I thought Obama was too nice to the Republicans all night. I know it was more theater than reality because he still wants America to believe that there's hope for bipartisanship, but it bothers me. All they have done is spread lies about health-care reform the entire time, but the president just isn't going to be as partisan as I'd like him to be. I have to accept it.

I actually didn't think he would mention the public option at all since the Queen, Olympia Snowe, asked him not to, but he had to because of us. We can still battle to have it included because he's still talking about it and has campaigned on it.

He wasn't as forceful about it as I wanted, but he's talking to many people that have been lied to for months by Republicans, so I kind of understand his phrasing of it. He did open up the possibility of other options which made me shudder, but we'll keep pushing. We're his base and the base will help save him in the long run.

Sen. Tom Harkin had another take on it today on MSNBC. He said that because Obama said the public option was only a small part of the solution for health care then that would force many others to vote for the bill even if a public option is included. By downplaying its significance he believes it strengthens the chances that it gets passed. I hadn't looked at it that way before, but with Rahm and his Blue Dogs trying to undo the public option I don't have as much faith in his premise. There's still a long way to go and we'll keep fighting.

One of the best writers on health care has been Jonathan Cohn of TNR, and he writes:

Looks like there's some news in the speech after all. Quite a bit.

On the policy front, President Obama tonight endorses, clearly and unambiguously, a requirement that everybody obtain insurance--that is, an individual mandate. He has not done that before, not this explicitly.

He also says employers will have to provide insurance or bear some of the costs. That's not news exactly; he's said that before. But it's part of the same package.

{}

Also of interest: A promise to provide low-cost, bare-bones policies right away--merely as a stopgap, until full reforms kick in. (This is an effort to make sure Americans see at least some benefits right away.) Elsewhere, Obama talks about malpractice reform--again, more explicitly than he has before, presenting it as an effort to reach across the aisle.

And the public plan? He gives a lengthy, strong defense of the idea. It could have come straight out of the literature of groups like Health Care for America Now -- or the writings of Jacob Hacker. But he also makes clear, to left as well as right, that he's open to compromise.

Those seem like the major developments on the policy front. The tone is pretty striking, too. Obama reaches out to Republicans in several places. But he also comes down hard--very hard--on opponents who are merely out to defeat reform.

And I wish he would have mentioned more liberals to the nation that have been working hard to reform health care instead of praising John McCain, but he did close with a nice ode to Ted Kennedy.

The Kennedy passage was beautiful. He even used the dreaded "L" word, which I haven't heard in that setting without a sneer for ... well, ever. I don't know how many people can hear that plea for empathy and community, but I hope some did.

By the way, FOX had their news scroll running during the entire speech and it highlighted as many crazy stories as it could. And then the first ad they broadcast after the speech was one where a Canadian woman said Canada's government-run health care almost killed her. That was timed just right for the teabagger audience.

Some things never change.

Maybe it's just me, but I think we're hurtling towards a Howard Beale moment between the blogosphere (the *new* media) and the mainstream media. You have cozy little holidays between politicos and the "journalists" scheduled to interview them like George's tweet above, oblivious to the appearance of conflict. And you have DFH bloggers trying to explain to corporate journos like Marc Ambinder, Chuck Todd and Joe Klein that we actually do know what we're talking about and moreover, we're correct more often than they are, much to their consternation. With the ridiculousness that passes for top stories, how much longer will it be before we all collectively yell out that we're not going to take it any more?

Aside from the aforementioned lovefest between Georgie and McCain, the same ol' complainers are on: Grassley on Face The Nation; Orrin Hatch on Meet the Press and Lieberman on State of the Union. Ironically, the death of newspapers is the subject of The Chris Matthews Show. Betcha not one of the journalists will accept responsibility for the demise because of their abdication of their journalistic integrity.

ABC's "This Week" - Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Kent Conrad, D-N.D.; former national Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Karl Eikenberry, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Bob Woodward, Tina Brown, Gloria Borger and Joe Klein. Topics: Can America survive without newspapers? Will online news fill the void? When city papers fold, who's going to watch City Hall? Meter Questions: Will outspoken fringe players dominate GOP for the rest of Obama's term? YES: 9 NO: 3; If unemployment is still high next year, will Obama revise his tax proposals? YES: 11 No: 1.

CNN's "State of the Union" - Mullen; Eikenberry; Sens. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Ben Cardin, D-Md.; Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - Encore presentation of Fareed's Emmy nominated interview with China's Premier Wen Jiabao. Plus, the always interesting Malcolm Gladwell tells us how to get to Carnegie Hall and more.

"Fox News Sunday" - Jim Towey, president of Saint Vincent College and former director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives; Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa.; Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.; Tammy Duckworth, an assistant Veterans Affairs secretary.

So, what's catching your eye this morning?

On Andrea Mitchell's show this morning, Chuck Todd was on to opine about health care reform. He said one outrageous thing and one right thing. The Toddster said that progressives might be attached to the public option because conservatives immediately attacked it. WRONG.

Mitchell:...how did this become the thing that liberals will not live without?

Todd: ...what's ironic is I think it became a big deal from the left because originally it was the immediate point of attack from some conservatives. Immediately. That that is the public option so you sort of wonder was it simply a political reaction from the left. "They don't like it, we love it."

Since there is no single payer, the public option is the only way that there will be sufficient competition that would force the health insurance companies of actually competing on the open market and making it possible for Americans to have a real alternative to them. The public option is our compromise you sad sack of know-nothingness. We wouldn't form a coalition around something just because conservatives object. That thinking only further illustrates how much the beltway despises us. We are thinking people who actually can evaluate policy on its merits and not out of resentment. When Kyl said "co ops' was just another Trojan horse for government run health care I thought that spoke volumes to the way they are treating health care reform. Wouldn't you expect the media to pounce and say that republicans never had any plans to become part of the negotiating process over health care reform? Even Chuck Grassley's insane statements haven't generated much of a reaction from the press.

What Todd is right about is that President Obama does not have any good spokesman for his positions other than himself. I've written many posts about this problem and I traced it all the way back to the general election. I also wrote about it here: With Surrogates like these... and here. The President shouldn't be the only person that can sell his positions, but the Senate is devoid of anyone that can speak with true conviction that can reach the American people. It's sad.
At least for progressives, Rep. Anthony Weiner has stepped up and become a real force in talking about the necessity of having a public option. More of him please.

Anthony Weiner Leaves Joe Scarborough Momentarily Speechless When Arguing for Health Care Reform

Someone mentioned today that Rep. Anthony Weiner was Jon Stewart's college roommate. Imagine what that duo was like. This guy is smart, passionate and willing to go the extra mile on healthcare reform. I'm glad he's doing what he does.

Now watch how upset Tweety gets when Weiner says he'd use reconciliation to ram the healthcare bill through with 51 votes. He seems to take it as a personal affront:

MATTHEWS: But you never... You would be willing to blow up the Senate rules and basically push it through that.

WEINER: What do you mean, blow up the Senate rules? Look, there's a reason that there's a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate and a Democratic presidency. That middle bloc of Americans want us to get this done.

MATTHEWS: What do you think the Republican reaction would be if you ignored the rules and pushed through a bill?

WEINER: Honestly, waiting for a Republican senator to be pleased with this process is something I'm not prepared to do.

MATTHEWS: No, what would they do? No. When war begins... Look, we've been through goddamned wars in this country, they're easy to start, it's tough to end them. How do you stop a war that starts in the United States Senate right now because you jammed through a bill with less than 60 votes?

WEINER: What do you mean, jammmed, started a war?

MATTHEWS: What are the 40 Republicans going to do? What are they gonna do?

WEINER: Look, outside of this town, the American people really don't care about whether Grassley voted for it or not.

MATTHEWS: Will the government still function if you try to jam this through with 51 votes?

WEINER: I think it will.

MATTHEWS: You think Republicans will put up with it.

Now, you notice anything there? Tweety thinks the Republicans aren't at war with the Democrats! How much worse does he think it's going to get? Arlen Specter told us at Netroots Nation that the Republican caucus decided - before the inauguration - that they wouldn't support any stimulus bill at all in order to break Obama.

During the Bush era, the Republicans wouldn't even let the Democrats sit in on their committee meetings and used every procedural trick in the book to shove legislation through.

Don't you think it's about time the Democrats stopped playing "Mother, May I?"

First I want to say that I had an incredible time at Netroots Nation. What a treat to see so many in the liberal blogosphere gather to discuss health care and virtually every other issue we face. Kudos to all the politicians who showed up to represent their positions as well.

Anyway, a huge topic that was raging through the weekend was the state of the 'public option.' Since the Baucus Dogs haven't finished their bill we still don't have the goods to really make any sense of what the House of Lords is going to put forth. We do have the Senate HELP committee bill, but the Baucus Dogs are trying to muck up the works by stalling the process and trying to empower the teabaggers. Any member of Congress that is affected by the lunatic fringe appearing at these events should resign immediately.

I was talking to Digby at length about it over the weekend and she said she had a meeting with Mike Lux and he laid out a possible scenario to her that could come to pass even if Grassley, Bayh, Conrad, Baucus, Nelson and the rest of the paid off shills of the health insurance industry come out with a bill that doesn't have a 'public option.'

He later wrote about it in his piece: The News of Its Death Is Greatly Exaggerated

Here are a couple of possibilities for getting a bill passed:

A. The first is that conservative Senators are given a fig leaf compromise on the public option, so that they can say to people they forced a compromise, and then are brought over with all kinds of other incentives that make them more comfortable with the bigger bill.

B. The second is that the conference committee simply breaks the bill in half, one half being the less controversial part that everyone agrees upon, the other being the public option and the financing, both of which can go through the reconciliation process. Then Obama and Reid muscle the 50 votes they need for support.

Continue reading »

The Seminal: Grassley brings the crazy...

Apoliticus: Top Five Campaign Mistakes

Mother Jones: George Bush, appeaser?

Submitted to a Candid World: Objection! Republican talking points and prior inconsistent statements

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: Rich Lowry has lot of s'plaining to do...Gibbs To Media: How about reality?...Facts are stupid things...WaPo scraping bottom...Lane violation...Shrill...Whiney, Self-Serving Crapola....The New Yorker thinks Savage is just misunderstood...Our liberal media...Lou, you're an as*hole but we'd still like to see your birth certificate...Here's ours!...Humungous Hypocrisy at The Atlantiic

For those of you who follow the inside baseball, National Journal has a look at the Republican strategy on healthcare reform: Delay, misinform, obfuscate... You know, the usual:

Grassley, the Finance Committee's ranking member, is the influential wild card among Senate Republicans, and he covets his reputation for independence. McConnell stays in close touch with the folksy Midwesterner, eager to keep him in the GOP fold. Many congressional observers have decided that Grassley is negotiating in good faith with Democrats to see if he can help get a reasonable bill out of Finance, but these sources expect him to reject a conference report later this year if it moves too far left.

In an interview, Grassley contended that Republicans should be delighted that he's on the job. "If they wonder whether or not our being involved [in the Finance talks] is doing any good, wouldn't you rather have a conservative Republican at the table than have nobody at the table?" he asked. "And secondly, hasn't our party, plus the grassroots of America, been pleading for time to study [legislation]? And suppose I was not at the table: There would be debate on the floor of the Senate, not in the Finance Committee."

Grassley said that Republican leaders asked him to block any Democratic moves to ration health services or implement a public option, although he tentatively supports a public cooperative that is not government-run. "So, the two things that Republicans are most concerned about -- the public option and rationing -- ain't going to be in it," he concluded.

Asked about his balancing act with Grassley, McConnell said that his colleague has been "very open" with the caucus. "I think it's been just fine," McConnell said of the Finance discussions. "I do read that some of the Democrats may not be that happy with it. But I don't think I have felt, nor do I think most of my members have felt, that they were trying to hide the ball on us."

Meanwhile, his "reputation for independence" is looking a little compromised. The New York Times:

"Some Republicans have begun to warn that Mr. Grassley should tread carefully on the health care bill if he wants to become the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee."

Politico:

"The three Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee are under pressure from their leadership not to cut a deal too quickly .. and that message has been delivered frequently in recent weeks."

The Hill:

"Senator Chuck Grassley, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, has assured his GOP colleagues that he will not sell them out and strike a private deal with Democrats on healthcare reform."

[...] On Wednesday morning Senator Grassley said, the group was "on the edge" of agreement. But later in the day he walked those comments back, saying, "I think we’re on the edge of getting something. Now, when I say ‘on the edge,’ that could be within a week. It could be within two weeks, or it might not be until we get back after Labor Day."

Awww. I think it's sweet that they let him think he's independent -- and that Max Baucus is playing along with it.

(h/t Heather)
Orrin Hatch was whining about bipartisanship on Face The Nation Sunday. Are you ready for another David Broder article criticizing the Democrats for not including the teabaggers? Rangel slaps little Orrin for lying about the parameters of the House bill. It's of course the House of Lords that is mucking up the works. The House has delivered a bill the the CBO likes.

HATCH: But it’s become so political. The House bill’s a total partisan bill. The health committee in the Senate, the Senate bill, is a total partisan bill. And our only hope, maybe, is to have Senator Baucus be able to put something together on the Finance Committee in the Senate.

RANGEL: We’ve been dealing with this bill for -- for over six months. And we’ve had hours of hearings. And the fact that it’s not bipartisan is not because we Democrats don’t want to have a bipartisan bill. We don’t have any Republican answers. It’s easy to say what you don’t like about this bill. But it would be far more constructive if we had something to work on. So I’m depending on my friend Orrin Hatch to... (LAUGHTER) ... at least in the Senate, to try to see, is there a Republican bill in the Senate? There certainly isn’t in the House. And it’s just wrong to say that this is a tax on small businesses. We exempt small business from a lot of the penalties. We give tax credits so that they’re able to hire and get people health care in small businesses. This is a tax on less than 1 percent of the wealthiest people in the United States of America. And so to say that this is a penalty on small business just isn’t so. Sure, we wish we had more time.

Hatch is lying again since Sen. Grassley has said he's been working with Baucus on a bill. Maybe he should confer with his own party in the Senate instead of going on TV and crying about being left out. He's a Senator, for the love of God. Maybe he could write another song for us?

Continue reading »

It's real simple. If President Obama doesn't include a vibrant public option in health care reform, he will lose the left and will never recover. Is that what he wants? Does he want to be a one-term president? Does he want conservatives and teabaggers to control Congress?

I'm sick and tired of hearing his representatives tell me that Congress is writing the bill. He won a mandate to reform health care. John McCain's plans for health care were rejected by Americans. So why is he involved in a kabuki dance with all the weak-kneed Democrats like Blanche Lincoln, DiFi, Ben Nelson, Kent Conrad and all the rest of the corporate Dems? And why does Sen. Grassley matter at all? They don't care about American families and what's been happening to them.

Doesn't his team look at the polls? Americans are willing to be taxed for health care reform. What more does he want? There's a 20-point jump in the belief that the government can run health care, which is amazing. The polls aren't lying so what is President Obama doing?

Protests should be breaking out all over America about health care before it's too late. July 4th would have been a great day to have one.

President Obama wants a bill to sign in October. Great. But it has to be a good bill with a vibrant public option or health care will never be reformed and President Obama will see his popularity rise in Republicanland. I'm sure they'll all turn out to vote for him in 2012. The problem is that nobody else will.

I won't be posting too much this week, but this clip was so outrageous I had to try and write something. Joe Lieberman was on Andrea Mitchell and he announced like the pompous ass he is that Joe Lieberman categorically is opposed to the public option for health care.

And his major reason is because the votes aren't there. First of all, that's a crock. President Obama only needs 51 votes, so please, let's get rid of that talking point. It's only cowards like Holy Joe and the rest of the mealymouthed Dmes who are trying to sell us all down the river.

But the biggest hoax being foisted on Americans is the claim that a public option would destroy the health-care industry and we can't have that. If the health-care industry or HIC (Health Industrial Complex), as we call it, is so frakkin' wonderful, then what are they afraid of, and why is it a nightmare?

Also, Holy Joe like the Mad Twitterer (Grassley) say that there already is competition in the HIC because there are like three hundred and fifty companies already. Doesn't that tell these bozos that something is wrong if there are so many health-insurance providers and health care in America is this screwed up? If freaks like Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu, and Joe Lieberman -- just to name a few -- were being honest, they would stop with the word games and do what's right for the American people.

Lieberman: Yea, I'm a against it because I think, two reasons. One is I'm fearful that at a time that we're spending too much here in Washington and going much too deeply in debt that a public option on health care no matter how you structure it will end up costing the taxpayers money. We don't need it.

There's more than three hundred and fifty companies, maybe more than that selling health insurance, there's going to be a lot of competition for health insurance once universal health insurance comes and the third and probably the most important, the votes are not there for a public health plan, government run option and this can stand in the way of a historic achievement for President Obama, Congress and the American people which is really to establish a universal access to quality, affordable health care plan in America so I think as this goes on, there gotta be compromises on this if we want to do what I think the people want us to do.

Continue reading »