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Ed Schultz asks Bernie Sanders to respond to this report from The Hill Another Independent could be a spoiler as Reid moves forward on healthcare:

With a pronounced independent streak to match his political alignment, Bernie Sanders of Vermont may be another headache for Democrats trying to cobble together 60 votes for healthcare reform in the coming weeks.

At a time when most attention is being paid to the Senate’s other, more well-known Independent, Connecticut’s Joe Lieberman, it is Sanders who could end up playing spoiler for Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). As Reid struggles to find 60 votes that will unite on procedural votes, his party’s centrists are pulling the healthcare bill politically rightward while Sanders is staking out a far-left position.

Asked if he will support Democrats on procedural votes once the healthcare bill hits the Senate floor, Sanders was repeatedly noncommital, twice telling The Hill that he intends to push for a bill that includes a government-run, public-option insurance component and refusing to guarantee his support on cloture votes.

“All I’ll say for now is that I want the strongest public option possible in the bill,” Sanders said. “Beyond that, we’re going to have to look at what develops.”

Pressed further, Sanders’s office also offered no guarantees.

Gotta' love The Hill calling support for the public option a "far-left" position. It's not "far-left" when the majority of the public supports it. Sen. Sanders was again noncommital on whether he would be willing to go so far as to filibuster the health care bill during this interview, but said he is going to fight to make sure that the bill is not just a giveaway to the insurance industries.

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From Sen. Bernie Sanders and Brave New Films.

Bernie Sanders Unfiltered-The Dow and the Down and Out:

While markets surged past 10,000, the official unemployment rate stood near 10 percent. The United States is in a unique historical position. People on top are doing extraordinarily well, but in the real world the middle class is collapsing. The top 1 percent owns more wealth then the bottom 90 percent. CEOs of large corporations earn 400 times what their workers make. That is not what America is supposed to be about. With all the issues we are dealing with -- from health care to global warming to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – please do not forgot what is happening to tens of millions of our brothers and our sisters out there who are struggling hard to keep their heads above water.

From Brave New Films' Sanders Unfiltered.

Open Thread below...

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Rachel Maddow and Sen. Bernie Sanders discuss the GOP's hypocrisy when now claiming to be the great champions of Medicare after years of railing against it.

MADDOW: Belated salvo in the scare the bejesus out of elderly voters so they‘ll put you back in power regardless of whether you‘re telling the truth war is an editorial in the conservative newspaper, “The Washington Times,” and it screams “Death Panels by Proxy”—ostensibly argues that the so-called Baucus bill on health reform encourages doctors to withhold health care from Medicare patients. Health care reform is a secret plot to kill people on Medicare.

This is now become an ongoing strategic conundrum. How do you plan to win an argument with opponents who are undeterred by being disproven? Undeterred by the facts, when you don‘t even believe that they believe what they‘re arguing anymore?

It‘s not even just the “death panels” nonsense now. Take Medicare itself, a program Republicans have railed against since before President Johnson signed it into law in 1965. They railed against it since then until—well, until now.

Now, in the Senate Finance Committee, Republicans are trying to portray themselves as the champions of Medicare. They‘re fighting hard to kill any bill that contains any cuts in Medicare, even though people who support Medicare like, say, the AARP, say those cuts won‘t affect care.

Republicans defending Medicare. What would Ronald Reagan say? These guys do remember Ronald Reagan, don‘t they?

Here‘s what he did say about Medicare when it was just a twinkle in some socialist, fascist, freedom-hating, community-organizing Democrat‘s eye.

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Turns out Matt Taibbi is already acquainted with Rep. Alan Grayson. Here's his backstory ((and remember, reward good behavior):

Alan Grayson, Bernie Sanders, Ron Paul and others keep hammering away at this whole Fed-secrecy issue, and every now and then we get some pretty interesting exchanges. Zero Hedge relates this one between Grayson and Fed counsel Scott Alvarez. It’s becoming abundantly clear that at some point we’re going to start to hear details about monstrous front-running operations involving the major banks on Wall Street.

I recommend that everyone watch this clip just for the sheer entertainment value. I have personal experience with… well, let’s call it the unique personality of Alan Grayson. In his capacity as an attorney he once basically threatened to have me dismembered and have my body parts dumped in a tin canister and fired into the center of a burning supernova. And that’s actually underselling the real language he used.

We were having a disagreement about the use of information given to me by a certain source in a story about military contracting, and in the middle of what had been a normal contentious argument between two sane adults, dude suddenly assumed this crazy monster-voice and just went medieval on me. He was roaring into the telephone about how he was going to crush me, how I was going to wish I had never messed with him, how I didn’t know who the hell I was dealing with, and so on. One phrase I remember in particular was, “I am going to strip the bark off of you!” It came totally out of the blue and it was like being on the telephone with a metamorphosing werewolf — the whole performance genuinely freaked me out. I may even have peed a little, I can’t remember.

When I heard Alan Grayson was running for Congress, I remember thinking to myself, That Alan Grayson? The lunatic? It can’t be, I thought. I kept imagining trails of half-eaten sheep leading to his campaign appearances. But it turned out to be true. And when I checked, his platform turned out to be quite sane and even kind of interesting. Then he got elected and I suddenly started seeing his name attached to all of these calls for transparency, various crusades for FinReg reforms, etc.

And now every time I see Alan Grayson, he’s tearing some freaked-out bureaucrat a new a**hole in the middle of some empty conference room in the Capitol somewhere. I see the looks on the faces of these poor souls and I know exactly what they’re going through. Which is just hilarious, frankly. Especially since these people all tend to deserve it, like this nebbishy little creep Alvarez quite obviously does.

Now for most of last year Grayson’s public appearances didn’t rate any higher than a five or maybe a six on the craziness scale, but he’s a definite seven in this clip, trending toward eight. Watch Alvarez look around nervously, like he’s not sure whether to say something about how out of control Grayson is. He’s looking around like he expects someone to come out with a butterfly net and capture Grayson, so he can get back to lunch. But no help comes. Very entertaining stuff.

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We need a whole lot more Bernies out there.
h/t Sen. Sanders

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Bernie Sanders says "enough is enough", let's get Sen. Kennedy's bill from the Health Committee passed. As Keith and Bernie note during the segment, here is some of what Senator Kennedy is hopefully remembered for.

Olbermann: Meals on Wheels, AIDS research, other medical research, cancer research, nutrition programs for pregnant women and children, expanded uninsurance to the unemployed, occupational safety regulations. That's just the first few items on the list of things brought to this nation by Senator Kennedy. It is so long it is hard to imagine that there is an America living today whose body, literally body, is not in better shape than it would have been were not for this man. Correct?

Sanders: That is exactly right. I mean among so many other things, pushing Medicare, pushing Medicaid, pushing children's health insurance for eighteen million Americans today who have access to primary health care through community health centers. That program was developed by Senator Ted Kennedy.

Bernie goes on to explain that Kennedy felt that all Americans should have health care as a right of citizenship and how woefully behind we are with other industrialized nations with what we spend on health care compared to our health care outcomes.

As Bernie notes, what came out of the Health Committee was actually a decent piece of legislation and it would be nice to see the Democrats get on board with it and at least not filibuster the legislation if they could manage to get Kennedy's bill rather than the mess that's coming out of the Finance Committee on to the Senate floor for a vote.

Personally I'd like to see them force any of them to do an actual filibuster if they don't want to see some real reform get through. Make them go stand up on the Senate floor and defend the insurance industry profits until they're blue in the face if that's the line in the sand these guys want to draw. And let them break out the cots and diapers while they're at it.

I'm glad to see Bernie as usual being one of the ones speaking up about real reform means. We could use a whole lot more like him. Unfortunately I get to pick from the choice between right wing crazy and Republican-lite where I'm from.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders' appearance on the Rachel Maddow show last week really stuck in Bill O'Reilly's craw like a chicken bone, so he tried to spit it out by naming Sanders a "Pinhead" on The O'Reilly Factor last night.

Here's what Sanders said:

Sanders: We need to do grass roots organizing. I'll tell you what else we need to do. We need to understand that it is very, very hard for the president or anybody else to take on, not just the Republican Party - that's the easy part - to take on all of right-wing talk radio which covers 90 percent of talk show hosts, a whole FOX Network which is nothing more than an arm of the Republican Party.

O'Reilly's response: To make fun of Sanders' thick New England accent and insist that Sanders' charge was "false" -- though of course he had no way of proving otherwise. Especially since Sanders is saying something every sane person who watches Fox (admittedly, those numbers are shrinking) can see for themselves.

Though to be more precise, Fox actually is an arm of movement conservatism, and the GOP is the movement's political home. So they are both components of the same ideological movement, which means that Fox isn't really an arm of the GOP, but rather its ideological partner and cohort. The difference, though, is purely a matter of nuance, since the result and effect are exactly the same.

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Go, go Bernie! The one honest man in the Senate takes on Orrin Hatch over health care reform on Lou Dobbs Tonight. Bernie does a great job of shooting down Hatch's fear mongering and distortions.

DOBBS: And turning now to the battle over health care. The Obama administration pushing Congress to pass a bill on health care before the end of this year. But opposition to the president's at least trillion-dollar plan is rising. Many senators including some Democrats are pushing back and pushing back hard.

That is the topic of tonight's "Face-Off Debate". Joining me now, two distinguished senators, Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah. Senator, good to have you with us.

And Senator Bernie Sanders, independent from Vermont. Bernie, good to have you with us. We appreciate it, Senator.

SANDERS: Good to be with you.

DOBBS: Let me turn first to the fact that a bipartisan group in the Senate apparently closing on a compromise which we have not heard until just now. Is it to your sense, Senator Sanders, that that is the case?

SANDERS: I really don't know. That's in the finance committee. I think Senator Hatch may know more than I do.

DOBBS: All right. Senator Hatch?

HATCH: Well, I don't know. I'd be surprised if they can put together a program that could be supported by Republicans because they're pushing for, you know, more taxes, more government, and more spending. I don't see how you solve the problem of $2.5 trillion current bill by adding another $1.5 to $2.5 trillion more. But I know they've had a very difficult time because of that government planned approach.

SANDERS: Well, I'm not quite sure where Senator Hatch is coming up with those numbers. What I do know is it concerns me less whether we do it today or tomorrow or a year from now. What's most important is that we do it right.

And, Lou, we have a major crisis in this country. And it's not only that tens of millions of people are uninsured or underinsured. We've got over 18,000 people every year die, they die because they don't get to a doctor when they should. We've got a million people this year who are going to go bankrupt because of the very, very high cost of health care.

So I think doing nothing is not an option. But my main point is we've got to get it right. That's much more important whether it's done tomorrow, next week, or four months from now.

DOBBS: Senator Hatch, your reaction to that?

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Bernie Sanders gives John McCain an uncomfortable moment asking him if the VA is socialized health care, and if he or anyone else in the Senate is advocating doing away with it. Sanders is exactly right. It is not the job of the Senate to protect the private health insurance industry. It's a shame the best we may get out of the Senate is a public option and that we don't have a few more Bernie Sanders out there fighting for real health care reform.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders is back on the set of the Ed Schultz Show to talk about the influence of corporate lobbyists on health care reform. Is this man the only person in the United States Senate that's not bought and sold by the health care industry? I'm beginning to think so.

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David Shuster talks to Sen. Bernie Sanders about his demand that the Democrats in the Senate commit to stopping a filibuster on health care reform. Sanders reiterated his earlier statements as reported by Sam Stein at the HuffPo:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), called on the White House and Democratic leadership in Congress to ensure that party members agree unanimously to support cloture on legislation that would revamp the nation's health care system. Democratic senators on the fence, he added, could still oppose the bill. But at the very least they should be required to let the legislation come to an up-or-down vote.

"I think that with Al Franken coming on board, you have effectively 60 Democrats in the caucus, 58 and two Independents," Sanders said in an interview with the Huffington Post. "I think the strategy should be to say, it doesn't take 60 votes to pass a piece of legislation. It takes 60 votes to stop a filibuster. I think the strategy should be that every Democrat, no matter whether or not they ultimately end up voting for the final bill, is to say we are going to vote together to stop a Republican filibuster. And if somebody who votes for that ends up saying, 'I'm not gonna vote for this bill, it's too radical, blah, blah, blah, that's fine.'"

"I think the idea of going to conservative Republicans, who are essentially representing the insurance companies and the drug companies, and watering down this bill substantially, rather than demanding we get 60 votes to stop the filibuster, I think that is a very wrong political strategy," Sanders added.

If we only had a few more Bernie Sanders in the Senate, the United States would be a better place to live in. I hope he keeps the pressure on the Democrats to do the right thing.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders on The Situation Room discussing his recent article at The Huffington Post, Health Care Is a Right, Not a Privilege. From the article:

Let's be clear. Our health care system is disintegrating. Today, 46 million people have no health insurance and even more are underinsured with high deductibles and co-payments. At a time when 60 million people, including many with insurance, do not have access to a medical home, more than 18,000 Americans die every year from preventable illnesses because they do not get to the doctor when they should. This is six times the number who died at the tragedy of 9/11 - but this occurs every year.

In the midst of this horrendous lack of coverage, the U.S. spends far more per capita on health care than any other nation - and health care costs continue to soar. At $2.4 trillion dollars, and 18 percent of our GDP, the skyrocketing cost of health care in this country is unsustainable both from a personal and macro-economic perspective.

His interview with Wolf Blitzer below the fold where the good Senator showed just exactly how any question that is prefaced with "here's what Karl Rove writes", should be answered.

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Ed Schultz talks to Bernie Sanders about the impact of Arlen Specter switching to the Democratic Party and the impact it will or won't have on getting health care reform passed. Sanders stresses the need for a strong grass roots movement to put pressure on the Congress to stand up to the insurance and drug companies and start acting in the interest of the voters.

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Bernie Sanders weighs in on what the differences are between President Obama's budget, what the Conservadems are going to agree to, and what the Republicans are going to try to block. Sanders feels that if the Democrats are forced to get sixty votes for anything they'd like through the Congress it will be watered down and likely not be worth passing. Always one to fight the good fight, Sanders tells us what most of us here anyway already know. It's going to take a strong grass roots movement to combat all the special interest dollars flowing into the campaign coffers of members of Congress.

Olbermann: There's a quote in The Atlantic magazine from an unnamed White official who says these pro-budget ads won't hurt, won't help. What do you think on this? Should the President's supporters be calling their Congressman's and their Senator's offices and saying look this is what I voted for. Don't screw this up.

Sanders: I think so. I think what we need to never forget Keith is that here in Washington we have enormously powerful special interests. You know the financial institutions in the last ten years spent five billion dollars so that we can deregulate Wall Street and that got us to where we are today.

The insurance companies and the drug companies make huge amounts of money keeping us the only nation in the industrialized world without a national health care program. So what we need to combat that enormous power of the big money interests is a strong grass roots movement.

Senator Sanders apparently had a busy day preceeding this interview. He took time to come on the set of Democracy Now: Sen. Sanders Blocking Vote to Confirm Obama Nominee Who Worked to Deregulate Credit Default Swaps.

He also shot down Senator Judd Gregg over his priorities for Americans during a committee meeting on the budget: Senator Sanders "You'll Give Billionaires Tax Cuts But No Health Care For The Middle Class!