Democrashield
emmagold
Filed under: Uncategorized
I’m going out of town for the next few days, so posting will be light for the rest of the week.
See you all in 2010!
Filed under: 2010 Election, Conservatives, Government, Governors, House, Senate, Terrorism | Tags: 2010, Congress, Fundraising, Greed, Gubernatorial Election, House Intelligence Committee, Jim DeMint, Michigan, Pete Hoekstra, Priorities, Republicans, Terrorism, Transportation Security Administration, TSA
Let’s say you’re a United States Representative. You sit on the House Intelligence Committee and are running for Governor of your state in 2010.
On Christmas Day, an attempted terrorist attack aboard an airplane is thwarted. What’s the first thing you do?
Do you call for an investigation into what security failures occurred?
Do you call for increased funding for transportation security programs?
Do you call for greater screenings of incoming airline passengers or other higher security standards?
Do you excoriate your Senate colleague, Jim DeMint, for blocking President Obama’s nominee to head the TSA for purely political reasons?
Well, if you’re Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R), the first thing you do in response to a thwarted terrorist attack is send out a fundraising email.
He’s asking for your money so that, next time there’s a terrorist attack, he can…ask you for more money, I guess, since he’s not doing anything to combat terrorism.
Republicans have some pretty twisted priorities these days–Jim DeMint is blocking President Obama’s appointee to head the TSA because he hates labor unions and Pete Hoekstra puts fattening his campaign coffers ahead of combating terrorism.
And these guys want us to make them the majority again? Are they kidding?
Filed under: Conservatives, Government, International, Labor, Scandal, Senate, Terrorism | Tags: Democrats, Erroll Southers, Jim DeMint, Labor, National Security, Republicans, Terrorism, Transportation Security Administration, TSA, Unions
That’s right–in the wake of a thwarted terrorist attack we learn that the top spot at the Transportation Security Administration is empty.
And it’s all thanks to Republican Senator Jim DeMint:
An attempt to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day would be all-consuming for the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration — if there were one.
The post remains vacant because Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., has held up President Barack Obama’s nominee in opposition to the prospect of TSA workers joining a labor union.
As al Qaida claimed responsibility Monday for the thwarted attack and President Barack Obama made a public statement about it, Democrats urged DeMint to drop his objection and allow quick confirmation of nominee Erroll Southers, a counterterrorism expert, when the Senate reconvenes in three weeks.
[...]
Southers, a former FBI special agent, is the Los Angeles World Airports Police Department assistant chief for homeland security and intelligence. He also is the associate director of the University of Southern California’s Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events, and he served as a deputy director of homeland security for California Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Two Senate committees have given Southers their bipartisan blessing.
[Emphasis mine]
So a Republican Senator is blocking the appointment of someone to head the TSA for purely partisan political purposes.
We almost had a deadly terrorist attack–one that wold have killed an airplane full of people–but the GOP is leaving the TSA headless because they hate labor unions and don’t want a government agency to unionize.
Why is the GOP putting politics ahead of American lives?
Filed under: 2010 Election, Conservatives, Economics, Government, Health Care, House, Polls, Progressives, Senate | Tags: 2010, Budget, Congress, Democrats, Health, Health Care Reform, Health Insurance, Insurance Companies, Republicans, Talking Points
That’s the question that should be asked of every single Republican who tries to run against health care reform in 2010.
Demagoging against the bill is one thing but actually pledging to repeal it is another; no Republican should be allowed to do the former without being asked whether or not they will do the latter.
The health care reform bill isn’t perfect, but it has a number of fundamentally good policies that will help tens of millions of Americans.
Health care reform will stop insurance companies from denying coverage for preexisting conditions. Do the Republicans want to repeal that?
Health care reform will reduce the deficit by more than $130 billion in the first decade and even more in subsequent decades. Do the Republicans want to repeal that?
Health care reform will provide middle class individuals and families with subsidies to help them buy health insurance. Do the Republicans want to repeal that?
Health care reform will provide coverage to 31 million Americans who currently lack it. Do the Republicans want to repeal that?
Will any Republican actually stand up and say they want to do so much damage to America’s middle class by repealing health care reform?
I think that ‘will you repeal it?’ puts the GOP between a rock and a hard place–the rock of wanting to oppose the Democratic health care reform plan but the hard place of not wanting to scrap policies that will help so many middle class Americans.
So any Democrat who worries that their support for health care reform may hurt hem in 2010 should just keep four words on the tip of their tongue: ‘will you repeal it?’
UPDATE: The Huffington Post reports on the perils Republicans will face if they run on repealing the bill:
Filed under: Conservatives, Government, Progressives, Senate | Tags: 1995, Bleeding Heartland, Congress, Democrats, Filibuster, Filibuster Reform, Iowa, Jeff Merkley, Oregon, Republicans, Tom Harkin
Dovetailing with what I posted yesterday, Bleeding Heartland reports that Iowa Senator Tom Harkin (D) is considering proposing filibuster reform.
Apparently Harkin proposed just such a bill back in 1995, when Democrats were in the minority.
Here are the details:
Filed under: Conservatives, Government, IOKIYAR, Progressives, Senate | Tags: Republicans, Democrats, Congress, Filibuster, 111th Congress, 110th Congress, Senate Rules, Filibuster Abuse
Definitely not.
But should the Senate rules be changed in order to end the Republican minority’s rampant filibuster abuse?
Definitely, yes.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe that the Senate is the world’s most deliberative body for a reason–unlike the House, the Senate has significant protections for the rights of the minority. And I do believe that the minority should have those rights and should be able to prevent the Senate from becoming majoritarian.
So while I do support the filibuster, the current Republican majority has utterly and completely abused it. They’ve made the country almost ungovernable by requiring an unrealistic 60-vote supermajority to pass every piece of worthwhile legislation.
Even though the Democrats do have a 60-member caucus, the GOP’s constant filibustering means that Democrats can’t afford to lose a single member on any important bill. And considering how geographically and ideologically diverse the Democratic caucus is, it’s nearly impossible to hold them all together for nearly every vote.
And what the Republicans are doing is unprecedented–they’ve repeatedly set and broken records for filibustering. Just look at the huge spike in filibustering during the 110th Congress, when the GOP became the minority:
Filed under: Interesting, International | Tags: Art, Christmas, Street Art
Merry Christmas, everyone–here are a few pieces of Christmas-related street art:
Pieces are by various artists from various cities. Pics from Designinterviews, we heart public art and WebUrbanist.
Filed under: Conservatives, Economics, Government, Health Care, House, Progressives, Senate | Tags: Budget, Christmas, Congress, Deficit, Democrats, Harry Reid, Health, Health Care Reform, Health Insurance, Holidays, James Inhofe, Obstructionism, Party Of No, Republicans
Sorry for the late posting; I spent much of today traveling. It is the season, after all.
Anyway, as expected, the Senate passed the health care reform bill early this morning.
The 60-39 vote exactly mirrored last night’s cloture vote; once again, Jim Inhofe (R-OK) was the single absentee Senator.
Now the House and Senate versions of the bill will have to be reconciled in a conference committee, and then that bill will have to be passed by both houses of Congress.
Unsurprisingly, the GOP is still trying to delay the final passage of the bill–Roll Call reports that they’re blocking Majority Leader Harry Reid’s attempts to name the Senators who will sit on the conference committee.
Because of the GOP’s obstructionism and delay tactics, the debate over health care reform has become the second-longest debate in American history–the 25-day-long debate on health care reform is only surpassed by the 26-day-long debate on whether or not to enter World War I.
Some Republican Senators, though, seem to be throwing in the obstructionism towel–as James Inhofe, the absentee Senator on the last two major health care vote, recently said:
“I can assure you the vast majority of the [Republican] conference was on my side saying we’ve had all the fun we’re going to have.”
Hopefully more of Inhofe’s colleagues will see the light.
31 million Americans who currently lack coverage will receive it because of this bill. Our deficit will be reduced by more than $130 billion in the first ten years alone. Millions of people will get federal subsidies to help them purchase better health care coverage.
Merry Christmas, America.
Filed under: Breaking, Conservatives, Government, Health Care, Progressives, Senate | Tags: Congress, Democrats, Filibuster, Health, Health Care Reform, Jim Inhofe, Republicans
The Senate just voted 60-39 to invoke cloture and end debate on the health care reform bill, thus breaking the GOP’s filibuster.
The vote was entirely along party lines–Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe was the absent Republican.
The final vote on health care reform–where only 51 votes will be required–is scheduled for tomorrow morning at 7:00 AM; it will be the first time Congress has cast a vote on Christmas Eve since 1895.
By EmmaGold
There’s a lot that is wrong with both healthcare reform bills. Many other people have listed them, so I probably don’t need to.
Pass them (either one) anyway.
First, there’s the good stuff reform will do now: ending practices like recission and gender-rating, insuring millions of people, keeping premiums and out-of-pocket costs low through subsidies, establishing healthcare as a right, etc.
But even more importantly, passing healthcare reform- any healthcare reform- sets us up to actually fix the system in the future. If reform passes now, it won’t be the end. The public option can be added to the exchanges in a few years. We can get rid of the awful abortion restrictions and get illegal immigrants covered. We can impose stricter cost controls.
But we can’t do any of those things if we don’t pass something now. Right now, we have the largest Democratic majority in Congress since 1994- the last time health reform failed. We have (sort of) 60 votes in the Senate. Our majority isn’t going to stay that high, and shooting reform down now will only ensure that our representatives are afraid to bring it back up for another 15 years.
If we pass something now, we can keep working for more improvements. If we pass nothing, we’re stuck with the system we have now — the system under which 45,000 Americans die every year because they can’t get insurance.
Filed under: 2010 Election, Breaking, Conservatives, Economics, Energy, Environment, Government, Health Care, House, Media | Tags: Alabama, Cap And Trade, Congress, Democrats, Economic Stimulus Package, Economics, Energy, Financial Reform, Health Care Reform, Hypocrisy, NRCC, Parker Griffith, Politico, Republicans
From Politico:
How much of a difference will this make for the House?
As it turns out, not much:
While the timing of his announcement was unexpected, Griffith’s party switch will not come as a surprise to those familiar with his voting record, which is one of the most conservative among Democrats.
He has bucked the Democratic leadership on nearly all of its major domestic initiatives, including the stimulus package, health care legislation, the cap-and trade energy bill and financial regulatory reform.
He was one of only 11 House Democrats to vote against the stimulus.
[Emphasis mine]
Goodbye and good riddance, Rep. Griffith. Enjoy being part of the ineffectual, impotent Republican minority.
UPDATE: My question is, will Griffith be able to win reelection as a Republican?
I’ll let the electoral history of Alabama’s 5th Congressional district speak for itself:
Filed under: Conservatives, Economics, Government, Health Care, House, Progressives, Right-Wing Noise Machine, Senate | Tags: Ben Nelson, Congress, Democrats, Economic Stimulus Package, Economics, Health, Health Care Reform, Hyperpartisanship, Joe Lieberman, Obstructionism, Party Of No, Republicans, Sheldon Whitehouse
Congressional Democrats come to their senses:
At the same time, Democrats say the apparently unbridgeable health care divide has convinced them that Republicans are dedicated solely to blocking legislative proposals for political purposes. Several said they now realized that they would have to rely strictly on their own caucus to advance such defining issues as climate change in 2010.
“We have crossed the mark of over 100 filibusters and acts of procedural obstruction in less than one year,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, said on the floor Sunday. “Never since the founding of the Republic, not even in the bitter sentiments preceding Civil War, was such a thing ever seen in this body.”
[Emphasis mine]
That’s a lesson the Democrats should have learned after the economic stimulus package, where they made concession after concession and bent over backwards to placate the GOP, yet won over only 3 out of the 219 Republicans in Congress.
The Republicans are not interested in governing this country. The GOP is only interested in scoring political points; they don’t care how much damage they cause as long as they can conceivably spin things in their favor.
The Democrats are the majority. The GOP knows that if they can obfuscate, obstruct, and effectively throw a wrench into the works of our government then they can turn around and portray the Democratic majority as impotent.
I would love to live in a country with a vibrant two-party system, where the right and left can sit down, negotiate in good faith and construct good, productive legislation that makes both sides happy.
Unfortunately, the GOP has pledged themselves wholeheartedly to obstructionism and hyperpartisanship, meaning that every time the Democrats sit down and try to work with the GOP they’re effectively pounding nails into their own political coffin.
The Democrats have the White House and sizable majorities in both houses of Congress. They should focus on winning over conservative Democrats like Ben Nelson–winning over Republicans shouldn’t be a concern at this point.
The GOP had their chance but they blew it, proving themselves unable and unwilling to govern. Until Republicans show that they’re capable of working in good faith toward good legislation, winning Republican votes shouldn’t even be an afterthought for Democratic lawmakers.
UPDATE: From the above New York Times article:
Filed under: Conservatives, Government, Health Care, Progressives, Right-Wing Noise Machine, Senate | Tags: Congress, Health, Health Care Reform, Health Insurance, Insurance, Michael Steele, Mitch McConnell, Republican National Committee, RNC, RNC Chair
There seems to be something going around among the Republican leadership.
Today, RNC Chairman Michael Steele said this about health care reform:
I mean, it just annoys and irritates me on something so fundamentally important. That this Congress, this leadership, is so tone deaf and so hell bent on propping up a policy that the American people doesn’t want, that they’re willing to basically flip the bird to the American people on this issue and slip it in in the dead of night.
[Emphasis mine]
Like I said when Mitch McConnell complained about the timing of the health care reform votes:
Filed under: Interesting, The District | Tags: Logan Circle, Monday Street Art, Obey, Street Art, Washington, Washington DC
Here are two pieces by street artist Obey, found near DC’s Logan Circle neighborhood:
Pics taken by me.
Filed under: Conservatives, Government, Health Care, House, Media, Progressives, Right-Wing Noise Machine, Senate | Tags: Congress, Democrats, Epic Fail, Fail, Health, Health Care Reform, Jonathan Chait, Republicans, Tea Partiers, The New Republic
Jonathan Chait at The New Republic explains why the Republicans are the losers of the health care reform debate:
The United States is on the doorstep of comprehensive health care reform. It’s a staggering achievement, about which I’ll have more to say later. but the under-appreciated thing that strikes me at the moment is that it never would have happened if the Republican Party had played its cards right.
At the outset of this debate, moderate Democrats were desperate for a bipartisan bill. They were willing to do almost anything to get it, including negotiate fruitlessly for months on end. We can’t know for sure, but Democrats appeared willing to make enormous substantive concessions to win the assent of even a few Republicans. A few GOP defectors could have lured a chunk of Democrats to sign something far more limited than what President Obama is going to sign. And remember, it would have taken only one Democrat to agree to partial reform in order to kill comprehensive reform. I can easily imagine a scenario where Ben Nelson refused to vote for anything larger than, say, a $400 billion bill that Chuck Grassley and a couple other Republicans were offering.
But Republicans wouldn’t make that deal. The GOP leadership put immense pressure on all its members to withhold consent from any health care bill. The strategy had some logic to it: If all 40 Republicans voted no, then Democrats would need 60 votes to succeed, a monumentally difficult task. And if they did succeed, the bill would be seen as partisan and therefore too liberal, too big government. The spasm of anti-government activism over the summer helped lock the GOP into this strategy — no Republican could afford to risk the wrath of Tea Partiers convinced that any reform signed by Obama equaled socialism and death panels.
[...]
The Republicans eschewed a halfway compromise and put all their chips on an all or nothing campaign to defeat health care and Obama’s presidency. It was an audacious gamble. They lost. In the end, they’ll walk away with nothing. The Republicans may gain some more seats in 2010 by their total obstruction, but the substantive policy defeat they’ve been dealt will last for decades.
[Emphasis mine]
Filed under: Conservatives, Government, Health Care, House, Media, Progressives, Senate | Tags: Abortion, Ben Nelson, Budget, CBO, Choice, Congress, Congressional Budget Office, Deficit, Democrats, Health, Health Care Reform, Nate Silver, Republicans, Ron Wyden
Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson–the final hold-out–finally gets on board with health care reform, giving Democrats the 60 votes they need to pass the bill through the Senate.
Here’s more on the Senate’s final health care compromise:
Jubilant Democrats locked in Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson as the 60th and decisive vote for historic health care legislation Saturday, putting President Barack Obama’s signature issue firmly on a path for Christmas Eve passage.
At the White House, Obama swiftly welcomed the breakthrough, saying, “After a nearly century-long struggle, we are on the cusp of making health care reform a reality in the United States of America.”
[...]
The Congressional Budget Office said the Senate bill would extend coverage to more than 30 million Americans who lack it. It also imposes new regulations to curb abuses of the insurance industry, and the president noted one last-minute addition would impose penalties on companies that “arbitrarily jack up prices” in advance of the legislation taking effect.
CBO analysts also said the legislation would cut federal deficits by $132 billion over 10 years and possibly much more in the subsequent decade.
[...]
At its core, the legislation would create a new insurance exchange where consumers could shop for affordable coverage that complied with new federal guidelines. Most Americans would be required to purchase insurance, with federal subsidies available to help defray the cost for lower and middle income individuals and families.
[Emphasis mine]
And Nate Silver notes how the new compromise is, in some ways, better than the previous Senate compromise:
Filed under: Conservatives, Government, Health Care, Media, Progressives, Senate | Tags: Bill Clinton, Congress, Democrats, Health, Health Care Reform, Paul Krugman, Republicans
Nobel laureate Paul Krugman writes in today’s New York Times:
A message to progressives: By all means, hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy. Declare that you’re disappointed in and/or disgusted with President Obama. Demand a change in Senate rules that, combined with the Republican strategy of total obstructionism, are in the process of making America ungovernable.
But meanwhile, pass the health care bill.
Yes, the filibuster-imposed need to get votes from “centrist” senators has led to a bill that falls a long way short of ideal. Worse, some of those senators seem motivated largely by a desire to protect the interests of insurance companies — with the possible exception of Mr. Lieberman, who seems motivated by sheer spite.
But let’s all take a deep breath, and consider just how much good this bill would do, if passed — and how much better it would be than anything that seemed possible just a few years ago. With all its flaws, the Senate health bill would be the biggest expansion of the social safety net since Medicare, greatly improving the lives of millions. Getting this bill would be much, much better than watching health care reform fail.
At its core, the bill would do two things. First, it would prohibit discrimination by insurance companies on the basis of medical condition or history: Americans could no longer be denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition, or have their insurance canceled when they get sick. Second, the bill would provide substantial financial aid to those who don’t get insurance through their employers, as well as tax breaks for small employers that do provide insurance.
All of this would be paid for in large part with the first serious effort ever to rein in rising health care costs.
Filed under: Conservatives, Government, Health Care, Progressives, Senate | Tags: Bernie Sanders, Congress, Democrats, Harry Reid, Health, Health Care Reform, Jim DeMint, Obstructionism, Republicans, Shame
The short version: GOP obstructionism, an around-the-clock schedule and a possible Christmas Eve vote.
Sen. Jim DeMint said Thursday he is prepared to use every procedural tool to delay a vote on the Democratic healthcare legislation.
That’s not surprising–the GOP just tried to force the Senate to read the entirety of the 767-page Sanders amendment, a farce that only ended when Sen. Sanders pulled his amendment from consideration.
Filed under: Government, Health Care, Progressives, Senate | Tags: Congress, Democrats, Health, Health Care Reform, Health Insurance, Nate Silver, SCHIP
As Nate Silver says, this picture is worth 1,000 words:
Filed under: Conservatives, Government, Health Care, House, Media, Progressives, Senate | Tags: 2006, Congress, Democrats, Elections, Ezra Klein, Harry Reid, Health, Health Care Reform, Joe Lieberman, Ned Lamont, Olympia Snowe, Primaries, public option
To move the process forward, Reid had three options. The first, many would say, was reconciliation. But that would have required going back to the committees to refashion a reconciliation bill, and going back to the House of Representatives so it could craft a reconciliation bill, and then going back through the votes. There wasn’t time for that, and even if there was, throwing the process so far back onto itself would have been an enormous risk.
The next was to cut a deal with Olympia Snowe. But Snowe had made it clear that part of any compromise with her was a deceleration in the bill’s momentum. “The more they try to drive this process in an unrealistic timeframe, the more reluctant I become about whether or not this can be doable in this timeframe that we’re talking about,” Snowe told reporters. “There’s always January.”
That left Joe Lieberman. And Lieberman’s price for signing onto the bill was the destruction of the public option and, unexpectedly, the Medicare buy-in provision. There would be no triggers, no opt-outs, no compromises. Lieberman swung the axe and cut his deal cleanly, killing not only the public option, but anything that looked even remotely like it. Some on the Hill remain worried that Lieberman will discover new points of contention in the coming days, as they believe he had signaled that he wouldn’t filibuster the Medicare buy-in. They worry whether his word is good. But assuming it is, he can provide the 60th vote Reid needs to move the bill by the end of next week, and keep health-care reform on some sort of schedule.
[Emphasis mine]
We all knew that the final health care bill was not going to be what progressives wanted because, unfortunately, the United States Congress just isn’t that progressive.
And maybe, no matter what, certain parts of the bill never would have made it–perhaps if it weren’t one Senator demanding cuts it would have been another.
Filed under: Breaking, Government, Progressives, Rights, The District | Tags: Adrian Fenty, Civil Rights, Connecticut, D.C., DC City Countil, Gay Marriage, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Same-Sex Marriage, Vermont, Washington
The DC City Council just voted 11-2 to legalize same-sex marriage.
The council had previously voted in favor of this measure; today’s vote was the final hurdle that legislation needed to clear in order to pass.
Now the bill heads to the desk of Mayor Adrian Fenty, who has already said he will sign it into law.
After that there will be a 30-day Congressional review period–once that has passed, the measure will officially become law.
Our nation’s capital joins NH, CT, VT, MA, and IA in legalizing same-sex marriage.
Filed under: Conservatives, Government, Health Care, Progressives, Senate | Tags: 2006, Capitulation, Congress, Connecticut, Health, Health Care Reform, Joe Lieberman, Ned Lamont, Shame, Spinelessness
We told you Joe Lieberman was bad news.
We told you he couldn’t be trusted. We told you that you should take the opportunity to replace him with a real Democrat. We told you that, if you re-elected him, he would continue stabbing Democrats in the back.
And heck, Connecticut’s Democratic voters agreed with us, handing Joe Lieberman a defeat in the Democratic primary. It looked like one of the worst Democrats in Congress was finally about to be forcibly retired.
But you didn’t listen. You told us that Lieberman was good enough, that he was “with us on everything but the war.” You encouraged him to run as a third-party candidate, you gave him money, you helped him wrangle the Republican votes that got him re-elected.
And what did Lieberman do? He continued stabbing Democrats in the back. And now, on health care reform, he’s stabbing both the Democratic Party and the American people in the back.
