The Meek campaign’s ongoing, strange relationship with the news cycle’
When everybody else is talking about healthcare, they’re doing NASCAR … State media fixated on AMEXgate? They hold a conference call with reporters (today) to announce, again, that they’re getting really really close on their petition drive (the one bit of news they did make on the call was that after all of this, they might wind up paying the $10,000 filing fee anyway, in case some of the petitions are challenged by Republicans.) And less than a week after Israel punks the United States by announcing new settlements on the same day Joe Biden arrives to talk peace, prompting even Israel’s closest friends to wonder what they’re thinking, and even as the Obama administration continues to rebuke Bibi Netanyahu and company and even demand a cancellation of the East Jerusalem provocation, Team Meek forwards around an op-ed in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that is, to say the least, off key. Read more
Rubio’s brand dented with conservatives, Hispanics?
Marco says: "It's my money!" ... only it's not.
I had lunch with a prominent member of South Florida’s Hispanic community not too long ago, who told me, to my surprise, that Marco Rubio has a Cuban problem. On Spanish language radio, apparently (and this person appears on it regularly,) he is often criticized for appearing to deliberately take stands harmful to fellow Latinos just to win over white conservatives, including opposing immigration reform (a priority for Hispanic elected officials), calling Ronald Reagan’s 1986 amnesty grant a mistake, and coming out against counting illegal immigrants in the Census, a strange position that makes xenophobes happy, but which if implemented, would cost Florida billions of dollars.
Indeed, being a black or brown conservative often seems to require making repeated and increasingly vigorous demonstrations of disdain for one’s own ethnic group. Blacks who vehemently oppose affirmative action and Latinos who oppose immigration reform are particularly prized by the right. Clarence Thomas is beloved by white right wingers as much because he is hostile to what they see as the “race hustling” of traditional black leaders as for his Supreme Court rulings (which are just like Tony Scalia’s anyway.) Rubio, by taking hard-right stands on things like immigration, is positioning himself roughly where Tom Tancredo is on issues, which is good for his push-button poll numbers, but which has also hurt him, according to those same (not very sound, but highly media-shiny) polls, with Hispanics, who right now prefer either Charlie Crist or Kendrick Meek, to one of their own. So could Rubio be more properly characterized as the Hispanic Clarence Thomas, rather than the Hispanic Barack Obama? (Thomas’ wife is now a tea partier, so the similarities are growing.)
A piece in the National Journal’s Burn After Reading blog suggests his troubles might be real: Read more
This day in crazy: Michelle Bachmann tells her followers to disobey healthcare law
First she urged her followers to slit their wrists and not to fill out the Census (before she figured out that such purposeful and mythical depopulation could cause her district to disappear) … And if and when healthcare reform becomes law, Michelle Bachmann will lead her faithful down the path to IRS fines, the way Jim Jones led his to slaughter. Read more
This day in ‘fair and balanced’ — Fox News makes Pelosi a ‘monster’?
Who's Fox calling a "monster"?
Notice anything strange about the above picture? While Googling for a picture of House and Senate leadership for a post about healthcare reform, I happened to come across this pic that was posted as part of this Fox News story on how resignations were complicating Democrats’ 2010 election picture. And while I couldn’t find anything about “monsters” in the story, the picture, an AP photo that’s also not about “monsters,” was given this title by the news editor: “pelosi_clyburn_110709_monster_397×224.jpg.” What’s that all about? I used to work as an online news editor, and I can tell you, NBC wouldn’t have been amused if we had, say, created news photos with a Republican lawmaker, let alone a senior one or a female one, with “monster” in the title. I guess the standards are just a little bit different at “fair and balanced” Fox News … Read more
Healthcare countdown: do they or don’t they (have the votes)?
House and Senate leadership: Clyburn, Hoyer, Reid, Pelosi, Schumer and Van Hollen
Last week in The Hill, Speaker Pelosi seemed to say she has the votes needed to pass healthcare. On Sunday, House whip James Clyburn said they don’t (yet). John Boehner seconds Clyburn (except for the “not yet” part,) but the White House says it’s going to pass (with Axelrod adding “make my day,” in response to GOP threats to run on repeal.) It’s almost confusing enough to make you listen to Lawrence O’Donnell, who is still scarred by the Clinton healthcare flop and believes that nothing, and I do mean nothing, can pass. Ever. … although he refused to put money on it this morning on “Morning Joe.” Also during the show, Dylan Ratigan made the excellent point that if Democrats are going to put their jobs on the line anyway, they should have done so for a stronger, more game-changing bill. Read more
Keith Olbermann’s dad passes away
You can leave your condolences for him here.
Uh-oh Rubio …
Marco Rubio: It's good to be the speaker.
The latest St. Pete Times/Miami Herald scoopola details Marco Rubio’s lifestyle-padding through what sure looks like a multi-tiered political slush fund. This time, Rubio is tagged for allegedly using his political committees to pay his wife and several members of his family. From the story (which was forwarded around by both the Crist campaign and the Florida Democratic Party, with the former dubbing the story “the Rubio hustle…”): Read more
DNC hits Republicans on scandals
Thank you, DNC. Just when I was about to cut up my party membership … the Democratic wing of the Democratic party fires back at the Republicans on scandals. (Even if they did forget Larry Craig and GOP darling Scott Brown …)
Meanwhile, Gawker has more about the GOP-Democratic scandal double standard. Answer: because Democrats are too punkdafied to stand up for their own, and Republicans are too amoral and too driven for power at all costs not to stand up for theirs.
Oh for chrissakes, Democrats … Stop hiding behind Nancy Pelosi on the public option!
We all know the back story by now. Senate Democrats were too cowardly to include the public option in their bill. Now, Dick Durbin, who supposedly wants to be majority leader someday (keep dreaming, Dick …) enabled by the media, including the liberal blogosphere, is throwing passage of the public option back to Nancy Pelosi, who has pushed through every component of the Obama agenda, including the public option, with not a whit of help from the Senate, or the White House, for that matter (which by the way, cut a deal with hospital lobbyists last year to kill the public option). This has got to be the one of most cowardly statements I’ve ever heard from a politician:
Durbin’s spokesman said this: “I want to be crystal clear: Sen. Durbin and the rest of the Senate Leadership will be aggressively whipping FOR the public option if it is included in the reconciliation bill the House sends over.”
Sorry, I should have said, from a politician’s spokesman. Durbin doesn’t even have the stones to say it himself. This is why Democrats lose. They’re so scared of their own shadows, they can’t even lead on their own stated principles. 
Nancy Pelosi was absolutely right to throw it back at the Senate, and it’s completely unfair for anyone to throw the blame for the imminent death of the public option on the Speaker, as just about everyone is trying to do. Pelosi is a convenient foil, and it’s easy for the lazy media to make her the villain, again … But let’s be honest for a second. There is not equal blame to go around here. The Senate is the problem. They are what’s standing between the Democrats and credibility with the American people, and even with a majority of Democrats, this one included. And second only to them is the White House. I can almost picture the lot of them, cowering behind Mother Nancy’s skirts, peeping around the sides of her to see if there are any mean old Republicans there waiting to jump out and get them. What, does she have to tuck you punks into bed every night, too?
Here is the bottom line, and it’s important to get this if you don’t already.
If Nancy Pelosi were to put the public option in her priority list for the reconciliation bill, and then Durbin was unable to “whip the votes for it,” there’s a possibility that just including the option could bring down the entire reconciliation bill. Then, the Senate would have had it both ways — they’d get their hot mess of a bill, with all of their goodies in it, signed into law; they would have technically lived up to the terms of their agreement with the House, but as usual, it’s the House members who would be stuck with a bill they won’t be able to defend with the “cornhusker compromise” still in place. Speaker Pelosi would be a fool to take that gamble on be half of her members. She wants to send a reconciliation request to the Senate that’s GUARANTEED TO PASS. That’s the only way she can credibly ask her members to walk the plank, yet again, for the untrustworthy, useless Senate and the feckless White House.
Cross-posted at Talking Points Memo.
Kitty discovers the truth about Medicare Part D
Have you noticed how many of Charlie Crist’s friends are suddenly all over TV? Who are the equivalent for Marco Rubio, besides Jim DeMint and the tea party people…? Anyhoo, Florida Temp Senator George LeMieux was just on “Hardball,” and Chuck Todd, sitting in for Chris, stumped him by informing LeMieux, perhaps for the first time, that Medicare Advantage is not Medicare. It’s a private insurance product that gets taxpayer subsidies, so if you cut the subsidies, you’re not cutting Medicare, you’re just giving less money to insurance companies. Cue the “ums…” LeMieux wouldn’t say straight out that Marco Rubio is qualified for the Senate, and he stood by his friend Charlie Crist. Not much other news there, but someone ought to forward Kitty a description of Part D … Best line of the segment: Chris Cillizza: nobody knows Charlie Crist like George LeMieux. He also made the observation that Crist may be struggling without his chief strategist, who is the equivalent of the governor’s Karl Rove. Interesting point …
Connect
Book deals
Links
Finalist: Best Liberal Blog
Poll
Loading ...
