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 …
What do tea parties and evangelicals have in common?
Tea parties and evangelicals parting ways?
A Politico story points to the growing divide between right wing evangelicals and the tea party movement, which lately has been up-staging the faithful as the darling of the GOP. Clearly, the two are strange bedfellows: evangelicals reluctantly got into politics in a big way in 2000, wooed by Karl Rove’s tactical promise that a born-again president would implement the two simple things the Christian right craves: outlawing abortion and preventing the spread of gay marriage. Over the course of eight years, they got exactly nothing: a temporary speed bump on stem cell research, a ban on distributing condoms in Africa … some incremental stuff on the rarest of abortion procedures. But on the whole, what evangelicals got from eight years of Bush, and six years of total Republican control of the federal government, plus a majority of governorships in the previous decade, was a red hot bowl of nothing.
Fast forward to 2010, and evangelicals have been pushed aside by a new GOP favorite: the tea party movement. Read more
Pelosi tells her members: brace yourselves for a healthcare vote
From Politico:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told her members Friday to brace themselves for a climatic health care vote as early as next week, warning them to clear their schedules for next weekend and promising to stay in session until the landmark vote, people present at the meeting told POLITICO. President Barack Obama has postponed an overseas trip until March 21, and Pelosi said, “I am delighted the president will be here for the passage of the bill. It will be historic.”
Here we go!
Charlie Crist’s salty Fox News interview
Maybe the stress of the campaign, and the polls are getting to Charlie Crist. But his interview this morning on Fox was kind of salty. Crist had some audio problems at the top of the interview, and then snapped at the (insert generic blonde Fox News Host here) for interrupting him. For her part, the Fox-y lady kept pressing Crist to explain just how he’d fallen so far behind Marco Rubio, and why he so foolishly accepted that stimulus money that every other governor accepted too, except without the hugging. Well Crist was in no mood for that. He cut her off a couple of times but eventually responded that people haven’t begun to look at Rubio’s record, which apparently is full of nasty tax hikes. Crist ended the interview on an up-note, telling the Fox-y lady how much fun it was to “play with their cameras.”
And just in case Camp Crist doubted that Fox is unfriendly territory, the network has forced Youtube to yank a DNC ad that mocked Marco Rubio for the “back wax” (or whatever he got for $134 at a chichy Miami salon with donor money. But as Media Matters points out, Fox doesn’t always mind political parties using its video: Read more
Godspeed, Harry Reid
Harry Reid and his wife, Landra.
It’s been a tough year-plus for Harry Reid, to say the least, made worse today by the car crash that injured his wife and daughter. Apparently, the injuries to Mrs. Reid were more serious, apparently, including a broken neck and back, but she’s not paralyzed, according to news reports, and is expected to recover. Reid’s daugter, lana Barringer, was released from the hospital earlier this evening with neck and face lcerations. Apparently, they were rear ended by a tractor trailer.
Here’s wishing Mrs. Reid a speedy recovery, and Senator Reid a bit of heavenly grace. And let’s try to stay classy, wingers. Well, I’m assuming Rush won’t be able to restrain himself tomorrow, but the rest of you behave …
Vote for the Worst strikes again?
Is Tim Urban this year's Sanjaya?
Let me start by saying that I’m aware that “American Idol” is a seriously cheesy show, and getting worse every year (I actually haven’t watched a full season since the one with Melinda Doolittle, and I’m not entirely proud of myself for watching it this season. And hey, I also watch “Lost” and next month I plan to start watching “Glee.” Other than that I pretty much stick with news and other more dignified programming, so don’t judge me…) Okay, now that we’re past that, is it possible that VoteForTheWorst.com really does have the power to influence the show? How else to explain how Tim Urban — perhaps the worst singer ever to make it this far (so much so that Ellen once asked if he can act, as an alternative to singing) — got into the top 12 and not Alex Lambert, who has a fantastic recording voice, even if not nerves of steel? Or Paige or the utterly unmemorable Katie Stevens, whose name I had to look up because she was so utterly unmemorable??? It’s hard to know if VFTW has the pull they think they do, but the result of this show is pretty bizarre otherwise: Read more
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