In case you missed it: the Alan Grayson comedy hour, ‘Wild Alaskan dingbat’ edition
Alan Grayson: funny always wins
Alan Grayson is a lot of things, including brash, in-your-face, down-to-earth, and funny as hell. RawStory presents his comedy stylings at Sarah Palin’s expense, which could have been a late night monologue. It all started when Palin knocked him during an Orlando appearance (I wonder how much she got paid…) saying she “got to meet quite a few candidates who are lining up in a contested primary who want to take out Alan Grayson” and adding: “what can you say about Alan Grayson? Piper is with me tonight, so I won’t say anything about Alan Grayson that can’t be said around children.” Badum-bum! Any of you folks from out of town? Grayson’s reply was much funnier: Read more
Mother has the votes on healthcare
If the healthcare vote in the House were held today, Speaker Nancy Pelosi would have the votes to pass it. Read more
The decline and fall of ‘Meet the Press’ – Newt Gingrich edition
I can hardly get through a whole episode of Meet the Press anymore, since Tim Russert passed and ceded the throne to Fox News contender David Gregory, whose legendary buddy act with George W. Bush somehow earned him the reputation of “tough Washington correspondent.” Gregory, or “Stretch,” as Dubya called him, has danced with Karl Rove, and rarely has met a Republican idea he doesn’t like. But you’d think that sitting in that chair would at least inspire him to ask the occasional follow-up question. So when former (disgraced) House Speaker Newt Gingrich said this about the Senate’s healthcare bill:
NEWT GINGRICH: … This is a bad bill, written in a horrible way, and the most, the most corrupt legislation I’ve seen in my lifetime.
… one might have expected a reaction something like this:
FICTIONAL DAVID GREGORY: Now hang on a second Mr. Speaker. During the 2003 House vote on the Medicare prescription drug bill, there were similar allegations of millions in lobbying money, back-room deal-making, and even bribery on the House floor to get that bill passed. Your successor, then-Speaker Dennis Hastert, presided over the longest roll-call in House history, and there were accusations that a Republican Congressman, Nick Smith of Michigan, had his son’s re-election threatened in order to secure his vote. How can you criticize the Democrats now, given that history?
Unfortunately, we’re dealing with Real David, not Fictional David. And Real David simply dropped the matter and pivoted to a totally new question for Andrea Mitchell (who didn’t bring it up either. Go figure.) Read more
… or how I stopped fighting and learned to deal with healthcare reform
Maybe I’ve just been beaten down by the wonks, or mugged by reality … Maybe I’m uncomfortable with the idea of being on the same side of any issue with the odd combination of Jane Hamsher, Grover Norquist and Fox News … Or maybe I understand enough about politics to know when a fight is over. But I can say today, with complete certainty — the fight over liberal versus “moderate” healthcare reform is most decidedly over. And it’s time we progressives learned to accept it. Read more
Senate passes healthcare reform
The Senate votes on Christmas Eve for the first time in 114 years, and passes the health reform bill 60-39 (the Senate’s very own Don Quixote, Dan Burton, was absent.) Watch:
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Afterward, the president praised the bill. Video and full remarks when you Read more
Some morning glory for Little Orphan Healthcare Bill
Before you get out of bed this morning, the Senate will have held a vote to finally, for the love of God, end our long national nightmare by finally voting on healthcare reform. Joe Biden will be there — the better to create “historic moment”-type pictures to use on the 2010 campaign trail. There will be sober gaveling in of votes, followed by Democrats hugging and maybe even tearing up as they mark a hard-won victory that has eluded seven presidents and seven congresses (before they make the dash for the airport) … except that they won’t have produced anything the president can actually sign anytime soon. That will have to wait until February … or whenever … while the Senate searches for new and creative potions with which to sweeten the rotten, Lieberman-scented gruel they’re shoving down the throats of liberal members of the House.
Public option? Forget about it. Taxing the wealthy? Let it go, children. Mandates are as stupid as curing homelessness by mandating that everyone buy a house? Did I say that? (BTW, most healthcare reform experts prefer Obama’s current position over his campaign version…) Read more
The presidents Really Big Healthcare Pitch, part two (Public option? What public option?)
President Obama never promised you a rose garden ... or a public option ...
President Obama is putting on the hard sell to convince Americans to love health reform, and rather than seeking to soothe the base, he’s employing a rather different strategy: denying he ever promised health reform with a public option. Read more
Bernie keeps it real: the insurance cos are laughing all the way to the bank
On Morning Joe just before the close, Sen. Bernie Sanders made it plain: “the insurance companies and the drug companies are going to make out like bandits,” under the Senate’s version of healthcare “reform,” and he added, “they’re laughing all the way to the bank.” Asked how the American people are supposed to take that, Sanders continued to keep it real: “let me break it to you,” he said. “Big money interests control the United States Congress.” Still, Sanders said passing the bill is better than nothing, since at least under the health reform bill fewer people will die for lack of insurance. And he said it was even worse under Republicans.
Finally, an honest man in the Senate.
Meanwhile, the insurance and drug lobbies aren’t the only ones buying Senators. Washington Sketchy introduces us to what could be a contender for the phrase of the year: “cash for cloture,” plus other fun phrases Republicans are using to dis the Senate bill. (For Floridians, for instance, there’s “Gator aid…” seriously … To watch Bernie in action, Read more
Healthcare redux: Sheldon’s smackdown, “Kill Bill” vol. 3, the legacy express
In case you missed it: Sen. Sheldon White House delivered a verbal assault against his Republican colleagues during the midnight healthcare debate Monday, saying a “day of reckoning” is coming for those who lied about the bill. Watch:
Meanwhile, the Daily Beast rounds up the latest arguments and counter-arguments over the bill. A sampling:
As the Senate gears up for the second of three 60-vote hurdles on Tuesday morning, many liberals, led by Jane Hamsher at FireDogLake, are clamoring: to kill the bill. Hamsher’s “Top 10 Reasons to Kill the Senate Health Care Bill” has been circulating, and at The Washington Post, Ezra Klein responds point by point. Hamsher, Klein points out, both criticizes for doing too little to control costs and then also takes aim at some of its cost-controlling measures. At the Wonk Room, meanwhile, a handy chart lays out what things will look like with and without reform.
At the WaPo, in a piece by Robert Samuelson, the phrase of the day is “legacy building,” as Samuelson accuses the president of pursuing healthcare reform for the purposes of stroking his own outsized ego (and says he’s going to be sorry). UPDATE: On second thought, never mind. The Samuelson piece sounded like a relatively credible, if a bit right wing, opinion piece, until he cited the insurance company-owned Lewin Group as the source for his predictions. So much for credibility. WaPo, what’s up? (The folks at Tapped take Samuelson down, but good.) If you’re surfing in the WaPo direction, better to stick with Ezra Klein, who offers a stinging, thorough rebuttal to Jane Hamsher’s “kill bill” idea.
Obama’s Really Big Healthcare Pitch
The White House has started its big push to polish up the Senate healthcare bill. From an email to the members of Organizing for America, from the desk of the POTUS:
After a nearly century-long struggle, we are now on the cusp of making health insurance reform a reality in the United States of America. Read more
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