Healthcare countdown
The Huffpo has the rolling whip count … The Hill has one too … btw count Florida’s Alan Boyd (a previous “no”) as a “yes.” That makes four no-to-yes flips today (the others are Engel of NY, pro-life Ellsworth and Boccieri of Ohio)
Obama gave his rousing closing argument today, in advance of a possible high noon vote on Sunday, and the theme was patriotism.
Meanwhile, the consequences of voting no appear to be growing more dire than the consequences of voting yes. Rep. Mike Acuri, who needed all the union help he could get to win his upstate New York seat the last go-round, won’t have it this time, but he will have a third party challenger, thanks to his decision to vote against the bill. SEIU isn’t playing around.
Harry Reid is promising to revisit the public option in the Senate in the coming months, but Alan Grayson is still pushing his own bill.
Did Republican leaders, including John Boehner, circulate a fake memo to try and embarrass Democrats on the healthcare “doc fix?”
Reconciliation bill posted, and it scores!
Politico has a decent summary of the newly posted reconciliation bill (plus the full text) with the key changes it makes to the Senate legislation. The CBO score looks good, and the vote is expected on Sunday, with the president delaying his Asia trip to wait for the moment. As we get closer, right wingers are getting nuttier and nuttier, with Glenn Beck and his wacked out real-life counterpart Steve King saying the Sunday vote is “an affront to God,” and Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma issuing the most convoluted threat in modern American political history. Democrats shouldn’t be scared of these guys, they should be laughing at them. It’s getting to the point where you have to use words like “pathetic,” “desperate” and “bizarre.”
Healthcare CBO score released with good news for Dems
From the New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn:
Democrats in the administration and Congress have agreed on a set of amendments to the Senate health care bill. And, according to House leadership, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is certifying that the amendments will reduce the deficit. That should fulfill the parliamentary requirements of the reconciliation process, satisfy the demands of many nervous Democrats, and clear the way for the House to vote on health care reform. Read more
Morning clicks: orange is the new bank, Stupak vs the nuns, Charlie advises Kendrick
If it’s Thursday, it must be time for an orange alert! John “moneybags” Boehner had some sage advice for his banker friends when he spoke before an enthusiastic crowd at an American Bankers Association “government relations” (that’s lobbying to you) summit: “don’t let those little punk staffers take advantage of you and stand up for yourselves.” Yeah, bankers, fight the power! Boehner plans to try and stall Wall Street reform in the House for at least a year.
Well that went well … President Obama finally appeared on one of Fox’s “news” programs … and a hockey game broke out.
Meanwhile, back in the sunshine state, Charlie Crist has some advice for Kendrick Meek that he’s offering purely for effect since he knows Meek won’t take it, and really what’s the point? He’s urging the Miami Democrat to vote against the healthcare bill (as if). He even wrote Kendrick a letter about it! Well, at least it makes Charlie sound more “Republican,” meaning devoid of policy solutions but loyal to the “party of no” strategy, which should please, well … no one who hates Charlie Crist. Good work!
The vote in question will probably happen Sunday, after the 72 hour waiting period Speaker Pelosi has called for following release of the bill’s CBO score. Read more
Shameless: Republicans’ self-executing hypocrisy rule
Norm Ornstein says it all:
… I can’t recall a level of feigned indignation nearly as great as what we are seeing now from congressional Republicans and their acolytes at the Wall Street Journal, and on blogs, talk radio, and cable news. It reached a ridiculous level of misinformation and disinformation over the use of reconciliation, and now threatens to top that level over the projected use of a self-executing rule by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Read more
Getting to ‘yes’: Dennis Kucinich will vote for healthcare reform
One by one, the “kill the bill” Democrats (myself included) have walked back from the precipice, deciding that dumping the president this early in his term would take the party down in a giant, ugly cataclysm of electoral failure, leaving Republicans free to take over Washington, repeal Medicare, privatize Social Security, impeach Barack Obama (they’ll come up with the crime later), reinstate torture, and maybe even invade Iran. Well, ok maybe it’s not that dire (yet) but anti-mandate liberals are definitely walking back, including Howard Dean, Keith Olbermann, Markos Moulitsas and now, Dennis Kucinich, who announced this morning that indeed he will vote for the reconciliation bill, even without the public option. Watch:
…to which the ever-mannerly Obama says, “thank you.” This is an important move for Kucinich, who takes a potential primary issue off the table (clearly, he didn’t have the stomach to become the Ralph Nader of helathcare.) And it gets Mother Nancy one step closer to 216, and maybe more, since Kucinich’s switch will provide cover for other liberal House members who might have held out for the public option. FDL’s whip count has it razor close, but a go if no other Dems switch to “no.”
UPDATE: Jane Hamsher of FDL is not amused, and reports that Kucinich will return money raised for Democrats including him who pledged to vote against any bill without a public option.
UPDATE 2: Kucinich’s flip-flop may have also gotten him off MoveOn’s target list.
Morning clicks: healthcare ‘24′, Rubio’s unwanted attention
A new website brings back the wolf-sheep, demons not included
Happy St. Patrick’s Day er’rybody! Here’s what’s good this morning:
With the clock ticking down to the moment the House takes the plunge on a healthcare vote, Democrats in Washington have their White house talking points (which, typical of this White House, are mild mannered, lawyerly and not at all mean to Republicans) plus a new NBC News/WSJ poll that shows that just as many voters (about a third) would punish their member of Congress for voting against the bill as would punish their member of Congress for voting for it. And the poll found the public evenly split, 46%-45% on whether the current healthcare bill should or shouldn’t pass.
Meanwhile, for all the media chatter about Democrats facing a tsunami in November, Gallup finds Democrats hanging on to a slim lead among registered voters in the November horse race.
Dennis Kucinich is widely expected to launch his Big Cave on healthcare today, proving that a primary threat is a powerful thing, even more powerful than Dennis Kucinich’s lifelong ideological battle for single payer. Or maybe it was the ride on Air Force One?
Speaking of primaries, progressives/liberals are lining up behind Bart Stupak’s Democratic challenger, who Michael Moore (a Stupak constituent) endorsed on the air on “Countdown” Monday. Could Stupak jump parties and run as a Republican or Independent?
And the wingers are rolling out a new strategy to try and win over Americans to their point of view on healthcare (namely, if you can’t afford it, it sure sucks to be you…) and that strategy is: attack 11-year-old boys with dead mothers. Classy.
Speaking of wingers, why did CNN bother to put Lou Dobbs out to pasture, only to hire someone who’s even more racist and unhinged? I’m thinking Color of Change may have to switch cable targets.
Back to Florida, where Charlie Crist is questioning Marco Rubio’s “character,” and a new website is questioning Rubio’s everything else. MarcoRubioSucks.com was registered by a Miami filmmaker named Justin Routt, who seems to be coming from a conservative point of view. The site contains a rundown of Rubio’s embarrassing spending drama, plus this ALL CAPS warning to the party faithful:
YOU HAVE TO ASK YOURSELF, IS THIS REALLY THE TYPE OF PERSON WE WANT IN OFFICE?
JUST BECAUSE RUBIO SAYS HE DOES NOT LIKE OBAMA, OR THE WAY THE COUNTRY IS HEADING, IS ANTI-ABORTION, HAS PRO-FAMILY VALUES, ETC., DOESN’T MEAN HE ISN’T A CORRUPT POLITICIAN.
THE EVIDENCE PROVES MARCO RUBIO IS CORRUPT.
IF YOU CARE ABOUT THIS COUNTRY AND THE DIRECTION IT IS HEADING, DO NOT ELECT MARCO RUBIO OR YOU WILL PUT A CORRUPT PERSON IN OFFICE WHO WILL CONTINUE TO LEAD THIS COUNTRY DOWN-HILL.
There’s also a wolf dressed as a sheep on the site, but thankfully, it’s eyes are not glowing red.
Also on the web: what’s with all the suicides at Cornell?
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
Lawrence O’Donnell makes the case for not passing healthcare reform
Lawrence O'Donnell: this too shall not pass ... probably
Lawrence O’Donnell has been the bitter pill of “Morning Joe” lately, explaining ad nauseum, in his uniquely pompous, Lawrence O’Donnell style, why the healthcare reform bill steamrolling its way through the House and Senate even as we speak, probably (though not definitely) will not pass. O’Donnell, who considers himself a scholar of arcane Senate procedure, having worked for the Senate finance committee like 100 years ago, says the procedures being considered in the House, to “deem the Senate bill passed” and then vote on the reconciliation package, has never been done, and therefore will probably not be able to be done, though he isn’t making any predictions, unless you consider “it’s never been done and probably therefore will not be done” a prediction. That said, this morning, we finally got to the bottom of Lawrence’s peevishness on the issue. He doesn’t think the bill should pass. Where some viewers might have thought he is with Joe Scarborough in not wanting it, he’s actually with Dennis Kucinich. 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
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