This blog will discuss many issues pertaining to current events and encourages others to discuss and do the same. The goal is to raise the level of discourse and hopefully have a good time sharing thoughts and ideas.
The House of Representatives has passed the health care reform legislation by a vote of 219-210 late Sunday evening.
This final vote brings to a close a long debate that has taken place over the last year, but for many, the hard work is just beginning. Many activists are adamant that this legislation should be the starting point for more comprehensive and lasting reforms to the health care system. Jane Hamsher is one such activist and has posted a "mythbusting" piece about what this legislation does and doesn't do. Hamsher states:
The Firedoglake health care team has been covering the debate in congress since it began last year. The health care bill will come up for a vote in the House on Sunday, and as Nancy Pelosi works to wrangle votes, we’ve been running a detailed whip count on where every member of Congress stands, updated throughout the day.
We’ve also taken a detailed look at the bill, and have come up with 18 often stated myths about this health care reform bill.
Real health care reform is the thing we’ve fought for from the start. It is desperately needed. But this bill falls short on many levels, and hurts many people more than it helps.
You can click here for a PDF version of the "18 myths" that Hamsher references in her post.
As Democrats revel in the passage of this historic legislation tonight, Republicans went down swinging. Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) even went so far as to shout "Hell No" during the end of the period for debate:
After the initial passage of the legislation, members of the House were to vote on a Republican motion to recommit the bill over the issue of Federal funding for abortion. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) is a pro-life Democrat who had initially objected to this bill's so-called inclusion of Federal funding for abortions, but rose to urge members of the House to vote against recommitting the bill based upon this issue. As Stupak was making his remarks, there was a call for order and then you could hear someone yell out, calling Stupak a "baby killer". Here is the video:
As of this writing it is not clear which member of the House shouted this at Stupak. It was initially reported that the shouter was Rep. Tom Campbell (R-CA), but he was quick to say that he was not the culprit. He did give Talking Points Memo a few more clues to who may have been responsible:
Christina also reports that Rep. Tom Campbell (R-CA) told reporters that the "baby killer" was "clear as a bell."
I didn't look but it came from the floor, behind me and to the left.
And this:
It was close enough I decided not to turn around and look. ... It was in my area. I thought it was a southern accent.
Campbell returned a few moments later and said, "other people agree with me it was someone with a southern accent."
Campbell also said that some of the Republicans on the floor recognized the voice but would not say who it was.
The California Republican then came out again -- a third time -- and told reporters that "that is where the Texans sit. Californians are in one row, Texans sit behind us. I am being told it's a Texan. The people who know won't give it up."
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) has been adamant in his support for the inclusion of a strong public option in the health care legislation. From October, 2009:
He's also a longtime advocate of health care for children and the poor – and, as Congress moves toward its moment of truth on health care, perhaps the most earnest, dogged Senate champion of a nationwide public health insurance plan to compete with private insurance companies.
"I will not relent on that. That's the only way to go," Rockefeller told me in an interview. "There's got to be a safe harbor."
Now that the Public Option has made a comeback and actually has a chance to pass the Senate via reconciliation, Rockefeller has made a surprising reversal:
"I'm probably not going to vote for that," Rockefeller said. "I don't think the timing of it is very good."
Earlier in the evening, in a brief interview with TPMDC, Rockefeller expressed concern that playing hardball with the public option at this time could imperil reform, but he didn't say he'd oppose it.
"I don't know, I think the timing of the public option piece of legislation, which is not in what the President's going to suggest at the summit I think, doing that could create a lot of turbulence when we don't need it," Rockefeller told me.
To recap, when it looked like the Public Option was on life-support and had a slim chance of passage, Rockefeller supported it to the fullest. Now that the Public Option has a legitimate chance of passing, Rockefeller doesn't think he will vote for it and may even vote against it. Per usual, Glenn Greenwald sums it up nicely:
This is what the Democratic Party does; it's who they are. They're willing to feign support for anything their voters want just as long as there's no chance that they can pass it. They won control of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections by pretending they wanted to compel an end to the Iraq War and Bush surveillance and interrogation abuses because they knew they would not actually do so; and indeed, once they were given the majority, the Democratic-controlled Congress continued to fund the war without conditions, to legalize Bush's eavesdropping program, and to do nothing to stop Bush's habeas and interrogation abuses ("Gosh, what can we do? We just don't have 60 votes).
[...]
Basically, this is how things have progressed:
Progressives: We want a public option!
Democrats/WH: We agree with you totally! Unfortunately, while we have 50 votes for it, we just don't have 60, so we can't have it. Gosh darn that filibuster rule.
Progressives: But you can use reconciliation like Bush did so often, and then you only need 50 votes.
Filbuster reform advocates/Obama loyalists: Hey progressives, don't be stupid! Be pragmatic. It's not realistic or Serious to use reconciliation to pass health care reform. None of this their fault. It's the fault of the filibuster. The White House wishes so badly that it could pass all these great progressive bills, but they're powerless, and they just can't get 60 votes to do it.
[Month later]
Progressives: Hey, great! Now that you're going to pass the bill through reconciliation after all, you can include the public option that both you and we love, because you only need 50 votes, and you've said all year you have that!
Democrats/WH: No. We don't have 50 votes for that (look at Jay Rockefeller). Besides, it's not the right time for the public option. The public option only polls at 65%, so it might make our health care bill -- which polls at 35% -- unpopular. Also, the public option and reconciliation are too partisan, so we're going to go ahead and pass our industry-approved bill instead . . . on a strict party line vote.
This absurd dance does little for the millions of people without affordable health care coverage and will end up doing very little to fundamentally reform the system. Partly to blame for this mess is the filibuster which has proved to not only be a shield for the Democrats to hide behind, but also as a weapon for the Republicans to enact "minority rule". The Democrats talk tough and adopt populist views when they know they can not pass legislation due to the Republican threat of a filibuster. Then, when it becomes clear that the legislation can be passed through other means, those same Democrats amend their populist positions to appeal to the corporatist interests and avoid backlash.
All of this leads to partisan bickering and nothing productive getting accomplished. The best part is that no one wants to be accountable for standing behind policies that may not mesh well with the status quo.
While the Democrats continue to decide that they really don't want the public option (now that it has a chance of passing), Republicans continue to show even more evidence that their vision for America is to oppose anything that comes out of the Obama Administration.
The most recent example of this strategy is displayed through more hypocrisy by Rep. John Boehner (R-OH). Let's flash back to October, 2009 when Boehner criticized the Health Care legislation for being too long:
Fast forward to yesterday when President Obama released his own legislation which was presented in this eleven-page format. Boehner's response through his spokesman:
"The White House's 'plan' consists of an 11-page outline, which has not been scored by the Congressional Budget Office or posted online as legislative text. So they want to reorganize one-sixth of the United States' economy with a document shorter than a comic book, and they're complaining that they can't find our plan on their own website? C'mon."
First the bill is too long and now, too short. Seems like the Obama Administration just can't win doesn't it? Well, that is precisely the point. Remember back in September of 2008 when former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced his three-page TARP plan? Boehner didn't seem to have much to say about the length of that plan and even rejected items that Democrats wanted to include saying:
“We need to keep it clean, simple, move it through the House and Senate, get it on the president’s desk so [Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson] can in fact intervene as quickly as possible.”
With Democrats being disingenuous and Republicans determined to oppose everything, it does not look hopeful for robust health care reform to come out of such a troubled process.
Part of the responsibility of the media has been and should always be to call out those in power when their rhetoric does not align with the truth. This also includes moments when the rhetoric of those in power is hypocritical in its very nature. It is no secret that this is an exception in the so-called "mainstream media" these days, but you have to give credit where credit is due.
It is because of this that Rachel Maddow gets another "thumbs up" for her coverage of how certain members of the Republican Party have railed against President Obama's stimulus plan, while at the same time graciously accepting stimulus money. Watch:
Hell, the Washington Times even did a piece on this the other day. Maddow makes a point toward the end of her piece that is dead on. The behavior of the Republicans on the issue of the stimulus funds is a prime example that policy is not their focus. Their focus is on opposing anything and everything that the President and that the Democratic leadership endorse. This holds true even for policies that Republicans initially proposed and that they even think are good policies. It matters not when all you are doing is playing politics.
If the Democrats continue to try and reach out to Republicans and if President Obama continues to strive for bipartisan solutions to the problems that face this nation, I think we all know how that will turn out. The Republicans continually show that they are not interested in agreement, cooperation, or honest debate on any of the issues that have come before them. They have (and will continue to) use the filibuster to oppose legislation and will run on this kind of opposition in 2010 and 2012. If the Democrats don't get this by now, then I don't hold out much hope for meaningful legislation to be passed in the near future.
Remember yesterday, when I talked about how Democrats need to pay attention to populist views in order to not suffer the same defeats like we just saw in Massachusetts?
Well, it looks like on the issue of health care reform, the Democrats are tucking their tail between their legs and putting the issue on the back-burner:
"I don't see the votes for it at this time," Pelosi said. "The members have been very clear in our caucus about the fact that they didn't like it before it had the Nebraska provision and some of the other provisions that are unpalatable to them."
"In every meeting that we have had, there would be nothing to give me any thought that that bill could pass right now the way that it is," she said. "There isn't a market right now for proceeding with the full bill unless some big changes are made."
Fairly ambiguous especially considering that she goes on to say that "we have to get a bill passed". While her statement makes mention of "big changes" that need to be made, we have come so far in the wrong direction that it is hard to view her comments as anything other than applying the brakes to the process.
Politically, I don't see how this can be a smart move. Not only for the reasoning that I mentioned yesterday, but because this is surely going to give the tea-party crowd as well as the GOP a leg-up.
From a practical standpoint, the current legislation is not good and needs a lot of work to repair the damage that was done to it when it was in the Senate. If the Democrats are serious about doubling their efforts to make this legislation better, then great, but it would simply be naive to expect that conclusion from all that we have seen take place thus far. If they are really going to put this issue on indefinite hold, then the last several months can only be viewed as a giant waste of time.
There is plenty of Monday morning quarterbacking going on after Scott Brown (R-MA) won the Massachusetts Senate-seat of the late Ted Kennedy (D-MA). I am seeing post after post of what this means for Democrats, what this means for Republicans, and what this means for the health care legislation that is currently pending in Congress.
I wanted to share a couple of viewpoints that I thought were insightful and productive in moving this discussion forward. The first is from Jon Walker over at Firedoglake. He argues that Democrats simply cannot run on Republican obstructionism and expect to win. They have to do something productive:
Democrats control everything in Washington right now. They control the White House. They have a huge margins in the House and in the Senate. Democrats have larger margins in both chambers than any party has had for decades. They have zero excuses for failing to deliver. Americans will not find some nonsense about having only 59 Senate seats as an acceptable excuse for failing to accomplish anything. If Democrats think they can win in 2010 by running against Republican obstructionism, they will lose badly.
[...]
The party in power must run on their accomplishments and point to those accomplishments as a down payment on other promises they will fullfill if they are allowed to stay in power. You must deliver something to the voters and hope they like it. If Democrats can’t run on their record of passing legislation that makes positive change in people’s lives, they will suffer terribly in 2010.
Though this point seems obvious, I am seeing post after post that fails to acknowledge this point. Candidates in the Democratic Party ran on change and they ran on running Washington in a different way. When health care reform gets sold out to lobbyists and big Pharma, it is obvious that nothing "new and different" is being accomplished. Is it any shock that this is a contributing factor to the loss of this Senate-seat?
Unless the Democrats move aggressively to right the perception that they are the party of backroom deals and massive corporate bailouts, 2010 will be more of the same. But there will certainly be no shortage of those ready to extract the wrong lessons from the Coakley loss.
Joe Lieberman, Mr. 31%, says it’s a sign that people “don’t like all the partisanship and deal-making here in Washington” and that “they’re really skeptical about this health care bill.” He doesn’t mention that it’s his health care bill they don’t like, or the fact that the bill was made unpopular as the price of his vote.
A new FDL/SurveyUSA poll of NY-01 shows how Lieberman’s bill is affecting the race in that district, one of many that the Democrats are at risk of losing in the next election. Incumbent Tim Bishop would have a narrow lead over GOP challenger Randy Altschuler if the race were held today in a contest that was rated “lean Democratic” by Cook’s Political Report.
People were pretty evenly split when asked if they supported a bill with a mandate to buy private insurance, with 50% saying it’s a good idea and 44% saying it’s a bad idea. Support fell dramatically when they were told that they would be fined up to 2% of their income for failure to comply, with 40% saying it’s a good idea and 57% saying it’s a bad idea. But when the option to buy into a government-run Medicare program was added, 63% of likely voters (66% of independents) supported it and 33% opposed even with the fine. Even support among Republicans shot up 23%.
People are skeptical of this health care bill, but it should not be interpreted that people are skeptical of health care reform. The numbers that Hamsher points to are clear. People want real and meaningful reforms to the system. What people do not want is the status quo complete with more kickbacks to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. This is what the Blue Dogs have pushed for and this is what the Obama Administration has compromised on.
The results of this election should indeed act as a wake-up call to the party, but it should not be a call to abandon all hope of meaningful legislative policy because they are scared to lose their seat. It should be a wake-up call to muster the political courage to adopt populist policies instead of staying aligned with the corporate interests who push for the status quo. If we continue to have more of the same, the political landscape is going to shift very rapidly and Massachusetts will be viewed as a precursor.
Meghan McCain has a fun new piece up at the Daily Beast today on RNC Chairman Michael Steele.
She begins her piece by saying that Steele is "alarmingly immature", "indecisive", and has had "...one snafu after another" giving the impression that he is "disorganized" and "full of mixed messages". McCain points to Steele's comments about how he "didn't seek" the Chairmanship and contrasts them with earlier quotes where Steele indicated that he wanted the job and was ready to lead. Pretty honest critique from a fellow Republican right?
Not so fast:
But let’s hold off on the firing squads. He’s had his role for only one year, and, like the rest of the party, is still adjusting and struggling to find his identity. I understand from personal experience how hard it is to be criticized by fellow Republicans. There is something that particularly stings about negative comments by people whose side you are on. And there is plenty to respect, starting with his call on Fox News Sunday this weekend for Harry Reid to give up his position as Senate Majority Leader because of his racially insensitive comments about President Obama not having a “Negro dialect.”
Ohhhh, McCain wrote her piece to defend Steele. Sorry about that. I was confused for a moment because her reasoning strikes me as a little odd. In another one of McCain's recent pieces she tears into President Obama for his decision making:
Let me be frank—I am angry. I am angry and frustrated, in a way I haven’t been in a long time. During the election, I remember the biggest fear I had about an Obama presidency was his lack of experience in foreign policy and specifically with the military. (Even as recently as two weeks ago, he showed astonishing insensitivity and naïveté when he joked with soldiers in Korea, “you guys make a pretty good photo-op”).
Shouldn't she "hold off on the firing squads"? After all, Obama has only been in his role for less than a year and, like the rest of the Administration, is finding his identity as a War President right?
Furthering her defense of Steele, McCain gives him credit for calling for Sen. Majority Leader Reid's resignation over racial comments that have caused a stir over the weekend, yet one paragraph later, contradicts herself by saying of Steele:
And he is willing to admit when he is wrong, as he did a week ago when he used the slang term “honest Injun” in an interview, and apologized for his mistakes.
For those of you keeping score at home, Sen. Reid should resign because:
- He said that Obama doesn't speak with a "Negro dialect" and despite the media noting the same thing during the campaign, this is now somehow obviously racist. Not to mention that Reid backed Obama for President, has worked to pass legislative priorities for the President and has apologized to Obama for the remarks.
and Michael Steele should be given another chance because:
- Even though he used a slur against Native Americans ("honest injun") on television, he apologized and "is willing to admit when he is wrong".
According to Meghan McCain, one action is worthy of resignation and the other is worthy of giving a leader another shot. From all indications, she is being serious.
Reports are surfacing that Senate Democrats have reached a compromise on the Health Care legislation. From Talking Points Memo:
An aide briefed on the negotiations among the gang of 10 offers up the rundown of the most important aspects of the public option compromise being sent to CBO.
If this trade-off carries the day, the opt out public option is gone.
In its place will be many of the alternatives we've been hearing about, including a Medicare expansion and a triggered, federally-based public option.
[...]
As with the process Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid undertook in merging the Senate Finance Committee and Senate HELP Committee bills, CBO will evaluate a menu of options, some of them interchangeable, so there's no certainty that this list won't change in the coming days. However, a senior leadership aide says that all of the options sent to CBO include the (triggered) public plan. Reid and other senators declined to offer specifics earlier tonight, as part of an agreement with CBO not to publicly discuss the policy options on the table while actuaries analyze competing ideas.
Now it's a question of what the CBO says, and then: will Joe Lieberman object to the trigger. This trigger seems awfully hard to pull. But he's said he'd object to any kind of government insurance option--even triggered--in the past.
Real details are still emerging on what this compromise exactly entails, but I don't have a good feeling about what this is going to mean for meaningful reforms to our health care system.
As we are hearing new reports that members of Congress are considering splitting health care reform into two bills via a "reconciliation" process, Chris Bowers makes the observation:
1. If health care reform without a robust public option cannot pass the House;
2. If not passing a health care reform is considered politically unacceptable by both the White House and the Democratic Congressional leadership;
3. And if we have the 50 Senators needed to pass health care through reconciliation;
If we have all three of those things, then passing a public option--either through reconciliation or by convincing all Democrats to not filibuster--becomes by far the easiest move for the White House and Congressional leadership to make. Once we reach that tipping point, we will win this campaign.
I think this observation is right on. Momentum is in favor of those who wish to keep the public option in the legislation and frankly, as long as the progressives in Congress stick to their pledge, there is a good chance that we will see the reform legislation include a public option.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Senate leadership is considering a two-bill strategy for health-care reform. The first bill would include reform's more difficult and controversial elements. The public option would be there, and the subsidies, and the revenues, and the Medicare and Medicaid cuts. This bill would be passed through the budget reconciliation process, which requires only 51 votes for passage. The second bill would follow the normal order, and include health-care reform's least controversial elements, which also happen to be the elements that aren't really related to the federal budget and so aren't permitted in the reconciliation process: the insurance market regulations, the health insurance exchanges and so forth.
The idea is that the first bill could get 51 votes with little problem but might not clear 60, so it needs to travel through reconciliation. The second bill could clear 60 easily, so it can be pursued outside reconciliation, which is a good thing, given that it's probably ineligible for the reconciliation process.
My initial reaction to reading this was puzzling. If this strategy was meant to subvert Republican opposition then I don't really see why it would be necessary, but Klein makes this point which I find interesting:
The one potential answer is that reconciliation isn't about bypassing the GOP at all. It's about bypassing a handful of centrist Democrats. Angry Republicans won't support a consensus-oriented second bill after being cut out of the important work of the first. But Democrats like Kent Conrad might, as reconciliation won't specifically have hurt them, even as its real point was to take the process out of their hands and put it back in the hand of the Democratic Senate Leadership.
I think this makes some sense, but I am interested to see more information on the benefits of a two-bill strategy.
Also, just as a note...I will be traveling tomorrow through Sunday so blogging will be minimal to non-existent over that period of time.
Health care dominated the morning briefing with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, who denied reports that the White House and Democrats are giving up on a bipartisan reform bill.
“Absolutely not,” Gibbs said. “We continue to be hopeful that we can get bipartisan support and will continue to work with those that are interested in doing that.”
“Our goal is to get this done in a bipartisan way,” he said. “There are several more weeks to go in potential negotiations between Republicans and Democrats. I don’t know why we would short circuit any of that now.”
Is it insane to think that there will be any productive negotiations that will lead to getting health care done in a "bipartisan way"? I tend to think that when you have the Republicans on one side, obviously opposed to any type of health care reform, it is crazy to think that any type of negotiation will result in a health care bill that is the best piece of legislation that can be crafted for the good of the American people.
Glenn Greenwald has some thoughts on those who think it is insane:
That's obviously true. In fact, it's so obviously true that no matter how dumb one might think Democrats are, they're certainly not so dumb that they failed to realize that the GOP was highly unlikely to help Obama pass health care reform no matter what the bill contained. From the start, it's been obvious to everyone -- the Obama White House and Senate Democrats included -- that the GOP would not help Obama pass health care reform. Why would the GOP want to help Obama achieve one of his most important and politically profitable goals? Of course they were going to try to sabotage the entire project and would oppose health care reform no matter what form it took.
So the question practically begs itself. If President Obama and the White House are looking for robust reform and the Republicans have indicated that they are going to vote against any reform that is proposed, then why doesn't the White House exclude the Republicans and put pressure on the Blue Dogs in order to get the legislation passed?
Again, Glenn Greenwald:
The attempt to attract GOP support was the pretext which Democrats used to compromise continuously and water down the bill. But -- given the impossibility of achieving that goal -- isn't it fairly obvious that a desire for GOP support wasn't really the reason the Democrats were constantly watering down their own bill? Given the White House's central role in negotiating a secret deal with the pharmaceutical industry, its betrayal of Obama's clear promise to conduct negotiations out in the open (on C-SPAN no less), Rahm's protection of Blue Dogs and accompanying attacks on progressives, and the complete lack of any pressure exerted on allegedly obstructionists "centrists," it seems rather clear that the bill has been watered down, and the "public option" jettisoned, because that's the bill they want -- this was the plan all along.
This is precisely why the Progressives drawing the proverbial "line in the sand" is so important. They have the numbers to defeat the Blue Dog Coalition's influence on watering-down and "compromising" on this legislation. The key is that the Progressive Coalition needs to continue hold their ground on the public option and force the Democratic Party to stand up to the interests that are hell-bent on protecting the status quo.
As the Republicans continue to resist any type of public option, we are now seeing revived talk of replacing a robust public option with co-ops. This has led the language of the debate to shift and reference these co-ops as a "compromise" (emphasis all mine below).
This is a dynamic we saw in 1994. A compromise is offered, and after great anguish and infighting, Democrats grudgingly move toward it. Then the compromise is yanked away. The famous example of this is Bob Dole voting against two bills that had the name "Dole" in the title. We'll see the same sort of thing this year. The end-of-life counseling hubbub, where Democrats got attacked for approving an amendment that Republicans had frequently offered, is another example. It's one more reminder that the likeliest compromise will be between liberal Democrats and centrist Democrats, along with Olympia Snow and Susan Collins.
Republicans and conservative activists are mining other statements in that vein to build the case that co-ops would be no compromise at all, and they’re doing it quickly.
“Three months ago, I think you could have had a compromise on co-ops,” another Senate GOP aide told TWI. “Today? No, forget about it. I think both parties have gotten wise to how things work, and Republicans see this for the fig leaf that it really is.”
Republicans Capitalize on Democratic Disarray as Hopes of Health Care Compromise Fade
The compromise is not negotiating away the public option in favor of a (yet to be detailed) co-op plan. As Jane Hamsher has stated, The compromise IS the public option. Progressive activists have long maintained and continue to assert that the public option must be included because it was the compromise that was settled on once single-payer was taken off of the table.
More importantly, this initial compromise was primarily between progressives and more conservative members of the Democratic Party who didn't want to include the public option in the first place...not between Democrats and Republicans. Republicans have long been opposed to anything that has been proposed, from the public option to their new resistance to even the mention of co-ops.
It is quite clear that the Republicans do not want health care reform, they want a political defeat of President Obama and the Democrats. "Compromising" the public option out of the bill would simply be a move to appease those who will be opposed to any measure of meaningful reform. This is why progressives are so adamant on keeping the public option in a final version of the health care bill and why they are drawing a line in the sand around this issue. It is what Obama campaigned on and it is already a compromise down from single-payer.
After yesterday when Kathleen Sebelius stated that the public option was not "essential" to passing health care legislation, the Obama Administration has now come out with the message that President Obama still "favors" a public plan. As I mentioned earlier, just because Obama favors this option doesn't necessarily mean that he would draw a line in the sand by vetoing legislation that didn't contain a public option. These are two very different things.
While my tone earlier today was one of frustrated inevitability, Jane Hamsher makes a valid point about the basic math of the situation. As she points out, there are not enough votes for a health care bill without a public option in the House:
There are 435 seats on the House. Of those, 257 are filled by Democrats and 178 by Republicans. Which means a majority is 218. The Republicans have vowed to vote against health care, period. The Democrats can pass health care on their own, but if they lose 40 of their own, they only have 217 votes.
There are 57 Democrats who signed the July 30 letter saying that they "simply cannot vote" for a bill that "at minimum" does not have a public plan (PDF). There are 7 more not listed on the letter who have pledged to vote against any bill that does not have a robust public plan. That makes 64 Democrats who won't vote for the "co-ops" that both Kathleen Sibelius and Robert Gibbs say the White House is "open" to.
Do the math: 257 - 64 = 193. They need 218 to pass the bill.
So thanks to the progressive members of the House who have pledged to vote against any health care bill that does not have a public plan. They represent 76% of Americans who want a public plan, and coming from heavily Democratic-leaning districts as they do, an even greater percentage of their own constituents.
UPDATE: Hamsher was on MSNBC this afternoon discussing health care:
Or perhaps you are kind of confused. Republicans slamming Democrats, the Obama Administration blaming Chris Dodd, the media trying to react to react to a complex situation by finding bad guys to blame...when will the madness end? Glenn Greenwald breaks things down pretty well today:
The controversy of the AIG bonuses -- which, strictly as a quantitative matter, is rather trivial in the scheme of things -- illustrates how warped our political discourse is. Here is the hierarchy of positions regarding executive compensation limits back in February:
Chris Dodd -- advocated full-scale, no-exceptions limits on executive compensation for bailed-out companies
Obama administration -- supported limits but advocated exceptions for already-existing employment contracts
GOP leaders -- opposed all executive compensation limits as Socialist tyranny
Yet everything is exactly backwards in this controversy. The Obama administration has been trying to blame Dodd for the carve-out that allowed the AIG bonus payments, a carve-out that came into being because Geithner/Summers demanded it and because they opposed the limits Dodd wanted as too onerous. And now, the GOP -- which opposed limits of any kind -- wants to blame the Obama administration and Dodd because the limits weren't stringent enough to stop the AIG bonus payments. And the media is playing along perfectly, having clearly decided that the person who led the way in fighting for absolute compensation limits -- Dodd -- is the real villain responsible for the AIG bonuses.
Wow. It is hard to NOT be confused with a situation as backward as this.
There has been a good amount of reaction to both President Obama's address to the nation last evening and also the response that was given by Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA). Jindal's response can be viewed below:
I would like to meet whoever it is that thought this type of speech would be a good idea. The delivery is poor, Jindal is talking down to his audience as if they are in grade school, and he merely recycles the same Republican talking points that we have seen articulated for the last few decades. There are some surprising new arguments, like ridiculously using Hurricane Katrina as a positive example of restructuring the schooling system, but the majority of the speech plays the same old tune. From stirring up patriotism ("Americans can do anything") to using the same old "Republicans believe in the people, Democrats believe in the government", to telling stories with an overly simplistic message, it was one of the poorest rebuttals that I have ever seen.
..to come up at this moment in history with a stale "government is the problem," "we can't trust the federal government" - it's just a disaster for the Republican Party. The country is in a panic right now. They may not like the way the Democrats have passed the stimulus bill, but that idea that we're just gonna - that government is going to have no role, the federal government has no role in this, that - In a moment when only the federal government is actually big enough to do stuff, to just ignore all that and just say "government is the problem, corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending," it's just a form of nihilism. It's just not where the country is, it's not where the future of the country is. There's an intra-Republican debate. Some people say the Republican Party lost its way because they got too moderate. Some people say they got too weird or too conservative. He thinks they got too moderate, and so he's making that case. I think it's insane, and I just think it's a disaster for the party. I just think it's unfortunate right now.
The fact that the Republicans chose this type of message as a response to President Obama clearly shows the dysfunctional position that they are currently in. It is almost as if they set out to produce a GOP recruitment video, but forgot about (or omitted) everything that has happened over the last few decades.
Vice President Dick Cheney has been making several appearances in the corporate media as of late, giving interviews to ABC and FOX over the last few days, in which he has been quite frank about many aspects of the last eight years. For example, in these interviews Cheney has revealed:
1. That as a "general principle", any decisions the President makes during wartime are legal.
2. The interrogation of Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed, which included repeatedly waterboarding him, was approved through the Vice President's Office, that he does not regret that decision, and that he supports waterboarding as a tactic used by America.
3. That he himself told leading Democratic members of the Congress, in detail, about the NSA warrantless wiretapping program and that the Democrats agreed that this program should proceed and be kept secret.
These items are not necessarily ground-breaking or "new", but the open way in which Cheney confirms what many have been saying for years now is a clear indication that this Administration has operated and continues to operate under the notion that they are above the law. Support for a Nixonesque view of Executive power, support for torture, and support for illegally listening in on the phone conversations of Americans are not the result of some long investigative report or inquiry, rather this is the admission of the current Vice President during nationally televised interviews. Is it any clearer that this country needs to hold these officials within the Administration accountable and recommit itself to the rule of law? Cheney in his own words:
In regard to this last clip about the NSA wiretapping program, I think that Glenn Greenwald's entry over at Salon hits the nail on the head regarding the complicity of the Democrats in Congress in some of the illegal activity over the last eight years and just how far Washington has strayed from the basic principles of the law:
Either way, Cheney's general claim is as clear as it is incriminating. According to him, key Congressional Democrats were told about the illegal NSA spying program in detail, and they not only actively approved of it, but far beyond that, they insisted that no Congressional authorization should even be sought, based on what was always the patently inane claim that to discuss the fact that the administration was eavesdropping on our conversations without warrants (rather than with warrants, as the law required) would be to reveal our secrets -- "our playbook" -- to Al Qaeda. It is certainly true that Dick Cheney is not exactly the most scrupulously honest public servant around. In fact, he's almost certainly the opposite. Still, what he said yesterday was merely an expanded and more detailed version of what has previously been publicly reported and, to some degree, confirmed about the knowledge and support of Democratic leaders for the NSA program.
One convention down, one convention to go. Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night concluded four days of speeches, parties, and Democratic celebration over their nominee for President of the United States. Beginning on September 1, the Republicans will roll into St. Paul, Minnesota for four days of the same to try to convince Americans that John McCain and Sarah Palin are the duo to lead this country for the next four years. While there has been much media focus on what has happened inside the Pepsi Center in Denver this past week, it is also important to focus on what happened outside the Pepsi Center, in the streets of Denver, in order to give the public a full view of everything that transpired during the DNC.
Before the convention began, I wrote about the plans of protesters and the actions that were taken by the City of Denver in preparation for dealing with the voices of the people that may not mesh with the Democratic party-line. With the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention, I would like to look back at some of the events that transpired in the streets.
The corporate media did take a little notice of the protesters on the Sunday before the convention began. Fox News sent a reporter to mingle with the protesters and to "cover the story". As you might imagine, the protesters did not take too kindly to the presence of Fox News:
The Fox News reporter decides to go into the protest march and asks numerous protesters: "what is your message?". When some of the protesters do not give him a response, the reporter says, "I guess they don't believe in freedom of speech." This of course, is ridiculous considering that freedom of speech is what was allowing the march to exist in the first place. The purpose of this "report" by Fox News, was to paint the protesters as violent and radical and to avoid any real substantive discussion on the issues. This is a trademark of the corporate media when they cover protests. The major media networks acknowledge that their is a protest, but cover the protesters from a glance, misrepresent their views, and fail to give any voices of dissent airtime for a civil discussion of the issues. Compare that display of so-called journalism with the report filed by the independent news program Democracy Now!:
As the protests grew in number and the Convention got under way, the presence of law enforcement officials also grew. Consider this incident of police surrounding protesters, escorting media out of the area, then pepper spraying and arresting 91 people inside. Again, from Democracy Now:
Video also surfaced of police physically assaulting a protester from the organization CODEPink and then arresting her when she attempted to explain her story to the media:
As we move into the Republican National Convention and more protest is expected, it is important to watch the corporate media with a critical eye when they present opposing views as Fox News did in the report I posted above. It is also important to make sure that the police do not abuse their power and use un-necessary force against voices of dissent. Protesters largely rejected the so-called "free speech zone" in Denver and while it remains to be seen how protests will transpire in St. Paul, there is some indication that the situation may be more of the same. The Minnesota Star Tribunereported this past week that three journalists who arrived in St. Paul to cover the protests, had all their equipment illegally searched and confiscated:
"The incident comes on the heels of a recently adopted city resolution stating police may confiscate video cameras only during events such as protests if needed for evidence or if the person with the camera has been arrested. 'I'm surprised and certainly concerned by this,' said Council Member Cam Gordon, who pushed for the resolution. 'While I still want to get all of the details, this certainly sets the wrong tone for the convention.' "
You can also view this article at: http://www.cincinnatibeacon.com
As the spectacle of the 2008 Olympic Games comes to a close, it is apparent that China was largely successful in their attempt to crackdown on any type of public protests that would interrupt or tarnish China's image. 10 days into the Olympic Games, the Chinese Government had yet to permit any protests in three designated protest zones that were sanctioned for the Games. 77 applications were received since August 1 and zero have been granted. Not only has China been rejecting applications to protest, but the government has also been detaining people on a preventive basis. This piece in the New York Times details the story of Gao Chuancai. He was one of the people who applied for a permit to protest in the pre-approved protest zones that were sanctioned by the Chinese government. Two weeks later, when he went to Beijing to follow-up, he was questioned for over an hour and told to return in five days. Hours later, Chuancai was picked up by police and placed into custody. Chuancai's son had not heard from him at the time of the story.
This type of behavior, the quashing of dissent, has been commonplace in China in the build-up to and during the Olympic Games. "Providing a secure environment" is often a reason that is cited in discussions of the boom of the Chinese security industry. As I have discussed and Naomi Klein has investigated, this build-up of the Chinese security industry will continue long after the last gold medal is placed around the neck of an athlete. It is part of a system that is meant to limit dissent and place the Chinese population under a constant watch reminiscent of Big Brother in the novel 1984. The Olympics functioned as a two-pronged test for China: to see if the world was ready to accept China as a global player despite their record on human rights, and to see if the newfound "surveillance society" was effective and ready for export. The answer to both questions is largely, yes. One only needs to look at the preparation for the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in order to see how dissent is both marginalized and suppressed.
The lavish preparations for the Democratic and Republican National Conventions have been underway for months. Corporate sponsorships have been lined up and finishing touches are being placed for when the world's attention will shift from Beijing, to Denver, Colorado and St. Paul, Minnesota. In addition to the scheduled speakers and high-profile guests that will be present at each convention, there are another group of people who wish to use this opportunity to make their voices heard. Various organized groups and concerned individuals are making plans to attend both conventions to protest everything from corporate involvement in the political process to the dissatisfaction with each political party's platform and views on some of the most important issues of our time. Groups such as ReCreate 68 have a whole schedule of events that they are planning for the DNC beginning on August 25 and CODEPink plans to attend both conventions to protest and dissent. Dissent is part of the backbone of a healthy democracy and Constitutional protection gives those who wish to express opposition, protection from the ruling powers who may wish to retaliate. These two political conventions allow the rest of us to see how both major political parties will handle those who wish to dissent; will their rights be embraced as part of a healthy and functioning democracy or will they be marginalized and suppressed under the banner of providing security and order?
For starters, Denver police started stocking up on pepper-spray guns thanks to a $50 million federal grant that was issued:
"But the city has refused to disclose exactly how it is spending all the federal security money, which last month prompted the American Civil Liberties Union to file a civil lawsuit alleging the city is violating the Colorado Open Records Act. Releasing the information is “contrary to the public interest” because it could disclose important tactical information, potentially jeopardizing security, city officials said."
The ironically titled "Free Speech Zones" or "Protest Zones" have been set up in both cities to give protesters a designated area in which they can express their views. For the DNC in Denver, groups such as the ACLU have argued that the designated "zone" is so far away (at least 200 yards) from the Pepsi Center, that the protesters will not be heard. Some of the rules that have been slated for protesting in Denver have included the following:
* The protest zone will be 53,414 square feet in the south corner of Lot A, a parking lot near the Pepsi Center's main entrance. * The zone will be surrounded by a fence that people can see and hear through. * Parades will start near 14th Avenue and Bannock Street, head west on Colfax Avenue, then north on Speer Boulevard to Larimer. Pedestrians may then walk through the Auraria campus to the protest zone at Seventh Avenue and Auraria Parkway. * Parades will be allowed only between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., and no alternate routes are allowed. * Details such as how many people will be allowed inside the protest zone, whether protesters will be able to use sound amplifiers and if everyone entering will be subject to search have not been decided or have not been made public.
In addition to the construction of these so-called protest zones, there will be a large presence of military and police officials who will be in-part coordinated by a "fusion center". These centers are becoming more present since 9/11 and in Denver, will be used by federal and local law enforcement to gather intelligence and information on "suspicious activity". A piece was recently done in The Colorado Independent which discussed the fusion center in Denver and its activities in the build-up to the Democratic National Convention. From the article:
"Central to the efforts is Colorado’s “fusion” center, a place designed to facilitate intelligence sharing among federal, state and military agencies in an effort to prevent terrorism. But civil rights advocates fear that the Colorado Information Analysis Center, (CIAC) now housed in an inconspicuous office building in Centennial, a southern suburb of Denver, could enable unwarranted spying on Americans exercising their First Amendment rights at the convention."
Not only is new information being gathered for the approaching conventions, but old information is also being analyzed. I-Witness Video has reveled that the CIA is receiving information about protests that were held during the 2004 Republican Convention in New York City. I-Witness Video has also released documents which contain the notes and intelligence that were gathered on protest groups and potential protesters in the lead-up to the 2004 Convention. All 603 pages of those documents can be viewed here.
In addition to the construction of "protest zones" and the expansion of intelligence gathering, the CBS affiliate in Denver recently reported on how police will detain people arrested at the DNC. Local police have constructed a makeshift holding facility inside a warehouse that is owned by the City of Denver. Each "cell" is 5 yards by 5 yards with barbed wire lining the top of the cages. There is a lock on the door and a sign that reads "Warning! Electric stun devices used in this facility." A video report from CBS4 on the issue is below:
As all of this information is brought to light it is increasingly important that dissent is protected as a sign of a healthy democracy. There has been some media attention that has focused on the crackdown on dissent in China, but there needs to be greater examination of the crackdown of dissent domestically. "Free Speech Zones" should not be limited to a section of a parking lot that is surrounded by a chain link fence, rather the term "Free Speech Zone" should apply to the entire country. The rights of those who dissent should not limited in the name of security, but their rights should remain strong to act as a check against tyranny. As the pomp and circumstance of the Democratic and Republican Conventions get underway, we must take a look at how the rights of the protesters are (dis)respected and ask what it tells us about the country in which we live and the direction in which we are headed.
