Bargaining Chip

Your favorite lying anonymous source, Pete Hoekstra is currently stealing Drudge's/Joe the Plumber's lines in the markup hearing.
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I can't believe you let this guy tell you what to say about the FISA revisions.

Who's Drudge?
If health care is seen as protecting public safety similar to police and fire protection, then what's the big deal about public options? (Cenk Uygur – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/socialized-police_b_55698.html ) Imagine insurance cos. running fire departments or Blackwater / Xe manning police squads? Even reading (or writing) Mark Sanford emails wouldn't be as scary.

"It doesn't have much of a future. It may not even pass the House."

I sincerely hope that you are very wrong about this. Of course, you've been very wrong before, right?

I much favor a bold move here and a movement to single payer.

I think that that would significantly level the playing field not only for American businesses, but place lower income Americans on the same playing field as immigrants in competing for jobs.

The current bill out of Ted Kennedy's committee is a sham, it not only penalizes business, it penalizes the poor, and I for one, think that the tax on the wealthy is the only way to go.

As I've said before, this can be considered a first step. There is no question that eventually, health care will have to evolve from it's current state to a system that provides equity for all Americans - and that will be expensive.

With the taxation, two benefits emerge as I've said before:

1. The reconciliation clause can be invoked, requiring only 51 votes

2. It cannot be picked apart line by line by an opposition that has no intention of allowing any type of meaningful reform take place

Joe, I think those last two points are the actual, unsaid political reality that exists, when all is said and done.

Joe-You know you don't have to visit Drudge don't you? Just because 9 in 10 of your colleagues do dosn't mean you have to.

Gee, I wonder if the MSM will internalize Republican memes on the issue of health care? I wonder if the next MSM idiot on teevee will ask not only 'how can we afford the massive spending on this health care plan?', but also ask, 'how can we possibly continue to outspend the entire world on our military'. I wonder.
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Drudge is just a media version of a generic troll, cubed. Any journalist who responds just encourages the lies. Ignore him, talk about the merits of the case, and do your country a service.

"It's not a bad plan. It doesn't have much of a future.

That's about right for the "deliberative" body known as the U.S. Congress.

It should go without saying that if were a much worse bill it would have a much easier passage.

Also: Republicans not going apoplectic would be news. The party of unfocused rage.

What Oregon JC said.

We used to be able to do big things.

Back when I was in knickers. President Kennedy thought we should send a man to the moon. Ten or so years later, an American set foot on the moon. It was a big deal, a huge deal.

During that time, we fashioned a system of universal health care for the elderly. Before that, DDE built the Interstate Highway System. There was the railroads, Hoover Dam, the TVA. Social Security. Big stuff.

Take the I-10, starts at the Pacific Ocean at Santa Monica and you can drive straight through to Jacksonville Florida in as straight a line as geography allows in three days if you don't have to sleep. Can you imagine if this Congress was trying to build an Interstate Highway System now? Instead of a grid of highways taking us straightaway from west to east, or from south to north, the I-10 would have to start somewhere near Yuma Arizona to pacify McCain, then head up through Utah and down through Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma so the wingnuts can be bought off, bypassing blue-state NM and CO before it got to Texas, then forget LA, let's go through MO maybe we can get Kit Bond on board before we get back to MS and AL, probably have to wind up in VA or PA and forget FL, you can't get there from here.

That's how this health care "reform" is turning out. It's going to be worse than doing nothing at all.

James:

You have captured the very essence of this lowzy charade!

Hang on... under this plan, if my employer offers a plan, can I choose to opt out and take the public option? Because that's key. I need to have the right to dump the private in favor of the public.

News personalities snicker at the thought of America doing great things in their oh,so savvy cynicism. Then the rightwing loonies think that waging war on a relatively small, relatively non-threatening nation is doing "great things." There is never enough resources to do great things here at home. It's all being sucked into the defense industry, the financial industry. Always, always enough money for war though. Thanks Republicans! Dumbass small-scale obstructionists. The Party of No, We Can't.

"Obama (apparently) still believes in that version of America. So does Al Gore. They talk about innovating our way out of our problems."

The distinction, thus far, is that Gore is unrepentant about forcefully calling b-s. Many of us see this as an essential role of the media, but not our leaders. Why is that? Of course, as a free agent, Gore has no political capital to guard, but his approach, coupled with Hillary's tenacity, are the qualities we need at this pt. in time. I'm beginning to have grave doubts about whether Obama sees the crises we face as paramount, vis a vis his own political future.

There is a lot of outrage and anger in America about what's happened to the country. Most of this took place long before he came to office, but the "medicine" thus far is nothing short of failure. As in the campaign, I fail to see the requisite passion from Obama. It's as if the suffering Americans deal with day in and day out is beneath him. It will come as no surprise next year or '12 that the country holds acct'able the only folks they can. In other words, the populist backlash will inevitably swing the country back to the right. The painful irony being, barring signif. improvement, that Obama's calm, caution and vain attempts at bipartisanship (soothing the likes of Broder & co) will limit his opp's and political future. The country wasn't ready for an angry old f@cker like Mac last Nov, but I weep at the thought of the pivot (towards Palin, a would be fascist?) that could transpire over the next few years. That they'd be putting the principal culprits back in power would be doubly ironic, but that sure as sh!t won't stop it from happ'ning.

Obama persona is too passive, restrained, good at the teaching moments to folks patient/intelligent enough to give him half a chance (i.e. a minority of Americans and a # shrinking each day things don't magically improve). Thus of us predisposed to meet him halfway, solid dems, are often blind to the fleeting nature of a pol's larger coalition of supporters.

In the end, I'm afraid he's not up to the task at hand. Another time, the relatively calm 90s perhaps, but now? So little time has passed some say, be patient, some say, but can anyone, despite continued GOP irrelevancy, say that his capacity to enact sweeping changes is greater today than in late January? Again, if not now, then when!?

I understand that Hill or Al or Howard (man crush, dat) were unlikely to be elected, but if I could do some manner of vulcan mind meld on O and that trio, we'd all be much better off. In fact, the Dean scream is just what America needs to get its heads jolted out of its collective arse for once and for all.

But hey, maybe I'm just Mr. doom and gloom.

And Art, I'm not sure if "These people really don't think the United States is still capable of greatness." They may believe it, it's simply that their privileged positions, however fleeting, depend upon dysfunction and avoiding solutions. Like the DEA needs drug cartels, or psychiatrists those lacking in self esteem. Coming to consensus about what's best for the country or the mass of men (as opposed to your own reelection, or the sexiest news story) would put an end to a system that enriches them. Some say they've so internalized these practices and ideologies that they can't even smell the b-s anymore, but I don't believe that. It's akin to saying the sinner has no sense of guilt or shame about his actions, and other than sociopaths that is simply untrue.

Interesting stuff from the commentariat here. More and more the Republicans in particular are the party of 4-year-olds, screaming that they must get their way or they'll hold their breath and die, with the Democrats playing the role of weak, coddling parents.. Those GOPers that aren't spoiled toddlers seem to have long since given up (if they ever had) any notion of the nation as something more than just them and their interests. "Patriotism" to the Leaders is simply a recognition by the little people that "L'etat, c'est moi!". We've got a country run by a bunch of third-rate Louis. Then there are the sprouting fascisti who hope they've found their Leader in that junior-league Mrs. Hitler up in Alaska. We've come a long way from the nation of James' youth in a very short time - only a couple of generations. Good for the Chinese, bad for those of us who can't emigrate before the deluge.
As for health care, I think Joe is right - huge efforts to make it beneficial for anybody except the very wealthy will come to nothing, since 'the people' have nothing to threaten them with except the vote, and that is so easily manipulated.

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