Craig Stellmacher at TheUptake.org caught Bachmann’s bill-killing rally. Bachmann says “some have called Obama the first post-American president” about 90 seconds in.
Watch her eyes for prolonged blinking as she gets really crazy:
Word-salad garnished with nontroversy: “Obama…Pelosi…Reid…They don’t represent us…right now.” Because there was no election in 2008, or because elections do not have consequences? Congress has, in fact, voted on the bills and will now hold further votes on them in perfect legal order. The Constitution does, in fact, allow Congress to levy taxes (“mandate”) and appoint enforcement officers (IRS), and such laws are, in fact, binding. Either the representative from Minnesota lacks a basic understanding of civics, or she’s encouraging sedition.
The “post-American president” line invokes John Bolton. Having ripped the words from their context, “some” is a cowardly little word here that lets her invoke all the birther-deather-Van Jones nonsense without having to.
But what I find most offensive is the statement that health care reform
will be the first post-modern legislation where words mean absolutely nothing.
When it comes from the lips of a Christian fundamentalist, the term “post-modern” rarely refers to aesthetic movements. Rather, it has come to mean “secularism” (or “secular humanism” as they used to call it in the 1980s). It is a sophistry, a straw-man argument appearing exclusively in the mental construct of the paranoid universe.
And it is an abuse of the English language so foul as to curdle my rhetorical blood.
The newest meme among firebaggers? Obama and the Democrats never wanted the public option and are actively working against it. Glenn Greenwald leads the charge, claiming that
all year long, they insisted that the White House and a majority of Democratic Senators vigorously supported a public option, but the only thing oh-so-unfortunately preventing its enactment was the filibuster: sadly, we have 50 but not 60 votes for it, they insisted. Democratic pundits used that claim to push for “filibuster reform,” arguing that if only majority rule were required in the Senate, then the noble Democrats would be able to deliver all sorts of wonderful progressive reforms that they were truly eager to enact but which the evil filibuster now prevents. In response, advocates of the public option kept arguing that the public option could be accomplished by reconciliation — where only 50 votes, not 60, would be required — but Obama loyalists scorned that reconciliation proposal, insisting (at least before the Senate passed a bill with 60 votes) that using reconciliation was Unserious, naive, procedurally impossible, and politically disastrous.
Greenwald is drawing a caricature from the projections of his own mind. Obama loyalists “scorning” reconciliation proposals, for example, is a ludicrous image in a world where most Americans get their insurance through employers; exchanges, mandates, preexisting conditions, and lifetime caps simply don’t qualify under Senate reconciliation rules. Don’t argue with me, argue with the Senate parliamentarian.
Greenwald isn’t being naive, just thick. Like too many progressives he has latched onto the public option as if it were the “real” reform when it’s more akin to the candle on a birthday cake. For months he pushed the (wrong) idea that the entire cake could fit through a finger-sized hole; now he’s doubling-down, eager to see the cake burned up along with the candle.
Of course, yesterday we learned that Nancy Pelosi (“with sadness”) is unwilling to sacrifice the entire cake for that candle:
Pelosi, however, put the onus back on the Senate, saying that the chamber didn’t have the votes needed for it.
“I’m not having the Senate, which didn’t have a public option in its bill, put any of that on our doorstep,” she said. “It did not prevail. What we will have in reconciliation will be something that is agreed upon, House and Senate, that they can pass and we can pass… It isn’t in there because they don’t have the votes.” (Emphasis mine)
Pelosi is part of Greenwald’s conspiracy, I suppose. While this means she isn’t going to offer a public option now as part of the reconciliation package, it doesn’t mean the public option is dead — far from it. Good ideas never really die. It’s just not in this bill. It can always come later. You know, if the whip count gets to fifty. Indeed, just look at Alan Grayson’s Medicare buy-in proposal.
The problem here, I think, is that Greenwald and company live under the misconception that there can be only one bill. Even if the current health care reform bill passed with a public option tomorrow, reform still wouldn’t be over. Yet the same people who roared in anger at every real or perceived setback along the way are now drawing Beckian chalkboard-diagrams to tell us the fix was always in, that Teh Evil Plan™ was to raise progressive hopes and dash them.
To what end is unclear, but I’m sure Greenwald has an answer involving Rahm Emanuel. Good thing the firebaggers are a marginal group.
Via ThinkProgress. I’m still not sure how Glenn Beck squares his call to leave any church that practices “social justice” with, y’know, Jesus. Beck says he’s a Christian, but I think his Bible is Atlas Shrugged.
Chris Dodd’s decision to cut off negotiations with Republicans on a consumer finance protection agency has shocked Washington. Nasiripour suggests
that Dodd’s decision was likely influenced by the outcry from progressives and other pro-reform groups who argued that Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat not seeking reelection this year, was giving Republicans and Wall Street-friendly Democrats too much sway over the legislation. Dodd’s original reform proposal in November had called for a strong, independent consumer-focused agency to protect borrowers from predatory lenders.
“At the end of the day, though, there is only so much that reform advocates were willing to give on this,” the advocate said. “And because of the context — what the banks did to the economy and the bailouts — reformers have a lot of high ground right now. Democrats just don’t benefit from teaming up with the banks and losing the interest groups.”
IOW, it’s turning into a bad season to vote with banks. Not to mention that once a Senator announces his retirement, he can do what he damn well pleases. My money was on this move a month ago. Add on pressure from consumer advocates, and it seems…well…obvious to me. Maybe I should start playing on Intrade?
Ryan Grim describes the prospect of a public option via reconciliation as a “last stand.” I resubmit that this was always inevitable; that its introduction to the Senate Bill process by Harry Reid was an indication that it could pass via reconciliation.
The 60th vote for reconciliation was never, ever there. That is also an indisputable fact. Nothing less than video of Joe Lieberman eating a baby was ever going to convince him to vote for it in the Senate bill.
It is true that Harry Reid might have started a whip count immediately, but why advertise your intentions? It is true that someone might have attempted to twist Joe’s arm, but to what end? Do not forget that this is only the first of three big reform projects in Obama’s first term. To that end, showing a willingness and ability to patiently persist and win is crucial to breaking the Party of No.
Pelosi will now pass the Senate Bill. The Senate has more than fifty votes for fixes and potentially more than fifty votes for a public option via reconciliation rules. This is a situation created by the minority and the “moderates” of the Senate — not Harry Reid, Rahm Emanuel, or Barack Obama. It’s simple arithmetic.
The president’s job now is to whip up popularity for the bill. The project of reforming health coverage will be as strong as we make it; he’s constitutionally incapable of directing this. But if he winds up with a total reform package that looks almost exactly like the one he proposed at the beginning of all this, then don’t tell me it’s an accident or that this White House doesn’t understand how to play chess.
Boy, today has brought me lots of redemption. Bring it, firebaggers! Tell me how this is the selling-out of reform.
FLORENCE – The TimesDaily is asking a Lauderdale County Circuit judge to temporarily halt the sale of Coffee Health Group and its assets to a private company until documents related to the sale are made available to the public.
A hearing on the matter has not yet been scheduled, according to court officials.
The TimesDaily’s parent company, Tennessee Valley Printing Co. Inc., filed a request Wednesday for an injunction against Coffee Health Group and its board.
This would never have happened in the bad old days of New York Times ownership. The previous owners mistook access for journalism, but the new owners are willing to take on City Hall.
I can’t explain how refreshing this change is. And vindicating.
Why did I help a Republican run for mayor? Because he was the most progressive candidate in the race.
The Texas School Board has officially jumped the couch:
9:40 – We’re just picking ourselves up off the floor. The board’s far-right faction has spent months now proclaiming the importance of emphasizing America’s exceptionalism in social studies classrooms. But today they voted to remove one of the greatest of America’s Founders, Thomas Jefferson, from a standard about the influence of great political philosophers on political revolutions from 1750 to today. (Emphasis mine)
Via RightWingWatch. The events were liveblogged here. And yes, this does impact you because Texas schoolbook standards are every other state’s by default. That’s how the industry works, and the wingnuts were quite aware of this when they targeted this obscure panel for activist candidates. They mean to install an idiocracy, folks.
Speaking of which, my latest YouTube offering is about the return of paranoid politics to America. Enjoy.
Adding: the song is by the defunct metal band idiot, and was pressed to CD before the movie of the same name was ever made.
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