Posts Tagged ‘obamacare’

…the motivation for passing this bill right now is all about saving the political bacon of this administration. It has nothing to the bill and if it is good or bad.

If it was about courage then you wouldn’t need to play the Slaughter business to try to get through this.

A white house with courage. A white house sure of itself would be brave enough to let this go and put the priority on the economy where it belongs.

It’s all false.

Update: DaScienceGuy puts it well:

With or without the deals we need a vote and then let the politicians STAND ON THEIR VOTE! If you vote for it and fear that may cost you your seat in the next election then at least be a grown up. Stand up, on the floor and vote Yes or No.

Yup.

…says Joe Scarborough this morning mocking the house for their tactics.

This is still still MSNBC so you have Joe Conason calling it a mistake but overblown, “The public doesn’t care about the tactics”, but when MSNBC is willing to mock this stuff.

Joe Conason is talking about how they “passed” healthcare already and it is close and Joe is reminding him of schoolhouse rock about how bills are actually passed.

Mort reminds them about Obama’s “no politics as usual” and then does this. I have to take exception this is not politics as usual, this makes politics as usual look like a boy scout meeting.

The Campaign Spot makes a good point

Posted: March 16, 2010 by datechguy in opinion/news
Tags: , ,

concerning the vote.

I’m a little wary of some of these “likely nos” we’re hearing a lot about lately. If some of these endangered Democrats are going to flip to Pelosi’s side after voting “no” last fall, the last thing they want to do is hint that they’re flipping and make themselves targets for attack ads, tsunamis of calls from constituents, etc.

In other words, if Obamacare passes, it’s going to pass because a bunch of Democrats who went on and on about how deep their concerns are and how troubled they are suddenly make their peace with the bill.

Later in the piece is a reader e-mail that is exactly right. If it passes it passes by one or two votes (Pelosi giving everyone possible the ability to vote against to try to save their butts) If it fails then it will fail overwhelmingly because there will be no point in making a suicidal vote for no reason.

This might be worth remembering if “swing” democrats who vote against the bill go on about their no votes in a losing cause. Perhaps we should be encouraging them to lobby on the other side to prove that they were not just votes kept in Pelosi’s pocket.

We start our trip around my blogroll with a little coffee at Ruby Slippers, a blog I really should be linking to more often. Mary Sue had this to say about the Coffee parties that CNN was so impressed with:

So, just how strong were these coffee party gatherings? One might describe them as intimate. North Carolina had all of five people show up An estimated crowd of 3000 protested today in Minnesota. What’s a couple thousand people though? CNN reports the two groups have much more in common besides their group strength, that is. Do they now?

Well both groups are made up of carbon based life forms that are made in the image of God that depend on the intake of oxygen to survive and are named after breakfast beverages, but beyond that I don’t see much. It is simply a truism that any group of any size that supports a cause that the MSM agrees with is more newsworthy than any group 50,000 times as large that they do not. It’s why the media is slowing starting to resemble a salesman who can only sell his wares to relatives.

Over at Legal Insurrection Bill Jacobson finds that one little word that would have saved Eric Massa his seat:

Timing is everything. Only recently, when it became clear that a single vote in the House may be the difference, was there a whispering campaign and leaks about Massa.

Massa’s departure has made it easier for Nancy Pelosi to get the necessary votes because the vote will be that close. If Obamacare passes later this week, as Pelosi is predicting, the departure of Eric Massa may be the reason.

Eric Massa may be paranoid, but that does not change the truth that people in the Democratic Party who wanted to pass Obamacare really did hate him.

Ask yourself this question: If Eric Massa had announced that he would vote “Yes” on Obamacare, would he still be in Congress?

Does he mean to suggest that Nancy Pelosi and company might actually consider letting someone stay in congress who is undeserving just to gain a vote? Why that’s a shocking suggestion. If you believe that then you’d believe that democrats would allow someone with tax issues to be treasury secretary or allow a person with irregularities to chair an important financial committee.

Finally Big Hollywood notes Megan Mullally’s shock at Jay Leno’s decision to appeal to a segment of the population hitherto ignored by the Hollywood elites:

She recently blasted former Gov. Sarah Palin’s stand-up comedy debut on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” at movieline.com, mocking both Leno’s comedy bits and his attempt to woo conservative audiences.

“Could it be any more bald-faced that he’s going after the red states? It’s insane. It’s just right out there, full on … amazing. And she was wearing jeans [note: said with a drawn out snarl]. ‘I’m gonna wear denim! I’m gonna dress it down!’”

Sounds insane, all right. Why would the host of a popular late night show give a platform to a gorgeous, charismatic politician who appeals to a wide swath of viewers?

Yeah, having a best selling author who commands large audiences wherever she goes makes no sense. Does Jay actually think it will get him to #1 in late-night again? After all appealing to conservatives hasn’t done Fox any good in the ratings has it?