Props for the underpants gnome reference.
I find it disturbing that I am having a mind-meld the past few months with Krugman.
by John Cole| 39 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics
Props for the underpants gnome reference.
I find it disturbing that I am having a mind-meld the past few months with Krugman.
by Tim F| 43 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Bart Stupak claims that he has 10 or 12 votes to block the Senate bill because it doesn’t go far enough on abortion. Needless to say, I think that Stupak’s office is dying to hear from any of you who live in his district.
But maybe we can find out who these 10 or 12 Democrats are, or whether they exist at all. If your representative seems like someone who might support HCR and might kill it over abortion, call him or her and find out where they stand. Email me (Tim F, not John Cole) about what you’re hearing back from them. The important questions are (1) is he or she inclined to support the Senate HCR bill, and (2) whether the Nelson language really be enough to kill his or her vote.
A little later today I will announce a slightly more organized plan that reader mcc and I are working out to track who stands where on this.
by Tim F| 79 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Those of you who feel confident to let Democrats play n-dimensional chess on health care need to read Josh Marshall’s front page. No particular post, just scan the whole thing from bottom to top. The message from all over DC is that Dems have no idea what to do right now. They’re terrified and adrift. This idea that leaders are calmly pushing pieces around a sand table is insane.
Take Barney Frank. Last night he declared that the whole enchilada was cooked and we might as well give up. That’s like a startled alpha deer running into a tree and knocking itself out. Way to lead the herd. Frank defended himself repeatedly to baffled constituents and then he walked the story back almost a full day later. If Frank is one of our best, I hate to imagine how the rest of our caucus feels.
Don’t call a Congressperson because he or she will turn around and do what we say (if you’re new at this, they won’t). We should call because the caucus will meet tomorrow and probably a few more times after that, and then the Democratic majority will have a plan. Maybe the plan will involve fighting like hell to get HCR done before some other stupid thing happens, but it seems a little Charlie Brownish to feel confident about Dems doing anything that productive. If Reps show up buzzing about noisy supporters demanding HCR then we stand a slightly better chance than if they show up dwelling on their usual phobias turned up to eleven.
At least that’s my view. Small chance of having a meaningful impact, etc. etc.. At least it vents the frustration better than yelling at pseudonyms on an internetblog.
Last Point About Calling Your RepresentativePost + Comments (79)
This post is in: Open Threads, Assholes
Two hours after Cosmo Boy did his victory lap dance, some kind of malware snuck past the firewall, kronked my PC, and seems to have destroyed the Fios router.
I am typing this on the Spousal Unit’s work laptop, using dialup. Can’t even read the longer threads, much less add anything useful. Someone let me know when Scottie gets busted in an American-Idol-related kickback scheme… which I figure will happen within two infotainment business days of his maiden speech.
And for those of you who feared, or hoped, that the past day’s fustercluck might have caused me to slash my wrists:
This post is in: Black Jimmy Carter
Ok, glad I didn’t slit my wrists after that NYT piece. This interview with Obama was reassuring:
OBAMA: No — well — absolutely. No, keep in mind the point that I’m making here.
It was the right thing to do for us to salvage the financial system, and I make no apologies for that, at all. But we knew at the time how politically toxic that was.
What it gave people a sense of is, “We’re spending all this money, but I’m not getting any help.”
And, “Gosh — I wanted Obama to come in there to start making sure that I was getting help; not the big special-interest and the institutions.”
Now if I tell them, “Well, it turns out that we will actually have gotten TARP paid back and that we’re going to make sure that a fee’s imposed on the big banks, so that this thing will cost taxpayers not a dime,” that’s helpful. But it doesn’t eliminate the sense that their voices aren’t heard, and that institutions are betraying them.
And I think that’s been expressing itself all year. And they’ve gotten increasingly frustrated over the course of the year.
So I take complete responsibility for the fact that — A — we had to salvage a financial system that could have made things much worse. We had to take the steps that we did at the beginning of the year, in order to stabilize the economy.
And I am actually glad to see that the economy’s now growing again, and we have the prospect of a much better economy in 2010. But that doesn’t negate the anger and the frustration that people are feeling.
Read the whole thing.
by DougJ| 208 Comments
This post is in: Good News For Conservatives
People, I feel like shit. Sure, I didn’t destroy my shoulder, but I’m not mainlining percocet either. I told my doctor the AMA recommended oxycontin for those suffering from extended exposure to OpenLeft, the Daily Beast, and the Washington Post editorial page, but he wasn’t buying it.
Is there anything you can recommend that can be consumed in five minutes or less that’s a good pick me up but doesn’t involve pets (I love animals but I already seen enough hanging out here)? A song, a brief bit of writing, a cocktail, etc.?
I was originally thinking of making this into a “songs that cheer you up thread” but the criteria my pundit- Hamsher-adled mind was inventing were becoming too complicated. Roughly, though, it was supposed to be a list of seven or eight songs, all of which you have heard on the radio or in a non-hip public space (a Starbucks, a hotel lobby, a dentist’s or doctor’s waiting room), at least one of which is genuinely awful (for me, that one is “Hey Jealousy”), at least one of which is completely obvious (e.g. “Walking On Sunshine”, “Jackie Wilson Said”, anything by Jackie Wilson), and at least one of which has no words (could be anything but “Jessica” and early Miles Davis come to mind).
DougJ +4
This post is in: Black Jimmy Carter
With Democrats reeling from the Republican victory in the Massachusetts special Senate election, President Obama on Wednesday signaled that he might be willing to set aside his goal of achieving near-universal health coverage for all Americans in favor of a stripped-down measure with bipartisan support.
Could someone please point out that not one Republican is going to vote for any HCR, because they simply want you to fail. The guy who got elected last night? He ran as the 41st vote to stop HCR.
What is this? Battered spouse syndrome? Stockholm syndrome? What is the name for this delusion? WTF are these guys thinking?
*** Update ***
LOL. Fair enough. I confess to being consistently inconsistent. I blame the pain pills.