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POPSThe Baucus Healthcare Bill You Can Not Believe In
Instead, Baucus' proposed concessions consist primarily of modest financial givebacks to middle class taxpayers who would be hit hard by his bill's proposed penalty on the uninsured. Baucus' original bill appears to be the White House's preferred model for three reasons: (1) it appears less expensive, under CBO scoring rules, than any alternative other than single payer, which Obama has decreed is off the table; (2) unlike any of the others working their way through the legislative process, it meets the terms of an apparent agreement negotiated privately among the White House, Democratic conservatives, and the pharmaceutical manufacturers' lobby PhRMA (headed by Blue Dog co-founder and Democrat-turned-Republican Billy Tauzin); and (3) it may win the vote of Republican senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), which will allow Obama to claim nominal "bipartisanship" and, more importantly, may set the stage for Snowe to follow Arlen Specter's example and switch parties,
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POPSMoney spent on war vs cost of health care reforms According to the Center for Defense Information, the total cost of the war in Afghanistan will reach $439.8 billion by the end of 2009. The United States, which spent exactly 10 times more on Afghanistan in 2008 ($140 billion) than it spent in 2002 ($14 billion), increased such efforts by $33 billion in just the last year. Obama's escalation, largely overshadowed by the health reform's incendiary spectacle, has been swift and significant. It's also showing no signs of slowing down. On Thursday, a Senate subcommittee approved 2010's $636.3 billion defense appropriations bill. Of this, $128.2 billion has been set aside for "overseas contingency operations." Simple multiplication tells us that the cost of maintaining this rate of defense spending for the next decade would eventually make Afghanistan $300 billion more expensive than the health care overhaul's projected cost. And that's just dollars and cents...
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POPSWhite House Setting Stage to Rahm Through Obamacare That will set up a Democratic argument that Senate leaders have been forced to use a partisan budget tool known as reconciliation to pass a health bill through the Senate by a simple majority, instead of 60 votes. Under the budget plan they passed earlier this year, Democrats could invoke the reconciliation process on Oct. 15. Republicans contend that the use of reconciliation would be at odds with Obama’s call for bipartisanship during his 2008 presidential campaign. But Obama has countered that argument in recent days by forcefully resurrecting the anti-Washington rhetoric that got him elected. Posted by Gateway Pundit
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POPSundignified tone “I hope the President will learn that true bipartisanship begins with mutual respect,” Graham said in response to Obama’s fervent criticism of those who oppose him. “Not all criticism is demagoguery,” he added. Graham said when it comes to the public option, “the President is either being disingenuous or misinformed. The public option, contrary to the president’s claims, will eventually lead to a government takeover of our health care system.” Graham believes Obama’s address to Congress is the beginning of a “go it alone” strategy in the push for the government takeover of the health care system. “If the Obama Administration and congressional Democrats go down this path and push a bill on the American people they do not want, it could be the beginning of the end of the Obama presidency.” © 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
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POPSObama Makes Moral Case for Health Care Reform Obama did four key things in the speech. * He made the moral case for health care reform, referencing Senator Ted Kennedy many times throughout (read the Kennedy's letter to the president here), saying: "We are the only advanced democracy on Earth – the only wealthy nation – that allows such hardships for millions of its people. There are now more than thirty million American citizens who cannot get coverage. In just a two year period, one in every three Americans goes without health care coverage at some point. And every day, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage. In other words, it can happen to anyone." He made the reasonable case for bipartisanship He demonstrated that he will no longer suffer fools: And he provided the Congressional Progressive Caucus the cover it needs to pass a plan with a strong public option:
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POPSA Positive Example suitable for Clipmarks Devotees
I have often used clipmarks as a sounding board, to flesh out my own premature ideas in the delightful cloak of semi-anonymity. Not everything that I say I fully mean. Some thoughts are sounding boards to my own opinions until I firm them up and watch them gel in my own head while my fingers are flying across the keyboard. In the beginning, I spent every day reading comments people left behind mine, opening them up like christmas presents. For awhile, I left clipmarks because the animosity became so acrimonious that I suffered indigestion along with the cup of coffee and cookie I was enjoying while I read CM in the late morning. I have enjoyed clipmarks and enjoy reading the clips from people I don't necessarily agree with as well as those of whom I do agree. I hope in the spirit of the late Ted Kennedy we can take his example of leadership and disagree without rancor and argue passionately with tolerance for an opposing view. Thank you for reading. Good Day.
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POPS If Obama Fails, It's Not His Fault If it doesn’t, President Obama will have been defeated. But it’s the party, not the president, that will have failed. Rhetorical question: If Obama's not running the Demokrat party, who is??? 3. Obama is bogged down because he has been working so hard to accommodate Republicans. 4. Obama is failing because he's too nice. From The LA Times, words of encouragement from Rep. Maxine Waters Twenty-seven days after taking office, Obama abandoned his short-lived commitment to transparency and bipartisanship and signed his ill-conceived stimulus bill into law. Since that very turbulent moment, Americans have developed persistent doubts about Obama's judgement and leadership strategy. And in the process they have rediscovered their self-confidence. The Wall Street Journal explains: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574370301468452872.html
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POPSHey, (Cowering-In-The-)Barracks Forshame Obummer: If You Would Lead, Maybe We Would Follow Does this guy who seems to want, more than anything, for everyone just to be happy and sing along in the same key, still really believe in bipartisanship, at the very moment when the very people with whom he is negotiating are reinforcing the most absurd and inflammatory lies asserting the elder-cide intentions of his health-care bill? Sorry. Did I say "his health-care bill"? Problem number one here is that there's no such thing. As in just about everything else of consequence this administration has been involved in, he seems quite content to simply defer to Congress and allow the sausage-making process on the Hill to generate precisely the policy abomination one might expect, with all the political liabilities we've come to know and love from such a dispiriting collection of 535 (minus two or three) moral midgets.
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POPSIs This Why Eric Holder Isn't Going After Bush Officials?
The tip I got was that the firm had a very important client. His name was George W Bush. And they represented a very important organization . . . called the Republican National Committee. I was in shock when I checked it--and it was true. My favorite research item I ran across is when they were protecting the RNC from having to turn over Karl Rove's e-mails that were run on the RNC servers. It shocked me. Plus I found it mighty interesting that AG Eric Holder never enlightened anyone about his conflicts of coming from a big Washington, D.C., law firm that represented the National Republic Committee and George W. Bush in the 2000 election contest. Simpson notes that Holder's favorable treatment of Republicans hardly stops with the Stevens case. She lists the Tobin phone-jamming case in New Hampshire, the Kott case in Alaska, and the Abramoff/Feeney case in Florida as examples of the Holder DOJ killing GOPers with kindness. What does Simpson make of it? It has long b
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POPSTurnabout Is Unfair! This opposition cannot be appeased. Some pundits claim that Mr. Obama has polarized the country by following too liberal an agenda. But the truth is that the attacks on the president have no relationship to anything he is actually doing or proposing. Ha. A little ironic, coming from a guy whose big complaint with Obama is that he isn’t socialist enough. What’s great is how well it works if you sub in “Bush,” ”1999,” ”Republican” and “enraged left” for “Obama,” ”2007,” ”Democrat” and “enraged right.” The difference is Bush actually did engage in extensive bipartisanship and didn’t attempt to ice out the opposition, right up to the end. Is it just me or is anyone else astonished that this Nobel laureate economist can’t do basic math? Not that big a surprise a guess, when you consider that the Nobel crowd gives out peace prizes to terrorists and end-time alarmists.
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POPSRules for Tea Partiers (with thanks to Mr. Saul Alinsky) RULE 3: Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. Since the enemy lacks expertise in almost everything that does not have to do with enriching Government Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, we’re doing well here too. Let me see, they lack expertise in, inter alia, honesty, integrity, patriotism, courage, and the democratic process. They also have no expertise in reading their own legislation, although they have mucho expertise at reading a teleprompter (Maybe if they put the healthcare bill up on TOTUS it would get read…?) RULE 4: Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. Where’s the hope, dude? Where’s the transparency? Where’s the the end to lobbyist connections? Where’s the post-racial? Where’s the bipartisanship? Where’s the “unity”? Where’s the “making everything great for ‘working class’ families”? RULE 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. Those “mom jeans” comments hurt.
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POPSBipartisanship Screw bipartisanship. What the Republicans want will screw Americans for generations to come. Americans voted in a majority of Democrats in Congress, and a Supermajority in the Senate, as well as voting in a Democrating president. That means they don't want the Republicans messing things up anymore. Time to leave the Republicans in the dust, and do what's best for the nation for a change. Besides, it's been shown that twisting the Healthcare bill to cater to 2 or 3 Republicans will end up losing the support of at least 10 Democrats. Do the math. Placate a few right-wing extremists, or do what's best for the citizens of America? The choice should be easy.
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POPS Health Care Reform ~ Take Action Now Health Care Reform Elderly and Disabled Benefits RE: Loss of Care to Elderly and Disabled President Obama has stated: “The budget proposes cleaning up inefficiencies and reducing overpayments in Medicare, the federal health insurance plan for people over 65 and the disabled, which covers 45 million people and makes up 13 percent of federal spending.” I happen to be one of the disabled persons and know of many others in the same situation that Obama is talking about.
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POPSMost Catholic Support Abortion President's Presence at Commencement Add we wonder what is wrong with America! It is it's citizenry that needs to be remade not the country. And in typical Obama administration fashion his press secretary basically says to anyone who opposes OBAMA and his plans and objectives can simply shut up and go away. So much for bipartisanship eh? I would love to hear from those who support this nonsense. Any takers?
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POPS American University Students Protest Barney Speech DeStefano has set up a Facebook "AU Students & Alumni Against Barney Frank @ SPA Commencement '09" page that has 128 signees. On it, she claims Frank "helped lead us and the world into a global economic meltdown," and describes the Massachusetts Democrat as "excessively partisan and notoriously divisive during times when compromise and bipartisanship is needed the most." Big h/t to Jmart
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POPSPublic Financing of Elections Dead - McCain There is some poetic justice that the "architect" of such a miserable piece of legislation should find himself on the losing end of a race where his opponent thumbed his nose at the law. But the fact that the man who was the chief beneficiary of McCain's stupidity is a far left liberal who is seeking to alter America doesn't give any satisfaction. Every attempt by McCain to establish himself as some kind of leader in the Republican party since his defeat has failed. He is a pariah of a politician and most Republican senators want little to do with him. But he will remain popular with his friends (re-found friends now that he's just another senator) in the media as long as he keeps trashing conservatives and members of his own party. It's a role he seems very comfortable playing. I just hope he likes solitude.
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POPSRepublicans Whining Because Obama Is Working Around Thie Obstructions Republicans are howling about the proposal to expand health coverage and tax greenhouse gas emissions without their input, warning that it could irrevocably damage relations with the new president. "Warning that it could irrevocably damage relations with the new president." Right, those would be the relations where Obama bent over backwards, even offered the GOP 3 cabinet posts, and in return 3 of them - a whopping 3 - voted for the stimulus package. What "relations" are the Republicans talking about?
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