Flip flop- GOP senators: We can work with Dems despite healthcare battle

By GottaLaff

Now we won't! No we can't! Hell no we can't! Well.... okay, maybe we can:

Now Republican centrists say they are willing to move forward with Democrats on other issues.

Wait. There are Republican centrists? I remember them! Vaguely.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine), the Republican that Democratic leaders consider most likely to join them on future initiatives, says she is still willing to work across the aisle.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), who is negotiating with Democrats on energy and immigration reform legislation, has said he will not cut off talks because of the controversial use of reconciliation, which allowed Democrats to move a package of fixes to the healthcare legislation with only simple-majority votes. [...]

Sen. Judd Gregg (N.H.), the Republican point man on reconciliation rules, told The Hill the rulings of parliamentarian Alan Frumin were “fair.”

Woweee! They "won't cut off talks"! They'll "consider"! The parliamentarian was "fair"! If that's not compromisey, I don't know what is.

Mugger to victim: "Hey, if you give me all your money and let me beat you to a pulp, I won't kill you."

We owe the Rushpublics a debt of thanks. Allowing the Dems to "talk" after more than a year of reckless obstruction is a gift. Who could ask for more?

But... but... Didn't Lindsey stomp his foot and pout, take his toys and go home? I coulda sworn he did....

Graham warned earlier this month that Democrats would “poison the well” if they passed healthcare reform legislation with a simple majority [...]

But Graham backed off his earlier warnings Sunday and said he would continue to work with Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on immigration reform and other issues.

Whew! Thank you, Lindsey. Thank you so much. We're indebted. We'll be your slave for a week!

Now about that Olympia... she seems reasonable, doesn't she? Until she doesn't. Here comes that pesky However again:

Snowe, however, cautioned that her willingness to cooperate has its limits and urged Democrats not to push bills that are too sweeping in scope.

She cautions, she urges, she places limits. What a generous gesture.

Wait, what's this? Bob Corker has even, um, uncorked a little:

Also last week, during the height of the reconciliation debate, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) suggested that Republicans could gain more policy-wise by working with Democrats.

See how reachy-outy they are after they realize what fools they've been, boxing themselves into Just Say Hell No corners, getting all kinds of negative press, and-- What's that word again? Oh yes-- losing?

Yep, they're bipartisan as all-get-out... in an election year... and until the next piece of legislation is put in front of them.

McCain calls for new ‘Gang of 14’ to stop Obama push on healthcare

By GottaLaff

By all means, follow the wonderful advice of a guy with the judgment of a toddler... who lost the election because he had no grasp of the issues, chose Barbie McLipSchmutz as a running mate on a (desperate) whim, got busted on national Tee Vee for lying to David Letterman, suspended his campaign (and then lied about that, too) to avoid a debate, and... well, is BFF with Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman.

Yeah, let's trust him:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is seeking bipartisan support to block Senate Democrats from using special parliamentary tactics to pass healthcare reform. [...]

And McCain reminded Democrats that he was a member of the bipartisan Gang of 14, which stopped Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) from using the so-called nuclear option in 2005.

It's time for a similar gang, he said. So far, he’s had no takers.

How shocking.

And reconciliation is NOT the nuclear option. Just FYI.

Most See Republicans as Unwilling to Compromise

Next time someone asks a question like this in a poll they should next ask "What do you thing the consequences to Republicans should be for their unwillingness?" Be interesting to see that. Via Taegan-

A new Washington Post/ABC News poll finds that nearly six in 10 Americans say the Republicans aren't doing enough to forge compromise with President Obama on important issues; more than four in 10 see Obama as doing too little to get GOP support.

In addition, nearly two-thirds of Americans say they want Congress to keep working to pass comprehensive health-care reform.

Frank Rich: The Guns of August

By GottaLaff

Frank Rich:

The [gun-toting] protester was a nut. America has never had a shortage of them. But what’s Tom Coburn’s excuse? Coburn is a Republican senator from Oklahoma, where 168 people were murdered by right-wing psychopaths who bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. [...] Yet last Sunday, when asked by David Gregory on “Meet the Press” if he was troubled by current threats of “violence against the government,” Coburn blamed not the nuts but the government.

“Well, I’m troubled any time when we stop having confidence in our government,” the senator said, “but we’ve earned it.”

[...] In the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, he was part of a House contingent that helped delay and soften an antiterrorism bill. This cohort even tried to strip out a provision blocking domestic fund-raising by foreign terrorist organizations like Hamas. Why? The far right, in league with the National Rifle Association, was angry at the federal government for aggressively policing America’s self-appointed militias. [...]

I have been writing about the simmering undertone of violence in our politics since October, when Sarah Palin, the vice-presidential candidate of a major political party, said nothing to condemn Obama haters shrieking “Treason!,” “Terrorist!” and “Off with his head!” at her rallies. [...]

Coburn’s implicit rationalization for far-right fanatics bearing arms at presidential events — the government makes them do it! — cannot stand. He’s not a radio or Fox News bloviator paid a fortune to be outrageous; he’s a card-carrying member of the United States Senate. [...]

In April the Department of Homeland Security issued a report, originally commissioned by the Bush administration, on the rising threat of violent right-wing extremism. It was ridiculed by conservatives, including the Republican chairman, Michael Steele, who called it “the height of insult.” Since then, a neo-Nazi who subscribed to the anti-Obama “birther” movement has murdered a guard at the Holocaust museum in Washington, and an anti-abortion zealot has gunned down a doctor in a church in Wichita, Kan.

This month the Southern Poverty Law Center, the same organization that warned of the alarming rise in extremist groups before the Oklahoma City bombing, issued its own report. A federal law enforcement agent told the center that he hadn’t seen growth this steep among such groups in 10 to 12 years. “All it’s lacking is a spark,” he said. [...]

[T]he biggest contributor to this resurgence of radicalism remains panic in some precincts about a new era of cultural and demographic change. [...]

While Bell’s essay remains relevant in 2009, he could not have imagined in 1962 that major politicians, from a vice-presidential candidate down, would either enable or endorse a radical and armed fringe. Nor could he have imagined that so many conservative intellectuals would remain silent. [...]

Those on the right who defend the reckless radicals inevitably argue “The left does it too!” It’s certainly true that both the left and the right traffic in bogus, Holocaust-trivializing Hitler analogies, and, yes, the protesters of the antiwar group Code Pink have disrupted Congressional hearings. But this is a false equivalence. Code Pink doesn’t show up on Capitol Hill with firearms. And, as the 1960s historian Rick Perlstein pointed out on the Washington Post Web site last week, not a single Democratic politician endorsed the Weathermen in the Vietnam era.[...]

[T]his kind of irrational radicalism has a myriad of targets. And it is impervious to reason. [...]

Even now the radicals are taking a nonviolent toll on the Obama presidency. Obama complains, not without reason, that the news media, led by cable television, exaggerate the ruckus at health care events. But why does he exaggerate the legitimacy and clout of opposition members of Congress who, whether through silence or outright endorsement, are surrendering to the nuts? Even Charles Grassley, the supposedly adult Iowa Republican who is the Senate point man for his party on health care, has now capitulated to the armed fringe by publicly parroting their “pull the plug on grandma” fear-mongering.

For all the talk of Obama’s declining poll numbers this summer, he towers over his opponents. [...] Should Obama fail to deliver serious reform because his administration treats the pharmaceutical and insurance industries as deferentially as it has the banks, that would be shameful. Should he fail because he in any way catered to a decimated opposition party that has sunk and shrunk to its craziest common denominator, that would be ludicrous.

The G.O.P., whose ranks have now dwindled largely to whites in Dixie and the less-populated West, is not even a paper tiger — it’s a paper muskrat. James Carville is correct when he says that if Republicans actually carried out their filibuster threats on health care, it would be a political bonanza for the Democrats.[...]

If the president insists that enemies like this are his friends — and that the nuts they represent can be placated by reason — he will waste his opportunity to effect real change and have no one to blame but himself.

I sliced and diced this, so please go here to read the rest.

White House Insists Bipartisan Health Care Bill Is Still a Possibility

By GottaLaff

Who's kidding who here? Any "bipartisanship" is tantamount to the Dems caving to the Rushpublics. The other side has come right out and said they will not support any bill, compromise or no compromise.

Delusional much? Or is this my sleep deprivation speaking? I kvetch, you decide:

The White House on Wednesday pushed back against reports suggesting that President Barack Obama is ready to concede that he can’t get Republican votes for health care overhaul legislation, asserting that the administration still believes a bipartisan bill is possible.

“We continue to be hopeful that we’ll get bipartisan support, and we’ll continue to work with those that are interested in doing that,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said. “The president has said countless times he will work with anybody in any party who wants to work constructively on health care reform.”

Gibbs directly rejected the contention in an article in Wednesday’s New York Times that said administration officials are “increasingly convinced” they will have to focus their effort solely on uniting fractious Democrats.

Gibbs denied that there is even strategizing in the White House about a Democrats-only option.

“There’s several more weeks to go in negotiations between Republicans and Democrats,” he said. “I don’t know why we would short-circuit that now.”

Gibbs acknowledged that many Republicans have hardened their opposition to Obama’s initiative, but he contended there are still Republicans on the Finance Committee and elsewhere who want to forge a bipartisan deal with Obama.

Deal? To the Rushpublics, a deal looks like this:

The Boehner makes my point for me:

But leading Republicans question how committed the White House has ever been to bipartisanship.

“From day one, the White House has taken a go-it-alone approach on health care,” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) asserted in a statement. “Months ago, Republicans sent the President a letter noting areas of potential common ground on health care reform and requesting a meeting with him to discuss a bipartisan way forward,” he added.

“The Administration rejected our efforts to work together, choosing instead to craft a costly government takeover of health care and to march forward on a partisan basis solely with Democrats in Congress,” the statement continued.

Y'see, one big problem is that Democrats don't have the votes yet, all by their lonesomes. Senators Kennedy and Byrd haven't been able to vote due to illness, sadly. And then there are those pesky Blue Dogs.

Gibbs said any type of effort is possible by Obama to get an agreement on the health care bill once Congress returns, including a trip by the president to Capitol Hill.

“I think the president would orbit the moon if he thought it would help,” Gibbs said.

We'd be right there with him, all gussied up in our nifty space suits, if only he'd let us. But I have a queasy feeling that the Rushpublics would cut our oxygen supply and blame it all on a socialist government take-over of the space ship which was designed to kill us during our end-of-life orbit around Planet Public Option.

Quote of the Day

Behold, one of the supposedly "great political minds" of our century. Isn't it funny that pretty much anyone who reads or writes at this little blog could have told you the same things months ago?

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said the heated opposition was evidence that Republicans had made a political calculation to draw a line against any health care changes, the latest in a string of major administration proposals that Republicans have opposed.

“The Republican leadership,” Mr. Emanuel said, “has made a strategic decision that defeating President Obama’s health care proposal is more important for their political goals than solving the health insurance problems that Americans face every day.”

Video- CNN: White House preparing to push health care through without GOP support

Blah blah blah. I'll believe whatever I see signed and on the President's desk.

Republican Death Trip: "What’s still missing...is a sense of passion and outrage" by Obama

By GottaLaff

Paul Krugman:

“I am in this race because I don’t want to see us spend the next year re-fighting the Washington battles of the 1990s. I don’t want to pit Blue America against Red America; I want to lead a United States of America.” So declared Barack Obama in November 2007, making the case that Democrats should nominate him, rather than one of his rivals, because he could free the nation from the bitter partisanship of the past.

BUT... well, you all know the "but". We've seen it all over the Tee Vee Machine for weeks. We've seen it at town hall meetings, in speeches, on FaceBook, and nasty, vile gatherings of corporate astroturfy TeaDeathers.

So much, then, for Mr. Obama’s dream of moving beyond divisive politics. The truth is that the factors that made politics so ugly in the Clinton years — the paranoia of a significant minority of Americans and the cynical willingness of leading Republicans to cater to that paranoia — are as strong as ever. In fact, the situation may be even worse than it was in the 1990s because the collapse of the Bush administration has left the G.O.P. with no real leaders other than Rush Limbaugh.

The question now is how Mr. Obama will deal with the death of his postpartisan dream.

So far, at least, the Obama administration’s response to the outpouring of hate on the right has had a deer-in-the-headlights quality. It’s as if officials still can’t wrap their minds around the fact that things like this can happen to people who aren’t named Clinton, as if they keep expecting the nonsense to just go away.

[...] It would certainly help if he gave clearer and more concise explanations of his health care plan. To be fair, he’s gotten much better at that over the past couple of weeks.

What’s still missing, however, is a sense of passion and outrage — passion for the goal of ensuring that every American gets the health care he or she needs, outrage at the lies and fear-mongering that are being used to block that goal.

So can Mr. Obama, who can be so eloquent when delivering a message of uplift, rise to the challenge of unreasoning, unappeasable opposition?

GObama... right now. Please. We can't afford to wait a minute longer.

H/t: David Shuster

Health Care Reform Breakthrough?

None of this sounds good at all. The only thing that heartens me is that I don't think the House will go for anything without the public option. Via Taegan-

As the "gang of six" prepares to meet with President Obama this morning, it appears they are really getting closer to a bipartisan deal on health care reform.

The Washington Post reports the emerging deal "would shave about $100 billion off the projected trillion-dollar cost of the legislation over the next decade and eventually provide coverage to 94 percent of Americans... It would expand Medicaid, crack down on insurers, abandon the government insurance option that President Obama is seeking and, for the first time, tax health-care benefits under the most generous plans."

Jay Rockefeller Blasts "Gang of Six"

By GottaLaff

Bad Dogs!

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) is tired of the focus on the Senate Finance Committee's "gang of six" senators that is negotiating a bipartisan health care reform bill, reports Politico.

Said Rockefeller: "All the attention is going to those three Republicans... you just watch as this bill diminishes. Those three won't be there when the bill passes."

The three Republicans: Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Olympia Snowe of Maine and Mike Enzi of Wyoming. Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) "has insisted on their support in getting the Senate health bill out of committee."

Rushpublic support is completely unrealistic. It's about time to reject them the way one rejects an abusive boy/girlfriend. This is all about being healthy, after all.