Test Podcast

This is a sample to see how I can podcast from blogger.

Powered by Podbean.com

This is Kind of Funny

From AP.

Shunned Illinois senator suddenly relevant

WASHINGTON — For Democrats determined to get a health care bill, Sen. Roland Burris is like the house guest who couldn't be refused, won't soon be leaving and poses a plausible threat of ruining holiday dinner. Suddenly, he can no longer be ignored.

The Illinois Democrat, appointed by disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, says he'll only vote for a bill to provide health care to millions more Americans as long as it allows the government to sell insurance in competition with private insurers.

And he says he won't compromise.

"I would not support a bill that does not have a public option," Burris, 72, said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. "That position will not change."

Olympia Snowe's Vote

Trolling the internet for compelling responses to Olympia Snowe's vote in the Senate Finance Committee today. Best so far was on the New York Times website. This from Theda Skocpol, in a response to the question whether it is a healthy thing for one Senator to have such power.

No, it is not healthy. But the problem is not just Olympia Snowe — it is a set of Senate rules, formal and informal, that privilege a few votes from senators in small states.

This vote is not the final word, however. This is just a matter of getting a bill out of Senate Finance committee. Bills have to be merged for a final vote in each house, and a conference will work out final details between the Senate and House versions in due course. A lot can and will change.

Olympia Snowe is trying to maintain her leverage in this process, and she is in a sense a proxy for various conservative Democrats, too. She wants to try to shape the final “compromise” on a public option — essentially to block it with a “trigger” approach that would prevent a real option.

Remember, in the end, Olympia Snowe really cannot obstruct final passage. She may get in trouble with fellow Republicans in the Senate if she votes with the Democrats, but she will be in bigger trouble at home in Maine if she obstructs. Maine people want reform.

We have a long ways to go and this is not really all that decisive.

The insistence here that the people of Maine want reform stays with me. East Coast Republicans are all but an extinct species, and I am somewhat heartened by Skocpol's diagnosis: Snowe may have to support a public option because she has done the political calculus. Now I wish I knew more about the political scene in Maine.

Barnstormin' For The Public Option

Howard Dean recently made an impassioned argument for public healthcare. Too bad there were only 150 people there and I had to read about it in the Concord Monitor. Yep, it was at a local Concord bookstore expressed unbounded optimism like this:

Dean said he is hopeful that the public option can pass either with floor
votes or in the reconciliation process.

"Can," not "will." Every knows it can pass. But hey, it looks like the Dems wont let it.

Why is a former presidential frontrunner and the former head of the DNC (that was, in no small way responsible for Obama's presidential victory) being sidelined to such a degree?

An Interesting Point.

On a recent post about the public option at TPM, reader CranialRectalLoopback made a comment so interesting I would like to share it here.

Why does the Senate pretend like there aren't TWO FUCKING BILLS coming out of committees?

Why is everyone pretending that FOUR OF FIVE BILLS have the public option?

If we follow the new 75% rule of the Repubes, we have 80% of the proposed bills with A FUCKING PUBLIC OPTION!

As a side note: If the Democrats were ever really serious about passing public health care wouldn't they have named it something sexier than "the public option." A better name is harder to vote against, a bad name is easier to vote against, just ask the Republicans with their "death tax."

On Settlement Issue, Obama Blinks

From NYT:

UNITED NATIONS — President Obama, who has met immovable resistance from Israel over his demand for a full freeze on settlements in the West Bank, is largely setting that issue aside as a first step toward restarting Middle East peace talks.

BOOOOOOOOOOO!

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/grading-the-baucus-health-plan/?hp

Apropos of what the Democrats could acheive if they were a party that means business, I found this to be interesting (Italics mine).

Santorum also elaborated on his opposition to the use of reconciliation to pass health care legislation; the parliamentary procedure was used, with his support, in the Bush years to pass the controversial 2003 tax cuts and a range of other measures, including opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

Another thing to consider

While the alleged end of the Tamil Tigers left its own question marks, the civilian population that remains has been all but forgotten.