The Glade 4.0

It's go time:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch ... -bill.html



Read the whole thing at the link. Oh my.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

I don't think they can do it. If they had the gumption, the wherewithal and the votes to do it they'd have done it by now. I think its a lot of saber rattling on behalf of the leadership in hopes they can sucker a few republicans into voting on something that's inevitable and then when it all goes upside down face they can say. "Well it would have worked, but we had to negotiate with republicans and IT'S ALL THEIR FAULT."

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

[youtube]EkXjYohzAOY[/youtube]

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Hooray for hypocrisy.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

I guess we will see tomorrow. I think they'll do it. Oh the huge manatee.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

I almost hope they do it, as long as it isn't done in some way that can't be undone in two years, and people are so thouroughly disgusted that this brand of socialist liberalism is beaten back for another thirty years, as it was after the Carter years. Liberal American voters will soon see the tragedy of the rationing they are advocating. I can't immagine these New England liberals, used to having acces to the greatest hospitals and medical care in the world right in their back yard, are going to enjoy suddenly having these things they have so taken for granted under the capitalist system stripped from them.

On a side note, healthcare related, my woman's employer, a spinal surgeon, is now forced to lay off two employees now that medicare has cut it's payouts by 21% creating an enviroment where he is no longer willing to accept medicare as it is a cost liability.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Four points:

1. The "Nuclear Option" is different than reconciliation.

2. Using reconciliation doesn't involve a change in the rules, and both sides have used it in the recent past.

3. The Republicans are at least as hypocritical on this as the Dems:

[youtube]UjD3gHZ2F6w[/youtube]

4. The Senate, and to a lesser extent the House, should reform their rules to seriously limit the use of all the various procedural shenanigans (filibusters, reconciliation, anonymous holds, etc.). Straight up or down votes should be the norm, with only limited exceptions.

Demonstrate why you think it is a good idea to remove restraints on law-makers. Also, RD, I lose respect for you when you argue disingenuously. You are letting the lia.. err.. lawyer in you show.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

I'm not convinced that removing procedural complexity is the same as removing restraints. On the contrary, one of my primary reasons for supporting straight up-or-down votes in general is to ensure clear lines of accountability. The way it's set up now, the majority and the minority can just blame each other's procedural tactics for their own substantive failures. If you have a straight up-or-down vote with a majority wins rule, it's perfectly clear who voted for what, and the voters can more easily hold their elected officials accountable for those votes. No more of the "they obstructed us!" or "I voted for it before I voted against it!" b.s.

The problem the Democrats have passing things isn't the Republicans, but the other Democrats. When a guy realizes he's #60, he wants his own special **** to keep him towing the party line.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

If they use this option, they all need to hang. By the by, the President should be removed from office and charged for dereliction of duty and violating his oath of office. As he has demonstrated ABSOLUTE contempt for our Constitution.

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Problem is, 51 seats in the senate is not a congressional mandate. Never has been, never will be. The senate is supposed to represent the entire country, not just whichever of the two big government partys happen to have a simple majority.

Senate rules are in place for exactly that reason.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

The Democrats have nothing to lose and everything to gain by using reconciliation.

It's not like they're going to lose the next election because they pass healthcare. They're going to pay the price because the number one priority - jobs (remember the state of the union?) - was never the real number one priority.

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In time, this too shall pass.

What's your over/under on how long until people realize that the government co-opting 1/6th of the entire US economy will be a net loss for jobs?

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

People are already pissed and will be more so if they do this, I think they've accepted that. If they do believe this is the foot in the door to universal healthcare I think it's going to be viewed as acceptable losses. Easy to say for safe seats like Pelosi or Obama who has 2 more years to make nice.

They had their little show of inviting Republicans to talk. Now they claim, rightly so probably, that the differences cant be resolved between the parties. Further they're claiming to include the Republican ideas in this new bill and the new bill will be 'smaller'. Again all of which is technically true, but so what.

An op-ed but what he says is probably the mindset:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/edito ... th_reform/



I cant believe that the serious Democrats dont realize the "angry Americans" are organic, not whipped into action by any party. The blue dogs certainly know it. The people are genuinely angry, and rightly so. But it's a useful lie to say it's all Republicans whipping people up with fear.

Still, if they get this foot in the door, I feel it is an inevitable push towards universal. Instead of repealing, it will be "lets fix it" (read: throw more money into it). That will work, because incrementally things wont get bad too quickly. You can simply throw the money at whomever and they'll happily vote to "get mine", then demonize people who vote against it "why do you hate poor minorities that this funding helps?".

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

I think people already know. There are some that feel the end justifies the means though.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Just think ...

The precedents established by the Obama Citizenship cases vacate part of the First Amendment: we can no longer petition for a redress of grievances, because we no longer have standing.

Obama has turned into a petty little dictator.

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The filibuster should be expanded to the House as well.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Well, once this is all said and done, perhaps the government will step in with a law that makes it illegal to refuse Medicare coverage. It is, after all, the rich, racist fat-cats like your woman's employer that drive the prices up to begin with. Or maybe they can solve the real problem and just make it illegal to lay off workers.

At which point, watch every physician even close to being able to afford retirement quit working.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Not if we make it illegal for them to retire!

Da Tovarisch. Eta harashaya eedeya.

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Holy shitsnacks!

How so? (Honest question.) The Constitution doesn't require a supermajority vote or provide for a filibuster. Those are just Senate procedural rules, as is reconciliation. My understanding is that the plan is for the House to pass the same bill the Senate already passed, with an understanding that changes will be made via the reconciliation rules, which will then still have to receive majority approval in both houses of Congress, as the Constitution requires.

Confusalled. If the house somehow -again if it was that easy it would be done- passes the senate bill, why does the senate need to make changes? Unless you mean the are going to pass a version of it.

Also how is reconciliation different from the nuclear option?

However Dave yes I do find the republcan scambling on this issue as bad as democrat back peddling on the goodness/evil of the process

I clearly remeber expressing my disdain for the process back in 05, with the warning that this would come back to bite us on the arse.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Truth be told, I'm sympathetic to the idea of slowing the legislative process down via procedural rules, but I think the benefit of the "sober second thought" approach has to be weighed against the need cost of potential gridlock and, as I said, lack of clear accountability for government actions/failures. There are already numerous checks and balances built into the Constitutional structure, and in the current climate of hyper-partisanship (from both sides) the additional hurdles created by the Senate rules as they stand seem excessive.

Also, it's worth noting that the current rules actually make large, comprehensive bills like the health care overhaul more likely than smaller, incremental changes. Since larger bills are riskier and provide greater opportunity for waste and corruption, I'd rather see procedural rules that make incremental change easier and comprehensive change harder.