2010 Elections, March 19 edition
Posted on March 19th, 2010 by JMC Enterprises
Obamacare Death Watch (Update #86)
Posted on March 19th, 2010 by Ryan Booth
Update 3-19, 9:40 PM: Firedoglake finally gets it: there is no path to passage of health care reform without some kind of abortion deal. David Dayen, writing there, thinks that there will be a deal, because he sees passage as inevitable. Clearly, I don’t. I see a bunch of people who know that this is extremely unpopular and would love to have a good reason to scuttle the leadership’s plans. Once it becomes clear to everyone else that the bill won’t pass, they will all start demanding stuff like DeFazio “or I won’t vote for the bill.” Then it will die without a vote, as I predicted back on Monday.
Update 3-19, 9:35 PM: I’m not bothering with the links, but Berkley, Kilroy, and Tonko all confirmed today that they would vote yes. I was already counting them all as yes. The whip count at The Hill is hopelessly behind and is pretty useless now.
Filed under: Obamacare, Uncategorized | 16 Comments »
If History Is Any Guide…
Posted on March 19th, 2010 by Mark Zelden
Notwithstanding the media drama surrounding the current health care debate in Washington, the Senate version of the health care reform will pass the House in a matter of days and be signed into law by President Obama. There is some uncertainty about the reconciliation process, the “deem and pass” legality and thus what changes would become law to the underlying nationalized health care system, but the reality is that the US is now going the way of Canada, the UK and most western European nations with respect to the deliverance of health care services.
Moments like this lend themselves to wild and conflicting rhetoric in lieu of the public policy change of this magnitude, but history can be a useful guide as we try to access the impact of nationalizing health care in the US. There is no direct comparison but the United Kingdom offers as close of a study as one is likely to have for the US.
Filed under: History, Obamacare | 1 Comment »
See The Democrats’ Smoking-Gun Talking Points Memo…
Posted on March 19th, 2010 by macaoidh
…just link here. The file is in PDF format.
Very interesting stuff. Definitely not intended for public consumption. Definitely not the kind of P.R. Nancy Pelosi needs right now.
Filed under: Congress, Corruption, Obamacare | No Comments »
NRSC Trashes Melancon For “Demonpass” Vote
Posted on March 19th, 2010 by macaoidh
From a National Republican Senatorial Committee release:
WASHINGTON – Democrat Senate hopeful U.S. Representative Charlie Melancon (D-LA) voted against a provision offered by Republican House Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) yesterday denouncing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for attempting to utilize the so-called “Slaughter Solution” in order to sidestep an up-or-down vote on the Democrats’ costly and contentious health care legislation this weekend.
Filed under: 2010 Elections, Charlie Melancon, Congress, Corruption, David Vitter, Obamacare | No Comments »
Entitlement Mentality On Full Display With Civil Service E-Mails (Updated, 2:17 p.m.)
Posted on March 19th, 2010 by macaoidh
Today’s Baton Rouge Advocate has a very revealing piece on the public employee mentality confronting Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal in his attempts to slim down state spending on budget areas outside of health care and higher education. It seems that the state’s Department of Civil Service has released a set of e-mails it received from state employees voicing their concerns about Jindal’s plans to freeze pay increases as the state attempts to reconcile a billion-dollar budget shortfall (with a $2 billion deficit projected on top of this year’s number for the 2011-12 fiscal year).
Break out your violin before you read any further.
Filed under: Bobby Jindal, Economy, State Budget, State Employees | 4 Comments »
A “Self-Extinction” Rule
Posted on March 19th, 2010 by dan juneau
You can’t make this stuff up, folks.
After many months of arm-twisting, cajolery, and backroom sweetheart deals, the Obama administration and the House leadership, at this writing, still don’t have the votes to enact the Senate version of the health care legislation and send it on to the President for his signature. House members don’t want an up-or-down vote on the Senate bill for varying reasons. Trying to break the stalemate, Speaker Pelosi is determined to use an Alice in Wonderland solution to the Democrats’ dilemma: Adopt a “self-extinction rule” that would pass the bill without squeamish Democrats having to vote yes or no on the Senate bill they loathe. If this sleight-of-hand gambit succeeds, it will be the most outlandish affront to reality since Bobby Ewing miraculously came back to life after being killed off on “Dallas” when the writers for the show began the next season by saying his death was only a “dream.”
Filed under: 2010 Elections, Congress, Corruption, Obamacare | No Comments »
Quote Of The Day
Posted on March 19th, 2010 by macaoidh
“There seems to be an underlying assumption in Louisiana that state employees don’t do much work.”
- Frank Ransburg, Southern University political science professor
Filed under: Quote Of The Day | No Comments »
Potential Implications Of Obamacare’s Passage
Posted on March 18th, 2010 by macaoidh
Ryan Booth is doing a terrific job of chronicling developments with respect to the vote count on Obamacare, and Hayride readers interested in the ongoing developments are strongly encouraged to re-visit his post on the subject often. It’s Ryan’s opinion that Obamacare is going to fail, by however small a margin.
I’m not convinced either way. I think at some point the Democrats are going to run out of bribes and threats to sway the remaining holdouts – while they’ve got lots of goodies to throw around in that reconciliation bill which might grease a Matheson or Costa or even Altmire, the longer this goes on the more outrage the American people demonstrate about both how this is done and how bad the policy actually is; they’re already bleeding votes as a result of the bill’s unpopularity and if they can’t get to 216 soon this thing could collapse.
Filed under: 2010 Elections, A.G. Crowe, Abortion, Barack Obama, Budget, Congress, Corruption, Economics, Mary Landrieu, Nancy Pelosi, Obamacare, The Constitution, The GOP | No Comments »
East Baton Rouge Parish School Board redistricting
Posted on March 18th, 2010 by JMC Enterprises
Because Central has left the East Baton Rouge Parish school system to form its own school system, the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board was required to redraw its school board districts before the Fall 2010 elections. The School Board voted tonight to reduce the size of the School Board to 11 members (down from the current 12 members) by adopting the 11 member plan, which is shown below.
Filed under: Baton Rouge | No Comments »
