House Braces For Final, Painful Compromises But Leadership Confident They'll Win Over More Blue Dogs

Why did the House even waste its time passing a bill if the Senate Conservadems were writing the bill all along? Anyway, nice that the Dems have removed that second-hump from our bi-cameral legislative body. Fitting, really, that the People's House is now irrelevant b/c the World's Greatest Deliberative Body doesn't take advice. Just money.

Please tell me that the U.S. Conference of Bishops is completely separate from the Catholic church and is registered as a political lobbying organization. Otherwise, the church has some mighty hefty back taxes to pay.

The worst fears of those who opposed John F. Kennedy's candidacy in 1960 are coming true - U.S. politicians are now consulting the Catholic clergical hierarchy for instructions on how to run the country.

My only question, if this is the leaderships' position, which do we eliminate completely? The House or the Senate? Because this statement says one is irrelevant, the House, and the Senate's Legislation is useless.

the special interests/corporate-centric US system wins again. Business as Usual under a new administration. Money wins.

My question is. At this point why even have a House of Representatives? They obviously no longer have any actual power. What a bunch of Spineless sellouts. I think it's time for a majority rule amendment to the Constitution. I think it's also time to do something to curb the Senate's power overall with something like a House overide. Something like - If the house votes for the exact same bill three times over 90 days and the Senate cannot pass it goes to the President for signature without the Senate. The Senate is a very undemocratic institution. It may have had a place when 90% of the country had no more than a 6th or 7th grade education but it is now clearly thwarting the will of the people far more often than serving it.

The problem is not the Senate. The Senate was created so that small states or states with low populations would have adequate representation relative to large states (2 Senators per state). It does that.

The problem is the filibuster rule set at a 60 vote threshold.

That rule is an obvious power grab by the Senate, so the Senate will have more power and influence over legislation than the House. Its great for individual Senators. But very bad for the United States as a whole.

As we've seen time and time again.

When people talk about gridlock in Washington D.C., the filibuster rule is what they are talking about. It can all be traced back to that.

It needs to go.

I think it's also time to do something to curb the Senate's power overall with something like a House overide. Something like - If the house votes for the exact same bill three times over 90 days and the Senate cannot pass it goes to the President for signature without the Senate.

Sounds sorta Brit to me, with the Senate standing in for the House of Lords.
A simpler solution would be a provision inserted in Article I stating that debate on any measure on the floor of either house of Congress may be brought to a close by a majority of the members present. No more filibusters, in other words.

It doesn’t matter whether the democrats are powerless or control everything the one constant is they ALWAYS bend over and take it. There isn’t one brave one in the bunch. How inept are you if you get outplayed and out couraged by Leiberman and Nelson. So pathetic. Claiming defeat from the jaws of victory. Good luck in 2010.

The senate filibuster is the most un-democratic object since the Florida voting machine.

So the sell out will be complete with a few more televised theatrical flourishes on the part of wimpy House progressives. To be fair, this WILL change the rules of the health care insurance game, but not their power to extract profits using the time-honored method of crony corporatism the Democrats continue to embrace, along with their Republican cohorts. Business as usual.

I don't notice much comment from the "they'll fix it in conference" crowd. In fact, I don't notice any comment at all.

Face it, we've been jobbed once again.

In other words the neo-aristocracy should be congratulated for running the country on behalf of the plebes...who are here to pick the cotton...

I am sick of it...it makes me want to vomit...

and as soon as I can (unlike some Hollywood hypocrite) I am leaving...and hope never to return...the "republic" which never truly existed, is dead...

healthcare "reform" without a robust public option is evil...it is another piece of our system of glorious economic apartheid...

Gary Wills was right; Obama and the office of the president are the bitch of the system...owned controlled and under orders to preform...without provoking a coup...the individual described by Wills and the office itself being the tool of those who run the empire is incapable of doing anything to change the system...

and while it is true that the "system works" what is repugnant is that those words are uttered by the aristocrats with absolutely no sense of irony...of course the system works...just the way the aristocrats of the 18th century intended...rule on behalf of the permanent wage slave majority...who are denied basic human rights at every turn...

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23110

so it goes...

If we must accept the Senate compromise of two non-profit plans supervised by the federal government but run by the private insurance companies can we at least leave the $6 bil seed money in the budget for non-profit health care coops to be started by state governments. In some states this might be a useful alternative to the private insurance non-profits.

Maryland Max

Do understand that what people are reacting to in this article is what 'AIDES' said from their perspective, of what 'LEADERSHIP' said, from the perspective of the TPM Reporter.

There are no "quotes" from anyone specially on the topic of abortion or the U.S. Conference of Bishops.

democrats, ushering democracy into its grave. heartbreaking, really.

What Bush did to the Republican Party, Obama is doing to the Democratic Party.

The government will now coerce millions of Americans to pay premiums to private insurance companies. For the many Americans who cannot possibly afford this new tax, I mean *benefit*, our collective tax dollars will subsidize said payments to private insurance companies.

Private insurance companies wallowing in this new cash will do what?
A. Change into angels and provide the best possible health care for their premium paying, co-pay paying, and out-of-pocket paying clients?
B. Continue to be the ruthless, greedy, business men that they are, squeezing every possible penny of profit from every insured person, regardless of moral or legal imperative to provide actual health care benefits to such insured persons.

I'll take "B". I could be drunk, stoned, hit by a train, and recovering after a complete lobotomy, and I'll still take "B".

I think the quote that best captures what Obama and the Democratic Party means to me is:

"You've been hoodwinked. You've been had. You've been took. You've been led astray, led amok. You’ve been bamboozled.?

Malcolm X.

It was a great year. In congress the corporate-acracy was saved and reinforced. Nominated the same guy who got a PhD on the Great Depression and whose sole job was to monitor the economy but yet failed to see the biggest recession coming down the pipe when all signs where there. Sent more troops over to Afghanistan with no clear plan but just as long as the DoD and the Petagon wanted it, it must be the right move! Could've ended "Don't ask don't tell" with an executive order and could've closed Gitmo and sent the prisoners to another facility on that same order. Let the entire Bush administration off the hook for their crimes against humanity.Looking forward to more spineless negotiating and kowtowing to extreme right-wing interest.

And yet you right-wing conservative buffoons still can't see how good you got it.

Birthers, teabaggers, radical right wing "christians", secessionist, healthcare anti-reformist,etc., are all the same core group of poor, uninformed ultra-conservative pawns tricked by the corporate masters and cheerleadered by AM conservative talk radio to get these people to believe and vote against their own self interest.

It isn't any wonder that the main weapon to keep the rank and file conservatives in check is fear. Conservatives fear that their guns are going to be taken away, they fear that U.S. will become socialist, they fear that health care reform will kill off the elderly, they fear that the president is a muslim, they fear that when minorities are in power that reverse racisms will run rampant, they fear that every nation under the sun wants to destroy the U.S. and on and on. This is the main message of Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, et al. to be afraid. After 8 hours a day at least 5 days a week conservatives literally become
brainwashed through the radio and then some on Fox news to be afraid and angry.

Conservatives don't even know what exactly they are trying to conserve. They speak of fair play and freedom but when a group other than their circumscribed group speaks about and want such things (i.e. gay rights, immigrants, minorities, the poor)these ideas suddenly become liberal pandering.

Conservatives don't realize that what they fear most is change. The changing of American society and of the world. Thus their behavior is not much different from other conservative movements around the world, i.e. Taliban, Al Qaida, Likud, Abadgaran. These groups want to maintain the status quo and use fear and sometimes violence to achieve their means. These groups target the same type of people to believe in their ideology. These are usually the poor, rural denizens who feel that the rest of society is moving too fast and that they are being excluded because the city centers are thriving and they are not.

It is this simple mind trick that has allowed the military-industrial complex to roll along unabated for so long. The very thing president Dwight Eisenhower,a Republican, warned against. However, it was only recently that Republicans were up in arms against the slashing of the military budget and discontinuance of the F-22 and only a couple of days ago voted down the defense appropriations bill. This is just another example of how twisted and convoluted conservatism/republicanism is. It contradicts one of their venerated leaders and ideals.

Unfortunately, contradiction and hypocrisy have become the norm for conservatives, so much so that entire shows are based on it and have become very popular (The Colbert Report, Countdown, The Daily show etc.). When conservatives are confronted with this, the usual retort is that it’s the “main stream media” distortion, wholly ignoring that “main stream” = normal or average, non-fringe. Again this is just fear working on these people, fear that their ideology is being pushed to the fringe creating the us vs them mentality.

“No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.” Edmund Burke.

The recent tom-foolery in the Senate is further proof, that the jingoistic, uber-patriotic rhetoric by the republicans is just that, empty rhetoric. The republicans/conservatives don't care about human lives, concerning military operations nor domestic welfare. How can anyone support a party whose ultimate goal is political gamesmanship to keep the status quo? Democrats are not much better, being to spineless to hold up to their ideals. Negotiating like a bunch of dithering do-nothings.
People who support this type of buffoonary need to really look at what they are contributing too. This is the type of crap that makes government so inefficient, in particular the Senate. At least this debate on health care opens the eyes of the aveage lay person to realize how Senators have become the House of Lords and that this so-called aristocratic bunch believe they can play games while people are dying here and abroad. They have totally forgotten that they are supposed to be representatives of the people.

Charles Payne from Fox News said that he is concerned that Americans who already have health insurance maybe inconvenienced by so many Americans now having access to health care.

And he calls himself a Christian?

http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=3442

Even in a Democratic primary, it's hard to win on a single issue, especially "single Payer", which isn't even popular. Just because single payer is a good idea doesn't mean you can win elections on it! Most people are perfectly happy with their employer provided insurance. Senior citizens are happy with Medicare, but they're afraid their benefits will be diluted if they are extended too wide. It's also a pure protest vote: obviously the single payer option will not have a chance in Congress for years.
The Democrats tried to run some candidates the last couple cycles on a pretty much pure anti-war platform (Shaheen, Tammy Duckworth), but they didn't do well, even though most people disapprove of the war.