Sherrod Brown: Still No Health Care Reform Strategy

and second it really writes them out of having any impact."

Which is more important? Flexing your muscles? Or getting people health care?

What part of an 18 seat majority is so difficult for them to understand?

It is time to wake Obama up and get him in the game. He needs to be very involved in the process.

"We need a better education on reconciliation--how we can write a reconciliation bill as broad as we need to,"

Seriously, Sherrod? I thought you'd figured out what was and wasn't possible via reconciliation before you ruled that option out on the full bill. What the hell was going on all fall?

SEIU Chief Slams House Dems
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/labor/seiu-chief-if-dems-pass-scaled-down-health-bill-labor-will-have-trouble-staying-focused-on-national-politics/

Obama needs to get tough, but Obama isn't the problem - the so-called Progressive Caucus of the House is the problem and they must take responsibility for killing health care reform

House liberals shouldn't wait for the Senate to write the "sidecar fix"

They should go ahead and write 2 or 3 different versions, with different mixes of benefits and payment methods, the PO should DEFINITELY be included in a couple, there are a ton of ideas out there and I have to believe they can moved around like snap-ins at this point, so write two or three alternate versions and send them over to the Senate.

Put the ball back in their court.

Make them vote.

I want to see who exactly are the ten Democratic Senators that are willing to kill this.

Don't wait. Put the ball back in their court...

All along, the House Democrats have been out there thinking that the Senate could do whatever it wanted, but when the issue came to the house they were going to have a chance to really do what was needed. But mostly they haven't had to think too much about the whole issue, except in the most blue-sky terms. They haven't gone through the the wrenching, sickening sausage-making that the Senate did before the holiday. So without having to deal with any of the harsh realities, they are still in a fantasy world in which they are thinking of what they really need, instead of what they can reasonably get. They prefer to stand on principle and fail rather than get something that they don't want.

So this thing is going nowhere without leadership from the White House.

I really believe in this kid.

When Obama didn't stop Bush's wars (imagine being too scared to stop the War on Iraq and Afghainstan. He was toast. He's done.
And now, if Obama does get his "fighting spirit" back, there will always be a blow-up in the war for a distraction. Or were the Generals saving the victory they wouldn't give to Bush for Obama? Oh yeah, and then there's the money, which we might have more of without the wars.
As soon as Obama didn't stop the wars, and regain civilian control of the military, and clean the Bush burrowers out of the government he was done for, his measure taken and found lacking. He's a chump, and a coward. He is covering the backs of all the people who will be the first to stick a knife into his.
I bet they told Obama they would be nice to him politically if he didn't do those things, and he bought it. He got punked.
I would predict his impeachment, but why would they bother? He'll be a reliable place-holder for the next Republican Pres. who can pick up where Bush left off.
Please don't tell me Hilary would have done any different, for two reasons: She's a Democrat, and she has a record of letting men walk all over her, whether they are Dems like Bill, or Repugs like Bush.

On and On and on with the senate. Wasting time, dragging far too long. DC is in quicksand. When the bueracrats would leave, you're hoping it's sooner rather than later. Very very dry stuff eminating from the news sources and the network news. Obama human castration mechanisms are very mouse like.

If President Carter would get off his ass and lead a little this could move forward. If Harry Reid would beg Majority Leader Lieberman (or is it Brown this week?) really, really nicely maybe the Senate could at least come up with 51 Dems who'd promise to try to fix things through reconciliation.

If.

You people keep blaming the wrong people here. You need to blame the Senate, and you need to blame the President. Instead, you're blaming the people who've gotten kicked in the teeth every step of the way. That's not working out so well, is it?

JMM & TPM are one of the best things to happen to the Democratic Party/country/media in the last 20 years. And, yes, that means its been a very good for us progressive Democrats, too. But Josh is--when it comes to crunch--much more moderate/centrist than progressive (i.e., Iraq War, Health Care Reform). And there ARE real anti-progressive/progressive-hating folks in the comment threads here--here's one: "no, the lefties need to get lost and scurry back to Nader like the rats they are." But I'm a big boy. I can take it. I can give it. Just for the record, I loathe people who voted for Nader in 2000. I've never voted for anyone but a Democrat (going back to McGovern in my first national election). I did, however, abstain from voting for Debbie Stabenow the last time she ran here in Michigan, because she voted for that awful credit card company-written bankruptcy bill and that was way over my progressive line. I am at home here. So shut up.

I'm not a 'professional' Democrat, but a life-time Democratic voter, pushing sixty. Like millions, I'm beyond fed up with the selfish, self-satisfied morons running the party -- from the White House on down. I call them 3000 empty suits.

I want health care -- for a STRONG America, a first-class, affordable public education policy -- for a strong America, and a clean environment, for a strong and healthy America. I say Democrats nationwide put together an organized boycott of the polls in November -- and blackmail the National Democratic party with it. The ransom demanded would be three to five pieces of legislation that would radically reverse the average person's losses, these past thirty years of Reaganomics. If the movement is ignored -- to one degree or another -- the party will pay the price in November -- from congressional races, to court-house races. If twenty million Democrats stay home -- the party would crumble, the 3000 empty suits would have their careers ended -- and the neo-fascist Republican Party would have to take the rap, finally, for the destruction they've wreaked upon 90% of the American people -- and the future well-being of the nation.

The empty suits would be fear-struck if it even appeared that a significant enough number of Democratic voters would sit it out (which is, by the way, going to happen to one degree or another anyway). The beauty of this strategy is that it works on so many different levels -- and that hopefully, good would come out of its execution -- so that the party doesn't have to slaughtered like a lamb. It's also all about rebuilding America, and the lives of Americans -- and not about filling the pocketbooks of the empty suits, and their 'clients' at the Pentagon, and in business.

Let's face it folks. There isn't going to be a progressive third party success in the United States, at least not on the left. A charismatic right-wing populist financed by a single billionaire -- maybe. The Democratic Party is all we'll ever have, if anything. Make these assholes sit up straight and do the right thing -- at the threat of the loss of their own livelihoods -- like many of the rest of us have been saddled with.

I say blackmail Democratic Party leadership on a national scale, by organizing a Democratic boycott of November, 2010 -- UNLESS a short list of demands is met by Congress and the White House. I think this kind of mass action could be effective. Anyone got a better idea, besides dropping out -- or getting in on the larceny.

Mark Kaplan

Write johnbrownrising@hotmail.com

Honestly, I've been following this here and elsewhere as much as I can and you'll knock me fucking *sideways* if anything gets done at this point.

Will someone wear the fucking PANTS on this?

Jeebus.

I have given up on getting any help from Washington about health care.

We've passed Single Payer twice in California, only to have Arnold veto it. We're going to pass it again and when Jerry Brown is elected he will sign it. We will show that single payer works. As for the rest of the country, if you are too intimidated by the teabaggers and you refuse to stand up for single payer and demand it at the state level, that's your problem. Not mine.

No strategy???????????????????????

What so hard about PASS THE DAMN BILL?

If the President truly wanted a Bill, let alone a good Bill, he would be in there fighting for one and twisting arms to get the necessary votes. The fact that he is not engaged makes you wonder just what kind of deals he really cut with insurers and PHARMA. Was this supposed to be all a big show and nothing more after all? Whatever the truth, there is nothing the President and Congress could do to look any more incompetent and impotent in the eyes of the voters.

Obama lacks go-after-it-ness. Or he lacks progressive convictions. I think it's both--He's a centrist Corporate Dem/DLC'er who cannot deliver the goods. He sometimes talks a good game. As they said of Bush: "All hat;no cattle." Leads me to believe that a President doesn't really run things--rather the Corporations and Military do.

Obama is the most pathetic leader I have ever seen. He preached about "bipartisanship" from the start and got burned on the Stimulus and now Health Care. But guess what? In his weekly address, he criticized the Supreme Court ruling overturning limits on corporation funding of campaigns, and said that he would seek a "bipartisn" solution to this problem!!!???!!

The Republican Supreme Court made this decision precisely because they feared that his fundraising juggernaught would kill the Republian Party. So why does he think that the Republicans would have any interest in a bipartisan law to limit the effect of this ruling, given that they are already the party of corporations?

I honestly think Obama has a psychological problem, a neurotic need to reconcile two irreconcilable sides. Probably the effect of being a Black child raised in a White family.

Well, we'll see if they punt or not. If they do, we'll probably see both houses gone, and the Republicans can come in and pass some kind of Frankenstein like they did with the Medicare Part D and then get all the credit, only to cause national bankruptcy five to ten years from now.

Sherrod has been working his hind end off. Brown is too be trusted.

Just wondering when the rest of our Reps will get on board with the 60% of Americans who support the public option?

When will they side with the American people and not the insurance industry?