Unforced Error Gibbs
Chuck Todd, NBC, was very early 2008 to spy that Senator Obama's organization was moving past Mrs. Clinton's in the early primaries, especially the caucuses, and Todd was right on time with his remark that Mrs. Clinton was slipping to the point that she would accept the VPOTUS job. In sum, Todd is acutely accurate about the Obama team, and, in this brief exchange with Robert Gibbs at the White House on Monday 9, there is a large clue that all is not well at the White House with regard healthcare and the bill passed by the glamorously self-regarding Nancy Pelosi (right) and the Democratic mininimum (218) plus 1 (Bill Owen of NY 23rd) vote on Saturday 7. (The Joseph Cao Republican vote was tactically and strategically meaningless.) I cannot tell what the problem is, but the Gibbs frustration is not hidden. The prank to give out Chuck Todd's email on live news feed is unusually aimless. What Todd wants to confirm is that POTUS believes he is on schedule to sign a healthcare bill into law by year's end. Gibbs knows that his response is noise. Gibbs is said to be most critical to the White House message team. When Gibbs asks Todd, "Do you think my answer is ambiguous?" -- a fair answer is, "Yes." Better ambiguity, that is, smoke-blowing, then the zealous grimace of no comment.
Harry Reid and the Scaredy-Cat House.
It isn't just that Harry Reid cannot deliver 60 Senate votes to bring a healthcare bill to the Senate floor that contains a public option and the usual taboos of abortion funding and immigrant health insurance. It is also that of the 219 House Democrats who voted for the Saturday 7 version, there is no reason to believe there is any desire to vote again on such an exposed extravagance that cannot possibly be moved through the Senate. There is no public option ever in the Senate. And the House liberals, it is declared by 41 of the House liberals, will not permit a bill that lacks a pubic option; nor will the liberals likely again swallow the Bart Stupak amendment that forbids abortion funding. Behind all this noise and blame-shifting is the fact that polls show a small minority in favor of the healthcare reform and a majority opposed, with the strongly opposed faction in the 40s. Democratic House members who voted yes and who come from Republican or mixed districts are now exposed as never before to the anti-incumbent fever that started last week in the off-year Virginia and New Jersey elections.
How Many?
There are no good political death lists available, because the Republicans shrewdly will not give out their best stuff on the weakest seats and the Democrats are shrewdly trying to misdirect the coverage. Forty-one seats turn the House to John Boehner. The secret lists will continue to change as Mrs. Pelosi must come back to the House to vote again on the healthcare bill if and when it gets out of the Senate. That is the heart of the Todd and Gibbs snappishness. By year end? It is two weeks to Thanksgiving, and that begins the daffy holiday distraction on the Hill. Members must go home to their districts starting in two weeks to face the ire of the Tea Party and the just plain folks who see what has happened in Washington during a jobless recovery that may not be a recovery. Spend spend must be followed by tax tax, unless and until the Congress changes stripes. How many? The wave builds. Gold went to a solar system high as the dollar sank. There is no investor confidence in the US budget or tax code or regulation protocols. And that jobless number will hang around 10% through year end, just like Gibbs's crankiness and Chuck Todd's useful question, When is that bill-signing on healthcare?
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your key pad to God's veto stamp JB
But we have been here b-4 and resigned to depression. That even when the majority of the nations citizens oppose the direction the clown car of the DC shysters is heading, (Directly off the cliff)- The pedal never leaves the metal. Proving that even in the face of the angry bum tossing electorate- some are just to addicted to the notion of deal making save their political life.
JB, the Dems have sacrificed a lot to get here, they threw Big Abortion under the bus, Blue Dogs are on wafer thin ice, plus others. So close they can taste it. Tantalizingly close. I Don't see them giving up.
They have crossed the Rubicon, with nothing left to lose.
Was this post authored by the same John Batchelor who wrote that Daily Beast article on the Tea Partiers the other day? John, your fans eagerly await an explanation from you as to how both missives can spring from the same keypad.
Here's what I would like to know: Let's say something ends up getting signed into law this year regarding health care reform. Let's say that it's slightly less intrusive and onerous than the House bill of 11/7, but it's still pretty bad. My question: Will the American people accept it and move on, or will they rebel on the principle that it's too much big government? Will anyone challenge its constitutionality and take it to the Supreme Court? Will the voters throw out the legislators who voted it into law, and have it overturned?
Put another way, just how "sweeping" of a bill CAN they pass and get away without losing their political careers over it? That's obviously the question they are debating amongst themselves now, and I'd like to know people's thoughts on this. Do we still have enough freedom-loving people among us to overturn a bad law? Or are we doomed to having this keep getting worse and worse as time goes on?
something will be passed maybe something less but certainly something intrusive
will people pay for that w/ their careers? some will undoubtedly but my faith in the American electorate's long term memory is pretty thin. A well timed Crisis could spare most leadership positions. I feel awful mentioning it but the politics of Fear that has been engaged for the past 9+ years is too effective of a tool in arsenal of politics
as for turning it back once it is in the rolls- certainly it will be tried in the courts and then we gonna need the Justices to b brave and clarify the true meaning of "to preserve the general welfare" & like in all matters determined in the past twenty odd years it be decided by the swing vote sadly
Representative(?) Shaddeg (R?) channels King of Pop on House floor?
Baby magic mischief makes debut in the HoR with stunt similar to ETrade commercial of "Look Who's Talking Now" movie baby talk when Shaddeg brings his grandchild to the podium and mocks the poor who can't afford the outlandish costs of HealthCare in the United States:
Parentaphrasing "If you people HealthScare, pay for it yourselves"
I'm sure most everyone would do that if it didn't cost more than they make
I second that, Pat. They'll pass something to be funded/amended/etc… later. Even though they call it 'health care', it's not really about health care. It's an arm wrestling contest to demonstrate who has the power and who doesn't; who's on the ins and who's in the outs. Right now it's Pelosi (3); the American people (0). But it's still early in the game. I wouldn't bet on a winner quite yet. For one thing, the ‘swing vote’ still needs to bat.
I hear u PK And while we discussing the swing Vote -they are the easiest to manipulate- ever wavering under a banner of bi-partisan, can't we all just get along in substitute for legit debate and fair (and Oft Ugly) Compromise. Just do it and we'll carry on is often a daily thing for the average joe out there and they don't understand just how difficult to undo something once the government has stuck it's foot inside the door.
I am gravely concerned about 2012 election NOW. "10" is being written even Americans can focus that long of past misdeeds without a major distraction but 2012 is going bring a ground swell of the faithful to the POTUS and one well timed September Surprise (fear inducing-chaos infusing-) will grab the centers vote.
Sounds cynical by me but honestly that is how the game is played now, if we can't get your support on a merit basis we will scare and intimate you into keeping the office in place during a time of crisis.
I have no love for either party mind u - I cast my faith more in GOP only b/c they were to model a conservative mindset ( hardly seen in the bush league years) And well I have been brought to task now under BHO's reign. I must cast my dice to oppose the greater threat. . . or find a remote isle out in the Atlantic.
And the primary reason that it's so expensive has been the government's already extensive involvement with it, especially since 1965. You're aware that the Federal Government already pays about 60 cents of every healthcare dollar? So, by my math, 60% of the problem can be laid at their door. Care to try for 100% by increasing government involvement even further?
Bottom line, the poor need to look out for themselves. I already pay 40 cents out of every dollar I earn on income taxes, and probably another 10 cents on sales and local taxes. I've given enough. Read my lips: I do not care about whether the poor can afford healthcare or any other commodity. In a free country, it's not my concern. And I will fight to avoid carrying that burden. Taxation is theft.
So, are you saying dissolve the Medicare/ Medicaid programs?
I know I wasn't clear, but, I was talking about the system overall being too expensive and ever growing ... from premiums to services
But, mostly I was commenting on the stunt that Shadegg pulled on the House floor.
Yes, I am in favor of ending all government wealth transfer schemes, including Medicare, OASDI, and Medicaid. Of course I am. I take that as a given. I don't mind phasing them out in a way that is the least disruptive to all involved. Since we as a nation cannot afford them in the long run, they will definitely end, the only question is how disruptive the end will be. Because I'm an actuary and I spend my day doing financial projections that extend always to at least 2050 and frequently as far as 2100, I'm constantly reminded of this.
I am torn about this whole Stupak/Catholic Bishops/abortion deal. On the one hand, it looks now as if the rift between pro-life and pro-abortion Democrats is the best shot we've got to kill this thing. On the other, I don't really want to have to hear for the next 10 years how it was these "wacko, right-wing, right to life nutjobs" that killed healthcare. You know, similar to the way that the MSM characterizes the conservative movement at the moment. I believe that unless and until we can make it very clear that mainstream Americans of all walks of life and all religious beliefs love our freedom more than we love a putative free lunch, this health care reform vampire will never die. Maybe we have to be pushed right to the brink before we wake up and say, "No! This is not going to happen. Not on our watch."
It also goes without saying that whatever ends up getting passed, I will devote the remainder of my time on Earth to getting it repealed.
Either, given my utter lack of Faith in any chance of the reemergence of the American Ideal or the competing ponderousness of just what the hell are we need & are prepared to do to save it . . . I am thinking of just sitting back and watching the world burn
maybe head down to the local home depot and watch the unemployed battle it out w/ the illegals for a day labor spot.
Maybe i'll hit the local grocery store to find mr. buckley the former owner of local 5 and dime store packing out the cat food.
Maybe i'll buy some of that cat food given the chances are i'll be needing to feed my family sooner or later.
So, you don't agree and don't support the movement to preserve the Medicare/ Medicaid programs... is this correct?
Don't you always talk about preserving the Constitution? Taxation was written in the document, you know that don't you?
I went through that phase already, and have passed through the other end. See, I found it was slowly killing me. You know that saying that everyone not being busy born is busy dying? I realized it's true. I tried to go the Ayn Rand route, the John Galt route. I tried to scale back and pull my horns in and fight it that way. But I am a money-making machine. It's what I do. I delivered Christmas Cards door to door when I was 9 years old and had two paper routes (morning and afternoon) and have been at it ever since. Democrats have always stolen from my paycheck and they always will steal from my paycheck. It really doesn't matter if they steal 40% or 60% or 80%. The blackness of the theft is on their souls, not mine.
What does matter is that Atlas picks up the Earth again and keeps moving forward, regardless of the tiny little Obamas and Pelosis running around his feet yapping and nipping at his heels and ankles.
Atlas can shrug for a time, but Atlas can no more rest and set the Earth down for any length of time, than any of the rest of us can wilfully escape our own destinies. I've realized that Ayn Rand was wrong; that Atlas Shrugged ended where it did for a reason, because what followed would have disproven it: namely, that Atlas must resume carrying the Earth, and soon, or the Earth will fall.
All of us, we must stop this talk about giving up or giving in. We must move forward though the weight of the entire system pulls back against us.
"But those that seek my soul, to destroy it, shall pass in the lower parts of the Earth. They shall fall by the sword, they shall be a portion for foxes."
So, your logic is .... since the Constitution gives the government the ability to tax, if the government elects not to tax in a given situation, the government isn't upholding the Constitution? You might inquire as to whether Keith Olbermann needs an assistant; that sounds like something he'd cook up.
It's important for another reason that we keep moving forward: The God of Capitalism, who is my one and only true God, (guess I lied about being an atheist) will only save us if we save ourselves. If we prove worthy of being saved. If we go down without a struggle, He will decide we are not worth saving.
Don't worry, I'm not going to turn into some sort of religious nut or zealot. I simply have come to realize that I worship Capitalism, and I consider Socialism to be the embodiment of the Devil. When I say I worship Capitalism, I mean I love it. I love its fruits, both the sweet and the bitter. I love its history, its ebbs and flows. I'm proud to be a footsoldier in the war to preserve Capitalism, now when it needs me the most.
I LOVE Capitalism with my heart and with my soul, and its fate is my fate.
Spencer I must say a majority of the "Property" the US government is absconding with is not within the realm of Constitutional law. Medicaid/medicare programs are nice entitlements to those who who rely on them but far from being authorized in the enumerated powers of the Constitution. If we wanted to run it correctly we needed to bank the ill gotten booty and the god damn government has yet to prove it can ever keep it's dirty little fingers off the stash for any program. Let us absolutely clear, in the thick of the argument over this newest crap heap of a health care scam, history may not repeat but it does rhythm
I know i haven't frequented the website often for a while but I am pretty sure we all are very well aware of the inescapable fact that our overall debt is beyond our ability to dig out from. The Faith and trust of the US fiat currency just a ill spoken whisper away from turning to a humongous pile of ash.
It isn't a lack of compassion Spencer - But it is an apathetical view grown from years of theft perpetrated by the one nation state that was to be by and for the people.
Right - it might be hard to believe given my rantings, but I'm generous to a fault for people who legitimately need my help. (As long as I don't have a gun to my head to provide it.)
You said it... I didn't. It's fine with me if the government decides not to tax. However, that's not likely.
I asked if you supported the demonstrators who have been ginned up to believe and are afraid that the government is going to take away their HealthScare and deny them care?
I'm a capitalist/ free market true believer, too. I guess, where we differ is that this country has enabled us to pursue our dreams (or as you put it, worship your money) and I believe we should not lose sight of that fact.
That's like asking, "Do you support the progressives who have been ginned up to believe that a woman has a 'right' to inject her unborn fetus with 10 cc of cyanide just as a matter of convenience?"
By the way, I don't object to paraphrasing but it's a material difference between "worshiping Capitalism" and "worshiping money". One of the reasons I worship Capitalism is it guarantees me the right to fail, as well as the right to succeed. It is the possibility of failure that makes success sweet. Given a choice of being handed $1M or handed the right to succeed or fail in a free market based on my own abilities and wits, I would choose the latter. I suspect it's socialists who really worship money, to the point where they're willing to steal to get it.
Ho humm I'm sleepy...