Harry Reid Needs to GO! NOW! Go Now!

[Nbadan]

Seriously, Reid is weak and it's reflecting bad on Obama...


I've said it before and this seems to clinch it. Harry Reid will soon be Openly working for some major health insurance or pharmaceutical company. The key difference in what I've said before is the word OPENLY. He's been working for them, just like the sellouts from the small states.

Now, Reid claims to have the magic sixty votes to pass health care legislation. That's been done by totally rejecting the Democratic base, with the permission of Obama key advisors and probably, almost certainly, Obama himself. It's been done by including anti-abortion legislation that betrays women like no other legislation in decades. It betrays us all by allowing interstate sales of Insurance, thus removing state protections, so insurers can re-establish their headquarters in states with the least and worst regulations-- probably states like Montana and Nebraska, where Baucus and Nelson come from.

Reid, Announcing the WONDERFUL NEWS.


The bill pays blackmail to states where their DINO senators balked at working with the rest of the democrats. It is going to go down in history as some of the worst legislation, cast in desperation because of a failure of courage and character by congressional leaders-- particularly Reid and Pelosi.

It is impossible to accept the possibility that any real democrat, with any allegiance to democratic values, would accept the legislation as written, with so many gifts to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries and to the right wing.

This is a massive sellout and the democratic party, if Democrats pass this, deserves to be voted into oblivion-- as well as the Republican party. I want to be clear I am calling for non-partisan oblivion for both parties, which really function as one.

It is time for people to get out into the streets, into the offices of their members of congress-- house and senate. It is time to reject all the shills and sellouts and betrayers of constituents. Joe Lieberman is in some ways the most honest of them all-- he's a transparent shill, unlike Reid and Pelosi, who pretend they are doing good for the American people while they are doing a marketing job, trying to sell us not only damaged but toxic, dangerous goods as good for us. Put a pretty bow on this package, say we're doing two good things and then throw in 2000 pages of damage and destruction. The hell with that.

It will be interesting to see how many professed liberals allow this garbage train of corporate welfare to pull out of Washington, doing damage to America.

Harry Reid and many of his compadres in crime will surely leave the senate soon and take cushy jobs with the corporate swine that are taking the US down.

It is time to rise up, time to take down, time to demand, time to reject, time to shout out our disgust and our refusal to accept what these traitors are doing to us, to our families to our jobs, to mainstreet, to the American people. They are nothing less than criminals.

The right thing to do is to throw out this bill and to create two bills. I've written another short article about that.

Reject Reid's Gift to Insurers; The Two Bill Solution to Health Care

It took Al Franken to do what Reid should have been doing....admonishing Lieberman for changing his position on health-care in three months and stopping Ben Nelson from keeping the country hostage for poltical reasons...

[TheProfessor]

Seriously, Reid is weak and it's reflecting bad on Obama...



It took Al Franken to do what Reid should have been doing....admonishing Lieberman for changing his position on health-care in three months and stopping Ben Nelson from keeping the country hostage for poltical reasons...
Obama told Reid to negotiate with Lieberman, and with Nelson. The bill the senate has come out with is effectively what Obama wanted the entire time. He knew he didn't have the votes in the Senate, but that they could get some sort of compromise when the bills are reconciled. If anything, Reid overestimated his hand in an effort to play to the base.

Liberals jumped the gun and started feeling all betrayed because, <GASP>, people are playing politics and you don't get everything you want. They elected a president who ran on compromise, but are now demanding he be the dictatorial executive they despised in Bush. While the Senate bill might actually help some people get affordable healthcare who couldn't before, the dailykos and firedoglake loons are all too willing to kill the whole thing just so they can get all hot and bothered. It's sad.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

:lol Dems already making Reid the fall guy. The only thing this piece of shit bill didn't give the liberals that they wanted was an out in the open government option.

You guys are funny.

[Winehole23]

:lol Dems already making Reid the fall guy.I agree with you, that's weak. Professor X pretty much screwed Dan's head back on for him in the post just above yours:


Obama told Reid to negotiate with Lieberman, and with Nelson. The bill the senate has come out with is effectively what Obama wanted the entire time.

[Nbadan]

Obama told Reid to negotiate with Lieberman, and with Nelson. The bill the senate has come out with is effectively what Obama wanted the entire time. He knew he didn't have the votes in the Senate, but that they could get some sort of compromise when the bills are reconciled. If anything, Reid overestimated his hand in an effort to play to the base.

Reid didn't negotiate with Liebermann and Nelson, he gave away the farm...I keep hearing your claim that 'this is the plan Obama wanted all along' and I'm not sure what your sources for this claim is but if this was the plan all along it could have been achieved with much less political damage to Obama if it had been touted as insurance reform and not health-care reform because the insurance industry's product is much more abstract...

[Nbadan]

:lol Dems already making Reid the fall guy. The only thing this piece of shit bill didn't give the liberals that they wanted was an out in the open government option.

You guys are funny.

Reid is the fall guy because he showed weak leadership and because he continues to let Liebermann and Nelson hold key committee positions at a time when both have shown that they put corporate interests about their constituents..

[Winehole23]

Reid didn't negotiate with Liebermann and Nelson, he gave away the farm...I keep hearing your claim that 'this is the plan Obama wanted all along' and I'm not sure what your sources for this claim is but if this was the plan all along it could have been achieved with much less political damage to Obama if it had been touted as insurance reform and not health-care reform because the insurance industry's product is much more abstract...The Dems could use a marketing tip or two.

[Nbadan]

No doubt..that's one thing the GOP excels at...they give crappy legislation written by lobbyist catchy names like 'the clean air act' and the general public falls for it because if your against this, you must be against clean air...

:rolleyes

I just want the Professor to source his claim that 'this is the plan Obama wanted all along'...

[Winehole23]

Reid is the fall guy because he showed weak leadership and because he continues to let Liebermann and Nelson hold key committee positions at a time when both have shown that they put corporate interests about their constituents..If they stated playing ruff and tuff with members for canoodling with special interests and presenting their work product as if it was the members' own, there'd never be any rational end to it.

FWIW, Dan, I agree it would be worth doing. I just don't think anything like this will happen. Elections and lobbying would have to be reformed in a fairly drastic way, before it would in a member's self-interest to snub the special interests who now pay so much money to elect politicians, and to gain access to the political process.

[Nbadan]

FWIW, Dan, I agree it would be worth doing. I just don't think anything like this will happen. Elections and lobbying would have to be reformed in a fairly drastic way, before it would in a member's self-interest to snub the special interests who now pay so much money to elect politicians, and to gain access to the political process.

..you know, stuff like this won't happen with guys like Reid in charge of the Senate...this awasting while a job creation bill and consumer protection bill sit in the wings...the Dems need to show people that they feel their economic pain before Nov. 2010 because people will vote their wallets..

[Winehole23]

...the Dems need to show people that they feel their economic pain before Nov. 2010 because people will vote their wallets..They seem to have gotten a late start on that.

[Nbadan]

well......the jobs number have been improving dipping to 10 from 10.2, our economy has been in a slump for about 2 years, which is the standard cycle for this type of correction...corporations are still a little gun shy about hiring but there's no reason to believe that with a little more 'economic encouragement' the next run could come quicker...

...then, when taxes are a record highs, we take care of the debt..

[Marcus Bryant]

The state will take care of the debt by printing more currency, as it always has done. There'll be a record high tax with that, of course.

[Nbadan]

well, what good is printing more money if you have no mechanism for getting to the people that need it the most...besides, as the economy grows it can handle a growing money supply....inflation is a worry, but not while there are still some signs of deflation....

[Marcus Bryant]

http://www.justinbuist.org/blog/images/polar-bear-face-palm_thumbnail.jpg

[Nbadan]

look you worry about inflation when the economy is growing again is all I'm saying because not to do so will only make the eventual recovery costs even higher...

...the money supply is supported by debt, the higher the default on the that debt the weaker the dollar....

[Marcus Bryant]

Recovery costs are already exponentially higher thanks to the bipartisan efforts we've seen over the last fourteen months, not to mention those of Gentle Ben over in his palace. Of course we are going to print up the money we pay the Chinese back with. The value of the money supply is supported by the taxing and military functions of the federal government.

[Nbadan]

ot to mention those of Gentle Ben over in his palace. Of course we are going to print up the money we pay the Chinese back with.

Not too mention Americans, who still own and buy more T-bonds and notes than any other segment....

[Marcus Bryant]

Anyone who has any asset priced in dollars that they don't hedge. The hope, of course, as with any inflation, is that it's constrained enough such that we don't notice it, other than in the anecdotal "I remember when a beer cost $5 instead of $15" sense.

[Marcus Bryant]

SldKv_Etihw

[TheProfessor]

I just want the Professor to source his claim that 'this is the plan Obama wanted all along'...
Nothing explicit. Only that, if he felt any inclination to ensure that the public option or a vague simulacrum was left standing in the Senate bill, he would have put pressure where he could to make it happen. Glenn Greenwald, for all his bluster, saw this a while ago: (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/08/19/obama/index.html)


If anything, Blue Dogs -- virtually all of whom represent more conservative districts -- are more vulnerable and thus more dependent for re-election on the White House and Democratic Party infrastructure than progressives are. If health care fails and the Obama presidency weakens, they will bear the brunt of the voters' desire to punish Democrats. The White House would have at least as much leverage to exercise against Blue Dogs and centrists. They just aren't doing so. In fact, they're doing the opposite: they're protecting them even as they supposedly impede what the White House wants on one of Obama's signature issues.

This isn't to say that Obama can single-handedly control what Congress does. It's possible that even with maximum leverage exerted, a President can still lose. But there isn't any leverage being exerted against anti-public-option "centrists" and Blue Dogs. There's just no effort being made. The White House seems perfectly content with what the centrists and Blue Dogs have done thus far; the only anger they have shown, as usual, is towards progressives who are demanding robust reform.


Given the White House's central role in negotiating a secret deal with the pharmaceutical industry, its betrayal of Obama's clear promise to conduct negotiations out in the open (on C-SPAN no less), Rahm's protection of Blue Dogs and accompanying attacks on progressives, and the complete lack of any pressure exerted on allegedly obstructionists "centrists," it seems rather clear that the bill has been watered down, and the "public option" jettisoned, because that's the bill they want -- this was the plan all along.

The Obama White House isn't sitting impotently by while Democratic Senators shove a bad bill down its throat. This is the bill because this is the bill which Democratic leaders are happy to have. It's the bill they believe in. As important, by giving the insurance and pharmaceutical industries most everything they want, it ensures that the GOP doesn't become the repository for the largesse of those industries (and, converesly, that the Democratic Party retains that status).

[Nbadan]

...clearly there are some politics involved...one of the things that the Bush Administration did fairly well is keep the pressure on GOP Congressional members to vote with the party and I believe that's part of the reason the GOP lost bad in 04 and 08, the party surrendered almost all except for the reddest Congressional districts eradicating almost all GOP moderates in the process because DEMS in those districts came out in strong numbers pissed about what these GOP moderates were doing...

....same could have happened in 2010 to more Centrist Democratic Senators if Obama had shoved the public option down their Congressional throats,......for better or worse, Obama is gonna need this Senators for bills on the economy and the environment, plus he needs a victory so that the GOP doesn't become empowered by a short-sighted victory..

....stinks, politics stink sometimes, but remember that even successful programs like SS and Medicare did not become as far-reaching as they are overnight...at this point, some reform is better than no reform...

[TheProfessor]

...clearly there are some politics involved...one of the things that the Bush Administration did fairly well is keep the pressure on GOP Congressional members to vote with the party and I believe that's part of the reason the GOP lost bad in 04 and 08, the party surrendered almost all except for the reddest Congressional districts eradicating almost all GOP moderates in the process because DEMS in those districts came out in strong numbers pissed about what these GOP moderates were doing...

....same could have happened in 2010 to more Centrist Democratic Senators if Obama had shoved the public option down their Congressional throats,......for better or worse, Obama is gonna need this Senators for bills on the economy and the environment, plus he needs a victory so that the GOP doesn't become empowered by a short-sighted victory..

....stinks, politics stink sometimes, but remember that even successful programs like SS and Medicare did not become as far-reaching as they are overnight...at this point, some reform is better than no reform...
Agreed on all three points, particularly the last. It's an "instant gratification" society, and with politics, 24-hour news blab-athons and self-centered bloggers heighten that. There's a reason healthcare reform of any kind has taken this long, and just getting bills through both chambers is a real accomplishment. Civil rights legislation didn't happen overnight either. Of course, they're not the same, but when you're changing the way things have worked for so long, it's going to be more gradual.

[TeyshaBlue]

well......the jobs number have been improving dipping to 10 from 10.2, our economy has been in a slump for about 2 years, which is the standard cycle for this type of correction...corporations are still a little gun shy about hiring but there's no reason to believe that with a little more 'economic encouragement' the next run could come quicker...

...then, when taxes are a record highs, we take care of the debt..

lol @ ignoring the global economy.

[EmptyMan]

No doubt..that's one thing the GOP excels at...they give crappy legislation written by lobbyist catchy names like 'the clean air act' and the general public falls for it because if your against this, you must be against clean air...

:rolleyes


hahahahahaahhaahahaha

Shit's annoying isn't it?

[ElNono]

Is Pelosi walking with this guy too? Those two fucks are way too weak...

[TheProfessor]

Is Pelosi walking with this guy too? Those two fucks are way too weak...
Call Pelosi what you will, but not weak. You don't get where she is by being a weak woman.

[ElNono]

Call Pelosi what you will, but not weak. You don't get where she is by being a weak woman.

You don't get to DC without being a douche. That's not the point.
What's weak is the leadership they provide, and exactly why they should walk.