US POLITICS: AMERICANS, PLEASE WELCOME YOUR NEW PRESIDENT... SCOTT BROWN!

those guys were cutting DEALS and ADDING AMENDMENTS! the republic is dead!

also, follow-up interview with the parkinson's guy who was accosted by tea partiers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfvnNzgQy7Q

dude got his PhD from Cornell and apparently taught at both my alma mater and the hated Ohio State for awhile

here's his post at the Columbus Dispatch

kf i think the line is shakespeare's caesar, not the real one; dunno if there's a "real" latin for it.

Well, yeah, the line is from that, but I didn't know if it had an actual translation or not.

Something vaguely good is about to happen. Even the creeps now decrying it will benefit from it. They will never apologize for their asshatted opposition to health care reform, but in the decades to come they will come to claim that they always supported it. One day, when you are old, you will think about this, then glower, then sigh. Or maybe you'll sigh, then glower.

chris matthews interviewed the head of americans for prosperity, one of the groups that organized the protest (you can see their logo at one point)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E8GT1Saly0

"Sickening Display" caption should probably appear under all Chris Matthews appearances

It just blows my mind that the GOP is able to achieve any success at all in elections, given that, for the last 20 years, here are their major accomplishments:

- Nearly drove a popular President from office and successfully impeached him over what amounted to consensual sex with a staffer.
- Getting elected, with the help of a friendly Supreme Court, the most incompetent and unqualified candidate in living memory.
- Allowed a terrorist attack that killed some 3,000 American
- Started a series of pointless, costly and ineffective wars of aggression.

That's it. That's their scorecard, in a big picture sense.

And, you know, I can almost sorta understand the conservative fights against civil rights legislation back in the 60s, because racism and states' rights and all that are quantities that I can get my head around. But of all the hills to make your stand on, health care? Really? It truly does make me despair of my fellow humans.

i have heard it said more than once by rightwing people that health care is not a right.

which you know, what do you even say to that?

Also, the bloggers at Balloon Juice have been calling members of the House of Reps, and posting about what staffers are telling them. They're targeting the people whose votes are most on the line, and being told that apparently phone calls opposed to HCR outnumber those in favor by the hundreds, because the GOP does have such a well-oiled propaganda machine. But then you also get this kind of crap:

Not so long ago I got off the phone with a member of John Barrow’s campaign team. He told me that John would be voting NO. The reasons given were quite a few, but they all boiled down to fear.

John Barrow is afraid that the Republicans will use a YES vote to beat him in November. He has made the calculation that he can vote NO in a District that Barack Obama won by 54.09% because he thinks the Democrats in the 12th will have no options other than giving him their support in November—no matter how much he betrays them.

Almost one out of every four people in his District do not have any health insurance, but John seems to feel that it is OK to tell them to fuck off because he is afraid that Glenn Beck might say something mean about him.

He is a spineless coward, but that means he could change his vote between now and Sunday if he is given reasons to fear the backlash of his NO vote more than he already fears Fox News and Republican talking points.

So call him. His numbers are below the fold. And if you have connections to an organization (Unions, the NAACP, AARP, etc.) that could send the weasel a message—encourage them to give Barrow a call as well.

Also, John D. and John Cole should get together:

In a country where abortion is legal, how did the anti-choice goons so thoroughly game the system that their one pet issue can not be funded federally? I have tons of things that are “moral issues” to me that are funded against my will, but no one gives a shit. And you know what- I’m ok with that, because I understand how our democracy works. You don’t get any trump cards. And unlike the anti-choice squad, my “moral issues” are not dictated to me by the lunatics at Focus on the Family or by the hypocrites in a couple thousand year old business run by old men who look the other way when child rape happens.

which you know, what do you even say to that?

I hope you get sick and die...?

chris matthews interviewed the head of americans for prosperity

seem to recall this guy being somehow disgusting on maddow; maybe for hiring 'grassroots' protestors and a history of horrendous lobbying, i forget. still cannot believe the fervid belief in the horror of lengthy legislation.

And now, Michael Moore writes about his congressman, Bart Stupak

One thing i did not know that was Stupak is tight with the C Street Family, to the point of them subsidizing his lodgings.

Having grown up in and lived in Stupak's district for a lot of my life it's kind of cool to see his sudden national profile (and hear a Yooper accent on TV) but damn if this guy isn't a total disgrace.

Moore's right, there's no where in the entire UP to get an abortion, and I knew plenty of women in high school or college who would have a panicky couple of days then suddenly drive 200 miles to Green Bay or 300 to Minneapolis for the weekend.

His system of no convenient abortion or contraception seems to be working out just great as I know plenty of single women in their 30's with kids who are about to graduate high school. They may have struggled like hell during what should have been formative years of their lives, never attended college, brought up the children with no fathers around, stressed out their own parents in terms of time and money, and never been able to save money for their own kids to go to college, thereby getting everyone stuck in this marvelous continuing cycle, but at least they didn't have an abortion.

fyi to anyone feeling mad about stupak or democrats engagement w/ abortion rights issues, hes got a primary challenger who you can contribute to here:

https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/conniesaltonstall

iirc the entire state of Mississippi is the same way. I'll should dbl check w/ my gf but I think the last remaining clinic in Jackson was shut down a couple of years back.

also true in south dakota.

this has to mean they have the votes now.

and this is exactly right about the challenge of gaining support for HCR. that's why this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. it won't be possible next congress, or virtually any future congress unless there's a crisis that inspires -- indeed, requires -- bold action.

Like historically high premium hikes for 2011?

no, i don't think that would be enough. i think there have been "historically high premium hikes" before 2011.

i think this also sums it up. it's from a TPM report about totally unacceptable, ugly slurs hurled today at rep. frank and lewis:

"This is incredible," House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) told reporters of the slurs. "It's shocking to me." He said he hadn't heard such vitriol since March 15, 1960 when he was protesting segregation laws that forced him to sit in the back of buses. "A lot of us have been saying for a long time that much of this, much of this, is not about health care at all," Clyburn said. "I think a lot of those people today demonstrated this is not about health care."

What is it about, a reporter asked?

"It's about trying to extend a basic fundamental right to people who are less powerful."

. . . and that's why it's so hard to convince many people to support HCR. many of those "tea-partiers" see it as extending yet another entitlement to "others," and they're "sick of it" (which also explains why many "tea partiers" support social-security, but hate HCR).

http://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/teabagger_browning.jpg

classy misunderstanding of democracy there.

http://www2.nationalreview.com/dest/2010/03/20/descriptionimg00250201003201322.jpg

someone help me parse that sign?

I'm assuming it was a brain tumour.

Is that a pro or con sign? Does the sign mean "lucky I had cancer last year ... before I lost my insurance"? Or "Lucky I had cancer last year ... before the Commie government could invade my privacy and help me pay for it"? I sadly assume the latter.

the bumper stickers are the best

http://wutbumperstickers.com/c/vote_for_obama_thanks_asshole_bumper_sticker-p128332074008619969tmn6_400.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41ovHtIz6mL._SL500_AA280_.jpg

http://images2.cafepress.com/product/402080002v3_225x225_Front.jpg

big day doods BIG DAY gettin amped ovr here

bumper sticker should read 'if so, thanks a lot. asshole.'

If this passes, the real bouquets go to Nancy Pelosi, who's the most effective Speaker of any party in my lifetime (even Tip O'Neill caved to Reagan one too many times).

yeah says here she sonned rahm et al over some incrementalist beef back when everyone was spazzing abt scott brown http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34753.html

yeah pelosi's looking amazing now. tbf, those articles this morning also praised obama himself for insisting on bold action (even tho he wavered and his advisers -- e.g., RE -- counseled him to act piecemeal, if at all).

funny how everything turned on this vote. obama will either be a hero/bold leader for his "remarkable" job getting this passed, or a goat/failed president for not getting this passed.

'nothing succeeds like success'

Dan, that kind of polarization has been applied to nearly everything he does!

OTOH they might find something else to do, it's NASCAR season soon, right?

Stupak is YES.

WOW. what did we have to give up to get that -- the promised executive order reaffirming the hyde amendment?

(xp to adam): when you say "nearly everything he does," you mean the stimulus bill, i guess? few presidents, it seems to me, pass two pieces of such sweeping legislation in their first year in office, so i suppose turning those two bills into make-or-break moments for the presidency makes sense. i guess my feeling is that the stimulus was what obama was elected to do (everyone knew it was coming; it was the democratic alternative, compared to the "do-nothing" hooverism that i guess was the GOP's suggested response), so getting it passed is a less crucial moment for his presidency.

Yeah pretty much it is the reaffirmation. Best description of it I've read so far is that it saves face for Stupak.

wow, a "sweeping" transfer of wealth to insurance companies w/ no mechanism to control prices, i am so damn impressed. so AMPED if you listen to Chuck Todd or whatev the fuck that guy's name is.

xp

And they couldn't've done it without your idealistic positivity, Morbz!

hey morbs heres some info on prices/cost controls in the bill, enjoy http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/12/five_cost_controls_in_the_sena.html

Anyway Stupak apparently still waffling! Who knows. Kinda suspect he just wants to be the deciding vote.

he nixed reports of his voting yes?!?

maybe he feels politically vulnerable, and is waiting to see if the democrats need his vote. as i understand it, pelosi's doling out "passes" to certain democrats who are battling for survival in conservative districts.

or maybe he's just a self-absorbed gasbag.

stupak has been saying things that make it sound like he really wants to vote yes, but obvs hes sort of painted himself into a corner w/all the nonsensical abortion grandstanding

Baird and Giffords have announced yes.