House

I was just reading this article in Politico talking about how Eric Massa is now a conservative media hero. Yeah – it seems like red meat to them. A Democrat claiming that he is being pushed out of Congress by his own party for not supporting their agenda. But hey – Massa lasted 6 years in the Democratic Party! Remember – he was a Republican until 2004. But that isn’t what has got me going.

Politico did a recap of what Massa said occurred on the night that lead to the sexual harassment charge:

“I danced with the bride, and I danced with the bridesmaid. Absolutely nothing occurred,” Massa recounted. “I said goodnight to the bridesmaid. I sat down at the table where my whole staff was — all of them, by the way, bachelors. One of them looked at me and — as they would do after, I don’t know, 15 gin and tonics and goodness only knows how many bottles of champagne — a staff member made an intonation to me that maybe I should be chasing after the bridesmaid. His points were clear, and his words were far more colorful than that.

“And I grabbed the staff member sitting next to me, and I said, ‘What I really ought to be doing is fracking you,’ and then tousled the guy’s hair and left, went to my room, because I knew the party was getting to a point where I shouldn’t be there.”

First thing that really sticks out at me if 15 gin and tonics, plus an unknown amount of champagne. I used to be a bartender and if someone had 15 gin and tonics they would be beyond that point of being cut off, and that’s without the added little boost of the bubbly.

Charlie Rangel just held a press conference and announced he will temporarily step down as chairman of the Ways and Means committee following his ethics problems.

In a vote of 406-19 the House passed a bill today that will allow health insurance companies to actually compete across state lines. That is something a lot of people have been pushing for for years, including Republicans. As matter of fact it has been a key of the Republicans “health care plan”, so it is interesting to see who voted no:

Akin (KS), Boehner (OH), Brady (TX), Broun (GA), Buyer (IN), Franks (AZ), Garrett (NJ), Jenkins (KS), Jordan (OH), King (IA), Lamborn (CO), Linder (GA), Moran (KS), Paul (TX) Price (GA), Ryan (WI), Sensenbrenner (WI), Tiahrt (KS) and Westmoreland (GA)

Yup – John Boehner. This guy has no ideas, plans or vision. He just wants Americans to suffer while he plays politics. What a piece of shit.

A grim assessment about the future of health care reform:

Another senior House Democrat familiar with negotiations on the bill said no progress has been made this week on any of the key sticking points in the House and Senate bills, despite steady meetings with union leaders and the White House.

“There’s no agreement. No deal on anything. Nothing,” the lawmaker said.

The reality, said this lawmaker, is that House-Senate negotiators will need to continue working out their differences into February. Congressional leaders have been aiming to deliver a final bill to President Barack Obama before his State of the Union address, which normally takes place in late January.

It’s also creating even more tension between the House and Senate:

With all of these issues at a standstill, tensions are growing between the two chambers. Several House lawmakers have voiced frustration with Sens. Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) over concessions and special deals they cut in the Senate version.

“The Senate is just a pain in the ass to everybody in the world as far as I can tell. I’m so angry that I just wish from now on that we’d just find out what it is that Lieberman and Nelson will let us have,” the senior lawmaker said. “But we’re not giving up on anything in the House.”

“We keep hearing them squeal like pigs in the Senate that they had a tough time getting to 60,” Weiner said. “Well, it wasn’t particularly a picnic for us to get to 218. Generally speaking, the Senate kabuki dance has lost its magic on those of us in the House.”

President Obama needs to remember that there are two chambers of Congress. I’m sure he favors his old chamber, the Senate, but his support is really needed to bring everyone together and get a good compromise out there that doesn’t hurt reform anymore than it already is.

It’s looking like the health care bill may not hit the President’s desk until after the State of the Union address:

The White House privately anticipates health care talks to slip into February — past President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address — and then plans to make a “very hard pivot” to a new jobs bill, according to senior administration officials.

Obama has been told that disputes over abortion and the tight schedule are highly likely to delay a final deal, a blow to the president, who had hoped to trumpet a health care victory in his big speech to the nation. But he has also been told that House Democratic leaders seem inclined, at least for now, to largely accept the compromise worked out in the Senate, virtually ensuring he will eventually get a deal.

If they are planning on conference to take this long, then there must be some serious differences anticipated between the House and Senate. All I can say is “Go House!”

Rep. Parker Griffith (D-AL-5) is expected to announce today that he is switching from Democrat to Republican:

According to a senior GOP aide familiar with the decision, the announcement will take place in this afternoon in his home district in northern Alabama.

Griffith’s party switch comes on the eve of a pivotal congressional health care vote and will send a jolt through a Democratic House Caucus that has already been unnerved by the recent retirements of a handful of members who, like Griffith, hail from districts that offer prime pickup opportunities for the GOP in 2010.

The switch represents a coup for House Republican leadership, which had been courting Griffith since he publicly criticized Democratic leadership in the wake of raucous town halls over the summer.

Griffith did vote no on the original House health care bill, so this decision won’t really have any affect on that.

I’m not entirely on the “kill the bill” bandwagon. There is definitely some good being done in the bill, but it is being overshadowed by the bad.

One issue I haven’t seen addressed is the effect on charitable care. The bill supporters out there seem to either ignore the issue, or just aren’t aware of it. Let me explain.

There are numerous charitable organizations out there that help people with health care. On top of that there are numerous programs that also help, including programs offered by the pharmaceutical companies. Some of these programs are very generous, including the pharma ones that actually give out free medication to people who can’t afford them. Of course there is one big requirement for these programs – having no insurance.

With a lot of these programs their financial guidelines are much more lenient than those of the health care bill. Some even let people qualify at 250% of the federal poverty level. The problem is that once people are mandated to buy insurance, the lower income people will have a tough choice to make. Will it be cheaper to skip insurance, pay the fine and continue using these programs, or will it be better to pay for insurance and fork out the cash for the co-pay. There is no single answer here. It will all depend on each individual case; their finances, current medication and treatments, etc. But given that you can see that there are situations in which this bill can hurt people.

As much as I hate to have to link to the Weekly Standard, they have posted what I was trying to say yesterday – that there is a very uncertain fate of the bill in the House. One thing I never really thought about yesterday was the 60 House liberals who vowed to vote against any bill that didn’t include a public option.

Now it’s Hawaii’s turn to have a special election:

In the midst of a gubernatorial campaign, Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) announced Friday that he will be resigning from Congress, necessitating a special election to fill out the remainder of his term.

“This is an extremely difficult decision for me, but I must do this to continue with the direction I’ve chosen for the future,” Abercrombie said in a statement. “Accordingly, I’ve concluded that I must resign my congressional seat and allow someone to be elected who will carry on the work of this office.”

This is something the GOP does every year and despite all the problems the nation faces this year, the Republican leader won’t break from tradition. Here is the resolution:

Whereas Christmas is a national holiday celebrated on December 25; and

Whereas the Framers intended that the First Amendment of the Constitution, in prohibiting the establishment of religion, would not prohibit any mention of religion or reference to God in civic dialog: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

(1) recognizes the importance of the symbols and traditions of Christmas;

(2) strongly disapproves of attempts to ban references to Christmas; and

(3) expresses support for the use of these symbols and traditions by those who celebrate Christmas.

How about a resolution honoring Hanukkah? How about Kwanza? Oh wait! The Republicans think Kwanza is some faux holiday.

But the most interesting part of Boehner’s resolution is his apparent hypocrisy:

It was just six weeks ago that House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) decided he was fed up with empty, meaningless congressional resolutions. These largely symbolic measures are taken up all the time -- it's been routine fare for years -- but Boehner decided they're now evidence of Democratic negligence. "These are your hard-earned tax dollars at work," Boehner scoffed.

In the spirit of the season I want to offer John Boehner some free advice that might help him save face on this. Figure up how long it will take for this resolution to pass. To help you out I did a little math:

Now figure up how many hours it takes to write, debate and vote on this resolution. Multiply that by the $14,877.00 and have your caucus donate that money to charitable organizations who are helping out families who can’t afford Christmas this year. That would be a very Christian thing to do and goes to the heart of the meaning of Christmas, plus the added benefit that it will prove you are serious about Congress wasting time on “meaningless resolutions”.

NPR:

"The Salahis' testimony is important to explain how a couple circumvented layers of security at the White House on the evening of a state dinner without causing alarm," Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, the committee chairman, said in a statement released by his committee last night. "If the Salahis are absent from tomorrow's hearing, the committee is prepared to move forward with subpoenas to compel their appearance."

Subpoena? Please. What Thompson should do is simply revoke the invitation of the Salahis to testify, then they will show up….er “crash” the hearing.

This is a priceless move by several House Republicans yesterday:

When it's a choice between strengthening the Patriot Act, or showing up for the Tea Party Patriots, what's a GOP lawmaker to do? We'll give you one guess...

Several Republican members of Congress yesterday blew off votes on the signature anti-terror legislation of the post 9/11 era to attend Michele Bachmann's Tea Party rally against health-care reform.

Why do Republicans put politics and face time above national security? Why don’t the Democrats start asking this question more and more, especially in the coming months?

This is utterly sick:

A bunch of Broward County, Fla. Republicans convened at a local rifle range to talk politics and squeeze off a few rounds at bullseyes.

One of them was a poster of a scary dude in a traditional Middle Eastern headdress -- another was human likeness with the initials of local Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, according to the Sun-Sentinel.

Among the members of the Southeast Broward Republican Club shooting their handguns and AK's Robert Lowry, who is waging an uphill campaign to unseat the popular Democratic incumbent in a district where D's outnumber R's two-to-one.

Lowry's target -- a paper silhouette -- had "DWS" written on it, a stunt Lowry first called a "joke" and later a "mistake."

So he is trying to cover-up these very poor actions by calling it a “mistake”. No sir – a “mistake” would be anyone voting for you to become part of our government.

Here is the video report from the Sun-Sentinel on this disgusting incident.

It’s funny that even with the entire Blago debacle going on in Illinois and Republicans trying to paint Democrats in the state as the epitome of corruption, the people still want Democrats to lead them:

Democratic Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley claimed victory tonight in the 5th District race to replace Rahm Emanuel in Congress.

With 94 percent of the Chicago and suburban Cook precincts reporting totals, Quigley was ahead with 70 percent of the vote over Republican Rosanna Pulido and Green Party candidate Matt Reichel.

That’s a huge margin in a time when corruption as front and center in the local news. It also says a lot about the Republicans and their hopes in 2010.

Something we aren’t used to seeing; oversight of an administration, being conducted by the administration’s own party:

A congressional oversight committee opened an investigation yesterday into whether the Obama administration is circumventing a law that limits lavish pay for executives at firms benefiting from the $700 billion federal bailout.

Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner asking for records on any special entities that the government believes it can use to funnel bailout money without requiring firms to abide by congressional restrictions.

"It would be unconscionable and irresponsible for the Treasury Department to permit excessive pay practices to continue at companies that have been rescued by the taxpayers," Towns wrote in the letter. "I will strongly oppose any attempt to weaken or bypass these restrictions, or to violate the spirit, if not the intent, of these laws."

To the Republicans, this would be called “treason”. How dare a party not hold true to “party loyalty”, and instead go on the side of democracy. And if someone in the administration is found to be guilty of trying to balk the regulations put into the stimulus, well they better be shown the door quickly, if not frog marched out.