The Massachusetts senate race is all about Health Care.
But is Scott Brown even providing health care coverage for his staff? He’s got his whole staff working as independent contractors — top to bottom — so they’re paying their own payroll taxes and presumably finding health care coverage on their own.
If Scott Brown wins on Tuesday, you can bet he’ll arrive in DC the next morning waiting to be sworn in. And there’s just not much precedent for any real delay of swearing in the winner of a special election, as long as the election result is not in dispute. (Oddly, there haven’t been that many Senate special elections — as opposed to appointments until the end of a given senate. So we’re actually trying to figure out now what precedent would apply.) At that point, Health Care Reform will be dead unless the House agrees to pass the Senate bill verbatim — which I really wonder about, given how dug in the progressives in the House are. Barney Frank doesn’t seem to think it’ll happen.
At that point, how incredibly stupid is the dawdling over the last few weeks going to look? The work of a year, arguably the work of a few generations, let go needlessly over a single special election?
It’s really almost beyond comprehension.
Late Update: TPM Reader VL responds … Read More
… but we might own it. Longtime reader, on the Haiti situation:
I confess to being underwhelmed by the coverage of Haiti. So much of what I’ve seen has focused on the immensity of the human tragedy and the immediate relief efforts. Very little has stopped to contemplate what this means.
As of today, for all practical purposes, Haiti is an American Protectorate. Its own government, to the extent it ever functioned, has now collapsed. Its major city has been leveled, along with most of the institutions of the state and of civil society. Other states and international institutions will contribute aid and resources. Perhaps the UN will expand its current mission in the nation, and assume formal responsibility. But the only nation capable of keeping Haiti from absolute collapse is the United States. Irrespective of the bodies through which we choose to work, the responsibility is ultimately ours.
Okay, maybe the exclamation point isn’t quite necessary. But we’ve got a favor to ask. We’d like to get the @tpmmedia twitter to 10,000 today. And we have under a 1000 to go. We’re using Twitter not only to flag some of our best articles and posts but also as a platform to quickly notify TPM Readers about breaking news. So it’s a great little addition to your Twitter feed. Can you help us? Many thanks in advance!
Joe Biden will be in Louisiana today touting administration efforts to assist in Katrina/Rita rebuilding efforts. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
Jon Stewart pops Rachel Maddow (along with Limbaugh and Robertson) for Haiti comments. Watch.
New Boston Herald poll has Brown 50%, Coakley 46%.
Earlier today a Research 2000 poll had Coakley up by 8. Go figure.