We’re picking up signs that the right is having some success with their ‘no vote’ meme. It’s actually true. There is a vote;they’re consolidating both into one. But some wavering Dems in the House are starting to bleat. We’ll have details later this afternoon.
Before the bamboozlement gets too far, let’s be clear about what the House is considering doing. There are two bills. The senate’s original bill and the changes to that bill the House has now negotiated with the Senate. Normally, this is all hashed out in a conference committee. And it’s all voted on in a single vote. In this case, that’s not possible because of the continuing Republican filibuster in the Senate. So the House is considering taking both bills, consolidating them into a single vote, up or down. The old fashioned way. This isn’t ‘not having a vote’. And this has been done repeatedly before. Anybody who thinks these two bills shouldn’t be passed simultaneously or thinks one or the other shouldn’t pass has a simple solution. Vote no. Simple.
This isn’t complicated. It’s consolidating two votes into one.
Okay, this is rich. Rep. Eric Cantor is insisting that Speaker Pelosi hold an up or down vote on the original senate bill alone rather than a single vote on the original bill and the amending bill.
Really?
Have we forgotten why we’re here? The entire reason we’re in this situation is that Cantor’s fellow party members in the Senate won’t allow any votes on health care at all. They wouldn’t allow it last year and they’re still blocking a simple up or down vote on any health care bill in the senate. That’s the whole ball of wax.
So why doesn’t Speaker Pelosi propose a trade. Cantor gets his pals in the Senate to allow a simple majority vote on health care and then everything can be done through a plain old-fashioned conference report. And voila, everything’s taken care of.
Seriously, Republicans are standing tall on majority rules and procedure when everything happening here stems from the Republicans refusing to let the majority vote on anything?
Evaluating the Connecticut Senate and Gubernatorial hopefuls, yacht by yacht.
I mentioned a few days ago that part of the backstory to the recent crisis in US-Israeli relations is tied to a briefing David Petraeus gave the Adm. Mullen and the Joint Chiefs back in January. (And let’s not get upset about the word ‘crisis’. Friendships and alliances have occasional controversies and crises. There’s nothing wrong with that. Denial feeds problems.) At that briefing, which reportedly took the Chiefs and the administration by some surprise, Petraeus made a straightforward case that the lack of progress in settling the Israel-Palestine dispute was damaging American interests in the Middle East and the lands of Islam more generally.
Now we have him saying it in his own words, in prepared remarks before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Read More
The procedure every(GOP)one is so up in arms about is called a “self-executing rule.” How many times did the Republicans use it the last time they controlled Congress, 2005-06? More than 35 times! And the Democrats? They complained about it then too, though to the best of my knowledge there were no claims of treason.
Norm Ornstein has the story.
Some miscellaneous developments you may have missed today.
Democracy for America is polling its members to see if it should support Connie Saltonstall in her primary challenge to Bart Stupak.
Filed under only in the USA: Uber-Winger Rep. Steve King (R-IA) calls for mass civil disobedience, akin to the Velvet Revolutions of Eastern Europe, to stop … Health Care Reform. Remember when the Czechs rose up and threw off their national health care system? Good Times ….
Evan McMorris-Santoro previews the pro-immigration and immigrant rights rally in DC on March 21st.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will reportedly speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone as early as today in the midst of the bilateral crisis. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
CNN’s hiring of RedState’s Erick Erickson as a political analyst for John King’s new show isn’t remarkable because the network is bringing on board an uber-conservative. Conservative doesn’t begin to describe Erickson (and probably does a disservice to conservatives). It’s remarkable because it’s like hiring a professional wrestler as a sports analyst. Rachel Slajda has the Erickson primer.