I was just on a progressive new media call with Speaker Pelosi on the health care bill. Quick report:
Vote in two weeks, or more. Speaker Pelosi anticipates that there will be a vote next week or the week after "under the best of circumstances." So really, two weeks is the earliest there will be a vote on final passage.
No amendments (yet). She has not given thought to floor amendments at this time ("I have not gone to that place" was the exact quote). She would have to be talked into amendments, but she is open to it. Further, she added that those who are opposed to the bill will have procedural options on the floor other than amendments, such as motions to recommit and instructions to conferees.
On Bart Stupak. In what was almost certainly a reference to Bart Stupak's efforts to disallow any health insurance plans in the new exchanges from covering abortions, she said that "no poison pill" amendments that would kill the entire bill would be allowed. If offered, Stupak's amendment would probably pass, and then the entire bill would go down because it would lsoe dozens of pro-choice Democratic votes.
Relationship with the White House. On whether the White House offered enough support during the process, the Speaker said "we're good" and "no complaints."
Kucinich amendment. I asked the Speaker about whether the bill contained the Kucinich amendment allowing states to adopt single-payer health care. The Speaker replied that the bill did not include this amendment, noting that it only passed through committee in the first place due to Republican support. She did say that she is meeting with Representatives Kucinich and Weiner later today to discuss what happens next for single-payer.
Single-payer substitute amendment. On bringing a substitute amendment on single-payer to the floor (Representative Weiner's desired amendment), she said that such an amendment cannot be brought to the floor until it is scored by the CBO. Whether or not such a score will come to pass will almost certainly be discussed in her meeting with Representatives Weiner and Kucinich later today.
On the Senate bill. Referring to the Senate, she said "we're the strongest bill on the table."
Millions already reading the bill. As of 2:45 p.m., there were over 8.2 million downloads of the health care bill. Which is probably why the Speaker's blog is crashing.
Although Speaker Pelosi did not say so on the call, the whip operation for the health care bill was demanding answers from all members by 3:00 p.m. eastern. So, right now they are probably adding up the results, and seeing if they are at 218 or not. More information as I receive it.
I will feel bad for people living in states that opt out of a public insurance option. However it won't help them one bit if people in NO states are given the choice of a public option instead. Understand that I write this as someone who strongly supports establishing a Single Payer, or Medicare for All, public health insurance system in America; NOW. Sure I support that, but I also know that there isn't a prayer of a chance of making that happen, not now.
Call the system unfair, call the game rigged, unless someone has the power to change that system or nullify that game it will be go on being played under the rules in effect. I am not a defeatist, I am a fighter, and mine has been one small voice among many pushing the fight forward in the current session of Congress. I have witnessed our ability to move a mountain, against all seeming insider odds, to keep some form of a public option alive, to expose and reject the false promise of a "trigger to nowhere" being offered us as a sleeping pill instead. Our power is real. And so is the mountain. Our ability to move it slightly helped crack the aura of it's permanent invincibility. But that mountain is still there, pushed a few yards further down the road.
The intensity is ratcheting ever higher as we move toward the final stages of the health care fight. It's been a good week for reformers overall. Pelosi and Reid are both whipping for strong bills, including a very strong public option (in the House) or a respectable public option (in the Senate). Progress is being made on other key components of the package including the affordability issue. Even traditional media sources like The Washington Post and the New York Times are waking up to the fact that even though they have been declaring health care reform on life support and the public option dead for six months, something decent might actually pass.
The only down moment of the week has been the confusion caused by the White House on the Senate strategy. This whole muddled are-they-or-aren't-they backing Harry Reid or backing Snowe's trigger-designed-not-to-trigger mess was just a poorly handled distraction. I mean, look, anyone who has been in DC longer than a week knows that if you have a meeting at the White House with more than five people in it, that certain folks with their own agenda will start leaking stuff to the media, so whatever the intent of all that was, it was bound to undermine Reid and our overall momentum. The White House is now on the record denying that was their intent, and folks there have sworn to me they are backing Reid to the hilt, so I believe them and that's all good, but it was still a mess.
I think we're still moving forward, though. The next few days will tell us what kind of deals can be cut, but no matter what, I think the strategy for progressives remains the same as it has been from the beginning of this fight (more in the extended entry):
Even though the Senate health care bill merger process is getting more press, the House is undergoing the same process for its three health care bills.
The two main disputes in the House merger process:
The first is over Democrat Bart Stupak's attempt to prevent any health insurance plans from covering abortions. If he were successful, health care reform would lose so many pro-choice votes that the entire bill will die. Fortunately, Stupak's plan seems likely to fail.
The second debate is over whether to include a public option tied to Medicare +5% rates, or one with negotiated rates. Three weeks ago, the Congressional Progressive Caucus was challenged by Speaker Pelosi to demonstrate enough support to pass the Medicare +5% public option. Since, then, the CPC has been engaged in a whip count to do just that.
The second argument is the main event in the House merger process at this point. The general thinking is that if the House passes the Medicare +5% public option, then the conference report is much more likely to emerge with a triggerless public option of some sort (negotiated rates, Schumer's level playing field, or perhaps the opt-out).
A whip count being undertaken by the Congressional Progressive Caucus indicates that support for the liberal public option among House Democrats is just shy of the needed 218. There are "about 200" solid supporters, 15 leaning yes, 20 undecided and 30 "no" votes, according to a Progressive Caucus source. Of the 30 "no" votes, 23 are likely "no" votes on the overall bill, the source said.
With Robert Wexler's retirement, there are currently 255 members of the House Democratic caucus. The numbers above suggest the following breakdown of House support for the Medicare +5% public option:
But first, by way of background...last week, David Sirota wrote:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the first time yesterday suggested she may be backing off her support of the public option...When "asked if inclusion of a public option was a non-negotiable demand - as her previous statements had indicated, Pelosi ruled out any non-negotiable positions," according to CNN.
This announcement came just hours before Steve Elmendorf, a registered UnitedHealth lobbyist and the head of UnitedHealth's lobbying firm Elmendorf Strategies, blasted [a Pelosi fundraising event] invitation throughout Washington, D.C.
[The event is this Tuesday at Elmendorf's house in DC, 2301 Connecticut Avenue, NW, 6:30pm.]
For anyone following the public option debate recently, Pelosi has been right up there with Anthony Weiner in terms of smartly drawing lines in the sand and asserting leverage on behalf of the public option.
Her statements that a House bill must have a public option were a great equal-and-opposite reaction to the Senate's (wrong, weak) assertion that a public option can't pass that chamber.
So, I'll admit, I was quite disappointed when Pelosi said, "This is about a goal. It's not about provisions" on the day in question. But Pelosi seems to have walked that back -- later asserting, "I fully support the public option. The public option will be in the bill that passes the House."
If the fundraiser hadn't come up, I'd call it a day and say "Hip hip hooray" for Pelosi. But some progressives will inevitably have an unsettling feeling in their stomach when hearing about the lobbyist event.
So, I contacted the DCCC and offered to help set the record straight. If it turns out that Pelosi would not be accepting health or insurance industry money at this event, I'd be up for helping to make sure progressive knew that.
Well, here's the official statement I got from Brandon English at the DCCC:
Speaker Pelosi's steadfast support of the public option is clear. This event is being hosted by an individual and United Health Care has not contributed to it.
I know Brandon -- and wanted to give him a chance to clarify. So I wrote:
fyi...I was trying to help, if it was true that no health/insurance money would be coming in at the event...obviously that would make a lot of folks rest easy.
But the statement below will pretty much beg the question: Are any health or insurance industry lobbyists giving money at this event? (Of course a corporation that cannot legally give money is not giving money...)
I got a note back confirming that the statement was authorized to be from him, but not amending the statement.
But when it comes to the public option, there are a whole lot of truly bad actors out there -- and Pelosi is not one of them.
Yet...this fundraiser and the DCCC statement do irk, right? So, what do you think should be done? Anything? Nothing? I'm very curious about what folks have to say.
Tonight, President Obama addresses a joint session of Congress, whose members are freshly returned from August recess. What the President will say and how it will affect the national discussion on health care reform remains to be seen. What is absolutely certain is that the discussion over the past month has been hijacked by delusional claims by people whose agenda consists of little more than scoring cheap political points.
The greatest and most offensive inequities in this nation happen when someone is denied medical care. That this concept does not drive to the core of every elected official who holds the public trust is a threat to our Democracy.
The bottom line is insurance companies don't care, Democrats have a real mandate, Republicans won't support anything, and it's time to flex some muscle.
According to the Washington Post, the Democratic leadership considers the Progressive Caucus more likely to fold on health care than the Blue Dogs. Emphasis mine:
But the rebellion from fiscal conservatives on the Energy and Commerce Committee last week served as a political wake-up call for Democratic leaders. With enough votes on the panel and on the floor to sink reform legislation, the Blue Dog Coalition forced Pelosi and Emanuel into concessions that made the government plan similar to private health insurance, sparking a new fight with House liberals.
Sensing that the Blue Dogs had dug in for a prolonged fight, Pelosi and Emanuel gave in to most demands in order to get the legislation moving again. They essentially decided that it was better to pick a fight with their liberal flank, where Pelosi remains popular and where loyalty to Obama is strongest, particularly in the Congressional Black Caucus.
Despite threats from almost 60 progressive House Democrats -- who outnumber the Blue Dogs -- Pelosi defended the compromise, saying it was similar to one backed by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). Pelosi predicted that the liberal wing would fall in line because the legislation is so important to them.
"Are you asking me, 'Are the progressives going to take down universal, quality, affordable health care for all Americans?' I don't think so," Pelosi told reporters Friday, breaking into laughter at the question.
I am dubious about this quote, since it apparently took place in front of a group of reporters three days ago but it hasn't appeared anywhere except a Washington Post story today. It is also contradicts what Pelosi has previously reiterated, on multiple occasions: that there are not enough votes in the House to pass health care reform without a public option.
Still, experience suggests that Progressives are more likely to fold than Blue Dogs, or at least that the leadership would consider that to be the case. As such, it remains worrying.
On Thursday, July 30th, the Progressive Caucus held a press conference to draw a line in the sand when it comes to the inclusion of a strong public option in the health care bill.
This is a stickup. Paulson is trying to stampede the Congressional herd into giving him powers and money that he knows they would never give if they had time to think it through carefully. It worked with the Patriot Act. It worked with the AUMF. He's betting it'll work again. Create a crisis (or lie one into existence) then demand dictatorial powers and unlimited spending authority to deal with it.
In effect, that quibble is like you walking into your local bank and saying "I need you to loan me a million bucks. Here are the conditions I must insist are met before I let you lend me the money. First..."
Say what?
He's given his tell, that he's a liar, a thief and a scam artist.
Time for Congress to call his bluff, and to see that the financial crisis is dealt with on their terms, with strict oversight by people they can trust, not by a scam artist and liar like Paulson.
Of course, Congress didn't call his bluff and Congress did fall for it. But let's remember our history. The House voted against. Nancy Pelosi indicated that she would not pass TARP unless Republicans voted for it in the same proportion as Democrats. They weren't going to do that, so TARP was dead.
Then Barack Obama stepped in and started twisting arms. TARP is Obama's baby. If you like it, or don't like it, remember, without Barack Obama it would have died.
This is the fundamental problem right now with Democrats. They passed a lousy stimulus, they made TARP Democratic policy by passing it with majority Democratic votes and they are on their way to passing a lousy healthcare bill which won't even kick in till 2013.
Bad policy leads to bad outcomes. Bad outcomes get blamed on the incumbents (as they should). TARP, the Stimulus, healthcare and the economy become less and less the Republican's problem every month that passed. Even if they screwed it up, Democrats control the House, Congress and the Presidency. It's up to them to fix George Bush's mess, and if they don't they will be judged as failures, and that judgment will be accurate and deserved.
And the outcomes are going to be bad. The stimulus bill was both badly put together (too many tax cuts, not properly targeted) and too small. The healthcare bill should be single payor, because single payor is proven to work and the witch's brew that Congress has put together isn't proven to work and they can't afford to fail. And TARP was, and is, a piece of crap, but the differences between Bush/Paulson financial policy and Obama/Geithner are so thin as to be largely cosmetic.
Policy has consequences. The "compromise" position between "doing it right" and "doing it wrong" may work sometimes, but it doesn't work when a nation is in crisis and has spent 30 years digging itself into a hole.
By the time Obama comes up for reelection, Americans won't have better healthcare and they will have less jobs than before the recession and the stimulus.
That's what he'll be judged on, and all because he signed on for Paulson/Bush financial policies, and compromised his key domestic and economic policies to the point where they wouldn't work.
... A good number of people have told me in the past few days that major environmental organization[s are] actively working against strengthening amendments to the bill, stating that those groups are fearful that any actual strengthening will keep the bill from being passed. ...
I've certainly been hearing the same things, including that if the bill fails, progressives (both elected representatives and non-profits) will personally get blamed for any mouthing off they do now. (Don't get me started on the fabulists who're saying that it'll be easier once the Senate gets hold of this.)
... Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), who has made known that he has enough votes to derail the Speaker's priority legislation if agricultural provisions aren't changed, said he spoke with Pelosi "for a while" and that it was "cordial."
"She's not putting any pressure on me," Peterson said. "She knows where I'm coming from." ...
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told the Huffington Post Thursday that a health care overhaul that did not include a public option wouldn't make it through the House because it "wouldn't have the votes."(...)
Asked by HuffPost if she would allow a reform package without a public option out of the House, she responded: "It's not a question of allow. It wouldn't have the votes."
Good. This is exactly the sort of line progressives must draw.
Also, this almost certainly means that health care reform will be passed through the reconciliation process. There simply are not 60 votes in the Senate to pass a public option. Since there are not enough votes in the House to pass health care reform without a public option, going through reconciliation is the only conceivable path at this point.
Nancy Pelosi is probably the most progressive congressional leader Democrats have had in either chamber of Congress for at least two decades. Here DW-Nominate score of neagtive 0.5 puts her solidly in the left-wing of the caucus, even if she has been sliding rightward ever so slightly during her career. As a point of comparison, Richard Gephardt started his career with a score in the mid negative 0.3 range (the lower the score, the more liberal), and only moved to Pelosi's range when he took over the caucus leadership (caucus leaders invariably vote the party line, and thus receive extreme scores on these measures). So, Gephardt had to move noticeably to the left to become Democratic leader, while Pelosi has actually had to move to the right.
It is likely that we won't see someone more progressive than Nancy Pelosi as Speaker for quite some time. As such, it behooves progressives to defend the Speaker when she becomes the target of the right-wing media attack machine. Daily Kos polling shows that she has taken a hit to her favorable rating as a result of this flap, even if other polling suggests the public is split on whether she, or the CIA, is telling the truth on the matter.
The problem is that the defense must be carried out entirely in the media realm. This is a he said / she said story if there ever was one. There won't be a truth commission to clear the matter up, given that President Obama is not going to push for one and that the Senate would probably block it anyway. So, the story will rage as long as Republican leaders keep calling Pelosi a liar since, as we have all learned, when Newt Gingrich criticizes a Democrat, for some reason it is automatically news. Given that the party of no has little else to do these days, they could keep up such criticisms indefinitely.
That is, Republicans can keep up these calls indefinitely unless President Obama forces the media narrative to look at something else. In this light, there is one card President Obama could play that would push any discussion of Nancy Pelosi out of the news cycle for a while: nominate the next Supreme Court justice. Such a nomination would render discussion of Nancy Pelosi to an irrelevant footnote immediately. Even Republicans wouldn't care anymore, since there are few areas of congressional business that interest them more than judicial nominations. It would barely be rushing the nomination at all, given that there already is a short list, and Obama apparently intends to make the nomination by the end of the month anyway.
If President Obama isn't going to push for a truth commission, then he could at least back up Speaker Pelosi by making his Supreme Court nomination later this week. Such a move would push the Pelosi vs. CIA flap out of the media pretty much forever, given both the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, and the extremely busy congressional calendar this summer. Defend Pelosi by pushing the he said vs. she said off the media radar altogether.
Desperately trying to distract attention from the rapidly-breaking, multiple-angle story that BushCo tortured detainees to concoct a phony excuse for the Iraq War, the GOP has decided that the best defense is a good offense, and if that's not available, then just giving offense will have to do.
And so they're going after Nancy Pelosi for sticking by her guns that the CIA never briefed her that it had already used torture. The CIA said they did brief her, Pelosi says not so much. And since the CIA also said they had briefed former Senator Bob Graham four times (including twice shortly after Pelosi) and now they've been forced to back down from that, things aren't really looking so good for the Slam Dunk-era CIA guys, and their current-day ass-coverers.
But you go to war with the lies you've got, as a great liar once said, not the lies you wish you had. Leading the crowd, of course, is the most hyperboliplectic GOP leader/liar of the past 20 years, serial adulterer Newt Gingrich.
In an interview with ABC News Radio's Marcus Wilson, Gingrich, R-Ga., said Pelosi, D-Calif., "has lied to the House" in claiming that she was never briefed by the CIA about the Bush administration's use of waterboarding and other harsh tactics.
"I think she has lied to the House, and I think that the House has an absolute obligation to open an inquiry, and I hope there will be a resolution to investigate her. And I think this is a big deal. I don't think the Speaker of the House can lie to the country on national security matters," Gingrich said.
He's right, of course. That's the President's job!
Let me start with the obvious, that yes, if Pelosi knew there were war crimes being committed by the administration, and failed to try to stop it, even at risk of prison time for violating secrecy laws, then that deserves condemnation, loss of her Speaker's gavel and perhaps even prosecution. I certainly think her and the other members of Congress who were at all briefed on these activities should be part of any investigation that takes place. That said, let's not get carried away and equate people who merely know about a crime, and those who actively plan and execute that crime. Morally there is a significant difference there.
However her predicament highlights a lesser feature of multiple Bush Administration intelligence scandals that needs more attention: Bush's penchant for only having the Gang-Of-Eight briefed, rather than the full Intelligence Committees of the House and Senate. This decision was quite deliberate, and legally it is highly consequential in so far as it eviscerates Congress' ability to conduct meaningful oversight or legislative check on the Executive branch.
This week, two comprehensive reports on the health of immigrant detainees were released by Human Rights Watch and the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center. As Public News Service reports, "Immigrants are, literally, dying for decent care."
Barack Obama is wildly popular. But in Versailles, not so much. After all, he's a Democrat and now that Republicans have rejected his bipartisan gestures, it's clear that he's got cooties, just like all the other Democrats in DC, except maybe Ben Nelson.
So Obama's continued popularity comes as a bit of shock to Versaillers....
I went on to note, based on the DKos/R2000 tracking poll, that Obama's favorability rating was in the 70s and 80s outside the South, compared to just 51% inside the South. A similar pattern--though with lower levels of popularity, and not so extreme could be found with congressional leaders, and with measures of party popularity: everywhere outside the South, Democrats dominated by landslide majorities. The South was the only place were rough parity could be found. But Versailles continued treating the parties as if they were closely matched. So what are things like two weeks later? So far, pretty much the same.
Barack Obama is wildly popular. But in Versailles, not so much. After all, he's a Democrat and now that Republicans have rejected his bipartisan gestures, it's clear that he's got cooties, just like all the other Democrats in DC, except maybe Ben Nelson.
With Barack Obama's victory in passing a massive stimulus package marred by days of bad press - as not a single House Republican backed the bill, his health czar went down in flames and his second pick for commerce secretary walked away - the administration has been cut down to size, and lost some of its bipartisan sheen.
Such, at least, has been the beltway chatter, but so far the numbers don't back it up.
Obama's approval rating remains well above 60 percent in tracking polls. A range of state pollsters said they'd seen no diminution in the president's sky-high approval ratings, and no improvement in congressional Republicans' dismal numbers.
And that's before the stimulus creates billions of dollars in spending on popular programs, which could, at least temporarily, further boost Obama's popularity.
"It's eerie - I read the news from the Beltway, and there's this disconnect with the polls from the Midwest that I see all around me," said Ann Seltzer, the authoritative Iowa pollster who works throughout the Midwest.
Those tracking polls are national, however. They look different when you break them down by region. Consider the following, from the Feb 9-12 DKos poll:
BARACK OBAMA
FAV UNFAV NO OPINION
ALL 68 25 7
NORTHEAST 83 10 7
SOUTH 51 44 5
MIDWEST 71 21 8
WEST 73 19 8
In the South, the numbers look pretty much like the national election. In every other region, however, his favorables are over 70%.
Regionals--plus non-South totals--on the parties and party leaders on the flip
Pelosi was conspicuously absent from the news conference in which members of the Senate announced the agreement. It was not clear whether she stayed away out of unhappiness or a scheduling conflict, but moments later, Reid arrived in her office.
I love Nancy Pelosi's reaction to Republican whining about her not giving them more of what they wanted: she said:
I didn't come here to be partisan. I didn't come here to be bipartisan. I came here, as did my colleagues, to be nonpartisan, to work for the American people, to do what is in their interest... We reached out to the Republicans all along the way. And they know it... They just didn't have the ideas that had the support of the majority of the people in the Congress.
You tell them, Madam Speaker!
And did you notice that the Republicans were telling the press that Obama's concilliatory gestures actually emboldened them to all vote against the bill in the House? Now I'm sure they are saying that in part to embarrass and mess with him, and to try and drive a wedge between him and House Dems, so we shouldn't take them too seriously. But if this is how House Republicans want to play it, that's just fine: they can be the most powerless and impotent political force in America. No problem at all.
It is kind of hard to believe, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi has actually put out a video that contains both cat-blogging and Rick Astley:
It is a little disturbing to see such recent Internet snark used by such a powerful figure. Shouldn't it take at least six months before things like Rick-rolling are co-opted by the establishment?
On the positive side, this video should help dozens of cultural studues graduate students develop new conference paper proposals. Also, I actually met those cats today.
This is an open thread. Share you thoughts on this historic evening.
Earlier today, when reports of a deal were reached on the stimulus plan, it was also noted that 