Coburn Asks For Reading of Sanders Amendment- UPDATE: Sanders Withdraws Amendment

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It's a bedtime story really; a painfully long bedtime story.  Senator Coburn asks for a reading of Bernie Sanders amendment that would establish a single payer health care system despite the fact this amendment had absolutely chance of passing. As Ed Morrissey points out this move obviously makes hay of efforts to ram this through before Christmas. Moreover, it calls to the attention of the American people how insane this entire process has been. There's no transparency, and even with a reading of this 767 page amendment Max Baucus doubts the Senators, who would be expected to vote on it, will understand what's been read to them:



Jim DeMint issued a release backing Coburn in the procedural move, via The Hill:

"This bill allows the federal government to take over our health care system, and it must be stopped. We will use whatever procedural tools are necessary to defeat this bill," DeMint said.

Ed Morrissey has more from DeMint:

“Democrats are playing a bait and switch trick — wasting our time debating a bill they’ve rejected while writing a new one in secret. Right now, behind closed doors, Democrats are writing a brand new bill, thousands of pages long, and want to rush it through before Christmas.”

“Americans are tired of watching their leaders in Washington pass bills they haven’t even bothered to read,” said Senator DeMint. “If Senator Reid won’t slow down this debate, we will do it for him. This bill allows the federal government to take over our health care system, and it must be stopped. We will use whatever procedural tools are necessary to defeat this bill.”

This is 1/6th of our entire economy, which is hurting as we speak, this group is playing around with. It's outrageous that Reid is rewriting the bill behind closed doors while planning to still force a vote on this unfinished bill before Christmas. Not only does this reek of desperation, it's galling they would consider themselves capable of restructuring such a large segment of the economy when they can't get a bill written after spending most of the year on health care. Who knows what nonsense would be included.

DeMint is threatening to force a reading of the entire bill before a final cloture vote, and I pray that he does. The American people are opposed to this health care reform and someone must do something to stop this horrific reform from becoming law.

UPDATE:
The Hill reports Sanders withdrew his amendment:

"The day will come, although I recognize it’s not today, when the U.S. Congress will have to vote to stand up to … all those who profit every single year off of human sickness,” Sanders said. "That day will come."

The amendment would have extended Medicare coverage to all who wanted it. The program currently serves people from the ages of 65 and up.

The program is also on track to bankrupt the United States of America but who can worry about little details like that.  

Pelosi & Reid Sound Retreat - DNC Runs Straw Man Ad

Hot Air has the full scoop on the call for retreat from Reid and Pelosi on a vote for health care legislation before the August recess. Reid sounded the first call for retreat, drew the ire of the liberal and progressive crew on Twitter. Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily KOS, called attention to a growing hashtag on Twitter targeting Reid:

The #harryreid tag is hilarious today.

While Reid may be the fall guy, there was nothing to prevent Speaker Pelosi from taking her legislation to the floor for a vote, unless of course shedoesn't have the votes. This would, of course, completely contradict Pelosi's statement yesterday that she did have the votes. Mmm, the Speaker wouldn't lie about that would she? Regardless, Reid is going to be the scapegoat among Democrats, well at least privately.

Publicly, the following DNC ad gives a taste of who they will continue to paint as boogeyman holding up health care reform. This straw man ad makes the ridiculous argument that those who oppose a complete socialization of our health care industry must, of course, prefer to do nothing. In Democratic simplistic minds there are only two choices, complete take over or do nothing.

Included among those the DNC accuses of preferring to do nothing are Michael Steele, Jim DeMint and Rush Limbaugh. Last I checked Limbaugh had absolutely no legislative authority, being an entertainer and all. Whatever, this is all about leaving an impression in the mind of the public. At this point, I think the public might be grateful that some were slowing down the Obama agenda, but that's just me.



The DNC ad is a straw man and "patently false" to quote Senator DeMint. There are several proposals for health care reform drafted by Republicans as I have listed before. Of course the DNC would never run ads letting the American people know that there are Republican alternatives, that would be giving a clear picture instead of obfuscating reform that is of dire necessity according to their own rhetoric.

Bloggers enlisted in Conference Call

Via Huff Po President Obama has enlisted the support of bloggers as part of his "all Obama-all the time" strategy on healthcare. In an invitation only conference call the President explained how he saw the bloggers playing a role in keeping the pressure on to pass healthcare reform legislation:

"I know the blogs are best at debunking myths that can slip through a lot of the traditional media outlets," he said. "And that is why you are going to play such an important role in our success in the weeks to come."

Yes, yes you read that right, he believes the bloggers are best at debunking myths.
Perhaps we should take a stroll down memory lane and revisit the tremendous strength of the blogs in myth debunking. Who can forget the crack reporting at Mudflats with the mysterious Anne Kilkenny charging Palin with book bannning? A fine example of the Palin refuses to fund rape kits because they contain "emergency contraception" myth can be seen at Democratic Underground. From LA Progressive we had an example of Palin's reported "Sambo" racist comment. More from Mudflats, who were "all Palin - all the time," we see an example of the Bristol is Trig's mother scandal that spread like a cold sore at college kegger. A google search reveals pages of headlines such as "Who is the Mother of Trig Paxon Van Palin?" Though Daily KOS seems to have been busy since then, scrubbing their archives of this sad excuse for reporting, a certain famous blogger, Andrew aka "We're all obstetricians now" Sullivan is still investigating this scandal. Still more "debunking" from Mudflats, we had the Palin had an affair with Tod's business partner scandal.

KOS has a few really remarkable myths such as Palin thinks Pledge written by Founding Fathers. My personal favorite from KOS though, has to be the rationale for publishing an obviously photoshopped pic of Palin in a bikini because,

"it communicates a certain kind of truth about the candidate even though it is a fake foto, in the way that fiction often can over non-fiction."

Mmmm yes, who can argue with that logic?

Well, I personally feel the President has placed his faith in the right crew of bloggers to debunk all those nasty myths likely to be spread by the right wingers who just want to kick old ladies and deny anyone who isn't rich medical care. We are mean like that. To set the tone the President trotted out his famous straw man argument,

The status quo is unacceptable... People who would defend doing nothing are defending the indefensible."

That's us, the defenders-of-the-indefensible, the ones who would rather do nothing than, oh say, passing legislation that effects upwards of 15% of the GDP while it fails to correct the problems it is supposed to address. To make sure we don't get away with this dastardly plan, Obama reiterates his threat to ram it through in reconciliation. Good thing he dropped all those Chicago style negotiating techniques when he moved to the White House. For the record though, there are plenty of health care reform proposals put together by the do-nothing crew including Senator DeMint, Paul Ryan, the bipartisan Wyden-Bennet Healthy Americans Act as well as the crucial bipartisan efforts of Baucus and Grassley on the Senate Finance Committee. Keith Hennessey, who has suggested his own reform, also debunks the reconciliation threat here and here, though it is possible Mr. Hennessey underestimates the determination of this administration who believes that some of the above-mentioned bloggers will be valuable in helping to "debunk myths" and spread the truth about the wonders of Obamacare.

Healthcare Word of the Day- Waterloo

Well polls are crashing all around Obama and the August recess creeps ever-closer threatening the passage of a Healthcare Reform before the House and Senate skip town for vacation after voting for yet another bill they refuse to read. Still Obama refuses to surrender and rather than make his case to the American people or explain significant aspect of his plan, Obama chooses to fight a straw man in Senator DeMint's comment that healthcare could be Obama's Waterloo. To be fair, it would be hard for him to explain the proposed reform since no one seems to agree what that might look like. Hot Air has Senator DeMint's response to Obama which pretty much calls Obama's reform and sales pitch for the Bull it is.

Bill Kristol mentioned tonight DeMint's comment was a mistake, noting the old adage, "when the opposition is busy digging a hole, get out of their way and let them keep digging. He has a point, though it was enjoyable to see DeMint spell it all out, we haven't seen too much of that from the GOP lately. So I have had the Abba song stuck in my head all day and thought I would pass that along for your enjoyment.