Guess Her Broom is in the Shop

From Roll Call the House has ordered up three elite jets for a bargain price of $200,000,000.00. It's nice when it's only millions instead of billions or trillions. We have to look at the bright side I guess.

Pay no attention to those bleeding tax revenues:

And Those Little Blue Dogs Too!

UPDATE: Links for the new legislation below the cut

Ohhhhh, what a world, what a world. After what seems like weeks of Kabuki theater with Blue Dog Democrats, Speaker Pelosi would not guarantee the inclusion of contentious provisions in the final House bill.

The Hill reports:

In a session with reporters, Pelosi wouldn't commit to putting the exact language of the deal with Blue Dogs in the final bill.

"I have three chairmen to deal with," she said. "We have three committees that have to look at it."

There have been reports that some liberals are not happy with changes made to appease the more conservative members of the Democratic party. Blue Dogs have complained to Pelosi deals made with Henry Waxman could be removed. Rep Baron Hill (D) said, "There have been some disturbing comments from anonymous aides in the papers, that this was 'just a bone' thrown to the Blue Dogs,"

Considering Pelosi would not commit to keeping the hard-fought provisions in the final bill, Rep. Hill likely has good reason to be concerned. Of course, Blue Dogs could vote against the final bill when and if this bill finally makes it to a vote. It seems as though they have shown their soft underbelly in this debate, however. While they may talk a good game on fiscal conservatism, in the end they proved to be all bark, no bite.

Michelle Malkin has the list of culprits if you decide you would like to give one a call or two. Here's a link for the latest barrage of proposed bills and ammendments from the markups. This ammendment to prevent the use of taxpayer dollars to be used for abortion failed in a 27-31 vote. I am sure there will be plenty of other lovely little suprises in the 1026 page alternative offered by Waxman.

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.

Dems Start to Eat their Own

Dan Gerstein makes the case in Forbes that Pelosi's divisive strategies and involvement in crafting the disastrous stimulus is to blame for wrecking Obama's agenda. His prescription for the failing Obama agenda:

Overreaching can be a very dangerous thing in our politics--especially when the head of your party got elected running against it. And sometimes the only solution to overreaching is, well, overthrowing.

CNN offers up the Blame Obama argument citing claims congressional Democrats being "baffled" and "frustrated" by the President's lack of leadership on policy points:

“We appreciate the rhetoric and his willingness to ratchet up the pressure but what most Democrats on the Hill are looking for is for the president to weigh in and make decisions on outstanding issues. Instead of sending out his people and saying the president isn’t ruling anything out, members would like a little bit of clarity on what he would support – especially on how to pay for his health reform bill,” a senior Democratic congressional source tells CNN.

CNN also notes some blame is being directed at the Senate negotiators, who have "repeatedly missed deadlines." While negotiators, presumably Baucus et al on Finance became targets in the Senate, Blue Dog congressional representatives get the lion share of blame from the lefty blogs and are massive targets in the comments at KOS and Huffington Post.

So while it is rather amusing to watch the Dems form a circular firing squad, the question remains who is most to blame for failing to propose and pass the much promised health care reform, particularly since the Dems enjoy huge majorities in both the House and Senate? Laura Meckler, Jonathan Weisman and Gerald F. Seib in a piece for The Wall Street Journals seem to suggest the buck stops at Obama's door. While the Dem leadership would like to lay blame at the Republican's efforts to effectively undermine efforts at reform, even the most partisan pundits have difficulty bolstering that claim. James Carville is quoted on this point stating:

"President Obama is ratcheting up the stakes too," said James Carville, a veteran of former President Bill Clinton's failed effort to retool health care in 1993-94. "He's certainly not talking them down. And they're pretty big. They win this health-care thing, and they get some decent kind of evidence of [an economic] recovery, they might be in pretty good shape this time next year. But if they lose this, the Republicans understand the stakes too. Nobody is being very coy about it."

Rather than tone the stakes down, Obama is preparing to hold yet another prime time presser this evening. Despite a 10 day full court press, the President appears to be losing ground. Waterloo? It sure looks like it.