When I reached Jonathan Gruber on Thursday, he was working his way, page by laborious page, through the mammoth health care bill Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had unveiled just a few hours earlier. Gruber is a leading health economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is consulted by politicians in both parties. He was one of almost two dozen top economists who sent President Obama a letter earlier this month insisting that reform won't succeed unless it "bends the curve" in the long-term growth of health care costs. And, on that front, Gruber likes what he sees in the Reid proposal. Actually he likes it a lot.
"I'm sort of a known skeptic on this stuff," Gruber told me. "My summary is it's really hard to figure out how to bend the cost curve, but I can't think of a thing to try that they didn't try. They really make the best effort anyone has ever made. Everything is in here....I can't think of anything I'd do that they are not doing in the bill. You couldn't have done better than they are doing."
OK, I can hear you all saying "MIT - elitist. Liberal. Massachusetts. Therefore I don't have to listen to anything this guy says."
However, Brownstein also reports the bill is also supported by Mark McClellan, the former director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services under George W. Bush and Len Nichols, health policy director at the centrist New America Foundation. "The bottom line," Nichols says, "is the legislation is sending a signal that business as usual [in the medical system] is going to end."
Also supporting HCR (not mentioned by Brownstein) - former Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, former Bush Health Secretary Tommy Thompson,& NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Harry Reid got his 60 votes to initiate cloture on the Senate version of the health care bill. Mary Landrieu, whose price for selling out the country was 100 million dollars, and Blanche Lincoln, who faces a tough re-election fight next year, were both very careful to qualify and state that they would not vote for any bill in its present form. This sentiment was echoed by a handful of other ‘moderates’.
Dingy Harry has some problems down the pike and there can be no greater indication of that than after the vote total. There was only a sparse smattering of applause, almost none. Every Senator in that room knew that it is a very far from done deal. They won’t be back to start debate on it until November 30.
Next year is an election year and many Democrats in both the House and the Senate will be facing serious challenges with a seriously peed off electorate, which much to their dismay is far better informed than in many previous years. There are some RINO Republicans that may get their tickets out of town punched also. That’s what they’ll be thinking about, as much or more than sticking their necks out for Reid, Pelosi and that Great Grandstanding Empty Suit in the White House.
Once again, YOUR efforts at derailing this beast before it reached a vote were magnificent. THANK YOU!! This is only the beginning of the fight however. Don’t feel as though we lost anything, because we have enough of these politicians looking over their shoulders and watching the calendar to make a real difference. Lawmakers will be heading home to their districts for the Thanksgiving holiday…it’s the PERFECT time to reach them in their own district and it doesn’t matter if it’s your district or your Senator or not. It’s your country, it’s OUR Senate, and as much as they like to ignore the fact they are on our payroll. Take the time to look up these Senators’ home district offices and start hammering them there. Email, write letters, tell your friends and family and tell them to tell others. Become an activist. Get mad but then GET BUSY!!
We can beat this bill and we can defeat the DeMarxists…and we can do it using their own playbook. Activism, real get-down-and-get-dirty grassroots activism, is how we are going to defeat the Marxio-Socialists at their game. Become active at the local level as you continue to make your voice heard at the national level. Start with your local PTA, City, County and Civic Organizations…continue to call, write and email. Stay angry!! You’ve every right to be. These cretins are trying to steal our GOD given birthright.
BECOME INFORMED and don’t be afraid to tell others. I live in one of the most Liberal dominated areas of the nation. I used to take a lot of heat for my Conservative views. I’m not real smart about such things and I’ve spoken my mind in places where perhaps a saner man would fear to tread.
But there’s a change going on out there. Ten thousand Conservative Patriots in the heart of San Francisco to let the Anointed One know that we think his policies and his governance stink. I don’t take as much heat any more and I’m finding that far more people are agreeing with me. Not on everything perhaps, but then we are AMERICANS and we don’t have to walk in lockstep like the DeMarxist Unionotons or Acorn Community Destabilizers. It’s enough that we agree in principle that we need to step in, step up and save our country.
Another thing…don’t fall for the crap out there about ‘dissension in the ranks of the Tea Party leadership’. The sources of these rumors are pretty easy to identify…it’s bullroar as we used to say in the Corps. Many Republican Senators will be holding town hall meetings over the holiday break, seeking to illuminate and inform constituents and the American public about what exactly is in Harry’s 2074 page monstrosity. Take advantage of the opportunity if you can and let them know we stand behind them.
Remember, they can’t stand against us when we stand together.
DeMint continued: “I would rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than to have 60 that don’t have a set of beliefs.”
Hours earlier, Landrieu had delivered her news. The two represent votes 59 and 60 for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who needs that many in the 100-member Senate to go forward. The Senate's 40 Republicans are unanimously opposed.
My day job is with top ten department in a good but not super elite university. Every year we get thousands of applications from bright young people who want to earn graduate degrees in our department. We accept about 10% of them, making us selective but not super elite. There is a category of rejects I call "delusional". These are the ones with mediocre records who are confident that if they are motivated enough they can overcome the challenge of a top graduate program. Experience, however, shows that they will be even more mediocre in graduate school than they were in their easier undergraduate classes.
I believe that I am [qualified to be president] because I have common sense, and I have, I believe, the values that are reflective of so many other American values. And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism,...
This is delusional. Palin clearly doesn't know much about the actual issues facing the country. Maybe this OK when she was governor of Alsaka. But she has not improved since she entered national politics. "Values" alone do not make a President. We need somebody "elite". In a country of 350 million people, surely there is someone with the right values who also knows that Russia will not impose sanctions on Iran just because we ask nicely, (or rudely in the case of Bush).
Last night, I put out a plea for Americans like you to email and call the four ‘moderate’ Senators most likely to affect the voting on the health care bill being forced on Saturday night, 11/21, by Dingy Harry Reid. Senators EVAN BAYH, MARY LANDRIEU, BILL NELSON and BLANCHE LINCOLN.
I’d like to thank ERIC ODOM for linking us to his many readers. I’d also like to thank the editor that drives this machine, Dee, who had to sort through the two thousand or so responses that came in to our appeal. Additionally, thousands more must have gone out that did not, or could not, take time to comment. To say that we were surprised, thankful and gratified would be an understatement. AMERICA is alive and well…God bless you all and KEEP UP THE HEAT!!
At this writing, it appears that Bill Nelson may be feeling bullet proof enough to vote in favor of the unhealthy America bill. Either that, or they have promised him the world to get him to betray his constituents and his country. Likewise, Mary Landrieu has been offered a 100 MILLION dollar pork sandwich. In her typically opportunistic and weather vane fashion, she may be unable…scratch that…unwilling to forego bestowing this largesse that belongs to OTHER Americans in her state, which already had BILLIONS of Federal dollars pumped into it, apparently accomplishing very little, other than greasing skids for bureaucrats and politicians. It’s business as usual in Louisiana.
It’s just possible that these Senators have been promised some cushy assignment in a ‘future’ Obama administration, or perhaps a lush job with a ‘K’ Street lobbying firm should an aroused electorate bounce their useless carcasses out of there. DON’T put anything past this bunch. It should be readily apparent that they no longer serve the interests of the United States of America, its Constitution or its people. They are on a purely Marxist ideological drive to fundamentally change America into something which AMERICANS don’t want, and which in point of fact is DIAMETRICALLY opposed to the will of the people.
I’ve known for a long time that Americans were outraged and getting more steamed by the minute…but after reading some of your comments…if I were one of those Senators, I’d be damned uncomfortable.
DON’T STOP NOW!! I hate to keep picking on him, but Mark Levin has asked his radio listeners to call, email and write these four and all members of the Senate as well. He has a huge audience. We shut down their phones today as their message boxes are full. Keep calling, emailing and writing those letters. Be courteous but be firm…it’s ok to tell them off but do it in a civil manner. Don’t kid yourself into thinking it’s not having an effect because it IS! A lot of these politicians are looking over their shoulders to see when the pitchfork mob will show up on the horizon…and DESERVEDLY SO.
Don’t listen to some of the supposed ‘conservative’ turncoats in the lame stream media, they are just somebody’s lapdog anyway, and chances are I’VE got a larger readership than most of those clowns. Keep the kettle boiling under these jokers…America for Americans now! This is our country and it’s damned sure worth fighting for!
Once again, the four Senators are: Evan Bayh, Indiana 202-224-5623 Mary Landrieu, Louisiana 202-224-5623 Bill Nelson, Florida 202-224-5274 Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas 202-224-4843
Just because we have shut down their Senate office phones, don’t stop there. Go online and get the phone numbers for their district offices and continue to let them know what you think. For instance, Dianne Feinstein has her Washville message center shut down…BUT you can still get through to her San Francisco offices. Let them know how you feel.
Colin Powell was right. "You will be the proud owner of 25 million people. You will own all their hopes, aspirations, and problems. You'll own it all. You break it, you own it."
Submitted by John Smith on Fri, 11/20/2009 - 15:22
Dick Armey was part of the "Read the bill!!" crowd in the stimulus debate, and even launched a website and online petition drive called “ReadTheStimulus.org”.
Yesterday, he appeared before the the House Oversight and Government Reform committee. He was there to testify as the Republican's expert witness on the stimulus.
A Democrat asked him if he supported the unemployment compensation provisions of the bill. Armey said he might...but conceded that he had not read that portion of the bill.
The Democrat then pressed on a bit. The result? Armey admitted had not read any of the bill, even though he was appearing as an expert about it, and repeatedly goes before the press to criticize it.
Seriously - you cannot make this stuff up.
And what has Dick been doing since the stimulus bill passed? Well, he divides his time between organizing teabagger rallies and working as a lobbyist to help businesses gain from the stimulus.
According to a report from Ohio today, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked the ACORN-tainted Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, to investigation ACORN's voter registration work in the state.
“U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan has formally asked Ohio's secretary of state to look into allegations that ACORN had at least a preliminary plan to back Democrat candidates in key Ohio congressional races in 2008.”
The political plan was described in an October article as “having been scaled back,” and of course, ACORN denied any partisan activity.
“But to some, ACORN's early 13-page plan for the 2008 election reinforces what critics always assumed: The group's goal was never nonpartisan. The political plan and other ACORN documents show that the group was interested not just in helping presidential candidate Barack Obama, whom it urged its members to support, according to post-election Federal Election Commission reports. ACORN also was interested in Congress and the Ohio Statehouse.
"There's no question that ACORN strategized to figure out how its election efforts could maximize the benefit for selected Democratic candidates in the most competitive races," U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa of California told The Plain Dealer. “
An illuminating fact not mentioned in either article is that ACORN prepared political plans for several key battleground states in 2006 and again during the 2007-08 election cycle. As evidenced by the draft plans developed in the Spring of 2006 by the Strategic Writing and Research Department (SWORD) of ACORN Political Operations, these plans were aimed at electing “progressives” and in some cases broke down the Congressional districts by race for maximum targeting. SWORD, which was staffed by Project Vote staff, including myself, worked with ACORN head organizers in FL, MD, MI, MN, OH, PA, and RI to create local documents for the ACORN field staff to implement and present to funders and/or various partner organizations.
A copy of the Maryland and Colorado draft plans from 2006 are available online. Key parts of the plans are the contact and Congressional district sections at the end. For example, in the Maryland plan, it calls for mailings and face to face contact. A screen shot of the type of mailing Marylanders received is shown below.
ACORN used Project Vote staff and computers to create the PowerPoint “Campaign for a New Congress." This PowerPoint was aimed at swaying the Congressional election in Maryland from Albert Wynn to ACORN ally Donna Edwards. Using the final political plan, ACORN canvassed voters and mailed pieces through its affiliate Communities Voting Together.
Communities Voting Together has the same address as the Project Vote office in DC and its address on the screen shot above is the same Elysian Fields address where hundreds of other ACORN entities "reside.
As a 527 group, Communities Voting Together paid over 150,000 to Citizen's Services Inc, and contributed to Wade Rathke's Chief Organizer Fund. Jeff Robinson is listed as the contact for Communities Voting Together and some may remembered Robinson from the 2008 elections (emphasis mine):
"In fact, the Obama campaign paid an ACORN-run organization more than $800,000. In Federal Election Commission required filings, the Obama campaign reported that this money was paid for polling, advance work and event staging. After watchdog scrutiny called this claim into question, the Obama campaign revised its filing and acknowledged that CSI was paid for “get-out-the-vote” projects.
CSI Executive Vice President Jeff Robinson last August told Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter David M. Brown that CSI is a 'separate organization entirely' from ACORN. But as Brown reported, CSI has the same office address as ACORN’s national headquarters, ACORN itself described CSI in 2006 as its 'campaign services entity.' Coincidentally, the widely identified “national deputy political director for campaigns and elections” for ACORN is...Jeff Robinson."
ACORN's shell corporations make it easy for a political plan to become a partisan voter registration drive facilitated by thin veiled “partnerships.” The filing reports of Communities Voting Together raise a number of questions, including whether the misspelling of the name on the filing was intentional. The payments to various ACORN entities should give any astute lawmaker pause.
ACORN has been able to claim that it never worked in some recent elections including NY-23, but as this screen shoot illustrates, Communities Voting together was mailing and passing out door knockers in 2006 for Corzine in New Jersey (without a mention of ACORN).
Will ACORN backed officials like Jennifer Brunner (who has her eye on a Senate seat) and officials in Maryland and Colorado take notices of these obvious attempts to elect Democrats, or will they continue to turn a blind eye to ACORN in order to save themselves?
