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Posts Tagged ‘Open Question’

Will He or Won’t He? Bart Stupak Wavers as Obamacare Hangs in the Balance; UPDATE: The Hill Says Dems Do Not Have the Votes; UPDATE#2 Stupak Caves, Will Vote Yes, Obamacare Set to Pass

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

Anti-Abortion House Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) Appears to Hold the Key Swing Votes that will Determine the Fate of the President's signature Obamacare Initiative

About a half an hour ago, MSNBC reported that anti-abortion House Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) had reached an agreement with President Obama regarding a promise to issue an executive order to eliminate all federal abortion funding in Obamacare and accordingly is now a yes vote. NBC’s tweet:

Anti-abortion leader Rep. Bart Stupak to vote for health care bill, increasing chances for passage – NBC

The wisdom of an ardently pro-life Democrat trusting the most pro-choice President in American history to rigidly enforce a ban on all federal funding of abortion via executive order is an open question. However, about 10 minutes later, CNN reported that Stupak himself had told a CNN producer that he is “still a no vote” for now and that negotiations were ongoing. CNN’s tweet:

Urgent — Rep. Stupak to CNN producer Lesa Jansen: “I’m still a no…There is no deal yet. Its a work in progress.”

Will the Democratic Blue Dogs End up being Obama's Lap Dogs and Push Through Obamacare?

As Speaker Nancy Pelosi appears to be a few votes short of her goal of 216 to pass Obamacare later today, the decision of Bart Stupak, which undoubtedly be followed by his 6 to 12 like-minded anti-abortion House Democrats, appears to be the determination that the entire Obamacare package will either rise or fall on. Another interesting tidbit was reported by the Drudge Report about an hour ago, quoting Pelosi, overheard on a cell phone, speaking to Dem. House Maj. Leader Steny Hoyer:

‘Steny, we have to get to 217. None of these members wants to be the deciding vote’

The day of Obamacare drama will continue to unfold in the hours to come, with a final up or down vote in the House likely sometime this evening, with no one really sure right now which way the vote will go. Here’s the likely schedule for today:

2 p.m.: The House will debate for one hour the rules of debate for the reconciliation bill and the Senate bill.

3 p.m.: The House will vote to end debate and vote on the rules of the debate.

3:15 p.m.: The House will debate the reconciliation package for two hours.

5:15 p.m.: The House will vote on the reconciliation package.

5:30 p.m.: The House will debate for 15 minutes on a Republican substitute and then vote on the substitute.

6 p.m.: The House will vote on the final reconciliation package.

6:15 p.m.: If the reconciliation bill passes, the House will immediately vote on the Senate bill, without debate.

UPDATE: Washington daily The Hill reports about 20 minutes ago that the Democrats do not yet have the votes, and in fact The Hill is reporting a total of 39 “NO” votes from Democrats on their whip count, enough to sink Obamacare. High drama with Stupak and others is sure to continue as Pelosi and Obama work feverishly to find the 3 or 4 votes they need:

Hours before a scheduled vote on healthcare reform, Democratic leaders don’t have the votes.

The decisions of two Tennessee Democrats, Reps. John Tanner and Lincoln Davis, to vote no has put President Barack Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her lieutenants in a major bind.

If every member votes, Democratic leaders can only afford 37 defections. According to The Hill’s whip list, there are 39 Democrats planning to vote no.

Furthermore, The Hill also has eight Democrats in the undecided/unclear column: Reps Jim Cooper (Tenn.), Kathy Dahlkemper (Pa.), Paul Kanjorski (Pa.), Alan Mollohan (W.Va.), Earl Pomeroy (N.D.), Mike Quigley (Ill.), Bobby Rush (Ill.) and Loretta Sanchez (Calif.).

There have been various reports on Sunday that Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and other anti-abortion lawmakers have agreed to an abortion deal involving an executive order from the Obama administration. However, Stupak’s office are strongly denying those reports.

UPDATE #2: Bart Stupak just held a news conference on Capitol Hill and announced that he has reached a deal with President Obama to vote yes on the bill, despite Stupak’s condemnation of the very bill he is set to vote for because of the language in the Senate bill which allows federal funding of elective abortions. Of course, the President cannot override the very Senate language that Stupak is opposed to, making this “deal” with Stupak to create an executive order more about political cover and show than an actual policy change away from the present Senate language will clearly allows federal funding of abortions.

With Stupak’s reversal, the decks are now cleared for a gigantic Democratic victory today and the passage of perhaps the most significant legislation in decades – Obamacare – and a fundamental remaking of 20% of the United States’ economy.

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Breaking News: Pilot Intentionally Slams Plane into Federal Building in Texas: Echos of 9/11? UPDATED: Suicide Pilot Identified as Joseph Andrew Stack; Leftwing Media Moves to Blame the Tea Party as Stack Praises Communism and Attacks Bush in his Suicide Note; UPDATE #2: CBS News reports Stack’s Praise of Communism

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

The smoldering aftermath of a pilot's allegedly intentional suicide and destruction of a federal building in Austin, Texas

According to federal officials who spoke with CNN, a pilot intentionally flew his plane, at full speed, into a federal building in Austin, Texas today:

The pilot of the plane had set his house on fire beforehand….a federal official told CNN.

Two F-16’s were scrambled to the Austin, Texas area in the aftermath of the explosion, but it appears now that no other planes are involved. No official word as of yet regarding the identity of the pilot, however, CNN, Fox, and other media are now reporting that the pilot set fire to his own home before taking flight in a plane earlier today, a fire that continues as of 1PM today. The tragic spectacle of an unhinged pilot intentionally flying a plane into a building in America sadly reminds Americans of the horror of 9/11, albeit on a much smaller scale. The plane involved, Cirrus SR22, is a single-engine four-seat aircraft, much smaller than the airlines hijacked by the 9/11 terrorists on that awful day.

All told, it appears the unnamed pilot had a suicide wish, and he proceeded to implement that twisted desire by flying a plane at full speed (as reported by the Austin Statesman) into the side of a building which houses the IRS and other agencies in Austin, Texas. Whether this incident is a terrorist incident or whether there is any connection to overseas organizations is an open question at this hour.

UPDATE: The suicide pilot has been identified as Joseph Andrew Stack, and a lengthy suicide note was left on Stack’s website in which Stack attacks former President George W. Bush with “Bush and his cronies are puppets of plutocrats” and states his disapproval of the “joke we call the American medical system … [that’s] murdering tens of thousands of people a year”. Such sentiments clearly indicates that Stack strongly disapproved of former President George W. Bush and further strongly disapproved of the present American health care system. Indeed, the leftwing new media, the leftwing old media like the NYT and Democrats have often used the same line used by Stack regarding “tens of thousands” of deaths per year caused by the lack of reform of the American health care system.

The primary motivation, however, appears to be Stack’s vitriolic hatred for the IRS, as the building attacked housed IRS agents and his statement in his suicide note that “Well Mr. Big Brother IRS man… take my pound of flesh and sleep well.”

Predictably, the leftwing netroots new media contingent is in full dander, explicitly claiming that Stack was a “teabagger” associated with the Tea Party movement, with the Daily Kos attempting to set the media narrative that the suicide attack by Stack was a result of ideas pushed by “Teabaggers”:

This guy may not have been a member of any organized Tea Party, I have no way of knowing. He may have been a nut with a beef against the IRS. But the kind of crap he spews in this manifesto is just the sort of thing you will hear at a Teabagger rally. Will this be the beginning of further such events, or will the Teabaggers renounce this kind of violence?

Another large leftwing site, Democratic Underground, is also running with the “Suicide pilot is a teabagger” narrative. Of course, none of the leftwing new media sites mention Stack’s attack on former President George W. Bush or his use of the Democrat health care reform talking point regarding the “thousands” who die every year because of the present system. Considering recent reports that the Democrat Party is planning on digging up dirt on Tea Party leaders and otherwise smearing the Tea Party as unhinged extremists in the leadup to the November 2010 elections, it makes sense that the leftwing new media is pushing the clearly unsubstantiated claim that Stack was a tea party member or sympathizer.

However, the most telling part of Stack’s suicide note may be the part that appears at the very end, in bold, regarding the virtues of communism and the vices of capitalism:

The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

Stack’s clear denunciation of the capitalist system and praise for the communist system, in the last two lines of his suicide note, appear to definitely state a portion of Stack’s ideological makeup. Whether the mainstream media takes its cues from the Daily Kos and Democratic Underground in reporting this horrific attack as the work of a deranged tea partier or whether the mainstream media instead actually reviews Stack’s words and reports on the evidence of his potential motivations objectively will be an interesting test of the media’s level of left wing bias as America moves into a general election season.

UPDATE #2:  CBS News becomes the first mainstream media organization to report Stack’s praise of Communism at the conclusion of Stack’s six page long, rambling suicide note.  CNN continues, via Rick Sanchez and others, to falsely report that the anti-IRS statements were the conclusion of the Stack suicide note. CBS News headlines the anti-IRS speech, and only reports the conclusion of Stack’s letter in the last paragraph of his suicide note:

He ended with,” The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.”

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Age of Post-Partisanship Ends After 17 Days

Friday, February 6th, 2009

Fans of centrist governance were disappointed this evening as President Barack Obama strongly signaled a return to the polarizing ideological battles of years and campaigns past.  Obama’s first use of Air Force One as President was to travel to the House Democratic retreat in Williamsburg and deliver the most partisan speech of his young presidency.   The President let loose with familiar campaign talking points such as the “failed policies of the past” in reference to Republican opposition to the stimulus package moving through Congress.

Tonights Speech Packs a Punch for the GOP

Tonight's Speech Packs a Punch for the GOP

The Democratic retreat was slated to be closed to the media until this evening, when all the networks were invited in to record Obama’s speech.  The clear intent of the move was to control the media cycle through the weekend and perhaps mark a clean break from the relentless media focus on unpopular aspects of the House and Senate packages.  Whether Obama will succeed with tonight’s speech remains an open question.  However, tonight marks the end of the rhetoric of bipartisanship which played a prominent role in the campaign.

Faced with an erosion of 10-15% support of his stimulus package over the past few weeks, Obama faced his first political crisis and responded by launching into starkly partisan rhetoric while also pushing the virtues of the present make up of the bill.   A bipartisan group of Senators have been discussing the package and trying to work out a compromise, unified by their distaste for some of the questionable spending. Candidate Obama would welcome these bipartisan negotiations on such vitally important issues and also promised to bring such partisans together with a new pragmatic, post-partisan governance.

Instead of speaking out substantively with his vision of a bipartisan compromise in the Senate, Obama has chosen to retreat to partisan talking points coupled with a demand to pass the package immediately or face catastrophe.   By refusing to take a substantive stance of what a bipartisan compromise should look like, yet lambasting any opponents of the present Democrat-written bill, Obama has set a troubling model for future legislation that may require bipartisan cooperation to pass, such as immigration reform.

From this point forward for the Administration, we’ll be seeing less of the GOP-Obama meetings on substantive policy and more Obama speeches geared towards firing up his base and pushing the growth of his 13 Million person email list from the campaign.  Independents and centrists must give Obama credit for at least attempting to change the tenor in Washington over the past few weeks by engaging in outreach to Republicans and bringing GOP Senator Judd Gregg into the cabinet.   Unfortunately, Obama has chosen to avoid spending political capital to support and perhaps lead the bipartisan group of Senators to forge a centrist compromise by laying out a detailed vision of the final bill with input from the bipartisan group.   Instead, the bills written exclusively by ascendant Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid will very likely become law.

Beyond the perhaps inevitable end of the rhetoric of post-partisanship, the sad truth for fiscally conservative independents is that the largest spending bill in American history is going to be passed without the standard, lengthy scrutiny applied to normal appropriations bills and without any serious input from centrist politicians.  Many objective analyses of the present stimulus package recommend substantial reductions in questionable spending and other major alterations to maximize to possibility of actual job creation from the bill.   Rasmussen and Gallup polls show significant public support for such major changes.  Based on tonight’s speech, any such coolheaded, pragmatic reworking of the present package appears off the table, with perhaps a window-dressing compromise to “reduce” the outlay to around 800-850 Billion in the offing.

Obama’s return to partisan attacks on republicans and deployment of his speechmaking greatness to push the present stimulus package will likely blunt the faltering public faith in the entire enterprise.   The application of raw political power by Obama today teaches the moderates of the Senate, some of which formed the bipartisan group of 17 senators, that Obama will not support future pragmatic, centrist compromises but instead push the conventional democratic view.   The new lightening rod in partisan politics is the Democratic stimulus package, and the bill’s effect on the economy will dominate partisan debate for years to come as the Age of Partisanship begins again.

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