This morning I received the following electronic newsletter from Senator John Cornyn on the Senate Health Care Reform Bill.
Last night, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid released his 2,074-page health care bill, which Senate Budget Committee analysis shows will cost American taxpayers $2.5 trillion when fully implemented over ten years. (My bold.)
Until we have had a chance to read the full 2,074 page Reid Bill, it's impossible for Americans to fully grasp what the Majority Leader has cooked up behind closed doors. It is my hope that Sen. Reid will afford all Americans the same courtesy that he had: ample time to study the legislation and deliberate the best way to proceed.
Over the second 10 years, CBO projects even greater cost savings--up to $650 billion, with the caveat that after 10 years, their analyses become highly uncertain.
Do you have a problem with saving lives and money, Senator?
This morning when I unfolded the front page of the Houston Chronicle the headline
GOP begins to show signs of resurgence
hit me in the face.
Really? A Republican resurgence?
I guess the fact that much of his N.J. constituency viewed Corzine as arrogant, corrupt and the dude who saddled his constituents with high property taxes while at the same time has strong ties to the thieves of all thieves, Goldman Sachs, had nothing to do with his loss.
And let's ignore the fact that Wall. St. and the financial sector is among the largest employer in the NYC and northern NJ area. Many mid to lower level employees in the financial sector received pink slips when Wall St. crashed. I guess these folks are not in the least bit angry at those who are or were part of the Wall St. establishment.
Earth to GOP obstructionists: incumbents even remotely tied to the Wall St. melt down and the thieving banks are going to get the boot unless Congress does something to regulate and demand transparency from the financial industry.
The once popular New York's former Democrat and now Republican billionaire mayor Bloomberg had to spend millions upon millions of his own money, outspending his opponents 10 to 1 to barely squeak by a win.
And a lackluster candidate in purple Virginia who ran a lackluster campaign in which he fled from a progressive agenda in a state that traditionally votes for a Governor who is not in the same Party as the President, is a sign of a GOP insurgence?
Voters don't vote if candidates fail to excite them. And no matter the party, voters will vote against corrupted and/or lying incumbents. Nor will they vote for a candidate who calls him or herself a progressive or conservative but whose words and deeds show they are anything but. Some Republicans may be able to fool the teabagging crowd and old white Independents with double talk and spin, but this crowd is a mere tiny minority. Just wait until Independents in Va. realize the newly elected governor, who pretended to be a centrist, is really a hard core conservative. Welcome to teabagger land, Indies. Maybe next time you won't be fooled by self-serving liars.
John Cornyn, of course, is gloating all over the place about two the Democratic gubernatorial losses.
These Republican victories clearly demonstrate a strong wave for our candidates in the 2010 midterm elections," said Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
And predictably, good ol' Taliban Pete Sessions is also salivating over the Democratic gubernatorial losses. Check out Matt Glazer's piece over at The Burnt Orange Report.
Usually when you contribute to losing a race that has been controlled by your party since the civil war, you lay low and avoid words like referendum and change. Pete Sessions hasn't read that memo.
Sessions, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, lost races in both California (not a surprise) and New York (huge surprise) and yet he is spending his day saying last nights election results are a referendum on the popular Democratic President. The big surprise is Sessions, like Tom Craddick in the State House, is so out of touch, he has directly contributed to helping increase the Democratic majority in Congress.
As mentioned today on the Plum Line, "NRCC chair Pete Sessions's statement says the gubernatorial wins prove independents are "dissatisfied" with Dems and will continue "moving away from them at a rapid pace."
The NRCC and Sessions came out strong against the Republican nominee and for the independent/conservative candidate. Yet, they lost.
Do we extrapolate then that Sessions is unpopular and the people of New York and the Republican Party as a whole made a referendum on the leader of the caucus? No. That is ridiculous.
What it does mean is that the Republican Party is still in total disarray and lost traction in local races and lost ground in Washington D.C. where the battle over health care reform, insurance reform, environmental reforms, clean energy reforms, and many many other initiatives are being fought. Clearly the people of California and New York both want Washington to move forward.
This is a signal that Democrats can continue to win tough races in fragmented parts of the country as long as Sessions, Cornyn, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and Rick Perry can't agree on what their party stands for and what sort of candidate they should field.
Both sides need to use last nights results and learn. 2010 is going to be tough and Democrats will lose seats in the U.S. Senate and House and in local races if the fail to mobilize and turnout. When Democrats can sweep in federal races but lose gubernatorial races perhaps we should stop throwing out buzz words and start asking why.
Why are Pete Sessions and John Cornyn gloating when their jobs just got harder? Why is this a referendum when VA has swapped parties with the President for nearly four decades? Why aren't we comparing Corizine and Bloomberg instead of comparing Obama to the whole Republican Party of New Jersey?
Let's start asking some questions and stop making blind, sound bite assumptions. Oh, and let's get to work for March and November.
Remember reading yesterday about John Cornyn punching at a reporter/blogger's camera? Well, something must have been in our Senators' water yesterday, because Senator Hutchison had a problem with a reporter, too. In some ways, her story falls farther than Cornyn's.
Mike Stark, some may say, blindsided Senator Cornyn to ask him a question. Kay Bailey Hutchison, however, abruptly stalled the journalistic process when she received a question from a reporter she called upon. That reporter, the Dallas Morning News' Todd J. Gillman, relates the story:
Then Hutchison posed for some pictures, and stepped over to a scrum of a dozen or so reporters to take more questions. One asked about net neutrality, a rather complex issue of special to Texas-based AT&T. Hutchison turned to me for the next topic. She really did seem open to taking more questions.
I offered a toss-away to the effect that she has already said she'll leave the Senate soon, any hints yet about timing. No she said. Then, apparently, I crossed a line. Basically, I asked why she feels a need to stay in the Senate while running for governor.
GILLMAN: "Do you have some qualms that a replacement for you will not have essentially the same positions on important issues, to Texas, like cap and trade, like net neutrality, for instance?"
HUTCHISON: "Ok, thank you."
And then, dear readers, she turned abruptly and walked away, leaving a gaggle of journalists dumbstruck.
We had a problem with Senator Cornyn about a crummy policy position he conveyed in his vote. In this anecdote, however, there are no such legislative disputes we have with Kay Bailey Hutchison, but we see a problem here that was prevalent with both our state's Senators in D.C.
Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn each deliberately ignored and impeded the journalistic process. We deserve better from our U.S. Senators.
Watch it for yourself - he punches the guy's camera, not the reporter/blogger, but the effect is the same:
Now, I'm really not in favor of blindsiding elected officials. I think it makes bloggers look like paparazzi. Then again, it was a public building, and according to the tape, Mike Stark (the guy filming this) was never impeding anyone's progress -- which is what he was (apaprently) instructed to do.
The issue he was confronting Cornyn on was a simple one: Cornyn was one of 30 Republicans who voted against an amendment "that would prevent the Pentagon from doing business with contractors who force employees into binding arbitration over rape and sexual assault charges." More from The Nation:
In April of 2008, KBR employee Dawn Leamon went public. A few months earlier, she had been raped and sexually assaulted by co-workers while deployed at Camp Harper, in Iraq, and after weeks of being pressured not to report the incident, forced to work alongside her attackers, and medically neglected, Leamon brought the story to a Houston attorney and to The Nation. Leamon joined a slowly building chorus of female defense contractor employees who'd been raped or sexually assaulted by co-workers while in Iraq, to utter impunity on the part of their assailants. In response, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee called a hearing to investigate why the Justice Department had not prosecuted any sexual assault allegations in Iraq since the going to war in the country.
When it turned out that defense contractors often required employees, as a condition of employment, to submit to binding private arbitration in disputes with the contractors (including allegations of sexual assault), instead of bringing complaints to public courts, and that the Department of Defense claimed they couldn't prosecute for this very reason (even though these clauses only prevented civil suits), Senator Ben Nelson, who called the hearing, offered a simple solution: "This might be something you want to require and include in your contracts--before you award them," Karen Houppert reported in The Nation.
[...]
Predictably, Sen. Jeff Sessions, ranking Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, opposed Franken's bill. "Congress should not be involved in writing or rewriting private contracts," he argued. The bill was, he maintained, a "political amendment at bottom, representing a political attack on Halliburton." In fact, the amendment only goes so far as to require contractors doing business with the government to permit employees to sue civilly in the "most egregious violations," Franken emphasized in a statement. (For less egregious matters, contractors can still require employees to waive their right to sue and submit to arbitration.)
Mike Stark wanted to know why John Cornyn defended contractors who said willingly chose to ignore rape. Cornyn chose to punch the guy / his camera.
Stark has confronted other elected officials about this, and none of them acted so over-the-top. Go check out his blog -- www.thecrookeddope.com -- to see more.
To: Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
202-224-0776
Senator John Cornyn
202-228-2856
Re: Health Care Reform
I strongly urge you to vote for health care reform that includes a public option.
If a public option is not included in the bill, the health insurance industry will continue to overcharge premiums and deny care to patients. As we know from former Cigna executive, now whistle blower, Wendell Potter, the health insurance industry will continue to make obscene levels of profits, based precisely on denying critical care to very sick and dying patients. It will continue to increase premiums.
We also know from the recent report written by the AHIP that the insurance companies will indeed increase its premiums because insurance doesn't like what it read in the Baucus bill. This goes to show you how arrogant and appallingly greedy the health insurance industry has become.
We also know from the town hall meetings this past August at which we heard much about "death panels, "killing Granny," Hitler, and Pol Pot, that many of these rallies were orchestrated by special interests in the health insurance business and groups led by Dick Armey of Freedom Works and Tim Phillips of Americans for Prosperity. In other words, many of those town hall meetings were merely staged events to misinform people and foment fear among seniors.
After Houston Mayor Bill White's campaign reported $1.5 million raised this quarter, leaving them with $4.18 million on hand, national observers took notice. Politico's Josh Kraushaar wrote that White had "posted one of the strongest fundraising totals for any Senate candidate this quarter."
Then it was the NRSC, led by Texas' own John Cornyn, who read the good news about White's fundraising and decided to go on the attack. From Whitless Humorings:
“Bill White’s fundraising diligence is exceeded only by his negligence to his current position. The city of Houston is facing a $50 million budget shortfall, Houstonians are facing potential tax hikes, city employees are facing possible layoffs, and yet, Bill White is traveling around the country raising money while collecting a paycheck from Houston taxpayers. Instead of spending his time worrying about a job promotion Bill White ought to focus on the job he was elected to do.” – Brian Walsh, NRSC Spokesman
The White campaign issued this response to the NRSC's statement on Wednesday, via the Mayor's Facebook page.
"Houston has run operating surpluses for most my time as Mayor, while we cut tax rates. Meanwhile DC borrowed trillions to pay operating expenses even before the recession. Yet some party hack in DC criticizes me for raising money for my Senate race, ...saying I neglected our City's finances? (See the link below.) They don't get it. Many fiscally conservative Republicans serve with me on City Council and they deserve credit--as do all Council members--for working as a non-partisan team to make sure that Houston is in the best financial condition of any of the nation's big cities.We aren't raising taxes or laying off employees. When is the last time they ran a surplus in DC? 1998-2000? Is it possible that in DC someone is looking at a poll and is worried?"
National Republicans are worried about holding on to this senate seat, and for good reason. When was the last time the NRSC attacked a Democratic candidate for a seat that was not even open yet?
As we know by now, there is very little, if any, competition in the health insurance industry. Some states have only one provider. Everyone and that would be everyone involved in the discussions about health care reform knows this is the case nationwide.
So why is the very notion of introducing competition into the health insurance industry such a big deal for Congress? It should be a no brainer. I mean, isn't capitalism and the belief in free markets as the be all and end all of everything perfect and sacred all about competition?
If members of Congress truly embrace the principles of competitive capitalism they would not obstruct health care reform that includes a public option. Indeed, by resisting a competitive force in the health insurance industry Republicans, especially, clearly demonstrate their unbending support for non-competitive monopolies.
Monopolies!? But I thought that is what Communism is all about.
Yesterday MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan had a debate with Betsy McCaughey, a well known Republican opponent of health care reform. Her remarks about health care reform and its impact on seniors have been so extreme that AARP found it necessary to call her out. The organization said her remarks bordered on the cruel.
Cruella McCaughey obviously did not like Ratigan's questions, especially when he described the current state of health insurance as
Corporate Communism.
Predictably, when a Republican does not like the questions, (s)he will hammer the interviewer. When an interviewer will not let a Republican hack spew talking point BS non-stop, the hack will always go for the jugular.
Texas cannot keep up with the demand of those in need of food stamps. According to Lisa Falkenberg of the Houston Chronicle it is taking months to obtain benefits. Folks are growing more desperate by the day.
Meanwhile, Texas isn't coming close to meeting federal requirements to process food stamp applications within a month. Last month, about 38,000 new applicants were left awaiting approval even though the federal deadline had passed. About one in six applications is processed incorrectly.
Food Stamps are 100% funded by the Federal Government. All Texas has to do is distribute the funds. Unfortunately due to either incompetence, stinginess or cold-hearted contempt for the state's struggling jobless, Texas is not doing its job.
(Some Sunday color... - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
LBJ would use the term "peckers in pockets" when pushing through Medicare. According to the former President, he needed "peckers in his pocket" to make sure the bill passed. I imagine few Presidents have made abundant use of such colorful language as LBJ. It sure would be nice if we had LBJ with us today. Given our present political climate of hysterical drama queens and kings on the right, LBJ's descriptions would no doubt be brutally hilarious and priceless.
Speaking of pocketed peckers, who is running the Senate healthcare mark-up? Are our Senators working for us or are they working for insurance?
Yesterday, on CSPAN our very own Senator John Cornyn shows us he is a pawn for the insurance industry. Cornyn likes things the way they are, meaning he does not care that Texas has the highest number of uninsured residents. And he has no intention of lifting a finger to change the plight of the untreated. Predictably Cornyn had tried to "grandfather in" insurance companies in order to protect their profits. According to Senator Rockefeller Cornyn's amendment also favored 46% of the population while it would work against 54% of the people. Is this the best Big John could do? What a stand up dude. Texas should be so proud. Fortunately his pandering amendment promoting the status quo failed 13-10.
Reacting to an amendment proposed by Sen. Jon Cornyn (R-Texas) during the Senate Finance Committee's markup of health care reform legislation on Thursday, committee member Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) called his colleague a pawn of the health insurance industry.
"This is a very, very important amendment and it's a very, very bad amendment," said Rockefeller. "If there's anything which is clear, it's that the insurance industry is not running this markup, but is running certain people in this markup."
Senator Cornyn, by the way, received $759,000 from health professionals, $350,000 from insurance, $222,000 from Pharma and $248,000 from lobbyists. A video clip of the exchange between Senators Cornyn and Rockefeller can be seen in the link above.
