Garnet Donkey

A vote for cloture is not a vote for the bill.

A vote for cloture is not a vote for the bill.

A vote for cloture is not a vote for the bill.

One of the aspects of the health care debate I and many others have found most frustrating is the repeated emphasis, coming from the media but also largely from the Democratic leadership in the Senate, on the “necessary sixty votes.” The whole notion is a farce–for ordinary legislation (as opposed to confirmations or certain kinds of restricted legislation), only 51 votes are needed to pass the Senate. But what about filibusters, you say? The response is two-fold:

Read more »

As the health insurance “reform” bill (the current incarnation from Baucus) clears the Senate Finance Committee today, a report [PDF] by PricewaterhouseCoopers surfaces with rather disturbing news: under the current plan, insurers expect rates to more than double! There’s a good analysis here on ThinkProgress (with a link to a video of Anthony Weinder D-NY). If the insurance companies look at the current state of the bill and see a future in which the government isn’t doing enough to keep rates down, doesn’t that mean the government should put in more? Some competition, perhaps? Like a public option or something? No, that would be crazy.

The presidents words, as quoted above and available in full here, reminded me of the great irony of this health care debate–that we’re having it at all in this country in 2009.

Like many Americans,  I have viewed the health care debate not in the abstract, but on a very tangible level. I have been incredibly fortunate to have quite good health insurance my whole life, as provided by my dad’s employer. I’ve been doubly fortunate because, as a tenured professor, he and therefore my family have never had to worry that coverage was going to abruptly go away with his job. I’m also 21 years old and will graduate (fingers crossed) from Swarthmore in May.  At some point in the next few years, I will stop being covered by my parents insurance. If I have to go into the private insurance market, I will, in all likelihood, be uninsurable. Surely, this country can do better.

Read more »

Joe Sestak was on Colbert last night, where he claimed that everyone in the military is really a Democrat and Stephen showed a clip of Joe failing to pronounce the name of the state in which he is running, although he managed to pronounce it correctly on the show.  Also, DelCo is Sestak’s favorite county.  Enjoy!

Video here

A fantastic political satire that you need to go see.  Fast, funny, and (unfortunately) perhaps, on some level, horribly possible.

In the Loop was directed by Armando Iannucci and stars Peter Capaldi, Tom Hollander, Mimi Kennedy, James Gandolfini, and Chris Addison.

President Bush used the Medal of Freedom, the highest civillian honor in this country, to reward his own appointees and allies for, more often than not, terrible performance and questionable decisions.

President Obama announced his first round of Medal recipients today. Among them:

• Susan J. Komen Foundation founder Nancy Goodman Brinker, US Ambassador to Hungary and then head of White House Protocol, both under President Bush.
• Republican Congressman and Dole running mate Jack Kemp, who passed away in May.
• Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, a Reagan appointee who was the deciding vote in Bush v. Gore .

All are accomplished and worthy choices, but it’s nice to know that the president can publicly recognize exceptional people with whom he disagrees.

The full list of recipients is here and Amanda Terkel’s comments on the same subject are here.

Nate Silver over at 538 has a post about a recent Quinnipaic pole showing that Specter is just a 45-44 favorite over Republican challenger Toomey.  This is probably not good news for Specter, given that Toomey still has relatively poor name recognition.  Silver points out that those that have heard of Toomey view him as not all that conservative when in fact he is about as far to the right as they come, which means that maybe Toomey can be pegged back.  But Silver also points out that Specter may not be in a good position to do the pegging because of his party switch.

Which brings us to Specter’s challenger in the democratic primary, PA-07’s own Joe Sestak.  Sestak has a reputation as a fairly moderate democrat, although as Molly points out here, he seems to be pretty good on most core democratic issues, and he is about as sharp as anyone on national security issues.  Sestak is in a good position to paint Toomey as the far right hack that he is, and at the same time appeal to Pennsylvania’s median voter: a slightly left of center moderate democrat.  Sestak is an excellent fund raiser, so he shouldn’t have any problems on that front.  While Toomey will be an underdog against either Democrat, I rate Sestak as maybe being slightly more favored in a general election.

College Dems went to D.C. in early May to do some lobbying for comprehensive sex ed.  One of the offices that we met with was that of Senator Arlen Specter, Republican turned Democrat of Pennsylvania (at the time of our meeting he had just made the switch).  Of all of the people we met with, he seemed the most reluctant to support our position.  That, however, may be changing.  A special shout out to the author of that article, Swarthmore’s own Dina Kopansky.

The governor of South Carolina went missing for 5 days recently.  He returned yesterday to explain his disappearance:

In a rambling news conference, Mark Sanford apologized for having an affair, ending a mystery over his recent activities.