You go, girl! When I read this earlier, I thought, "Why are the Dems giving this away without using it as a bargaining chip?" Once again, we see that the Speaker is the only one with real cojones:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi struck a combative tone tonight, rejecting the Medicare "doc fix" passed hastily through the Senate Friday until Senate Republicans allow a vote on jobs measures that have passed through the House.

"I see no reason to pass this inadequate bill until we see jobs legislation coming out of the Senate," said Pelosi in a statement.

"House Democrats are saying to Republicans in the Senate: Show us the jobs! (exclamation mark hers)"Her statement, along with Senate Republicans' unwillingness to pass any legislation that adds to the debt, means that Medicare doctors can expect a 21 percent pay cut when claims that have been held for two weeks start to be processed by Medicare's government administrator on Monday. Senate Democrats could not muster 60 votes twice this week when they considered bills more to Pelosi's liking. They passed the last-minute doc fix bill to avert the 21 percent pay cut to Medicare doctors on Friday afternoon, even as the pay cut was scheduled to take effect.

From Pelosi's office:
Pelosi to Senate Republicans: Show Us the Jobs

Washington, D.C.--Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement in response to Senate Republicans' refusal to pass jobs legislation along with the inadequate six months physician payment extension bill:

"The inadequate legislation on physicians' fees that Senate Republicans allowed to pass today is a great disappointment. The House has approved long-term reform that ensures that Medicare patients will have access to quality physicians' services.

"The bill Senate Republicans allowed to pass is not only inadequate with respect to physician fees, but it ignores urgent sections of the House bill to provide jobs. The House has repeatedly sent jobs-creating bills to the Senate since December -- Build America Bonds, small business hiring incentives, and importantly, summer jobs -- and yet Republicans continue to block approval of jobs legislation.

“What is it that Republicans in the Senate and House don't understand about the need for jobs in America?

"I see no reason to pass this inadequate bill until we see jobs legislation coming out of the Senate. House Democrats are saying to Republicans in the Senate: Show us the jobs!"

I've been trying to put my finger on it, but when I read this story, it finally crystallized: How come we never hear about the White House making these little backdoor deals on our behalf? (Did I miss one?) How come we only get what's left over after the corporate interests have stuffed themselves? Like Lazarus, should we just be grateful for any crumbs that fall from the rich man's table?

The White House is intervening at the last minute to come to the defense of multinational corporations in the unfolding conference committee negotiations over Wall Street reform.

A measure that had been generally agreed to by both the House and Senate, which would have affirmed the SEC's authority to allow investors to have proxy access to the corporate decision-making process, was stripped by the Senate in conference committee votes on Wednesday and Thursday. Five sources with knowledge of the situation said the White House pushed for the measure to be stripped at the behest of the Business Roundtable. The sources -- congressional aides as well as outside advocates -- requested anonymity for fear of White House reprisal.

The White House move pits the administration against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who told Barney Frank (D-Mass.) to stand strong against the effort.

"I met with the Speaker today and she said, 'Don't back down. I'll back you up,'" Frank, the lead House conferee, told HuffPost. "Maxine Waters is very upset, as are CalPERS and others."

Advocates said that the corporations fought the issue primarily over executive compensation concerns. Given proxy access, investors could rein in executive salaries. The Business Roundtable is a lobby of corporate CEOs.

Valerie Jarrett, a senior White House adviser and Obama confidante, is the administration liaison to the Business Roundtable.

What this means is, after promising proxy access to institutional investors, the White House has reversed its position. Instead, the new language requires that only those who own five percent of a corporation get a say in board nominations or corporate governance.

Even the largest pension funds don't come anywhere close to owning five percent of a major corporation. The biggest pension funds are more likely to hit the half-percent threshold in rare cases.

"I guess this is the way it works, but the sucker was like a bolt from the heavens. It came out of nowhere," said one advocate working on the issue.

Frank said that he wasn't certain the White House was involved. "There may be some sense that the White House -- I'll explain it this way: this affects, of course, not just the financial institutions, but all corporations and, yeah, I think there are some people in the White House who think, 'Well, we're fighting the financial institutions, but why fight with some of the others you know, the other corporations?' But all I can do is stand firm in our position, which we're doing. I think there may be some White House influence, but I don't really know. I would ask the Senate. It is interesting that they are reversing their own position," he said.

Backers of the underlying House and Senate language said that, as of last week, there was no indication that the provision would be stripped.

Because the conference committee deliberations are televised, a broad range of interested observers were able to watch corporate America gut the reform proposal live. On Thursday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) fought back, attempting to amend the language to strike the five percent requirement. It failed; the only Democrats to back Schumer in the vote were Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.).

The SEC is planning to issue rules related to proxy access. Those rules would be made meaningless by the language currently being pushed.

This is one of the main issues we'll be discussing at the America's Future Now conference in D.C. this week. It still astounds me that some progressives are simply ignoring the very real economic and political arguments in favor of increasing economic stimulus, not slashing it:

With voter anger about the federal deficit intensifying in this election year, Democrats in Congress are edging away from one of their long-held articles of faith — government spending on social programs such as education and relief for the jobless.

The painful tradeoff comes to center stage this week, when the Senate tries again to pass an extension of unemployment benefits — this time a $54-billion measure that marks an abrupt retreat from a $200-billion bill that Democratic leaders had proposed before the Memorial Day recess.

The stripped-down bill is just one sign of how budget anxieties are beginning to impinge on Democrats' legislative ambitions and traditional commitments.

A White House-backed proposal to spend $23 billion to save as many as 300,000 teachers' jobs has been stymied by deficit concerns. Similarly, the House, usually a bastion of liberalism, bowed to fiscal conservatives and dropped health insurance subsidies for the unemployed.

"There is a very changed climate," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) recently told reporters, referring to anti-deficit pressures she faces within her own party.

Though polls for years have shown high levels of public concern about the deficit, rarely has it outstripped most other issues. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in mid-May found a notable increase in recent months in those who believe cutting the deficit and spending should be the government's highest priority.

Gee. You don't suppose having the media keep up a constant drumbeat of anti-deficit propaganda would have anything to do with that, do you?

According to the poll, 20% of those surveyed wanted the deficit and government spending to be the top priority, an issue second to the 35% concerned about job creation and economic growth. (In a January poll, 13% cited the deficit and government spending.)

"There's no question that people are almost as concerned about the deficit and government spending as about jobs," said Mark Mellman, a pollster who works closely with congressional Democrats. "It is not just about the actual dollars — it is a metaphor for wasted money and lack of discipline and long-term economic decline."

That's because Congress - and the administration - did such a piss-poor job explaining the difference between stimulus spending and the bank bailout.

Even Friday's report that private-sector job growth had slowed to a crawl in May is not expected to offset the Democrats' new reluctance to add to the deficit for unemployment benefits.

And you know what the really stupid thing is? The Democrats will try to act like Republicans by cutting the deficit, and it won't win them any additional votes. It never does. The kind of people who like Republican policies vote for Republicans.

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Thanks, Sen. Stabenow, it's nice to know someone has a clue. But what about the Speaker of the House? I know Nancy Pelosi can change minds, because we saw the work she did on the health care bill. And I even understand the struggle she has with lily-livered House members who are much more interested in winning than helping the unemployed.

But I have to ask, once again: If the Democrats don't stand for helping the victims of this economic depression, if they don't stand for protecting the people who need it most, what, exactly, do they stand for?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that Congress will not take up any measure to give the long-term jobless more weeks of unemployment benefits beyond the 99 weeks available in some states.

Congress is currently locked in an epic battle just to preserve the 99 weeks for the rest of the year. In a seemingly futile effort to appease deficit hawks, Dem leadership already weakened its "extenders bill," formally known as the American Jobs and Closing Loopholes Act, by shortening the unemployment extension through November instead of December.

Hundreds of thousands of people, however, have already exhausted 99 weeks of benefits with no jobs in sight. Thousands signed a petition to demand Congress add a "Tier V" to the four tiers of benefits that currently make up the 99 weeks.

A reporter asked Pelosi at her weekly press conference if there were any plans to help the 99ers.

"No. This bill will go until the end of November, at that time we'll take up something, but not between now and then," said Pelosi (D-Calif.). "The situation I see is that members who are from low unemployment areas are very concerned about the deficit. Members who are from high unemployment areas are very concerned about jobs. So we have to come to a compromise as to how to move forward, and we did with this bill going to November."

But come November, if Congress takes up anything related to unemployment, it will most likely be another temporary extension of existing benefits. The extension under consideration this week is the fourth in the last six months. And while a handful of senators have pledged to constituents that they will fight for more weeks of benefits, Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has said that "99 weeks is sufficient."

Well, yes, Max. I'm sure for you, it is sufficient. Of course, you probably don't even know that people like me who were collecting the maximum benefit ran out at 72 weeks, nor do you care. But don't expect us to care about you, either. Buh bye, DSCC! Buh bye, mid-term elections!

Here's more evidence of the Democratic party's concern for the unemployed:

WASHINGTON – Laid off workers would lose subsidies to help buy health insurance and states would be denied billions in federal aid under a plan by House leaders Thursday to trim a bill extending jobless benefits.

Democrats struggled to extend jobless benefits for people who have been out of work for long stretches as lawmakers worried about the growing budget deficit balked at the price tag of the package.

The cuts would reduce the package by about $31 billion, to about $112 billion. Business tax increases would pay for some of the bill, which would still add more than $50 billion to the deficit.

[...] When the subsidy was first enacted, Congress estimated it would benefit 7 million laid-off workers and dependents. It would have cost $6.8 billion to extend it through November.

Democratic leaders have also proposed eliminating $24 billion in aid to cash-strapped states to help cover Medicaid expenses, Cuellar said. Congress increased the federal government's share of the federal-state insurance program for the poor last year.

Oops! There goes that touching concern about healthcare coverage for those hit hardest in these hard times. No Medicaid money? Oh well, those people should just die and decrease the surplus population.

What will it take to make the Democratic leadership understand that their half-assed attempts to win the mid-term elections are the very same tactics that will convince so many voters to stay home on Election Day?

We have a seemingly endless supply of money for war. Why are we so very thrifty when it comes to this economic disaster?

The right-wing noise machine can really come up with some good ones.

Right-wing media figures have criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for carrying a gavel while walking to the Capitol to vote on health care reform, claiming she sought to incite Tea Party members protesting the legislation. Glenn Beck said Pelosi was "inciting" the tea partiers and "slapping them across the face," and Rush Limbaugh said Pelosi tried to "provoke" tea partiers by "carrying that big gavel" with an "excrement-eating grin on her face."

Did you know the gavel had that kind of power? Man, it turns people into racists and douchebags.

Beck: "If [Pelosi] was really worried about violence and she thought these people were violent, why would you grab a big hammer and walk into a sea of these people?" He later asked, "Did anyone say to Nancy Pelosi, 'You're inciting these people. You're slapping them across the face'?"

I would say she had to protect herself from the teabaggers and the gavel was all she had at her disposal, but that's absurd too. I thought there were not too many conservative comics around, but they keep proving me wrong.

Their big problem: They are the opposite of funny.

Here's something I didn't know:

A couple of hours after President Obama signed the health-care bill, an elated House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with a group of columnists and commentators, issuing a warning to insurance companies and offering a surprising view of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Asked if insurance companies might raise their rates on health coverage and blame the increases on the new health-care bill, Pelosi said that the insurance companies should be aware that they’re not “automatically included” in the new health exchanges the bill creates.

“Unless they do the right thing, they’re not going in,” she said. “They will be relinquishing the possibility of having taxpayer-subsidized consumers in the exchange,” she said.

Under the new law, the health exchanges Pelosi referred to will be created in 2014. By pulling customers together, they will give individuals and companies a better chance of bargaining when they buy health insurance. Because the exchanges are expected to serve millions of new customers, insurance companies will want to be part of them.

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I got to witness a little bit of history Sunday night in Washington, sitting in the gallery of the House of Representatives as the vote was tallied for final confirmation of the health-care reconciliation package. It was a pleasure seeing the beaming faces of Democrats (and there was no small bit of schadenfreude in seeing Republicans' scowls), especially people like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who looked fresh and energized despite probably having had no sleep for 72 hours or more, and my own representative, Jim McDermott, who has fought consistently for health-care reform for several decades now.

Of course, I only sort of witnessed the final vote. You see, security was rotating groups of about 18 people in and out of the seats every 15 minutes, because demand was so high; and my group's time ran out just as the count reached 200. I returned quickly to the item-return room (you had to leave behind your cell phones), where a big screen ran the tallies on C-SPAN; when the vote hit 216, a loud cheer erupted among the 30 or so of us gathered to watch.

Not all of us cheered, of course. A sizable portion of the crowd forming those long lines, in fact, comprised Tea Partiers who had spent the day outside the Capitol protesting, "Kill the Bill!" And they scowled and booed while the rest of us cheered.

I had, in fact, spent a portion of my day among these Tea Party protesters, wandering among them with a video camera in the hours before that afternoon's massive March For America. (And it has to be mentioned that this crowd, of several hundred at best, was utterly dwarfed by the crowd of immigration-reform activists behind them, estimated to be 200,000 strong, a contrast that must -- or should -- have struck some of them as a wee bit ominous for their Beckian claim that "We Surround Them".)

As you can see, some of the leaders of the chants were not above some ugliness in the process. A woman reporter from the local ABC affiliate was mercilessly harassed by one of the bullhorn holders, as you can see. And there was no shortage of kooky signs, including:

I DID NOT SERVE SO THAT DICTATORS COULD RULE

Obama

Take Your Flight

Now And Don't Ever

Come Back

We'll Manage!

A brief exchange of insults occurred when a middle-aged man in a blue soccer shirt made clear he adamantly supported health care, and a man in Michigan Militia T-shirt said, "F--k you," to which the older man responded in kind. Someone in the crowd (the guy holding the "Take Your Flight Now" sign, in fact) called out, "Commie!"

(And yes, the incessant chant of "Kill the Bill!" did start to remind one, after awhile, of the crowd of zombies chanting "Im-ho-tep!" in The Mummy.)

Media Matters spent all day among them and produced some even more disturbing clips.

Dave Weigel at the Windy also found some prime violent wingnuttery:

As a Democratic victory looked more and more likely, Tea Partiers got more ornery about the liberals who’d showed up to cheer for reform and take commemorative photos of what, to them, looked like the end of a year of agenda-slowing right-wing activism.

“Look at that idiot!” said Linda Cocsy, a New Yorker who’d spent the weekend in Washington for the protests, pointing at one of the young Democrats who’d infiltrated the protest, holding up a pro-reform sign provided by a pro-choice Catholic group. “This one, here with the stupid grin on his face! He looks likes he’s brainless. You look at these people and, they really look like jerks. You look at the other people, with the Don’t Tread on Me [flags], and they look like real people!” Cocsy stared off at another protester, waving a sign he’d picked up from a pro-immigration reform protest that had broken up around the time that Stupak announced his flip. “I just wanna kill them!” said Cocsy.

Meanwhile, the NY Daily News reports that one right-wing blogger called for Obama to be shot:

Solomon "Solly" Forell tweeted: "ASSASSINATION! America, we survived the assassinations of Lincoln and Kennedy. We'll surely get over a bullet 2 Barack Obama's head."

The crazy talk isn't just coming from the rank and file. Some of the Tea Partiers' favorite congressmen are saying similarly nutty things, such as Rep. Steve King's call for secession (via Amanda Terkel) as a response to HCR, following up on his earlier call for an armed revolution.

So it was very interesting listening and observing their responses that evening as we all crowded together into a line to watch the House vote -- Tea Partiers and reform supporters together, required to remain quiet and civil with each other, upon pain of being immediately removed by security.

Continue reading »

Because we're getting so much of this news as it breaks, it's hard to get all the context. But it sure sounds like they're only pursuing another way to pass the bill in response to the Republicans' hypocritical attacks - which only gives credence to said attacks:

House leaders have decided to take a separate vote on the Senate health-care bill, rejecting an earlier, much-criticized strategy that would have permitted them to "deem" the unpopular measure passed without an explicit vote.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said Saturday that the House would take three votes Sunday: first, on a resolution that will set the terms of debate; second, on a package of amendments to the Senate bill that have been demanded by House members; and third, on the Senate bill itself.

Van Hollen, who has been working on the issue with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said House leaders concluded that that order -- approving the amendments before approving the Senate bill -- makes clear that the House intends to modify the Senate bill and not approve the Senate bill itself.

"Our objective all along was to make it clear that the House is amending the Senate bill, and we found another way of accomplishing that," Van Hollen said in an interview.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was firm today: A public option will not be included in the reconciliation package. After reminding reporters that she has been for single payer health care since "before most of [them] were born", she explained there would be no public option in the reconciliation bill. Expanding that answer, she pointed the finger at the Senate, saying,"[the Senate] does not have the votes."

We can argue about whether the Senate has the votes or not, but as TPM reports, Senate support has diluted as more Senators make qualified commitments. Of those making some sort of commitment, only 24 have actually signed the Bennet letter. The rest have given only qualified nods.

But the latest support rests on increasingly unstable grounds, with recent additions to the list naming multiple caveats. Sen. John Tester (D-MT), for example, said, "It depends on how it was designed." Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) said he wouldn't vote for a public option that reimburses doctors at the Medicare rate. Sen. Russ Feingold's office told TPM he'd only support a public option that lowers the deficit by $25 billion.

Despite the lack of a public option, some little-recognized provisions in the Senate bill do actually serve the purpose of offering lower-cost insurance. Policies negotiated by the OPM which cannot be operated or priced for profit is one way to force competition, particularly when it requires companies to spend 95% of the premium paid on actual benefits. I have issues with the state opt-in provisions the Senate attached, but I still expect rates to be lower than ordinary commercial policies in states where they're offered.

If the effort put into the public option was redirected into pushing Congress to remove the opt-in provisions and make the insurance exchange national as part of future legislation it would be a better use of energy. Or alternatively, push toward Grayson's solution of offering at-cost buy-in option to Medicare to everyone. Either idea has a better chance than beating a horse that's died, been laid to rest and had the coffin nailed shut by none other than Speaker Pelosi.

World Net Daily's latest cover (h/t FreakOutNation)

To paraphrase my buddy Steve Benen, it's illuminating to hear what Republicans say when they don't think anyone's listening:

Ben Smith had this major scoop yesterday:

The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on "fear" of President Barack Obama and a promise to "save the country from trending toward socialism."

The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how "ego-driven" wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and "tchochkes."[..]

The party's fundraising presentation suggests the Republican National Committee thinks its own supporters are idiots. All the party has to do is exploit contributors' "fears," and expect the checks to come rolling in.

And to stoke those fears, the RNC's message to these dupes includes telling them that contributions to Republicans will help "save the country from trending toward socialism!" One slide in the presentation refers to U.S. leaders as "the Evil Empire," with a picture of the president as the Joker from Batman, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as Cruella DeVille, and Senate Majority Leaders Harry Reid as Scooby Doo.

How did such a document reach the media? It wasn't leaked: "The 72-page document was provided to POLITICO by a Democrat, who said a hard copy had been left in the hotel hosting the $2,500-a-head retreat, the Gasparilla Inn & Club."

Oops.

Oops, indeed. Maybe the RNC leadership is about as smart as the donors they sneer at.

While I don't relish the ugliness that is sure to come--and the inevitable lies and distortions--I see this as the last desperate grasps of a party that sees a whole lot more hurt in front of them come Election Day than the media will ever acknowledge.