“Danger! Danger!”
It’s like we’re in a Saturday morning kids scifi show… the goodguy robot (in this case MSNBC) is telling us that the Repubs are getting ready to attack the Senate’s vote on a Health Care Plan any way they can.
To start with, more than one of the Repub Senators (led by Lamar Alexander – R, TN) have called for new “Town Hall” meetings, like the ones the House members had in August – and it looks like the groups of lobbyists are ready to bus the same people in.
We’ve heard phrases like “dead on arrival” referring any consideration of the House passed bill by the Senate, and that we have to take it slow… not try to do too much. “Too much” apparently refers to doing anything at all.
We know that Lieberman is out there waiting to jump on a filibuster if there is any government based, non-profit choice option… and a good dozen Democratic Senators who will note vote for it if such an option is missing.
We won’t even get into bringing the Stupak Amendment which makes property out of insured women into the Senate Bill.
But this Health Care brouhaha won’t be the only problem coming up in the Senate. Chris Dodd’s Banking Bill, which is a distinct pull of control away from the Treasury Department and a return to the kind of regulations we lost starting with the Reagan Devastation (oops) Administration.
Repubs are coming out of the walls already, making early attacks on Dodd for allegedly taking money from a housing funder and other unrelated things. Dodd is a tough politician, though, and has been through worse than this.
Then there is Afghanistan… and this could be used, if the Repubs have their way, to completely destroy the entire Obama Administration. Now there hasn’t been a final decision on how many troops will be sent to Afghanistan yet… they are hinting at Thanksgiving week as an announcement date… but we’re already hearing from the Right that Obama is not capable of making a decision here. Then there are the far left folks ( and frankly, some of us moderates who really remember Viet Nam) who want us to just get out. That doesn’t look like it’s in the cards. Remember, in the words of Paul Hipp’s song “We’re Number 37”:
Were #1 one in tanks
Were #1 in planes
Were #1 in war with #2 for brains
And I’m afraid our whole government DOES have #2 for brains. (When I was playing the Paul Hipp tune it made me think of playing Country Joe and the Fish’s “Feelin’ Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag” and wondering why in Hell we were in Viet Nam killing off our best young men. The difference now is we kill off our best young women, too.)
So tune into C-Span 2 and watch the Senate debates. Keep checking the blogs to get the information the TV news won’t give you. And hope that Health Care, Finances, and War get resolved to the satisfaction of THINKING people.
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