How It Works

Just wanted to put this here to remind myself:

Democrats propose X.
Republicans propose Y.
Democrats propose X and Y. This would build confidence that Democrats can get things done.
Republican say no, they can't accept X.
Democrats pass Y.
Then they tell everyone they really wanted to pass X, and they'll fix Y later.

Honduras, Red State

I think the plan for the ruling regime in Honduras is to negotiate out the clock on restoring Mel Zelaya. He only has a few months left on his term, and so endless talks would just serve to push resolution past the end. While they talk the talk of diplomacy, the government is using mercenaries, in violation of international conventions, to suppress dissent and support the rulers.

Meanwhile, the ruling regime has spent over $600,000 in a high-profile lobbying campaign, hiring those responsible for America's bloody crackdown in Central America in the 1980s like Otto Reich, along with corporate whores like Lanny Davis who will literally say anything for money. This has allowed them to gather friends at the top of the government, particularly Congressional Republicans like Sen. Jim DeMint.

Let's see, endless delays in negotiations, use of mercenaries, fealty to lobbyists, PR as a national policy.

They really are a mirror for American democracy! Circa 2002, at least.

Radical Republican Steve King

While in retrospect, I think comparing anyone who questions Barack Obama getting a pre-emptive Nobel Peace Prize today to the Taliban or terrorists is a pretty low road, I did appreciate the newfound aggressiveness from the DNC. Maybe they've hired some staffers from the RNC or something. And this latest project seems not only within bounds but a very canny way of painting Republicans with the beyond-the-pale extremist brush.



"Radical Republican Steve King" is repeated five times throughout the 1:15 piece. Surely this treatment will be given to some of the other figures of the GOP. And then GOP challengers will be forced to comment on these Radical Republicans.

You always want to take the lead in defining your opponent, and this campaign certainly does so. The more the GOP is the party of Limbaugh, Beck and Radical Republican Steve King, the more difficult it becomes for independents to embrace them.

Meanwhile, Steve King isn't exactly trimming his sails after the release of this video:

The hate crimes amendment attached to a defense authorization bill is Orwellian and provides protection to "sexual idiosyncrasies," Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) asserted Friday.

King, a conservative Republican lawmaker, also charged that the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, which provided some impetus for hate crimes legislation, was not motivated out of hate against Shepard, who was gay [...]

King said that the hate crimes bill results in a "pedophile protection act," and is meant to create "thought crimes" and protect "sexual idiosyncrasies."

Once a Radical Republican, always a Radical Republican.

Really Not Hiding It Anymore

The conservative right treats politics like warfare, warfare like a video game, and actually participating in war with a shrug and a retreat to their gated community.

South Florida Republicans held a weekly meeting at a gun range, shooting at targets including cut-outs of a Muslim holding a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

The GOP candidate to replace U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz fired at a full-body silhouette with "DWS" written next to its head.

And you wonder why a Democratic President received the Nobel Peace Prize essentially for not being a Republican.

...for more of this in action, see The GOP Speaks. Barking mad.

That Missing Republican Grace

After Obama's speech, I just saw Larry Kudlow saying "I don't feel like slamming him, he's the President of the United States, he just won the Nobel Peace Prize, fine, good on him." Charles Boustany (R-LA) basically said the same thing. UPDATE: McCain, too.

That's probably the best the right can do with this. The reflexive anti-Americanism, by contrast, is really abhorrent. Republicans, like sharks, only know how to move forward against their adversaries.

On the brief remarks themselves, Obama was in a pretty tight spot, he knows this honor is premature, he said this honor is premature, but he knows that this can potentially stimulate the world - and more important, this sclerotic nation - to action, if used right. So he accepted the award "as a call to action on the challenges of 21st century." Hopefully, he recognizes that it's a call to action to him as well.

...Alan Grayson looks like a damn prophet.

"If the President had a BLT yesterday, the Republicans would try to ban bacon."

Nice Admission

Paul Ryan (R-WI), on Republican efforts on health care:

FRANK: I just want to ask Paul one question. … When did you figure that out? Because apparently for the 12 years that the Republicans were in control — eight of which had a Republican president — that hadn’t occurred to you. So I’m glad you now understand that. Can you tell me at what moment the revelation occurred?

RYAN: First of all, I introduced on this subject about six years ago.

FRANK: You had control of the Congress. Why didn’t the Republican Congress fix it?

RYAN: I will have a moment of bipartisan agreement. We should have fixed this under our watch and I’m frustrated we didn’t.

The simple answer is that Republicans have no interest in policy. They have an interest in power and profit-taking. That's pretty much it.

Grayson's Victory

CNN interviewed me about Alan Grayson and his health care speech:

"What happened was his floor speech and the fact that he didn't back down set a new standard for how Democrats deal with Republican hissy fits," said David Dayen, a liberal blogger who often writes on the Daily Kos Web site. "He's been a hero to Democrats since his term started, but now he's a hero on health care."

To be sure, Grayson already had shown he was a different kind of freshman congressman before the "die quickly" speech, having forcefully taken Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to task in what was an instant YouTube moment at a House Committee hearing less than a month into the job.

He also held up a vote on global warming legislation until he secured a $50 million hurricane research center in his district -- a move more characteristic of the chamber's longtime lawmakers. And he's won liberal support for his steadfast support of ACORN, even as many Democrats voted to defund the community organizing group, and for his forceful anti-war stance.

But it was the late-night diatribe last week -- presumably seen by no more than a few dozen C-SPAN viewers before going viral -- that netted Grayson more than $500,000 from 5,000 donors around the country. It's also garnered a media tour worthy of a national celebrity peddling a tell-all book, appearing on a bevy of cable and national news programs to amplify his attacks on Republicans.

The writer goes on to add the concern trolling from Republicans that Grayson's honesty won't play in his swing district. That seems to miss the point that Grayson has pretty much always been an outspoken leader, and it didn't just start up during that health care speech. This is the ad that won him election in that swing district.



That's not a meek, mushy message. You can find 10 Democrats to touch war profiteering, maybe. It's an issue that can open a politician up to "you don't support our troops" or "you don't want to protect America" or any number of attack. And he carried this to victory, because it was a truthful message and a populist one.

Grayson won, by the way. The Republicans smelled blood in the water, ramped up their hissy fit, and then had to back down. They did so because they knew it wouldn't be successful. Alan Grayson backed up his words. And so they had nothing. The boasts of how they're going to beat him in November are also just words. They have nothing for that either, not even a candidate.

The Last Word On The Right's Glory In Defeat

Paul Krugman's column today allows me to not have to say another word on the childish behavior of the right over Chicago not receiving the 2016 Olympics bid:

“Cheers erupted” at the headquarters of the conservative Weekly Standard, according to a blog post by a member of the magazine’s staff, with the headline “Obama loses! Obama loses!” Rush Limbaugh declared himself “gleeful.” “World Rejects Obama,” gloated the Drudge Report. And so on.

So what did we learn from this moment? For one thing, we learned that the modern conservative movement, which dominates the modern Republican Party, has the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old.

But more important, the episode illustrated an essential truth about the state of American politics: at this point, the guiding principle of one of our nation’s two great political parties is spite pure and simple. If Republicans think something might be good for the president, they’re against it — whether or not it’s good for America.

If anything this has gotten far worse, even since the Clinton years. Now you have Republican candidates comparing themselves to doughboys fighting the Nazis. No, really: "I'm willing to interrupt (my career) the same way that somebody interrupted their career and joined World War II and went off to fight the Nazis." You have not activists, but the very top of the Republican Party valuing long-shot extreme-right troglodytes over winnable candidates. You have wingers measuring their dicks over Michael Moore's box office receipts as if it's a subject of world-historical significance.

They are not a political party anymore. They are just a collection of insults.

America's Next Great Dissembler

Bobby Jindal has an interesting op-ed today in the Washington Post - I guess he won that "America's Next Great Pundit" contest - claiming that nobody wants the Democratic plans for health care reform.

But memo to Washington: The debate on health care has moved on. Democratic plans for a government takeover are passé. The people don't want it. Believe the polls, the town halls, the voters. Only Democrats in Washington would propose new taxes on businesses and families in the middle of a recession, $900 billion in new spending at a time of record deficits, and increased taxes on health insurance and products to reduce health-care costs.

You'll notice that Jindal offers no numbers as proof that "the people don't want it," no actual polls to back up his claim. Chris Good has those numbers, and Jindal is wrong. In fact, more recent polls show that reform has grown stronger in September after bottoming out in August. The fact that Jindal doesn't give any proof for his assertion is what you would call a "tell".

Jindal then goes on to outline some Republican ideas for health care, but of course none of these are in any Republican bills for health care reform, because there is no such document. These are the Bobby Jindal ideas for health care, and half of them are already embedded in the Democratic effort - guaranteed issue for pre-existing conditions, aiding small businesses to buy insurance, portability through the exchanges, transparency in billing, delivery system reform, health IT, covering children up to age 25, rewarding healthy lifestyles and prevention.

The Washington Post has written enough about the health care debate to know that support is strengthening for reform, and that lots of Jindal's ideas have been adopted in the overall legislation. But their op-ed page allows anyone to print whatever lies they decide to forward that day, so they say nothing about the facts of Jindal's piece. They are intentionally misleading their readers, and they don't seem to care.

If At Frist You Don't Succeed

Does anyone alive believe this man?

Bill Frist on Health Bill: I'd Vote For It

Or so the former Senate Republican Leader, a surgeon who has written a new book on health care, told me a few minutes ago in an interview.

Were he still in the Senate, "I would end up voting for it," he said. "As leader, I would take heat for it. ... That's what leadership is all about."

It's quite an impressive crop of retired Republicans claiming they would vote for the health care bill. Why, you could almost build a direct correlation between the propensity for Republican support and whether or not they are in any position to support it!

Funny how that goes.

Frist does appear somewhat sincere later on in the interview:

While Frist believes that the bill will pass, he worries that the Obama Administration and Congress have not given enough attention to what happens next: the implementation. The first few years are likely to be rough, he predicts. States will be struggling to set up new marketplaces for insurance coverage, their medicaid rolls will grow, taxes will go up, and consumers will not yet see the benefits. "The Republicans will go wild," using the start-up difficulties as a tool for fundraising and for making their case in the next election, Frist says. "In the Congress, nobody's thinking about that." His advice for the Obama Administration: "Stay nimble," and be prepared to make adjustments as difficulties arise. (emphasis mine)

If you thought debunking the lies about what the health care bill would potentially accomplish was fun, wait until you get to the part where conservatives nitpick and distort every misstep or half-step or just plain old step in the process, and spin it as proof that Obama meant to take over health care, the planet and your children after all. Consequent their stint as defenders of Medicare, Republicans will become defenders of Medicaid, and go on and on about long lines and expanding rolls. And they'll ask what Americans got for all those billions they spent on health care.

This will be difficult to counter. Most of the legislation doesn't go into effect until 2013, partially because of start-up time, but more as a pure cost-reduction play within the budget window. Especially because most of that time will be spent climbing out of the recession, which could lead to more loss of health care benefits if unemployment continues and COBRA help runs out at the end of the stimulus package, the White House will have to suffer through four years of "where's the health care reform" and people calling the whole thing a waste before the implementation even begins. It wasn't a smart way to save a buck.

I don't know if the Administration is thinking about this and preparing for it or not, but they haven't been prepared for many of the right-wing freak-outs thus far. There's no question that they will seek to label health care reform a failure before the ink is dry from Obama's bill-signing ceremony. Somebody might want to heed Bill Frist's warning.

Media Weathervane Allan Hoffenblum: Time To Duck, Yacht Party

Allan Hoffenblum is the publisher of the California Target Book and the most-quoted pundit with respect to state elections. He is a weathervane for party money and which Party is up or down. He spoke yesterday in Sacramento and was incredibly blunt.

At a conference sponsored by Hoffenblum's publication, the Republican identified eight congressional seats and 13 state Assembly seats as competitive. Nearly all of those Assembly seats and more than half of the congressional seats are now held by Republicans.

"I think this is going to be when we find out if the Republican Party has any life left in it whatsoever as far as being a statewide competitive party," said Hoffenblum, whose publication tracks and handicaps races throughout the state.

A drop in Republican registration and an influx in decline-to-state voters who have not traditionally voted with the GOP have put some districts formerly considered "safe" Republican seats into play.

"I think it's going to be a very, very difficult road on the Republican front if they don't do something about registration, something to appeal to decline-to-state voters, many of whom are Latinos and Asians who have not been voting Republican for the last four election cycles," Hoffenblum said.

This actually flies in the face of predictions at the national level of a 1994 redux. But it does meet with the general trend in California, as a diverse population drops any love for the Republican Party altogether. As Hoffenblum noted, eight Congressional districts held by Republicans went for Barack Obama over John McCain last November, and 12 Assembly districts held by Republicans share the same trait. A smart party with targeted resources could easily pick up more Congressional seats and the number in the Assembly needed to secure a 2/3 majority. In the state Senate, one of the two seats needed for 2/3 looks pretty ripe for takeover - SD-12, where Asm. Anna Caballero is the Dem candidate and Sen. Jeff Denham is termed out.

I actually am not quite as sanguine as Hoffenblum. There are Democratic-held seats that could face a fight - at the Congressional level, I think Dennis Cardoza might have some trouble with Mike Berryhill, and the swing Assembly districts held by Alyson Huber, Joan Buchanan and possibly others could be threatened. The demographics of the 2010 midterms will be more favorable to Republicans than the demographics of the 2008 Presidential election. And the failures on the budget, and the ensuing suffering, could easily resonate with voters against the majority party if Democrats aren't careful.

But in general, as Hoffenblum said, the trend in California from the standpoint of the electorate is away from conservatism and toward progressivism, and that march will simply be extremely difficult to stop. Public attitudes have not only been trending against minority rule but against the entire brand of failed conservatism that brought us the tragedy of the Bush years. While practically every party in the White House loses seats in a midterm election, the peculiar dynamic in California may blunt that impact - and could lead to a better future for California as well.

How Alan Grayson Changed The Debate On Health Care

Many of us already knew that Alan Grayson was a fearless champion against the rich and powerful. His notoriety this week for comments about the Republican plan for health care therefore did not come as a shock. His floor speech and his unwillingness to back down afterward have set a new standard for how Democrats deal with Republican hissy fits, where they get all offended by some comment or another and demand an apology and ritual humiliation. Their goal is to control the narrative and put any Democratic use of moral language out of the bounds of acceptable political debate, a standard that doesn't apply to them.

Grayson DEMOLISHED this tactic. And he did so by continuing to tell the truth and never backing down. And by the end of the week, many were joining him. Yes, they said: why does the GOP have no plan for health care? Why have they allowed thousands to die for a lack of coverage for years without articulating any strategy to deal with the crisis? Why would Republicans try to make an example of Grayson when their members have been using vile language for months, slandering the health care legislation with lies about "death panels" and rationing and people "being put to death by their government," in the words of Virginia Foxx? How could Republicans think there is no crisis in health care when so many are dying?

In a second, this has become the narrative of the week on health care. And Alan Grayson led the way. He just might lead the Congress to a better bill.

Brave New Films celebrates Alan Grayson's contribution to the debate with this video.



Let Rep. Grayson know you have his back. And join the I heart Grayson Facebook group. He really deserves the attention he's getting.

Pauline Kael Syndrome

This John Boehner quote, where he says he hasn't met one person who supports the public option, reminds me of the famous quote that has been attributed over the years to Pauline Kael, though there's compelling evidence that it was apocryphal. The quote usually goes like this: Kael was told that Nixon bested George McGovern in a landslide in 1972, and Kael replied, "How can that be? No one I know voted for Nixon!" It's often used by Republicans to prove how East Coast elites who read or write for the New York Times are so out of touch with everyday 'Murcans.

In this case, it's the conservative who is deeply out of touch with American needs and desires. Like the stereotype of Kael, for Boehner to say that proves he self-selects a very narrow band of people as his companions, the sample of which bears no resemblance to the public at large. And people have rightly pounced on the quote. Here's a testimonial from a woman in Boehner's district, from Oxford, Ohio, who has consistently argued for a public option to Boehner's office. Health Care for America Now is gathering signatures of people who support a public option in the hopes that Boehner will meet with one of them. And Americans United fit this into a narrative of an out of touch Republican leader:



It was simple to find statistics like 57% of Ohioans supporting a public option, to throw into avid golfer Boehner's face. Even garlic lovers slammed Boehner for calling the public option as unpopular as a garlic milkshake (I've been to Gilroy, CA, home of the Garlic Festival, and everyone there swears by the garlic ice cream and milkshakes).

The narrative has really started to turn. It's the Republicans who look out of touch and out of ideas to deal with America's health care crisis. Alan Grayson started this ball rolling. And John Boehner's Pauline Kael impression cemented it.

...the Facebook group, "Hey John Boehner, I'm an American and I support a public option!" has over 1,000 members in the first five hours, and is growing.

...The Progressive Campaign Change Committee also has an ad up and is encouraging Boehner to meet with folks in his district.

Politics Doesn't End At The Water's Edge

The US government long ago decided that what happened to Honduras President Mel Zelaya was a coup. The whole "waking him up in the middle of the night in his pajamas and putting him on a military plane" must have been the giveaway. Since then diplomatic efforts have attempted to resolve the crisis, but to no avail. Zelaya snuck back into the country, and has been holed up at the Brazilian Embassy. The leaders of the new regime in Tegucigalpa, after trying to take away civil liberties to suppress dissent, have finally warmed to the idea of restoring Zelaya to office with limited powers until the next Presidential election ends his term in January. That would be a responsible compromise for both sides and would put an end to the crisis.

It is at this moment when Sen. Jim DeMint (R-Bugfuckistan) decides to lead a Republican delegation to meet with the ruling regime, which no country on Earth has recognized as a legitimate government. To quote Steve Clemons:

In other words, Jim DeMint is acting on behalf of, in cahoots with, and against the foreign policy of the United States of America in encouraging post-coup Honduran government officials defy the United States. He is encouraging a political leadership which has no legitimacy and which not recognized by other democracies in the region -- while the ousted President makes cell phone UN General Assembly statements from a couch-bed in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.

A US Senator alone does not make the America's foreign policy, and working against the policies of the United States in collaboration with foreign officials. . .well. . .there are words that come to mind to describe this behavior, but I want to be civil towards the Senator.

But let me be less blunt. Should we require Senator DeMint to register with the Foreign Agents Registration office at the Department of Justice?

I don't think this is a violation of the Logan Act any more than it was a violation for Nancy Pelosi to meet with members of the Syrian government. But at least that was a recognized world body.

The President and Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry tried to block the trip, but Mitch McConnell intervened, and DeMint and three House Republicans - Reps. Aaron Schock (IL), Peter Roskam (IL) and Doug Lamborn (CO) - will attend the meeting.

DeMint calls it a fact-finding mission. But he has been blocking two Obama Administration nominees for Latin American foreign policy in protest of the Honduras policy. Clearly, the Senator is intervening in an area of international diplomacy for naked political reasons. DeMint's response to that is interesting for a variety of reasons:

"Sen. DeMint cannot prevent Sen. Reid from bringing the nominees to the floor, he can have a vote at any time. Sen. DeMint has objected to unanimous consent," said Denton, also adding: "In fact that's all you can do. In the Senate when, someone says you're holding up a bill or a nominee, what one Senator can object to is passage by unanimous consent. No one Senator can stop the Senate working the majority of its will through 60 votes.

I hope the Democrats recognize that when it comes to health care.

I don't see anything legally wrong with DeMint's trip. From the standpoint of foreign policy, it's damaging and corrosive - and there was a time when members of political parties saw themselves as Americans first and party regulars second.

...And you can extend this out to the nonsensical Olympics controversy. As Alan Grayson said today, "Someone should remind them what team they're on." Actually, I think they know. Team GOP.



...it's part of a pattern.

Defusing A Bomb

Republicans, worried that their ass was being kicked a bit too much, decided to back down and not introduce any resolution condemning Alan Grayson for his accurate remarks about the Republican health care plan. His repeated beat-downs once Republicans decided to try and make an issue out of the speech clearly showed his resolve. So the GOP, not wanting to give him a platform any more, shut their mouths.

Hopefully the Democrats can take a lesson from this. Grayson raised nearly $100,000 yesterday out of the deal, by saying what the base wanted to hear, and more importantly, not backing down after saying it. And the Republicans, not getting what they wanted out of it, blinked.

That's how you stop a hissy fit cold in its tracks.

Get His Back

The Republicans are in all-out hissy fit mode and it doesn't have to make sense. After months of their side talking about death panels, death books, scaring seniors and openly stating that Democratic health care bills "put seniors to death by their government" and "tells seniors to drop dead", they want to collect Alan Grayson's scalp for accurately stating that the Republican health care plan is to "not get sick, and if you do, die quickly."

Republicans have been bullies for so long that they cannot imagine being on the other side of an insult like this. Tough. What they do in this situation is rally around their own. Democrats typically do not, so we have to make sure Alan Grayson knows he has allies in the grassroots.

Here's an ActBlue page raising money for Grayson. It's early yet, but so far it's at around $1,200 bucks. Support the effort if you can.

...There is no chance Grayson will apologize.

Rep. Alan Grayson isn't backing down from his claim that Republicans "want you to die quickly."

"I stand by what I said," Grayson told reporters on Wednesday.

"I didn't violate any House rules. I didn't do anything inappropriate," he said. "I'm not under any pressure at all." [...]

Asked if he was worried about his re-election in an Orlando-based swing district, Grayson said his chances of winning are better.

"It improves them," he said. "People like elected officials with guts who say what they mean."

Damn straight.

...Alan Grayson is truly fantastic:

After speaking extensively to the press, Grayson came to the floor with an apology, but not for the Republican Party.

“I would like to apologize,” he said. “I would like to apologize to the dead.”

Citing a statistic that 44,789 Americans die each year because they don’t have health insurance, Grayson said, “That is more than ten times the number of Americans who died in the war in Iraq, it’s more than ten times the number of Americans who died on 9/11. …It happens every year.”

Grayson added in another apparent dig at the GOP, “We should care about people even after they are born.”

Grayson apologized one last time.

“I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner,” he said.

...Grayson has a diary up at Daily Kos. He's right in saying that Republicans aren't used to Democrats telling the truth about them.

The Republicans are serious about getting rid of me, because they are scared. They have already set up a site to attack me. And the reason is simple; they don't want my tough attitude to rub off on other Democrats. And the Democrats aren't sure what to think about this new, I don't know what you call it, truthtelling? But you can help make it clear that when I spoke the truth, I was speaking for you. And you can show them that I was speaking for you. Today is the end of the fundraising quarter, which means everyone is going to be watching fundraising totals.

Help me speak truth. You've already set up a bunch of fundraising pages and I can't thank you enough for getting my back. If you haven't already, I hope you'll go to one of these pages and help out today. I'm at $20,956 so far. Let's see where we can go from here.

What's That Expression?

Something about being able to dish it out but not being able to take it?

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) warned Americans that "Republicans want you to die quickly" during an after-hours House floor speech Tuesday night.

His remarks, which drew angry and immediate calls for an apology from Republicans, were highlighted by a sign reading "The Republican Health Care Plan: Die Quickly."

Veteran Tennessee Republican Jimmy Duncan abandoned customary reticence to chastise Grayson.

"That is about the most mean-spirited partisan statement that I've ever heard made on this floor, and I, for one, don't appreciate it," Duncan said.

"It's fully appropriate that the gentleman return to the floor and apologize," said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, another Tennessee Republican.

Alan Grayson is not the guy over which to throw a hissy fit. Or at least, he won't back down. He just doesn't care. Matt Taibbi had a run-in with him before he entered Congress. I'm somewhat amazed he's a Democrat, given how he won't be walked over.

A political party is like a team. They have stars, and they have role players. Grayson is a role player - a bomb-thrower, simply put. Republicans have lots and lots of bomb-throwers, who relish the spotlight and just say crazier and crazier things every time you put a microphone in front of them. When someone lobs a verbal grenade back at them, you'd think from their reaction that the person broke the space-time continuum. They simply never expect a Democrat to give as good as they get. And so they become the dainty guardians of the discourse all of a sudden.

Well, tough. Politics ain't beanbag, as they say. The cable nets may take umbrage - that's their job - but nobody will point out what Grayson said that was actually wrong. Republicans don't want to expand access to health care, and they have voted to eliminate Medicare. Roughly translated, that pretty much does mean "don't get sick, and if you do, die quickly." Let's not pretend that Republicans haven't said all this and worse on the House floor.

Good for Grayson. He should do one of these little comedy routines every week.

...here's a conservative columnist calling for a military coup to "resolve the Obama problem." I invite you to compare and contrast.

...Igor Volsky proves Grayson's point in some slightly more clinical language.

...Ryan Grim points out the number of times Republican bomb-throwers have said that the Democratic health care plan would kill people.

The Entire Argument Between The Parties

Debbie Stabenow and Jon Kyl:

KYL: "I don't need maternity care. So requiring that on my insurance policy is something that I don't need and will make the policy more expensive."

STABENOW: "I think your mom probably did."

An Oopsie On The Republican ACORN Jihad

The Congressional Research Service took a look at the anti-ACORN rider the House passed last week, and pretty much agreed that the bill is an unconstitutional "bill of attainder":

The two main criteria which the courts would likely look to in order to determine whether legislation is a bill of attainder are (1) whether “specific” individuals or entities are affected by the statute, and (2) whether the legislation inflicts a “punishment” on those individuals. Under the instant bills, the fact that ACORN and its affiliates are named in the legislation for differential treatment would appear to meet a per se criteria for specificity.

While the regulatory purpose of ensuring that federal funds are properly spent is a legitimate one, it is not clear that imposing a permanent government-wide ban on contracting with or providing grants to ACORN fits that purpose, at least when the ban is applied to ACORN and its affiliates jointly and severally. In theory, under the House bill, the behavior of a single employee from a single affiliate could affect not only ACORN but all of its 361 affiliates. Thus, there may be issues raised by characterizing this legislation as purely regulatory in nature. While the Supreme Court has noted that the courts will generally defer to Congress as to the regulatory purpose of a statute absent clear proof of punitive intent, there appear to be potential issues raised with attempting to find a rational non-punitive regulatory purpose for this legislation. Thus, it appears that a court may have a sufficient basis to overcome the presumption of constitutionality, and find that it violates the prohibition against bills of attainder.

My guess is that Republicans don't care about the constitutionality of the statute, and that they'll just keep putting the same kind of language into every appropriations bill. That way they can say that they voted to "defund ACORN," and if it comes out their bills are all unconstitutional, they can claim that Democrats are "protecting" the organization from their good-faith efforts to defend the taxpayers from corruption, or something. I don't expect "bill of attainder" to become a household word anytime soon on the right.

The problem for Republicans is that they actually submitted language on the initial anti-ACORN statute that was entirely broad, to circumvent the constitutionality issue, and in the process opened up the Congress to deny funding to any company accused of fraud - namely practically every defense contractor in America. Alan Grayson has been taking the lead on this - C&L had him over for a live chat yesterday.

The bill, H.R. 3221, defunds every organization that has ever filed a fraudulent report with any Federal or State regulatory agency. As it turns out, this includes all 10 of the 10 largest Government contractors. To which I say, hooray. Finally, we take the fraud out of government contracting. Too bad that it was inadvertent.

Hopefully he can get somewhere with that.

Who Could Have Anticipated?

Republicans decided to attack the individual mandate today, specifically hitting the notion of penalties for not buying insurance.

WASHINGTON -- Senior Republicans challenged Democratic plans to require nearly all people to carry health insurance, sharpening attacks on the first day of Senate Finance Committee debate over legislation to overhaul the nation's health-care system.

The criticism underscored Republican concerns that the legislation represents unwarranted government intrusion into private matters, and highlighted the partisan divide over the White House's top domestic priority. Put on the defensive, the committee's chairman, Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.), cut in half the maximum penalty for families that don't have health coverage to $1,900 from $3,800 per year.

Advocates of a coverage mandate say it is needed to ensure that young, healthy people get insurance and contribute to the system. They say this will ease costs associated with an influx of less-healthy people who are expected to get coverage under the Baucus legislation.

Republicans, who are trying to slow Democratic efforts to pass a health overhaul by the end of the year, rushed to criticize the proposal.

Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, the Finance Committee's senior Republican, said the mandate is among the reasons that he couldn't support the bill despite months of negotiations with Mr. Baucus. "Individuals should maintain their freedom to chose health-care coverage, or not," he said.

"This bill is a stunning assault on liberty," said Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Senate's second-ranking Republican.

Now of course, Chuck Grassley is full of it. And the Republicans did agree to mandates months ago. But any Democratic official surprised by the intensity of this complaint needs to leave Washington permanently. These are the people who call the repeal of tax breaks a tax increase. They call a reduction in growth of defense spending a spending cut. Their logic has never had to subject itself to the rigors of consistency.

What's more, Obama argued against mandates in the primary campaign. And without a public option, there's a compelling argument to be made that mandates for private insurance is a forced monopoly. Furthermore, it was always going to be the case that criminalizing someone for not having insurance would be unpopular. As Richard Kirsch says, the public option makes mandates popular.

Baucus (D-Mont.) has tried to remedy the situation by halving the penalty on families who decline to buy coverage and increasing the subsidies to those middle-class families purchasing insurance. But Kirsch insists that, without the ability to choose a government run option, consumers - and by extension the politicians who represent them - will turn sour on the mandate.

"We did a poll in Maine and in 91 swing House districts," said Kirsch. "We found that if we asked people if they supported a requirement to buy health insurance they said no. But if we said, 'Do you support a requirement coverage between private and public?' they said yes."

"Conservative democrats are going to be attacked from the right on the mandates but what makes the mandates popular is the public option."

This is especially true if the coverage subsidies are too low.

So really, this is a problem of the Democrats' own making.

...to be clear, I believe in mandates because the system won't really work without them. But from a political standpoint, mandates on just private coverage are a loser.