Deem and Pass. Demon Pass. The most unprecedented legislative tactic to ever be totally and completely precendented. The GOP is all adither. The conservative freak-out has begun. Grab the popcorn, kids, this is gonna be a doozy. My first reaction to the news that House Dems might use the “Deem and Pass” procedure to pass the Senate health insurance reform […]

Have you heard the one about how “most Americans are against health insurance reform (HIR)”. When you hear this endless repeated by Republicans and right-wing radio and television pundits, know this: THEY ARE LYING. The Republicans and anti-HIR forces have spent months demonizing this legislation to the point that they have effectively freaked people out about it. But when you […]

Republican hopeful Brian Rooney, a Tea Partier running for the nomination in MI-07, recently received an endorsement from Erick Erickson of RedState.com. Unlike most people who would flee from such an endorsement, Rooney says he is “proud” of it. “I am proud to have Erick’s endorsement,” said Iraq veteran Rooney. “RedState.com has become one of the most influential voices in […]

When you hear Republicans call health insurance reform “a trillion dollar hole in our nation’s budget”, know this: THEY ARE LYING This legislation is not only paid for, it doesn’t add one penny to our national debt and it will lower our deficit by $2 TRILLION over the next two decades. I’m just sayin’…

The next time you hear some Republican say that Democrats are using the budget reconciliation process to ram through health insurance reform and that is an unprecedented use of it that affects 1/6 of our economy, know this: THEY ARE LYING Not only have they used it for gigantic, party line votes themselves, the way it will be used for […]

A few days ago, I wrote a blog entry titled “Whither OFA?”. In it I talked a bit about OFA and where we’ve been over the past year. Looking forward, I thought some folks might be interested in learning how Organizing for America (OFA) is evolving and suggest that you consider taking another look. The executive summary is this: OFA […]

Yup. Twenty demands by Republicans at yesterday’s bipartisan Health Care Summit to scrap all existing legislative efforts and start anew. And there were only ten of them there. Sheesh. Pat Oliphant nailed it: My name is Eclectablog and I am a politaholic. I actually took a vacation day yesterday to watch all seven hours of President Obama’s bipartisan Health Care […]

The Senate has passed the jobs bill that made its way painfully through Congress these past few weeks. From the Associated Press: The Senate has passed a bill aimed at boosting job growth by giving tax breaks to businesses that hire the unemployed. The jobs legislation would also extend highway and mass transit programs through the end of the year […]

This morning, the White House offered to put the GOP’s health insurance reform plan online alongside their own plan in preparation for Thursday’s bipartisan summit. Problem is: there isn’t one. Via Dan Pfeiffer at the White House blog: What you can’t do just yet is read about the Republicans’ consensus plan – because so far they haven’t announced what proposal […]

As you know by now, David Plouffe is back in action with the administration and Organizing for America (OFA). Evidence of this came in my email this morning. I got this message from OFA today and it’s proof-positive (to me) that Plouffe is back at the helm: As we head into an election year, the new strategy for killing reform […]

Watching the news items bubbling up to the surface from the first-ever National Tea Party Convention in Nashville this past weekend was, for liberals, like driving by a horrible car wreck. Most of us want to turn away but can’t help staring in fascination at what we’re seeing. First we have overt racist statements from Tom Tancredo suggesting that we […]