Posted by Bob Lord Want a glimpse of our unequal future in America? Check out The Most Unequal Place in America, by John Sutter of CNN. Sutter writes about Lake Providence, Louisiana. Things are more unequal in Lake Providence than they are in any country in the world. But wait, America could get reach that … Read more
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
There is a conflict in the whip counts being done by the media counting votes to break the GOP filibuster on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) in the Senate — 60 votes are needed for cloture.
Steve Benen accurately reports that when Cory Booker from New Jersey is sworn in on Thursday, all 55 Democratic senators are committed to ending the GOP filibuster. Senate Dems now unanimous on ENDA:
Once Sen.-elect Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is sworn in tomorrow, there
will be 55 members of the Senate Democratic caucus, and all 55 now
support ENDA. To defeat a filibuster and overcome GOP obstructionism,
proponents will need just five votes from Republican senators.
And by my count, they have them. As of Monday, ENDA had four Republican backers – Collins, Kirk, Murkowski, and Hatch – and that was before Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who supports marriage equality and
has an openly gay son, said he’s inclined to vote for ENDA, too.
So, 4 +1 = 5. And 5 + 55 = 60.
Not so fast. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) is a bit of a "squish" according to the whip count by Laura Clawson at Daily Kos. ENDA just one vote shy of a filibuster-proof margin in the Senate:
So what's the road to 60, if there is one?
First up is Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who told reporters
Tuesday that he’s “inclined to back” the proposal. A spokesman later
clarified that Portman “agrees with the underlying principle” of the
measure, but is seeking changes to address concerns with the bill’s
religious liberties provisions. […]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
It never ceases to amaze me how the corporate media villagers so readily internalize GOPropaganda talking points and participate in the right-wing noise machine's faux outrage of the day media narratives. Liberal media bias my ass!
The latest faux outrage of the day media narrative is that people are receiving cancellation notices for their individual health insurance plans, which means they now must shop on the health insurance exchanges for a new policy.
But, but … President Obama said “if you like your healthcare plan, you will be able to keep your healthcare plan.” Call the Wahhmbulance.
Joshua Holland at Moyers & Company has an excellent summary of the Rash of Lazy, Sensational Reporting That is Freaking People Out About Obamacare:
A rash of sensational, context-free reporting is needlessly alarming the
public about what’s happening in America’s health insurance markets as a
result of Obamacare. Making matters worse, it’s set against a backdrop
of relentless, intentional misinformation from the law’s opponents. It should come as no surprise that many Americans are anxious about a law most know little about other than what they catch on short TV news segments.
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Brian Beutler at Salon explains how Conservatives — with no concern for making healthcare better — have made arguing about Obamacare a waste of time:
As always, though, the point of the complaints isn’t to address and
rectify problems, but rather to deploy them as subterfuge to wreck the
entire reform edifice.* * *
Conservatives only care about these problems insofar as they can be
used to trash or undermine the law in its entirety. That’s why they
never, ever mention any of the millions of people who will or are
already benefiting from the law. If they did, they’d have to entertain
solutions to these problems that don’t essentially kick a tent pole out
from underneath the system.The disruption we’re seeing in the
individual insurance market is mostly by design. And it’s mostly a good
thing. Until October, the individual market existed to sell insurance to
people who needed it least. Rates were low for healthy people precisely
because their old, sick neighbors were priced or locked out of the
system. They were also low because many of the policies on the market
didn’t actually fulfill the function of insurance, which is to hedge
against financial catastrophe.Obamacare eliminates each of these
enormous flaws by 1) regulating insurance so that it covers lots of
stuff and genuinely protects people from medical bankruptcy, 2) making
plans available and affordable to the ill and elderly by banning price
discrimination against sick people, and only allowing insurers to charge
the elderly three times as much as the young for equivalent coverage,
3) providing subsidies to the poor and middle class to make coverage
affordable.* * *
[Conservatives'] tremendous outpouring of grief for young, middle-class people now comes couched in the false premise that the only available solution is
complete repeal. You could counter that by any moral standard the system
the Affordable Care Act creates is preferable to the one we had before[.]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The nativist and anti-immigrant forces of the Tea Party were hoping to slow-walk immigration reform to death in the House, but on Tuesday a group of more than 600 leaders from roughly 40 states descended on the Capitol, taking aim at House Republicans who they think could support broad legislation. Business-Conservative Alliance Presses for Immigration Action:
On Tuesday, the group of more than 600 leaders from roughly 40 states
descended on the Capitol for meetings with nearly 150 Republican
lawmakers. They are largely taking aim at House Republicans who they
think could support a broad immigration overhaul, including some sort of
legal status for the 11 million immigrants in the country illegally.
The leaders are urging the lawmakers to take a more proactive role in
pushing immigration legislation to a House vote.
“Our fly-in today is about moving votes on the Hill in support of
reasonable immigration reform,” Randel K. Johnson, the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce’s senior vice president for immigration and labor issues, said
in a conference call with reporters. “I’m confident we’re going to move
the ball forward.”
The event’s sponsors include the Chamber of Commerce; FWD.us, a
political action group founded by Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of
Facebook; the National Immigration Forum; and the Partnership for a New
American Economy, which is led by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New
York, Rupert Murdoch and Bill Marriott Jr.
The effort kicked off in the morning with several panel discussions at
the Chamber of Commerce, including one conversation in which the
Bipartisan Policy Center, a nonprofit based in Washington, unveiled a
new study that found a broad immigration overhaul would help the
economy.