Baucus bill clears committee, Snowe votes “aye”
So, what else is new?
It was a foregone conclusion that the Senate Finance Committee would pass the bill on through, the first step towards final approval. But as Snowe said, “There are many, many miles to go in this legislative journey.”
That’s true, although Snowe certainly gave the bill a nice push by giving Obama the cover he needs to claim a spurious bipartisanship. If there’s anything this bill is not, it’s bipartisan.
Snowe also gave the following absurd reason for voting yes:
Is this bill all that I want? Far from it. Is it all that it can be? Far from it. But when history calls, history calls.
As Jonah Goldberg wrote, “Next time history calls, take a message.”
There’s history and then there’s history. Snowe could have made a different kind of history by taking a principled position against the highly flawed proposal, but she chose to stand on the side of trendy hopey change.
For now. Snowe is holding out another kind of hope—to the Republicans she just kicked in the teeth, saying to them that just because she voted yes today it doesn’t mean she’ll do so next time, “My vote today is my vote today, it doesn’t forecast what my vote will be tomorrow.”
Actually, I think it probably does. But then that’s just me.
There may be some negative repercussions for Snowe, whose bid to become top Repubican on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee could be blocked in retaliation by Republicans.
Snowe, of course, is one of the most liberal of the RINOs in the Senate. Although she has on occasion held the line against the Democrats, such occasions have been few and far between. However, Snowe is enormously popular in Maine, winning by 74% in 2006. If the Republican Party decides to target her in the 2012 primaries, Maine (a largely blue state) will probably end up with a real Democrat in the Senate rather than a stealth one. At this point, however, Republicans might prefer that bargain, because at least then no one will be able to use Snowe’s legislative positions to claim a fake bipartisanship where none actually exists.
When history calls…
I think the Bolsheviks and National Socialists both used that argument as well. Not that Snowe is remotely like either, but it goes to show how far afield that reasoning can bring us.
Now that I think of it, it’s pretty similar to Pontius Pilate’s reasoning.
Iraq war, 21 Democrat Senators vote for it: not bipartisan.
Obamacare, 1 Republican vote: Bipartisan!
Great last sentence Neo
Better a Democrat than a “Stealth Democrat” At least we will know what the vote is going to be.
Snowe always illustrates, to me anyway, that Republicans aren’t necessarily conservative.
I have, at least, a bit marginal more respect for Spector than Snowe. At least he finally admitted he’s really a Democrat. How much longer can Snowe keep up the pretense?
The chances of surviving prostate cancer in the US is IIRC about 80%, and in Europe is 40%. This bill will have consequences for anyone with an extended family. Robert Reich genuinely thinks this is good. He demonstrates a sadism in that recent youtube clip.
And we retaliate by denying Snowe a chair at some committee? Does that sound proportionate to anyone?
Check out this about Robert Reich, from a 2007 speech, an economics advisor to President Obama: “….to force drug companies and insurance companies and medical suppliers to reduce their costs. What that means, less innovation and that means less new products and less new drugs on the market which means you are probably not going to live much longer than your parents. ”
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2009/10/13/robert-reich-reveals-brutal-health-care-truths-msm-snores
I just discovered your blog. I like it. I like how you think. And that’s the key word – think. I haven’t encountered a liberal who thinks. I’ve encountered many who yell and argue and scream and swear and resort to ad hominem. But I haven’t yet found one who thinks clearly, lucidly, and logically.
So I’m always happy to “meet” someone who thinks the way you do.
Glad you escaped the grasp of liberalism. Welcome to the con side of things. Now, if you’d like to drop the “neo” from your moniker, you could investigate the works of Ron Paul.
Now about your comments regarding that Snowe and Obama’s disgraceful push for totalitarianism….
I agree with you. Snowe is not a Republican. She’s a Democrat. But not many Republicans are Republicans any more. I mean, come on. Let’s face it. McCain? No wonder Obama won. True conservatives are few and far between — but swiftly growing in number True conservatism is all that will defeat the Democrats in 2010 and 2012. Republicanism is a failed ideology.
Keep up your blogging. Keep up your clear-headed thinking. Especially now. If Obama’s health care plans are rammed through, America as we know it is done.
Here is a link to a very relevant, candid 2007 statement by Robert Reich about the realities of the Left’s (read the Obama administration’s) approach to health care reform and what a President should say to citizens, that I am sure that he now wishes he never gave, the money quotes being:
(Says the President) “Look, we have the only health care system in the world that is designed to avoid sick people. And that’s true and what I’m going to do is that I am going try to reorganize it to be more amenable to treating sick people but that means you, particularly you young people, particularly you young healthy people…you’re going to have to pay more.
“Thank you. And by the way, we’re going to have to, if you’re very old, we’re not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It’s too expensive…so we’re going to let you die.”
…”Also I’m going to use the bargaining leverage of the federal government in terms of Medicare, Medicaid—we already have a lot of bargaining leverage—to force drug companies and insurance companies and medical suppliers to reduce their costs. What that means, less innovation and that means less new products and less new drugs on the market which means you are probably not going to live much longer than your parents. Thank you.”
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2009/10/13/robert-reich-reveals-brutal-health-care-truths-msm-snores
Snow is a traitor. She is not a republican. I hope you idiots in Maine wake up that keep voting for her. Maine should be ashamed of this low life. Get rid of this “soggy bottom” next election. If you look up traitor on Google, her picture is there.
I said several weeks back Republicans should write off Maine. I haven’t seen anything to dissuade me of that. I would much rather have division in truth than “unity” in error! Snowe, McCain, Collins, Graham, and former Senator Dole are all “unity” Republicans. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Snow’s corrupt. It’s better to have a junior Democrat than a senior corrupt Republican that uses her votes to get favors from both sides.
The junior, if elected, regardless of their party affiliation, will have far less personal clout. Snow’s clout is used to blackmail and be used as a horse trader’s favor to Demos and Repubs. She sells out to either side, like a death merchant.
Whoever meets her price, gets the goods. Most of the time.
I’ve never understood the desire to keep the true RINO’s in office. The only time it ever mattered is when we were close on committee chairmanships.
As is they might as well have a D by their name and be done with it. They suck money from people who may actually be a conservative (as unlikely as that is), it’s not like having an “R” next to their matters in the slightest when they never vote that way.
There are Democrats who I say the same thing about too, never understood why they picked that party. Nor have I ever understood the fear of “loosing” them. Unless it is going to swing chairmanships we never had them to loose.
IMO becoming too big a tent and loosing their focus is what killed the Republicans. Reagan had it right in his short list of core believes to build the Big Tent around, loosing that core leads to fractures and voters not knowing what they are voting for. If they focused on small govt, strong national defense, and personal integrity they would sweep elections – as is who knows what *either* party really stands for other than it’s own power.
Cincinnatus: It may not be proportionate, but I think there’s little else that can be done till 2012.
I wonder if Americans knew more Europeans if this health care “reform” scam would be as easy to pull off.
I travel in Europe a lot, and work with many EU expats who are trying to become citizens here. Their view of the socialized medicine systems is far different than the idealistic baloney that our media promotes. Personal friends have lost relatives waiting for cancer treatments that were a year late. European employees of our company have boarded planes to get simple infections treated here, because the wait to see a doctor was a few weeks. Scandanavia, the UK, France. Nice places to visit, but I wouldn’t want to get sick there.
It is hard for me to believe that anybody promoting systems like this have any idea what they are talking about.
The people of Maine and the rest of the public who think they will be better off will figure out way too late how good they had things. Ironically, Snowe and the rest of the Senate braintrust who answered history’s call will convice the same idiotic constituencies to re-elect them so they can fix the mess they made. I don’t believe for a minute that they will get booted out of office; I think they will manage to set themselves up as the only ones who can fix it.
Better lousy McCain than terrible Obama was my vote … last year.
Better lousy Snowe than a terrible Dem would probably be my vote were I to live in Maine.
BUT, the true small gov’t Republicans SHOULD have a primary challenge against her.
Plus … if she were replaced by D-Dem, rather than a not-really R-Rep, there would be other races in other states where many voters would vote for a less lousy Rep so as to avoid too many Dems. So maybe I’d vote for some other Rep in the primary, and then vote for the Libertarian (if one?) in the general rather than Snowe.
You can not vote ‘against’ somebody, only choose who to vote for. And ‘nobody will lower your taxes, nobody tells the truth, nobody works for you … vote for nobody’. At least your hands are non-responsible.
“You can not vote ‘against’ somebody, only choose who to vote for.”
I believe that is amongst one of our main problems today – with only a single vote we *have* to choose the least worst candidate – that is not the way to get the best.
I would like to see a system that I know a few other countries have – one where we could rank votes. That is I could of happily cast my last presidential election vote for the Constitution party with my second place for McCain sure in the knowledge that I wasn’t just throwing the whole thing away for Obama.
While not really a “I do not want vote” it would allow tertiary parties to influence decision making. While I may be giving them more credit than they deserve (and it wouldn’t take much arguing to dissuade me of that idea – the level of betrayal there was large) I think that the Republicans of ’94 would not have been so weak willed had they seen a *strong* showing of tertiary candidates – but then I come back to the idea after winning so decisively on that platform why did the waffle?
I also suspect that a strong libertarian type of vote along with the dems getting what they did would have a totally different political climate than we do today. The Dems won by being “Not Republicans” and have outdone the Republicans on what was complained about. In the next few elections cycles I do not know what will happen – I do know many dems see the Republican party as dead and they are the only inheritors of congress. I suspect a great shock is coming to them as it did the Republicans who thought the same thing.
Truly, be they Democrat or Republican (or Conservative vs Liberal) most want the govt to leave them alone. The main argument is *where* each side finds intrusiveness to be OK. However currently in the political classes the idea is who gets to tell you how to live.
As long as we have to choose the way we do it’s going to be hard to change that. I hope for a peaceful changing of the guard in the next few elections – given the Tea Parties I’m even somewhat hopeful it can occur. However I suspect a bloody revolution is within the next 10-20 years at the latest. Congress’s approval is too low, the President’s is heading there (his policies are already there, just a matter of time until his policies are fully linked to him), and the military’s is really high.
Add in the disdain most of our politicians hold our military along with the military’s oath and I’m not even so sure that they wouldn’t be in the *right* to do so – at what point does an oath to protect against enemies both Foreign and Domestic mean you let congress and the executive Branch rape the country? This isn’t about Obama either – Obama is just the product for the system we have been moving towards.
I truly hope the next few elections will see this turn around and I think we are still a nation that can. The question is if we are a nation that *will*.
“…because at least then no one will be able to use Snowe’s legislative positions to claim a fake bipartisanship where none actually exists.”
Brazen and conversely tender as the hands that wrote it 😀
Even a lot of RINOs do not support this thing. I think there is still a good chance of killing it. It is unpopular on the right and the left..and there is still a long long way to go.
One thing about Snowe, she was not the deciding vote. The Democrats would have won this round with or without her.
And I think she might very well vote against it later, especially if some change is made and you know it will be. This vote swing thing gives Snowe more influence than a Senator from a tiny state like Maine would otherwise garner.
Also, the Maine health insurance plan is in shambles, it is bankrupting the state and I would not be surprised if Snowe is not looking for help from the Feds to bail out Maine.
And I do not actually think anyone is buying the bipartisan stuff. Everyone knows the Republicans are not going for this. McConnel said it would never get a floor vote in the Senate.
The only reason to keep Snowe as a Republican, is that if Republicans can gain enough seats in the next election or even the one after, the more Rs there are in the Senate, the better it is for conservatives. I say that because if the Republicans can control the agenda in the Senate, they can stop a lot of this stuff from even going to committee.
I don’t visit leftist sites much (can’t take the hatred and bile), but I think we can safely assume that our frustration with RINOs (by “our” I mean political conservatives of varying stripes) is probably similar to the frustration I assume is felt over on the other side with their annoying, pain in the rear….”Blue Dogs.”
“If only we could purge and replace that damn (fill in the blank – RINO/BLUEDOG) with someone more ideologically pure and loyal to our parties core (conservative/progressive) principles, we could move our party in the right direction.”
Problem is — some “Republicans” in some blue areas of the country are more “progressive” than in others. Some “Democrats” in red areas are a hell of a lot more “conservative” than their brethren in the Northeast and California.
We can bitch all we want about “traitor” Snowe, and others — but check out her consistent approval ratings in her state – she, and others like her (like McCain historically at least, in AZ – and Spector always got re-elected too, right?) can be as “centrist” as they damn well please – and can thumb their noses at everyone outside their electoral reach. They have intensely pampered and privileged jobs within the Nomenklatura – for life.
It is just the reality of our political system.
In my state, RINO Charlie Crist, who pretended to be a conservative following in the footsteps of a true Republican Jeb Bush to get the Gov job — and was just as disengenous as leftist Obama pretending to be a centrist – is slobbering like a rabid dog in heat over the prospect of joining the Senate Country Club – where he will remain the rest of his life in cloistered cozyiness, never to be heard from again – – that’s the “Florida Way.” Another anonymous “centrist.”
And even tho Marc Rubio is gaining a little steam….there is probably nothing we can do to stop him.
So don’t be too hard on the conservative folks in Maine or Mass or Penna. The “why do you morons vote for that person” is just pointless venting.
southernjames is unfortunately correct. The place to “send a message” is in the primaries. If we conservatives lack the votes (or the determination) to push aside a RINO in the primaries, it’s on our own head.
Voting for the lesser of two evils is standard in this country, and may be one reason we have relative stability.
It seems less frustrating to deal with a restaurant that is always closed than one that is open sometimes and sometimes not. Intermittent frustration raises the blood pressure. But at least you eat sometimes.
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Terrye Says:
The only reason to keep Snowe as a Republican, is that if Republicans can gain enough seats in the next election or even the one after, the more Rs there are in the Senate, the better it is for conservatives. I say that because if the Republicans can control the agenda in the Senate, they can stop a lot of this stuff from even going to committee.
Assistant Village Idiot says:
The place to “send a message” is in the primaries. If we conservatives lack the votes (or the determination) to push aside a RINO in the primaries, it’s on our own head.
Voting for the lesser of two evils is standard in this country, and may be one reason we have relative stability.
It seems less frustrating to deal with a restaurant that is always closed than one that is open sometimes and sometimes not. Intermittent frustration raises the blood pressure. But at least you eat sometimes.
Amen to Terrye and Assistant Village Idiot. These two above posts represent my views on the whole RINO issue. I strongly oppose what Snowe did, and perhaps it would be a great idea to find someone to oppose her in the primaries. But don’t expect the liberal Maine electorate to vote for a conservatve Republican over a liberal Democrat. I’d rather get “half a loaf” than none at all… or, as would be the case with a lefty Senator, a poisoned loaf. Snowe’s Senate seat represents one more seat to work with to give the GOP control of the Seanate, and take it out of the hands of the Dems.
More importantly, this is the way a stable democratic representative republic works. The extremes don’t get to have it all their way. The fact that America’s form of democracy makes change slow and gradual is what has made the United States so stable, and what has prevented it from buying the politically correct left agenda as Europe has done hook line and sinker. Thankfully, this is part of what is preventing Obama from ramming his agenda through Congress as quickly as he would like. Hopefully, it may even end up preventing passage of it entirely.
I suspect that, if those advocating extremes on both left and right actually got to see what this country would be like with their full agenda implemented, and with all the unintended results thereof, they would be immediately de-programmed from their absolutist views.
“Juan, fetch me my bong…. Let them eat Obamacare!”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-10-13-House-wealth-gap-Democrats-richest-districts_N.htm
Dirty, dirty limousine leftists.
its called controlling both sides of an issue…
the US has no law that requires a person who is a politician to be truthful in their registration and oath!
that is, way back in the 40s, when one could read how to’s and things, they said to enter the democratic party and register as a democrat even though they were communist. why? because the registration is a meaningless thing (which is why today they can shift from side to side fluidly).
well, after dominating the left democrats so much till the candidate from the communist party said they were no longer going to run a candidate for president any more bcause there was no way to distinguish the platforms of the communist party and the democratic party.
from there, it was just a small leap to try to load the republican base with left communist types.
their job is to vote a convincing point so that they can be painted as not beng with the dems, but for key moves/votes on the game table, they will vote with the dems.
and voila you control both sides of an issue
which means that any concept of back and forth is mostly for show depending on the mix of politicos in the soup.
one can read lots of examples of this.
two of the most notable was the take over of the Ford Foundation by communist socialists… (and ever since then its been the biggest funding arm and coordinator. a meta acorn.. )
“The distinguishing feature of communism is not the abolition of property generally but the abolition of bourgeois property”
“…the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to establish democracy.”
that is a class of people will take power for them in name…. this replaces a republic with an imperial democracy… like russia..
“The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class, and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.
which has been a good description of the past few months. the destruction of the middle class… and the creatino of a two class system… property ownership and such on top, and slavery on the bottom.
Political power, properly so-called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class; if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and , as such sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms, and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.
[edited for length by neo-neocon]
Dear Olympia Snowe,
A Democrat Speech writer that you should listen to
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/10/08/health-care-speechwriter-for-edwards-obama-and-clinton-doesnt/
She wrote for Clinton, Obama and Edwards.
If you can’t hear us. Maybe you can hear her?
Love,
A concerned citizen who wants America to succeed and for us to prosper and grow as a nation so that my daughters can see what we see growing up.
they are pitting the bottom of the pyramid against the middle of the pyramid to destroy access to the top of the pyramid where they are. with the middle taken out its just olympia on high and the feudal slave class toiling below.
of course they want all their drought animals to get along, after all, its expensive when your assets damage each other.
“Voting for the lesser of two evils is standard in this country, and may be one reason we have relative stability.”
It’s pretty much required by mathematics. You can still vote for whoever you want to, but unless the person you vote for gets a lot more votes than just yours alone, they’re going to lose to someone who gets more votes. The end result of trying to sway public opinion so a particular guy wins is that there has to be only two people who are technically in the running: the guy who is going to win (hopefully yours) and the guy who makes second place (and thus is the only one who can present a statistical challenge to the guy who’s going to win).
The dichotomy of how individual votes are statistically insignificant, but are nonetheless a resource that must be collected in quantity to win, means that the only closely coordinated and organized efforts (derisively called “astroturfing”) have any real chance of having an impact. I actually consider this a good thing, because if someone doesn’t have the skills to organize a winning coalition in a general election, how will they organize the bureaucracies (and military units) that would rather just extort money from people than perform a service in exchange for their paychecks?
The Left has never organized the military in anything even conceivably close to competent. That’s why Vietnam and Korea happened and stayed that way.
That’s why Vietnam and Korea happened and stayed that way.
for both sides..
I believe Maine has a version of the public option and it’s busted.
Perhaps Snowe was bought off by an earmark directed toward Maine’s health care issues.