Greg Sargent writes:

Rep Frank Kratovil of Maryland, a previous No vote who was now said to be undecided, will vote No on the Senate health reform proposal, his spokesman confirms. [. . .] The only way Kratovil [. . .] could support the Senate bill is if it’s fixed first via reconciliation, before the House votes on it. But no one expects this to happen.

(Emphasis supplied.) I wonder if anyone expects anything to happen at all on the health bills. Rahmbo's finger pointing campaign the last week is beginning to make sense. The White House may think the initiative is actually dead.

Speaking for me only

Your turn.

This is an Open Thread.

David Waldman:

Former Senate parliamentarian Robert Dove [. . .] says [. . .] "I've never seen a two-bill strategy" where reconciliation is used to fix another piece of legislation, he says. "It's permissible, I've just never seen it."

[. . .] The letter of the Budget Act says yes. I say yes. Now it looks like Dove says yes, too.

Republican Senator Judd Gregg adds another reason why the reconciliation fix must be passed concurrently with the House passage of the Senate Stand Alone health bill. Here is a new GOP talking point, one that actually has merit:

The White House may renege on passing fixes to the Senate's healthcare bill once the House has passed it, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) claimed Thursday. [. . .] "They're using reconciliation to pass the great big bill," Gregg said during an appearance on CNBC. "Once they pass the great big bill, I wouldn't be surprised if the White House didn't care if reconciliation passed. I mean, why would they?" [. . .] "In my opinion, reconciliation is an exercise for buying votes, which, once they have the votes they really don't need it," he said.

(Emphasis supplied.)I would not trust the Senate Dems on ANYTHING. If I were the House, I would insist on simultaneous passage.

Speaking for me only

What will the White House do about Bart Stupak?

Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., today said he and 11 other House members will not vote for the health care bill unless it includes more stringent language to prevent federal funding from going toward abortion services [. . .] "I want to see health care pass. I agree... people are being priced out of the market. We must have health care but, boy, there are some principles and beliefs that some of us are not going to pass," he said.

My suggestion for solving the Stupak problem here.

Speaking for me only

While Jeralyn and I were swamped in real life for the past week, there has been a lot of back and forth (to put it charitably) about President Obama in the threads. It made me want to describe my thinking on the President's performance thus far in his term.

I have made it clear that I am disappointed that the President did not achieve more in his first year in office. I am even more disappointed that he did not TRY to achieve more, even if there were no guarantees of success. I said it at the end of the 2008 Presidential campaign and at the beginning of his term - Obama was an incredibly gifted politician with terrific policy instincts who was given a political climate (especially after the September financial crisis) open to transformational change. What seems clear so far is that these gifts have not translated into strong governing skills and certainly he has not delivered transformational change. More . . .

The National Enquirer is reporting a federal grand jury in North Carolina investigating payments by John Edwards' presidential campaign's to Rielle Hunter, is about to be indicted -- "imminently."

The Enquirer got lucky and was right about Edwards' affair. Are they pushing their luck?

It seems the grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina does frequently meet on Thursdays. (Grand juries sit for 12 to 18 months. In lesser populated districts, they meet a few days a month.)

Does the Enquirer merely have a scoop that the grand jury is concluding the investigation, and realizing it has a 50% chance of being right, jumping the gun and choosing the option that would boost their traffic? Or, is there a leak from John Edwards' camp? [More....]

I'm finally done with court for the week. I'm guessing there's been a lot of news today since our open threads are full. Here's another one while I get caught up. All topics welcome.

More of the same.

Open thread.

I have court this afternoon and I understand Jeralyn does as well.

Another one of those days here at TalkLeft. This is an Open Thread.

This bit from a TNR puff piece on 'poor Rahmbo' made me laugh:

As Obama closed in on the presidency, he and his top aides turned to Obamaland’s unofficial head-knocker for the role of chief of staff. [. . .] Emanuel not only had the right sensibility. His loyalty and Washington know-how were beyond question. [. . .]

(Emphasis supplied.) Heh. Indeed, Rahmbo's loyalties are unquestionable -- they are to burnishing Rahmbo's image and power. That is precisely why he should never have been picked to be White House Chief of Staff. A WH Chief of Staff should have no personal agenda -- his agenda must be the President's. To be honest, I do not blame Rahmbo for this blunder. He is who he is and makes no secret of it. This is President Obama's mistake.

Speaking for me only

This dkos diary quotes Ezra Klein saying:

At the end of the day, it is up to Congressional Democrats to pass this [health] legislation and when they don't, it's on them. And I do think that there's an element of political dodge when what they say is, "Well the White House didn't lead sufficiently." We don't have a system built for us only to be able to solve problems when the White House is strategically perfect. Our presidents are going to fail us and our Legislature is going to have to do its job.

(Emphasis supplied.) The President laid out a health proposal, further refined by the addition of some GOP proposals and today the White House will lay out the legislative roadmap it wants for the health proposals (what happened to the separation of powers/impotent President argument the Village Dems used to trot out?) Whatever happens(passing the Senate bill or not passing the bill) is, as it always was, on all of them -- the Democratic President and the Democratic Congress. Is passing the Senate Stand Alone health bill with "assurances" of a reconciliation fix the smart and right thing for the House to do? I doubt it, but if the House does this, I want no whining about how the Senate "promised" anything and then failed to deliver. That is what you should expect from the Senate. That is what they always do. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 290 times, shame on me.

Speaking for me only