Reliving and reinterpreting the 2012 U.S. Senate election in Missouri. What started it all, via Twitter:

Ryan Hite ‏@ryan_hite

Can’t believe they give this crazy airtime. RT @AlanColmes: Restrictive Pennsylvania Abortion Laws & Lack Of Enforcement Empowered Gosnell 7:47 PM – 12 Apr 13

A reply:

caitlin legacki @caitleg

@ryan_hite dude. You worked for Todd Akin. He’s seven different kinds of crazy. 8:08 PM – 12 Apr 13

An impartial sane person would probably agree.

“I insist, after you”:

Ryan Hite ‏@ryan_hite

@caitleg and you worked for Claire McCaskill – who wants to sell our country down the river 7 ways from Sunday. 9:03 PM – 12 Apr 13

So there.

Ryan Hite ‏@ryan_hite

@caitleg besides I’m not sure you’re one to point fingers on crazy and bad ideas. You defended enough. 9:04 PM – 12 Apr 13

So there. Again.

Interesting sleight of hand. Crazy or just bad? You decide.

A point of inquiry:

caitlin legacki ‏@caitleg

@ryan_hite how does a river run 7 ways? You’re not even making sense. Regardless, 55% of MO picked her over Akin. Means something, right? 9:04 PM – 12 Apr 13

caitlin legacki ‏@caitleg

@ryan_hite lol. Scoreboard 9:05 PM – 12 Apr 13

Now that you mention it:

Nov 6, 2012 General Election

U. S. Senator (3387 of 3387 Precincts Reported)

Claire McCaskill Democrat 1,494,125 54.8%

Todd Akin Republican 1,066,159 39.1%

Jonathan Dine Libertarian 165,468 6.1%

[….]

Continuing:

Ryan Hite ‏@ryan_hite

@caitleg if you put river and 7 ways together from that tweet you just proved my crazy point because you missed it. 9:07 PM – 12 Apr 13

That was the Twitter equivalent of “nanner nanner boo boo”.

caitlin legacki ‏@caitleg

@ryan_hite tell the truth. Are you drunk? 9:08 PM – 12 Apr 13

Okay, that one was mean. It’s not possible to get inebriated on Kool-Aid.

The test of a truly adept new media denizen is the speed of their retorts:

Ryan Hite ‏@ryan_hite

@caitleg that means people are more gullible than I’d hoped. Unfortunate but apparent 9:08 PM – 12 Apr 13

Waiting, waiting:

Ryan Hite ‏@ryan_hite

@caitleg tell the truth.. Do you actually buy this liberal logic you sell? Because no I haven’t touched a drop all night. 9:09 PM – 12 Apr 13

Okay. Another “nanner nanner boo boo” response.

A truly adept political operative knows how and when to stick the shiv in:

caitlin legacki ‏@caitleg

@ryan_hite they weren’t gullible. They were just completely horrified by Akin. Congrats on the SVU episode, btw. 9:10 PM – 12 Apr 13

That left a mark. Remind us again who became a national joke when they opened their mouth?

Ryan Hite ‏@ryan_hite

@caitleg completely horrified by what you all propagated.. That is true. It’s just unfortunate you had to destroy a decent mans reputation. 9:11 PM – 12 Apr 13

Because the evil opposition and media made Todd Akin (r) say what he said?

Wait for it, wait for it…:

Ryan Hite ‏@ryan_hite

@caitleg yeah and it figures that they Didn’t even quote it right in the episode. Leave it to the media. Lol 9:11 PM – 12 Apr 13

Blame the media, for the score! Lol.

caitlin legacki ‏@caitleg

@ryan_hite he did that pretty well on his own. 9:13 PM – 12

Uh, yep.

And from the political party which supposedly venerates personal responsibility?:

Ryan Hite ‏@ryan_hite

@caitleg actually no that part pretty much came from you all and unfortunately many high up in GoP too. What you all will do to win.. 9:18 PM – 12 Apr 13

Projection, it’s not just for movie theaters anymore.

Sarcasm, it’s not just for bloggers anymore:

caitlin legacki ‏@caitleg

@ryan_hite 🙁 9:19 PM – 12 Apr 13

I just got called by someone, using a computer, asking me if Todd Akin can count on my support to repeal Obamacare.  

Akin needs better volunteers.  I asked some questions.

First, I asked if she lived in Missouri.  No.  (She told me she was having difficulty with her computer.)

Second, I asked if Akin will vote to abolish FEMA.  She didn’t know.

Finally, I pointed out that Obamacare is pro-life and am offended that anyone claiming to be pro-life wants to repeal Obamacare.  No response.

I hung up.

I get the regular e-mail newsletter from the Missouri Republican Party. It starts out with the stories it will cover.  Here is that list:

• Dave Spence rally with Chris Christie this weekend

  • Candidates for Governor, Senate debate in Columbia

  • Rick Perry coming to Columbia for Ed Martin

  • Peter Kinder speaks with Mizzou College Republicans

  • Ed Martin endorsed by FL Senator Marco Rubio

  • Shane Schoeller tours Missouri farms

  • Vicky Hartzler warns of military cuts

  • Ann Wagner discusses US foreign policy with Jamie Allman

  • RNC Web video: Redistribution

  • Roy Blunt op-ed: “Stop the Mediscare”

  • Chris Koster whitewashes Nixon’s role in Mamtek fiasco

  • In other news

  • Upcoming events

Did you notice what statewide candidate’s name is missing?  

I wonder why our good Republican friends can’t say anything about rallys Todd Akin is having.  

Who says that Colbert is not a news program?

He reported tonight that Akin is for repealing the 17th Amendment.  

Here is the article that is the one Google goes to.

The relevant passage:

“I have a very serious concern about erosion of states rights, and reversing this [amendment] might pull that balance back,” Akin said, adding that he is “leaning” in favor of repeal.

If I were a Democratic candidate for the state legislature I would ask my opponent whether he/she would vote to repeal the 17th Amendment to end the erosion of states rights.

I would tie my opponent to some of the more outrageous statements by Akin.  For example, are government supported loans to college students a “third state cancer”?  Do we need to have the federal government ending any assistance to children nutritional programs?  

I would try to get my opponent to distance him/herself from Akin or support Akin.

In Ireland abortion is illegal. This prohibition, the legacy of government for many years in thrall to the Irish Catholic Church, was tested by an international controversy in 1992 when a fourteen year old girl, a victim of abuse by a family friend, was denied permission by the Dublin High Court to travel to England for an abortion. After an extensive period of negative international publicity and internal Sturm und Drang, the ruling was reversed by the Irish Supreme Court on the grounds that under a 1983 amendment to the Irish abortion law, the right to life of a pregnant woman is at least equal to that of a fetus, and, as the girl was suicidal, her life was threatened by the pregnancy.

This ruling established the only exception to Ireland’s anti-abortion policy, though it continues to be an exceptionally fraught issue. The controversy was fictionalized in Edna O’Brian’s 1997 novel, Down by the River, which vividly depicts the emotional travail caused by state meddling in private lives in the service of majority religious beliefs.

I bring up the Irish “X Case,” as it was called, because, if Todd Akin, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Jo Ann Emerson, Billy Long and Vicky Hartzler have their way, American women will be facing situations just as stupid and sad. This political rogue’s gallery of forced birthers have all signed on to co-sponsor HR3, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” which would limit the rape exemption for federal abortion funding to instances of “forcible” rape. This limitation could easily have exempted the young girl in the X case who became pregnant after abuse which might not have met the criteria of force since the facts surrounding her rape were initially in dispute.

Abortion is, of course, still legal in the U.S., and would continue to be so if HR3 is passed since it only pertains to restrictions on public funding. Its provisions are far reaching enough, though, that, if passed, it could have a vastly more far-reaching impact, even for those of us who rely on private insurance. Since the 86% of insurance plans that offer abortion coverage would no longer be tax-deductible for employers, the number of those plans would almost inevitably dwindle along with affordable access to abortion for the middle classes as well as the poor, who, at first glance, would seem to be most likely to be seriously affected.

It is the rape and incest provisions, however, that offer the best picture of the sclerotic mindset behind this proposed legislation. HR3 would restrict abortion funding for individuals who find themselves pregnant as a result of coercion or intimidation, sexually abused children, and pregnant rape victims who were drugged, given alcohol, or who are mentally impaired. Since HR3 rejects current federal definitions of rape and does not define forcible rape explicitly, it is even possible that all cases of rape could be addressed in such a way as to fall outside the exemptions. As for incest, our GOP representatives evidently think it’s just fine if the victim is over 18.

Interestingly, the European Court of Human Rights recently ruled that Ireland violated the human rights of an Irish woman suffering from cancer who was forced to travel to England for an abortion. Since Ireland is a member of the European Union, this ruling means that abortion laws there will probably undergo a serious review. Meanwhile, here in the U.S., our right to self-determination is increasingly endangered by meddling fools like, for instance, Rick Santorum, a former GOP Senator from Pennsylvania who  is unable to decide whether the life of a two-year old child takes priority over five fertilized eggs in a petri dish.

I remember from my rollicking undergraduate days a story about a young American man who, while changing flights in Dublin, tried to buy condoms and was promptly arrested since birth-control was then illegal in the Republic. HR3 represents such a potentially devastating attack on our right to govern our own bodies that I begin to wonder if I should start marking the days until we in the U.S. will have turned back the clock to something like those bad old days in Ireland. If so,  Missourians will know exactly whom to blame.

Wingnuts like Todd Akin may claim that all we have to do to solve our health care crisis is allow portability so that when workers change jobs, they can take their insurance with them. But with the latest NYT/CBS poll showing 72 percent of us in favor of a public option, his notions are out of touch to the point of being quaint. House Republicans have marginalized themselves, and House Democrats, more liberal than their Senate counterparts, will pass a strong public option. Last Friday:

Unified House Democrats unveiled a draft health care overhaul bill jointly endorsed by three powerful committee chairmen.

Henry Waxman, Charlie Rangel and George Miller, chairs of the Energy & Commerce, Ways & Means and Education & Labor Committees, announced the result of six months of negotiations. The sight of three united committee chairmen in the turf-conscious House is a historically rare one.

…[T]he House version includes a robust public plan that would operate nationally and compete with private insurers on a level playing field to keep them honest.

The public plan would be self-sustaining and not subsidized by the federal government, although an upfront infusion of capital would be needed. It would initially be tied to Medicare reimbursement rates, to capitalize on the existing infrastructure, but would evolve into a separate plan that paid higher rates. Participation by doctors would be voluntary.

Rangel described the public plan as “the best of Medicaid, best of Medicare, then kick it up a notch.” The chairmen estimated the plan would cover 95 percent of Americans.

That’s in the House. Then there’s the Senate.

The Senate is where you’ll find the Democratic turncoats that might have the power to stop this. At the other end of the Democratic spectrum from Conyers, Waxman, Rangel, and Miller–it’s painful even to call them Democrats–we’ve got senators Max Baucus, MT; Evan Bayh, IN; Ben Nelson, NE; Kent Conrad, N.D.; Blanche Lincoln, AR; and Mary Landrieu LA. They’re all busy trying not to appear to be dragging their feet on a public option–while their heels are dug in an inch.

Take Bayh, for example, who this winter formed a Blue Dog caucus. His wife, Susan, sits on corporate boards for a living–fourteen at last count–and one of them is Wellpoint, the biggest health insurer in the country. But he says her activities are no reason for concern: “‘The reality is, we don’t talk about stuff that she’s involved with.'” Oh, thank goodness. Imagine how reassured I was to hear it.

It does us little good to have 59 Democrats, 60 if Franken gets seated by this fall, if six of them might vote the wrong way on a public option. In fact, one of those six is even in charge of a committee considering a health care bill. There are two committees creating such bills.

The Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Max Baucus will almost surely produce the one with the weaker public option. Baucus wavers on that issue depending on whether he’s just visited his home state and been flayed by constituents for keeping single-payer advocates out of committee meetings or whether he’s been in D.C. listening to insiders again for a few days.

Well might he be tempted to waver. He’s taken in more money from the health insurance industry than any other legislator.

“In the past six years, nearly one-fourth of every dime raised by Baucus and his political-action committee has come from groups and individuals associated with drug companies, insurers, hospitals, medical-supply firms, health-service companies and other health professionals.”

Then there’s Chris Dodd, D-CT, who, in Kennedy’s absence, chairs the other relevant committee, the Health Committee. On the one hand, 23 percent of his contributions have come from the health care industry. On the other hand:

“I happen to be very strong for a public option,” Dodd said. “I think we need a public option in this bill. I’m going to do everything I can to see to it that a public option is included.”

What that option might actually look like isn’t known yet, but remember that there’s 72% support for a public option. Hell, you couldn’t get three-fourths of Americans to support Mom and apple pie. So it’s gonna happen. The question is whether it will be strong enough to be worth having.

Dodd’s HELP committee should be releasing details on its proposal this week. No doubt it will provide a stronger public option than whatever Baucus’ committee produces. Negotiations over a compromise bill will ensue. That bill might be very weak on the public option.

The problem is that if it isn’t weak  enough to suit Baucus, Nelson, Bayh, et.al., they could refuse to vote for it before it even has a chance to go to conference with the House to resolve differences in the two chambers’ versions. Democrats will have to either keep most of their own in line and maybe sway a couple of moderate Republicans in hopes of getting the 60 votes for cloture. Even Democrats, with all the herd instinct of cats, might turn lemming-like at that point. Blue Dogs will be risking their political futures if they vote nay on the health care bill.

But if Senate Democrats fail to get the sixty, they’ll be forced to use a little known–but quickly getting known–tactic called reconciliation that allows budget bills to bypass the cloture requirement. The simple definition of reconciliation is: fifty votes. No filibuster. The problem is that reconciliation isn’t that simple. Since this bill isn’t purely a budget bill, parts of it would be damaged in the reconciliation process:

“If Democrats decide to go down the reconciliation route, some of the bill will pass and some of it won’t,” said former Senate parliamentarian Robert Dove. “It will be a Swiss cheese bill, but it will be a bill.”

So the bottom line is that Democrats need to seat Al Franken, hold the Blue Dogs in line and maybe bring Olympia Snow and Susan Collins into the fold for that vote.

If they can do that, the bill goes to conference with the House, and since the House bill is going to be strong on the public option, the resulting bill will likely be stronger than what the Senate produced.

Which will bring on the final battle. The Senate, sometime this fall if the timetable holds, will vote on the conference bill. And all the same caveats about getting sixty votes or facing reconciliation will apply again. But this hurdle, for what may be a stronger bill, could be even tougher to clear. Then again, my other caveat will also obtain: that any Democrat who votes no will be risking his political future.

All that is still a ways off. Right now, we Missourians need to do our part to get our health care ducks in a row. We need to make sure that Claire McCaskill–Bond is a lost cause, of course–supports a strong public option. She has declared her support for the public option, so Clark urged us to go to her e-mail contact form, thank her for that support, and ask her these questions:

1–Do you support a public healthcare option as part of healt
hcare reform?

2–If so, do you support a public healthcare option that is available on day one?

3–Do you support a public healthcare option that is national, available everywhere, and accountable to Congress?

4–Do you support a public healthcare option that can bargain for rates from providers and big drug companies?

I don’t assume she’ll write back and say that she thinks what the House is considering is just dandy. But it couldn’t hurt to hope.

Last week, Senator McCaskill held one of her Kitchen Table Talks at St. Charles Community College. This week, Representatives Todd Akin and Blaine Leutkemeyer held a town hall on the same campus. The different formats told a tale. Although the senator’s crowd was, understandably, larger (it filled a gym), Claire let it all hang out. She drew questions from a fish bowl and answered them rapid fire. The two Republican representatives are wound a lot tighter, so the event was choreographed. I was discouraged from, though not forbidden to tape. The moderator chose the questions, and they–can you imagine the coincidence of it?–exactly fitted the topics the two men had announced in advance that they wanted to talk about.

The invitation had been to small businessmen, so the audience of nearly 200 consisted mostly of businessmen and juco students. We were treated, before the Q & A, to an impassioned rant from a Union, MO, electrical contractor–a Fox News junkie, who believes that Citigroup and GM should be allowed to fail. I was flashing back to the Tea Party at Kiener Plaza the night before. The man has no sense of history. If the banking system and one of our largest employers (plus all of its suppliers) were to simultaneously nosedive, it would be 1931 again. And his electrical contracting business might well go under in the depression that would result.

But after the gentleman was escorted from the room, the Republicans said whatever they pleased without contradiction.

• We won the Iraq war (?!) in spite of the fact that no one knew how hard it would be to control all those “Arab factions”. I knew before we went in there. Did you? We must be among the damned liberal ivory tower academics that W didn’t trust.
• Akin gave a lengthy treatise on the reason that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae caused this country’s financial meltdown. As if.

The Q & A focused on convincing small businessmen that Obama’s policies will ruin them. Cap and trade, according to Akin, is “cap and tax.” It will raise energy costs 40-65 percent in Missouri, he said, and cost each family $3100 extra dollars a year. And all of this wasted money to “solve a problem that sound science says may not even be a problem.” He averred that it is not clear that rising CO2 levels are causing warming. That’s why scientists have been forced to abandon the term “global warming” in favor of “climate change.”

Instead of talking about constructive ways to deal with energy issues, Akin scared the bejeebers out of the businessmen and hapless students in the audience by saying that if we don’t let coal-fired power plants  continue to be built in the U.S.,  American coal will be shipped to China where they are building 250 coal power plants this year alone.  (Never mind the fact that China has most of the world’s coal.)

Oh, and he took time to empathize with beleaguered businessmen who are buried under environmental restrictions and regs. But, sigh, he thought there was little hope of any easing in that problem with Democrats in charge.

I’m embarrassed for Akin and for the Missourians who’ve kept him in office. He ignores energy and environmental issues by using the same sandpile where George Bush used to bury his head. If we don’t wean ourselves off coal and start reducing CO2 levels, the cost of energy will be a moot point, sir. Your grandchildren won’t have to pay for any of the money Democrats are spending now; the climate will kill them. Excuse me while I try to save your grandchildren’s lives.

The two representatives also tackled the pressing problem of immigration. (I haven’t quoted Leutkemeyer yet because he echoes Akin so much that Susan Cunningham suggests we save a congressional salary by naming one of them Akemeyer and sending him to D.C. with the authority to vote twice on everything.) The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that Missouri has 35,000 to 65,000 illegal immigrants out of the 5.75 million residents. Say the Pew Hispanic Center is wrong and the figure is twice that. So? I don’t say we shouldn’t insist that employers e-verify new hires, but this issue is a dead horse. Put down the whip.

As for health care problems, those can basically be solved, says Akin, if we have “portability,” the right to take our health insurance with us when we change jobs. See how easy that was?

As Susan observed, “this is what passes for public discourse in the Land of Oz. Heaven help us.”

After describing Monday’s stomach-in-your-throat, topple-off-the-edge-of-the-building stock market plunge, Tuesday’s Post-Dispatch editorial said:

Worse could be in store. Or maybe not. The financial markets are in uncharted waters, off the edge of the map where it reads, “Here there be monsters.”

Some of our Dems are braving those waters: Lacy Clay and Emanuel Cleaver voted no on the bailout. Cleaver’s take on it was: “‘If you feed pigs a great deal, they’ll become hogs.'”

And apparently, the public is against raising hogs:

“There is no reason for us to go in there and bail out George Bush,” Missouri Democrat Emanuel Cleaver said. “I don’t think anyone is going to step out on a limb,” he said, because “there is no way to sell this” to voters.

Indeed. Lacy Clay’s office tells me that 98 percent of the calls they got opposed the bailout, and that he opposed it because there were no provisions for bankruptcy judges to rule in ways that could help out the little guy. Both Cleaver and Clay, who represent districts with high proportions of black voters, no doubt understand that those deceptive mortgages were marketed in large part to the poor–to many blacks, in other words.

Jerry Costello, a Democrat across the river from St. Louis in Belleville, IL, brought up another factor for the “No” voters:

“I have not been convinced that it is imperative we act right now, or that this proposal will solve the problem as indicated. In fact, numerous economists insist that the Paulson approach will not work. And I resent being told by the investment bankers in the Bush administration and on Wall Street — the very people that have railed against government oversight in the financial industry for years — that the taxpayers must come to their rescue.”

Michael Moore, who opposed the bailout as it was written, does more than just agree with Costello. He gives all the Democrats the benefit of the doubt:

Here’s my guess: The Democratic leadership in the House secretly hoped all along that this lousy bill would go down. With Bush’s proposals shredded, the Dems knew they could then write their own bill that favors the average American, not the upper 10% who were hoping for another kegger of gold.

But Moore gives Republicans no credit for their no votes. He sees them as cynically putting distance between themselves and a toxic lame duck president in this election year:

There they were, one Republican after another who had backed the war and sunk the country into record debt, who had voted to kill every regulation that would have kept Wall Street in check — there they were, now crying foul and standing up for the little guy! One after another, they stood at the microphone on the House floor and threw Bush under the bus, under the train (even though they had voted to kill off our nation’s trains, too), heck, they would’ve thrown him under the rising waters of the Lower Ninth Ward if they could’ve conjured up another hurricane.

To Todd Akin, who averred that many who voted for the bailout were being too hasty and giving up principles (“You never save principle by giving it up”), Moore would probably ask, “What principle might that be? The principle of self preservation?”

David Sirota is no way so harsh on Republicans who voted no:

it’s clear that Congress is facing a full on revolt from both the Right and Left – the very revolt that I predicted in my book, The Uprising. No longer is this a populist revolt merely scaring Wall Street and Washington – this is a populist revolt that has, to quote Markos, crashed the gate, and it represents a real victory for the progressive movement and voices who said Hell No.

Those who are surprised by this turn of events just haven’t been paying attention to what’s going on out in the country – they haven’t been paying attention to, for instance, the social survey research showing rising rage against both our corrupt government and Corporate America. During my 3 month book tour, I faced a wave of skepticism from the Establishment media about my thesis. This earthquake on the floor of the U.S. House should end that skepticism once and for all.

I can imagine some populist revolt from the right, but … from Todd Akin? Nah.

Whatever Republican motivation was, though, the bottom line is that the bailout vote failed. Look, I don’t want to be gobbled up by a monster in uncharted waters, but I’m inclined to listen to progressives who are advocating alternative solutions.

Sirota abhors the bailout as it was written, provides five reasons to oppose it, and offers some alternatives. Here are three of them:

In the Washington Post last week, Galbraith outlined a multi-pronged plan shoring up and expanding the FDIC, creating a Home Owners Loan Corporation, resurrecting Nixon’s federal revenue sharing, and taxing stock transactions (a tax that would fall mostly on speculators) to finance the whole deal.

The Service Employees International Union has drafted a plan based around a massive investment in public services and national health care, and regulatory reforms preventing foreclosures and forcing banks to renegotiate the predatory terms of their bad mortgages.

Sirota also suggests giving the money to struggling homeowners to pay off part of their mortgage.

Paul Krugman, who says he might have voted for the bailout in the name of temporary relief, advises–now that it’s failed–that we temporarily nationalize the banks:

Brad DeLong says that Swedish-style temporary nationalization is the right answer to a financial crisis; he’s right. I haven’t been clear enough about this, it seems, but it’s where my basic diagnosis leads: the problem is insufficient capital, you want to inject capital, but you don’t want it to be a windfall to existing stockholders – hence, take over and recapitalize the failing firms. By the way, that’s what we did with AIG 10 years days ago.

Any time you have Emanuel Cleaver and Todd Akin making common cause against the House leadership, you and Alice are in Wonderland. The question is whether Clay, Cleaver and Akin can unite around one of these alternatives. Or, failing that, whether enough of the Dems can be united around one them to pass it.

 

While praising MO Republicans, Senator Kit Bond and Joann Emerson of Cape Girardeau for bucking party leadership to vote in favor of the SCHIP compromise bill, the SLPD (10/4) states that:

Just about everything the President and his surrogates have said about the bill is wrong.  It does not cover illegal immigrants and upper income children. It is not designed to get families to drop private insurance and, instead get a free ride from a public program.  Nor is it a “socialized type medicine”…as Dana Perino said last week.

To be perfectly clear, SCHIP was never intended to insure “poor” children, or kids living below the poverty level.  It was developed to insure children of parents who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid and too little to purchase insurance on their own.
Perino’s socialized medicine argument, is rendered moot by the fact the several months ago, the Decider himself received, in the form of a colonoscopy performed by government
employed physicians at government run hospitals, a piece of the finest socialized medicine in the world. Indeed, as the SLPD states, “Mr. Bush will qualify for this same socialized health care for the rest of his life.”
And about the covering of children of illegal immigrants, Dennis Kucinich, the most liberal democratic presidential candidate voted against the compromise bill because he thought it should have covered the children of legal immigrants.
Finally the cost issue, as Eugene Robinson of the WaPo puts it so succinctly:

The cost of covering an additional 4 million children was estimated at around $35 billion over five years. That’s a lot of money. But in the context of a $13 trillion economy — and set against Bush’s history of devil-may-care, “buy the house another round” spending — it’s chump change.

The Decider, feeling a chill from the Hill, has offered to throw a little more money into the pot and call that a compromise.  But Harry Reid has said that “We are not going to compromise” while calling The Decider’s offer to “add a little extra money” to the program an insult.  Reid is not alone in standing firm. Recent polls show that  68% of Americans know that Bush vetoed the SCHIP compromise bill and 72% support the bill.

  Any changes that may come to the bill in the area of overall cost or eligibility apparently will come only after a failed override vote.  And to according to Republican, Phil English (R-Pa), “The changes necessary to get more Republicans on the margins are actually fairly modest”.  And how about this from your good friend and mine, Roy Blunt who states bluntly “Five billion is not enough!”  Charles Grassley sputters on and Orrin Hatch states the President has received bad advice. Right on pragmatic ones!

But wait!  Here comes MO’s nattering nuisance, Sam Graves, with a KC Star op-ed published on 10/03 in which he holds forth:

This legislation that President Bush vetoed Wednesday would make it easier for illegal immigrants to get taxpayer funded health care. …would wipe away the current requirement for multiple sources of identification and require merely a name and a Social Security number to apply for benefits.  The only safeguard would be a single statement that says no illegal immigrants can get benefits…

What does he want? Tattoos!  Todd Akin is on this talking point also, referring to “little hidden gizmos” in the bill.

Sam Graves should be excused from the House in order to spend more time tilting at windmills, although I daresay the original tilter was an honorable man with good intent, while Graves may be somewhat short on knightly virtue. Ditto, Todd Akin.  Kit Bond is looking somewhat firmer and Roy Blunt seems not at all convinced about anything.  Maybe he’s just scared.  Some gentle rallying outside his office could work to some good.  Opinion is divided on whether or not Congress will override.  We have two weeks to call, to rally, to make a difference. 

Not to be overlooked, Dennis Kucinich’s vote against the compromise bill.  I am sure his reasoning is correct, however he needs to vote to override the veto taking care not to end up siding with Bush.