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Was Debate Ever Properly Closed?
Of course, we do not intend that Zero Hedge should become a center of excellence for the review of obscure Senate rules, but, as a consequence of the full-court-press-rush to pass the health care bill, this was too interesting not to reprint:
Under Senate Rule XXII, "a measure or motion to amend the Senate rules... the necessary affirmative vote shall be two-thirds of the Senators present and voting" to end debate. Yet there were only 60 votes for cloture on the Reid bill. So unless there is some basis for giving special treatment to rules changes that are buried into other legislation, it would seem that either a) cloture was not achieved, or b) the entrenchment provisions do not actually alter the Senate rules.
Woops.
I'm told that a fine point of distinction means that Reid's entrenchment clauses were blessed by a Senate parliamentarian with respect to the 60 needed. I suppose one needs to be far more versed in the minutia of Senate procedure than an honest citizen could claim to be.
UPDATE:
Here was DeMint on the topic yesterday:
The entire thing is worth watching, but here is our favorite part:
DEMINT: and so the language you see in this bill that specifically refers to a change in a rule is not a rule change, it’s a procedure change?
THE PRESIDING OFFICER: that is correct.
Either way the process continues:
Senate Democrats cleared the last 60-vote hurdle on U.S. President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul on Wednesday, virtually ensuring final passage of its version of the biggest health policy changes in four decades.
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12-24-2009 8AM; the day the Dems got themselves fired
Lexis en thanato
Death by a quintillion words
Not for long. Now that we have to come to government to beg for medical care, progressives have won. And the American population has lost. We have now become as dysfunctional as Europe where nobody even pays lip service to free markets anymore.
My only hope is that the people who voted for all this hopey changey will be the first to eat their cooking and they will eat it until they pop.
Once a respected and reasoned body, the US Senate has turned into a pile of shit.
The Health Care reform whatever they are working on has to be one of the biggest clusterfucks in US history.
You blew just about all of your political capital in less than one year Obama.
you're gonna love this one, dh.
jane & grover join hands to paddle rahm's fannie:
http://firedoglake.com/2009/12/23/jane-hamsher-grover-norquist-call-for-...
this is weird tip...i just came across that about 5 minutes ago on HuffPo.
thanks!
speaking of that little phuck Rahm, I have found it incredibly interesting that the big time U.S. prosecutor Fitzgerald has not been heard from at all in re the Blagojevich case......I smell a humongous fish there in terms of Rahm......something rotten in Chicago....
J'adore your disgust for Rahm. I can't figure out which one, between Barry and Rahm, actually got elected. I'm confoozed.
http://www.wearechangechicago.com/rod-blagojevich-uncensored.html
Some say Rod pissed off BofA??
I think this is being kind. It's as if they are all green-skinned aliens from another galaxy intent on devouring our organs.
"You blew just about all of your political capital in less than one year Obama."
Right on DH. There is a serious lack of capital at the capital. People are feeling a renewed sense of responsibility because they are seeing the tsunami-wake of a shitstorm left by their elected officials.
If your kid acts in an irresponsible manner you have to step in, correct their behavior with a HARD politically incorrect spanking, do damage control, and get on with it.
IT'S TIME TO SPANK THESE MOTHERFUCKERS!
Where were you when the Bush admin was fucking up?
I'd rather have the congress blow our wad on health care...
Let's just blow the wad.
The Nig-Nogs in DC
Will avoid all responsibility.
The media maintain the lie
That jobless recovery
Is no news story,
And Bernanke will walk
So don't sqwawk.
Let 'em have more rope
The FRNs are their dope,
And PMs are our hope.
On Dasher, on Prancer, On Geithner and Blitzen!
Zerohedge, show us more of those fabulous vixen.
Deadhead's right.
It's high time that the senate be made subject to term limits. This should also be the case for the supreme court.
Unfortunately, we already have de facto term limits. It's called the general election, and it is in the hands of idiots (our fellow Americans). Why would the PTB want to change that? (Remember, all politicians are corrupt and stupid, except my state's. . . .)
It's actually very difficult to scrape the incumbents out because it's almost impossible for a newbie to run. Finance reform only made it worse.
Eh, term limits are unnecessary if we could just level the campaign finance playing field - or if America cared to pay attention. Imagine Dr. Paul getting ousted because of a law that really doesn't protect a coddled society anyway.
Not true.
It's well known that American's don't like to think. They will vote for the incumbent by default if they feel that the world won't end or the senator hasn't personally pissed them off.
Look at McCain.... how long has that guy been in office?
Too long if you ask me.
Yes, you really speak of reality. It's so amazing to me that people shrug their shoulders in response to voting for the default, or lesser of two evils, like some Italian wiseguy, "Eh, whaddaya want?"
I think that if term limits were applied it would have to start with senators. I feel that the House is still somewhat in touch with the People. But unfortunately each district has too many people. They either need a third tier and/or repeal the 17th Amendment. But what am I talking about...if I've got a genie in front of me I'm not going to waste a wish on freedom...
1) private island 2) endless supply of supple virgins 3) GOLD, BITCHES!
Unfortunately, term limits are necessary for the reasons you mention tangentially. Americans just don't pay attention long enough to gain an understanding to the extent an elected official is compromised. All they see is what the favors were made for the consituency.
I'd be interested to hear, though how you would actually make campaign finance work, so that is really is a level playing field-- beyond the 2-party duopoly.
Yes but that hasn't always been the case. You are taking a short term SOCIAL phenomenon and projecting it out to be a permanent thing.
It isn't permanent, it's only a by product of a 40 year generation that became dependent on the casino that was and is still all about derivatives in a floating rate monetary system which values imperialsim (free trade), and in this country WORSE THAN FREE TREE. Everything else was bent from the sheer numbers it put up and the disturbance it has been for the markets under the catch 22 derivatives and monetary systems represent. Behavioral economics is the mechanism which has been abused to an extreme already past a breaking point.
The problem is the system as set up rewards slave labor to the degree where it becomes the monopoly and every competitor closes down and joins in. They use that slave labor and low import taxes/fees/levies/duties to corner the market, and make people dependent on those low import taxes to survive, perpetuating the crisis.
Don't believe it. Wait until the price of goods soars as everything that we import, we really LEARN FIRST HAND that we import it. Meanwhile, on the other end, our side is still facing extreme taxes/fees/levies/duties. So we're letting everyone undercut our market, while we take it up the butt in exports.
Meanwhile are we stronger or weaker with an industrial capacity of 300+ million smaller than what was our 125-150 million pre WWII country? Yep that's right, we have less industrial capacity NOW than then, with double the population.
Free trade for every country but America, destroys the internal industry for a particular country importing the goods, or that has goods waiting to be imported by a competing country. It makes them dependent upon them. They cannot survive without them because they then cannot produce it themselves. Without the local population producing what it needs, the now addicted consumer of that nation is forced to pay a premium for the only game in town, and over the course of years or decades the floating exchange rate can amplify that wealth transfer mechanism, from a small percentage of their wealth, to a huge or nearly all of their collective created wealth.
The problem is, America isn't immune. It just takes alot longer, say about 40 years. Guess where we are?
But again this social malaise phenomenon is going away, fast, as the credit fades. What is left behind, no one wants to foot the bill for, and we won't pay it, nor should we as it was all bull.
If the markets can't handle that, then maybe they weren't as smart as they thought they were. Because whether you cancel it, or it goes belly up isn't the issue. The issue is, do you let the fraudulent debt crush you? Or do you cancel it before it crushes you? Either way it's not going to be paid. Not even as a matter of opinion, but as a logistical fact. The money won't be earned to pay it back. I could 100 percent want to pay it, but the reality is it won't be possible to pay it.
At least not without the healthcare becoming as much the death panel as it can be made to be. Remember, we'll only pay for things the board recommends. You know, like 50 and up mammograms, based off of faulty statistics and incorrect analysis of those statistics leading the group to conclude that it was not effective. Of course that's bull.
It's the same faulty interpretation and great weighting given by the same people that brought you climategate, using it instead of drastically cutting our industry, to drastically reducing what specific healthcare is paid for. It's not waste. Waste is waste. You get rid of it, new stuff pops up. It just exists. You can try to minimize it.
But to say you can get rid of it, that it makes up 30 percent of healthcare costs (so certain are we), and that you can tactically remove everything that is waste without also removing a substantial amount of needed health care is asinine.
Remember, the #1 purpose of this health care bill isn't to.....provide more health care, it's to bend the cost curve.
How? Why? The writing is on the wall.
I think what we've seen is everybody is pissed with what we have. This is one of them. But as of yet, enough people don't realize what really is at stake.
Meanwhile the 90 percent who think they think are concerned with the symptoms (like term limits) of the problems, not at getting to the real ones. We know things are going down, yet how many are looking at what the next step needs to be? When the stuff breaks, how many days do you have to get 20 years of legislative works in? Because if you don't, you won't have another chance. Once things collapse, they collapse, and years of work, decades of work can be undone in days.
The good news is that 20 years worth of legislation is already written, ready to go.
Glass/Stegall - pre 1980's standard, not the diluted 1999 version
HBPA 2007
American Credit System
New Bretton Woods (fixed rate CREDIT system -this time around, not fixed rate MONETARY system)
La Rouche 4 Powers Plan
Single Payer Health Care - with a fully implemented Hill/Burton standard for our health care facilities
These things could take 20 years, or with this congress 200 years. But either way, once things break down, it's over, so we need to pass this within days of the next breakdown event. Better yet, lets do it now, instead of then.
Once the top issues Glass/Stegall, HPBA 2007, American Credit System, and La Rouche 4 Powers Plan is initiated, we can focus on others on the above list, and the other important issues directly next; nuclear plants, mag lev rail lines, bridges, hospitals, education - science - fusion
How about a REAL space program. You know the one that has done SOMETHING NEW in my LIFETIME. Yes that's right, I never saw apollo because I wasn't born yet, to me, that was old tech. To me, those rockets, and their internal electronics looked like a 1930's radio. Hell the APPLE II had vastly more power than what we used to get to the Moon.
Yet what have we done with any of our newer tech? This isn't an indictment of NASA, it's an indictment of its funding or lack thereof, and thus it's reduced vision, by 99 percent. All the materials we need, are either in space (in unimaginable quantities), or can be PRODUCED, on an elemental level by fusion. Obviously needed, yet we don't even try.
Instead....
People are having a hard time putting down American Idol, and actually watching news/talk radio, only to have then go further and search for it on the internet. This is still such a small minority. Some don't need to see it, they feel it.
Even then when the desire is there, the same thing these people are running from, are controlling their decisions. Their hearts and subconscious know to be true, but their head won't let it happen. Welfare, Free trade, low taxes, the list goes on and on.
Remember this, we were told we couldn't afford any social spending, or national needs spending all the way to the tune of 12 trillion dollars for bailouts, wars, and tax cuts to people who didn't need them. (sorry, unless you made more than a million, your tax rebate was lower than the DIRECT offset in costs that cuts [usually in this period on a state level] in taxes provided you. In other words, you got 5k back from taxes, but your son's college went up 7k. Directly attributable.
Which is also why states are in such trouble. During the Bush years there was a dramatic, almost unprecedented shift of financial responsibility from the federal gov't to the states. Which means while the federal gov't for tax cuts, bailouts, and wars were spending us into a spiral debt crisis, they shifted the burden of tons of things stateside, freeing up more money to be crony-ed away. (because we tend to look at the TOTAL figure, and not realize that Bush's deficits would have a been a whole lot worse). But hey you got that extra 5k, or for most people between 250 dollars and 1k. Meanwhile, the price of everything else went up as what the federal gov't once paid for, the state now does, or the state now controls and forces you to pay.
Let's face it folks, we've only got people barely starting to try and ask questions, not put the pressure on the congress to actually CHANGE things. 2004, 2006, 2008 - all change elections. First one failed, the last two resounding success. 2010 and 2012 will be change again as well. It will continue to be change until guess what, things ACTUALLY change. They aren't yet. I don't see any bill in congress that does. Which means the people WILL get more pissed off day by day until it happens. Whoever makes the wrong vote, is screwed by both sides of the spectrum.
Therefore things must, and will get worse. Not as a desire, but what is, dynamically, the process of how you awake a slumbered body politic. Once it's been beaten down so much with sophistry, and ridiculed to think it's the problem (sub prime loans, welfare, anything blue collar), and the opium for the masses dulls their senses, we get where we are. Of course we got there by the older saner people dying off, and the idiots in charge now maturing. It'll only be solved when those idiots now start exiting. They have no answers, only spin and excuses on why things need not change, and how that would be worse.
For 200 years we did a good job at keeping our body politic awake and alert. Not always, and not nearly as well as we should have, but never the less, it worked much better than it currently does. Things weren't perfect; slavery, women's suffrage, civil rights, separate but equal, etc, etc.
Every once in a while we stood up, and were eventually heard. Because people weren't ignorant of the issues. They weren't focusing on the symptoms. They were focusing on the problems. But also because the general every day person in the past didn't have access to credit like we do now. Credit offset low wage increases. Which allowed us to go far further down the road than otherwise in depending ourselves on cheap imports, as well as the constant Gordan Gecko-ing of every sector of our industry.
Greed isn't a motivator. Being secure is a motivator. Money is equated to security. Thus what motivates isn't greed, it's security.
So what we ended up doing is saying people that were motivated to be secure, were greedy. No, they were motivated by the lower levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. That isn't greed, it's human nature, at it's rawest.
But we said, greed was good, and thus anyone with a greedy notion, was good, not bad. We let the rif raff in with that unlocked back door. We lumped good in with bad, and we wonder why things went wrong?
But things are changing, as every day the people's needs are provided for less by this ever increasingly rigged and out of touch system whose foundation is made up of enough invisible dollars to explain at least all the dark matter in this solar system.
It's a shift, and one that is happening. One every day, as old people die, and younger ones mature shifts the expectations of the body politic.
But it's also happening faster because of the crapstorm we are collectively in from the bailouts/economy, to Climategate and it's derivatives friend, to Hitler Healthcare (which it is IPAB, originally IMAC, also tentatively titled IMAB, modeled after Britain's N.I.C.E.). The same people that brought you Climategate are behind N.I.C.E. and the Liverpool Pathway Hospice.
The sad thing is very few people realize that Climategate = Derivative Cap and Trade which would then be the mechanism for fixing our very sick derivatives market, and making them LEGIT! Not only that, but they make us feel it's the best thing since sliced bread because we're SAVING THE PLANET.
Imagine that, a big circle jerk
Anyone see a connection in this big circle jerk?
Oh that's right. It's the same people involved in the whole scheme. Whether they are firms such as Goldman Sachs or Prince Charles or Queen Elizabeth. Same people pushing the same goals that all intersect. Do you think they are trying to save the planet, or their own skins?
I'll take skins for 1000 Alex! (think Jeopardy)
When you consider they also control the fed, then the circle jerk is even larger and more messy.
Remember the science too. Who funded it? Well for Britain, it was the same people. We publicly funded it, however the two sides were linked at the hip. Which should read, 2nd branch of crazy malthusian green agenda funded by american people for their own demise.
Now do we see any potential motivation for cooking the numbers?
They needed a scheme to make the derivatives work. Why not pull out the good old (global cooling, then global warming, now climate change) agenda in an attempt to legitimize the bailout, and also cover for it's effects.
You aren't living a poorer life Jimmy because of the 25 trillion in bailouts, and potentially 1400 more to come. No you're poor because we need to save the planet!
Oh and don't forget the couple of billion we threw to lazy unemployed people who wanted to be fired anyways. That was the straw that broke that 12 trillion dollar debt back. (yeah effen right)
If the masses will believe the latter, they'll sure believe the former.
Do people even know statistics and who and what DETERMINES the variables that go into a statistical model?
It's guess work. Yep, guess work. We account for this, because we feel it needs to be in there. We don't account for this. We weight this like this, and this like that. Generally speaking many of the variables and their weights are pretty obvious, but overall huge amounts are devoted to guess work.
Where they tinker with it for 10 years, trying to improve it, trying to get it 'more realistic' to reality or what reality the data set tries to tell us. But again, it's all guesswork, none of it is real, even if you can say it's 99 percent correlated, it still isn't REALITY. Plus again, that 99 percent output number, is heavily influenced by what the actual variables are, and how close (all of them together) are to reality. But they never really ARE reality. This is also the time where you say, a broken watch is right twice a day.
It's all subjective. It all can and HAS been made to follow the agenda. The data didn't determine the results, the agenda altered the process of using the data collected to ensure its goals were met.
Again, programmer's notes are blunt, but also to the point. They also need to tell you clearly what needs to happen or what you mean. So when they are talking about altering the data, and hiding stuff, that's what they mean. It wasn't some disclosure of somebody writing about notes which say a common industry trick was being talked about, and you just don't understand.
Sorry, the ONE thing I learned in MY programming classes, not the self taught 8 year old thing (which I did), but actual classes, is that those notes are your lifelines. You write specifically what's in there, so that you may tell the person reading it, sometimes yourself (later after you don't have the context in short term memory) what exactly you mean, so that you don't take out a comma some place in the code, and have to spend 10 hours finding it. Thus you give as much detail as you need, but not to waste it. But if you need it to get a point across, you do it. Clear, concise. Say what you mean in them, and mean what you say in them.
Remember this, those comments, aren't computer code. They are in //// sided out commentary done in PLAIN ENGLISH THAT ANYONE CAN READ.
Don't make your data fit your assumption. Make a determination off what the data actually says. Climategate shows the first was done, not the second. Thus it's tainted. Even if I wanted to believe, this is such an important thing, you must go on the facts. Not just any facts, but relevant facts. It's a fact that these people found there to be global warming. That's what it said they found. But is it what really occurred? You can't tell from their data/scenario.
Besides, as with ANY statistical model, it's all data fragments. It doesn't give you an actual case, it gives you ambiguous info about a situation that isn't the same as the model. Which means it's not reality, only a reflection of how reality MIGHT be. But again, if what was inputed was falsified, how could you trust the output?
In reality it's 0 or 1. You never have 0 or 1 in statistics. Therefore statistics must be used as a small weight among many other factors in a wide ranging suite of metrics to help in making an overall determination from them. It doesn't show reality. It shows an approximation about reality.
What climate gate represents was an attempt by the powers that be to alter data, get a result, say that result is irrefutable science, done by 100 percent certain scientific methods, and that undeniably we are warming, that it's human caused, it is beyond the normal evolution of the planet/sun system dynamic, and that we must then take concrete action to drive the price of anything that uses carbon up so much, that the target reductions are possible, by up to 80 percent by 2050, which would result in the reduction of industrial employment (beyond negative synergy that would occur) in the range of 7/8th of what the world currently has, and that is taking into consideration a 50 percent reduction via conservation and increased efficiency.
So why again would drastic, genocidal cutbacks in industry be done with a bunch of guesses piled on guesses, brought to you by people that are blinded by 100 percent belief in what they do?
Where are the other factors? Where is the suite of metrics we're using? Why is there only one, and it carries with it the weight to shut down the almost all business in the name of it's results? It's asinine.
Maybe because this is the only way to put humpty dumpty back together again (Derivatives). Except even it won't work. (and these things overall won't be allowed to happen...see India and China for starters.)
It's all inter-related. Climategate is the reason for Cap N trade, which is the way to get derivatives out of hock, or better yet, RECYCLE them, ha ha. Healthcare savings from IPAB, just a cherry on top to make sure it all works.
Again the problem isn't term limits. Term limits would let the seasoned pro's FEAST on rookies ALL DAY LONG. They'd all be lame duck (a HUGE percentage), and we'd have to force out our best congressmen. It's asinine to think term limits that again, would only be an attempt to block the symptom of the problem would take us to the finish line. Only a hope. One that sane minds realize has as many loopholes people can jump through it looks like a hula hoop factory.
The problem is money, you take on money.
When you have a flat tire, you don't push your car to the nearest gas station to get GAS, you go there in hopes they sell TIRES, and you buy TIRES, not get gas.
Or better yet, if you got robbed by your neighbor to the south, you don't take your shotgun up and start yelling to the neighbor to your north. Is this really that hard to understand?
Go after the lobbyists. Go after the 'money is free speech' supreme court decision. Go after public financing of political campaigns. Mandatory equal air time for all candidates legally running. If our country can't do that, and opts instead for a panecea in term limits, it has no future.
The answer isn't term limits. It's awareness. It's a collective awareness we don't yet have, that we must have soon. One that is achievable, and has been in the past, without twitter, and yet we only believe now that it isn't possible? It just shows how far down the road we go when we can't even realize our total suite of options.
It takes a caring, educated populace that has time to spend on their country as a cultural norm to foster a functioning Democratic Republic.
All that was said we lost that would catch up to us on this front, has not only caught up the past 9 years, but has pretty much buried us.
Besides the Queen has a losers attitude. A defeatist attitude. They believe man is the greatest problem to the world. I say they are.
They believe we cannot overcome what limits we currently hold. They want us to give up trying, and just give in. (of course they obviously don't UNDERSTAND statistics, but then again they never had to learn it given they don't have to work!) Of course science seems magical, they're idiots!
Remember had we stopped our scientific growth 100 years ago, we would of said the Earth can support 2 billion, no more, ever. Yet we DO now have almost 7 billion people, all because of technology capable of increasing how many people can be sustained was invented. Hell China's population today equal's the entire world's pretty much at one point in the 1800's.
The greatest leap of ingenuity won't be to go from Petroleum or Nuclear to Fission, it was from nothing to fire.
We've already wasted 40 years. Will we continue wasting time? Will we continue focusing on symptoms of the problems because they are easier to tackle than the real problem? Only to have to revisit the same issue over, and over, and over again. We're still fighting the 2004 political fights. It's asinine.
The rubber is starting to meet the road. It's going to get ugly as the momentum builds and congress does not act in the ways they were voted in for. The need for congress to act is far surpassing its ability to do so. (not in the concept, with the current practice amongst the current group of) That gap, is everything. Because that dynamic, will change everything.
Millions about to be *actually* kicked out, rather than just foreclosed on. Millions about to come off EUC over the next few months. The list we all know goes on and on.
Campaign finance isn't hard. Free air time by the network as a public service of being able to use the airwaves, or beamed through gov't built infrastructure, or simply just a law because we need it to be. Because the small cost incurred could save the country, literally. Because we don't want the one with the most 'free speech aka money' to win, we want the ones with the best ideas.
Disclosure: Life long democrat
Single Payer healthcare supporter
Voted for Obama (hoped his power meeting with bilderbergs and the Queen didn't change him, but it DID)
Yet I have the balls to say these things, because they are true.
I'll bash whatever side is acting like a dip, just like I did Bush. Obama is doing no favor for the public enacting sweetheart lobbyist type bills.
What was the middle part??
TLDR
Dude... your I certainly respect your opinions-- but that posting was way, way too long.
BTW, social trends can last a lot longer than you may think-- though a dramatic shakeup in middle class wealth could well change the social fabric on a dime. If that's the point you were trying to make... I think I agree.
The Supreme Court already has term limits. One term. From appointment to death...
does Robert Byrd even know where he is- or WHO he is?
was probably told that by signing he gets tapioca pudding for dessert
Realistic, if not rather polite.
I've heard he has his hearing aid up too loud on occasion. Okay, not really.
"does Robert Byrd even know where he is- or WHO he is?"
Huh?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V95eGgZbrU
Merkley did a fine job as meat puppet for the Senate staff. LOL
The benefits of this bill go into effect in 2014 and the 12 taxes take effect immediately. How the Rahmsters (lemmings) sell this one in November will be highly amusing to watch.
Rips the crap out of entrepreneurs, small firms. We will be at 10% unemployment all through 2010.
How great to vote them out next year...We will never have to see their vampiric faces again..
And who would you vote in? They are two sides of the same coin...
Let us see if the electorate can vote independents in numbers...
For starters Ron Paul for POTUS...We need younger blood across the board..Im a libertarian.
Yeah, me to, but I'm not naive enough to think a third party vote will do anything but re-elect Dummycrats.
I don't know about the two sides of the same coin argument. Certainly, public choice theory informs us that incentives are different for neither party. But, have you ever seen a Republican congress try to pass anything as heinous as this bill and crap and trade? I haven't. And after the left wing's hue and cry over the loss of habeas corpus in the patriot act, the first thing Hopey Changey did was announce he will keep all of the patriot act as is. Funny, considering his own wailing on the subject.
Your only viable choice in 2010 is Republicans. They're smarting from the 2008 loss, eager to listen and they at least don't recoil at the mere mention of free markets. Markets are cryptonite to the Dummycrats. Just don't let them control both the presidency and the congress for more than 2 years. Year 3 is where they start to get comfortable enough to turn into Dummycrats.
The demise of the healthcare reform occurred when the lobbyist-infected congress succeeded in identifitying it as an insurance problem ("not everyone has insurance") instead of a health care cost problem ("health care costs are too high"). Once that happened, real reform was dead on arrival. Rather than do what needs to be done, now big pharma, insurance, big health, etc. through the mantle of bi-partisanship are going to get everything they want wrapped in $$$s.
Outsourcing has even affected the Senate Parlimentarian.
The 2/3 requirement is to end debate on a rules change, the 60 vote requirement (actually 60% of all seated senators) is required to end debate for other matters.
Apples and oranges.
I think Demint's point was there's a rules change in the bill itself that attemps to bind future congresses.
LIMITATION ON CHANGES TO THIS 16 SUBSECTION.—It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.
WAIVER.—This paragraph may be waived or suspended in the Senate only by the affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members, duly chosen and sworn.
Point of Privilege.
If the taxpayer were to lay on the table,
And the distinguished gentleman were to take from the table,
Would not the informal consideration of the taxpayer's children be,
Amended and either,
Postponed to a certain time or actually,
Postponed indefinitely? Or rather to
Divide the question, the
Main motion of stoli, cat food and a sympathy card in lieu of suspending the rules is the
Order of the day.
This is nothing new. They did the same 60 vote thing on the Reprehensive Immigration bill over a year ago, only that time they couldn't muster 60 votes. And that was during a Bush administration which was hot to trot on bringing in cheap labor while unemployment was rising.
You'll see the same rules next year, when they try to pass La Raza's pet project again.
There are two very sad points to this whole fiasco, #1 the darn bill is so complicated even they can't figure it out, and #2 once the sheeple allow this to take affect the serial deadbeats will not buy insurance and we will still be paying for them. Just like now when someone without auto insurance hits your car, you pay for it though your premiums. That is why most americans have comp and collision, because you are on your own if a deadbeat without auto insurance totals your car. The deadbeat really doesn't suffer any consequence's. Where is the personal responsibility in this country?
Sorry, dood, but you just don't get it!
This is simply a bailout of the insurance industry and a windfall for the pharmaceuticals --- it establishes mandatory purchase of private insurance while forcing the taxpayer to underwrite their insurance exchanges, which they will then do their leveraged speculation on with their newly minted mortality derivatives and mortality-linked securities.
And they claim we're getting a royal benny by not having "pre-existing conditions" not denied.
Huuuuhhhhh????
You can't legally mandate the purchase of private insurance, then arbitrarily exclude specific groups within that same population without nullifying the legal mandate and throwing the entire legislation into the federal circuit courts.
And that the insurance industry doesn't want --- they might rule them to be nothing more than a public utility --- as public utilities are likewise subsidized by the gov't.
And there's nothing in either bill to preclude the insurance industry of doing what they normally do to realize their biggest profits: denial of treatment. (That is where the real ROI comes in, we pay their premiums --- they then deny treatment, claiming certain types of treatment are excluded under their "coverage.")
Get the big picture now?????
The good Sgt wins.
Yep. The big picture is that this is just a tax.
You pay the tax (premium) and then get your spouse to take an extra job (likely abroad, none to be had here) to pay for any actual medical treatment which you will have to fly to India to get.
Brilliant.
The tax hikes that are coming down the road over the next 24 months are going to be stunning.
"Where is the personal responsibility in this country?"
it's hangin out with the gold in ft. knox.
I believe you mean the tungsten bars covered in gold. :)
As we all know, until you can prove there are actual bars of gold via an audit including the gold content of said bars, the USA has only tungsten bars.... if even that!
we are watching the end of atleast the Democratic Party if not the United States of America.
As Charleton Heston yelled out in the movie "Planet of the Apes" as he came around the bend on Horse Back and saw the Statute of Liberty sunk below the waters, "They did it....They did it"
What we are watching is a State Senator selling the American public on his ability to be the leader of the free world whose words are nothing more than Bernie claiming he will generate a 10% retutn year over year.
Shame on us for selling out our Country and our children. I am truly embarassed as a citizen of the United States of America.
How close will we come to having the US Army jeeps and tanks climb the stairs of our halls of Governement in Washington DC as the military states that they have taken control of the government until a new congress can be formed to take managment of the Country back for the people.
The only problem is that this is exactly how Hitler came to power in germany pre world war II.
What a shame.
"Damn filthy apes!"
don't forget that one
And we call it democracy where we change the rules along with the legislation to pass same legislation. Did i get it wrong.
Ok, so I'm new here - best site I've ever found. Incredible. Just want to say the math problem in order to post is genius... As for healthcare - I'm anxious to see how much states like Texas, Utah, Alaska, etc. take before we see secession from the union and civil war of some sort take shape!?
I say let them all secede.
Utah is by far the weirdest and creepiest state in the union...
Alaska believes in no welfare, except to its own citizens.
And Texas, well don't mess with them. Why, there's signs all over the state to tell you just that.
"Our rules mean nothing"
And he even manages to sound shocked and saddened.
I have to disagree with those saying this is the end of the Democrat party. This is the same old tune that's played out year after year, decade after decade. Lucky for the political class, the average American's attention span for politics is about 90-120 days. The Dems were hated and overthrown in '94. The Reps were hated and overthrown in '06 and '08. It's the same shit over and over like a broken record. Even if the Reps take back the house and senate in '10, it's just a matter of time before they screw the pooch again. We're like a bunch of battered wives getting our asses kicked over and over. This time is different, right? Oh, they're sincere this time, right? Bullshit. The CFR pulls the strings of both parties which are both chock full of Keynesian statists, and the serfs are only left with the illusion of choice. So shut the fuck up and watch some more TV. Football is here and soon enough it will be time for March Madness. The PTB only need to invent a popular sport to distract the masses during the summer months since baseball and NASCAR don't really qualify as bloodsports.
You said it well brother! The rest is all venting :)
You are mistaken foilman...Youtube is here to remind us of how they screw the pooch! Facebook elected our Potus..
Im sure Beck/O'Reilly will play each and every video...
Exactly right. Nothing has changed. Go back and read the news. New generation with hope then they become jaded. Politics and corruption as old as prostitution. Its truly incredible and nothing will change this until the people rise up. Look at Ghandi, Ukraine election, segregation in America, ect...these things changed because people were willing to stand up against it, not because of the powers that be .
on this point, i have to say, i am absolutely amazed that there hasnt been more rising up of the peoples. I am utterly shocked. The american people are just laying on their backs, whimpering. disgusting, really.
atlas shrugged.
marla, spinning tonight?
I wonder if I stand outside the senate with a baseball bat to intimidate the Senate if the DOJ would give me a break like he did with the Black Panthers.
DEMINT: and so the language you see in this bill that specifically refers to a change in a rule is not a rule change, it’s a procedure change?
THE PRESIDING OFFICER: that is correct.
It is Classic. Should be a tag line for most.
Sad to see ZH go to the blatantly partisan hack stuff. "Rushed to a vote" is the latest right wing talking point on this -- fact is, health reform should have addressed in 1994 and wasn't. We're way behind every civilized nation on the planet. Anyone telling you that this was a "rush job" is rich entitled fart receiving huge campaign contributions from insurances companies and banks.
The CEO of Cigna is retiring with a 78 million dollar golden parachute, Marla. When will you be addressing this abomination?
You missed the point. This "healthcare" bill is just a big tax hike. Penalties for not buying health insurance start piling up long before any "benefits" are scheduled in 2014. So, the feds just change the rules before 2014 and POOF!!.......all those penalty dollars just disappear into the treasury to finance the next election (or whatever corruption is needed at that time). Do you get it now?
Hey, you need a nickel to buy yourself a real name, you socialist punk?
Why should I pay for your root canal?? Learn to use a toothbrush, or get used to chewing on the other side.
Sheesh!! Healthcare is a right! Other people ---- doctors/nurses/specialists--have a duty to give me healthcare. Because that's the way they do it in Sweden.
Hi Anonymous! Thanks for writing in. I'll address your points (such as they are) one by one.
"Blatantly partisan..."
I don't really follow. True, DeMint is a Republican. True, the Presiding Officer was a Democrat. That's about it. You, of course, have no idea what my political leanings are other than to point out that, in this particular post, I appear to be (indeed I am) siding with DeMint (a Republican). Actually, it's pretty pompous of you to tout those kinds of assumptions as if you know me personally. You also happen to be quite wrong. In fact, I generally hate bone fide Republicans. (I'd like my uterus to remain mine, for instance). The reality is that because both this debate and this bill are totally polarized taking any position at all is technically "partisan." I'm not the one making it so. Consider:
Please name one piece of legislation with expenditures this size (or perhaps within 50% of the GDP ratio of this bill's expenditures) that was passed on strict party lines.
Please name one piece of legislation that actually prompted a constitutionality roll call vote that split exactly down party lines.
I'm not the polarizing force here. If merely commenting on the bill, the gambits used to pass it and posting a video that would seem, even to the legally trained, to show a rather flagrant disregard for Senate rules makes me "blatantly partisan" or a "hack" or even a "blatantly partisan hack," well, I think the speed with which you are prone to assign that label is telling- and I'm going with I'm not the problem here. I notice, by the way, that you didn't comment on the video or have anything substantive to add with respect to the Senate rules. Why is that exactly?
"the latest right wing talking point on this."
Guilt by association, number one. Assumes the villainy of the (here undefined) "right wing," number two. Use of pejorative "talking point," to attempt to pigeonhole your opponent (that's me) into the realm of hired political consultant (that's not). Totally silent on the merits of the argument. All in all not the best showing for you.
Assuming for sake of argument for a moment that "rushed to a vote" is in fact a "right wing talking point," that says very little about the veracity of the argument itself. Nothing at all about the timetable of the bill or its relative length compared to other legislation of this weight. Unless you want to make the argument (and provide data) showing that "right wing talking points" (as if there is a weekly memo summarizing them that I somehow got on the mailing list for) are universally false or deficient, you are just spouting nonsense. Or are you making that argument? Really, you devolved the discussion here to "Well maybe but... uh... DICK CHENEY!" I'm not impressed. Nor should Zero Hedge readers be.
Let's examine "rushed to vote." After weeks of closed door wrangling we were presented with a massive (2074 page) bill and then, just three days ago, a 383 page "manager's amendment." Just so we understand what's being discussed here and that we aren't talking about "See Jane run," here's a sample:
This "simple" paragraph, not even 1/4 of a page requires the reader to cross reference three subsections, the Social Security Act, the definition of "Secretary," and wait for the Secretary's determination on quality measures. (I think).
Now wade through 2074 pages of that. Then dive into the 383 page manager's amendment with passages like:
You've got till morning. Tell me what it means. Not rushed. Are you fucking kidding me?
I'm partisan? The "fact" is that heath reform should have [been] addressed in 1994? You mean health insurance reform? Health care reform? Healthy eating reform? This is your opinion. Not fact.
Just asserting this doesn't make it true and failing to define even a hint of the criteria you want to use (The UN happiness index perhaps? 'cause Iceland ranks high there) just makes your comment meaningless and contentless. You've hastened the heat death of the universe by substantially contributing to entropy when you type meaningless tripe like this.
This was a rush job. Can I have my contributions now?
Not enough facts. But that's probably because you don't even know them, or you didn't bother to look them up.
I suppose I am to recoil in some kind of horror simply because someone got paid $78 million without any other details? Go pick on a lottery winner if your sense of fairness is that badly offended. Or is it merely the fact that Cigna is an insurance company. This fact, I expect, is supposed to make me quake with hatred and froth at the mouth while screaming for vigilante justice? How crude. As to the number... I suppose some figure wouldn't bother you. What figure is that exactly? Is that $77 million? $77 thousand? $77?
Spare me, no, spare us your arbitrary salary outrage.
I assume the example you you meant to invoke was Ed Hanway's retirement, pension and deferred compensation lump-sum which he is collecting after 31 years with the NYSE listed company which, since he has been there, has grown to a $10 billion market cap firm. You don't get to have both performance linked and deferred compensation and bitch about large retirement payouts. Especially after 31 years. Of course, the vast majority of this sum is in the form of equity and options which Ed has collected over decades and which are (quite obviously) linked directly to the returns he provided to his stockholders. What is it you are proposing, exactly? That we storm Cigna's headquarters and pillage their 6.3% pre-crisis (2007) net profit margin and give it to the poor? (Let me know how that works out for you, and how much capital is left around to feed your lust for debt 4 weeks after you pull the populist rage stunt).
You're going to have to do better than simple barbarian responses to notions of marxist "capitalist greed" or crude "anti-insurance company" nonsense here on Zero Hedge. Don't think that just because we think Geithner and Paulson are morons and Obama is way out of his league that we aren't capitalists.
there's a little bit of smoke coming out the back of my monitor now.
I respectfully submit that you are my hero. Your post has engendered a bit of hope that all is not totally lost if there is at least one person who is able to reason and write as well as this post indicates.
Thank you.
marla, can you put in an account 'preference' that uses a white font (or one we choose) for anonymous postings?
i don't care who the 'anonymous' is, as pseudonyms are the norm, but i think it would be cool to have their stuff just be blank or blinking purple or something...
well written, btw.
Marla: greatest reply ever.
hats off; yet again.
wow.
either crack a window or just don't inhale too much of that utterly intoxicating prose ~ CoAl2O4.
marry me?
Hats off to Marla! CASE CLOSED!
ha ha ha ha I love you Marla-- anyone who ever followed in a granular sense this legislation and the "process" applauds you--
That spanking shouldn't have sounded as good as it did! I think I'm officially aroused now!
Anonymous, meet Can o' Whoopass.
game, set and match. best beatdown/retort ever.
"You've hastened the heat death of the universe by substantially contributing to entropy when you type meaningless tripe like this."
true dat, but don't let al gore get wind of it. lol
I'm a ~$40k /yr. musician - not a rich entitled fart, and I'm telling you it's a rush job, a gigantic screwing for all of us, and that you are full of shit!
Phuck you. Since when is it the taxpayers responsibility to subsidizeevery Tom, Dick and phucking Harry that can't do for themselves.
I'm telling you it was a rush (stick up the taxpayers ass) job and guarantee you I am not a "rich entitled fart receiving huge campaign contributions from insurances companies and banks".
This thing stinks down into Hell - it's nothing but political bullshit of the lowest form and the sorry phucks that the bleeding hearts want you pinheads to believe they are helping will still not get insurance or medical care or both.
Great blog, BTW, Ms. Marla....
Silly kids, rules are for punks. You been punked
Jim DeMint is a rising star. Probably the best there is in the Senate. Keep him on your radar screen
when the party say jump we ask how... high.
Best rant ever Marla, that's the Christmas Spirit we all love. Back to the Egg Nog for me
Best Rant ever, thank for that one Marla, back to the Egg Nog for me!!!
If only the superior minds in here could team up with all the superior minds in DC, then surely this country would have all its problems solved!
Pompous much?
It takes 60 votes to achieve a cloture vote. Not 2/3rds. 60.
That's not a new rule. It's the rule.
Go fish.
First, I find it absolutely fucking hilarious that any senator has the temerity to complain about rules not being followed, when Congress itself, and each and every congressman (with shockingly few exceptions) is the master of ignoring rules he or she doesn't like, namely the U.S. Constitution. They always have, and they always will. Where does it say, for example, that we can invade and then occupy a foreign nation that has neither attacked us nor our shipping/trade, either because we want to, we claim they're going to attack us at some unknown future time, or because the UN wants us to?
DeMint: "I guess the rules don't matter." Well, wah fucking wah. I get arbitrary and capricious government rules shoved up my ass every goddamned day of my life, you stupid fuck. You and your class ARE the problem, and you will never be the solution.
Second, of course health care "reform" is a tax increase. It was always meant to be one; we will all pay more and get less, the delta accruing to dot gov. It is a global display of fiscal responsibility; we will save the Treasury market by raising taxes. Once federal control of health care is cemented into place, waiting for services / unavailbility will become rampant as costs are cut to attempt to control deficits.
http://seekingalpha.com/author/sw-richmond/comment/560098
If private capital means anything, deficits DO matter, and governments are under tremendous pressure to raise revenues during a downturn in order to show fiscal restraint. We must see Obamacare for what it is: Obamacare is a tax increase masquerading as universal health care. We will all pay more and get less, the difference accruing to the government's balance sheet. Isn't that obvious? Jun 24 07:48 am
The only viable solution to this mess is nullification, ending in secession.
Congress can increase taxes all it wants. The real challenge is increasing tax revenue.
I find little incentive to work harder next year when my tax rate will go up by as much as 10 percentage points. I'm firing people and scaling down my business and so are a few other businesses I happen to be familiar with.
I also predict fewer taxable events. For instance, I see more bartering deals between people. Perhaps a plumber will exchange his services for some medical care from his doctor or the doctor will have a seemstress make a custom wedding gown for his daughter's wedding in exchange for medical care. These exchanges are far too difficult for the government to find and track. The people who will lose out are the poor and unskilled who have nothing of much value to offer. They will get to experience the fun of dying on wait lists.
60 years of TV has anesthetised us into inaction. We can watch and understand an injustice, but cannot act on it; we only comment on how bizarre the world is that such an event has come to pass in the first place, and flick the channels .......................
The only good thing as a by-product of what has been happening in Washington & Wall St. is that the general public are coming to see that the rule of law has been inexorably cheapened, and need not necessarily be obeyed by the rest of us either.
Perhaps you won't need to pay for healthcare insurance, and you won't have to meet your mortgage obligations; perhaps the cash economy will mean you don't have to pay your taxes either.
Those in power that have sown the wind with their corruption, greed and incompetence, may live to reap the whirlwind.
Merry Christmas to all the footsoldiers, it has been a privilege to read this site in 2009.
Please, Lord - for Christmas: could someone (Texas, Alaska, I'm looking in your directions) please leave the union and provide me with at least the hope that I can leave Massachusetts for someplace potentially better?
BTW, this disaster is essentially the Masschusetts experience for the last 3 years - and enormously expensive epic failure on all counts. But then again it was all about piling-up 4-years of cash and adding ever more IOUs around the public's neck - and never about actual healthcare. So why should I be surprised?
The scene--Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid sit down to cut the final health care deal "in conference":
Nancy, cross-eyed and slathered in cold cream, stalks into Reid's bedroom in the middle of the night and discovers one of the Harry's trousers hanging on a wire hanger. Nancy launches into a tirade, screaming, "I told you! No wire hangers, ever!". She viciously tears apart his closet and hits Harry with the hanger. Nancy then decides Harry's bathroom is not spotlessly clean (though it is only slightly dusty). Furious that Harry doesn't understand her notion of cleanliness, Nancy wrecks the bathroom as well, throwing scouring powder and hurling the cleanser everywhere, telling him to clean it up. Rahm gets out of bed wanting to help, but Harry tells him to go back to bed, as Nancy will "kill [him]". (Apologies to Mommy Dearest)
Can you say Banana Republic.....
Lots of smoke & mirrors here.
When do WE THE PEOPLE get to read this fantastic and historical piece of legislation?????
Can anyone tell me if the health insurers will continue to enjoy the anti-trust exemption???????
Because that is the first item that needs to be fixed buy any "health care reform". But we haven't heard much about it all through the dog and pony show. Wonder why????????????
There was no time to spare, the carbon being burnt by AF1 idling at Andrews ready to wing to a tropical non-denominational winter solstice celebration of capitalistic consumption was going to spend all our carbon credits for the next decade.