Report: GOP trying to torpedo Vitter amendment to repeal O-Care?; Update: Dems reject Coburn’s Viagra amendment
posted at 8:59 pm on March 24, 2010 by Allahpundit
Red State has the red siren up. But why?
Senate sources confirm to me this evening that Senator Mitch McConnell and his leadership team are trying to scuttle Republican efforts to force a vote on repeal of the entire health care legislation during the reconciliation process. I’m told reliably that moderate Republican senators who voted against Obamacare in December do not want to vote against it again because it would just be “symbolic”.
I assume the outrage here is due to the squishy RINOs not wanting to piss off blue-staters with another vote on the record against O-Care. I’m skeptical of that — they already bit the bullet in December and the bill hasn’t gotten appreciably more popular since then, so why blink now? — but assuming it’s true, how about patting ‘em on the back for having hung together with the party and sparing them a vote they don’t want to take? Vitter’s amendment accomplishes nothing: Like every GOP proposal offered in tonight’s vote-o-rama, it’s doomed to fail, but unlike most of the others, it won’t even succeed in making Democrats squirm. Coburn had the right idea with the Viagra amendment, as that’s at least potentially useful in attack ads. What does Vitter’s amendment do except remind people that, yes indeed, the Senate still supports the bill that it passed three months ago?
Here’s the full list of amendments, by the way, and here’s the updated roll call on amendments voted on thus far. Nothing yet on the Viagra amendment but that’ll be a golden moment. Consider this an open thread if you’re tuned into C-SPAN2 and following along. A little mood music for you while you watch…
Update: Via AHFF Geoff, let me be the first to say, “Why do Democrats want rapists to have Viagra?”
Democratic Sen. Max Baucus urged his colleagues to defeat the amendment.
“This is a serious bill. This is a serious debate. The amendment offered by the senator from Oklahoma makes a mockery of the Senate, the debate and the American people. It is not a serious amendment. It is a crass political stunt aimed at making 30-second commercials, not public policy,” he said.
Final tally: 57-42. Evan Bayh and Ben Nelson voted with the GOP. (Johnny Isakson isn’t there tonight, so there are only 40 Republicans.)
Blowback
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As the economy tanked, foreclosures grew, bankruptcies escalated, and people committed suicide rather than face eviction: The Dems Voted For Sex Pills For Perverts!
October 2010 radio loop.
profitsbeard on March 25, 2010 at 1:07 AM
I hope that you and your family suffer under the Obamanation.
Cheers!
daesleeper on March 25, 2010 at 1:08 AM
Right on.
And, not to feed the troll, but:
…Are you eff’ing kidding me? “It’s a challenge”? If you’ve struggled your life to maintain a solid career (mine, largely in part, so that I could have health insurance, so I could care for my family), it’s not just mere “challenge” to choose where to live. Depending on your job and life circumstances, you might have that option.
I can imagine the discussion I would have with my wife: “Hey honey, I know that I’d be giving up my salary, you’d have to quit your job, and we could have a lapse in insurance, as well as have to house-hunt from another state, including saving enough for a few months rent ahead of time….but I’d like to move. California is just too liberal for me. Is this okay with you?”
And I will be the first to admit: I’m far better off than those stuck in Detroit. Despite all of that, at least, if we pulled every financial string we had, we could pull it off. I can’t imagine how it would like for those that live paycheck to paycheck, barely affording that week’s groceries, much less the cost of moving.
You make it sounds like, “wave a magic wand, and you can live anywhere you want! Why can’t those poor souls in Detroit do that?”
CatsGodot on March 25, 2010 at 1:20 AM
Unfortunately, a majority of “those poor souls in Detroit” agree with the democrat/liberal utopia they live in … it’s just that it is not working out. If they move somewhere that has a better economic base, they will just try to screw it up like the one they have now. Welfare bloodsuckers and income redistribution believers, all. Unfortunately, a whole bunch of them, and illegals, have moved here (California), have bankrupted the state, and now want more of the same. My family has been here multi generations, but I’m leaving this pit. When the only advantage is weather, the hell with it. Everybody talks about crazy Californians…most of them are transplants/your old neighbors. Thanks a lot for educating them to be statists.
keldog on March 25, 2010 at 2:32 AM
REpubs need new leadership. McConnell is not effective and and JOhn B clearly cannot stir a bowl of soup. Repubs have been terrible with poltical strategy. There is no way that this OBama/Pelosi/Reid crap should have passed. We need someone much better at PR and it is not Karl Rove, he gave us a political climate that gave use Obama and Pelosi
georgealbert on March 25, 2010 at 3:25 AM
ANOTHER VOTE
The Senate Reps. found a couple of “problems” with obamacare and got the Parliamentarian to agree…Back to the
futureHouse…Gohawgs on March 25, 2010 at 3:39 AM
Is it me or is McConnell looking more and more like Herman Munster?
Gohawgs on March 25, 2010 at 5:14 AM
Damn, right you can live anywhere you want in the USA. Packing up and moving to greener pastures is about as American as apple pie. Tough times make tough people. Whiners, whether in Detroit or elsewhere, should shutup and get busy.
And, yes, I’m probably going to be packing up my family, cats and horse and heading on out too… It’s not a job; it’s an adventure.
BTW, to honor that long struggle building a solid career, here’s a small reward.
rcl on March 25, 2010 at 5:58 AM
Why do I get the feeling that all this posturing by Republicans is that they are afraid in the upcoming mid-term elections a lot of people are going to be saying “Why didn`t you fight harder to stop or change ObamaCare before it became law????”
albill on March 25, 2010 at 7:41 AM
California, the land where the Republicans decided they could just ‘live with’ the Nanny State and the people kept on encouraging them to do so.
Its not working out very well there, is it, going down the financial tubes and all… so why should the Nation copy a failed model. Romneycare is a wonderful template for O-care, and it is causing increased costs, longer waits, poorer service and still not ‘fixing’ the problem. And since the State guarantees those costs, it is going bankrupt, like CA. Again the Republican party decided it was better to ‘manage’ Big Government than take a chainsaw to it. And yet I hear so much concern that the Republicans should follow that lead.
The Democratic Party got rid of the people who wanted to fight for the Nation, were willing to listen to reason on government services and knew that a balance must be struck so as to ensure the liberty of the citizens. When the Democratic Party turned on Viet Nam those people left the party in droves and never came back for that was an unforgiveable sin. That started the era when participation in elections started a harsh and steep decline to where only 51-52% actually voted in the last Presidential election. That is near the Civil War era when half the country wasn’t voting.
The Republicans turned Progressive in the early part of the 20th century and conservatives, even then, were castigated for wanting State’s rights and personal freedom. TR said as much in his autobiography and was glad to have turned the Republican Party into a Progressive party. Left Progressives and Right Progressives both end you up with larger, more officious, less effective, less accountable, and more costly government.
Now the Progressives have stepped into the ruined battlefield they chose because it was a landmark, not an objective. Health care needs to be brought up, continuously, to have its supporters waste time and energy on it… and to draw in other legislation into that killing field. The process was rent asunder and that must be dealt with – that is the battlefield that the Left Progressives have wanted. Time to invite their legislation in with far better preparation and the understanding that ‘bi-partisanship’ has been a brokering of our liberty between factions of Progressivists, and always bartered away. They have wanted this landmark, and it is time to trap them in a useless process that yields bitter, hard fought and well defined results.
Give Americans a choice between sweet seducers who poison you or those willing to fight for you. Partisanship is good for America, and encourages a diversity of political thought. This Progressive monoculture weed has to go back into the crabgrass… the Crabgrass folks know how to deal with their sort.
ajacksonian on March 25, 2010 at 7:46 AM
Doing a Jimmy Stewart impression.
John Deaux on March 25, 2010 at 8:16 AM
Great. So AnninCA has left the state that she helped corrupt, and is now in the process of bringing her liberal vote to Texas, where she can ruin that state as well.
All liberals should be forced to stay in the states that they ruin, and drink the bitter cup that they produce. That’s justice.
fossten on March 25, 2010 at 8:30 AM
That’s exactly what happens. They leave California because it costs too much and then move to Texas and demand Texas start giving them the same benefits that CA did but without the expanding cost of living.
In other words, they are parasites.
uknowmorethanme on March 25, 2010 at 8:40 AM
For all those that want to subsidize their own mediocrity with the sweat and toil of others, I have a question:
What happens when there are no more stores to loot?
spmat on March 25, 2010 at 9:40 AM
AnninCA,
Pro-tip: You don’t deserve a comfortable living. The people that struggled to put you where you are didn’t deserve a comfortable living, either. They had to work hard for it.
You want a comfortable life on the backs of others. You should be ashamed of yourself.
spmat on March 25, 2010 at 9:45 AM
Your absolutely correct that socialism is unsustainable, it has been proven time and time again.
But the fact remains that socialism is the path we are on and the current crop of liberals are all to willing to play to the dumb masses to get their votes for free stuff. Pinnochio has come to divide and conquer and tear up the constitution and bury the free market.
They have told us so. Remember the dancing and high fiveing when the trillion dollar stimulus passed they told us they were dancing on the remaims of capitalism and John McCain suspended his pathetic campaign to join them, (in tarp).
They fully intend to bring down the country as we know it and remake it in the socialist tradition. Tell the citizens of Detroit that economies do not collapse!
Under socialism all are equally poor except the ruling class eventually. That is the goal, a dependent class who will vote for the handouts!
For shame that big pharma and big insurance bought in. The payoff to pharma for their 90 billion contribution to close the donut hole?
A mandate that perscription drugs must be purchased after the hole closes. Discounted drugs for medicare recipients!
Big insurance?
A mandate to buy healthcare policies.
dhunter on March 25, 2010 at 10:41 AM
I agree, this isn’t how laws are passed. Debate, discussion and votes?
Where is the graft, the backroom deals, the bribes, the threats and intimidation? Why is the amendment short enough to read easily and actually read before voting?
This is a mockery of law. Until you get a super-long amendment nobody has time to read, bribery, graft, intimidation, backroom deals, and a hurry-up vote before anyone knows what the amendment might even do; you’re just making a joke of the whole thing.
It’s insulting to think an open vote on a clear amendment without any kickbacks would even be offered.
gekkobear on March 25, 2010 at 11:42 AM
Ditto for Massachusetts. They’re moving over the border to NH and wrecking that state too.
NickelAndDime on March 25, 2010 at 12:59 PM
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