Thu, 11/06/2008 - 11:14pm — lambert
Yeah, I paraphrased. Sue me. MSNBC:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is seeking to limit expectations on what a new Democratic regime will be able to achieve in the 111th Congress.
"We have to choose our priorities" and decide "what is achievable," Pelosi told reporters this morning, adding: "A lot of it is about time." She saied that the current economic conditions and budget deficit "are going to make it harder" to do some big things dear to Democrats, like comprehensive health care reform, but said that smaller, "discrete," initiatives, i.e. SCHIP and stem cell funding, could be done quickly.
Meet the new Beltway Dems!
Same as the old Beltway Dems...
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Nancy Pelosi: Limiting Expectations...
...since 2006. What else is new? There is always an excuse; there will always be an excuse. It's not even worth being mad about, anymore, especially since they all have apparent "mandates for change," now.
Please, everyone keep count of how many times you hear the word "accountability" over the coming months and years. I suspect it will be heard few and far between.
But, we've always been at war with Eastasia...
Wha??
Don't they get to elect the speaker? Why the f-ck would anyone keep her as figurehead? What has she ever done except capitulate or not investigate WH cronies?
Isn't that the whole job?
To capitulate and not investigate WH cronies?
Besides, with Obama's re-election campaign so close, is it really time to test the waters on the big issues?
dear nancy: HR 676
expanding medicare to cover every single person in the country solves so many problems.
-- everybody can get health care.
-- bringing young, healthy people [and their money!] into the pool is the fastest way to shore up medicare's ailing funding.
-- medicare is a proven system, having been in place for more than 40 years now; no need to design and set up any new plans or programs.
-- we can do this without spending any more money than we're already spending, since this will cut out the layers and layers of waste and bureaucracy that the insurance industry has introduced into the system.
To add to your list
- freeing up many people to start new businesses because they won't have to fear losing health care for themselves, their families and their employees. There will be far more innovation allowed, instead of people being stifled in those huge corporations that discourage innovation.
- adding many more new health care jobs because there will need to be many more people providing services to all those people that haven't been getting health care
- slowing the rate of foreclosures by stopping the bankruptcies that have been happening from overwhelming medical bills
In fact, that one thing, universal health care, would probably make more difference in a ripple effect throughout the economy than many other things that could be done. That's not to mention it's just the right thing to do!
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot." - Albert Einstein
excellent additions
thank you. i'll be using them in my letters, emails, faxes, phone calls.
Hipparchia, please, PLEASE post these letters
Treat each one as a story -- tell us about them.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
ok... starting tomorrow
went out to dinner tonight with a bunch of lefty friends -- salad bar and clam chowder and a glass of white wine, steak and cheese grits and green beans and a glass of red wine, dessert and coffee and finally let the conversation drift around to recent political events -- so i'm not going to even contemplate harshing my mellow tonight.
A classic example of the case for the serial comma
Hipparchia, you wrote:
"white wine, steak and cheese grits "
and being from Philly, I immediately thought of "steak and cheese" as a single culinary unit, and asked "What the heck does that have to do with grits"
whereas:
"white wine, steak, and cheese grits"
is without ambiguity. Heh.
Sounds like you enjoyed dinner, though. Good food is good!
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
disambiguation
first course [colon] salad bar [comma] clam chowder [comma[or not]] [conjunction] glass of white wine [enter] second course [colon] steak [comma] cheese grits [comma] green beans [comma [or not]] [conjunction] glass of red wine [enter]
;)
damned cultural contexts. any self-respecting southerner would have read that as steak and cheese grits without even noticing.
oh... yes, it was a lovely dinner.
Victor Borge lives!
It sounds yummy, Hipparchia ...
but then again, I'd've been happy with salad bar, steak, cheese grits and green beans, accompanied by either sweet tea or good coffee.
cheese grits. mmmm. recipe?
'cause, you know, I need to know if they were white or yellow, if it was Cheddar or Muenster or maybe even chevre, and did the chef use garlic? Were they baked? Or were they the perfect cheese grits, which are thrice-cooked and end up in a lovely toasted cake on your plate, with a crunchy outside and a creamy middle?
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
My personal style and usage guide
It's OK to freely split infinitives, it's admirable to use serial commas, and prepositions are fine to end sentences with.
Serial commas! Damn straight!
I do so agree--I hate looking at phrases and wondering exactly what the writer meant. Which is where that third comma in a series come in. I think newspapers pushed the disuse of the serial comma to save newsprint and ink.
Has been driving me crazy (very mildly) for years!
Allowances are made for writers writing with a mild buzz--or in a great rush. Sounds like a nice evening, Hipparchia.
Of course, that could have been a dish made with grits and added cheese and bits of steak mixed in, right? So, what kind of cheese? It was actually cheese grits, right? (I think I should eat some lunch--I'm feeling quite hungry reading about this topic. I don't even have grits in the house! [Jawbone exits stage left to kitchen.])
HR 676 save $350 BILLION a year
Everytime someone talks about cost, remind them that HR 676 will save $350 BILLION a year.
Does HR 676 put the health-insurance co's out of business?
Please, please, pretty please!
!!! YES !!!
there is a provision for non-profit HMOs to remain, i think, since true HMOs aren't just health insurance but also own their own hospitals, clinics, etc, and their doctors are salaried staff.
this is why i keep pushing hr 676. we've proven to be spectacularly bad at regulating the health insurance companies, so we need to just dump them [though they'll be allowed to offer supplemental insurance for stuff like cosmetic surgery, so they won't be quite gone].
"Health Insurers Prime for New Business With Democratic Rule"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB12259375...
-- "Health insurers are priming themselves to gain new business from policy changes likely to be approved with Democrats in control of Washington.
Democrats are expected to expand federal programs that cover low-income children and adults, groups that insurers are increasingly contracted to administer via private Medicaid plans. More funding for those programs could offset further cuts of government reimbursement made to private Medicare plans, for which the industry has been bracing. Other moves to reduce the number of uninsured also could boost the individual insurance market, which insurers also have been expanding into.
A research report issued by Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. this week estimates that health-insurance industry's revenue could actually grow slightly more ..."
i thought the $350 billion
was going to be spent converting the for-profit hospitals to non-profits.
As I've said once already
Is everybody (where by "everybody" I now mean Nancy Pelosi) being deliberately stupid about single-payer? We must take care of the health care crisis as part of fixing the economy.
And how can we hammer the message home that we can't afford not to have single-payer? This needs to be way more visible and to be made a commonplace, mainstream solution. We need to find a way to take over the national conversation about health care. (No, I don't ask much! Heh.)
One thing: meetings with our Congress critters and Senators. This stuff really does work. (My own Congressperson is already on board.)
(Single Payer is going to be part 2 of my Work To Do! series. But I don't have any other good ideas yet, so input is greatly welcome.)
---------------
We can't afford not to have single-payer!
---------------
We can't afford not to have single-payer!
Ooh ooh ooh!
I've got an idea!
We need our own trolls! Only, instead of being trolls, they'll be people with this really good idea about single-payer health care, and they push it in a totally non-dismissable way on threads all over the interwebs.
An all-volunteer army for single payer health care!
Dang, I wish I could pay you guys.
---------------
We can't afford not to have single-payer!
---------------
We can't afford not to have single-payer!
Who Exactly Are We Talking To?
I'm a bit confused. lol
But, we've always been at war with Eastasia...
What Grand Moff Texan said
applies to Pelosi, equally as to the GOP, from where I stand.
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
Reid too-- just incoherent --
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?do... --
"NSKEEP: When Senator Obama was asked during the campaign, “What priority will you give up, given that the financial crisis is eating up so much of the federal revenue?” Senator Obama said, and I may be oversimplifying a bit, but essentially said, “I want to hold on to all the priorities, just we may have to delay some of them.”
Speaking as the guy who would actually have to get those priorities enacted into law and make the numbers make sense, do you think that Senator Obama can still deliver on his core promises, like expanded health care for millions of Americans?
REID: We have no alternative. We have 50 million people approximately that have no health insurance. Do we have to do something about the environment? Of course we do. How are we going to do that? By moving to renewable fuels. There’s so many things if we do it right that we will save the taxpayers money and have a much more efficient government.
INSKEEP: Do you think then, that his major priorities can be enacted, say in the first year?
REID: Sure. Well, no, you’re tying me down to a first year. Senator Obama didn’t say in the first year. Senator Obama said, “We have a lot of things to do. We can’t do them in a very quick period of time, but we can get them done.”
And I agree with him. These arbitrary timelines that people set -- a lot of times the press -- are unrealistic many times. I don’t think we’ve set any unrealistic expectations. This victory’s only been a matter of hours now.
INSKEEP: So it might be two years, it might be four years, it might be six years to get these things done?"
Democratic Leaders: We're Less Effective than Bush & GOP
That's what they're saying and they should be called out on it. Bush managed to carry on a war nobody wanted, trash the economy, siphon loads of money from the poor to the rich, shred the Constitution, commit war crimes and get away with it, appoint two incredibly conservative Supreme Court Justices (and get even more loathsome lower appointees confirmed), and generally wreck the framework of America and sometimes did it (FISA, Bailout, Iraq war funding) while the Dems were in charge of Congress.
One would think healthcare reform would be the least the great One could achieve after that. Or are Obama and the Democratic Party less able to accomplish their political goals than Bush (worst President ever) and the GOP?
Because that's basically what they're saying and we should remind them of it constantly - we are less effective and able to get things that we claim are important to us done than the GOP.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
they want to run on these issues but not solve them--
it's been true for ages now--since 04, and esp 06. Pelosi and Reid are already thinking of 2010.
just nibbling around the edges (or outright harming us, as with the "bailout") and pretending they're solutions--and using our enormous problems as campaign issues--that's the m.o.
I don't think they'll get away with it
if that CQ article posted above is any indication. People voted for the dem this time because they were sick of republicans. But many Americans are disgusted with BOTH political parties. They're giving him a chance to DO something. If the dems all drag their feet and whine about how tough it is to get anything done, they'll be shown the door in four years and the next victim, er, president, will be ushered in.
People are fed up. No more excuses.
Don't Promise Them Earth If You Don't Mean It
Anecdotes are always dangerous, but speaking to my mother yesterday she has such high hopes that things will change. That the Democrats will do good things and do them soon. And it sounds like all her friends and neighbors who supported the Dems feel the same way. They believed Obama and the Democrats when they said they would bring change. What's more, it doesn't sound like my mother or her friends read his website. He said healthcare reform and my mother expects healthcare reform. She expects an end to Iraq. She expects economic help for those who need it. She expects a lot done on global warming. And she expects it to be started in a meaningful way soon.
She didn't hear the parsing or the conditions. I suspect she's not the only one.
That's the problem when you promise "change" and don't define it, people will define it for you and, if my mother is any indication, that's what happened.
So what has been so frustrating in this election, might turn out to be our salvation. "See my website" might not work as a reason for not carrying out all those things people are just sure you promised to do.
And I think they know they have this problem, if they didn't know expectations were so high, they wouldn't feel the need to damp them down. But I'm beginning to think the damage is done. And I couldn't be happier about that. It's the first real "hope" I've had about an Obama administration. His message was effective because it went viral and the only treatment just might be to give the people what they want. At least there's a chance that's where this is headed and right now, I'll take it.
I've been thinking a lot about the first season and a half of Battlestar Galactica. Adama gives people hope by promising them earth, only it's a false promise because he doesn't know where it is. Roslin grabs onto that vision of earth and pushes it and gets enough people to follow her towards it so that it forces Adama to go along too. The hope he gave them is what made them force him to live up to his promise. Here's hoping that's not just fiction.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
Obama also intentionally mislead to fan the flames of hope
For example, he repeatedly referred to his health care plan as "universal" so guess what, people are actually going to believe him. Also, he kept lying about how he continually opposed the Iraqi occupation and how he'll "end" it quickly. Things like that don't go unnoticed.
I, too, agree with BDB: Obama has set himself up. The economy won't allow him the usual benefit of the doubt and the historic nature of his campaign (no, not being black but basing it on "Hope & Change," which has indeed gone viral, won't allow him to be escape wrath because he's "just another politician." People will feel betrayed by him, which is unusual for a politician and in these most desperate times, that's setting the match to a tinder box that Bush and Cheney have created over for the past several years.
Who's "they"? And
while we're at it, what's "should be called out on it" good for? If they need to be called out, call 'em out.
Call their offices. Write to 'em. Fax 'em if you can afford it. Get up petitions and send in signatures of people who agree with you.
Bury them in the proof that you neither believe in nor give credit to their weinieness.
More importantly, in 2010 and 2012 and next January in your local elections, VOTE 'EM OUT.
A little political Darwinism isn't going to hurt the party.
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
Sloppy Writing, Sarah
My apologies for that. What I meant essentially is push back on Nancy, Harry, Rahm, Barack and anyone else who suggests they can't get anything done with bigger majorities than the Republicans ever had by doing those very thing you mention - fax, write, call, shame, expose, etc. In other words, good old political activism.
This weekend I will be writing my Dem rep. and both Dem Senators and telling them exactly what I want from a Dem Congress and what I will be watching to see. I intend to keep doing that as they do things I like and things I don't like. Maybe they'll listen and maybe they won't, but I'm going to tell them anyway.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
Thank you, BDBlue.
Pushing back on Nancy should've started with electing Cindy, IMNVHO. But a Californio I am not (thank you FSM and Ceiling Cat) so I had little influence there ... Speaking of influence, why's Pelosi not catching the heat for NOT coming out against Proposition 8, or that gawd-awful Arkansas hate amendment? As House Speaker, and arguably the most powerful woman in the country, she could've done a lot to advance the idea that families are born and built out of and on a foundation of love, not to mention standing up for, you know, equality.
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
she is catching heat--
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/2008...
Boxer spoke out after the fact -- Feinstein apparently appeared in ads too -- http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail...
"... Boxer said she did not appear in TV ads that urged voters to vote no on Prop. 8, like fellow Californian U.S. senator Dianne Feinstein did, because she was not asked.
“The campaign asked me to do certain things, send e-mails, do calls,” she said. “I did whatever they asked me. I would have done anything.” ...
Boxer said she “was very proud of Dianne. Maybe they felt one senator spoke for both of us. She surely did speak for me; I was very proud of her words, and by the way, I thought her words were very persuasive.” ..."
But until people are willing to punish those who won't stand up for rights and equality, they get away with it. Obama certainly did.
Nancy Pelosi spoke out repeatedly against Prop 8
Many times and clearly, multiple interviews on television and an ad for the campaign.
Here's one:
Not everyone in the gay community missed that.
Feinstein was in several "No on 8" TV ads, gave a presser and did multiple print interviews.
Boxer used her contact and donor lists to email "No on 8" messages, raised money and spoke at rallies and did cheerleading at "No" phonebanks.
Prop 8 passed because, contrary to the claims of many, America is not a Progressive country; it is well more than half-full of bigots and regressive fools. The Democratic Party leadership is hardly responsible for that.
Soy un californiano.
Obama's press conf today will do the same--
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/us/pol...
-- "Obama Aides Tamp Down Expectations" --
"Mr. Obama’s advisers said they were startled, if gratified, by the jubilation that greeted the news of Mr. Obama’s victory in much of the United States and abroad. But while the energy of his supporters could be a tremendous political asset as Mr. Obama works to enact his agenda after taking office in January, his aides said they were looking to temper hopes that he would be able to solve the nation’s problems or fully reverse Bush administration policies quickly and easily, especially given the prospect of a deep and long-lasting recession.
“We have talked about this,” said Robert Gibbs, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama. “It’s important that everybody understands that this is not going to happen overnight. There has to be a realistic expectation of what can happen and how quickly.”
...
Mr. Obama will hit that theme at a news conference he is expected to hold over the coming days, and in most of his public appearances from here on out, aides said. They said they would discourage the traditional yardstick for measuring the accomplishments of a new president — the first 100 days. Mr. Obama told an interviewer toward the end of his campaign that it was more appropriate to talk about the first 1,000 days.
..."
Bet It Goes Over Like a Lead Balloon
This is not nearly as inspiring a message as change and "yes, we can" and hope and if they keep this up, they may fast have a very real problem. I don't think all those who voted for change are going to very happy with "wait." I could be wrong, but I don't think people are going to like this message. People are hurting, there's a reason why FDR felt pressure to do things in 100 days. I suspect the Dems are going to rapidly feel pressure to do things too. Or at least I "hope" so.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
we've never been allowed more than 100 days--
only the GOP is allowed to get their stuff thru all thruout.
"Yes, we can wait!"
Which is, I suppose, better than "Yes, we can... Oh, wait..."
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
perfect: "Answer: “Vague vague vague, vague vague, and vague. "
http://wonkette.com/404254/liveblogging-... -- Wonkette liveblogged the press conference (and don't miss the pic!)
; >
WTF
I thought 2006 was this big message an rebukement of the gOP policies, and there was this 100 days already?
WHAT HAPPENED? Did Bush really Veto everything?
Last I checked, people voted for this failed notion of "more and better" democrats and got exactly that, more useless and better to stall and push Bush policies.
What have they done in the last two years? Election reform? cut back on spending? Pull back in Iraq? restore DOJ? Stop FISA or Gitmo?
What exceuse will they have when they have 60 members? Will they blame "bluedogs"? Will they fillibuster themselves?
this reminds me
of my favourite panel show: Never Mind the Buzzcocks. The host was saying that apparently they weren't getting as good a ratings this series, so they had a new idea. Then the phrase "Lower your expectations (slightly)" appeared on the screen behind him.
Now we just need billboards, ads, etc: "111th Congress: Lower your expectations."
Go Green!
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Le Bloc ou le mort!
Heh. He says not so fast, we can wait. And the people, they say,
"Yes, we can"?
No way! Kool-Aid drinkers may say "Yes, we can; we can wait," but the rest of us say "No way--start today!"