Senate Leader Announces Health-Care Bill
Posted by Adele Stan on November 18, 2009 at 4:12 PM.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that his Democratic caucus was ready to begin debate on a health-care bill that will be made public later this evening.

Reid told reporters that the bill contains a public option with an opt-out provisions whereby state legislatures could deny citizens participation in the plan.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill will cost $849 billion.

Reid made his announcement this evening surrounded by a group of senators, including Chris Dodd of Connecticut, who wrote the health-care legislation that came out of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that was chaired by the late Ted Kennedy, for whom health-care reform was a life-long goal. Other senators, all Democrats, around the podium included Sen. Patty Murray, Wash.; Al Franken, Minn.; Chuck Schumer, N.Y.; Debbie Stabenow, Mich., and Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin, Ill.

Absent from the scene were the Senate's most ardent pro-choice women senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California. Also absent was Sen. Jay Rockefeller, W.V., who opposed the Senate Finance Committee bill for its lack of a public option -- a situation Reid has attempted to remedy with this opt-out provision. Rockefeller is regarded as the Senate's health-care scholar.

Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, Mont., was notably absent, as well, though for family reasons. Dodd said that Baucus' mother was ill, and that accounted for his absence. The bill that Reid announced today melds Dodd's HELP Committee bill with the one crafted by Baucus' committee.

Reid promised that the bill would be available to the public online later this evening.

C-SPAN has the video here of Reid's press announcement.

Americans Want a Health Surtax on Wealthy
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on November 18, 2009 at 2:00 PM.

Although the House bill includes a surtax on the wealthy in order to help fund the proposed health care overhaul, the possibility of it being included in the final health care bill seems uncertain. As Majority Leader Reid prepares the Senate's bill, he ought pay attention to this newly released Associated Press poll which shows that 57% of Americans are in favor of a health surtax on the richest among us -- and only 37% are opposed.

The poll also found that respondents dislike other options that are publicly being discussed on the Hill, such as the so-called "Cadillac plans," that would tax insurers on high-value coverage plans. Higher taxes on insurance providers, pharmaceutical companies, and medical device manufacturers were not as popular either.

The surtax included in the House bill would levy a 5.4% income tax surcharge on individuals earning $500,000 a year and households raking in $1 million.

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Inspiring, Kickass Drug Activist to Take on Chuck Schumer -- Meet Randy Credico
Posted by Jan Frel, AlterNet on November 18, 2009 at 1:18 PM.

A New York Times blog from this morning alerted me to a promising development, and gave me new respect for fellow Santa Monican Larry David:

"Randy Credico, 54, a stand-up comedian and drug law activist who was director of the fund for the past 12 years, has decided to step down from [the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice. He plans to devote himself full-time to his United States Senate campaign, in which he intends to challenge Senator Charles E. Schumer for the Democratic nomination next September."

Mr. Credico said his campaign manager is a former comedy writer for “Saturday Night Live,” and then he began pouring forth with phone numbers of celebrities and comedians he said were endorsing him. I called only one: Larry David, at his office in Los Angeles. Mr. David would not reveal any details about the season finale of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” on HBO, but he did offer his support of Mr. Credico’s candidacy – in his own inimitable, free-associative, hilarious style – and praised his passion for fighting harsh drug laws.

“It’d be pretty interesting, Credico in the Senate — kind of like tying a bunch of cans to a dog and setting him loose in a china shop,” he said. “I don’t envy Schumer. Randy’s really going to get under his skin.”

When told that Mr. Credico plans on running the race sober, Mr. David said, “Listen, I can’t tell the difference whether Randy’s drunk or sober.”

Then Mr. David said, in an unprintable way, that Mr. Credico had a lot of guts.

“He’ll say absolutely anything that’s on his mind,” he said.

Hmm, just like Larry David, I observed.

“No, I only do it on TV,” Mr. David shot back. “I’m only Larry David on TV. Credico’s Larry David in real life.”... 

“My campaign slogan is going to be, ‘Which candidate would you rather smoke a joint with? Credico or Schumer?’” he said, while racing around the penthouse apartment of a friend and directing a small staff of young adults with laptops on how to get out word of his candidacy. He wore his usual jeans and sport jacket and smoked cigarettes and chugged Coke — the soft drink — directly from the 2-liter bottle. He had on hand two boxes of Cuban cigars that he claimed were a gift from former Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau.

Last year, Mr. Credico was arrested after interfering with police officers making a marijuana arrest on Gay Street.

Mr. Credico makes no pretense about his longtime battle with drugs and alcohol addiction. He said he has been free of drugs and alcohol for two months now and hopes to stay sober for the entire campaign.

Though sober, Mr. Credico does hope to appeal to the partying public.

It's worth going into that line about how Credico was arrested to understand him  -- the story behind it gives good insight into his real-world approach to activism, and puts on display a very direct theory of social change: Be the change. Tony Papa of the Drug Policy Alliance gives the fuller description in a June 2008 article:

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Wow, Turns Out Sarah Palin Really Is a Dumb Wingnut*
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on November 18, 2009 at 12:00 PM.

During the 2008 campaign, Sarah Palin earned some ignominy when Katie Couric asked her to name a publication she relied on for news and she couldn't name a single one.**

Apparently, she's not exactly shining on her publicity tour when "grilled" with soft-ball questions by friendly right-wing bloggers. John Cole (italics are his too):

This is great. Red State “interviews” Sarah Palin, although I’m not really sure you could call this an interview, because there are no real quotes, and it turns out she has been doing some book learning:

One of the criticisms leveled by the right when Palin was chosen as McCain’s nominee is that she had not shown she’d done the reading to lead, i.e. read the Hayek, Friedman, Goldwater, Bastiat, to form her thoughts. She admitted she is a gut level conservative, but also said that criticism comes mostly from “shallow people who have not delved into [her] record.”

I did not want to sound like Katie Couric and ask what she’s read, but I broached the subject and she went right into mentioning Thomas Sowell and Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism. She said she has read some of the foundational stuff, but she sees no need to focus on the old writings. She likes “the modern stuff too.” Her preference is policy and application, focusing on writers who are not just following up on foundational conservative ideas, but applying those ideas too.

I am a liberal moonbat, whose name nobody is kicking around for national office, and I've read Hayek, Friedman and Goldwater.

And... Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism? That a book like that informs the "intellect" of a person many think represents the future of the conservative movement -- the Great White Hope -- is enough to make you feel like beating your head against the desk.

Update: in the comments, Anna writes, "C'mon Josh! The secret's been out for a long time." Absolutely true -- I should have said it's surprising that after that string of public humiliations during the campaign she didn't either, A) bone up, maybe read a few books without pictures, or B) figure out how to dodge those questions without coming off like such a teenager.

*Obviously it's sexist to say so.

** But we have to take her very, very seriously and it would be a grave error to underestimate her abilities.

Video: Rep. Stupak: We Had an Agreement Until 'the Extremes Took Over'
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on November 18, 2009 at 7:37 AM.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

After threatening to scuttle the House version of health-care reform legislation last week by refusing to accept a compromise on anti-abortion language the bill, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., is positioning himself to be the savior of health-care reform as the Senate takes up its bill -- even agreeing to support language that would require insurance companies not to drop abortion coverage from policies paid for with private dollars.

Appearing on MSNBC's Hardball last night, Stupak claimed to have had an agreement with House leaders, on the night before the Saturday vote, "to put part of my amendment" into bill. Then, he said, "the extremes took over," forcing the need for his amendment, which would make it virtually impossible for insurance companies to offer, through a federally administered insurance exchange, health insurance policies that provide abortion coverage -- even if the purchaser pays for the policy entirely out of her own pocket.

Who might these "extremes" be, Congressman Stupak? The Catholic bishops, per chance?

David Rogers of Politico reported yesterday that ahead of the vote, Speaker Nancy Pelosi received a call from Rome; on the line was Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the retired former archbishop of Washington, D.C., whom Pelosi, a Roman Catholic herself, knows. Neither will discuss the substance of the call. But we do know that anti-choice Democrats refused to sign off on the compromise because representatives of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops would not grant their blessing on the compromise.

(Of course, without naming them, it's more likely that Stupak is speaking of pro-choice members.)

Nontheless, Stupak, in his interview last night with Hardball host Chris Matthews, seemed to be trying to recast himself as a moderate by painting other anti-choice legislators as extremists. When Matthews asked which anti-choicers on the Senate side Stupak might be working with on abortion language, he pressed Stupak for names. Maybe Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, or Ben Nelson of Nebraska?

"Well," Stupak replied, "if you're gonna get the extremes on both sides, then you can't find common ground; I agree with you. You really have to try to find people much like myself, who are the moderates, who will actually try to work with leadership."

But Stupak also struck a note of bitterness, complaining that pro-choice Democrats had kept him from offereing anti-choice amendments to legislation other than heath-care reform, and balking at his opponents' complaints about his amendment.

"You know, we had a fair-and-square vote; we won -- 55 percent of the representatives said we should not have public funds paying for abortion, so you win on the floor, now suddenly they want us to come back and compromise."

VIDEO AFTER THE JUMP

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