Not very creative, those Republicans. From Roll Call [sub req.]:

Acknowledging they can’t stop the Senate from bringing up a health care reform bill, Republicans have mapped out a strategy to draw out the debate, attack the measure’s core components and force difficult votes on vulnerable Democrats.

Republicans have no illusions of substantively altering the Senate bill. But they plan to use targeted amendments to attack the legislation issue by issue, offering detailed GOP alternatives in a concerted bid to turn the public against the measure and to try to set the table for electoral gains in 2010….

Republican Senate aides and operatives familiar with the leadership’s floor strategy say leadership will put different Senators in charge of various themes. Their responsibilities will include messaging and spearheading Republican amendments.

Finance ranking member Chuck Grassley (Iowa) will probably handle all things tax-related; Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), a former state insurance regulator, will likely deal with health care premiums; Budget ranking member Judd Gregg (N.H.) will tackle the bill’s deficit implications; Cornyn will focus on malpractice reform.

Good thing Baucus spent so much time negotiating with Grassley, huh? As if we needed more evidence that those negotiations were not done in good faith on the Republican side. And what about Susan Collins, that great moderate that Olympia Snowe was supposed to be able to bring around. The article also points out that Nebraska Republican Mike Johanns will be conducting town meetings in Nebraska during the floor debate, undoubtedly an effort to try to put Ben Nelson in a bind, an effort that's unlikely to do much to sway Nelson, or whip up much angry froth against him back home. Nebraskans don't really seem to work that way. But Johanns may as well knock himself out.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/11/2/799732/...

Bitch, Please.

LUV
'THE ITIS'.

admit it, you know that episode is a classic.

Not very creative, those Republicans. From Roll Call [sub req.]:

Acknowledging they can’t stop the Senate from bringing up a health care reform bill, Republicans have mapped out a strategy to draw out the debate, attack the measure’s core components and force difficult votes on vulnerable Democrats.

Republicans have no illusions of substantively altering the Senate bill. But they plan to use targeted amendments to attack the legislation issue by issue, offering detailed GOP alternatives in a concerted bid to turn the public against the measure and to try to set the table for electoral gains in 2010….

Republican Senate aides and operatives familiar with the leadership’s floor strategy say leadership will put different Senators in charge of various themes. Their responsibilities will include messaging and spearheading Republican amendments.

Finance ranking member Chuck Grassley (Iowa) will probably handle all things tax-related; Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), a former state insurance regulator, will likely deal with health care premiums; Budget ranking member Judd Gregg (N.H.) will tackle the bill’s deficit implications; Cornyn will focus on malpractice reform.

Good thing Baucus spent so much time negotiating with Grassley, huh? As if we needed more evidence that those negotiations were not done in good faith on the Republican side. And what about Susan Collins, that great moderate that Olympia Snowe was supposed to be able to bring around. The article also points out that Nebraska Republican Mike Johanns will be conducting town meetings in Nebraska during the floor debate, undoubtedly an effort to try to put Ben Nelson in a bind, an effort that's unlikely to do much to sway Nelson, or whip up much angry froth against him back home. Nebraskans don't really seem to work that way. But Johanns may as well knock himself out.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/11/2/799732/...

Bitch, Please.

LUV
'THE ITIS'.

admit it, you know that episode is a classic.

Uh Oh

by digby

The queen bee's got her stinger out:

Today:

The sense that the Obamas are flirting with disaster by parading their happy family life was magnified by Michelle’s Marie Antoinette-like appearance this week on the cover of Glamour magazine — at a time when many Americans continue to lose their homes or jobs every month.

“Funny how every time there’s a crisis we end up reading about Michelle,” noted one Republican insider. “It’s great to see that the first couple have such a wonderful relationship,” added a Times website reader. “Now can the president please get down to solving the country’s problems?”

Yesterday:

According to society sources, Sally invited Hillary to a luncheon when the Clintons came to town in 1993. Sally stocked her guest list with her best buddies and prepared to usher the first lady into the capital's social whirl. Apparently, Hillary didn't accept. Miffed, Sally wrote a catty piece in the Post about Mrs. Clinton. Hillary made sure that Quinn rarely made it into the White House dinners or social events.

Quinn's antipathy to Hillary became the subject of a New York Observer piece in 1996 that turned the spotlight on Sally, now 56. “No longer a journalistic star, Ms. Quinn seems restless and unsatisfied,” wrote Mary Jacoby, “despite her wealth and prominence and her Georgetown mansion with swimming pool and tennis court, not to mention her house in the Hamptons.” Wondering about the roots of Quinn's spat with Mrs. Clinton, a younger and more powerful woman, Jacoby wondered if Quinn was “frightened” that her good looks were fading and “bitter because she's no longer on center stage.”

I think we all know where all that led.

Sally and the rest of the village tabbies are very, very hard to please. By Democrats anyway. If it isn't that they are bringing down the morals of the country with their modern, serious, complicated marriages, they are being a little bit too uppity with their old-fashioned, fun uncomplicated marriages. They prefer something dull and lifeless like George and Laura's or Nancy and Ronnie's, where the president calls the first lady “mommie” and the first lady stares at the president like he's the cutest Jonas Brother. (One assumes that it helps if the couples have blue blood or are at least Hollywood Royalty — the respectable, conservative kind, of course.)

I would suggest that Michelle get herself over to the Bradlee parlor and apologize for failing to consult the *right people* before this backbiting gets out of hand. She needs to realize that if she wants to survive in the sleepy little hamlet called Washington DC, she and her family belong to Sally. And Sally will not be ignored.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/uh-oh-by...

more…

Monday, November 02, 2009
Top McCain campaign adviser running out of insurance, has pre-existing condition
by John Aravosis (DC) on 11/02/2009 12:18:00 PM

Amazing story. And not that different from a lot of people. America is changing. More and more people are working on their own, freelancing, consulting. None of us have access to reasonable health care – at least not reasonable once you're “of a certain age.” From the Washington Post:

If history had taken a different course, Doug Holtz-Eakin would be inside the McCain White House driving the Republican president's domestic agenda, including health-care reform. But now, one year after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) lost the presidential election, the man who was by McCain's side as the campaign's top health-care guru remains unemployed — and his COBRA health coverage is running out.

Irony of ironies, it gets worse. Holtz-Eakin, who is about to start shopping for insurance on the individual market, is 51. And he has one of those pesky “preexisting conditions” that insurance companies often cite in denying coverage.

“A right renal autotransplant,” he said, pointing to his abdomen as he described the 1990 transplant surgery he went through after one of his kidneys was damaged in an accident. “They got rid of the artery, moved my kidney and rebuilt me for the 21st century. If you look at my file, any insurance company would go, 'Hmm . . .' “

Good luck.

http://www.americablog.com/2009/11/top-mccain-c...

An Arizona Republican National Committeeman called a Tucson conservative talk radio program last week and advised an Arizona Democratic County Chairperson that if he wanted to learn about crime in Tucson he should “ask the brown people.”

Bruce Ash called the Jon Justice show to discuss Proposition 200, an unfunded proposition on the Arizona ballot which would mandate a hiring ratio of 2.4 police officers per 1,000 residents. But for the first few minutes of his on-air time Ash was focused on belittling Jeff Rogers, Pima County Democratic Party Chair. Ash said Rogers “sits in his little house in midtown, with his kids who go to school, with his little job…in his little neighborhood,” and then, in a startling assertion, accused Rogers of being “blind to all the crime” because Rogers didn't life in a Hispanic neighborhood: “It may not be happening in his neighborhood but you ask any of the brown people who live on the South side, or the West side, or the South Central side of Tucson.” Statistics tracking crime and neighborhoods kept by the Tucson Police Department do not support Ash's suggestion that crime is higher in Hispanic neighborhoods.

The Arizona political blog Rum, Romanism and Rebellion posted a link to Ash's on-air comments. Blogger Ted Prezelski said that while he found Ash's comments “condescending and patronizing” he was willing to give Ash the benefit of the doubt: “I don't think Ash was trying to be racist. But I think he was clumsy and insensitive while he was making a point about who was affected by crime in our community.” Prezelski added that by voicing these misleading statements, Ash has not only done an injustice to the targeted communities but to all of Tucson: “These sort of assumptions about crime are not only hurtful to South and West siders, but detrimental to our city as a whole.”

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marlene-h-phillip...

Insurance companies are flayed for not paying for any kind of care no matter how expensive or extreme. But the feds do the same thing and will expand that non payment by just paying 50 cents or less on each dollar of healthcare cost. For Medicare recipients that will mean shifting the cost to Medigap insurance.

I will add the following prediction: If you are 60 years old and are not the patient of a young doctor, you may be SOL finding a doctor who will take care of you as a patient once you are on Medicare.

By Robin Givhan
In her own version of “Pay It Forward,” first lady Michelle Obama, who has often talked about the influence of role models in her life, announced a year-long mentoring program at the White House for area high school girls.

Monday afternoon, thirteen young women gathered around a polished wood table, austerely set with water glasses and blue folders, in the State Dining room for a get to know you conversation with the senior women from the White House staff who will serve as their mentors. That list includes a who's who of fancy titles and impressive resumes — among them, senior advisor Valerie Jarrett, domestic policy advisor Melody Barnes, Obama's chief of staff Susan Sher and social secretary Desiree Rogers.

The germ of the idea was planted in March when Obama invited a star-studded array of women, ranging from entertainers to math geniuses, to fan out across the area and share their stories with students. At the end of the day, the women and a group of girls gathered at the White House for dinner. The first lady, in today's remarks, recalled that evening saying that “that was the best thing we've done so far.” She wanted to replicate that experience on a larger scale.

The young women, who were selected by their principals, will not be traditional interns but will be tutored by their mentors on everything from careers and financial literacy to how to write a college essay and health and fitness.

Obama said she became interested in the power of mentoring as a corporate lawyer in Chicago. Her office, she said, was on the 47th floor of a downtown building and her windows faced south towards her old neighborhood. Kids who were just as smart and capable as she was missed out on opportunities and successes “by a hair,” she said.

And then she got a bit verklempt. “We've got the most powerful seat in the land to be a bridge-builder,” she told the girls, her eyes tearing and voice cracking. “And I'm so excited and touched and moved to have you all here…. I can get emotional.”

A young men's program, rooted in the West Wing, will launch soon.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/11/02/...