I don't know if I buy this or not, but here is the defense of the agreement, from a Senate GOP leadership aide.

...youÂ’re mistaken about the reasoning behind the timing of votes on Thursday.


As weÂ’ve all seen, the Democrats have 60 here, unfortunately, and though we did what we could to make this drag past Christmas, the fact is that time would run out Thursday night. Whatever time we have the vote, itÂ’s not going to change the fact that the bill will pass before Christmas.


...with Democrats tired of being here, the time that day was a bargaining chip. So in exchange for letting Reid move the vote up a few hours, McConnell extracted an agreement from him about the debt limit vote.



Democrats have been trying all sorts of ways to avoid voting on increasing the debt limit. They first tried to sneak it through on the Pentagon funding bill until enough people said that was unacceptable. So Republicans are going to force a vote on it and several amendments in January. When? Well... January 20th, which just happens to be the same day as ObamaÂ’s State of the Union address. And IÂ’m sure you recall he wants to make the speech all about fiscal responsibility.



So in exchange for a few hours on Christmas Eve when few people are paying attention anyway to hold off an outcome Dems have already demonstrated is not in doubt, weÂ’ve now got them to debate a massive debt limit increase on a day everyone will be paying attention to debt and deficits and take votes that may be quite embarrassing to the president before his big speech.

So the claim is that in exchange for a go-home-early the Republicans got a good date for the debt-limit debate and vote.

Assuming Reid honors that.

I wrote back: But if you've been blocking this debt limit vote, why is it necessary to bargain about it? The answer was, approximately: Because we can't let the country default. But nor do we have to allow the Democrats to do this as they wish, either in the dead of night or tucked into some other vote so that it doesn't get noticed.

They want to the debt limit vote to happen right when President Deficit Hawk is giving his State of the Union.

Eh... I guess. I guess.

I don't know. I am waiting to find out if Reid can just cancel this deal at will. I wrote to ask about that.

Can Reid Cancel the Deal? I am assured "no." I'm told this is a unanimous consent motion, and to undo such a motion requires, itself, unanimous consent. Since any of 40 Republicans would be expected to object and so not give unanimous consent, the idea is no, based on how it was voted in, it cannot be voted out.

More: This guy also tells me this, which makes sense:

The vote Thursday wouldn't matter as much if Dems miss because it's final passage and takes only a majority. The final cloture vote will be sometime tomorrow. If a Democrat misses that vote it'd be huge. But they only need 51 on Thursday.

This in response to my suggestion that the GOP call their bluff and make them vote on Christmas Eve. He's saying nine could decide to skip town and still leave 51 to do the deed.

Ehh... I guess.

I just am sort of having a hard time not noticing that this move is also in McConnell's personal interest.

Posted by: Ace at 01:46 PM | Comments (257)
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Ehh... Still nice to hear him go all Zell Miller (or at least partial Zell Miller).

But let's face it, this is a load of crap.

But: still good to hear.

Hooboy: Griffiths said this:

I think America's greatest enemy is America and its materialism. And I think that we have nothing to fear from radical Islam. We have nothing to fear from any other religion if we are strong on our own beliefs. I don't fear radical Islam.

Ummm.... okay bye-bye now.

What he's doing there is the standard leftist boilerplate which explains that those on the left are too brave, and too confident in America, to have to fear radical Islam, like those pants-wetting conservatives do.

It's a lot of crap used to defend a posture of calculated indifference on jihadism.

Posted by: Ace at 12:35 PM | Comments (92)
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He could have held it up 11 more hours.

Instead he caves. To go home early for Christmas.

Dude, people miss Christmas, you know. Not to play the troops card. But okay, what about the troops?

And millions of other Americans miss Christmas with the family, or have a later Christmas, because it's their job to miss it.

And you can't?

Not even once?

Senator McConnell, how many times have you missed a home-for-the-holidays Christmas? I bet we are talking an extremely low number here, and not for years and years and years.

You should get your ass to work for the same reason 7-11 employees work on Christmas. Because it's your job to do so, asshole.

Comment... Oh look, "Mitch McConnell" is in the comments. Just one of the many celebrities we get here.

This bill is the most worstest bill ever in the history of mankind. And I'll fight right up until 3pm eastern to defeat it. Then I'll go home and drink egg nog. Then come back the next day and complain a little more. If I don't have gas.

Indeed. I will fight for the preservation of the American Way right up until the point it interferes with my travel plans.

Posted by: Ace at 12:17 PM | Comments (241)
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Ed Morrissey had a good post on the corrupt payoffs needed to secure 60 votes on ReidCare. Gee, if all of these states are now exempted from cuts in Medicare, I wonder and ponder if other Democratic Senators will demand the same exemptions -- but after the bill is passed with its dishonest fake-pretend price tag.

Schumer and all of these losers will demand the same thing, and get it, of course. They are just playing along with the cuts in order to keep that CBO number dishonestly low.

Anyway, I meant to link this all day. But the interesting thing isn't that Ed Morrissey discussed it -- of course he did -- but now even Obama's owned-and-operated affiliate MSNBC reports it too.

If this is needed for Nebraska, and Florida (and three Democrat-leaning counties in Florida, no less!) and other states -- why not all states?

Why not indeed. But the rest of the states will have to wait for the second and third round of fixes to the bill.

Right now, they need to lie about the costs.

Posted by: Ace at 11:52 AM | Comments (55)
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Personally, I'm not in the mood for false hope and I don't think this threat is real but here you go.

"They know that the 64 Democrats who voted with the Republicans on my amendment, we feel strongly that we cannot support a healthcare bill which goes past the current restrictions, which is no federal funding for abortion," Stupak said during an appearance on Fox News, speaking about Democratic leaders in the House.

Stupak, who has said the Senate's language on abortion is, in fact, "unacceptable," warned that the Senate's provision and other elements of the bill could cost Democrats support for final passage of health reform in the House.

"So, if they go farther than that, a lot of us will find it very difficult to vote for the Senate bill," he said. "Not just because of the abortion language, but even other language in the Senate bill those of us in the House are not pleased to see."

Gee, maybe the Republicans should have called Stupak's bluff awhile back and not have passed his amendment during the House debate. Oh right, Republicans don't play games with life, just with the health care and freedom of all Americans.

IIRC, Stupak at the time of the House debate said he might have voted for the House bill even if his amendment had failed. Why exactly we are supposed to believe he's super cereal now, I'm not sure.

The Democrats still have some work to do to reconcile the bills, either in conference (which could be dangerous) or by twisting enough arms in the House to get them to swallow hard enough to accept the Senate bill as is.

My guess is Nancy will strong arm her caucus thorough a combination of bribes and promises to 'fix' things later that the House will suck it up and pass the Senate bill. Clearly, there's no deal she and Reid won't make or limit on how much of our money they will spend to get to 218 and 60 in their respective houses.

I hope I'm wrong but as we've seen over the last few weeks, relying on Democrats, even self-proclaimed moderate ones to do the right thing is a losing strategy.

Posted by: DrewM at 11:33 AM | Comments (52)
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Above-the-Post Comment: Lorien1973 observes:

Typical DC. It's retarded. No one understands it. It fails. But they keep doing it.

Thanks for rescuing this post and giving me some political cover!

Another one: Dr. Spank--

What impressed me most on that play was the pass protection. Solid B+

...

Conception: Weak. The sort of thing that works in high school.

Execution: Weaker.

The one thing I would say is that sometimes coaches get the idea, correctly, that they are getting the crap beaten out of them, that conventional plays will not work, and that something big and risky needs to be done to change the momentum, or else defeat is virtually guaranteed.

And I think a lot of the times coaches suppress this though and go with the safer move -- the field goal, the punt, etc. -- even though it's better to take a chance and do something that will get you, possibly, closer to a win. Instead, they do the thing that will keep the score "respectable." "Respectable" for a loss. Still a loss, but hey, no one will make fun of them too much on the next morning. The talk show hosts won't whine too much that they did the standard, safe, comfortable-with-defeat-as-long-as-it's-respectably-close play.

I mean, look at the stats for going for it on fourth down. Bill Bellichick doesn't go for it too much. Other coaches go for it too little. Because even though the safe play is he wrong play, it's the play that doesn't get your ass chewed out on talk radio.

That said: What a stupid play! See JWF for the full how-stupid argument.

I'd just argue the game really was getting out of hand, and was probably lost, and Zorn was right that he needed to do something to change the trajectory, or else he was on a glide path to a guaranteed loss. At least this gave him some sort of chance.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:24 AM | Comments (69)
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Crist is done in the GOP, I think.

U.S. Reps Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart of Miami have pulled their endorsement of Gov. Charlie Crist for the U.S. Senate.
Lincoln offered few details as to why, just that Crist had "left us no alternative and he knows why."

He said the withdrawal has nothing to do with Crist's slumping poll numbers, and in fact, the decision was made weeks ago.

The withdrawal had nothing to do with Crist's slumping poll numbers; in fact, the decision was made weeks ago. When Crist's numbers cratered.

It's also funny that Lincoln says "...and Crist knows why." It sounds sort of like high school: She know what she did (dismissive finger-snap).

She think she cute or somethin'. Zorro snap.

Just pointing that out for the fun of it. I'm not looking to attack Lincoln for a proper decision! It's just sort of funny.

But their names were only recently pulled off Crist's webpage. He said the two Miami Republicans are unlikely to endorse anyone else in the race.

The surprising decision is the latest bit of bad news to sack Crist, whose poll numbers have dropped as opponent Marco Rubio surged. The withdrawn endorsement is doubly surprising, considering the closeness between Crist and Mario Diaz-Balart. The two served together in the Florida Senate and were always chummy.

Crist's big problem -- well, one of them, the catalyst here -- is that he obviously thought Obama's big government socialist agenda was going to work like gangbusters and so he wanted to be on the right side of it.

I can forgive that last bit, personally. I'm cynical and don't mind a little cynicism in politicians. I'm not a pure hypocrite on that one point, at least. I can understand political positioning.

But what I can't forgive is the premise that led to this conclusion: That Crist really thought that socialism and destroying the free-market capitalist engine that had powered this nation for 300 years (yeah, whatever, before independence) was going to work.

Why did he think that?

Why?

And if he thinks that, do I want or need him as a Senator?

Posted by: Ace at 09:40 AM | Comments (102)
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What's the real problem with a CBO score, their terrible arithmetic or their inability to answer the following question: "If we levy a gigantic tax on a sector of the marketplace, whatever would the marketplace do in response"?

The answer is "find a way to pay less of this crap". It's always that.

Don't get me wrong, their math sucks too.

The largest source of income for the amusingly named "cost-offsetting measures" is $149BB from "cadillac" insurance plans. Never heard of those? Don't worry about it. In ten years you'll never knew they existed.

I donÂ’t think it takes a genius to figure out that within a couple of years, compensation packages will adjust so that nobody is paying that tax. No more Cadillac insurance plans.

This is entirely predictable, it's happned before. It doesn't take a genius, just a roomful of average "straight-line" analysts.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 09:20 AM | Comments (57)
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In a "correction" letter sent to Dingy Harry, the CBO director lets the cat out of the bag regarding claimed Medicare savings.

...Medicare spending per beneficiary under the legislation would increase at an average annual rate of roughly 2 percent during the next two decades—well below the roughly 4 percent annual growth rate of the past two decades. It is unclear whether such a reduction in the growth rate could be achieved, and if so, whether it would be accomplished through greater efficiencies in the delivery of health care or would reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care....

Obviously seniors are thrilled with prospect of long waiting lists and substandard care, and you should be too. Less is more in the magic kingdom of Ogabeland.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 08:34 AM | Comments (98)
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As I expected, the number was revised down. First to 2.8%, which is exactly what I thought it would be revised down to, but now again down to a mere 2.2%.

3.5% wasn't really gangbusters in the first place, but o, did they prance with it like a dog with a tennis ball in its mouth."

The NYT spins a lot here. The headline the article that 3Q is weaker than thought, but don't actually address the downward revision until the eighth paragraph.

Instead they choose to begin:

The nascent economic recovery was weaker than expected in the third quarter, the government said Tuesday, held back by slow business construction and dwindling inventories.

While the results tempered some of the enthusiasm about the speed of economic renewal, analysts still foresee steady, and stronger, growth in the fourth quarter, as exports rise and an improved jobs market encourages consumer spending.

...and then they bore you for the next five paragraphs with insdery-stuff about the housing market.

You know -- exactly how they used to play Bush's good growth numbers, pretty much, just the opposite. First, start out with some broad generalizations warning of "storm clouds on the horizons," then yap about some less grabby numbers for a while, and then note that Bush's initial 3.1% GDP quarterly growth was revised up to 3.8%, after the audience had been successfully lost.

Thanks to TomVG.

Posted by: Ace at 08:33 AM | Comments (47)
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