Think Progess did a great blog piece on Bachmann's latest "treason charge." You can go straight to the link, or you can stay here and listen to me explain why the way Think Progress treated this news item--is an example of blogging at its best. (If you stay here and read me, I promise that I will give you the salient points of the Think Progress item, so you don't miss anything. But here is the link, if you want to go straight there:)
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/...
Now this is good blogging. First of all, it's a "catch": the blogger's reporting an angle that no one has seen before. Think Progress reports this exchange on the Sean Hannity show:
HANNITY: I have never seen such perversion of the law. I've never - whoever heard of deem and pass, the Slaughter rule and whoever thought the whole process, I feel like I need to take a shower watching this.
BACHMANN: Well, yeah, and the other thing is treason media. Where is the mainstream media in all of this not telling this story? This is a compelling story.
"Treason media?" That's a fine catch that deserves the notice of the people who follow politics. The Bachmann interview, ostensibly about health care reform legislative procedure, includes a charge of treason against America's big money corporate media by Bachmann. ThinkProgress is not gonna let that slide, even if your local Minnesota newspeople will.
Representative Keith Ellison said that it took several bills to push through civil rights and it will take several bills to push through real single payer health care that covers everyone. So I am taking a deep breath and trusting in historical precedent. So I am believing in the idea that better is better. On Monday, I just was added to healthcare that I don't trust, after all I have many pre-existing conditions like I am female and I have lived before! Just those two pre-existing conditions are enough to deny all coverage. Companies should sell a fight-the-health-care-insurance service, so we don't have to do that when we are sick.
So the most important thing is what happens locally. So my trusted Congresswoman Betty McCollum gives a summary after the fold.
Ezra Klein has the scoop (apparently), and the AP is picking up on it.
It's a numbers crunch on votes, and on the money to be spent, and the deficit reduced, and it looks like supporters of the bill have another piece of good news to keep the momentum going into the vote (whenever it occurs). The CBO's numbers look good.
Some momentum from Minnesota was added yesterday when Representative Jim Oberstar announced that he is a solid "yes" on voting for the bill. This announcement prompted "Catholics United" to start airing TV ads thanking Rep. Oberstar for his support of the the bill. The ads are part of a "broader national campaign to underscore Catholic support for health care reform," according to a statement released by the Catholic group.
According to a Democratic source, CBO has finished its work and will release the official preliminary score later today. But here are the basic numbers: The bill will cost $940 billion over the first 10 years and reduce the deficit by $130 billion during that period. In the second 10 years -- so, 2020 to 2029 -- it will reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion. The legislation will cover 32 million Americans, or 95 percent of the legal population.
To put this in context, that's more deficit reduction than either the House or Senate bill, and more coverage than the Senate bill.
How they got these numbers, and whether there are important qualifiers, will be easier to say once CBO releases its analysis. But the bottom line is that this is the exact sort of score that Democrats wanted, and is in fact considerably better than some had come to expect they would receive. Coverage is better than the Senate bill, which will reassure liberals, and deficit reduction is better than either bill, which will reassure conservatives.
With the unveiling of the health reform reconciliation compromise set for noon ET, Democrats are beginning to leak results of the long-awaited Congressional Budget Office score of the provisions. They're pretty good.
The deficit over the first ten years drops by $130 billion compared to the baseline. Importantly, especially for wavering Democrats like Brian Baird, it reduces the debt by $1.2 trillion in the second ten years. Apparently, the CBO says that the bill would reduce Medicare expenditures by about 1.4% per year, extending the solvency of the program by nine years. Thirty-two million Americans will be covered -- about 95% of all those eligible. The cost over decade one: $940 billion. The release today will help Speaker Nancy Pelosi fulfill her promise of providing 72 hours to review the bill before the vote, which is on tap for Sunday.
Way back on February 21st, MPP community member Judeling posted this comment with a link to a simple projection of delegate totals based on straw poll results.
Now that we're close to the completion of the delegate election process, we can get a pretty good picture of that projection's accuracy.
In a word: spooky.
Here's Judeling's projection:
UNCOMMITTED: 595
R.T. Rybak: 191
MAK: 169
John Marty: 65
Tom Rukavina: 46
Paul Thissen: 41
Tom Bakk: 36
Matt Entenza: 35
Steve Kelley: 16
Susan Gaertner: 3
All in all, pretty darned close. The 20 or so delegates that might theoretically have gone to Steve Kelley and Susan Gaertner have obviously been spread around to the other candidates. Additionally, speculation after Rybak's win in the straw poll seems to have borne out to some degree -- he was able to run up the score in some areas, but that didn't translate into a big lead among elected delegates. Instead, he's virtually tied with Margaret Anderson Kelliher at the top.
The other item of note is Paul Thissen's overperformance -- based on his straw poll results, he should not be as close to third place as he should, but he got an early burst of energy in the conventions and produced some great results in rural conventions where one-on-one meet-and-greets make a big difference.
So a straw poll is still just a straw poll -- but don't believe the spinmeisters when they say straw polls mean nothing at all. Sometimes you can get a pretty good idea of where things will stand using simple projections like Judeling did.
Of course, we're going to keep providing totals as precisely as we possibly can, just to keep you folks interested.
The State Senate Finance Committee's Hearing On Inter-Agency Agreements (i.e., Gov TBag getting caught with his hands in the cookie jar is about to start.
The room is filled with lots of veterans, and many of them are none-too-happy with Gov Tbag channelling the Ghost Of Richard Nixon ("When the President does it, that means it's not illegal").
- Karl 'Turdblossom' Rove has a book out, is everywhere on corporate media, and remains pretty much a lying, pusillanimous swine. From Political Cortex.
- A report on a strange campaign to 'market' toxic sludge, from The Smirking Chimp.
- CNN has reached a new low, and can no longer be remotely considered a legitimate journalistic outlet. I base this on posts from Digby,here, and Media Matters,here.
(We're going to do what we can here at MPP to cover the local races. Expect more like this from MPP contributors. - promoted by The Big E)
In SD53B, Chris Knopf will try to nab the Representative seat away from Carol McFarlane. He can be successful. McFarlane may have cooked her own goose with her refusal to vote against Pawlenty's veto of the GAMC bill.
One week ago, on March 10, 2010, the White Bear Press published five letters to the editor regarding McFarlane's choice. She decided to vote for her party rather than what is right and decent. Since Carole McFarlane is actually a decent person, we can only conclude that her party affiliation is more important to her than her sense of decency toward the poor, the disabled, the homeless and the chronically sick.
To look at the content of the five letters to the editor, see below the break...
Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) has spoken out about Republican abuse of the filibuster to obstruct absolutely anything the Democrats want. This time he's criticizing Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) for repeatedly blocking the basic work of the Senate for purely partisan reasons.
The Kentucky Republican battled Democrats on the Senate floor Tuesday to block two nominations to relatively backbench positions -- because he is opposed to a tobacco-related law passed by the Canadian Parliament (that's right, the Canadian Parliament). The use of such delaying tactics is not unprecedented in Senate history, but holding up such minor business stretches the purpose of the Senate's open debate rules to the breaking point.
"This is a perversion of the filibuster and a perversion of the role of the Senate. It used to be that the filibuster was reserved for matters of great principle," said Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) from the well of the Senate. "Some of my colleagues seem more interested in using every procedural method possible to keep the Senate from doing anything than they are in creating jobs or helping Americans struggling in a difficult economy."
(Huffington Post)
(Let's put some pressure on the Member from the Seventh District of Minnesota. - promoted by Joe Bodell)
With Dennis Kucinich changing his vote,(HERE), is there any way we can get Collin Peterson to change his? He is the only Democratic Representative from Minnesota to vote no on HCR.
Peterson's district has 11% of the population with no health care whatsoever. Only the the 5th and 8th have worse coverage rates than Peterson's district.(HERE) What do we have to do to get this guy to take care of his district? If you are from the 7th, please start calling, and call often! Thanks so much.
Please link here to contact his local and DC offices.
District Offices:
1420 East College Drive, SW/SC
Marshall, MN 56258
Voice: 507-537-2299
Lake Avenue Plaza Building, Suite 107
714 Lake Avenue
Detroit Lakes, MN 56501
Voice: 218-847-5056
Minnesota Wheat Growers Building
2603 Wheat Drive
Red Lake Falls, MN 56750
Voice: 218-253-4356
Centre Point Mall
320 4th Street SW
Willmar, MN 56201
Voice: 320-235-1061
DC Phone:202-225-2165
DC Fax: 202-225-1593
Update:
The committee on Energy and Commerce released a report for the effects of passing health care on every district. The benefits for the 7th Cd are amazing. See what Peterson is trying to block after the jump.
Ladies and Gentlemen, yours truly - the ol' TwoPutter - is Guest Hosting tonight's Wednesday Edition of "Minnesota Matters" on AM-950 KTNF, The Voice of Minnesota. I'll be joined in studio by ace field reporter and analyst, Dusty Trice!
Especially because the following quote is sure to be discussed:
"Children who are victims of failed personal responsibility are not my problem, nor are they the problem for our government." -- Majority Leader Tim Pawlenty, April 2001 - as quoted in the Aitkin Independent Newspaper (entire column available here)
So, again, tune in the radio today to AM-950, or listen live on your computer, here.
--We don't have much data in CD2.
--Tarryl Clark has opened up a big lead in CD6.
--We're going to have an exciting convention in CD3.
Based on the numbers we have in the Delegate Tracker, Hackett holds a lead of 31-17 among pledged delegates. Even if we're missing a few (which I'm actually fairly certain we are), we're still looking at more than a hundred uncommitted delegates to the CD3 convention.
So how will it shake out?
Your guess is as good as mine. Meffert picked up the first big labor endorsement of the race, with Teamsters Local 120 backing his bid to take on first-term Congressman Erik Paulsen in November. Hackett has countered with the DFL Veterans' Caucus and Stonewall DFL, so both will have organizational muscle at the convention.
It's genuinely tough to tell where the delegate population as a whole is. Team Hackett did a good job of hooking her strong supporters in with combined Rybak subcaucuses, which was the right move given Rybak's success in the west metro conventions, but Meffert's campaign has maintained since the first delegate totals started appearing here on MPP and elsewhere that they're getting plenty of supporters through subcaucuses that don't bear the name of a congressional candidate. There's plenty of room in the numbers for that to be quite a plausible assessment.
Our own TwoPuttTommy is supporting Maureen Hackett, but I'm looking forward to the candidate forum this weekend. As a delegate at the April 10th convention (and an uncommitted one at that), I'll be watching closely -- and if I can get wireless signal, I'll be livestreaming it for you folks too, wearing two hats at once and all that.
MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty isn't publicly scheduled to be on the road again, that I know of, until Sunday, when he's set to appear at North Dakota's state Republican Party convention.
Last week, Tea-Paw signed a letter sent to congressional leaders by 18 governors, to the effect that they should prevent the EPA from trying to do anything about greenhouse gases, lest the economy tank (presumably due to a shift to sustainable energy sources and the creation of green jobs).
In the past, Gov. Pawlenty championed state and regional approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. More recently, he has said a national or international solution is needed.
Joe Bodell did a righteous screed, yesterday, on TBag's line-item vetoes in the bonding bill. I'm just going to add a couple of notes and some dispassionate commentary, below the fold.
MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty isn't publicly scheduled to be on the road again, that I know of, until Sunday, when he's set to appear at North Dakota's state Republican Party convention.
