The Senate Republicans After Health Care Passage

MeanMesa Asks:  
"How are the Grand Old Party Patriots (GOPPs) handling the passage of the 
Health Care Reform Bill?"

Uh, not very well, it seems.

Aside from getting every dirty shirt Attorney General from all the "down south somewhere" states to immediately file an attack of frivolous Constitutional law suits as they try to block health care for the poor, the Senate Republicans, in yet another of their  zombie-like 100% tantrums, have invoked an ancient Senate Rule to stop all work every afternoon at 2 PM.  What exactly does this mean, and what exactly are they doing?

How the Senate Usually Works

Senate business starts at noon.  Of course, Senators are in their offices earlier than than receiving campaign contributions from their, uh, friends, but activities such as the famous Senate "debates," votes and committee hearings all begin at noon.  At 2 PM, two hours later, the Senate is required to act to extend the day's working session on through the afternoon by passing a quick unanimous consent vote to keep going.

If the unanimous consent vote fails, the Senate stops for the day.  And, this "stoppage" isn't limited to the dry cereal pablum we might see on C-Span. either. It extends to everything the Senate is doing.  When the nation is stuck in two worthless wars, an economic meltdown and the mindless diplomatic crises left over from the autocracy, the Senate is, well, expected to be doing something for the American people all afternoon everyday.

That would be, "doing something" for longer than two hours each week day that the Senate is in session.

The average (rough) annual salary for a Senator is around $175,000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate

What's Going On Now

The Senate Republicans, once again manifesting their creepy "to a man" lockstep, are refusing to pass the unanimous consent every day.  This can be best understood by the threat that  Grandpappy McCain spouted out the day after the health reform bill passed.  His "pissy" little snit basically said that the Republicans would do everything they could to stop all work which might help the Democrats win the midterm elections in November.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/24/gop-senators-refusing-to_n_511639.html

Now, this might sound like simply another little "burp" from the petulant children inhabiting the reactionary chairs on the Senate floor -- you know, just more politics as usual.  However, when MeanMesa looks at some of the stuff that will be "clogging up the drain" because of this maneuver, we see more than an innocent blob of our teen aged daughter's bleach-blond hair and chewing gum.

To bring home the paradox, an example will be helpful.

The Example

Senate Republicans Are Willing to Sabotage Afghanistan for Political Gains

This would be the heartbreaking story of "hearings."  Just about all the important stuff the Senate ever does begins with "hearings." Perhaps everyone can remember the famous "hearings" that Senator Baucus held while he was carefully negotiating away everything Americans wanted in the health care reform debate.

Although many of these Seante hearings would normally be going on in the afternoon sessions -- that is, committee meetings which might occur after 2 PM on a normal day before the Republicans began this scheme -- are effectively castrated by the lack of these unanimous consent votes, we can look at a specific example for an explanation of exactly why this latest reactionary move is so lethal.

One of the many hearings which have been scheduled for months was an examination of the corruption in the US policy of training Afghan police. 

Thanks to the Republican idea that everything of value either has to do with more campaign contributions or winning the next election by inflaming the information challenged voters -- almost never for the good of the people or the country -- this police training operation is mired in an abyss of worthless, crooked, no-bid contractors who are not only sucking boatloads of tax dollars out of our Treasury, but, while doing that, are also really pissing off the Afghans and not really creating many well trained Afghan policemen.

This long scheduled committee hearing was to get to the bottom of this little "stink hole."  Some Democratic Senators were convinced that this was something they could definitely improve -- beginning with this Senate Committee hearing, then going forward for a later floor vote on the corrective action to be taken.

Military commanders from around the world, State Department officials in charge of this operation, Defense Department big-wigs and other folks were scheduled to testify in this hearing.  For a moment, it looked very much like the problem was finally going to receive the attention it deserved from the Senators involved.

Ooops!  The hearing is cancelled.  It was, unhappily, scheduled for after 2PM, and, as such, fell under the "knife" of the Senate Republican tantrum.  If you, as a MeanMesa visitor find this troubling, remember that all sorts of other things have been cancelled, too!

This sort of drunken Senate rule banging is left over from a previous age.  MeanMesa has been watching the Senate do such things for decades.  Forty or fifty years ago a scandal such as this would have hardly raised an eyebrow.  During those happier times, the country was fat with prosperity, honor and determination -- the Senate would not have dared such a selfish, childish maneuver under Ike or LBJ.  But, here we are...

Read more at the following links.

from Think Progress:

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/23/senate-unanimous-consent/

and from True/Slant:

http://trueslant.com/johnknefel/2010/03/24/gop-wont-work-past-2-pm-because-naptime-is-important/

Talk to your neighbors, your family, your butcher, your barber -- well, you get the idea.  The neo-cons truly believe that this approach is going to lead them to a landslide victory in the midterm elections.  Do we really approve of such a ill-considered and self-serving political tactic when it both endangers the American troops which are in Afghanistan now, threatens the success of the strategy of the President and dishonors the blood our country has already invested there?

All while Senators such as Grandpa McCain, a failed war monger himself, try to claim the "higher ground" as military violence experts?

We have to make sure that doesn't happen.  Neither we nor the nation can afford for these "throwbacks" to cause even more wreckage and be rewarded for it with re-election in November.\

The time to start is NOW.

Health Care Hits Highland Park Apartments

A place most Senators will never see.

A quick tour of Highland Park Apartments

This otherwise nondescript setting is introduced here primarily because it is the Galactic Nerve Center of MeanMesa. The place stretches out to include eighty two-bedroom apartments. There are spacious grassy courtyards where the children play. A few giant trees from a better time in the past provide welcome shade during hot New Mexico summers.

The high desert winter finds most apartments with plastic sheeting covering the inside of the aging casement windows and residents wrapped warmly in sweat shirts and long underwear even when they are at home. MeanMesa's neighbors here are mostly concerned with jobs, schools and immigration matters. Apartments rent for $600 to $700 a month, depending on whether they have one outrageously small bathroom or two.

Highland Park is in Precinct 384. Intensive campaigning during the months prior to the 2008 election effectively delivered Highland Park votes to the Democrats and President Obama. People here do not usually rush home after work to watch the national news and most of them do not have inter net service in their homes. Almost every family is aware -- generally -- of the effort to reform health care insurance, but most Highland Park residents can't afford it and work in jobs which do not provide it.

Predictably, what the residents experience with their health care problems reflects a "survival mode" approach much more than some sort of "picky" debate about details. As a community, we are too busy to be the proletariat hordes of Les Miserable. We are also, probably, too poor.

Senate Health Care and Highland Park Apartments

So, does the "dump job" masquerading as the Senate bill puzzle us? Hardly. We're quite accustomed to being either ignored or screwed by the moneyed class of bought off Senators. In fact, opinions around here are now hoping for "ignored" over "screwed."

We've known all along that we were simply not rich enough to expect much relief. The part which remains on the table as a rather gloomy threat is the possibility that we will be forced to buy health insurance which doesn't really work from parasitic insurance corporations under some form of the new law. We couldn't afford it before, and we won't be able to afford it after, either.

MeanMesa made an informal, unscientific poll of what the neighbors were thinking. You know, a quick question or two at the dumpster or in the laundry room. We asked, "Where are we going on health care reform?"

Chuckling, they answered stoically, "We're going nowhere."

As is probably the case with millions of Americans in our income bracket, we are fairly well accustomed to being gang raped. We know that the choices are to have a "date" with an insurance company or a Doctor we can't afford. This dream isn't over, it never started.

Our New Mexico Senators -- both good Democrats -- have done everything they could to get this dead pony back on its feet, but we're a poor state filled with poor people. They know that we're a durable bunch, used to pretty much second class treatment. The way this is turning out is nothing new to us.

The "rich boys" like Lieberman and the other crooks on the Republican side of the aisle are killing 45,000 of us every year they are able to delay -- that's about ten times the number of citizens who were killed on 9/11, about ten times the number of service men and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan so far. Stories about health care in Highland Park unscientifically substantiate this Harvard research number of 45,000 dead per year due to lack of health care insurance.

Here at MeanMesa headquarters, we have purchased the last prescription of an expensive (for us) drug for the year. Although we could probably get through the $55 per month co-pay, the thing grabs an additional $250 per month from our Medicare Part D plan. If we took it as prescribed, that is, all year round, it would tank our "doughnut hole," making all the other, cheaper prescriptions we take go to a "cash basis."

So, we take a "drug vacation" every year from January to July. We can handle this. Other folks around here have it lots worse. Oh, by the way. MeanMesa's Part D was not paid for by screaming neo-con ninnies. MeanMesa dutifully paid those premiums for years before retirement.

Highland Park's Conclusions about the Senate Bill

We are actually pretty understanding of the "difficult negotiations" going on behind closed doors in the Senate.

Democrats "negotiated" single payer down to "public option" and wound up with nothing.

Then they "negotiated" public option down to a modest increase in Medicare and wound up with nothing.

Then they "negotiated" Medicare changes into no changes and wound up with nothing.

Now, finally, they have "negotiated" nothing down to a law which will deliver us, whether we can afford it or not, into the hands of the health insurance gangsters.

We get it.

It would be inaccurate to say that folks like Highland Park residents are upset about what's happening to them.

We are infuriated. If anyone from the Senate is visiting MeanMesa, pay attention.

We are WHITE HOT!

We will, most likely, remember this.

See you at the polls.

60 Votes, Senate Cloture & “The Theory of Everything”

The Fundamental Equation of the Senate.
No, not The Law of Thermodynamics, the "The Theory of Everything!" It explains, well, Everything. 103

Much has been said about the outrage of an elected Senate which seems so nonchalant, untroubled, unembarrassed and unabashed as it continues to savage health care, climate change, education resources, Supreme Court Nominations, darn, as it continues to savage everything! The deliberating body has turned into an unappetizing mix of a whore house and a nightmare circus.

Obama knows this from his first hand experience with these “bought and sold” crackers. He had a job there for a while. However, some MeanMesa visitors may not have a firm grip on exactly what is going on as we sit and watch unbelievable scandal after unbelievable scandal. Rather than dive into the abyss of any specific insult, MeanMesa will attempt an abbreviated explanation of “standard operating procedure” in the U. S. Senate as it is apparently being applied to every bill presented there.

The provocateurs are world wide experts at their trade. Their profession is a balancing act between two extremely lucrative tensions. On one side, the prize is an uninformed, unaware electorate which, when assuaged by the idiocy of sufficiently extravagant campaign investments, will dependably send them back to the “hog trough” term after term, even when doing so is clearly counter to the best interests of almost every voter who will pull the lever. On the other side is the immense wealth which can be had by desanguinating just a trifle of every piece of legislation that will pass before them, that is, "sucking out a little blood, but, just not so much that anyone will notice!" When the price tag on such legislation is in the billions, that “trifle” can be generous enough to fund a new economic dynasty.

This is happening everyday. It is a bad habit these crooks picked up during the autocracy.

The other moment to observe them in action comes when one of their corporate cronies suddenly faces the “wrath of daylight,” that is, during those tense moments when such "Captains of Industry" such as the coal lobby or the health insurance corporations suddenly find their avarice exposed by “outrageous fortune,” in this case, a bankrupt electorate which is regaining consciousness and, frankly, infuriated to a blood frenzy. This latter case is roughly what is underway in the Great House on Capitol Hill as this posting is being written.

All the lecherous Senate monkeys the ultra-rich have previously purchased to protect their extraction games have been called to defend “free enterprise” or “capitalism” in these moments of peril. Now, that “free enterprise” and “capitalism” is not exactly defined by what one might encounter in a Webster’s Dictionary. No, indeed. These special forms of “free enterprise” and “capitalism,” rather than being what is characterized by hard working, innovative entrepreneurs, amount to decidedly less noble business endeavors which could never actually make a profit left to their own devices, but, when dutifully lubricated by every possible flavor of crooked legislation and de-regulation, turn out to be “roses, simply roses!”

The following diagram might be similar to something which might appear in a “Beginner’s How To Pamphlet” for a new Senator. It explains, in a very basic way, just what will be expected and required for a prosperous incumbency.


The diagram is self-explanatory to anyone who has been “confused” by the news accounts of what has been happening in the Senate. Further, it represents both a useful contextual reference which can be cited in future MeanMesa postings and a simplified sort of “flow chart” which might assist in understanding why public opinion means so little and ideology means so much.

Try it out! The next time -- which will probably be tomorrow, the way things are going -- the news from the Senate becomes incomprehensible compared to what you learned in that old civics text, just take a look at the diagram. You will probably be able to point a finger at exactly which stage of the looting the thieves are working on at the moment.

More later. Rest assured. There's plenty more for later.