DO IT DO IT DO IT! Senate Republicans Threaten a Healthcare Read-a-thon

One of the most effective charges levied against supporters of the atrocity called the healthcare bill is that they haven’t actually read the bill. This is only complicated by the fact that there are numerous changes being made to the bill behind closed doors. Not even many high level Senate Democrats even know what changes are being made. So, the charge gains even more gravity, after all, how can you vote for a bill that you haven’t read wit4h important changes that only a small few know about? Luckily for us, the Senate Republicans may have a solution for this.

They want a read-a-thon for the changes being made to the bill:

“This massive piece of legislation that seeks to restructure one-sixth of our economy is being written behind closed doors without input from anyone in an effort to jam it past not only the Senate but the American people before Christmas,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader.

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Republicans, who have been accused by Rush Limbaugh and others for failing to oppose the legislation vigorously enough, have threatened to force Senate clerks to read the entire text of the proposed changes aloud, a process that could consume eight hours or so.

At his news conference, McConnell taunted Democrats in terms that recalled Obama’s campaign promise of “change we can believe in.”

The health care bill, he said, “isn’t change you can believe in; it’s change that’s astonishing. We all know that promises are made in political campaigns, but this is a complete reversal _ there is no change. This is business as usual.”

“Tomorrow, there’s going to be a snowstorm, and we’ll be coming in RVs and everything will be paralyzed as our nation’s capital always is when there’s a snowstorm.”

He added, “But the fact is that there’s a firestorm out there in America. That firestorm says stop this. Stop this.”

Mitch McConnell raises some very valuable points. With the coming snowstorm that’s supposed to bring record-breaking levels of snow to Washington, the Senators will likely all be huddled up in the Senate with nothing to do, what with those two feet of snow outside. They’ll be bored, and nothing helps cure a bout of wintertime boredom like some nice reading. Why not read the changes being made to the bill? That way, no one can claim ignorance to what’s being done to make this already atrocious bill worse. Senator McConnell you have my support in this, and I hope you follow through with it. However, I will say this: why stop with the changes being made to the bill? Why not have the whole dang thing read aloud? Yeah, I know it’ll take a while, but you know, if people are actually going to have a vote on this legislation, they might as well, you know, actually know what’s in the bill they’re voting on.

So let me conclude by saying: DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!

Acta est fabula.

Things Fall Apart (Or, I Would Hate to be Harry Reid) **Updated with more Suckage for Reid**

For the record, the subtitle of this entry doesn’t just pertain to the position Harry Reid finds himself in right now. I wake up every morning happy I’m not Harry Reid.

But anyways…

If Harry Reid isn’t the most ineffectual Senate Majority Leader ever, he’s definitely in the top three–actually, make that top two. Here we have a man who has managed to make Bill Frist look competent at doing his job. He finally manages to get Lieberman in line with the bill, and he may even have Sen. Bill Nelson (of Nebraska) on board.

However, in the process of selling his soul out to them to get their votes, Reid’s lost the vote of another Senator in the process: Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Speaking to Neil Cavuto, Sanders said:

And unfortunately for Dingy Harry, the condemnation of this bill doesn’t come the Senate alone. His fellow Democrats outside of the Senate are getting in on the action. Howard Dean, for one, a respected voice on the Left for Healthcare Reform, has also weighed in against it saying, “[H]onestly, the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill.”.

Meanwhile, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake concurs with Dean:

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UPDATE: When a Liberal loses Keith Olbermann’s support, he loses a lot.

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The thing is, as Howard Dean and others have pointed out, Reid just wants a bill that will get him 60 votes. The content of said bill is really irrelevant as long as it gets him to that magic number and can be called, however loosely, healthcare reform. In short, while it is never fun to be Harry Reid, right now is an especially bad time to be him. I would say he has my sympathies. However, I hate him, and thus I will not.

Acta est fabula.