Thursday Repug Nonsense Roundup

So much for Dubya owing Obama his “silence” (here)…

“There are a lot of ways to remedy the situation without nationalizing health care,” Mr. Bush said. “I worry about encouraging the government to replace the private sector when it comes to providing insurance for health care.”

As noted here…

While he was governor of Texas, that state ranked next to last “in the percentage of children with health insurance and about 1.4 million children in Texas were uninsured.”

He supported expansion of SCHIP when running for re-election in 2004, then opposed it after winning a second term.

When he finally did decide to add $5 billion to SCHIP funding, it would have resulted in about 840,000 kids losing coverage, whereas the bipartisan congressional alternative provided coverage to 10 million kids.

“Replace the private sector”…what a nitwit!

We also have the following from California Repug congressman (and former Reagan speechwriter) Dana Rohrabacher on the matter of the Iranian election (here)…

Well I think that Mr. Obama, if he continues to have these types of attitudes, we’re going to see things get very bad, very quickly. Already the North Koreans have challenged him and realized that he’s a cream puff, if that is what he is indeed going to be as a President.… [N]ow if the Mullahs in Iran are permitted to just roll over opposition something like Tiananmen square (I fixed Rohrabacher’s misspelling), we will have missed a great opportunity.

Gee, maybe Obama should’ve traded arms for hostages with Iran, like Dana R.’s old boss.

And if Obama is a “creampuff,” I don’t know what that makes Rohrabacher for aiding Afghan fighters in the ‘80s who would later become the Taliban, along with that bin Laden guy (noted here).

And speaking of the Iranian election, it seems that the Repugs actually allege a kinship of sorts with the protestors, claiming to be an “oppressed minority,” twittering to that effect to all who will care to read (here).

Please.

It should be noted that, back when they were the majority party essentially from 2000-2006, one of the tools they used to ramrod their agenda through Congress was somewhat ironically titled “reconciliation,” which, as noted here…

…is an optional procedure that can be included in the annual Congressional budget resolution process.

Inclusion in the budget does not mean reconciliation will definitely be used; it merely leaves the option on the table.

The main purpose of budget reconciliation is to provide Congress the ability to change current law in order to align revenue and spending levels with the policies of the budget resolution.

I say it’s a bit ironic because, in effect, it means that the dreaded “60 votes needed for passage” in the Senate do not apply; a straight majority vote on whatever the affected piece of legislation happens to be is sufficient.

And though, as The Gavel states, it is to be used primarily for budget matters, it was abused to pass the notorious tax cuts of the early part of this decade, which have a lot to do with our current economic mess, noted here (along with Judd Gregg’s tactic of using it to open the ANWR for drilling).

And by the way, if you want to read some funny stuff in response to U.S. House Rep Pete Hoekstra’s “tweet” in particular, check this out (h/t Atrios).

The SCHIP Shuffle Continues

(From 9/9 – Photo courtesy of healthwise-everythinghealth.blogspot.com)

This New York Times story yesterday tells us here that…

…Congressional Democrats have scrapped plans for another vote on expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, thus sparing Republicans from a politically difficult vote just weeks before elections this fall. Before the summer recess, Democrats had vowed repeatedly to force another vote on the popular program. But Democrats say they have shifted course, after concluding that President Bush would not sign their legislation and that they could not override his likely veto. Mr. Bush vetoed two earlier versions of the legislation, which he denounced as a dangerous step toward “government-run health care for every American,” and the House sustained those vetoes.

Though this appears at first glance to be yet another Democratic capitulation, I would tend to agree with Bruce Lesley of First Focus, defined in the Times story as “a congressional advocacy group for children” who believes we should hold out for a better bill in the event of (God willing) an Obama win in November and an increase in Democratic congressional majorities to make passing a renewal of SCHIP an easier task next year. Also, Rahm Emanuel is the individual on the Dem side who knows the vote numbers; he knows this is ultimately a battle for another day given everything else on the Congressional plate, as it were (jobs and energy legislation and other spending bills). But what really got me in particular about this story was the following…

The child health program has become an issue in some Congressional races. In almost every speech, Kay Barnes, a Democrat running for Congress in northwest Missouri, criticizes Representative Sam Graves, a Republican, for voting against the bill last year. Mr. Graves said the bill would have allowed illegal immigrants and some high-income people to get “free taxpayer-funded health care.”

I have a question for the Times; is it too much trouble to point out when politicians are flat-outlying? Or would that mean this would no longer be a hard-news column or would instead constitute “analysis”? This Letter To The Editor printed in the Kansas City Star (concerning the SCHIP vote last year) tells us…

SCHIP covers only American citizens. Illegal immigrant children are not eligible, and even legal immigrant children must wait five years to participate. … Plain and simple, the president and his anti-kids caucus in Congress are wrong, and they know it. Rep. Graves has some explaining to do to his constituents about his vote against Missouri’s children and the dishonest way in which he justifies it.

Sam Graves…why does that name sound familiar? Oh yeah, it’s because he was the numbskull who brought us this…

And by the way, though I really haven’t had much of anything to say about Kay Barnes, you can click here to help her out and help hasten the return of Sam Graves to private life.

Update 9/10/08: Kagro X of The Daily Kos has more here.