Well, we have a healthcare bill passed in the House. While I have very mixed feelings on the bill, it is at least a step in the right direction, albeit a baby step. However, as while I wanted the bill to be stronger and fear it's fate in the "House of Lords" known as the U.S. Senate, I will not sit idly by as Conservative idiot "pundits" lie about the process which gave birth to this historical vote.
Already they are claiming that Speaker Pelosi broke a transparency pledge by not posting the full text of the bill for the public to see 72 hours in advance:
Stephen Moore: An "outrage" that the bill is not online. On Fox News' On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, Wall Street Journal editorial writer Stephen Moore said: "It now appears, Greta, the bill as it will be voted on will not be posted on the Internet 72 hours before the vote, which means that most the members with will not have read it and the American people will not have at least 72 hours to read the bill to see what they're voting on. We're talking about one of the most important pieces of legislation in American mystery. It's an outrage." After Van Susteren asked Moore if he was "surprised," Moore said: "I'm shocked. You know what, Greta, I am surprised because of the brazenness of this and the arrogance of Speaker Pelosi to say we're not going to let the American people see the bill. I'm just--I am shocked by it." [On the Record, 11/05/09]
Gateway Pundit: "Pelosi Breaks Pledge- Will Not Post Bill Online for 72 Hours Before Voting to Nationalize Health Care." In a November 6 post, Gateway Pundit blogger Jim Hoft wrote that "Democrats will not post their 2,000+ paged bill online for 72 hours before voting to nationalize the American health care system. The House Democrats will vote on Saturday to swallow one-sixth of the nation's economy." Hoft then posted video of Moore's comments on On the Record, in which Moore discussed what Hoft described as the "latest travesty."
Why, even "Turd Blossom" took time off his busy schedule of lying, wrecking our economy, outing CIA agents, being instrumental in the needless deaths of thousands of people, and hiring Jeff Gannon for a little fun to do what he does best, lie through his treasonous teeth:
I guess "BS Blossom" would be a better name.
Of course as always with these folks, they are full of lies and misinformation. They have no original ideas except to throw everything away to Corporate American and limit average working Americans rights to redresses in the courts, higher wages and benefits so they are reduced to lying through their greedy teeth.
The truth is that the bill was posted 72 hours before being voted on and that the House measure that required the text to be posted on that timetable did not include amendments to bills:
House measure McCormack asked Pelosi about requires full text and committee reports to be posted 72 hours in advance, but doesn't apply to amendments. McCormack was presumably referring to a measure Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) introduced in June, H. Res. 554, which would have, according to the Congressional Research Service summary of the resolution, changed the "Rules of the House of Representatives to make it out of order in the House to consider a measure or matter until 72 hours ... after its text (and, if any, the text of all accompanying reports) have been made available to Members, Delegates, the Resident Commissioner (Members), and the general public." The summary also said H.RES. 554 "[r]equires the full text of the legislation and each committee report, without further amendment before floor consideration, to be posted continuously by means of the Internet" for 72 hours before the bill comes to a vote. According to a September 24 The Hill report, a "discharge petition" being circulated at the time would have forced Pelosi to schedule a vote on H. Res. 554, and McCormack "asked Pelosi about a discharge petition at her press conference, to which the speaker responded that she'd 'absolutely' support it."
As it turns out, Pelosi DID have the text of the bill posted 72 hours before the vote:
The text of the bill, the manager's amendment and related committee reports were posted 72 hours in advance. Pelosi's office posted the text of the legislation, HR 3962, online on October 29, and it posted the manager's amendment to the bill online at on Tuesday, November 3. Since the bill is reportedly scheduled for a vote on Saturday, November 7, that means both will have been online at least 72 hours before the vote. The three House committees that voted on HR 3200, the House's original health care reform bill, all posted committee reports online. After the three bills were merged, it became HR 3962, which the House will reportedly consider on Saturday. The Energy & Commerce Committee linked to its report in a July 14 post, a July 15-17 Republican press release for the Education & Labor Committee linked to its report, and the Ways & Means Committee linked to its report in an October 15 post.
In fact, the Sunlight Foundation called it a "milestone" that this bill WAS posted online 72 hours before being voted on:
Sunlight Foundation: "A milestone" that the text was posted online. The Sunlight Foundation's John Wonderlich also wrote in a November 1 blog post of the text of the bill: "September 24th, Speaker Pelosi said that the healthcare bill would be online for 72 hours.... That 72 hours is now. The bill is online... We should recognize this as a milestone."
So while Progressives should be disappointed that the House bill was not strong enough, and that too many of our members were to totally and completely cowardly to vote for it (exception granted to Kucinich because he voted against it for the right reasons), we should not let the fools in the Republican Party who merely wanted to maintain the status-quo and let folks without insurance "die quickly" if they got sick lie through their idiotic teeth about things they are obviously not qualified to comment on intelligently. I guess that is just about everything.
